95-year-old Dallas Bump is my kind of guy.
I’m not like him; that’s different. He’s obviously laconic and steady and I’m a gibbering idiot and mercurial. I mean I have an affection for him and his like. It’s not the over the top cinemablogtography that won me over, either; I’m immune to that now. I’ve met many men like Dallas in my life, and I always found their steadiness bracing. I swear people that reliable used to make up the majority of the country. I don’t know where they all went.
The hole in your heart left by a beloved and departed spouse or child can never be filled, can it? You just walk around the hole on the way to work forevermore.
4 Responses
We went to visit a 95 year old man way up in Arkansas who had a 1931 Ford coupe. He didnt know us but started it up and backed out of the garage and let us look it over. I have one too and enjoyed talking to him. He told us that he had helped get 82 bales of hay in from the field that day with his tractor and trailer. He told us that when he was 94, his Ford was wrecked when he pulled out onto the highway. He had stripped the car to the frame and put it back together with more parts, then got someone to paint it. He rebuilt the car when he was 94 years old!
bgarrett
Amelia Bump was an achingly beautiful woman.
I noticed that too, MvL. Thanks, Sipp.
Lemuel Cooper.
Otis Elevator Repair Man.
Worked for Otis Elevator for 45 years. Retired one day to Lake Placid Florida. I was running the YMCA camp there on Lake Grassy. We went looking for a maintenance guy to help out.
Coop. Everyone called him Coop. To the kids and staff at camp Coop looked like he was standing still. People wondered why we would hire some old guy who moved so slow? Well I'll tell you why. He got more done in a day than almost anyone I've ever seen.
If he was painting then he would start promptly at 8:00am. Painting slowly. Excessively slowly it seemed. And yet by 5:00pm the entire job would be done. And during that time he never stopped moving. Not fast, just kept moving. Continuously. Like water over a waterfall, he just kept coming. Roll up and down. Roll in the pan. Roll up and down. Over and over for hours.
It was totally amazing to the young college staff members. They would see Coop casually stroll over to a new job and start working. All day long. After a while they begin to catch on that he was getting stuff done. Buildings were repainted, bath houses cleaned up, plumbing replaced, drains draining, valves working, foliage pruned, grass mowed, sidewalks repaired, and on and on. All in one summer.