Old timers remember him

[augman7518 (imported)]

Subject: Oldtimers remember him.

A Bucket of Shrimp

It happened every Friday evening, almost without fail, when the sun

resembled a giant orange and was starting to dip into the blue ocean.

Old Ed came strolling along the beach to his favorite pier. Clutched

in his bony hand was a bucket of shrimp. Ed walks out to the end of

the pier, where it seems he almost has the world to himself. The glow

of the sun is a golden bronze now.

Everybody's gone, except for a few joggers on the beach. Standing

out on the end of the pier, Ed is alone with his thoughts...and his

bucket of shrimp..

Before long, however, he is no longer alone. Up in the sky a

thousand white dots come screeching and squawking, winging their way

toward that lanky frame standing there on the end of the pier.

Before long, dozens of seagulls have enveloped him, their wings

fluttering and flapping wildly. Ed stands there tossing shrimp to the

hungry birds. As he does, if you listen closely, you can hear him say

with a smile, 'Thank you. Thank you.'

In a few short minutes the bucket is empty. But Ed doesn't leave.

He stands there lost in thought, as though transported to another

time and place. Invariably, one of the gulls lands on his

sea-bleached, weather-beaten hat - an old military hat he's been

wearing for years.

When he finally turns around and begins to walk back toward the

beach, a few of the birds hop along the pier with him until he gets to

the stairs, and then they, too, fly away. And old Ed quietly makes his

way down to the end of the beach and on home.

If you were sitting there on the pier with your fishing line in the

water, Ed might seem like 'a funny old duck,' as my dad used to say.

Or, 'a guy that's a sandwich shy of a picnic,' as my kids might say. To

onlookers, he's just another old codger, lost in his own weird world,

feeding the seagulls with a bucket full of shrimp.

To the onlooker, rituals can look either very strange or very empty.

They can seem altogether unimportant ....maybe even a lot of nonsense.

Old folks often do strange things, at least in the eyes of Boomers

and Busters.

Most of them would probably write Old Ed off, down there in Florida.

That's too bad. They'd do well to know him better.

His full name: Eddie Rickenbacker. He was a famous hero back in

World War II. On one of his flying missions across the Pacific, he and

his seven-member crew went down. Miraculously, all of the men

survived, crawled out of their plane, and climbed into a life raft.

Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for days on the rough

waters of the Pacific. They fought the sun. They fought sharks. Most

of all, they fought hunger. By the eighth day their rations ran out.

No food. No water. They were hundreds of miles from land and no one

knew where they were.

They needed a miracle. That afternoon they had a simple devotional

service and prayed for a miracle. They tried to nap. Eddie leaned

back and pulled his military cap over his nose. Time dragged. All he

could hear was the slap of the waves against the raft.

Suddenly, Eddie felt something land on the top of his cap. It was a

seagull!

Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly still, planning his

next move. With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the gull, he

managed to grab it and wring its neck. He tore the feathers off, and

he and his starving crew made a meal - a very slight meal for eight

men - of it. Then they used the intestines for bait. With it, they

caught fish, which gave them food and more bait......and the cycle

continued. With that simple survival technique, they were able to

endure the rigors of the sea until they were found and rescued (after

24 days at sea...).

Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years beyond that ordeal, but he never

forgot the sacrifice of that first lifesaving seagull. And he never

stopped saying, 'Thank you.' That's why almost every Friday night he

would walk to the end of the pier with a bucket full of shrimp and a

heart full of gratitude.

Reference: (Max Lucado, In The Eye of the Storm, pp.221, 225-226)

PS: Eddie was also an Ace in WW I and started Eastern Airlines.

[markle (imported)]

No. Really? Wow. Thank you.

[Bagoas (imported)]

That's a wonderful story about a great man. Thank you very much.

Eddie Rickenbacker also manufactured automobiles for a while between the wars. He once drove a Rickenbacker car across a bridge on 3 wheels to show how rigidly the frame was constructed.

An Old Timer

[DeaconBlues (imported)]

Very interesting, damn good post! It has nothing to do with castration or anything this website is supposed to be about, but still, damn good post! I am happy I read it.