This wood spirit (right) is my first attempt at wood carving.
I want to tell you about Bill Tripp from Michigan.
He and I have become buddies in the RV resort because he has helped me explore the possibilities of wood carving as a new hobby. Bill, who has a shock of perfectly white hair, is in his late 70s and is generally considered a bit of a character in the resort.
He is an old Marine, having served in Korea in the 50's. He has a busy, busy mind that rarely stays on topic for more than a minute or two and he tends not to hear too well. When you repeat a question he usually shoots his right hand up to his head and slaps his ear, saying, "I don't hear so well, y'know. It's the bombs! It's the bombs!"
What I like about this fellow is that he and his wife, Donna, have little money, like us, but they have a routine in which they help their fellow man.
Bill took me along the other day. He had already picked up free, nearly out-of-date bread and rolls from a bakery. He gave some to a Mexican family up the road who run a fruit and vegetable stand. They, in turn, invited him to take away the tired fruit and veggies from their stand.
We drove another few minutes north to a farm where he fed the fruit and veggies to a cow and her two calves. They moo-ed in delight as we split water melons apart and they dug into the fleshy meat of the melons. They loved the stale bread and the tomatoes, peppers and oranges that we threw into their field.
We then moved over to the fruit trees where we gathered ripe pink and white grapefruit and all manner of oranges - bell-shaped, tangerines. We put those into plastic bags and stacked them in the back of his truck.
We then chain-sawed the tired old boards of a house that he had helped demolish on the farm during the past few months. We heaped some of the boards into the back of his truck and drove up to the farmhouse where we dumped the wood on an outdoor fireplace where it will be burned.
Now we started to feed the pig that was snuffling and snorting and rooting around in her muddy pigpen. She is partial to melon but also loves stale bread and anything else he has available.
We moved over to the rooster and his harem. They get white bread. Next door was a peacock, his hen and their two offspring. They get whole wheat bread. By this time, the cow and her two calves had made it through the field and were lined up at the fence next to the pigpen to try for an additional tidbit. Bill opened a pack of dated Snowball sugar puffs, discarded by the bakery though they probably have enough preservatives in them to last another century. I made a friend for life with the cow when I fed her this sugary treat. She moo-ed for more and kept trying to nudge her calves away so she could enjoy this treat which probably will result in awesomely sugary milk.
We washed out the rear of the truck and headed back to the resort, tired from the exertion but knowing the final task was to provide the bags of succulent fruit, just plucked from the trees, to the folks who might want to increase their Vitamin C intake.
