The Poosey Digest: Driving people crazy

Greetings from the Poosey.

Ralph drives people crazy, his wife in particular. Some folks think he’s a busybody. His wife complains that, "The man just can’t get anything done."

Ralph was a mechanic for most of his working life but once the carburetors gave way to computers, he decided it was time to hang up his wrenches. He and wife Linda live in a modest little home just outside the Poosey city limits and they’ve managed to fill their waking hours with grandkids, volunteer work, and a garden that seems to magically expand every summer.

But like I said, Ralph drives people crazy.

I saw him in the Wal-Mart parking lot just last week, collecting abandoned shopping carts. I had to smile. Ralph always does this. He can’t drive by a neglected cart without getting out of his car and putting it in its proper stall. Then he’ll see another cart, then another. A 20-minute trip to town ends up taking the entire morning and this is what drives his wife a bit nutty. "I tell him, `Ralph, they have people to do that!’ but he insists on helping out. Lord, the man is always `helping out.’"

Shopping with Ralph takes a bit time. If there’s an errant pair of underwear that’s been knocked to the floor or a pair of shoes left out of their box, Ralph will have to stop and put everything back in place. He’s not a compulsive about neatness. In fact, the back of his Chevy S-10 looks like a yard sale explosion. It’s just that Ralph sees things that the rest of us pass by. He has ESP… Extra-Sensory Peculiarity.

Linda told me last week that they were in the electronics section of a Target store and the lady ahead of them was trying to wrestle a big-screen TV into her cart while holding onto a screaming baby. Ralph stepped forward and said, "I’ll hold your baby, Ma’am." A stranger! Who’s going to hand their child to a complete stranger? She did as Linda tried to speed up the humiliation by helping with the TV.

The story is told in town that more than once Ralph attended funerals of folks he didn’t know. Ralph would read about some elderly person who’d died some distance from their final resting place and he’d be afraid that no one would be left to attend the funeral, so he’d put on his coat and tie then attend the services.

His wife told me, "I try to plan out our day, Freida, but something always comes up and we don’t get anything accomplished. You can’t even time out a simple drive to town. Ralph will see a bag of garbage thrown out onto the side of the road and he’ll have to stop and toss it into the back of his truck."

Linda said she thought he’d gone plumb over the edge last week when they approached a dead deer on the side of the highway. "I shouted, `NO WAY!’ He smiled at me and said, `I just wanted to look at it.’"

A good many folks of course look upon Ralph’s helpful attitude as plain nosiness. They live by the none-of-my-business philosophy and think that perhaps Ralph might be nibbling on the weird pasture of eccentricity. Their attitude doesn’t seem to deter to Ralph a bit. He told me, "I know folks think I’m strange, but if there’s something that needs done and I can do it, why heck, it’d be a waste of time to do anything else."

The part of Ralph’s saga that tickles me is that his 92-year-old mother is still very much alive and kicking and she just shakes her head and says, "I don’t know where the boy gets this need to help everybody do everything." This is the same lady organized the town’s war bond drive during WWII, started the community’s first food pantry, and still makes weekly visits to nursing homes because, in her words, "That’s where the old people are." If Ralph’s mother wants to find the cause of her son’s humanity, she need only look into her mirror.

A well-meaning but somewhat reckless snowplow knocked over our mailbox this winter. I looked out the next morning to see Ralph out there trying his best to prop it up amid the piles of snow and gravel. I hollered out the front door, "Ralph! Don’t strain yourself! Herb can get that!" He shouted back, "Yeah, but he’s a worthless old poop!" From the back of the house I heard Herb answer, "Yes I am! Fix it, Ralph! Fix it!"

I invited him in for coffee after he’d done Herb’s work for him and I asked him, "Ralph, why do you work so hard for folks? Why not let a few things go?" He took a sip then said, "Freida, I listen to the news and I can’t do a thing about the big world’s problems. I guess it makes me feel better to know there’s a part of the world I can improve a bit."

You ever in Poosey, stop by. We may not answer the door but you’ll enjoy the trip.