I suppose everyone would like to be recognized for the accomplishments in their lives.
We all are looking for those elusive ’15 minutes of fame’ aren’t we?
Some of us get it by working hard and becoming doctors or politicians or media personalities.
Some of us don’t really care and are just happy and contented to be known as ‘dad’ or ‘mom’ or ‘grandpaw’ or ‘grandmaw’. God bless them all as well.
Titles are all in the eye of the beholder, aren’t they?
I think at a very early age, I often thought I would eventually be called or known as something like…’your honor’ or ‘your eminence’ or just plain old ..’your grace’.
But alas, it was never going to happen and I was stuck with ‘the bicycle man’ and now ‘the muffin man’
Let me explain.
When we first moved back to Houston over the Christmas holidays of 2010, I was reading an article in the newspaper (some of you might remember those) about a state prison unit outside of Houston that had fixed and repaired 65 old bikes to give away to needy kids. Problem was about 100 kids showed up and many were left without a bike of any sort.
I decided to do something about it and made contact with the folks at the prison and told them I would be glad to round up bikes for them to repair. They asked me how many I thought I could give them and I said…about 20.
I could tell that this wasn’t impressive enough so I changed it to ..’I’ll get you 100’.
They thought I was crazy and so did my wife.
Well, long story short, that was over 10 years ago and I think we have managed to give the prison over 5,000 used bikes to fix and repair to give away to kids. We have had junk yards save them for us, cops to pick them up for us, the Houston post office did a bike drive for us. One year ago, we were short on donations and a law firm stepped up and supplied 250 just before Christmas. We’ve had bikes left behind our cars in the driveway, in the yard and at my office. Our church saves them for us since people leave them there every month.
As a result, I am known as ‘the bike man’.
That’s ok with me.
But now for the rest of the story.
We live on a golf course and across the fairway is a house with little kids.
My wife and I love to sit on our back porch, have a glass of wine and listen to those kids playing outside.
Not on video games, cooped up in some room in the house, but outside on tricycles, scooters and whatever. These are outdoors kids. They bring others out and we can see 4 or 5 of them playing chase, hide and go-seek and whatever. Their laughter is music to our souls.
On Saturday mornings, I go to the store and buy fresh flowers for my wife and my daughter in law, who lives a couple of blocks away. I also buy muffins for my 2 grandchildren.
A few months ago, I took some muffins by for the kids across from us. I met the family, husband and wife and a little boy about 5 and a little girl maybe 3. The wife was pregnant. She said her baby was due in February.
This Sunday I got an email from them telling me that the reason they weren’t there on Saturday was because they were at the hospital welcoming their latest little girl into the family and they wanted to send me a picture.
They also said that their children look forward to Saturdays because that’s when ‘the muffin man’ comes by their house.
I think ‘your honor’ or anything else would be of less value to me.
I’ll take both of these and be prouder for it.
It’s the little things in life that mean the most, isn’t it?
Keep reading and stick with me for next week….
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