J.C. Sadberry and Bill Wood are a couple of my heroes, and you may find it interesting to know how they qualified for such a lofty position.  At least, according to the yardstick that I employ to take the dimension of my personal idols.

Mr. Sadberry lived long enough to be a platinum blond, and I downed many a cup of coffee in his company.  He was accorded the Senior Citizen rank before I made it, and he bore up well and showed me the way to live and let live, by his conduct.  Even when the chips were down, his spirits were up.

When it came time to renew his driver’s license he found that he had outlasted his eyesight and was faced with the loss of solo trips to the coffee shop.  The erosion of any independence is a hard pill to swallow, but the law is the law, and Mr. Sadberry played by the rules.

Luckily, he still owned and operated a Ford tractor.  He plowed his garden regularly, and that fact sustained him in his hour of need.  Life dealt him lemons and he made lemonade.  He made good time and parked his tractor out amongst the accumulation of pickup trucks at LaDon’s.

There ain’t no law that forbids a man from taking a coffee break away from his agricultural pursuits.  In other words—J.C. found another way to skin a cat.

Bill Wood’s problem was not near as dire, but it also imposed a condition on his operation of a motor vehicle.  He was photographed in eyeglasses and it was a direct order by an official of the Lone Star State to wear them when he drove.  Succinctly, Bill was to hook his eyeglasses to both ears anytime he ventured onto the highways and byways or he would be considered out of uniform and subject to the imposition of a ticket that hath no redemption value to the recipient.

Bill confessed to me that being hobbled in that fashion stuck in his craw and chapped an unlikely portion of his body.

“They ain’t much you can do about it though,” I told him.  “I’m younger than you and when I imbibe in happy motoring I’ve got to wear my specs too.”

“Do you see good without them?” he asked.

“Not real good,” I admitted, “and sometimes I don’t do a crackerjack job at seeing when I’m wearing them”

“Well, I don’t have that handicap,” Bill stated.  “I can see most everything except for my speedometer indicator without having to wear those blasted spectacles.  And that talent ain’t all that important anyway.  I don’t have a steady job and I ain’t got to worry about being late.”

“That may be true,” I nodded thoughtfully, “but if you get stopped for holding up traffic you can be cited and your billfold will suffer a weight loss.”

“I know,” he admitted, “so I wear’em anytime I’m on the road.  As a matter of fact I’d best get on down the road now.”

He fished his glasses from his shirt pocket and positioned them for comfort.  As he rose I noticed that his glasses were as clean as any I’d ever seen.

“How in the world do you keep them glasses so clean,” I marveled, “there ain’t a speck of dust on them.”

“There ain’t a speck of glass in them neither,” He smiled.  “They didn’t say that I had to wear a pair that had lenses.  And you can’t see any in the picture they made neither!”

Let me hear from you.

My phone number is 254-893-5063, my official postal address is: 333 W AYERS AVE – DE LEON TX 76444-2113, and you can e-mail chupp@charleschupp.com.