Just found out that one of them died recently. But it is good, you know. I was fortunate for having met him.

Here's a note I sent to a friend almost three summers ago (who consistently accuses me of being personable to random people and tollbooth attendants when she's around just to befuddle her.) And it ain't true. I do it 'cuz it feels good to brighten someone's day. Yep. I am a shiny-happy-phucking-Male-Mary-Poppins, OK?!?

--snip--

There's something wonderful about "collecting folks," as you put it. I still talk to this gent. I feel very lucky to have met him.

Here's a little and somewhat common vignette from my daily life:

This summer I was coming back from a meeting in S.F. and sitting in the airport, when an elderly fellow sat down across from me. It was a little chilly, and in moments he was shaking. There were two folks sitting next to him and each had a coat on their luggage. He was looking furtively and longingly at the coats.

I pulled off my sweater and handed it to him. He declined. I insisted. He grudgingly accepted the sweater. Soon we were talking.

The man was on his way to visit an old friend down here, he lives in Boise. His name was Loyal Barker. He was worried about his somewhat senile wife of 70 years (she was 88)--but had left her with a gal he trusted totally. We waited for a delayed plane for three hours. I am very lucky for having loaned him the sweater and being delayed for three hours with him. My life is wider and richer as a result.

In that three hours I got to know a fellow who was Henry Ford II's controller/CFO and did the financing for Ford's second car plant in the mid-thirties for 39 million dollars (close to a billion in today's money). He was pro-union in a time that that form of stance got people kneecapped and Henry II put up with it. In the early fifties he decided that he couldn't accept the way that the immigrants who were paid next to nothing and charged more for food and shelter than they made (Company Store Scenario) were treated. He told Henry he had had enough. Henry's response was that when Loyal really and truly couldn't hack it anymore--he should cut himself a check of any size and just go.

The following morning he did so. The year was '53. A year later, Loyal ran into someone fairly high up in the company--and they asked if Ford had actually told him to take what he wanted. Loyal's answer was yes. He had written himself a check for $557.00 (the cost to move). No one at Ford who knew the story, could understand why Loyal hadn't taken a whole lot more. His response was that he earned every nickel he ever got. Deeper into talking I find that the man (using his Ford stock) endowed the first buildings for U.S.C.; Barker hall, et al. He worked for the Kennedy administration on minority affairs. He knew a neighbor of mine growing up in Vermont. The gentleman's name is John Kenneth Galbraith, he was Kennedy's Chief Economic advisor. We joked a bit about John and his intense dislike for the politics of William F. Buckley Jr. and the two of them having an amazing ongoing friendship despite the enmity. It was great fun to hear work-related stories about someone I had known fairly well as a child. I told him about John doing the dedication for Buckley's first Blackford Oaks book--Stained Glass. John had noted that he was very pleased that Bill was finally willing to correctly label his writing as fiction. [Damned funny in a dry kinda way.]

Loyal has since made a third career out of hand-building furniture from trees he cuts and cures himself, then replants on his property in Boise--15 or twenty grandfather clocks (all given away), dining rooms, and last year he made a roll-top desk (297 pieces all told, hand carved). This year he hasn't felt so well--and has only made a massive chess-board table with hand carved chessmen (he and I talked about my Grandmother and I playing chess for years), and he tried to Give ME the damned chess-set!

Astonishing man.

--NameEdited-DaSauce

-----Original Message-----

From: Edited SauceGuy

Sent: Monday, August 07, 2000 11:31 PM

To: 'Loyal H. Barker '

Cc: SauceAtHome--edited

Subject: RE: Your Note, Sah!

Thank you for the thank you, Loyal.

But honestly, I enjoyed the conversation far more than my wont to show ongoing common courtesy with the sweater.

You are quite a guy, and I look very forward to reaching your age--and having a third of the interesting content to share that you did in our short visit.

I truly enjoyed the company.

I suspect that you are definitely one of a kind. I can't tell you how much of a thrill it is to know that there are folks of your ability and general demeanor for the rest of us to emulate.

Best Regards, Loyal.

--EditedName--DaSauce

PS. I am Cc:'ing the home email as well--so that I get your email address there too.

-----Original Message-----

From: Loyal H. Barker

To: SauceNameEdit

Sent: 8/7/00 8:02 PM

I have to thank you again for furnishing for awhile the L L Bean sweater. I had enough sense to bring one for the trip home. I needed it. Had a wait of three hours in Orange County and a three hour wait in Frisco. Never take the United again-I'll find another way. Ninety year old bones get cold but had a nice visit and accomplished what I went there to do.

Good luck and thanks again

Loyal Barker-Boise

--snip--

--DatSauceGuyIsASap--Granted.

**********************************************************

Oh... and a short follow-up Asshole-Sauce-Rant to even things up a bit?

Those Murdoch owned goofballs at Fox are still hanging with their flavor of Standard Definition TV {Fox Widescreen My Ass] at 480 lines of progressive scan while everybody else is doing High Def flavors of either 1080i (interlaced) or 720 Progressive (like your computer monitor at 800X600P versus the early days of CGA, yo.)

But, they are touting adding Dolby Digital 5.1 to their "Fox Widescreen" or Blurry-ASS-Really-NOT-HD pictures.

Um, Rupert? Or may I call you Dick?

Until you get my only prime-time recorded TiVo Program into HD, I am using the easter-egg skip-feature to lose your frigging commercials. Got me, Dick?

[And yes, as previously noted it is a guilty secret called Gilmore Girls--I like the writing. Bite me. I am a sap. OK?]