The Greatest Man I Ever Knew.

 

The greatest man I ever knew lived under a bridge.

The bridge ran over the Mississippi River.

The cars driving over it made a continuous

and monotonous buzz.

In the summer the river smelled to high heaven.

And the carp grew to the size of leviathan.

The greatest man I ever knew spoke very little.

He had bad teeth. They were very crooked and brown.

But he liked to shake hands a lot.

He kept his hands spotlessly clean. Even had an

emery board to keep his nails smooth.

He smiled at everyone he met.

The greatest man I ever knew met me one day

by accident. At an old hotel being demolished

downtown. 

I was working a temp job there, ripping out carpets

and throwing moldy furniture out the window

 into a dumptser.

I found an old barometer, encased in brass and weighing

a ton.

I was taking it home when I saw him smiling at 

me.

"May I have that please?" he asked me.

I don't know why, but I gave it to him.

Then I followed him down under the bridge,

where he hung the barometer onto a rusty iron

rod sticking out of the bridge foundation.

The greatest man I ever knew opened a can

of pork and beans and offered me some.

But I couldn't stand to eat them cold,

so I went away.

But not before he smiled and shook my hand very

warmly. 

And I never saw him again.

The greatest man I ever knew was gone when I went

back under the bridge years later.

But the old barometer was still there.

A bird's nest sat on top of it, with three blue speckled

eggs inside. 

There was a rusty can of pork and beans on the ground

right underneath it. 

A small turtle crawled out of it, looked up at me, then smiled.

I wanted it to speak to me; I almost wrote down here that it

did speak to me -- words of warmth and wisdom, of comfort and great joy.

But of course turtles don't talk. 

They're not supposed to and they don't need to;

they have all sorts of other pleasant and important

things to do in this world.

The greatest man I ever knew taught me that.