Old Guy and a Bucket of Shrimp
This is a wonderful story .You will be pleased that you
read it, and I believe you will pass it on. It is an importantpiece of
American history.
It happened every Friday evening, almost without fail, when
the sun resembled a giant orange and was starting to dip into the blue
ocean. Old Ed came strolling along the beach to his favorite pier.
Clutched in his bony hand was a bucket of shrimp. Ed walks out to the end of
the pier, where it seems he almost has the world to himself. The glow of the
sun is a golden bronze now.
Everybody's gone, except for a few joggers on the beach.
Standing out on the end of the pier, Ed is alone with his thoughts...and his
bucket of shrimp.
Before long, however, he is no longer alone. Up in the sky a
thousand white dots come screeching and squawking, winging their way toward
that lanky frame standing there on the end of the pier.
Dozens of seagulls have enveloped him, their wings fluttering
and flapping wildly. Ed stands there tossing shrimp to the hungry birds. As
he does, if you listen closely, you can hear him say with a smile, 'Thank
you. Thank you.'
In a few short minutes the bucket is empty. But Ed doesn't
leave. He stands there lost in thought, as though transported to another
time and place. When he finally turns around and begins to walk back toward
the beach, a few of the birds hop along the pier with him until he gets to
the stairs, and then they, too, fly away. And old Ed quietly makes his way
down to the end of the beach and on home.
If you were sitting there on the pier with your fishing line
in the water, Ed might seem like 'a funny old duck,' as my dad used to say.
Or, to onlookers, he's just another old codger, lost in his own weird world,
feeding the seagulls with a bucket full of shrimp. To the onlooker, rituals
can look either very strange or very empty. They can seem altogether
unimportant .... maybe even a lot of nonsense.
Old folks often do strange things, at least in younger eyes.
Most of them would probably write Old Ed off, down there in Florida ...
That's too bad. They'd do well to know him better.
His full name: Eddie Rickenbacker. He was a famous hero in
World War I, and then he was in WWII. On one of his flying missions across
the Pacific, he and his seven-member crew went down. Miraculously, all of
the men survived, crawled out of their plane, and climbed into a life raft.
Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for days on the
rough waters of the Pacific. They fought the sun. They fought sharks. Most
of all, they fought hunger and thirst. By the eighth day their rations ran
out. No food. No water. They were hundreds of miles from land and no one
knew where they were or even if they were alive. Every day across America
millions wondered and prayed that Eddie Rickenbacker might somehow be found
alive.
The men adrift needed a miracle. That afternoon they had a
simple devotional service and prayed for a miracle. They tried to nap. Eddie
leaned back and pulled his military cap over his nose. Time dragged on. All
he could hear was the slap of the waves against the raft. Suddenly, Eddie
felt something land on the top of his cap. It was a seagull!
Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly still,
planning his next move. With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the gull,
he managed to grab it and wring its neck. He tore the feathers off, and he
and his starving crew made a meal of it - a very slight meal for eight men.
Then they used the intestines for bait. With it, they caught fish, which
gave them food and more bait . . . and the cycle continued. With that simple
survival technique, they were able to endure the rigors of the sea until
they were found and rescued after 24 days at sea.
Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years beyond that ordeal, but he
never forgot the sacrifice of that first life-saving seagull... And he never
stopped saying, 'Thank you.' That's why almost every Friday night, he would
walk to the end of the pier with a bucket full of shrimp and a heart full of
gratitude.
Reference:
(Max Lucado, "In The Eye of the Storm", pp..221, 225-226)
PS: Eddie Rickenbacker was the founder of Eastern Airlines.
Before WWI he was race car driver. In WWI he was a pilot and became America
's first ace. In WWII he was an instructor and military adviser, and he flew
missions with the combat pilots. Eddie Rickenbacker is a true American hero.
And now you know another story about the trials and sacrifices that brave
men have endured for your freedom.