I stared at his energetic, lively smile and puzzled over the reality that I would never see that twinkle of interest, hear about his current project, see him sitting on a lawn chair ready for an afternoon chat or accept his offer to collect our mail when we left town. Our neighborhood lost a fine man last week with the passing of Thomas Lewis Stephens.
He moved to El Dorado long past retirement to live near younger family members. Many afternoons he and his wife Ida opened the garage door and set out lawn chairs – their invitation to come over and chat a while. He did not retreat into the house simply because the years and bouts with cancer had tried to take their toll. Instead he waved those inconveniences aside as soon as he could. He had more to do, more people to meet, more projects to complete. As a retiree, my husband often went over to chat. The two men swapped stories and shared their thoughts on their individual projects. The two enjoyed tinkering and talking and sometimes helping each other on projects. One of his projects was a flag on a spring attached to the mailbox door so that he would know when the mail carrier had stopped and delivered the mail.
The day my husband looked across the street and saw that the device had not been returned to its position, he wistfully said, “I will miss him.”
As will many people.
With his lively interest in anything and everything and everyone around him, Lewis served as a one man neighborhood watch in many ways. He kept up with each family’s comings and goings. He volunteered to gather their mail and newspaper when they left for vacation. He knew what happened and spoke well of everyone.
Last winter as my husband puzzled over our reluctant gas furnace, my husband shared its symptoms with Lewis. After my husband told him he was certain that he could fix the furnace one more time, Lewis teased him that he was keeping the fire department number handy in case he heard or saw an explosion at our house. We replaced the furnace.
When the garage door went up this summer, I crossed the street to discover that 91-year-old Lewis, to the dismay of his family, had purchased a full-sized tractor, one that had to be climbed up to a perch between the tall wheels with the little wheels in front. He had a lawn repair job that he wanted to do himself. And he did. But then why not? He stepped lively, did not walk with a walker or even a cane and still drove. He kept his hands busy fixing odds and ends of machines to resell, just for the adventure of it.
His tinkering went back many years as I learned when I interviewed him last year for the El Dorado News-Times annual Veterans Day section. Barely 19, he joined the Navy in early 1942 and stayed for the duration of the war. When he heard that anyone who signed up to be a medic would get a month-long furlough, he volunteered, only to discover the furlough was a myth. Nonetheless he spent most of the war in the hospital wards, but spent his time not so much fixing people as fixing a machine, figuring out meals and managing. He worked his way up through the ranks and left in 1946 at the end of the war ready to try civilian life, having spent the early years of his adulthood in the service. Decades later, he still had the handbook he had received when he prepared to be a medic.
Those years of service were honored last week with a military funeral, the sounding of the bugle, the flag-draped casket with the folding and presentation of the flag. He served his country, first in the military, then as a working citizen and finally as a retiree who needed to be doing something. We will miss his energy, his interest and his participation in our lives.
(Joan Hershberger is a staff writer at the News-Times and author of “Twenty Gallons of Milk and Other Columns from the El Dorado News-Times.” Email her at joanh@everybody.org)