Jimmy Hasse was wrong!

As often happens when out in the middle of nowhere, the call of nature becomes too loud to ignore. Often one must take the job to the woods, but today, an oasis with plumbing appeared in the form of a rundown looking mechanic’s garage vaguely in the middle of a long stretch between Attalla, Alabama and the quaint sounding little burg of Walnut Grove.
Approaching the garage entrance I saw a smallish man sitting at a desk working on a piston ring with a caliper of some sort. I asked for permission to use the facilities, which he immediately granted and instructed me that they were outside the building through an unlocked door. When I was done I returned to him to thank him, and he invited me to sit for a minute. He introduced himself to me as Jimmy Hasse. He asked me about my walk, and I told him the story. He offered me a big Gatorade and offered to buy me lunch as well. I drank the Gatorade as he talked. Looking around I realized that although the outside of the place looked rundown and decrepit, inside he had everything neat, very organized and clean, the kind of mechanic I would bring my cars to. I commented to him that I had though that the place didn’t look like much from the outside, but inside was very impressive. He said, “Well, it’s not much because I aint much.”
He told me that as a younger man he had been a hellraiser of sorts but in recent years had turned to religion and the scriptures, and he gently chastised me when I told I wasn’t religious. He proceeded to show me several bibles of various age and origin, and told me the stories behind them.
Around thins time, a tall, well coiffed sheriff’s deputy, D. Greer, showed up at the entrance of the garage. He walked in and said, “Im looking for hombre who’s pushing that three wheeled cart. I’m told he looks suspicious.” He was smiling when he said this.
“I am indeed that hombre, and I am suspicious….of everybody.” I replied to his query.
He laughed and quietly accepted my proffered ID, which I handed him without his having to ask. He radioed my info in and got the all clear on me a minute later. Then he and Jimmy, and to a lesser degree myself, entered onto a religious discussion. Jimmy did most of the talking and both Deputy Greer and myself were fidgety and trying to leave after a while, but while we were still there Jimmy had us transfixed.
He went on about the state of the church in America, and how the trouble all started at the top. “We need the leaders of the church to be accountable and represent us better. They are the face of the church in the country’s eyes.” At this point Deputy Greer commented that the same was true for law enforcement, and that the big shots needed to be scrupulously honest because it made the rank and file look bad if they looked bad.
Jimmy countered with more plain language stories about his rowdier, younger days and how the church had turned his life around.
Now, those who know me know I am an atheist. But no matter. I don’t believe in a god. I have said in the past that it doesn’t matter if there is a god or not because it all falls to the human beings here on earth to do good, to do the right things, and to make this planet a nice, peaceful and livable place. Churches are full of good people doing good things and that won’t change. But it is PEOPLE doing the good.
Recently I was given a lovely gift of a book called Everett Ruess: A Vagabond for Beauty. For those of you who don’t know about Everett Ruess, he was a young man in his teens who left a good life in California to search for the elusive “beauty” in the world, walking, riding horses and burros, into the area now known as Monument Valley in Utah and surrounding states. At the time it was an almost unexplored territory, and Everett ventured among the Navajo and nature, sleeping on pine needles and living rough, but writing many letters home, painting, drawing and making woodcuts. In his letters, he described the vast and amazing beauty of the land and all that it contained. Then in November of 1934, at age 20, he abruptly vanished, and was never heard from again. The mystery remains.
I mention this because as I read the book, a compilation of his letters, artwork and with many photos of him, I see a lot of Everett Ruess in myself and in the walk I am doing. I also see myself as a sort of “oddling”, a term that was used to describe Everett, and to which I can somehow relate. I have always marched to my own drummer…hence, this venture.
And as I go forth, I keep in mind that Everett just vanished one day. I certainly do not want to meet the same fate, but anything is possible. You run into the wrong person, and you vanish, like Everett Ruess did.
Listening to Jimmy Hasse today, talking about life, and relating his experiences, I was struck by his kindness. He told Deputy Greer and myself this story: one day he came into work at the garage. He had left a customer’s car unlocked outside (it was easier if someone was going to steal a tape deck to just let them take it than to have to replace the broken window, he said), and at some point he noticed that someone was asleep in the car. It had been raining the night before and he decided that it was okay to just let the fellow sleep and let it go at that. When he heard the door open, he saw the sleeper walking down the road, and went to see if the car was trashed. It wasn’t, although the stench of booze was fairly evident. Some men might have wanted to have the guy arrested, some might have beaten him to a pulp, or worse. Jimmy Hasse let him sleep and walk away. For that reason, I say to Jimmy Hasse: You were wrong when you said you aint much. You certainly are, and you are a beautiful guy. Thank you for lunch, the Gatorade, and the lesson in life.