Chance Encounter

I’ve known very few what you might call “famous” people in my life. I used to know Sinbad but that was years ago. But, I have known some wonderful characters who were older fellows when I was yet a young man, and characters they were. One was a fellow down in Brooklet, GA., near Statesboro, named George Roebuck. He was born on a farm in Cherokee, Co. during the depression (the first one) but played basketball at Georgia Southern College and was my supervising teacher back in the day. The summer after graduation he asked me if I’d like to paint houses for around $4.00 an hour. I jumped at the offer when he said, “it’ll be tax free, we can drink beer during lunch and you can have a salad from the garden if we’re paintin close to the house.” His garden was famous with beautiful roses during the season and vegetables in the summers. I can still remember him walking into the plowed area near his house and watching as his hands seemed to know exactly how to pluck a cucumber or tomato from its vine. Then he would bring them into the kitchen, cut them up, and shake a tablespoon of nothing but mayonnaise over the bowl saying, “This, is all we’re gonna need.” He was so right and the cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce and onion blended perfectly with an ice cold Pabst Blue Ribbon from the fridge located in the carport storage room. He kept that thing just short of freezing in order to keep other “items” as cold as possible for after work. We usually finished the day with a few hands of Cribbage, where he was a master at calling the cards and was known to cheat if you weren't watching. 

Ol’ George never lost his love for the fairer sex and loved to paint for widows in the area, feeling that a little flirting never hurt anyone and in fact might increase the size of the check. He paid himself what he paid me, although he was teaching me how to paint and never took advantage of my inexperience at drinking beer or rolling paint. He even used his old green truck to haul us around and only required I buy my own brush and show up on time…early. He seemed more at home, holding a paint brush than a basketball. When he passed away a few years ago they had a huge memorial service at the high school in S.E. Bulloch. His picture hangs in the lobby today. Testimonies came from many of his former players and others who had known him as a coach. I stood quietly in the alcove and listened, thinking not of the revered basketball coach but the man who coaxed Al Blizzard to spray a huge wasp nest with an empty can of Raid off a six foot ladder. Al got bit a couple of times but he could take it and the old coach and I laughed till we hurt. 

Coach Roebuck taught Sunday school as the superintendent at the local Methodist church. He had a balance to his life few people seem to achieve in today’s active world with a philosophy that seemed to say, “don’t fret so, everything will be all right”. He spent his retirement years helping around Brooklet, loving his wife (Dot) and son (Jimmy) and reminiscing with old friends from his college days at Brewton Parker and Georgia Southern. I wrote a poem for him and his wife years ago which sits on their mantle today and although I can’t remember a single word I know it was about the life-long love they experienced with each other. 

Sometimes it’s not about the famous people we read about or see on television. Sometimes it’s about a chance encounter with just another person, a special someone, who enters our stage at just the right time and makes life better. I don’t think of myself as old but am several years older than Ol’ George was when I knew him so I guess it’s so. But I still see him as I did then, a twinkle in his eye, checking his cards and sippin on a cold one… with never an unkind word to say. Thanks coach.