Just picking up some clothes

I met the most interesting man tonight. I was up at church to dig out the big vinyl sign that we use to advertise our Social Justice Group rummage sale. When I went back to the office, there was a message for me that said that someone had some clothes to donate for the sale, but that we had to send someone to pick them up.

It was a nice sunny evening, so I called the man, whose name was Cliff, and said I could come out right away. He gave me very precise directions to the assisted living building where he lived. “Go in the corner parking lot, not the nursing home lot. We are NOT the nursing home. Go in the door in the corner. There’s a sign that says go left, but forget about that. Go in the corner door and ask someone how to get to my apartment.”

I found the place just as he had described it, went in the door and saw the stairs leading to his place on the second floor. He had some coats and a laundry basket of folded sheets, some women’s boots and hats. His wife had died a couple of weeks ago and he was planning to move out to San Diego soon, so he was trying to clear some things out.

It turns out that he and his wife were part of the group that founded our Social Justice organization back in the ‘70’s. He mentioned that in passing, as we were getting the clothes together. He was very well spoken and very sharp for someone in their 80’s. I asked him what sort of work he had done, and sure enough, he had been an electrical engineer. I said, I knew it! Just by his way of thinking and manner of speaking, I figured he was an engineer. Plus, he had every electronic toy known to man in that tiny apartment.

I started to take the coats off the hangars and I looked at him and asked, “Did you check the pockets?” He looked surprised and replied, “No, I didn’t think of that.” So we put them on the couch and he went through each one. He searched coat after coat, finding nothing. “No money yet?”, I kidded him. Finally, he did find something, reaching into one pocket and pulling out a TV remote! He explained that in her last days, his wife suffered from dementia, and would put things away “inappropriately”, as he said.

There was one pocket he missed, so I quietly poked around in it and pulled out a string belt for a robe, a rosary and finally some money—there was a quarter in there too.

As I was leaving, a woman neighbor stopped by to remind Cliff that it was time for nickel poker downstairs. Good thing we searched those pockets.