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dollar and sent me up the hill to return it to Mr. Harris.</p><p id="6171">“No Bobby,” He said. “You keep your money.” I didn’t know what to do. I put the dollar back in my pocket and went home. When I told my parents that Harry had refused my offer, they marched me back up the hill and insisted that he take the dollar. He eventually relented and everyone but me was happy. Of course, I got a lecture about being more careful with money in the future.</p><h1 id="3454">Harry was a mailman</h1><p id="5407">(We didn’t call them carriers back then. PC was not even a consideration.) When he first came to town, Harry persuaded the postmaster to hire him to deliver packages. The postmaster agreed but told Harry he could not provide him a truck, he’d have to use his own. Harry agreed.</p><p id="5c9e">Each weekday morning Harry would back his green Dodge panel truck up to the loading dock at the rear of the Post Office and sort the packages that came in on the truck from Reno and load them into his truck.</p><p id="4981">Then, he’d drive around town delivering them. He got to know a lot of people and it seemed like everyone in town knew and liked Harry. After many years, Harry was allowed to use one of the mail trucks to make his deliveries and eventually became a regular mailman.</p><h1 id="c6c3">Accident</h1><p id="c92a">One day, while delivering mail, Harry stepped out of his mail truck into the path of a passing car. He got some bad scrapes and bruises, but thankfully no broken bones. He spent several days in the hospital. True to his character, he went back to work as soon as he was released. After that, he said he took great care when exiting his truck.</p><h1 id="4540">Two part-time jobs</h1><p id="c8b6">Harry held two part-time jobs in addition to his regular job at the Post Office.</p><p id="c900">Every morning during the winter Harry would rise long before daylight, go downtown and light the boiler in one of the big stone buildings on Main Street so the building would be warm when people came to work at 8:00. Harry claimed he never set an alarm clock. He told me once when I was older that if a person’s job was important enough to them, they would wake up on their own without needing an alarm. I’ve thought about that often and have found that I often do wake up before the alarm when I have something planned that’s really important to me like going fishing with my son.</p><p id="9785">Perhaps because of his early morning hours, Harry liked to nap. He’d come home for lunch, grab a quick bite, then take a 20 minute nap. He’d wake up on his own, refreshed, and out the door he’d got to make his afternoon deliveries.</p><h1 id="47fe">Harry also cleaned the Unemployment Office</h1><p id="333f">After a day of delivering packages, Harry would eat dinner, take a short nap and go clean the Unemployment Offices. I helped him on one occasion when I was older. He did a thorough job emptying waste baskets, sweeping and mopping the floor, cleaning the windows inside and out. Even at my young age, Harry amazed me with his energy.</p><h1 id="9912">Ha

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rry worked hard and never complained</h1><p id="db92">And if that wasn’t enough, Harry also had a rental house, a small two-bedroom place just down the hill from his own house and up the road a short distance from our house. We moved into it just before I started Kindergarten. It was small but in better shape than the place we lived in. It had better heat, an oil burner as opposed to the wood stove in our former house, and a propane cooking range which my mother dearly loved after cooking for several years on a wood stove.</p><p id="f0ad">While we lived their small rental house, Mr. and Mrs. Harris built another rental house just down the hill and across the road from our house. I loved to watch the two Mexican carpenters work on it. On occasion they’d send me to tell Mrs. Harris they needed more five-penny nails or something. They spoke to me in Spanish and somehow I understood and ran up the hill to deliver the message.</p><h1 id="a8b1">BBQ</h1><p id="981f">The barbecues are one of my favorite memories growing up on Inspiration Point. Every 4th of July, Harry would get up early and start fires in his to BBQ bits under the trees in his front yard.</p><p id="d7e0">Mom would make her famous potato salad and Dad and I would go to the ice house in town and get a block of ice to make ice cream with. Mrs. Harris would cook up a batch of her famous BBQ sauce.</p><p id="0586">While we turned the ice cream churn by hand, Harry would grill up batch after batch of chicken and ribs. When he had a batch ready, he’d send it in and have his wife put it in the oven to keep it warm.</p><p id="fea4">Around 2:00 we’d all gather around and have a feast. Believe me there is nothing like BBQ slow-cooked over apple wood with lavish amounts of Mrs. Harris’s BBQ sauce. Then to top it off with homemade ice cream. I’m making myself drool just thinking about it.</p><h1 id="aad5">One last thing about Harry…</h1><p id="fb1f">There was something different about Harry that I don’t think I paid any attention to until I was much older. Every day I played with his nephew and thought nothing of it. Then one day someone, I don’t remember who, pointed out that Harry was an African-American. (We called them colored people back then.) It didn’t matter to me or my family. We just knew Harry as a very kind and gentle soul and a great friend. He was like a second father to me, and his wife was like another mother.</p><p id="38dd">As a result of knowing Harry and growing up with him and his family, I could never understand racial prejudice. I still can’t. When you get to know people, you realize we are all the same on the inside. We have the same hopes and fears, the same needs.</p><p id="1754">Harry died many years ago, but he left behind many warm memories of a time long ago and far away. I remember when the town held a 75th birthday party for him. People came from all over to greet him. He was loved by many in that small logging community that I grew up in. To this day, those who remember him speak fondly of him. To my mind that is a life well lived.</p></article></body>

A Life well lived

I don’t know when I first met Harry.

We called him Mr. Harris, even my mom and dad did. He and his wife and their nephew Homer lived in the white stucco house up the hill from us. I was maybe two when we first moved to that small enclave of houses in a wooded pocket called “Inspiration Point” on the outskirts of Susanville.

Shortly after we moved in, Harry and his wife Mrs. Harris (to this day I don’t know her first name) walked down the long, curving, rutted dirt driveway that led down the hill to the road in front of our house. They came to introduce themselves and welcome us to the neighborhood. We had an immediate connection because they owned the pump that pumped water up the hill from the two gigantic city water tanks down the hill to our house and theirs.

Frozen pipes

One winter the waterline froze up and my dad and Harry spent most of a cold winter day thawing it by uncovering the pipe, building fires and spreading hot coals on the pipe.

Another time our pipes in the house froze (it was built above grade with a crawl space underneath). Dad and Mr. Harris crawled under the house with blowtorches and heated the pipes. Somehow they managed not to set the house on fire. They’d heat for a while then yell to Mom, “Anything happening?” And she’d yell back, “No, nothing yet.” Finally, after several hours they got the pipes thawed and the water flowing again. After that we learned to leave the water dribbling in each sink when the temperature dipped below freezing.

Soon after getting the water running, Dad and Harry emerged from under the house covered in dust and cobwebs. I thought it was cool and wanted to crawl under there, too, but Dad wouldn’t let me. In fact he warned me sternly that I was never to go under there. Another boyhood dream crushed. Truth be known, I was too scared of the dark to go under there by myself.

Harry would help anyway he could

One day, when I was around five, Dad had given me a paper dollar (silver dollars were common back then, too) to get my haircut and go to the picture show. Somehow, I lost the dollar.

I was beside myself

I must have been crying, because Mr. Harris, who happened to be driving by, saw me, stopped and asked me what was the matter. When I told him between sobs, he took out his billfold and gave me a dollar. I was happier than a lark. I got my haircut and went to the double-feature matinee at the movie theater just down the street from the barber shop.

That night when I told my folks what had happened, they gave me a dollar and sent me up the hill to return it to Mr. Harris.

“No Bobby,” He said. “You keep your money.” I didn’t know what to do. I put the dollar back in my pocket and went home. When I told my parents that Harry had refused my offer, they marched me back up the hill and insisted that he take the dollar. He eventually relented and everyone but me was happy. Of course, I got a lecture about being more careful with money in the future.

Harry was a mailman

(We didn’t call them carriers back then. PC was not even a consideration.) When he first came to town, Harry persuaded the postmaster to hire him to deliver packages. The postmaster agreed but told Harry he could not provide him a truck, he’d have to use his own. Harry agreed.

Each weekday morning Harry would back his green Dodge panel truck up to the loading dock at the rear of the Post Office and sort the packages that came in on the truck from Reno and load them into his truck.

Then, he’d drive around town delivering them. He got to know a lot of people and it seemed like everyone in town knew and liked Harry. After many years, Harry was allowed to use one of the mail trucks to make his deliveries and eventually became a regular mailman.

Accident

One day, while delivering mail, Harry stepped out of his mail truck into the path of a passing car. He got some bad scrapes and bruises, but thankfully no broken bones. He spent several days in the hospital. True to his character, he went back to work as soon as he was released. After that, he said he took great care when exiting his truck.

Two part-time jobs

Harry held two part-time jobs in addition to his regular job at the Post Office.

Every morning during the winter Harry would rise long before daylight, go downtown and light the boiler in one of the big stone buildings on Main Street so the building would be warm when people came to work at 8:00. Harry claimed he never set an alarm clock. He told me once when I was older that if a person’s job was important enough to them, they would wake up on their own without needing an alarm. I’ve thought about that often and have found that I often do wake up before the alarm when I have something planned that’s really important to me like going fishing with my son.

Perhaps because of his early morning hours, Harry liked to nap. He’d come home for lunch, grab a quick bite, then take a 20 minute nap. He’d wake up on his own, refreshed, and out the door he’d got to make his afternoon deliveries.

Harry also cleaned the Unemployment Office

After a day of delivering packages, Harry would eat dinner, take a short nap and go clean the Unemployment Offices. I helped him on one occasion when I was older. He did a thorough job emptying waste baskets, sweeping and mopping the floor, cleaning the windows inside and out. Even at my young age, Harry amazed me with his energy.

Harry worked hard and never complained

And if that wasn’t enough, Harry also had a rental house, a small two-bedroom place just down the hill from his own house and up the road a short distance from our house. We moved into it just before I started Kindergarten. It was small but in better shape than the place we lived in. It had better heat, an oil burner as opposed to the wood stove in our former house, and a propane cooking range which my mother dearly loved after cooking for several years on a wood stove.

While we lived their small rental house, Mr. and Mrs. Harris built another rental house just down the hill and across the road from our house. I loved to watch the two Mexican carpenters work on it. On occasion they’d send me to tell Mrs. Harris they needed more five-penny nails or something. They spoke to me in Spanish and somehow I understood and ran up the hill to deliver the message.

BBQ

The barbecues are one of my favorite memories growing up on Inspiration Point. Every 4th of July, Harry would get up early and start fires in his to BBQ bits under the trees in his front yard.

Mom would make her famous potato salad and Dad and I would go to the ice house in town and get a block of ice to make ice cream with. Mrs. Harris would cook up a batch of her famous BBQ sauce.

While we turned the ice cream churn by hand, Harry would grill up batch after batch of chicken and ribs. When he had a batch ready, he’d send it in and have his wife put it in the oven to keep it warm.

Around 2:00 we’d all gather around and have a feast. Believe me there is nothing like BBQ slow-cooked over apple wood with lavish amounts of Mrs. Harris’s BBQ sauce. Then to top it off with homemade ice cream. I’m making myself drool just thinking about it.

One last thing about Harry…

There was something different about Harry that I don’t think I paid any attention to until I was much older. Every day I played with his nephew and thought nothing of it. Then one day someone, I don’t remember who, pointed out that Harry was an African-American. (We called them colored people back then.) It didn’t matter to me or my family. We just knew Harry as a very kind and gentle soul and a great friend. He was like a second father to me, and his wife was like another mother.

As a result of knowing Harry and growing up with him and his family, I could never understand racial prejudice. I still can’t. When you get to know people, you realize we are all the same on the inside. We have the same hopes and fears, the same needs.

Harry died many years ago, but he left behind many warm memories of a time long ago and far away. I remember when the town held a 75th birthday party for him. People came from all over to greet him. He was loved by many in that small logging community that I grew up in. To this day, those who remember him speak fondly of him. To my mind that is a life well lived.