An Old Man and a Bucket of Shrimp


From our Chairman of the Board of Directors, Wayne Hanson

This story is wonderful, and it is true. You will be glad that you read it, and I hope you will pass it on.

It happened every Friday evening, almost without fail, when the sun resembled a giant orange and was starting to dip into the blue ocean. An old man came strolling along the Florida beach to his favorite pier. Clutched in his bony hand was a bucket of shrimp. He walks out to the end of the dock, where it seems he almost has the world to himself. The glow of the sun is a golden bronze now. Everybody's gone, except for a few joggers on the beach. Standing out on the end of the pier, the old man is alone with his thoughts and his bucket of shrimp.
   
Before long, however, he is no longer alone. Up in the sky, a thousand white dots come screeching and squawking, winging their way toward that lanky frame standing there on the end of the pier. Before long, dozens of seagulls and other waterfowl have enveloped him, their wings fluttering and flapping wildly. The old man stands there tossing shrimp to the hungry birds. As he does, if you listen carefully, you can hear him say with a smile, “Thank you. Thank you.”
   
In a few short minutes, the bucket is empty, but the old man doesn't leave. He stands there lost in thought, as though transported to another time and place. He finally turns around and begins to walk back toward the beach and quietly makes his way home. 


If you were sitting there on the pier with your fishing line in the water, the old man might seem like “a funny old duck.” Or, to onlookers, he's just another old codger, lost in his weird world, feeding the seagulls with a bucket full of shrimp.

To the onlooker, rituals can look either very strange or very empty. They can seem altogether unimportant maybe even a lot of nonsense. Old folks often do strange things, at least in the eyes of Boomers and Busters. Most of them would probably write off the old man down there in Florida. That's too bad. They'd do well to know him better.   

His name was Eddie Rickenbacker. He was a famous war hero and Medal of Honor recipient during World War I. In October 1942 he was flying across the Pacific with a hand-picked crew on board a B-17 known as the “Flying Fortress,” representing the U.S. government on a top-secret mission to deliver a message to General Douglas MacArthur. Somewhere of the South Pacific, the crew became lost, ran out of fuel, and the plane went down. Miraculously, all of the men survived, crawled out of their plane and climbed into life rafts.
   
Rickenbacker and the crew floated for days on the rough waters of the Pacific. They fought the sun and sharks. Most of all, they fought hunger and thirst. By the eighth day, their rations ran out. No food. No water. They were hundreds of miles from land, and no one knew where they were or even if they were alive. Every day across America millions wondered and prayed that Eddie Rickenbacker might somehow be found alive.
   
The men adrift needed a miracle. One afternoon they had a simple devotional service and prayed for a miracle. They tried to nap. Rickenbacker leaned back and pulled his military cap over his nose. Time dragged on. All he could hear was the slap of the waves against the raft and suddenly he felt something land on the top of his cap. It was a bird!
   
Eddie would later describe how he sat perfectly still, planning his next move. With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the bird, he managed to grab it and wring its neck. He tore the feathers off, and he and the starving crew members made a meal of it - a very slight meal for eight men. Then they used the intestines for bait. With it, they caught fish, which gave them food and more bait....and the cycle continued for a few days. With that simple survival technique, they were able to endure the rigors of the sea until they were found and rescued after 24 days at sea.
   
Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years beyond that ordeal, but he never forgot the sacrifice of that first life-saving seabird, and he never stopped saying, “Thank you.”
 
That's why almost every Friday night he would walk to the end of the pier with a bucket full of shrimp and a heart full of gratitude.
Reference: (Max Lucado, "In The Eye of the Storm" pp...221, 225-226); Tod Olson, “Lost in the Pacific, 1942”, pp …85-87.
   
Eddie Rickenbacker is a real American hero. And now you know another story about the trials and sacrifices that brave men have endured for your freedom.
   
As you can see, I chose to pass it on. It is a great story that many don't know. You've got to be careful with old guys because you never know what they have done during their lifetime.