[SOC] Fw: A BUCKET OF SHRIMP

[Bob Krueger]

Subject: FW: A BUCKET OF SHRIMP



 I remember hearing about this great man...




For the SOC and sent by wb9ukq, bob







A heartwarming story . . .
A Bucket of Shrimp
It happened every Friday evening, almost without fail, when the sun 
resembled a giant orange and was starting to dip into the blue ocean.

Old Ed came strolling along the beach to his favorite pier. Clutched in his 
bony hand was a bucket of shrimp. Ed walks out to the end of the pier, 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, Ed 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 have enveloped him, their wings fluttering 
and flapping wildly. Ed stands there tossing shrimp to the hungry birds.  As 
he does, if you listen closely, you can hear him say with a smile, 'Thank 
you.  Thank you.'

In a few short minutes the bucket is empty.  But Ed doesn't leave.

He stands there lost in thought, as though transported to another time and 
place.  Invariably, one of the gulls lands on his sea-bleached, 
weather-beaten hat - an old military hat he's been wearing for years.

When he finally turns around and begins to walk back toward the beach, a few 
of the birds hop along the pier with him until he gets to the stairs, and 
then they, too, fly away.  And old Ed quietly makes his way down to the end 
of the beach and on home.

If you were sitting there on the pier with your fishing line in the water, 
Ed might seem like 'a funny old duck,' as my dad used to say.  Or, 'a guy 
that's a sandwich shy of a picnic,' as my kids might say.   To onlookers, 
he's just another old codger, lost in his own 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 Old Ed off, down there in Florida . That's 
too bad. They'd do well to know him better.

His full name:  Eddie Rickenbacker.  He was a famous hero back in World War 
II.  On one of his flying missions across the Pacific, he and his 
seven-member crew went down.  Miraculously, all of the men survived, crawled 
out of their plane, and climbed into a life raft.

Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for days on the rough waters of 
the Pacific. They fought the sun. They fought sharks.  Most of all, they 
fought hunger.  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.

They needed a miracle. That afternoon they had a simple devotional service 
and prayed for a miracle. They tried to nap  Eddie leaned back and pulled 
his military cap over his nose. Time dragged.  All he could hear was the 
slap of the waves against the raft.

Suddenly, Eddie felt something land on the top of his cap.  It was a 
seagull!

Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly still, planning his next 
move.  With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the gull, he managed to 
grab it and wring its neck.  He tore the feathers off, and he and his 
starving crew made a meal - a very slight meal for eight men - of it.  Then 
they used the intestines for bait..  With it, they caught fish, which gave 
them food and more bait......and the cycle continued.  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 lifesaving seagull..  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)

PS:  Eddie was also an Ace in WW I and started Eastern Airlines.












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