Willie died the other night.
He stepped on a rusty nail some months ago and wasn`t aware there was some doctor around who could have treated his gnarled old foot. And so the infection spread and killed him.
Willie`s mother died when he was 12. His father drank himself to death soon after. He lived with various relatives and attended the local school. But he couldn`t learn to read and write, so they transferred him to another school that had special-education classes. But he didn`t learn there either.
About the time Willie reached adulthood, a retired English teacher took over the neighborhood council for disadvantaged youth. His objective was to find jobs for losers-unemployables. He found Willie a job in a freight yard.
From 5 a.m. to 4 p.m., Willie sawed, nailed, painted and hammered away, and every second weekend he received a paycheck. Then his card-shark pals-the only friends he ever had-showed up to play poker. By the next Monday, Willie was broke.
I ran into Willie not long before his accident and recalled the bitter days of the Depression. ”Wasn`t it terrible to be so poor?” I ventured. Willie looked me squarely in the eye. ”I was never poor,” he said with dignity.
I thought this over and realized he was right. Willie was never really poor.
