Froze here over night, still a good layer of frost on everything. I guess I pretty we'll had everything up to date last evening on here. I'll have to work at getting the TV working today. At least the wii is working through the TV. But can't get Netflix as the wii box can.t find the Internet.

Here's another little story from my Lookout Men collection.

Bill

 Bill was one of the “Summit Lake 5”.  He would fall into the category of crusty even a bit eccentric, but to be fair I think most Lookout Men were a bit eccentric.  Bill was about sixty, had lived in the Prince George area for most of his life.

 I won’t say he was lazy, but he hated doing the “make work” projects in the spring.  He just wanted to get on his tower.  Once up there it was hard to get him to come down for even a few days.

 Bill was extremely careful with his money, I am sure that he not only lived for the rest of the year on the money he made during his four an one half months on the lookout, but he would have money left over!

 When I arrived there I was told that he was ornery, cranky a tightwad and trusted no one.  Well some of it was partly true but a better description would be that “eccentric” word. As for trust, well he had a surprise for me – everyone else for that matter.

 The May after I arrived at Summit Lake, Bill came to my desk one day and held out a scrap of paper.  I took it from him saying, “What’s this?”

 He didn’t say anything just gestured for me to read what was written.  It was addressed to the Manager of one of the Prince George banks, it read something like this – ‘When Mr. John Little presents this note give him one hundred dollars from my account # ……’ He had signed it on the bottom.  I looked at him and he said, “Sometime later on I’ll need a few things, you can get the money and pay for them then.”

 I said, “Fine Bill but will they give me money from your account?”

 “I already asked them, they said to write a letter, that’s the letter.” Was his response.

 Sure enough about two months later, he needed a can of tobacco, papers and a few other things.  When I went to the bank his letter was honored with no questions asked.

 One thing that happened a short time after he started that spring was rather odd. Talking to the Ranger later, it was out of character.

 One Saturday morning I got out of bed around eight am, went to the kitchen to make coffee and there was Bill at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other.  I asked him what he was doing and he just replied, “Nothing, came to visit.”

 We never locked our doors in those days, so the oddity was that it was Bill and that he was visiting anyone.  For sometime after that at various times, we would hear the back door open and Bill would just walk in and sit down.  I tried hinting that this behavior was inappropriate, but he didn’t understand hints.  Because we all lived close together at the station I didn’t want to cause any bad feelings, so rather than just telling him to stay out we finally started locking the door.  We heard him try it a few times over the next while, then no more.  Strangely it didn’t seem to affect whatever the relationship was that he and I had.

 Bill was finally forced into mandatory retirement at age sixty-five.

D

wayne