"An old man and his bucket of shrimp ..."

by **RoyBoy** Wed Mar 25, 2015 4:20 am

"An old man and his 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 favourite 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.

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, 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 is Eddie Rickenbacker. He was a famous hero in World War l, and
then he was in WWll. 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, but 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. 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 on. 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 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. With
that simple survival technique, they were able to endure the rigours 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 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 Rickenbacker was the founder of Eastern Airlines. Before WWl,
he was race car driver. In WWll, he was a pilot and became America's first
ace. In WWII, he was an instructor and military adviser, and he flew missions
with the combat pilots. Eddie Rickenbacker is a true American hero. And now
you know another story about the trials and sacrifices that brave men have endured
for your freedom.