At lunch the other day I drove out to Starry’s pawn shop just west of Robstown on highway 44. I like to go out there because Mr. Starry has a lot of stuff laying around that you can make good deals on. But i also like to go out there so I can visit with Mr. Starry. When you walk into his pawn shop he’s sitting in an easy chair pedaling some contraption to keep his legs in shape.

Mr Starry is 86 years old and I like talking to him because he’s an old South Texas farm boy and he knows a lot of things. And he’s colorful and I know how to talk to people like him.

He told me if he wanted to he didn’t have to work he could just stay home. I told him but Mr. Starry if you did that I couldn’t visit with you. He stopped and looked at me square in the eyes and pointed at me and said that’s it exactly. The old man likes to visit with people.

Then he told me a while back he was at Driscoll Children’s hospital and there was a really sick baby and he and his wife decided to adopt the boy. He was 3 months old weighed 5 pounds and had what I would call divergent strabismus but what Mr. Starry described as “looking at Georgia”. He had ear problems and he was born addicted to heroin. They fixed his eyes and ears and put him on Methadone. Mr. Starry said it took 7 months to cure him and that every time the doctors reduced the methadone dose the boy would cry for two days.

He told me the boy is in middle school now and doing fine. He told me they give the boy $5.00 for every “A” he makes and one time he made four “A’s” so Mr Starry gave him $20. The boy looked at it and said… Dad, don’t you think an 89 ought to be worth $5.00?

Anyway Mr. Starry says that boy has added years to their lives… he comes home from school and fills their lives with joy and love.

I guess that’s the way things are though…. the Lord told us not to think about ourselves but to think about others. God bless Mr. Starry and his wife for helping someone who needed so much help.

It might do you some good to go see the old man every once in a while. It sure has done me good. Take a look at the photo I attached. I got that water cooler and bike (for my grandkids) for $15.00