When the coroner asks to help, maybe it’s time to fly solo again

Back when Greencastle was famously named one of 10 All-America Cities by the National Civic League in 1991, Mayor Mike Harmless punctuated his remarks in methodic staccato fashion by saying, “People Make the Difference in My Hometown.”

He was right then. And, as I’m learning more every day, he remains right today.

People do indeed make the difference in my hometown.

Heck, Mayor Bill Dory, who lives around the corner from me, has been bringing my empty trash toter back up my steep driveway, stopping on his way to City Hall. However, this week my visiting daughter got it Wednesday night, and then the next day the mayor was apologizing to me for not getting to it first.

Meanwhile, whether I’ve been gingerly maneuvering around town with wheelchair or walker, it’s become almost embarrassing just how much people are willing to go out of their way to try to help me out.

At McDonald’s recently a teenage girl jumped off her seat among friends at that tall table alongside the drink island – not to refill her pop but specifically to hold the doors open for me as I left the premises. Likewise, retired South Putnam teacher and coach Phil Williams, who seems to visit McDonald’s more than even I do, has left his cheeseburger and noontime conversation behind to do the same.

City Councilman Steve Fields, a kind fellow with his own health issues, at least twice has escorted me from City Hall to my car after a night meeting by illuminating the ground along the way with his cellphone. We both know it doesn’t shed much light on things but it somehow makes us both feel better.

And on Tuesday night, long after the election results had been posted and winners and losers interviewed, I found myself carefully rolling toward the handicapped ramp on the east side of the courthouse when I heard someone behind me say, “Do you need some help?”

Before I could fully explain that I was feeling my way along in the dark and would be fine, Kay Gedert moved in behind me to take control and help me navigate the ramp to my waiting Jeep.

Like the man said, people make the difference in my hometown.

Take Saturday morning. Not yet feeling quite spry enough to meander through the store on foot, I was waiting inside the Kroger entryway for a charged-up electric cart to be returned.

As I sat on one idle unit with a dead battery, Putnam County Sheriff Scott Stockton sauntered in, gave me quite a quizzical look and asked what I was doing.

Telling him I was waiting for another electric cart, he moved past me, went to the far corner of the entryway and rolled out a cart that looked like a wheelchair had been attached to the front of the Titanic. It looked like a kids’ cart for adults, and I wasn’t having it. King of the World I was not to be.

“Come on, I’ll push you,” Stockton says. “What do you need? I know this store like the back of my hand.”

Well, truth was, I needed just a few things but what I didn’t need was to be pushed around Kroger, riding on high while the smiling sheriff rolled me through the store.

“Maybe if you were in uniform,” I jokingly responded, thinking then at least people might think he had arrested me and was making me ride that way.

“Suit yourself,” Stockton said as he grabbed his own cart and went inside, leaving me to wait a few more minutes on a charged electric cart and a smooth ride throughout the store.

But the coup de grace came a day or two later as I was leaving the hospital after paying another medical bill associated with my long, lost summer.

As I headed to my car, perfectly parked in the handicapped space just off the main entry to PCH, I spotted Dave Brown walking down the sidewalk but veering off to make a beeline toward me.

Brown, as you might know, is the Putnam County coroner and a man I’ve known and admired since he was dispatching police, fire and ambulance units locally.

“Dave Brown,” I acknowledged as he moved toward me, cane in one hand. I thought he was about to commiserate about the travails of getting around when you’re less than 100 percent.

Instead, he kindly offered, “Call me if you need anything.”

As nice a thought as that may be, it will never happen.

No offense, Dave, but I just don’t see myself in any situation where my first call would be … to the coroner.

That’s just a little too close for comfort.