Veterans Village: David steps up

#Middlebury #Veterans

I had to park on the street because the lot behind the coffee shop was completely full, with the older veterans relegated to the sidewalk. Sarge and David, the homeless veteran building contractor, were waving hands and instructing the truckers to carefully wedge three, not two this time, but three tiny-home wheel frames onto the lot. Inches mattered.

The land itself for the coming Veterans Village was a thing of beauty. Partially cleared but with plenty of trees still left, it was tucked into some acreage right at the edge of town. The first tiny home was to be delivered in three days, hauled over and hooked up to the underground electric. Town officials and inspectors were sure to be hovering.

David, responsible for Veterans Village, had opted not to grab one of the first tiny homes as his own. Instead, he’d stay in the attic dorm above the coffee shop for now, if that was all right with Sarge.

“Stay as long as you like,” Sarge had said. Sarge was actually glad to have him there. David had been a good influence on the dorm crew, especially the young veteran who still didn’t have a job. He had gone on a number of interviews, none of them successful.

The problem, as David discovered late one night in the dorm, was that the veteran couldn’t read. He would stare at magazines and turn pages, but couldn’t tell you what the words were. Say one thing to him, however, and he would remember it forever.

Which was why David hired him to work on the tiny homes as a yard helper. “I can rattle off a list of 20 things for him to do during the day, and they’ll all be done perfectly,” David told Sarge. “Darn shame he can’t read. He could go far.”

Hearing that, Sarge stepped into the coffee shop, shut the door and called his granddaughter. “Baby girl, this is Granddad,” he said. “You ever teach anybody to read?”

© 2021 King Features Synd., Inc.