Monday, February 22, 2016

Button Ministry


One of the guys I occasionally drink coffee with is about 80.  He lives in a "travel trailer" in a barn that used to be his.  He parcelled out his property to his kids because he did not want them fighting after he was gone.  He miscalculated, slightly, and lived longer than he thought.

He nets about $7000 a year.  He heats with wood.    You cannot shoehorn a very big wood stove into a 16' trailer.  It shuts down at 2ish...it gets downright chilly in his trailer by the butt-crack of dawn.

One of the major vexations in his life is that he cannot find anybody to sew buttons and zippers on his shirts and coats.  Cutting wood is rough on clothes and he relies on those items to maintain body temperature.

He thought he had found one lady to do it but she sewed the zipper-tape right over the snaps of his Carhartts.  And then she died.

I asked him why he did not sew on his own buttons and he told me that his eyes were not good enough to thread a needle any more.  That was easy enough to fix.

I threaded two, large-eyed needles with about 24" of #69, black, nylon thread each.
This is a close-up of the needles and the thread.
6, 3/4" buttons, a medicine bottle and a couple of rubber bands finishes the kit.
I have this stashed in my car so I can either sew the buttons on his shirt or give him the kit.

Kind acts do not need to be big.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Readers who are willing to comment make this a better blog. Civil dialog is a valuable thing.