Feeling Lucky

I met this man today.  Albert from Fridley or "Lucky" as he said to call him.  A complete stranger and he was willing to wade out in the muck and haul in that tire that's been sitting at the entrance to Bassett Creek for as long as I have lived in downtown.  I didn't ask him directly to go get the tire, but I did put the thought in his head.  What happened was this.  I was on day four of picking up trash along the Mississippi River.  Lucky was quietly fishing when I snuck up on him with my trash bag. To backtrack a bit, I'd been working the beaches on both sides of Bassett Creek and further up river to the water ski area.  Yesterday, day three, I was here where Lucky is standing. I call this spot Fisherman's Point.

On day three, I filled those six Target bags twice over, depositing the junk in the Park and Rec barrel and heading back down the path to refill. What a mess.

That tire out there in the creek was bugging me, but seriously there was nothing I could do about it personally.  Today I was intending to hit another beach but thought I would just do one more sweep of this area.  That's when I met Lucky.  Fishermen are usually in their own quiet zone of contemplation and I apologize for butting into that moment.  We discovered we both had lived in the state of Mississippi years ago and I told him about the cleanup project that is taking place on the Pearl River that runs through Jackson.  Before I knew it he was offering to wade out there and get that tire and roll it up to the parking lot a few hundred feet away.  By the time we got up there he was a muddy mess but I wanted to shake his hand anyway.

We left the tire by Biff's house.  I called Park and Rec to tell them to come and get it.  I tried to move it a little for a better photo op, but couldn't budge it even just a smidge.  The rim was still on it and it was caked with mud.  Lucky and I parted ways.  He was headed back down to the river and I continued on to my next cleanup spot.  Park and Rec had that tire out of there an hour later.  It was definitely my lucky day.