Squirrelman's salvation

(Hear the lilting melody "If everyone lit just one little candle, what a bright world this would be...")

Gil Scott Heron said, "No one can do everything, but everyone can do something." It is with that thought in mind that I salute man's humanity to man. Yes, that's a switch; more often we hear of man's inhumanity to man.

In the past couple of days the plight of a self-sufficient man trying to make his way in the urban jungle has been the focus of newscasts and radio talk shows in Seattle and the Northwest.

Read more of the details here: http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_040908WAB_squirrelman_gets_rv_KS.4957a78a.html

David Csak has built an elaborate treehouse under a freeway overpass and has lived among the tree's branches with the aplomb and adroitness of a squirrel. Down on his luck, divorced, having bad credit and having lost his home, he pieced together a rugged, treetop palace with a million-dollar view in the heart of Seattle. Csak has been dubbed "Squirrelman."

The City of Seattle served him with eviction papers. Today the city has extended the deadline for Csak to move out of the tree.

In the meantime, neighbors whose hearts have been touched by his plight have not stood around wringing their hands and sighing, "Why doesn't somebody do something?" Instead, they decided that they are somebody. And they did something. Something magnanimous. Something magnificent. Something so simple: they responded to the tugging of their heartstrings, to that 'still small voice' ("There but for fortune, go you or I...") so they searched craigslist http://craigslist.com for a motorhome that they could purchase for Csak, who didn't want to be forced to move to a homeless shelter.

The Good Samaritan neighbors contacted the seller of the motorhome and agreed to pay $500.00 for it so they could present it as a gift, a solution to "Squirrelman's" dilemma. But when all was said and done, their expression of faith and goodwill so inspired the owner of the motorhome that he gave it to them for free. Well, almost. He sold the old motorhome for 1-penny.

Now Csak has not only a reprieve, but a new home and the start of a new life. And it all came to be, because two young people decided that they would light a candle, that they were somebody, that they could do something. That's all it took.

Think on these things...

"In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up." --Martin Niemoeller