Larry

“Don’t eat the ducks.”

“There is no skinny dipping at this beach.”

“You were in the military so you get in free.”

Larry works the gate at the Fairhope pier, charging $5 a person or $20 a car for the ones who don’t live in town. He makes every person who drives past his window laugh or smile and says he should be paying the city to let him work that window. The best part of his job is when people give in and play along. The ones who cuss or act insulted because they have to pay get a lesson in respect.

Some come back to talk. “One young man said I have become a father figure to him and he comes here often to see me. Life doesn't get better than that."

I sat in the booth watching him give full attention to each car with comments about clean cars, birthdays and a little girl who looks like Disney princess. He bought me a Fudgcicle when the ice cream truck came through and told a Marine that the cockatoo sitting on the cage in the front seat of his truck is “a lovely bride.” The Marine laughed and said, “We have been together for 35 years.”

Larry wears a Vietnam hat and a shirt that says America. He served in Vietnam in '63 and '64 and became a man in that war.

“We would say, 'When I die I know I am going to heaven because I spent my time in hell.' That was true. No one knows how bad it was. We didn't know who was shooting at who, the Vietcong or Vietnamese, and shootouts in the streets of Saigon almost got us.”

He served as a cook and thought he was going to die the morning a tank was pointed at the mess hall, aimed for the Vietnam Navy eating inside. The sergeant handed Larry a .45 told him to put it on.

“What was I going to do with a pistol looking down the barrel of a tank?“

Larry grew up in Michigan and when he returned home in 1964, he didn't re-enlist. He didn’t admit he was in the military because he didn't like getting spit on. He moved across the country to Naples, Florida and started over as a professional bowler and took care of bowling alleys.

There were corporate troubleshooting jobs and an IT company he started in Las Vegas. There were also 30 surgeries and he says he died twice. The deaths of his first wife and daughter hit him hard.

“My intestines blew, my stomach blew, my arteries have been replaced and my ankles are plastic. I shouldn't be here today. I lost a daughter and my first wife to cancer. It just keeps going.”

That hard life has made him thankful for every day he is still here.

“When you turn 75 and you are still alive, it is time to have fun and enjoy life.

Those who are warned through the window about eating ducks and skinny dipping are thankful Larry is still here, too.