What Should I Do with the Rest of My Life_ - Bruce Frankel [112]
The Smiths were left with a pile of leftover items. To get rid of them, Barbara called the Acton Housing Authority to see if it knew of any tenants who could use household goods. There was, in fact, plenty of need. And the local housing authority soon began to think of Barbara as a resource for residents in need. Someone from the housing authority would call, and she would place a notice in the Sunday bulletin.
It was not long before the residents of Acton, an affluent suburban community, got into the habit of dropping off donations in the Smiths’ driveway and basement, whether there was a notice or not. “At the time, we weren’t connected with any agencies. But word about us spread like wildfire through the Brazilian community. For many Brazilians, we were literally the first stop after they arrived at Logan [International Airport]. They were honest, hardworking tradespeople who just couldn’t make it in Brazil. We would just leave the door to our basement open for them, even on Thanksgiving Day, and they would take away what they needed. It was a blessing, because if they hadn’t taken the stuff away, we would have drowned in it,” Ira said.
For the next five years, Ira Smith continued to work full-time as an engineer, most interestingly on a futuristic urban people mover called Taxi 2000. But early excitement for the project, which had the potential to make Smith a wealthy man, faded when Raytheon bought out the project and reengineered it, adding massive architectural supports that made the project too expensive and too inflexible for construction by cities, such as Chicago, that were considering it. A model for the project was built on Raytheon’s property in Marlboro, Massachusetts, but never went any further. Meanwhile, Ira—whose top salary never exceeded $64,000 a year—would come home from work and find Barbara waiting for him to go out and pick up or deliver more goods. “I’d see this look in her eyes,” he said.
It was not long before the couple became recognizable figures. Children in the nearby working-class town of Maynard sometimes ran after the Smiths, shouting items of furniture that their parents needed. Exasperated landlords in low-income housing, tired of the expense of removing furniture left in the street by families that had skipped town or were evicted, also began to call on the Smiths to help them out by removing goods at no expense.
When Ira awoke the morning after he retired from engineering in 1995, Barbara was waiting for him—a schedule of pickups and drop-offs in hand. At 170 pounds, he represented the duo’s brawn. Barbara weighed 108 pounds soaking wet. The sight of the couple arriving to remove a refrigerator or a stove would often leave donors baffled. One day, an area psychiatrist called for their help because he and his wife were moving from their house to a smaller apartment in Cambridge and had to downsize. It was a broiling hot day, and the Smiths were struggling to finish and get everything into their truck.
“Ira, let’s go home,” Barbara said.
“No, damn it, we’re not leaving until we’ve taken it all,” Ira shot back.
The psychiatrist spoke up. “You know, you’re both positively certifiable.”
They relish telling the story, but swear by the physical and psychological benefits of the work they’ve done for the last two decades. Other than a period a couple of years ago when Ira suffered a flare-up of a rigidifying psoriatic arthritis, the Smiths say that lifting and moving furniture and appliances has helped maintain them in the best physical and mental shape of their lives.
To accomplish the feat of lifting heavy things, such as a stove or a sofa bed, “we learned first to