Every Man Has A Story

One day this week, while sipping a latte outside of one of my favorite Seattle coffee shops, I watched a man search a curbside trash can in front of me.  Unsuccessful in his search, he sat down on a bench beside me.   I've been working on being more tolerant of all people, so I struck up a conversation with him.  I wanted to know his story.  He told me that he was a writer.   I was eager to learn more about his writing, but two of his buddies showed up.   They all decided to have a smoke.  So here I sat sipping my latte with three homeless guys smoking.  It didn't take long for an employee to come out and shoo the smokers away.  I went inside to get a refill.

When I returned, my writer friend was still outside.  I asked him to share his writing with me. He opened his backpack and retrieved a folder.  He pulled a faded and weathered certificate from the folder and explained to me that he writes numbers.   A matter of fact, he's the only man in the world, who's written a million numbers out by hand.   He asked me if I would buy a certificate with one of his million numbers written on it.  He was only asking for two dollars, but I declined.  However, I did get him a cup of coffee.  While drinking his coffee, he told me part of his story.  Years ago he was a fisherman based out of Seattle, but he left the trade after losing many of his friends at sea.  He returned to Utah where he was raised.  While in Utah, he decided he wanted to do something that no one had ever done before.  He decided to write a million numbers by hand.   At first, I didn't believe this far-fetched tale.  However, he decided to give me one of his numbers.  I picked the year I was born, 1962.   Very carefully, like an author signing a book, he wrote the number o19620.   I took my certificate and returned home. The first thing I did when I got in the house was Goggle this man's name in-conjunction with the state of Utah and the task of writing one million numbers by hand.  Lo and behold, I found a link to this man, Kris Wilson.   Kris does indeed have a really interesting story to tell.  I hope to see him again soon.  Kris' goal is to get his work listed in Guinnes World Records.  I hope Kris meets his goal.  Click here to see the link I came up with.