A Cavalcade Of Interesting Characters

Over the past several days I have been privileged to meet a number of really interesting people.  Today's interesting guy came into our new home unannounced and I at first suspected unbidden.  Come to find out we had requested his services but generally people call to announce their arrival instead of just walking into the house.  Or at least that was my understanding.  At any rate, the garage door in our new home stopped working and I couldn't figure out how to get it off the track to manually close it.  Ordinarily this situation wouldn't be of concern.  However, with the wind chill factored in this afternoon's temperature was sixteen below and, since the garage is attached to the house I didn't want any open doors come night and even lower temperatures.  So in walked Mr. Leo Richard Hummer who from the foot of the stairs asked if anyone was home.  "Yes!" I hollered back down the stairs.  Hollering was the only way to be heard because the dog was barking really loudly.  Mr. Hummer's next question was, "Is that a Basset Hound?"  By that time I was downstairs still unclear as to Mr. Hummer's reason for standing at the foot of our stairs quizzing us on seemingly random topics.  Not wanting to be unfriendly I told him that, yes, it was a barking Basset Hound.  Only then did I inquire as to the nature of his visit.
"I'm Hummer and your garage door isn't working," he replied content that all my questions were now answered.
And, in fact, they were.  I had heard that someone named Hummer repaired garage doors.  I had not heard that he communicated with them and could respond to their squeaky pleas for help.  That took me by surprise on a day when few other things surprised me.
Within five minutes I had learned that Mr. Hummer had trained dogs for over seventeen years.  When I asked of he could train a Basset Hound he advised that any dog could be trained.  The problems were always with the humans and never the dogs.  He left the dog training world to enter the culinary arts world and was a chef for a number of years.  Then he joined the army.  Upon discharge he opened his garage door repair business and made more money in that field than in dog training and cooking combined.  I guess his army salary didn't matter.  At any rate, once in the garage door repair business, Mr. Hummer was able to put all of his children through college.  Now they all have good jobs and are responsible citizens.  Quite an accomplishment in this day and age, I assured him.  He agreed.
At the end of five minutes I also learned that today was too cold to repair anything but that when the weather warmed up I should call Mr. Hummer and he would return and repair the garage door.  He did get it to close which was really all I wanted anyway.
Oh, yeah.  Mr. Hummer didn't charge me for closing the garage door and telling his story.  Once your kids are out of college you can do that sort of thing, I suppose.
Now if he'll only come back and train the Basset Hound to put on his own snood we'll be all set.