There’s a man in my
neighborhood who drives a big old white pickup with a metal-mesh trailer
attached — the kind of trailer that looks like it could either haul lawn
equipment… or a small dragon.
And because I now walk
my dogs approximately 90,000 steps a week (according to my Apple Watch, which
is now my spiritual director), I began noticing something on his trailer:
A sticker.
Not just any sticker —
the sticker.
A vintage 1970s Batman
logo.
The EXACT one I had on my childhood bedroom door, right next to the
glow-in-the-dark Star Wars poster I believed was watching
over me like a Jedi angel.
Suddenly I was eight
again:
Wearing Batman Underoos (we don’t need to linger on this),
a homemade Halloween costume with a Robin’s-egg-blue mask,
and a cape three sizes too big that made me look less like a superhero and more
like a toddler being gently blown away by a light breeze.
So now every morning,
I’d spot this pickup and think:
Ah yes. My people.
At first, the trailer
was filled with what I assumed was junk:
• Old BBQs
• Children’s bicycles
• Rusted metal chairs
• Backyard furniture that had witnessed things
• Enough scrap metal to build a small bridge
Twice a week, the
contents changed.
Twice a week, I did not think deeply about it.
Twice a week, I silently saluted the Batman sticker and kept walking.
I figured he brought
everything to a scrap yard. Maybe made a few bucks. Maybe saved up for
groceries, or a kid’s birthday, or a well-deserved sandwich the size of his
head.
Because I also noticed
his front yard had kids’ stuff everywhere.
Tricycles. Water guns. A small plastic slide.
The universal language of “I have children and I no longer own anything nice.”
And then — of course —
because all profound spiritual encounters happen in 7-Eleven, it happened
there.
I was tying up the
dogs in front (where they like to judge people entering the store), and inside,
the Batman-trailer man stood next to me at the coffee station. We were both
pouring what can generously be described as “coffee” when his phone rang.
He answered casually —
like a man who is always doing ten things — and said:
“Yeah, yeah… I’ll drop
everything at The Salvation Army after my route. Kids’ clothes, toys, heaters… Whatever
can help the families this week.”
And I froze.
Because suddenly —
everything clicked.
The “junk” wasn’t for
him.
It wasn’t a side hustle.
It wasn’t scrap metal for cash.
He was collecting
things…
to give them away.
He spent hours driving
around town, picking up discarded items, hauling them in his trailer, and then
donating them to families who needed them.
Quietly.
Without applause.
Without a GoFundMe.
Without posting a photo on Instagram with the caption “Living my purpose"
Just showing up, week
after week, doing good in a world where people tweet about doing far less.
And here’s what
knocked the wind out of me harder than my homemade Batman cape ever did:
I never would have
known
if I hadn’t slowed down long enough
to notice a sticker.
A sticker.
A tiny remnant of
childhood glued to a metal trailer that opened a whole universe of goodness I
had walked past for years.
It made me think about
how many people are doing holy work in unglamorous ways —
hauling “junk,”
ringing up groceries,
teaching kids,
running soup kitchens,
visiting the lonely,
being kindness incarnate without needing anyone to clap.
I used to think heroes
wore capes.
(Or at minimum,
coordinated outfits.)
But that morning in
7-Eleven, standing beside a man who smelled faintly of diesel and
determination, who spent his free time delivering hope in the form of repaired
toys and working space heaters, I realized:
Some heroes wear
Carhartt.
Some drive trucks held
together by courage and WD-40.
Some have Batman
stickers on their trailers.
Some change the world
without ever announcing they are trying.
He’s not a junk
collector.
He’s a quiet builder
of dignity.
A redeemer of discarded things.
A restorer of what other people stopped seeing value in.
And maybe the biggest
lesson — the one that grabbed my chest and wouldn’t let go — is this:
We all become what we
pay attention to.
If you only notice the
broken, the messy, the discarded — life feels heavy.
But if you start
noticing the people quietly stitching the world back together…
Hope sneaks up on you.
Sometimes in the form
of a man doing pickups on garbage day.
Sometimes through a 1970s Batman sticker.
Sometimes in a reminder that goodness is rarely loud —
but it’s everywhere if you’re finally slow enough to see it.
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