Mosaic | Page 60

GORDY By: Emily Loker - Barbara Bretting Non-Fiction Winner I don’t remember when or where I met Gordy, most likely because I have had the pleasure of talking to him so many times. I have watched from the bus window as his slender frame, adorned with reflective vest and baseball cap, walks with a full-body limp down Main Street. Gordy stands about five feet tall, looks like he weighs 100 lbs, and has sunken cheeks and pocked skin that make his face look like a half pipe made out of moon rock. He has a gaze that could, to anyone who has never met or heard of Gordy, seem scheming or malicious. When he looks at you, he really looks at you. But he doesn’t scare people. I’ve seen children in strollers wave to him, college students laugh with him, and retirees who stroll the Main Street like it’s a mall complain to him about the weather. Gordy is a man who walks in and out of our lives, up and down the streets of Ashland, spreading the joy he feels in his heart. Gordy is not bashful or private about his past, the source of his physical and mental disabilities. In fact, he tells many on the first meeting that doctors said he would never walk or talk. Gordy’s mother had a difficult birth that left him “sideways.” But after enduring close to forty surgeries in his youth, Gordy proved the doctors wrong. Not only does he walk, he walks fifteen miles a day every day (except with a -30 wind chill). Walking and talking are what Gordy does. He walks so that he can 55 do his job, which is to make people happy. He even has a business card that reads, “Gordy’s Main Street Ministry” (which is completely nondenominational). Gordy spreads his Gospel more and better than any pastor I have ever known. It’s easy to see how simple the most important things in life are when you see Gordy walking in what looks like three layers of cotton socks, his tennis shoes, wind pants, and a jacket that easily doubles his size. When I say this man is dedicated to what he does, I’m not kidding. When Gordy meets peop