Ideas are more valuable than words, I thought to myself as I started to sit down here at the computer.

It's one of those weeks where it appears I am facing a shortage of both. Well, maybe I'm more short of ideas than words.

I was once told that the most effective writers just sit down and write, sorting out the gems from the garbage. In the newspaper business, there's little time to spend sorting. I usually just try to report on something that's happened to me, but for the past few weeks, life has been fairly mundane. However, I recently visited an old acquaintance that I hadn't seen in several years and he's always entertaining. He never ceases to amaze me with his observations on life, especially the comical nature of some of his insights. Since they aren't made in the form of jokes, the really entertaining part is that he is usually serious when he's at his best. He says he grew up on "pone bread and water gravy" in the mountains of West Virginia. He tells me that he worked in the mines as a youngster, crawling through shafts that were only a couple feet high. He later was determined to be disabled, likely after someone with a background in psychiatry had an opportunity to hear him talk for a few minutes.

I met him some 20 years ago, living in a trailer park and working at a rock quarry. Even then, he had obvious difficulties in coping with reality and the world around him, but an uncanny knack for survival and a kind of country wit that always finds a way.

He helps me do simple things on occasion, like picking up a vehicle or driving a car somewhere if the need arises. He's honest in as much as he won't steal, but in the fact that he is not entirely dependable. I usually try to gauge the likelihood of him actually showing up by his reaction when I ask him to do something.

For instance, I've been inviting him to come to my church for the past three years and he's never turned me down once. However, he has yet to darken the doors of the church.

I've asked him to come by and help me move some stuff and ended up waiting for him to call me back. He just doesn't answer the phone if he doesn't want to do it that day, even if he's already said he would. He always tells me he's in need of money to help make ends meet, but he doesn't seem in much of a hurry to earn it. When he calls me to tell me he can't do it, it's usually late that evening or a day or two later.

I've learned that it is best to just go by and get him on a whim if I need something. If he's home, he's more inclined to be reliable if I talk to him and take him with me immediately. I suppose he doesn't like to think about it too long.

For the most part, he spends his time watching television, watching traffic and driving to town to talk with and watch the people. Since he doesn't work, he doesn't 'do' nearly as much as he watches. I think his main physical activity is mowing his lawn, which he does with a little riding mower with handlebars like a bicycle.

Since he is a large man, it sort of is reminiscent of the proverbial "gorilla on a go-cart." Watching him ride around on the little mower while chewing tobacco and simultaneously smoke cigarettes has often been filed in my mind under 'odd sights.' However, this time of year he isn't doing much mowing. Mostly television watching.

"I was watching TV last night and I saw that fellow who's always advertising that free money," he told me. "I got to thinking about it. If he can get all that free money from the government, why is he on TV trying to sell books?"

I inadvertently laughed while he was telling the story. He then informed me that he tried to call and talk with the fellow, but they hung up on him when he dialed the number.

This story very much illustrates the fellow's personality. He has a sort of sense that's interesting and refreshing, but lacks several other kinds of sense that most of us might consider more common. He told me that he had quit smoking.

"That's great," I told him.

"Yeah, I was up to two or three packs a day and two pokes of chew," he said. "It was costing me dear."

A few minutes later, he told me he'd only smoked four cigarettes in the last two weeks. A few minutes after that, he called out to his roommate, "Will you light a cigarette so I can have a puff or two off of it?"

I had to laugh again, but this time he was out of the room. He came back a minute later, with an aura of smoke surrounding him like an imaginary scent cloud and an air of satisfaction on his face. For some reason, those of us who have smoked before now know that smell and feeling and recognize the addiction in a way those who have never smoked can't understand.

I think my former habit has made me much more sensitive to smoke and its odors than I otherwise would have been. While they say former smokers are the worst, I can't knock anyone. I had to quit more times than I'm willing to admit before it ever really 'stuck' for me. With all the talk about secondhand smoke, I always tell people I'm lucky they hadn't figured out that it was bad for you when I was a kid. Otherwise, I wouldn't have survived, since I grew up in a house with two full-time smokers and a coal stove for heat-and that was before grandma came to visit. She was constantly lighting cigarettes and leaving them burning all over the house. She had half a 'Bill Clinton' habit-she never inhaled, but she sure did seem to enjoy it.

In fact, nearly everyone I knew before the age of five smoked cigarettes. I think even the dog smoked. Or did he chew tobacco? Either way, I don't think anyone did both, other than old West Virginia. Anyway, after I had time to digest his first tale, he then told me that he wanted to stop by the store for something important. When I stopped, I figured he might be buying cigarettes or chewing tobacco. He returned with a lottery ticket. "Here's a winner," he said.

"What are you going to do if you win?" I asked him almost pointlessly. "I'm going to buy a plane full of peanut butter and jelly," he replied. That led me to ask the obvious next question, "Why?"

He replied, straight-faced, "Well, I've seen them African kids on TV there that's starving, but on them shows they only have beans and rice. Something must be going on there. If everyone in the world gave a dollar, don't you figure they could take them kids some peanut butter and jelly?"

"Where do you reckon they'd get light bread?" I asked.

"I hadn't thought of that," he admitted.