Bee Happy.

This story reminds me of the phrase I read a few weeks ago: There are just two types of people in this world-- those who don't believe in miracles and those who believe that everything is a miracle. Depending on which category you're in, you will either "get this" or not.

For many years, I would see an older gentleman walking along the streets of Clear Lake. I would almost always see him as he walked along El Camino Real, and I would be in my car as he waited to cross the street. It was easy to recognize this older man, for the simple reason that he wore a bee costume. Yellow and black stripes, complete with black tights (no matter what the temperature was), and he even had two little sparkling antennae on top of his head. He wore sunglasses, so I really couldn't see all of his facial features, but there was no mistaking his big smile. I judged him to be a senior citizen because of his posture, his pace, his yellowed teeth, and the gray hair underneath his bee cap was also a give-away of his age.

But he would walk, and walk, and walk, with a little sign that said Bee Happy. And while he walked up and down the streets of Clear Lake, he carried a little black trash bag and he picked up the papers, bottles and cans that a few sloppy people would just toss out of their cars along the roads. (Apparently, those people don't read the "Don't Mess With Texas" signs that are posted all over the place.)

As this gentleman picked up the trash and walked along the sidewalks, he would wave and smile at everyone who passed, and he would point to his little Bee Happy sign. No matter the weather, he was always smiling, always waving, always picking up the trash along his route. I would see him so much, especially along El Camino Real, that I started to look for him, just so I could smile at his bee costume and wave to him as I drove along.

I don't know when I stopped seeing him. I think I had started to drive along another street when they began repair work on the main roads here. When the road work was done, and I started driving those streets again, I didn't even think about the bee-man. With Halloween coming now, I've been paging through my Halloween books and magazines, and I saw a bee costume in one of the articles.... which got me to thinking about the Bee Happy man.

I asked my husband if he remembered that little man, but he told me that he had never seen him, and he doesn't remember me telling him about the man. He gave me one of those "Are you sure?" looks...... and I told him it wasn't a joke, that there really had been this little old man dressed in a bee costume, walking along El Camino Real just about every day that I drove down that way.

My best guess, of course, is that the old gentleman has passed away. Or maybe he's just gotten too old to be walking along El Camino Real, holding his little sign and carrying the trash bag. What I do know is that he made everyone smile when they saw him-- and I never saw anyone laughing at him in all those years, we all just smiled with him.

Bee Happy. A simple message from a little old man who walked around the community picking up trash here and there and making people smile. The bee-man definitely fits into the "everything is a miracle" category.