One cold morning last February while driving my son to school I noticed a junk heap in front of a house about halfway up our block. Being woefully in possession of some sort of "junk recovery gene," (most likely from my father's side), I slowed down and gave the inauspicious collection of used house wares the old Revercomb "there's got to be something worth saving in that pile of junk" scan.

You might say we refuse to refuse refuse.

"Look at all that great stuff," I thought, visually perusing the unwieldy collection: old lamps, broken bed posts, boxes of what appeared to be wet books with delaminated covers -- what to most folks of sound mind was little more than dispensable scrap.

I had almost completed my scan and was easing into the accelerator when I saw it. Peeking out almost imperceptibly from behind a box of commingled basement artifacts was a 1940s Emerson Electric tabletop fan. I backed up for a better look, but it was still hard to tell from the car what kind of shape it was in. I glanced at the clock. We were late for school. I'll give it a closer inspection when I get back I thought.

Rifling through one's neighbor's junk collection on the curb can be embarrassing, but if it's done with the right combination of false indifference and nonchalance you can get away with it to the point of not appearing positively destitute. The REAL embarrassment comes when you build up the courage -- nay, the audacity -- to actually pull something out of the wretched pile to take home.

Such a move requires the confidence and composure and steely nerve of a master junk hound.

Offering a prayer that I was presently beholden only in the eyes of my maker, who most certainly appreciates such efforts of salvation, I extricated the vintage fan from its grave by the curb and walked quickly towards home. I let it hang loosely from my side in an attempt to hide it from at least one side of the street and with the vain hope that by making the effort look effortless, I was somehow lessening my culpability for such a desperate act. I reached the basement door and disappeared quickly inside.

It was here that I had the first real chance to behold my prize. It was American engineering at its best. The motor housing was the unmistakable bullet shape of the 1940s and '50s and the smooth sweeping curve of the pedestal base made it look as though it was a molded part of the surface upon which it sat. The grill was a wonderfully eclectic art deco weave of galvanized wire that provided ample room to stick your whole fist through. There was a cloth covered external electrical lead running from the base to the motor housing above.

OSHA wasn't on the scene when they were building these babies.

The body was covered with some sort of greasy white film that had locked in what I figured was well over a half century of dust. But even in this condition you could sense something of the jet black beauty that lay beneath. I gave the frayed and ragged cord a quick inspection and added a note for a new one on the "Lowe's List." I set the fan in an old clothes basket in my shop. "Maybe I can get to it next week", I remember thinking wishfully.

It is September and I have re-entered the shop for the 200th time since placing the old fan in the basket. I have just hung up the phone with one of my best friends. Broaddus Fitzpatrick's father, Judge Bev Fitzpatrick, is dying of cancer and he has filled me in on what he can. The prognosis is not good. The Judge will not be with us much longer, he implies. We share a quiet moment over the phone and I ask him to stop by tomorrow night for a glass of wine if he can make it. He says he'll try, but it will be hard. The whole family is spending most of their time by his side now.

Upon entering the shop my eyes have once again fallen on the old fan, now lying in two pieces connected by the wire between. It looks so hopeless and forlorn there and I contemplate chucking the whole thing in the big rubber can in the corner. But something says, "Save it -- don't give up on the old thing -- there's still life there ... don't give up."

I lift the skeletal remains and set it on the bench and begin searching for the new cord I purchased late last winter. My thoughts return to the Judge as I begin to disassemble and clean the old fan. It occurs to me that I am attempting to accomplish something that he himself loved to do -- tinkering with old pieces of worn-out machinery and restoring them to their original intended condition.

But the Judge didn't limit his restorations to just things. His real focus was people, and in reflecting his Lord he was one of the greatest healers of lives this valley has ever known. Much of it he did in his public life as a judge by creating the "Honor Court," which was a sentencing option he developed for alcoholics. He gave them an honest opportunity at renewal when the rest of the world had given up on them.

He did it as a servant in his church, teaching Sunday School classes to older youth and providing them with a perspective that many later said carried them through the most difficult years of their lives.

He did it as a community volunteer leading the effort to save and renovate his abandoned old high school into the Jefferson Center, which now houses community help organizations and various agencies for the arts.

He did it as a father who, with his extraordinarily gracious wife, Helen, raised three sons whose own contributions to their community are in many ways his greatest legacy.

And beyond this, and perhaps most importantly, he did it in ways you and I will never know. The phone call when the rest of the world had forgotten you. The supportive note or letter when you most needed the encouragement. The hearty joke that brought tears of laughter just when you thought you could no longer hold back the ones of sorrow. The well-placed greeting and the handshake that told you if all else failed you in this world there was one individual who really cared.

Such was the spirit of the man who left us in the quiet morning hours last Saturday, Sept. 16.

I completed the restoration and reassembled the fan recently. Its outer parts are fresh and clean and oiled as factory new, but when I went to plug it in I had no idea what would happen. I was prepared for anything, including a shower of sparks, but as the copper prongs entered the outlet the old motor jumped to life and then quietly hummed along as though it had just been made. The breeze it moves is strong and sweet and it cools and comforts me now as I write this.

It's got a name. I call it the Judge.