“One man thought it couldn’t be done, another man thought it could. Surprisingly, both were right.” I don’t know to whom to credit this quote, but it is quite eloquent. It reminds me of Mr. Etter who thought things could be done when others didn’t think so – and didn’t even try.

He was 80 when he passed away last month. I remember when he first started attending the senior center after his retirement from a government job. He and his wife quickly became regulars at the senior center. They always asked me about volunteer opportunities at the senior center and wanted to take part.

Mr. Etter did not seem satisfied to be known as merely a retired person. He wanted to continue to contribute something to his community and the senior center. I was never quite sure what assignments he would accept, but in retrospect, he never turned down any of my suggested volunteer activities. That seems to me to be increasingly rare today.

Over the years he settled into a routine. Like most people, he was more comfortable knowing what he was expected to do that day.

He was good with words and was given the job of developing the “find-a-word” puzzles for the senior center’s monthly newsletters by my successor at the center. The senior adults to whom I talked loved trying to solve his puzzles. It wasn’t that they were overly challenging, but more that everyone knew who had composed them. He was their peer.

I can’t give him full credit, but I am confident that he was involved in some way with getting Amtrak to establish a stop and a station in his hometown. Regardless of whether he actually got the local station established, it is widely known that he manned that station during Amtrak stops there, helping passengers on and off and exchanging official packages with the train’s crew.

Mr. Etter always had suggestions for me whenever I saw him. He was polite about his suggestions, but they always reflected a concern for his fellow retirees. I listened to him with an open mind; I liked his manner, his attitude, and his delivery of his ideas.

To me, Mr. Etter was a man who thought things could be done. He always tried to prove it and he almost always succeeded.

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