My Friend Russel Story

1995

Written 10/2014 and rewritten 2/05/ 2016* 1,137 Words

Copyright 2019

#126 By Howard Yasgar

Russel Kapes, was a fellow that spent much his life trying to beat the system.

But unfortunately, it ended up that the system beat him up.

For years I tried my best to talk Russel into living somewhat of a normal and organized life.

But, after a while I must have tried too hard, because he got mad and he stopped talking to me.

But regardless, Russel was such an interesting character that I just must tell you a little about him.

I met Russel around 1995, when he came to my company to get a starter repaired, it was a part for a government surplus generator set that he had just bought.

I noticed that Russell looked a little scruffy, his pants needed a good cleaning and his hoodie sweatshirt had all kinds of stains on it.

My wife Katherine asked Russel if she could help him by washing some of his clothing.

Russel said that he never bought new clothing, he said that every few weeks he threw his old clothes in the trash and he went to Goodwill and replaced them all with good used clothing.

Once I got to know Russel, I realized he was really an intelligent guy that dressed like a bum.

But I soon learned that Russel knew all about mechanical things, and he was a specialist in buying and selling older aircraft parts.

Russel traveled all over the country with a beat-up truck buying surplus parts. He bought all kinds of stuff that he could sell at aviation and mechanical parts flea markets.

When I asked him where he lived, Russel told me that he owned a piece of property somewhere on the outskirts of the city of Naples, Florida, and he lived in a small trailer.

He said that the city of Naples had levied all kinds of fines on him, they said it was because his property looked like a junk yard.

When I first met Russel, he was towing a 20-foot-long flatbed trailer. Everything looked normal until I saw he had no license plate on it. Russel said that he was just too busy to get one.

I started out doing parts business with Russel, but whenever I tried to reach him on his cell phone it was always disconnected.

Russell said it was due to a phone company clerical error, but after a year or so of the same problem happening, we realized that Russell just never paid his phone bill.

We also noticed that every time Russell gave us his social security number it was a different one, that was probably just a clerical error as well.

One day Russel called to tell us he had fallen and broken his leg working on the pole barn on his property, and they had flown him to a Tampa hospital.

We kept sending Him things to try and cheer him up.

I once offered to try introducing Russel to a girl, one that could help him do his paperwork, and help him pay his bills. But, whenever the subject came up regarding Russel meeting a girl, he said he was already contemplating a divorce.

One day Russell was setting up to do a big airshow flea market that was being held in Lakeland Florida, so my wife and I decided to go there to see Russel in action and perhaps help him.

Once we arrived there, Russel asked me if I would do him a favor.

He said he had parked his small tear drop house trailer in the airport parking lot, and he asked me if I would fill up a plastic five- gallon water container and put it in his trailer for him. He wanted the water in the trailer so he could wash up that evening.

I filled the five-gallon water container and I went to look for Russell’s trailer.

Russel was right, I couldn’t miss it, because it was one of those small teardrop shaped things, so small that you wonder how people even fit in them.

I opened the trailer door, and when I stepped inside, my foot went through the rusted floor.

Later I told him I thought his little trailer looked rough.

Russel said that when he was hauling the little blue trailer to the Lakeland Airshow, he stopped in a rest area to use the bathroom. When he did that, a State Trooper thought he was abandoning the trailer at the rest stop.

Russel said the State Trooper stayed and watched, making sure Russell didn’t leave the trailer.

After that, it always bothered me that I knew Russell lived in that small decrepit trailer.

I guess I finally I must have gotten on his nerves about it, because on day he said he had bought a new house trailer.

He said that it was a much bigger one than the little blue one, he found it in an auto impound yard.

Russel said the house trailer had been in an accident and had only rolled over once.

He must have seen the look on my face, so he said no one was killed in the accident.

One day Russell was going to set up a booth at a flea market in Zolfo Springs, Florida.

My wife Katherine asked Russell to please pick up a bottle of Florida honey.

Russel got it for her, but by the time he gave it to Katherine you could see where rats had eaten off most of the label.

Russel couldn’t understand why Katherine didn’t want the honey anymore.

Russel said he could hear the rats eating the honey bottle label during the night but he knew they couldn’t get into the bottle and eat the honey.

I think that’s when Russell stopped talking to us.

A year or so later, when Katherine and I went to Naples, we decided to look Russell up, so we drove right into Everglades looking for his address, but we had a problem finding it.

Finally, we stopped to look for his name on different rows of mailboxes.

However, when I got out of our car, I was immediately attacked by over a million mosquito’s, I think that was the end of our looking for Russel.

Russel passed away December 9, 2013, his obituary said he had cancer.