It was the program at my service club's weekly luncheon meeting - a film, a simple film, really. No special effects, no musical crescendos, just a short filming about a man named Leo. It ended with most of us in deep thought. A bank president's summed up our collective thoughts.

"Do you get the feeling you haven't done as much with your life as you might?”

Leo was a man in his 60's at the time of the filming - dwarfed and extremely deformed. In fact, one of the most physically impaired persons I had seen. Even so nothing in the film made you feel sorry for him. Rather you thought about yourself and what you were doing with your life.

The film showed Leo as a proud, independent owner of a one-man business, a shopkeeper - of sorts. His shop was portable. It was a large, moveable case that when opened, displayed his wares of sundry items such as pencils, writing paper and the like.

Leo lived on a farm with his uncle. An old hand-built combination wooden wagon and scooter gave him mobility around the house and farm. Some years after he reached manhood his mother died, and with the help of his uncle they outfitted a tractor with a small crane. Each working day Leo struggled to board the tractor, operate the crane to hoist his profitable business with its cart onto the tractor and drive into the nearby town.

He parked his rig on the street in the town's business district. Then he began his arduous routine of opening for business. Aided by the crane he laboriously moved his store from the tractor onto the sidewalk. Next he maneuvered himself onto his cart and, using his feet, pushed up to the store. With gnarled fingers he patiently removed the metal nuts from the bolts that held some of the wooden fixtures on the front of the store crate. Once loosed he rearranged the parts and tightened the nuts again. With that task done he used his feet to push himself and his cart up onto the sidewalk and sat in front of his store. Open for business. The display sign on his cart read: "Satisfaction Guaranteed."

Leo was a business man; the cart and container, his business establishment. There on the sidewalk he sold his merchandise. To complete any transaction, he spread his coins on a flat

surface, and carefully counted the proper change for his customers. He would accept no more than a fair market price. An honest price for honest service.

Leo had been doing this for years, ever since his mother died. She had cared for him and protected him from the harshness of the world. But once on his own he wanted to establish his independence. He was proud to be in business and frugal with his earnings. He used part of it to pursue his life goal: "Helping those who were less fortunate” than he.

We watched the final scene with sorrow. It showed Leo driving his tractor down the country road to his home after his day's work. But the sorrow we felt was not for Leo, it was for ourselves. The film turned our focus inward, and as a bank president said at its conclusion, "It makes you wonder what you're doing with your life?”

The inspiration of Leo was not that he overcame a severe handicap, although he certainly did that. But in watching him drive off into the distance, we knew we were watching a man who had found life where it matters - within. We knew there was no substitute for that. If we don't find life within ourselves, we won't find it at all. (c) Cy Eberhart 2006

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