Once upon a time, not long ago, a Lebanon resident was greeted in the Bi-Mart parking lot by a solitary man who helped her with her shopping cart.
He was not an employee, but would give his time to help others in the shopping center. Every time she saw him and two of his cats that were secured to his bike with a harness and leash, he would unveil stories about his life until, one day, she published an art book she titled “The Tale of Smitty’s Kitties.”
But that’s not the end of the story, because her story underlies a story about how kindness changes people and lives on like ripples of water.
The artist-author, Mary Thorp, published her illustrated story about Robert “Smitty” Smith and his two cats, Butters and Snickerdoodle. In it, she shares how this man showed appreciation for peoples’ kindness by being kind to others, himself. And then more kindness was returned to him.
Thorp first met Smitty on a cold winter day. At the time, employees at Bi-Mart would let him sit on the bench inside where it was warm.
“Every time anybody would come, he’d jump up and go take their carts for them or help walk them out to their car, but he always looked so sad,” Thorp said.
She described Smitty as a quiet man with a servant’s heart. She eventually learned he was sad because he’d lost a loved one, but over time she watched him come out of his shell.
“I could see him change as people were just kind to him,” she said.
Smitty’s cats, in the book, are referred to as Sergeant Butters because, he said, “he’s always on duty,” and Princess Snickerdoodle “because she’s a princess.”
A few years ago, Smitty bicycled to Sweet Home to acquire two black kittens, Butters and his brother, Nutters. He considers Butters, a thick black cat with a dapper triangle of white on his chest, as his service animal because the feline wakes him when he stops breathing from sleep apnea.
“He is the best cat ever, super tolerant,” he said.
Snickerdoodle, a copper and black tortoiseshell, came into Smitty’s life when she wandered into the loading bay behind Bi-Mart. He describes her as the “super, super social” one.
“She gets all the attention, and he just basically sits in the background because he takes care of me all night long,” Smitty said of the pair.
Thorp is working on a second book about “Scarface” Nutters, the street cat who lives feral under Smitty’s care.
Smitty, technically an unhoused person, prefers to say he’s displaced, not homeless, because “home is where the heart is. If you have no home, you have no heart.” And he likes it that way.
“We live fairly well,” he said, referring to his family of five cats. “We don’t have power or anything like that, but I get to come and do this (volunteer).”
According to him, he’s given about 7,000 hours of volunteer work for the community, clocking in 10 to 14 a day, every day.
Five days out of the week, he can be found at SafeHaven Thrift Store in Lebanon where he helps with electronics, janitorial service and outdoor maintenance. Then he heads off to Dollar Tree, where he can be seen picking up trash and serving where needed.
“That’s where I get the door for people,” he said. “I get the carts, and it’s pretty hard for the elderly to get into that heavy door, so I hold the door for people, help them take their groceries out, or anything they need from me.”
Snickerdoodle and Butters also help in their own way, he said. That’s because people – kids included – know the duo and will visit or bring treats. Smitty said people remember the cats’ names more than they remember his, but he doesn’t mind “because they get great enjoyment out of just petting my cats.”
Smitty, who served four years in the Air Force, lists a number of reasons why he serves the community beyond a half-joking, “I do this because this town has put up with me for the last 45 years.”
Sharing how someone donated a truck and another donated a camper shell for him to have a dry place to stay, Smitty spoke a phrase often heard across his lips, “This is the most caring and loving and beautiful people.”
“It’s the first place we’ve actually had as a home,” he said.
He talked about how people tell him they love him, how the owners of Pizza Schmizza call him a blessing, how small children thank him, and how an autistic child started holding doors for people when she saw Smitty doing it.
He talked about how police searched for and found his missing cat Nye Nye.
“This is the most beautiful, caring and loving people. These police officers are top notch guys.”
He talked about the time he was struck by a vehicle last September and how seeing a fireman rescue his cat that day “was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.”
They’re stories that make Smitty choke up in tears.
“These are the most caring and beautiful and loving people,” he said again. “I could tell you a hundred stories about all of them,” – kids remembering him, seniors thanking him for holding the door, people coming just to see the cats or bring treats, and an author writing about “Smitty’s Kitties.”
“All we want to do is give back to the community,” he said.
But Smitty, who has five daughters, 18 grandchildren and one great-grandchild, also does this to be an example to his grandkids.
“I want to show them by example that you can fall, but you don’t have to stay down.”
He tries to teach them by showing rather than telling, because “this is the only way that I could do it.”
And now someone has seen fit to nominate him for the Frankie Gray “Answering the Call” Distinguished Service Award, a community award banquet which will be held March 6.
Though surprised and honored, Smitty admitted he’s more excited that “I got to ask the prettiest girl in town to go with me to the banquet and she said yes,” referring to Sarah Kalina, whom he considers his best lady friend.
What Thorp saw just a couple years ago, a forlorn man looking to help others, has turned into a cycle of kindness and appreciation. People give, then he gives and others give back.
“I was thinking to myself that would be kind of a fun book to write because it’s such a good story about helping other people. He was helping other people, so then everybody wanted to help him,” Thorp said. “The kindness has just spread everywhere because of him.”
He might not realize what he’s doing, Thorp said, but he likely wouldn’t take any credit for himself.
And sure enough, Smitty would say behind a teary composure, “It’s not about me. It’s about you guys and the greatest town ever.”
Thorp has self-published other personal children’s books for friends and family. “The Tale of Smitty’s Kitties” can only be purchased through the author or Smitty for $20. Each fourth book sold helps fund five coloring book versions that are donated to disaster relief packages for kids.
It’s like the story of Pollyanna, Thorp concluded.
“Once people start showing other people kindness, then everybody becomes kind, and that’s how it should be.”