Second in a series
Re “From the Heart to Chief Sellers”
[img]2585|right|Chief Sellers||no_popup[/img]Three days after the community said thanks to retiring Fire Chief Chris Sellers for a fast 30 years, more privately he said goodbye to his desk and his colleagues – probably not in that order – on this, his final afternoon as a city employee.
When you retire at 52 years old, what are you going to do? These days, you have a chance of doubling that age.
Boyishly, he smiled. “I am not even sure.”
It Comes Naturally
Humility, a gift as rare and out of fashion as a horse and buggy, is a richly ingrained lifestyle for the chief, an important observation to remember as he replays what was and projects what he hopes lies before him.
Mr. Sellers has no desire to be the next Steve Ballmer, either in the sporting or entrepreneurial sense.
As he walked away from his office for the final time, his single objective was a very personal late summer out-of-the-country trip, which he would address in a moment.
“The only thing I am really focused on is spending some time with my family,” said the father of one freshly minted adult son and an almost adult daughter graduating high school.
“When I talk about family, not only my immediate family but y extended family. My mom still is alive.”
He exhaled.
“My sisters, my brother, nieces, people I wish I had spent more time with.”
Travel, of course, is on Mr. Sellers’s schedule.
“I am hoping to go down to Nicaragua to visit my son Evan. He is down there working for five months, looking for property to buy.”
At 21 years old, that is Evan’s avocation, but who knows for how long? As his father explains:
“He works on fishing boats. That has been his career.
Peering into the Future
“Evan has been working since he was 13. He decided to take time off from work and travel. He went down to Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. He really liked Nicaragua. That is why he is buying a piece of property, and hopefully someday being able to build on it.”
Evan told his parents that of all the places he has been, his third trip to Nicaragua clinched it as his favorite, finding the natives to be the friendliest he has encountered anywhere.
“On Evan’s first trip,” said Mr. Sellers, “he met a family in a little Catholic village, stay with him, got acquainted with the whole family and the people in the village. Now when he comes back, he brings toys and other gifts. He was flabbergasted by what he found, little kids playing with rocks and sticks. No toys. So for his next trip, he went to Target and bought a suitcase full of Barbie dolls, Frisbees and a whole variety of toys. Evan keeps saying how families are such humble, grateful, friendly people. They ever have had anything like this.”
(To be continued)
