Air Force veteran who lives alone in shack enjoys simple pleasures

Air Force veteran who lives alone in shack enjoys simple pleasures
Published: Sunday, September 25, 2011
By Tom Rademacher
The Grand Rapids Press

The calendar on his wall is stuck on September 2008.

But it might as well read fall 1908, or even 1808, for Jerry Weeks lives in a world of yesteryears — splitting wood to heat his hovel of a home, hobbling out back to answer nature’s call and subscribing to nobody’s rules when it comes to affairs of everyday living.

In an era of hurry up this and more quickly that, you’re apt to miss him as you speed along Five Mile Road NE, where Jerry has set up house just west of Lincoln Lake Avenue. In good weather, he’ll sit on the side of road and wave to anyone who’ll notice.

“Nobody stops,” he says.

His little place — a shack really, uninsulated and lacking plumbing or potable water — stands off the south side of the road in the shadows of trees. His backyard is a struggling woodpile, an outhouse with no door, a dilapidated trailer, a vehicle that hasn’t run in years, and odds and ends of every sort, most of it worthless.

This has been home for Jerry, now 74, since 1972, when he was a young man of 35. His second of two wives lived for a time with him here, but he says, “She was a city gal, wasn’t good enough for her.” The place formerly belonged to his grandfather, and Jerry says he remembers helping pour the floor as a kid of 16.
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