See why sailors sound their horns to thank this woman
On a cool September day, an older woman with a walker stands on the back deck of her home, watching a giant ship pass by just a couple of hundred yards away. On the massive freighter, there's a man on the deck, presumably the captain, and he's waving the sailors wave, arms swinging over his head, crossing and dropping to his sides again.
"Hellooooooooo, Arlene!" the man shouts, and there's a pause, and then the ship blasts its horn: One long blow, then two short ones. Watch the video above to hear the freighter say hello to Arlene.
Arlene Earl is out there watching, like she always hopes to be. Even after the breast cancer, the malignant brain tumor and the seizures, Earl is there, with the aide of her caregiver, and she's waving back, and then she raises her handheld radio. "Flower Lady going to channel 8," she speaks into her two-way. "Thank you for the nice salute."
The Flower Lady. That's what they call Earl. That's what happens when you spend more than three decades donating thousands of fresh bouquets to captains and crews of Great Lakes freighters.
These regular exchanges on days like today, at the home of a now fragile 75-year-old woman, are not just about flowers. They are about a give-and-take relationship forged many years ago between her and the crews sliding by her home aboard these behemoths.
Watch the video above to learn the why Earl started delivering the flowers to the freighters -- because the back story is even more beautiful than the gesture itself.
"I was brought up in a world that if somebody gave you something, you thanked them," she said. "How many people are out there today who will give you anything?"
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