Bruce Smith, 69, pictured Wednesday in his workshop at his home in Embden, is intending to give away all his tools to a person or persons he will select. "I've got these tools and I want to give them to a young a guy and his brother or girlfriend or grandfather who can use them to make a living," he said. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

Bruce Smith knows he isn’t getting any younger, so he wants to give his carpentry tools to someone who will benefit from them the way he has throughout his life.

In unusual fashion, Smith, 69, of Embden, called the newspaper to ask if we could help.

“I’ve always worked, and I’ve got these tools and I want to give them to a young a guy and his brother or girlfriend or grandfather who can use them to make a living,” he said. “I just don’t want to let them sit there and rust away.”

Smith won’t hand them over to just anyone, however, and he doesn’t want to give them away piecemeal. He wants to keep them all together and meet the recipient(s) in person to make sure they will use them to good purpose — and are capable.

“I want to know who they are and I want to know they’re not going to cut their finger off,” he said, adding that those interested may call him at 431-9956.

He’s got drills and cords, an air compressor, nail gun, chop saw, table saw, roofing gun, metal cutter, splitting maul, axe, hatchet and more. Although he could likely sell them for a profit, he refuses.

“I don’t want a nickel,” he said. “I just want to make sure, while I’m still here, that when I’m dead, someone is using them well. I don’t need money. I’m a veteran. I don’t get a lot of money but still, I’ve got enough.”

Smith, who is nearly 70, had to stop working several years ago when he suffered a stroke and was hospitalized for four days. He lost his vision and had to learn to speak again. He couldn’t do carpentry work anymore. He still can’t read, and has only peripheral vision.

“I can see to the left, but I can’t see to the right,” he said. “I’m not going to complain because there’s too many people complaining as it is. I’m still alive, so I’m not going to complain.”

Shortly after his stroke, his girlfriend died suddenly, he said. He’d lost two of the things he loved most: her and his vocation. Life didn’t seem worth living.

“It was a cruel thing because we had been together seven or eight years. I just said, ‘Frig it.’ I was suicidal. It took a while to get over that.”

With time, Smith began to heal. His health still isn’t the greatest and he uses an inhaler to breathe better, but he is able to laugh easily.

“I got a reason to live now. I have a bike with a motor on it. I watch TV. I drink a lot of coffee. I have friends. I have to have somebody take me down to the grocery store and the bank.”

Smith grew up in Palmyra with his mother, two sisters and a brother, he said. When he was 9 months old his father died while working at a cottage cheese factory when a machine blew up, he said. His mother worked at a hospital and his sisters waitressed to help support the family. He and his brother worked at nearby farms.

Smith quit high school to enlist in the U.S. Army, where he served as a petroleum storage specialist at an airport, he said. When he returned home he did carpentry work — mostly trim work, roofing, windows, doors and steps — eventually earned his high school equivalency diploma, and built his own home in Palmyra. He was married twice and divorced and has a daughter and son who live out of state. He took a Greyhound bus all the way to San Francisco once and did carpentry work there for about four years before returning to Maine, he said.

Doing good deeds is apparently part of Smith’s makeup. In 2006, he and a friend were in Waterville and saw a man try to abduct an 8-year-old girl from a parking lot. He grabbed the man and his friend took the child to safety. For their bravery, they received awards from Waterville police, Maine Chiefs of Police Association and the Maine Legislature.

“The little girl’s mother was so grateful,” he recalled.

Amy Calder has been a Morning Sentinel reporter 36 years. Her columns appear here Saturdays. She is the author of the book, “Comfort is an Old Barn,” a collection of her curated columns, published in 2023 by Islandport Press. She may be reached at acalder@centralmaine.com. For previous Reporting Aside columns, go to centralmaine.com.