Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to My American Hero. This program is brought to you by POS Podcast Productions. Here is Tamara Johnson reading Big Heart Bart, her 2017 column debut in the Grand Rapids Press.
Speaker: What do you do if a homeless man walks into your used musical instrument store with a handmade instrument to sell? If you're my friend Bart, you oblige that man by buying his instrument for much more than it's worth.
Speaker: Bart has the biggest heart in all of Grand Rapids. He's been buying makeshift instruments from the homeless for 15 years. Thanks to Bart, the Trading Notes Music Store is a sanctuary for the unhoused, as well as an exposition of jerry-rigged instruments made from refuse.
Speaker: If you're willing to sign a waiver, Bart will take you to the back of the store to look through the homespun noisemakers. You might like the can drums, made from used diaphragm contraceptives and empty soup cans, or the paper plate tambourine, crafted from a dead raccoon's tibia bone and glued onto a grimy golden walk-to-go plate.
Speaker: Perhaps the most generous instrument purchase I've seen Bart make was when a well-known Grand Rapids homeless man known as Big Hobro, came into the store with a used condom blown up like a balloon.
Speaker: Big Hobro said, look, Bart, if I pull the opening real tight, it whistles real good. Bart gave Big Hobro $14 for his condom whistle.
Speaker: It's on display in the back of the store, but unfortunately, Bart won't let you play around with it. Bart has his critics. Since he started buying homeless people's instruments,
Speaker: there has been a rise in public urination. And the local Meyers grocery store reported an uptick in stolen shopping carts. But those issues are a small price to pay for spreading human kindness.
Speaker: What's more important, keeping the streets clean or delivering a self-esteem boost to our city's urban campers? I know for certain how Bart would answer that question.
Speaker: To my big-hearted friend Bart, You are my American hero.
