When he shakes your hand, you feel something genuine, more than what you get from an obligatory handshake and if you have the privilege to know him well, you’ll understand that his grassroots’ sincerity is what makes you fortunate to call him a friend.

Tom Lienhard lives in Jim Thorpe with his wife, Jen, and their two sons, Gunner and Garrett. I met him after my family and I had moved there from New Jersey when my son played in the local Little League where Tom was coaching baseball. Right from the get-go, he was as kind to me as anyone who had grown up in this small town.

Together we coached Babe Ruth baseball. Garrett and my son, Richie, became friends on the team. We were a good match with managing all the kids. Play the game hard. Support your teammates when they fail and acknowledge them when they succeed. Now Tom and I are together again as assistant baseball coaches at Jim Thorpe High School.

Getting to know him through the years, I have found his values to be second to none. Family comes first. Treat the elderly, the downtrodden, and authority with respect. Believe that karma will come to anyone who abuses, cheats, or takes advantage of others.

In the Bible during his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said to the common laborers, “You are the salt of the earth.” These words perfectly describe this man. He’s been a self-employed mason by trade for the past 32 years. His hands have laid long stretches of sidewalk in downtown Jim Thorpe. He builds beautiful stone face fireplaces and custom outdoor cooking ovens. Tom leaves a part of his legacy in every batch of cement he pours.

After his work days in the spring and summer, he moves onto the baseball fields of Jim Thorpe. I kid him that he’s thrown more pitches than the 17,000 Nolan Ryan threw in the Major Leagues. Since Garrett was old enough to swing a bat, his dad has tossed him pitch after pitch after pitch and for every day of the past 12 seasons, Tom has thrown batting practice to as many as 30 hitters. This labor of love comes after he’s used his arms and his hands during a hard- working day. He does not complain. “It’s about the kids,” he’ll say. For Tom, it’s always about helping everyone before he helps himself.

Besides a passion for baseball and for his beloved Boston Red Sox, Tom enjoys the art of fly fishing. He has shared his expertise in magazine articles and with the TV program, “Pennsylvania Outdoor Life.” He ties his own flies and has established a selling market to a list of regular buyers.

Fishing is not just about catching fish for him. Every one that he brings to the net, and that includes some very large trout, he releases safely back into the water. He views a fish on the end of his line as a bonus to the full outdoor experience. He’s especially thankful for the serenity and solitude at the banks of the Lehigh River.

“There’s nothing more amazing than the sun rising above the mist on the water or an eagle soaring over the river,” he says. Tom finds a spiritual connection with a higher power while resting on a big rock and listening to the current of the river rush by or when he’s floating in a kayak and tossing his line across the sunsetting glow upon the placid surface of a nearby lake.

I have a painting by Thomas Kinkade of a man fly fishing called “the painter of light.” When Tom whips his fly line back and forth over the water with sunlight streaming through the trees, he becomes that man in Kinkade’s painting, relishing the perfect moment.

The influence from his character is nurtured by fresh air and clean water within the sanctuary of Mother Nature. The late radio show host, Paul Harvey said, “We’ve strayed from being fishers of men to being keepers of the aquarium.” Tom is one of those rare fishers of men. He casts out his line and reels you into his grace, yet he does so without obvious intention.

His standards for living a good life are of the highest level. Be true to the face you see in the mirror. Be grateful that you opened your eyes to another morning. Leave yesterday behind. Worry not about tomorrow. Stay in the moment. Tom doesn’t need a lot to make him happy. Sit him on the porch in the evening listening to a blue grass band or a back woods fiddler and he’ll tell you he’s in heaven on earth.

He says that time never adds, it only subtracts from our years and the clock keeps ticking down the days we have left. American philosopher, Henry David Thoreau would agree. Thoreau said that we don’t have much time to feel the joys of being alive before we must leave the natural universe that lives on forever. He wrote, “Time is but the stream I go a - fishing in ... its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.”

During that time we have here, Tom says, “Be kind to all.” Abigail Van Buren wrote, “The best index to a person’s character is how he treats people who can’t do him any good, and how he treats people who can’t fight back.” That’s Tom. Compassion bleeds from his heart. Empathy runs through his veins.

Spinning his wisdom before our games, he says, “Baseball is a game of failure and just like life, the game will humble you.” When asked if learning from failure is important to building character, he replies, “One hundred percent.”

And one hundred percent is what Tom Lienhard gives to living a full life and it would do all of us good if we would follow his lead.

Rich Strack can be reached at richiesadie11@gmail.com