Duane Noriyuki, Detroit Free Press staff writer
Man and bucket go to the fair
Detroiter brings seat with him

This is the story of a man and his bucket.

The man is Donald Schramm, 50, of Detroit, a barber and substitute teacher.

The white bucket is made of plastic and held five gallons of dish detergent before it started holding 300 pounds of Schramm, who is 5-foot-7.
Schramm was seated on his bucket Wednesday at the State Fair, waiting for the arrival of Vice-President George Bush.

``A couple of years ago, I got the idea of carrying a bucket,'' he said. ``You know, as you grow older, and as you grow fatter - I'm pleasantly plump - it becomes more difficult to walk around. So I got the idea of carrying a lightweight plastic bucket, which I can sit on anytime I want to.

``When I get tired, I just turn the bucket upside down and sit down. Not only that, but I have a front row seat at any event. I just walk up to the front and sit on my bucket.''

That's exactly where Schramm was when Bush came by and shook his hand.

``It looks a little silly, I suppose. It makes me look quite eccentric, but it's very practical. I wouldn't be without my bucket.''

If it makes so much sense, why doesn't everyone carry a bucket?

``I don't know,'' said Schramm. ``They're afraid, I guess, of being different. They're afraid of being eccentric. People have a tremendous urge to conform. We have to remember that eccentricity is not a sin, and conformity is not always a virtue.''

You might see Schramm at the State Fair, an ethnic festival, the zoo or at a parade with his bucket, which he bought from a restaurant for $1.

``I keep it in my car all the time. You never know when a building's going to burn down somewhere and I'll want to park the car and sit on my bucket and watch it burn down.''

A person carrying a bucket at the fair appears to be within his element.

``I get a lot of questions, `Where's this, where's that?' OF course, I've been coming to the fair so many years I can usually tell them where it is. If I can't, then I just explain to them that I don't know. I'm just carrying the bucket.''

Schramm is very independent. He says he is ``happily unmarried,'' and enjoys the freedom to go where he wants to go and sit where he wants to sit.

The bucket is not his only eccentricity, just the most visible one.

``A lot of people would probably consider my philosophic orientation a little eccentric, but that's not as noticeable as the bucket.''

He explains his philosophy on a piece of paper entitled ``My Philosophy,'' which states, in part:

``Life is an exercise in futility. Perfect happiness depends upon a perfect adjustment to reality, and a perfect adjustment to reality depends upon a perfect concept of reality. Only God has a perfect concept of reality, and only God can be perfectly happy.''

But a good bucket doesn't hurt.