“That Wednesday before he died, we had the best fishing day of our life,” Tim Seth said.
Seth, unlike Streater, is not a religious man. He said he has struggled to know why Streater’s God would take him in such a manner.
Streater, 79, was killed while doing yard work at about 1 p.m. on May 22. A speeding 1992 Ford Explorer veered out of control and hit him.
Seth, who was putting his dog in the house, came outside after hearing the crash and found his neighbor face down on his lawn. The driver of the car had fled the scene but police say he has since turned himself in.
“Two weeks later, it’s the most horrible, lucid dream I have ever had,” said Melissa McGee, another neighbor who was the first person to call 911. “It’s the most traumatic thing I have ever experienced.”
The lever that lowers the blade of the lawn edger that Streater was using was found imbedded in Seth’s fence. Ms. McGee found Streater’s belt buckle next to her car, some 80 feet from the accident.
“I knew instantly he was dead,” Seth said about the moment when he found him. “The street will never be the same.”
The accident knocked out the streetlight in front of Streater’s home. Seth said it has been pitch dark each night since.
Thirteen days after the accident, Ms. McGee made eye contact with Streater’s widow, Charlene, as she drove by and pulled her car into the driveway.
The two walked toward each other, meeting on the sidewalk just feet from where Streater’s body had been.
“It was the first time she had ventured that far since the accident and it affected her greatly,” Ms. McGee said. “She asked me, ‘where was he?’
“She said, ‘do you think he suffered?’
“I told her he didn’t suffer.”
Seth doesn’t believe Streater ever saw or heard the car before it hit him because Streater wasn’t wearing his hearing aides.
“I used to get on his case because he would do yard work without hearing aides,” Seth said.
Streater was a man who had a green thumb and was known for leaving bags of his vegetables tied to neighbors’ doorknobs.
He was a cancer survivor and had volunteered at Churches Touching Lives for Christ since 1986.
Streater’s granddaughter, Kelli Waits, remembers going to the store with her grandfather and him filling a shopping cart full of peanut butter and jelly to help replenish the pantry shelves at CTLC.
Seth said his backyard fence was a source of irritation for Streater. The previous owner replaced a chain link fence with a large wooden fence, which obstructed Streater’s view of the street.
To placate his neighbor, Seth said he recently took the cap off his back fence. He said almost as soon as he did so, he noticed Streater in his yard with a broad smile on his face. He thanked Seth for “removing my Berlin Wall.”
“I still might put out a wrought iron fence because he wanted it that way,” Seth said. “He was one of the most cantankerous guys I’ve met in my life, a real good friend.
“He wasn’t one of those senile guys that tells you a story over and over again. He was interesting. He would tell all kinds of stories.”
Some of the best stories about Streater are fish stories.
He was a calculating, superstitious and secretive fisherman. Seth said Streater would not allow him to take his cell phone into the boat because the electronics would disturb the fish.
Streater showed Seth, a transplant from California, the nuances of fishing Lake Belton.
“We fished the sand flats with homemade lures we called slabs,” Seth said.
One of the rules Streater abided by while fishing was to never let other fishermen know if he was having success. If a fisherman was driving by during a catch, those in Streater’s boat were not allowed to pull it out of the water until the other fisherman had passed.
“His rule was to stick the pole into the water and let the fish swim around a bit before you let it off the hook,” Seth said. “He didn’t want to give away our fishing spot.”
Streater’s granddaughter said when other fishermen would inquire about their luck, they never got a straight answer.
“It was standard to say ‘nothing all day, hope you had better luck,’” Ms. Waits said.
The rules were thrown out the window on a May fishing trip when Streater’s daughter foul-hooked between the eyes and landed a 14-pound Buffalo carp. A loud celebration erupted, a cell phone camera appeared and a picture was snapped.
On the same fishing trip, the boat was packed up and ready to go home when Streater’s granddaughter noticed a large fish swimming on top of the water and headed toward their boat.
“Just in the nick of time, I scooped up this 21-inch hybrid and lifted him into the floor of the boat,” Ms. Waits said. “We found that a little perch was stuck in his mouth. Papa, Mom, and I shared a look and erupted with laughter.
“After several minutes of shaking our heads, snapping more pictures, and getting over the disbelief of it all, Papa told me that this would be impossible to beat.”
It was comforting for the family after his death when they found Papa’s Bible open to Matthew 4. In verse 19 it states, “And Jesus said unto them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”
A 1.5-ton sandstone from a landscaped portion of Seth’s yard was pushed 20 feet when the speeding vehicle involved in the accident hit it. Seth’s well-manicured yard, including his crape myrtles that he planted and nursed through the winter, were affected by the crash.
“I was kind of angry because I had just spent a bunch of money on landscaping my yard, but then I thought ‘this is nothing compared to what Mrs. Streater is going through,’” Seth said.
As soon as he could, Seth said he fixed his yard up so that it looks much like it did before the crash. He said he didn’t want Mrs. Streater to see it and be reminded of her husband’s death.
His rocks are back in place and the crape myrtles have been straightened up and look like they are going to live.
“The end one (closest to Streater’s house), I named Billy,” Seth said. “I told him he has to take care of it and nourish it. It’s kind of scraggly, but I think it’s going to make it.”
