SORRENTO — If there is such a thing as social capital that one can build up throughout life, Charles “Buddy” Kilton did it. The lobsterman has been active in his community, helping out and being an all-around nice guy. Not just picking-up-the-mail-while-you’re-on-vacation nice, but upending-his-life-to-help-others nice. 

That was certainly the case in 1987 after Julie Eaton suffered a massive head injury from a car accident. Eaton didn’t remember much of her life before the accident, and she said she was left with the mental capacity of a child. She felt isolated and scared in a community she couldn’t remember. Kilton and Eaton were both pilots who had met at the Bar Harbor airport, and Kilton came to help. 

“When I finally came home and was able to do anything at all, this man who I didn’t remember”¦was extremely good to me, like a grandfather,” Eaton said.

Kilton cajoled Eaton to go out on the water with him. He showed her the beauty of the ocean and helped her develop the drive to recover from her head injury and become a commercial diver and fisherman.

“He kept telling me that the seagulls don’t care that you think you’re different.  Everything out here doesn’t matter,” she said.

With stories like these, it shouldn’t have come as any surprise to Kilton that when his time of need came more than a quarter of a century later, his community would be there for him.

Kilton is 80 now, and his wife, Marita, a longtime schoolteacher, is ailing.  Recently, his lobster boat engine finally died after being nursed along for years. It seemed a traditional time for retirement, but Kilton still loved lobstering almost as much as he loved his wife and family.

“It’s my life. I enjoy the ocean,” Kilton said. “It’s the prettiest spot in the world. It just gets better as you get older.”

When local lobstermen heard of Kilton’s plight, they sprang into action, said neighbor Mark Bennett. Together, they began to cobble together the funds to buy Kilton a working engine. It didn’t take long, Bennett said. 

“He’s done nothing but help people,” Bennett said. “It was no big deal for a bunch of us to chip in a little.”

Almost all the funds came from lobstermen, except for a chunk of money donated by a local woman whose family was once rescued by Kilton during a canoe trip in the fog. Kilton says the help didn’t stop there. While they were raising the money, the lobstermen also were taking turns checking his traps.

“A good bunch of boys,” Kilton said. “I never heard tell of that before.”

Bennett credits Roger Kennedy of Kennedy Marine in Steuben for making the effort possible. Kennedy took the parts from three lobster engines to make one functioning engine, and he made time for Kilton’s project despite a very busy schedule.

“He bent over backwards. If it wasn’t for him, it wouldn’t have happened,” Bennett said.

Now Kilton is out on the water again, his favorite place on Earth. Even though he knows he’s done some good for others, he marvels at his own good fortune. And in typical Kilton style, he hopes someday to pay back the good deeds his community has done for him.

“When you have friends like that, you don’t have enemies,” he said.