Chuck Bleeg, pushing 97, suffered a stroke last year. The man has no reason to come to work at a business that no longer needs him. The truth is that Bleeg needs the business.

So, there he was last week, with a cane in his right hand and his daughter's hand on his left shoulder as he climbed the steps to his office.

He gingerly made his way to sit behind a cluttered desk and stare out the window and what he calls "The Lot," a used car lot bearing his name in the 1500 block of Northeast Sandy Boulevard.

He's owned it and worked there for 53 years. To sit in that quiet office with Bleeg, not intruding in the silence, is to be reminded that all of us, if we're fortunate, have something like The Lot in our lives.

Maybe it's the card table where you meet the guys each week to trash talk and win, or lose, a bit of money. Perhaps it's the monthly book club where the book isn't as important as the fellowship. These places, wherever or whatever they may be, add meaning and an anchor to our lives.

In addition to this property, which developers covet, Bleeg and his wife of 67 years have other properties and assets. He's wealthy. He comes here because The Lot is the source of his identity and strength. The day he can't come here, is the day he dies.

The old man listens to this theory, smiles and nods.

"All my buddies are dead," he said. "This is where I belong. I pay the bills and I write the checks. Let me tell you, I have things to do."

Bleeg recently renewed his Oregon license needed to sell cars. It's good for three years. Do the math. You have to love the man's optimism, the hallmark of any great salesman.

"I have cars to sell," he said. "I like making deals."

He came to life, sitting up behind that desk and pointing out the window.

"Let me tell you about that Buick out there," he said. "A beautiful car. Clean. New, that cost $40,000. I can get you in it for $4,000. Now, that's a deal."

He's had two constants in his life: The Lot and Virginia, his 91-year-old wife. They lived around the corner from each other in inner Northeast Portland as kids. After serving in World War II, Bleeg returned to the city, graduated from the University of Portland and went to work for a company that sold insurance to Portland car dealers.

"He was at my father's house frequently," his wife said. "They'd be down in the basement workshop for hours. One night, Chuck asked me out for a beer. It was a real date, and that was the beginning."

After getting married, Bleeg told his wife he didn't like selling insurance. He hated being in an office. His dream was to sell cars. They had a few kids, and it seemed risky, but his wife backed him.

From his contacts, he learned of a small lot for sale. He snapped it up. Over the decades, Bleeg has sold cars to the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those early customers.

But the glory days have ended. Of the 20 cars left on the lot, half don't run. His daughter, Sarah Morris, theorizes that her father can't part with the junkers. To do so would be getting rid of a part of himself.

Growing up, Morris said the family drove cars from the lot. But never anything fancy. Those were for customers.

"We never knew what he'd bring home," she said. "We had a hearse in the driveway for a while, off-brand cars and some that were a bit embarrassing, crappy and ugly."

For decades, Bleeg worked six days a week at The Lot. The money he made there allowed him to send all seven of his kids to private Portland schools and then to public colleges.

"I'm not descended from royalty," his daughter said. "I'm a used car dealer's daughter."

These days, Morris and her siblings juggle things in their busy lives to pick up their father and drive him to work. It can be frustrating. It makes no sense, but he's adamant. The children think about the years when he had bills to pay and kids to feed and educate. There were times, they know now as adults, when he didn't want to work.

But he did.

They get him there.

One day, the lights will be turned off in that office. The remaining cars will be sold at bargain prices or taken to the scrap heap. The place will disappear, likely becoming home to one of those big apartment complexes.

The Lot had a good run.

So, too, the old salesman.

--Tom Hallman Jr.

thallman@oregonian.com; 503 221-8224

@thallmanjr