Around the Caveman Campfire

[unpredictablebijou]

It's one of the oldest traditions in story-telling: the heroic brag, the chest-beating, how-I-brought-that-buffalo-down tale. For any number of idiotic reasons, we aren't given the opportunity to tell the good stories about ourselves, or we're too modest and wait for others to tell them for us.

We are all superheroes, in our various contexts, and we all do the coolest and most heroic things on a regular basis. So here's the exercise: tell me, tell us, about that amazingly cool and heroic and laudable thing you did. It can be from a long time ago, or just yesterday. It can be as fabulous as saving a kitten from a burning building or as mundane as intrepidly navigating the 14 errands you had to do yesterday.

Feel free to tell more than one story. You may exaggerate freely, but try to stick to the basic truth, and make your narrative style epic, rather than your events. Try at least two: one in which you describe something truly conventionally heroic that you did, and one in which you narrate your general wonderfulness in epic style.

Here's my only suggestion for a limitation (I am NOT legislative). You may also post hero-stories about other people, but ONLY after you have posted at least three about yourself.

My entries will follow, as a sample.

I think you're all just fabulous, and I'm never wrong about stuff like that.
bijou

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Hero story #1

I am the hero of grocery shopping

For a long time we had a tradition of opening our home on Thursday nights for anyone who wanted to show up for dinner. Sometimes we had just a couple of friends over, and sometimes we had up to a dozen, or even more. It was often unclear how many would show up on any given night. Sometimes people would bring things to contribute and turn it into a potluck, and sometimes folks would just show up.

It was a really fun tradition, and it taught me a lot.

One week, Thursday was fast approaching and we were EXTREMELY POOR. I had about $20 to my name and nobody else in the household had any money at all. Thursday was looking pretty lean and embarrassing. Then on Thursday morning I got a call, and then another call, and another - this seemed to be the week that everybody was going to show up, and they were going to bring friends. And the pantry was leeeaaaan - breezes whistled across the empty shelves... We had oatmeal, and some crackers. Couple of weird cans of vegetables.

You might ask yourself why I didn't just ask a few people to contribute. Maybe I'm stubborn, or maybe that was just part of the challenge, and I wanted to see if I could actually pull it off.

$20. That was it. To feed about 12 people, maybe more.

I headed to the grocery store with no idea of how I was going to make this happen. I prayed on the way there to Odin, who is among other things the God of Hospitality and patron of the guest-host relationship.

Got the inspiration just as I hit the store. Quiche! Easy, cheap and fast, and impresses the hell out of guests. I spent, very carefully, the $20, and headed home.

Here's what my guests had that night: a choice of five fabulous different quiches - spinach mushroom, bacon, carmelized onion, salmon and some sort of combination of the previous four. I had just enough left to buy a can of blueberry pie filling. That and the oatmeal made a stunning little cobbler.

It was a massive success - some said the classiest Thursday meal we'd had in months. And no one noticed that just to be safe, I ate crackers for dinner so there would definitely be enough food to go round.

I am an excellent host.

bijou

 

[NoJo]

You're right about cool and heroic. Nothing springs to mind about myself right now, but by God some hosipital nurses make we weep bitter tears.

Here's something I did: I got home, exhausted, flopped on the sofa after a 12-hour day, at the end of a long week, and after two minutes my son came in the room in a bad mood because he was late for a show and would probably miss it. So I left my hot tea and comfortable sofa , and drove through the rainy rush hour traffic for an hour to get him there on time.

 

[Stella_Omega]

The last time my sister moved, it was in a hurry. I was able to be there and hold her hand while we packed. She rented a big-ass truck, which she was afraid to drive, so I drove it. She hired a couple of Spanish-speaking guys, and I was able to muster up enough of the language to communicate well with them.

To this day, she's in awe of my truck-driving abilities

Of course, if it were my own move, I'd be a long streak of misery about it.

 

[lesbiaphrodite]

I broke a girl's arm because she was making fun of a boy in class in the 5th grade.

 

[SeaCat]

This happened when I had just turned 18. To celebrate I headed up into the Maine New Hampshire area for a camping/hunting trip. It was succesful, I filled my card easily. I returned home with three good sized Bucks. Much more than my family needed.

I got home and unloaded the truck in the early afternoon. By that evening my parents and I had butchered them. The next day we started the tedious job of making sausages and smoked cuts. It was a lot of work but we got it done.

My parents and I talked it over then called around. At the end of the week we found what we were looking for. We started unloading the freezers into a bunch of coolers along with plenty of dry ice. Oh we emptied our freezers. In the coolers we loaded almost a hundred pounds of mixed meats. Venison, Pork, Duck, Rabbit you name it. All of it was loaded into the back of my truck and hauled down to the local Food Pantry. They could use it and we didn't really need it.

This started something with me. Every year I donate to the local food pantries. I did this even when I didn't have enough for me, I always found something to help out with.

Cat

 

[unpredictablebijou]

You see I was right again.

You people rock.

bijou

 

[lisa123414]

I still wonder sometimes, how this could have been real. In college, I lived in a co-op with fifty-two other very diverse folks. There was a man in the house, older than most of the students, but certainly under thirty. Sensitive and unusual, he was not a student but as kids, we accepted him and looked out for him. Turned out he was bi-polar, our co-op was his halfway house.

One day after class, I went to the kitchen to prepare dinner for us all, this being my job for the week. All the knives were gone from the kitchen. I looked around for someone who might explain to me what was going on.

"Dave is off his meds,'" I was told by our resident pre-med. The rest of that day and evening was spent as a tag team, we all took turns keeping company with Dave.

My turn was late, maybe 11 pm. Everyone else had either gone to sleep or fallen asleep, worn out by Dave's manic activities. Dave decided to go out, and looking around seeing no one else, I asked if I could keep him company. He told me he did not mind, but i could see he did.

We left the house and began to walk down Washtenaw Avenue, Dave talking a blue streak and me trying to keep up. I still worry that somehow I precipitated this, that I did not give him the answers that he sought but for what reason, I will never know, Dave decided to run into the street and lie down.

Washtenaw Avenue is a four lane broadway, maybe 45 mph at the place where we lived. It was dark and i could see cars coming, and I knew they would not see him until it was too late.

I am tall and strong, but not this strong, at the time probably 140 lbs, where Dave weighed 190 maybe. Anyway, I went into the street and carried him out. Exhausted and crying I held him for a moment, trying to find words to tell him everything would be okay. He jumped up and ran off into the night, but I could not follow him.

He came back to us a few months later, after a stay at the state hospital. I do not know where he is now.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

my second entry

I had a job as a librarian in a small community college, night shift, back in the late 80's. The student population was diverse in every respect: age, race, economic status. There were returning adult students in their 60's and high school dropouts trying to get their GED's. Many of the students were there because it was in a pretty disadvantaged neighborhood and the school was easy to get to on the bus lines or walking.

One night two students came in to check out a book on reserve. They were youngish and seemed to be a couple. They checked out the book, but I was distracted and didn't do the right paperwork, so when it turned out that they didn't return the book, my supervisor came to me to ask for descriptions of the students so they could be found in class. It was assumed that they weren't criminals or anything, just forgetful.

I'm pretty observant. I was able to give her a lot of detail: height, build, facial shape, jewelry, piercings and tattoos, clothing, age, hair and eye color, even some guesses about their relationship - turned out I was right, actually. One thing I wasn't clear on was gender, but I made a guess that turned out to be right - it wasn't that they were so androgynous, but that I don't tend to pay attention to that very much.

My supervisor listened patiently to all this detail, and congratulated me on being so observant. Then she said, "Dear, I really, really hate to have to go here, but it's necessary. Can you tell me anything about what race they were?"

I thought and thought. I tried to remember skin color. Maybe... I didn't know. Hair and eye color wasn't really giving us any leads. I made a guess, which turned out to be mostly correct, but I honestly had no idea. Jan looked at me in amazement. "You really are colorblind," she said.

They found the students. Turns out one was Hispanic and one was African-American. I was right about all the other details. And they of course weren't thieves, just forgetful.

One more of these entries and I can start telling hero stories about other people too...

bijou

and by the way, the stories I'm seeing in here are astounding. Beautiful. Everyone's a hero, on a daily basis.

 

[SeaCat]

My wife and I had been living in Southern lorida for maybe a year. We didn't have a whole lot.

We had driven even further south to check out a mall near Ft. Lauderdale. As we were returning home we were aught in one of those nice southern Downpours. You know the kind. The ones that make highways look like rivers?

We hadn't quite made it back to I-95 and had just been passed by two ducks in a Kayak when we saw a car off the side of the road. It wasn't all that fancy, in fact it was kind of beat up. I pulled over and got out of the van and slopped my way over to the car. It was mired in the mud up to it's ubs and the engine was shut off. When I got to the car the driver, an older guy, rolled down his window. It took a bit of shouting over the rain to understand that not only was he mired, an late for his sons wedding, but he was out of gas. I told him to hang tight and went back to the van.

Opening the back of the van I dug through the pile there and pulled out a couple of items while telling my wife what I was going to do. Going back to the car I dug down and under it until I found a part of the frame. I hooked the free end of a cable to the car then ran it back to the van afte telling the old couple to make sure their car was in neutral.

I ran this cable through several blocks before attaching it to a comealong. It took a bit of work but before too long I was able to crank their car out of the mud. When theri car was on solid ground I unhooked and coiled the cable and returned it to the van before grabbing a large umbrella, (which my wife carried for me,) and a five gallon can of gas. This I emptied into their tank.

I waited until they got their car started before cimbing back into the van. (The old guy wanted my address so he could send me some money for the gas. I told him to forget about it and have a good time at the wedding.)

It was a miserable drive home, an hour and a half in soaking wet clothes. (Wet denims chafe and put pressure where you don't really want it when you're driving.) To me though it was worth it.

Cat

 

[champagne1982]

One night on the heart ward
I was lying awake,
the light was on by my bed.
My roommate was restless
and likely in pain and so,
this is wait I said,

Don't think that you're weak
to want to cry,
just let your tears fall.
You're mourning your death,
that never was and the memory
of passing, that's all.

She looked and she blinked
and realized in her heart
that what I had said was true.
Having your chest carved into bits
will absolutely give you the blues.

 

[cloudy]

I do a few things for Pine Ridge.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I do a few things for Pine Ridge.

At this point Cloudy and I would get into a debate about what kinds of things would be required to truly make a difference at Pine Ridge, and everyone else would retire to their tents to turn in.

 

[cloudy]

At this point Cloudy and I would get into a debate about what kinds of things would be required to truly make a difference at Pine Ridge, and everyone else would retire to their tents to turn in.

Not up to it Roxanne. Have at it.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Not up to it Roxanne. Have at it.

Nuh-uh. We're not camping, I haven't had any brandy, and I'm not gonna threadjack. But you know if the first two conditions were met that this is just what would happen, and you wouldn't be able to hold back . . .

 

[cloudy]

Nuh-uh. We're not camping, I haven't had any brandy, and I'm not gonna threadjack. But you know if the first two conditions were met that this is just what would happen, and you wouldn't be able to hold back . . .

Whatever. You know it all, I know nothing. Yada, yada, yada.

There. Be happy.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

one more hero story and a bump

I'm bumping this thread just once, primarily because the stories I was seeing in here were so worthwhile and beautiful that more people deserve to see them.

I'll also tell my third hero story, so that I can perhaps start telling hero stories about other people as well, although that's not the primary goal of this challenge.

I was at a camping event a few years back, one of those "pagan" festivals at which ostensibly the attendees were worshipers of Mother Earth in one way or another. It was the last day of fest and everyone was busy packing to leave. This particular festival had great recycling facilities: individual barrels near every dumpster for pre-sorted glass, plastic, aluminum and such.

I was passing one of those stations on the way to my car, and saw a man walk up with a bag of trash. It was obviously un-sorted, full of beer bottles and soda cans. I watched him consciously decide not to walk the extra ten feet to the actual dumpster, but rather drop the bag unceremoniously next to the recycling bins and walk away.

I lost my goddamn mind. I went to the car and grabbed some work gloves and changed my shirt, and then I went back and sorted his trash. When I threw the rest in the dumpster, I looked over the edge of the 40-foot roll-off, and was shocked to see hundreds of beer bottles, cans, and an appalling number of plastic water bottles. Pretty soon I was leaning over the side of the dumpster, tossing bottles behind me and then gathering them to take to the bins, and then before I knew it I was actually IN the dumpster, the whole time yelling at the top of my lungs about goddamn pagans who don't walk the talk, and so on. People approaching couldn't see me; they could hear a disembodied diatribe coming from inside the roll-off.

While I sorted trash, various people came up to see what was happening, or to drop off their trash. I'd pop up from inside the dumpster and ask them if they had sorted their trash. Most of them would proudly declare that they had, and I'd take their bags and throw them in. Many asked, shocked, if this was my workshift or something, and I'd say no, I'm just doing this because it's fun.

The folks who hadn't sorted their trash gave a lot of excuses. So I'd climb down from the dumpster and offer to sort their trash with them then and there. We'd go through their trash together and I'd brightly enthuse about what I found: "Wow, look at all these beer bottles. These are recyclable, you know, and see, there's a bin for them right over there! Cool, huh?"

It's funny, no one is quite willing to argue with an obviously insane woman who has emerged from a dumpster. I was somehow an authority figure, and no one dared refuse my offer to "help them sort their trash" right there.

If you'd told me I was in there 45 minutes I'd have believed you. I sorted the whole roll-off, and after a while various people began to wander by to see who was in the dumpster bellowing Sinatra tunes and tossing beer bottles over the side. Several of them stayed for a while to help retrieve the recyclables and put them into their respective bins. Turns out I was in there for about 5 hours. At some point one of the camp staff came and shot some video of what has been referred to since then as my "educational diatribe". I was always nice to people when they approached, but when there was no one around people could hear me for about a hundred yards: "Who the fuck smokes Camel Menthols? You fucker, look at these Miller bottles; there's about a thousand of them. I'm hunting you down, y'bastard..."

They're now using that footage as a training film for new staff that works the festival. And for the past couple of years, they've let me do that as my volunteer workshift, and they've given me a "Dumpster Varmint" crew to help, stationing us at the various drop points to educate people about recycling.

If anyone asks me what I'm most proud of ever doing in my entire life, that's it. Last year I made "Varmint" t-shirts for everyone on my crew, and had several volunteers show up who had already put in their work time but just wanted to help. And this year, despite the fact that I smelled like, well, a dumpster, a very fine-looking young man made a distinct pass at me while I was working. So I guess truth is beauty after all.

bijou

 

[tickledkitty]

When I was in college, there was a blind girl who lived in my dorm. She was able to get around pretty well to go to her classes, except sometimes she had trouble crossing the main street out front. It was 4 lanes and very busy.

One afternoon I was sitting in my room watching TV, and I happened to glance out the window and saw the blind girl standing on the corner waiting to cross the street. She made a couple false starts but then would quickly get back up on the curb. Because of all the noise, she was having a hard time hearing when the traffic stopped.

So then, a big crowd of students came up and kind of surrounded her, and I figured somebody would help her cross. I went back to watching TV and kind of forgot about it.

About 10 minutes later, I happened to glance out again, and noticed the blind girl was still standing there on the corner. People kept walking by, but nobody would help her. Either they were all self-absorbed or just pretended not to notice. I don't know, but it really pissed me off.

So, I ran down from my 4th floor room and across the parking lot and helped her cross the street. She was so grateful it made me want to cry.

After that, I kept an eye out for her. I've never understood how people can walk right by someone who's in trouble and keep going.

 

[SeaCat]

I'm bumping this thread just once, primarily because the stories I was seeing in here were so worthwhile and beautiful that more people deserve to see them.

I'll also tell my third hero story, so that I can perhaps start telling hero stories about other people as well, although that's not the primary goal of this challenge.

I was at a camping event a few years back, one of those "pagan" festivals at which ostensibly the attendees were worshipers of Mother Earth in one way or another. It was the last day of fest and everyone was busy packing to leave. This particular festival had great recycling facilities: individual barrels near every dumpster for pre-sorted glass, plastic, aluminum and such.

I was passing one of those stations on the way to my car, and saw a man walk up with a bag of trash. It was obviously un-sorted, full of beer bottles and soda cans. I watched him consciously decide not to walk the extra ten feet to the actual dumpster, but rather drop the bag unceremoniously next to the recycling bins and walk away.

I lost my goddamn mind. I went to the car and grabbed some work gloves and changed my shirt, and then I went back and sorted his trash. When I threw the rest in the dumpster, I looked over the edge of the 40-foot roll-off, and was shocked to see hundreds of beer bottles, cans, and an appalling number of plastic water bottles. Pretty soon I was leaning over the side of the dumpster, tossing bottles behind me and then gathering them to take to the bins, and then before I knew it I was actually IN the dumpster, the whole time yelling at the top of my lungs about goddamn pagans who don't walk the talk, and so on. People approaching couldn't see me; they could hear a disembodied diatribe coming from inside the roll-off.

While I sorted trash, various people came up to see what was happening, or to drop off their trash. I'd pop up from inside the dumpster and ask them if they had sorted their trash. Most of them would proudly declare that they had, and I'd take their bags and throw them in. Many asked, shocked, if this was my workshift or something, and I'd say no, I'm just doing this because it's fun.

The folks who hadn't sorted their trash gave a lot of excuses. So I'd climb down from the dumpster and offer to sort their trash with them then and there. We'd go through their trash together and I'd brightly enthuse about what I found: "Wow, look at all these beer bottles. These are recyclable, you know, and see, there's a bin for them right over there! Cool, huh?"

It's funny, no one is quite willing to argue with an obviously insane woman who has emerged from a dumpster. I was somehow an authority figure, and no one dared refuse my offer to "help them sort their trash" right there.

If you'd told me I was in there 45 minutes I'd have believed you. I sorted the whole roll-off, and after a while various people began to wander by to see who was in the dumpster bellowing Sinatra tunes and tossing beer bottles over the side. Several of them stayed for a while to help retrieve the recyclables and put them into their respective bins. Turns out I was in there for about 5 hours. At some point one of the camp staff came and shot some video of what has been referred to since then as my "educational diatribe". I was always nice to people when they approached, but when there was no one around people could hear me for about a hundred yards: "Who the fuck smokes Camel Menthols? You fucker, look at these Miller bottles; there's about a thousand of them. I'm hunting you down, y'bastard..."

They're now using that footage as a training film for new staff that works the festival. And for the past couple of years, they've let me do that as my volunteer workshift, and they've given me a "Dumpster Varmint" crew to help, stationing us at the various drop points to educate people about recycling.

If anyone asks me what I'm most proud of ever doing in my entire life, that's it. Last year I made "Varmint" t-shirts for everyone on my crew, and had several volunteers show up who had already put in their work time but just wanted to help. And this year, despite the fact that I smelled like, well, a dumpster, a very fine-looking young man made a distinct pass at me while I was working. So I guess truth is beauty after all.

bijou

LOLOLOL

That's what you mean by Fireside?

I call it Dumpster Diving and have been guilty of it too many time to count.

Last year we had a patient on my unit come up missing something. Her sister had been in Italy and had visited the Vatican. She had picked up a Rosary that had been blessed by Pope John Paul for her Sister. It had vanished. I thought about it for a bit then talked to her Aide. I went down to the bottom of the Linen Chute that Aide used and armed with several Linen Bags started sorting through the used linen. It took me almost an hour but I found the Rosary and returned it after cleaning it.

Cat

 

[cloudy]

I worked for too many years at JCPenney as a manager.

When I was younger, I'd gotten my lifesaving certification, and then moved on to my Water Safety Instructor certification (I keep it current, but have no idea why, really). It came in handy one day at work.

I was standing in the Junior department helping a lady when her sister rushed in, obviously distraught, and said, "Something's wrong with mother!"

I yelled for an associate to call 911, and then followed the women into the mall just outside the store entrance. An elderly lady was lying on the floor, and she wasn't breathing.

I immediately started CPR. I couldn't get her to breathe on her own, and I remember begging her to breathe, and crying as I did the chest compressions. Seems like it took forever for the EMTs to get there, but I'm sure it didn't.

I found out later on that she'd had open heart surgery before. Sadly, she died at the hospital. It wasn't the end of the story, though.

About a week later, a man came into the store looking for me. It was her son. He thanked me for doing what I could to help his mother. In his words, "Not many would have even tried." I cried again.

Still not the end of the story.

It just happened, coincidence, that I was the manager on duty that day, and that I was also the only manager that knew CPR. At my prodding, and because of this incident, they instituted a region-wide program to certify all management in CPR, just in case something ever happened again, and I wasn't there.

Not a hero, maybe. Didn't save anyone's life. But just possibly, I did down the road, in some small way.

 

[WRJames]

When I was in graduate school, I lived in what is now referred to as the Upper West Side, but in those days it was Spanish Harlem. About two weeks before I was to get married, I was walking down Broadway, and I heard this woman screaming something (in Spanish). There was a black boy, about fourteen years old running in my direction, clutching a bag of groceries. He had stolen them from the woman and was making off with them. As he ran by, I stuck out a foot and tripped him. He dropped the bag, the woman retrieved it, she thanked me profusely. A little crowd that had gathered was applauding me.

Pretty heroic, right? Except, that’s not the end of the story. I was proceeding on down the street, basking in my new found glory, when all of a sudden this little kid, who really was not so little, was confronting me – “What did you trip me for? My uncle gave me that bag!” And, from what seemed like an impossible distance, a fist came out and smashed my nose – not that hard, really, but I had a zit healing on it and it started to bleed. So at that point, I was thinking, if I attack this kid, he probably has a knife, I’m going to die in the street, two weeks before my wedding, after all the work we did to get it arranged, and my wife to be is going to be really pissed. So then I did something really, truly heroic. I very calmly told the kid to get lost before I called the cops. And he did.

 

[SeaCat]

I worked for too many years at JCPenney as a manager.

When I was younger, I'd gotten my lifesaving certification, and then moved on to my Water Safety Instructor certification (I keep it current, but have no idea why, really). It came in handy one day at work.

I was standing in the Junior department helping a lady when her sister rushed in, obviously distraught, and said, "Something's wrong with mother!"

I yelled for an associate to call 911, and then followed the women into the mall just outside the store entrance. An elderly lady was lying on the floor, and she wasn't breathing.

I immediately started CPR. I couldn't get her to breathe on her own, and I remember begging her to breathe, and crying as I did the chest compressions. Seems like it took forever for the EMTs to get there, but I'm sure it didn't.

I found out later on that she'd had open heart surgery before. Sadly, she died at the hospital. It wasn't the end of the story, though.

About a week later, a man came into the store looking for me. It was her son. He thanked me for doing what I could to help his mother. In his words, "Not many would have even tried." I cried again.

Still not the end of the story.

It just happened, coincidence, that I was the manager on duty that day, and that I was also the only manager that knew CPR. At my prodding, and because of this incident, they instituted a region-wide program to certify all management in CPR, just in case something ever happened again, and I wasn't there.

Not a hero, maybe. Didn't save anyone's life. But just possibly, I did down the road, in some small way.

CPR is never fun to perform and many who have been trained will refuse to do it when the time comes. Your doing it shows just how strong you are.

Kudo's to you.

Cat

 

[SeaCat]

The story of Smokey. (A.K.A. Crack Head)

The Police had raided an established Crack House downtown several days before. I was walking home from work and passing the place when I heard a noise. It was faint and I almost ignored it but it came again.

It was a small noise, a faint noise. I looked around for a bit trying to find it's source. Finally I looked at the Crack House and saw one of it's windows was slightly open. I walked over and looked in to see a kitten laying in the middle of the floor. I called to it several times and it just lifted it's head to look at me before curling up again. I couldn't let this be. It went against how I felt even though my wife and I weren't in the market for a pet.

I looked around and seeing no one around I broke the window and crawled inside. The kitten didn't move away from me as I came closer, then again it barely moved at all.

When I picked it up it barely filled my hand. When I picked it up it barely even moved to look at me.

I slipped this kitten into my jacket pocket then climbed back out through the broken window. I walked home with my hand in my pocket holding the kitten. When I got home my wife just shook her head and started getting a box ready for the kitten. I nixed that idea, the kitten would be in bed with us. That night the kitten attacked me, she tried to bite and scratch. She also shivered and mewled like you never heard. It was obvious she was in hell. (I think she may have found and sampled some of the product.)

Slowly she recovered and gained weight. Slowly she got over her mistrust of me and my wife. (Although she still did have her moments.) It took us over a year to Litter Box Train her, and she still has accidents.

Now she lives in the bedroom. She refuses to come out and socialise with the other Cats. (She allows Bubba in but not the Herd.) When I walk into the bedroom she insists on being scratched. When I climb into bed she hops up and curls up next to my head.

All of my cats are rescued in one way or another.

Cat

 

[SeaCat]

I got a strange look but a ton of thanks today.

I have been gathering window mount A/C's from dumpsters and fixing those I could fix. (Those I couldn't fix I canibalised for parts.) I had 25 of them sitting out back.

It's been hot lately. Today was a normal day down here. It reached 94 degrees and had a Heat Index of 110 degrees.

I piled a number of the A/C's in the back of the car and drove to a spot I had found through a bit of research. It was the office of the Division of Childrens and Elderly Affairs. I showed up and informed them I had a load of A/C's for those who needed them. They looked at me like I was insane as I unloaded the ones I had in the car. I told them I had more.

Before long they were looking at 25 units sitting in their back parking lot.

They told me they couldn't pay for them, their budget was on the low side. I told them they didn't have to pay for them. They all worked and they were free.

They went nuts. They didn't know what to think but they knew they had plenty of people who needed the units. They couldn't believe it when I said the units were theirs.

Over the past several years the state has withdawn funding from the Elderly Affairs unit. They don't have the funding to supply the eldelry with more than food. (And in many cases they can't even afford to do that.) Now they have 25 A/C units to help those who need it the most.

Hey it gave me something to do fixing these things. Yes I could have sold them but why? I gave them to those who needed them and I certainly didn't lose anything but my time.

Cat

 

[unpredictablebijou]

You people are absolutely extraordinary. You deserve to be told that a lot more often.

bijou