Good News For You!

Easter-The Best News of All

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 22:31:19 GMT

As I give praise and honor to my risen Savior on this Easter Day,
I share with you some music which speaks of Who He is and what He means to me...

Was It A Morning Like This-Sandi Patty

More Than Wonderful-Sandi Patty and Larnelle Harris

BEST LAWYER STORY OF THE YEAR

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:39:36 GMT

This may not start out sounding like a "good news" story...but read to the end.....

BEST LAWYER STORY OF THE YEAR

Charlotte, North Carolina

A lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive cigars, then insured them against, among other things, fire.

Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars and without yet having made even his first premium payment on the policy the lawyer filed a claim against the insurance company.

In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost 'in a series of small fires.'

The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason, that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion.

The lawyer sued and WON!

(Stay with me.)

Delivering the ruling, the judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous. The judge stated nevertheless, that the lawyer held a policy from the company, which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure them against fire, without defining w hat is considered to be unacceptable 'fire' and was obligated to pay the claim.

Rather than endure lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15,000 to the lawyer for his loss of the cigars lost in the 'fires'.

NOW FOR THE BEST PART...

After the lawyer cashed the check, the insurance company had him arrested on

24 counts of ARSON!!!

With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and was sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000 fine.

This is a true story and was the First Place winner in the recent Criminal Lawyers Award Contest.

ONLY IN AMERICA , NO WONDER THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES THINK WE'RE NUTS!

Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage.

Thrift store worker finds $30,000 in cash; returns it

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 21:03:30 GMT

POMONA, California (AP) -- A thrift store worker in Southern California says she didn't think twice about returning $30,000 she found in donated clothing.

Barbarita Nunez was sorting clothes on Tuesday at the Veterans Thrift Store when she found a small box. Inside was an envelope of cash. Nunez said at first she thought the money was fake. But just in case, she gave it to her supervisor.

The money turned out to belong to a woman who had recently died. It was returned to her family, who gave Nunez a cash reward.

Nunez said she will send some of the reward to Mexico so her mother can have an eye operation and will use the rest to buy a digital camera.

His cup runneth over: a warrior's thanks

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:30:12 GMT

Associated Press article:

By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent 47 minutes ago

The Japanese fighter caught the American pilot from behind, riddling his plane with machine-gun rounds. The left engine burst into flames. It was time to bail out.

He yanked on the release lever but the cockpit canopy only half-opened. He unbuckled his seat belt, rose to shake the canopy loose and was instantly sucked out.

Swinging beneath his opened parachute, he plunged toward a Pacific island jungle of thick, towering eucalyptus trees, of crocodile rivers and headhunters, into enemy territory, and into an unimagined future as a hero, "Suara Auru," Chief Warrior, to generations of islanders yet unborn.

___

Fred Hargesheimer was shot down in the southwest Pacific on June 5, 1943. A lifetime later, he sits in his quiet California ranch house amid the snow and soaring sugar pines of the Sierra Nevada foothills.

The light blue eyes, at age 91, can't see as well as they once did. But when he looks back over 65 years, the smiling Minnesotan sees it all clearly — the struggle to survive, the native rescuers, the Japanese patrols and narrow escapes, the mother's milk that saved him. He remembers well his return to New Britain, the people's embrace, the fundraising and building, the children taught, the adults cured, the happy years beside the Bismarck Sea with Dorothy, his wife.

"I'm so grateful for getting shot out of the sky," he says.

Garua Peni is grateful, too, as a member of those once-future generations here on New Britain.

"I thank God from the depths of my heart for blessing me in such an abundant way when He brought Suara Auru Fred Hargesheimer," she says.

The improbable story of "Mastah Preddi," a story of uncommon gratitude and the heart's uncanny ways, begins when the 27-year-old Army lieutenant crashes to the tangled underbrush of the jungle floor.

___

Picking himself up, "Hargy" Hargesheimer found no broken bones, but felt a bloody gash on his head, the graze of a bullet or shrapnel. He cut off bits of nylon parachute for a bandage. Then he looked around.

He had been on a photo-reconnaissance mission from his base on the main island of New Guinea, tracking ship movements around Japanese-occupied New Britain, a primitive, 370-mile-long crescent of hot, dark, mist-shrouded forests fringed by smoldering volcanos, 700 miles from northeastern Australia.

He came down halfway up the slopes of the 4,000-foot-high Nakanai mountains, in a wilderness of torrential rains, giant ferns, venomous insects and vicious wild pigs whose tusks could kill a man. Hargesheimer checked his survival kit, finding compass, machete, extra ammunition for his pistol, and two bars of concentrated chocolate, his only food.

First he set out southward, hoping to cross the mountains and reach New Britain's south coast, and somehow from there the island of New Guinea, 300 miles across the Solomon Sea. Steep and muddy slopes defeated him, however, and he turned north instead, toward the Bismarck Sea. Remembering the small inflatable raft in his kit, he tried floating down a stream, but a huge crocodile reared up and sent him scrambling back ashore.

Day by day, he pushed agonizingly through the choking jungle, hoping for a trail or clearing. At night, he recalled, he'd lie beneath a parachute shelter, dreaming he was home in bed in Rochester, Minn.

After 10 days, as his chocolate dwindled, he came upon a riverside clearing and an empty native lean-to, and decided to settle in, start a fire with his emergency matches, and hunt for food. Snails he found in the riverbed became his staple for weeks to come, roasted by the dozen.

His daily existence in the jungle was miserable. Leeches clung to his skin. Flying insects sought out his eyes and nose. Losing weight and strength, out of matches and desperately keeping his fire going, he suffered through nightmares of dying alone in the jungle. From his youthful days as an Episcopalian lay reader, the lost pilot summoned words of hope.

"The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want," he told himself, over and over. From memory each day, he'd recite that 23rd Psalm to its comforting final verse, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life..."

And on the 31st day, he heard voices on the river. When they came to him, he cried.

___

Villagers here on the north coast had seen the distant plane go down. Now, in an outrigger canoe on an upriver hunting trip, they had their eyes out for a pilot.

Finding Hargesheimer by the riverside, Lauo, their "luluai," or chief, showed the bearded, haggard white man a note written by an Australian officer saying these villagers had saved other pilots and could be trusted.

That night by the river, Lauo's party exploded with wild singing and feasting, unnerving the young American, who had been warned by intelligence officers of headhunters in these highlands. Then, as they sang in an island tongue, he picked out the melody: "Onward, Christian Soldiers." He felt reassured.

They took him downriver to their seaside village, Ea Ea, a place of grass-roofed lean-tos. They gave him a hut and fed him boiled pig, shellfish and taro, their starchy tuber mainstay. He went fishing with them in their canoes under cover of darkness, and began to learn Pidgin, the islanders' simple, English-based common language.

In his tattered aviator's uniform, he joined in services each Sunday led by three Christian missionaries, natives who had fled New Britain's main town, Rabaul, when the Japanese landed 17 months earlier.

Because enemy troops patrolled the beaches, Hargesheimer spent many days in a hut hidden in a nearby swamp. But one day he was caught away from his hideout when an alarm went up that Japanese were approaching. Village friend Joseph Gabu led the American into the rain forest, sending him up a eucalyptus tree to hide.

Through the night, he was tormented by swarms of mosquitoes, until finally the next day Gabu came for him. All was clear, but within weeks Hargesheimer was stricken with the severe chills and fever of mosquito-borne malaria.

It left him prostrate, weakening, not eating for days. He asked for milk, but there was none. Then the missionary Apelis asked whether he would drink "susu." He brought his wife, Ida, to the hut, carrying their month-old baby.

She slipped behind the grass wall and returned with a cup of milk. For 10 or more days following, she supplied Hargesheimer with her "susu," mother's milk that helped restore his health.

Villagers protected "Mastah Preddi" — Master Freddie — apparently because they hated the Japanese for their cruel treatment of natives. Time and again, the low echo of a conch shell blown by a villager would warn of Japanese. If Mastah Preddi wore his boots as he rushed to hide, children would follow with makeshift brooms, sweeping away his prints from the sand.

The village took a great risk by protecting him from the Japanese, he says.

"If they'd seen my boot prints, I think they would have tortured everyone in the village until they produced me."

When he finally left, "some of them wanted me to take their children back to the States with me," he recalls, sitting so many years later in the afternoon light at his dining table, sharing indelible memories of human kindness.

Fred Hargesheimer walked repeatedly through the 23rd Psalm's "valley of the shadow of death," always emerging safely with the help of the people of Ea Ea.

___

In February 1944, eight months after he was shot down, Hargesheimer was picked up from a New Britain beach by a U.S. submarine, in a rendezvous arranged by Australian "coastwatcher" commandos operating behind Japanese lines.

He returned to civilian life after the war ended in 1945. By then he had married Dorothy Sheldon of Ashtabula, Ohio, and by 1949 they had three children — Richard, Eric and Carol. In 1951, he took a sales job with a Minnesota forerunner of computer maker Sperry Rand, his employer ever after.

But the people of Ea Ea never left his mind. He corresponded with a missionary to learn how they had fared. He studied and restudied international air schedules.

"The more I thought about my experience with the people in New Guinea, the more I realized what a debt I had to try to repay," he says.

In 1960, with the family vacation money and the family's blessing, Hargesheimer made a solitary, 11,000-mile journey back to New Britain, biggest outer island of Papua New Guinea, then Australian-run, now independent.

The villagers, hearing Mastah Preddi was coming, lined the beach and sang "God Save the Queen" as he stepped from a boat in the moonlight.

"It was wonderful, overwhelming," he says. He was met by Luluai Lauo, Joseph Gabu and others, and later found Ida and her 16-year-old son, to thank her, too.

But "a simple thank you didn't seem enough," he recalls. Back home, he consulted with a missionary, who told him what the people needed: a school.

The Minnesota salesman went to work, canvassing relatives, meeting with church groups, speaking to service organizations. He raised $15,000 over three years, "most of it $5 and $10 gifts."

With the money and 17-year-old son Dick in tow, he returned to New Britain in 1963. He was given church land in Ewasse, a central settlement near Ea Ea, now renamed Nantabu. There a contractor raised the area's first permanent elementary school — cement floor, metal roof, sturdy walls.

He brought in New Guinean teachers, American volunteers and an Australian headmaster, and the Airmen's Memorial School opened in 1964 with 40 pupils and four classrooms. But Fred Hargesheimer wasn't finished.

Back in the U.S., a brief spurt of publicity drew more contributions, he got more ideas, and this story of a debt repaid grew, decade by decade. But it was a story little known or celebrated beyond New Britain's welcoming villages.

In 1969, his fund built a library at the school and a clinic for Ewasse. By then, too, the school's successful plot of oil palm helped pave the way for a large plantation of the lucrative crop, with scores of jobs, easing the deep poverty here in Bialla district. Rows of the stout palms today blanket the hills, property of Belgian-owned Hargy Oil Palm Ltd., west of a large lake named Hargy.

Once his own children were grown, Hargesheimer saw an opportunity to "say thank you in a meaningful way." In 1970, he and Dorothy packed up and moved to New Britain, to teach the children themselves and to build a second school — this time closer to Nantabu, next door in the village of Noau, at the foot of the smoking Mount Ulawan volcano.

Garua Peni, then 10, was one of their first students.

"I thought, 'Wow! They left their place to come here for us, just to share themselves with us,'" she recalls.

Dorothy said their four years here were the best of their lives, despite New Britain's difficulties — of supplies, transportation, the surprises of local culture.

"Dorothy sometimes had a problem registering children, because they would change their names often, just on a whim," Hargesheimer recalls with a laugh.

But the couple, leaving New Britain in 1974, had less than a dozen more years left together. In 1985, at age 63, Dorothy Hargesheimer died of a heart attack.

The old pilot flew on alone, visiting New Britain every two or three years, funneling fresh funds into his causes, finding ever-warm embraces. On a visit in 2000, they proclaimed him, in a great tribute, "Suara Auru," "Chief Warrior" in the local Nakanai language.

Then, in 2006, Fred Hargesheimer, at 90, returned for what he said would be his last visit.

Life had changed here since he first walked in the shadow of Mount Ulawan. Grass huts have given way to concrete-block houses, conch shells to cell phones. The men favor slacks over sarongs and all the women wear tops. Blue-eyed cockatoos may still squawk in the forest, but their eucalyptus trees are falling to loggers by the millions.

As he was carried past them in a ceremonial canoe and Nakanai headdress, thousands cheered. "The people were very happy. They'll always remember what Mr. Fred Hargesheimer has done for our people," says Ismael Saua, 69, a former teacher at the Airmen's school.

Mastah Preddi had come back for a special reason: His old P-38 fighter had been found deep in the jungle. He was flown by helicopter up the winding Pandi River, the river he once descended by canoe, and then carried in a chair by Nakanai men to the site, to view what's left of the plane he bailed out of so long ago.

As usual, he also had business to attend to, dedicating a new library at the Noau school.

The schools had an enrollment of some 500, and a list of well-educated alumni numbering many hundreds more, including Garua Peni. She had gone on to an advanced degree in linguistics in Australia and now was taking over Hargesheimer's New Guinea foundation as chairperson.

He may have taken a step back, but his heart was still in New Britain. And the love they returned at times seemed almost mystical. At one point, in the 1960s, he was told villagers planned to send the late Luluai Lauo's bones to him in Minnesota, a trust he solemnly declined.

___

As he looks back from his Grass Valley, Calif., retirement home, Hargesheimer says he often mused over the word "if." Why, for example, didn't the Japanese pilot finish him off as he floated helplessly down beneath his parachute?

In 1999 he got an answer. With the help of World War II history buffs, he located Mitsugu Hyakutomi of Yamaguchi, Japan, the pilot who records show downed his P-38. He was suffering from Alzheimer's disease but his wife recounted by mail that her husband had said he could never shoot such defenseless enemy flyers.

"The Japanese pilot gave me the opportunity to get involved in something worthwhile, and for that I'm ever grateful," he says.

This modest man says he has many people to thank as he draws nearer the end of a long, perilous, challenging road from 1943. "These people were responsible for saving my life. How could I ever repay it?"

It came down to that, and perhaps to the psalmist's words of gratitude, "My cup runneth over."

"I wasn't a millionaire," says Mastah Preddi. "But I was very rich."

___

On the Net:

Fred Hargesheimer's foundation: http://www.hargycaldera.name

New Britain expedition slideshow with Hargesheimer material:

http://www2.chicoer.com/olextras/slideshows/20080127PapuaNewGuinea/soundslider.swf

McElway Basketball

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 04:09:21 GMT

Here's To The Crazy Ones...

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 09:22:00 GMT

The Susan Freeman Fund-Lung Transplant

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 03:28:06 GMT

I know I've said this website is where I post "good news". Well, please read below, and if you can help, that will be Good News!

I have a friend I met online on the MyBoomerPlace website. She's a Christian wife, mother and grandmother and a great lady. We've even talked on the phone.

Susan is on a list for a lung transplant, but needs to raise funds to help with expenses of the procedure and medications not covered by insurance. Please visit her fund-raising website, read her story and, if your heart is moved to do so, please donate to help her out. The donations are via Paypal, are matched dollar for dollar by "Access to Care" at the Georgia Transplant Foundation and are tax deductible. Every little bit helps.

Thank you and God bless,

Janet

Susan Freeman Fund

Photo Clues Lead To Camera's Owner

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:58:35 GMT

By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Technology WriterSat Jan 26, 4:43 AM ET

At dusk on New Year's Eve, Erika Gunderson got into a taxi in New York City and entered a digital-age mystery. Sitting on the back seat was a nice Canon digital camera. Gunderson asked the driver which previous passenger might have left it, but the cabbie didn't seem to care. So Gunderson brought it home and showed it to her fiance, Brian Ascher. They decided that the only right thing to do was to find the owner.

But how? The only clues were the pictures on the camera: typical tourist snapshots, complete with a visit to the Statue of Liberty. How could they find a stranger among the huddled masses?

Gunderson is busy in finance for Bear Stearns Cos., so the detective quest fell to Ascher, a 26-year-old law student at New York University. He was on winter break and eager to put off writing a paper about climate change treaties.

He checked whether anyone had reported a matching missing camera to the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission. No dice. He placed ads in lost-and-found sections of Craigslist but got just one response — from a couple in Brazil who had lost a camera in a cab on Oct. 12, not Dec. 31.

"I guess they thought their camera had been riding around in a taxi for two months," Ascher recalls now, chuckling at the notion that such a thing would be possible in New York.

The 350 pictures and two videos on the camera showed several adults, an older woman and three children. Half put them at New York sites like the Empire State Building. The other half had the group enjoying warm weather and frolicking at kid-friendly theme parks.

Ascher easily pinpointed Florida. The group had stood in front of a sign indicating Clearwater, Fla., and posed at Bob Heilman's Beachcomber Restaurant there.

They also took a pirate-themed boat ride where the kids got mustaches painted on their faces. Ascher zoomed in on the group to see name tags on their shirts. He spotted an Alan, an Eileen, a male Noel and a female Noelle, plus a Ciarnan. Under their names was written "IRE."

When Ascher checked the videos, he saw nothing telling, just the children dancing and swimming. But in the background, he heard Irish accents.

OK, Ascher figured, the camera's owner is from Ireland.

Ascher called Canon's Ireland division to see if anyone had registered the $500 camera's serial number. No such luck. He posted ads on Irish Web sites. Nothing.

He checked the date stamp on the photos from Bob Heilman's and called to inquire whether anyone remembered serving a big Irish group that day. Without the diners' last names, there was no way to check. It's a nice thing you're trying, the manager told Ascher, but you probably just found yourself a new camera.

Enter some fresh eyes. Ascher's mother, Nancy, and sister, Emily Rann, scoured the pictures for clues he might have missed. Nancy was particularly confident, having reunited people with their lost belongings before. She once found a California woman's wallet in a cab in Florence, Italy, and spent all day on her trail before making a handover at an American Express office.

"I thought, with all this data in the camera, there's no way we're not going to get it back to them," Nancy Ascher says now. "I was hoping it wasn't going to take a trip to Ireland, flashing their pictures everywhere."

Ascher's mother and his sister noticed that one of the pictures showed a doorman helping someone into a New York taxi. Zooming tight on the doorman's uniform, they made out the logo of the Radisson Hotel.

After several phone calls and a visit to the hotel to show the pictures around, Nancy Ascher persuaded an employee to search the Radisson's guest records by first name and country of residence. Indeed, a Noel from Ireland had stayed there on the date stamped on the photo. Nancy Ascher charmed the hotel employee into sharing the guest's e-mail address.

Wonderful.

Except that when Noel responded to Brian Ascher, he said he hadn't lost a camera.

By now, school was resuming, and Ascher was prepared to give the camera to his mom so she could take over. She had figured out the name of the Florida pirate-boat cruise and was trying to reach its operator.

But first Ascher took a final look at the photographs.

He pored over some from Dec. 30 that didn't include the children. The photos showed signs for bars in Manhattan's East Village: The Thirsty Scholar, Telephone Bar, Burp Castle. There also were multiple interior shots of a tavern, but they didn't seem to fit with what Ascher knew of those other three bars.

Then he stopped on another picture, showing two people outside an apartment building. Seemingly accidentally included in the picture was something Ascher had missed the first time: an awning in the background that read "Standings." Aha! Standings is a bar next to Burp Castle. Ascher checked its Web site, and the interior matched the pictures on the camera.

Ascher found Standings' owner, who reached the bartender who had worked Dec. 30. Yes, he recalled an Irish group. Especially because one of the women was a big tipper and said she worked at another New York City bar, Playwrights. The Standings bartender called Playwrights to ask which employees had been in his bar.

Ascher soon got an e-mail from a woman named Sarah Casey, whose sister Jeanette works at Playwrights. Suddenly everything Ascher had seen on the camera came to life.

The Caseys recently had hosted relatives and friends from Ireland. The group included their friend Alan Murphy, who had journeyed to Florida with family before heading to New York, where the clan stayed at the Radisson. (Their Noel was not the Noel whom Ascher e-mailed.) Murphy ended the trip kicking himself for leaving his camera in a cab in the twilight on New Year's Eve.

Sarah Casey agreed to send it to him. It didn't go to Ireland but to Sydney, Australia, where Murphy lives now.

Murphy, an insurance underwriter, had been devastated to lose the pictures from a trip he had planned for years. It was Jan. 10 — his 34th birthday — when he heard he would be getting the photos back. "I was over the moon," he says now. "Best present ever."

"I owe you one," he wrote to Ascher. "It's good to know there are some honest people left in the world."

Ma Li and Zhai Xiaowei: She without arm, he without leg - ballet - Hand in Hand

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 15:29:29 GMT

This was posted on another site by a friend:

When I was in China last month, I saw a Chinese modern dance competition on TV. One couple won one of the top prizes. The lady [Ma Li] has one arm and the guy [Zhai Xiaowei] has one leg. They performed gracefully and beautifully.

The lady in her 30s was a dancer and was trained as one since she was a little girl. Later she got into some kind of accident and lost her entire left arm. She was depressed for a few years. It seemed that someone asked her to coach a Children's dancing group. From that point on, she realized she could not forget dancing. She still loved to dance. She wanted to dance again. So she started to do some of her old routines. But by her losing an arm, she also lost her balance. It took a while before she could even making simple turns and spins without falling. Eventually she got it.

Then she heard some guy in his 20s had lost a leg in an accident.
This guy also fell into the usual denial, depression and anger type of emotional roller coaster. She looked him up (seemingly he was from a different Province) and persuaded him to dance with her. He had never danced. And to dance with one leg? Are you joking with me? No way.
But she didn't give up. He reluctantly agreed. " I have nothing else to do anyway." She started to teach him dancing 101. The two broke up a few times because the guy had no concept of using muscle, control his body, and a few other basic things about dancing. When she became frustrated and lost patience with him, he would walk out. Eventually they came back together and started training. They hired a choreographer to design routines for them. She would fly high (held by him) with both arms (a sleeve for an arm) flying in the air. He could bend horizontally supported by one leg and she leaning on him, etc.
They danced beautifully and they legitimately beat others in the competition.

I would like to share with you this most magnificent and touching performance I have ever seen! It is a living proof that strong spirit can conquer any physical limitations!

[The Chinese word in the background means Dance]

A Hero's Busy Year After Saving A Life

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 19:31:35 GMT

A Hero's Busy Year After Saving a Life

One year ago, Wesley Autrey Sr. saved a life (see my blog New York Subway Savior Showered With Gifts)
He jumped on subway tracks to save man as train came
Kept job as laborer between trips to White House
Calls a lawsuit a "costly learning experience"

NEW YORK (AP) -- The train was bearing down, and Wesley Autrey Sr. was trying to lift Cameron Hollopeter off the wet, slippery subway tracks where the young man had fallen after suffering an epileptic seizure.

Recalling the heroic act that earned him the nickname "subway superman" one year ago, Autrey described how he "bear-hugged" Hollopeter and told him: "Whatever you do, please don't push me up. I'm going to be the one that's going to get it, and you're going to be OK."

The train passed over both men, grazing Autrey's hat, while Autrey's two young daughters watched in horror.

Dapper in a leather fedora and sporting a tiny hoop earring, Autrey was patient and soft-spoken as he recounted the events for the hundredth time, or perhaps the thousandth, over cafe con leche Tuesday at his favorite West Harlem restaurant, steps from the subway station where the January 2, 2007, rescue unfolded.

It's been a busy year for Autrey, 51, a laborer and shop steward who works Monday through Friday at an apartment building under construction nearby, takes care of his daughters on the weekends and gives all the speeches and interviews he can squeeze in.

No time for the trip to Disney World he was promised during the rescue's dizzying aftermath, no time for the Playboy mansion, where he was invited by Hugh Hefner because he was wearing a hat with a Playboy insignia the day of the rescue.

But he has been on David Letterman's and Ellen DeGeneres' shows; flown to Germany for Letterman's late-night equivalent there, Johannes Kerner; and been feted at City Hall and at the Super Bowl.

He's been to the White House twice, during a trip to attend the State of the Union address and for a Black History Month commemoration.

There's been controversy, too. Autrey and his lawyer settled lawsuits against each other over a contract they signed to exploit his name and heroism.

"The only thing that I can say is that it was a very costly learning experience for me as far as trusting people," he said.

Autrey said his daughters, Shuqui and Syshe, now 7 and 5, are doing well. The Writers Guild strike has delayed movie deals, but a children's book and an adult book are in the works.

He spoke with Hollopeter, a film student, and Hollopeter's mother on Thanksgiving.

"They're a very private family," he said. "The mother just thanked me and thanked me and thanked me. He's doing fine."

Hollopeter suffered his first seizure on the platform, and two women joined Autrey in trying to help the 19-year-old, he said.

"When he fell onto the track he went into a second seizure," he said.

Autrey glanced at the women who had helped earlier.

"I didn't even have time to tell them to watch my daughters. I just pointed at them and gave them a look. And when I saw them grab my daughters around the waist and they went and sat on the bench, I knew that they was OK. A voice from somewhere said, 'Go save that life, don't worry about your own, don't worry about your daughters."'

An artist later showed him a picture he had painted of an angel holding Autrey as Autrey held Hollopeter. "And that's exactly what went down," he said.

On the one-year anniversary Wednesday, Autrey planned to report to work at 7 a.m. as usual. Construction work has its own rewards, he added.

"I drive around the city a lot," Autrey said. "I tell my daughters, 'Dad worked on that building.' At the Waldorf back in February there was a dinner in my honor. Ten years ago I was hanging on a scaffold 40 stories in the air outside that building, little knowing that someday I'd be in that building and they'd be recognizing me for what I'd done."

The Gratitude Campaign

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 03:19:17 GMT

Have you ever wanted to say "thank you," but didn't? Next time, say it...to a soldier, a hard working delivery worker you see on the street especially during the Christmas season, the garbage crew..anyone who serves...

The story of how it got started by the creator of the Gratitude Campaign:

For the past several years as I've been traveling around the country, I've been approaching soldiers in the airports and thanking them for serving for us. On several occasions I have noticed that it felt a little awkward for both of us. There are several reasons, some of which I am even just now learning as I produce this film and talk to more soldiers. But they have always appreciated being thanked, and I have always felt better having expressed my gratitude.

I started to think that it would be nice if civilians had a gesture or sign that they could use to say "thank you" quickly and easily without even having to approach. I did some research and found the sign that we are now using.

Is this limited to the military? Not at all. If you look around you I'm sure that you'll find lots of people who are serving their communities, from local to global. If you appreciate their service, give them a sign. Say "thank you."

How to sign "thank you":

The sign we are using is intended to communicate
"thank you from the bottom of my heart. "

To make the sign simply place your hand on your heart
as though you're saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Then
pull your hand down and out, bending at the elbow
(not the wrist), stopping for a moment at about the belly button with your hand flat, palm up, angled toward the person you're thanking.

It takes so little but can mean SO much...

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Snowplow Driver Pulls Woman From Burning Car

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 13:07:58 GMT

By Vanessa Bauza

Tribune staff reporter

December 16, 2007

Snowplow driver Demetrius Duplessis was determined to pull Khushboo Jani from her burning car -- even if she didn't quite realize she needed rescuing.

Duplessis was driving east on the Eisenhower Expressway at 8 a.m. Saturday when he spotted a black Honda on the left shoulder with flames and smoke billowing from the engine. He pulled over, used his snowplow to block swift-moving traffic and jumped out of his vehicle.

But as Duplessis approached the car, Jani, 22, who was talking to her father on her cell phone, tried to lock the doors.

"I was going to call 911. I saw him and got really scared," said Jani of Schaumburg. "He's like, 'Get out of the car.' I'm like, 'No.' I just thought the engine broke down."

Duplessis knew better.

"I grabbed the door and opened it real quick and snatched her out of the car," he said. "She still didn't realize the car was on fire."

A driver with the Illinois Department of Transportation's Emergency Traffic Patrol quickly doused the flames with a hand-held extinguisher. Jani's car was towed but she still needed to get to Roosevelt University to take a final exam in physics.

"Her biggest concern [was] getting there in time to take the test," Illinois State Police Trooper Greg Jones said. "One of the troopers took her to the college."

Duplessis, 44, of Montgomery has worked as an IDOT snowplow driver for five years. He does not consider himself a hero. However, he said he hopes if his own college-age daughter ever finds herself in a similar predicament that a good Samaritan will be there to help.

Jani, who made it to her exam, was relieved Duplessis came along when he did. "I'm really glad that he did what he did. I'm really grateful for that."

-----------

vbauza@tribune.com

Our Crayons

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:23:35 GMT

Our C rayon s

While walking in a toy store
The day before today,
I over heard a Crayon Box
With many things to say.

"I don't like red!" said Yellow.
And Green said, "Nor do I !
And no one here likes Orange,
But no one knows quite why."

"We are a box of crayons
that really doesn't get along,"
Said Blue to all the others.
"Something here is wrong!

Well, i bought that box of crayons
And took it home with me
And laid out all the crayons
So the crayons could all see

They watched me as I colored
With Red and Blue and Green
And Black and White and Orange
And every color in between

They watched as Green became the grass
And Blue became the sky.
The Yellow sun was shining bright
On White clouds drifting by.

Colors changing as they touched,
Becoming something new.
They watched me as I colored.
They watched till I was through.

And when I'd finally finished,
I began to walk away.
And as I did the Crayon box
Had something more to say........

"I do like Red !" said the Yellow
And Green said, "So do I !"
And Blue you are terrific!
So high up in the sky."

"We are a Box of Crayons
Each of us unique,
But when we get together
The picture is complete"

A Soldier Comes Home

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 03:44:03 GMT

One of our Iraq soldiers surprises his daughters
and their classmates (who'd adopted him and his platoon)
at school on the day he arrives home...

Berlusconi Apologizes To His Wife

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 18:53:21 GMT

Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has said sorry to his wife for flirting with other women after she demanded a public apology.

Mr Berlusconi issued a written statement, referring to the constant pressure he was under from work, trips, politics and problems.

Veronica Berlusconi, his second wife, said his flirting damaged her dignity.

She had demanded the apology in a front-page letter to the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica.

In the statement, issued via his Forza Italia party, Mr Berlusconi said: "Forgive me, I beg you. And take this public show of my private pride giving in to your fury as an act of love. One of many."

"I guard your dignity, like a treasure within my heart, even when careless comments slip off my tongue," said Mr Berlusconi, 70.

Flirtatious comments

Veronica Berlusconi is mother of three of Mr Berlusconi's children.

She said her husband had told some women at a TV awards dinner: "If I wasn't already married I would marry you right away".

Mr Berlusconi was quoted as telling another woman: "With you I'd go anywhere".

Commentators say the fact she chose for her complaint a prominent left-wing publication - traditionally critical of Mr Berlusconi - would have added to her husband's embarrassment.

"Today for my female children, already adults, the example of a woman defending her own dignity in her relationships with men takes on a particularly significant importance," she said.

Confronting her husband over his behaviour would also remind her son Luigi "to never forget to keep among his fundamental values respect for women," she added.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/6318165.stm

Published: 2007/01/31 17:06:12 GMT

Phone Thief Repents After 21 Text Messages

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 23:39:31 GMT

Phone thief repents after 21 text messages
Mon Jan 22, 2007 2:15 PM ET

BEIJING (Reuters Life!) - A Chinese thief has returned a mobile phone and thousands of yuan he stole from a woman after she sent him 21 touching text messages, Xinhua news agency said on Monday.

Pan Aiying, a teacher in the eastern province of Shandong, had her bag containing her mobile phone, bank cards and 4,900 yuan ($630) snatched by a man riding a motorcycle as she cycled home on Friday, Xinhua said, citing the Qilu Evening News.

Pan first thought of calling the police but she decided to try to persuade the young man to return her bag.

She called her lost phone with her colleague's cell phone but was disconnected. Then she began sending text messages.

"I'm Pan Aiying, a teacher from Wutou Middle School. You must be going through a difficult time. If so, I will not blame you," wrote Pan in her first text message which did not get a response.

"Keep the 4,900 yuan if you really need it, but please return the other things to me. You are still young. To err is human. Correcting your mistakes is more important than anything," Pan wrote.

She gave up hope of seeing her possessions again after sending 21 text messages without a reply.

But on her way out on Sunday morning, she stumbled over a package that had been left in her courtyard only to discover it was her stolen bag. Nothing had been taken.

"Dear Pan: I'm sorry. I made a mistake. Please forgive me," a letter inside said.

"You are so tolerant even though I stole from you. I'll correct my ways and be an upright person."

NYC Subway Savior Showered With Gifts

Fri, 05 Jan 2007 12:30:00 GMT

NYC subway savior showered with gifts

AP Photo: Wesley Autrey, 50,
listens during a news conference
at City Hall in New York,...

By VERENA DOBNIK, Associated Press WriterThu Jan 4, 7:28 PM ET

A man's daring rescue of a teen who fell on the subway tracks earned him the unique title "the hero of Harlem" on Thursday, plus $10,000 from Donald Trump and a trip to Disney World.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg bestowed the title upon Wesley Autrey as he presented him with the city's highest award for civic achievement, calling the 50-year-old construction worker "a great man — a man who makes us all proud to be New Yorkers."

Past recipients of the Bronze Medallion have included Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali and Willie Mays. The last honoree was Housing Authority employee Felix Vasquez, who caught a baby thrown from a burning building in 2005.

On Tuesday, Autrey saw Cameron Hollopeter, a 19-year-old film student, suffering a seizure while waiting for a train. After stumbling down the platform, Hollopeter, of Littleton, Mass., fell onto the tracks with a train on its way into the station.

Autrey, traveling with his two young daughters, said something needed to be done and he thought: "I'm the only one to do it."

He jumped down to the tracks, a few feet below platform level, and rolled with the young man into a drainage trough between the rails as the southbound No. 1 train came into the 137th Street/City College station.

Some train cars passed over Autrey and Hollopeter with only a couple of inches to spare, but neither man suffered any harm from the incident. Hollopeter, hospitalized for his medical condition, was in stable condition Thursday.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority Executive Director Elliot Sander called Autrey's action "a death-defying act of bravery. We truly have not seen anything like this. ... He was at the right place at the right time and did the right thing."

After the City Hall ceremony, a limousine whisked Autrey — who also received a year's worth of free subway rides — to a meeting with Trump, who presented him with $10,000.

He also has received $2,500 from the New York Film Academy to start a scholarship fund for his children, and tickets and a backstage tour to the Broadway musical "The Lion King."

Autrey, who did the morning news show circuit on Thursday and taped a David Letterman appearance later in the day, will be flown to Los Angeles for an appearance next week on Ellen DeGeneres' show.

As for his new celebrity, he concluded, "good things happen when you do good."

A Lesson For Us All

Sun, 26 Nov 2006 04:45:38 GMT

I BELIEVE IN SANTA CLAUS-author unknown

I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma. I was just a kid.
I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her on the day my big
sister dropped the bomb: "There is no Santa Claus," she jeered. "Even
dummies know that!"

My Grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that
day because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma
always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a
whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her "world-famous"
cinnamon buns. I knew they were world-famous, because Grandma said
so. It had to be true.

Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told
her everything. She was ready for me. "No Santa Claus?" she snorted....
"Ridiculous! Don't believe it. That rumor has been going around for
years, and it makes me mad, plain mad!! Now, put on your coat, and
let's go."

"Go? Go where, Grandma?" I asked. I hadn't even finished my second
world-famous cinnamon bun. "Where" turned out to be Kerby's
General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about
everything. As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten
dollars.

That was a bundle in those days. "Take this money," she said, "and buy
something for someone who needs it. I'll wait for you in the car." Then
she turned and walked out of Kerby's.

I was only eight years old. I'd often gone shopping with my mother, but
never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big
and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas
shopping. For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching
that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it
for.

I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors,
the kids at school, the people who went to my church. I was just about
thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker. He was a kid
with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in
Mrs. Pollock's grade-two class.

Bobby Decker didn't have a coat. I knew that because he never went
out to recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling
the teacher that he had a cough, but all we kids knew that Bobby
Decker didn't have a cough; he didn't have a good coat. I fingered the
ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobby Decker a
coat!

I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real
warm, and he would like that.

"Is this a Christmas present for someone?" the lady behind the counter
asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down. "Yes, ma'am," I replied
shyly. "It's for Bobby."

The nice lady smiled at me, as I told her about how Bobby really needed
a good winter coat. I didn't get any change, but she put the coat in a bag,
smiled again, and wished me a Merry Christmas.

That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat (a little tag fell out of
the coat, and Grandma tucked it in her Bible) in Christmas paper and
ribbons and wrote, "To Bobby, From Santa Claus" on it.

Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy. Then she drove me
over to Bobby Decker's house, explaining as we went that I was
now and forever officially, one of Santa's helpers.

Grandma parked down the street from Bobby's house, and she and I
crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk. Then Grandma
gave me a nudge. "All right, Santa Claus," she whispered, "get going."

I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down
on his step, pounded his door and flew back to the safety of the bushes
and Grandma.

Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to
open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobby.

Fifty years haven't dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering,
beside my Grandma, in Bobby Decker's bushes. That night, I realized
that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma
said they were -- ridiculous. Santa was alive and well, and we were on
his team.

I still have the Bible, with the coat tag tucked inside: $19.95.

May you always have LOVE to share, HEALTH to spare and FRIENDS
that care...And may you always believe in the magic of Santa Claus!

Escaped Tennessee Parrot Turns Up Safe in NY

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 01:46:00 GMT

MSNBC.com

Escaped Tennessee Parrot Turns Up Safe in NY

Woman knew it was her pet when she talked to him on the phone!

The Associated Press

Updated: 6:35 a.m. CT Oct 12, 2006

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — A woman's pet parrot that flew away from her in Johnson City turned up hundreds of miles away in Long Island, N.Y., despite being a weak flyer.

Kim Kendrick lost her 47-year-old Amazon parrot, Buzzy, nearly two months ago while walking with him outside. But she got an unexpected phone call Tuesday from a New Yorker named Josh Ruderman, who said he had found Buzzy.

"When I heard he was in New York I was skeptical at first," Kendrick said. "But then I talked with Buzzy on the phone and Josh sent me photos and it's no doubt that it's him."

The bird didn't fly to New York. Ruderman had been visiting East Tennessee for two months and found Buzzy in Johnson City four days after Kendrick lost him on Aug. 14.

Ruderman said he searched the papers during the last three weeks of his visit, but could not find Buzzy's owner. So Ruderman took him home to Long Island.

Ruderman finally found Buzzy's grateful owner after reading a Sept. 20 article in the Johnson City Press about the missing parrot and e-mailed her Tuesday.

"It really is nice when a story comes together with a happy ending, but for me I will miss Buzzy very much," Ruderman said.

Kendrick said she planned to drive up from Tennessee to Long Island next week to pick up Buzzy.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15233038/

Hero Pooch is Inducted into Hall of Fame

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 01:43:11 GMT

MSNBC.com

Hero Pooch is Inducted into Hall of Fame

Fifteen-pound dog named Teddy Bear chases off armed intruder

The Associated Press

Updated: 7:04 a.m. CT Oct 9, 2006

BENTON, Ky. — A 15-pound pooch that fended off an intruder to defend its owner has earned a spot in the Kentucky Veterinary Medical Association's Animal Hall of Fame.

Teddy Bear, a 4-year-old Pomeranian owned by Leslie Ferguson, 24, bit an armed robber in April and created enough of a distraction that Ferguson could escape to a neighbor's house. The dog was inducted into the association's Hall of Fame on Saturday.

"My husband was out of town," Ferguson said. "He was on active duty in the military, and I had a guy break into my house with a gun.

"He tried to force me into another room. We ended up wrestling for the gun, and Teddy bit him and latched onto his hand. I was able to get the gun from the guy. He ended up getting the gun back, but Teddy distracted him long enough where I could get out of the house."

Ferguson said Teddy Bear never hesitated, even though he had never been vicious toward anyone.

"I guess he realized that I was in danger, and he just took action," Ferguson said. "He did great."

"Teddy followed me and pretty much didn't let me out of his sight until the next day," she said. "He still keeps a close eye on me."

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15194558/