stories on the lighter side

About 35 years ago I was blessed by the pope (I spent a couple of years in Italy helping handicapped, disabled wheel chair bound people), this one year, at Easter, we were at St Peters square, the crowd moved aside, the pope walked right in front of me, blessed me and moved on, the crowd moved back in, (all within seconds (no pope mobile back then)).

About 8 years ago I got a internet fiancee from Ukraine. We communicated for a year, I went over to meet her and agreed to get a fiancee visa for her. She came over here and did not like it. She went home. Her father was a USSR army doctor. When the USSR broke up. He was stationed in Ukraine so that is where he stayed. He fell ill after her return. I sent her money to buy medicine for her father. the medicine kept him alive for 2 more years. On his death bed he thanked me from the bottom of his heart, said I was a man of men, god bless me. I did not know he was sick. I would just send money to help them out when ever I could. Natasha sent me this in a email. Yes I was choked up. Don't believe me call her 380-9556-19459, 380-6619-34370. - When she left, the night before (when she told me), I gave her son $500 (to help with the flight home (in case they ran into problems)). It turned out when they got back to Kiev, She had no money to get to Simferopol. Her son pulled out the $500.

With all my recent problems the water heater of my 88 year old neighbor went out, I replaced it for no charge, she was so up set with me, saying she wont be able to sleep, unless I took something. She gave me $25.00, now she could sleep.

Some of you may know of the "home for habitat" project I was on. Did the plumbing rough in, on single family home in Woodstock, NO CHARGE

A year ago lady not so well had a sewer back up, the village and a couple plumbing contractors said the line had to be dug up, basement was flooding. I went over there and opened up the sewer. The lady still has not paid me..........but at the time, she said she is having money problems.

When I was in Arizona, this one time a Hispanic woman came up to me, in a parking lot and said she got robbed of her purse, could i spare bus ticket money, being 120 degrees out, i reached into my pocket and gave her all I had, about $12.00 and said take it all, get some thing to drink also. She was shocked.

Then there were the Hunt sisters, where as I dug up their sewer for no charge. The lady next door went bezerk, nuts, flipped out, she just paid $9,000 for the same thing, she never seen anybody so nice as I. The Hunt sisters were 2 elder woman both with walkers, oxygen bottles and a aid worker, could not use their plumbing.

I gave s list of things I did for others as Scotillo past judgment upon me. A crooked judge, passing judgment, on a crooked cop testimony, a teamed up crooked D. A. and defense team.

People would not be surprised if they saw me on the side of the road with a couple bags of pavement patch, to filling in a few bad pot holes.

or with my dump truck filling in some horrendous holes on the shoulder with gravel.

How about that one time, these elder couples called me up in Palatine, clogged kitchen sink with single lav. Got it open, said no charge, thank you. They confused but happy.

This one time I was driving my tractor down the Cedar and a elder person was starting to shovel the driveway (after a blast and a half). I stopped the tractor, put it in reverse and 1 minute later the drive way was done.

look at Peeps, (12 & willow (bg hs) one winter, we had so much snow, only 1 car could fit into the parking lot. After another blast around 3 in the morning, I took my rig over there and removed all the snow from the parking lot (how can they sell a hot dog, try to make a buck, if no one can even get into the parking lot)

For years an older lady on Hickory in Arlington Hts, use to call me just about every winter to rod out her sewer from the stack in basement at rear of house, and always the drive way would be snowed bound. I would have to park in the street shovel a path to the back door, so i could get my equipment into the house. When done, I would shovel by hand the rest of the driveway (in case she needed emergency rescue or something, and a path to take out the garbage cans without tripping over the snow). I would discount for age, she would pay in cash, couldn't count the cash, I counted and discounted for cash, leave a receipt.

I cannot count the times I have gone to a house, sump pump was not working, just moved the pump a little and end of job, NO CHARGE

Once in a while I would come across a water department in the middle of winter when it is freezing, doing a water main break, I know some one on just about every city sewer or water crew (so I'm not a total stranger) and I would scoot over to McDonald's or some place to get them a bunch of coffee's and munchies (just for the heck of it, warm em up for a moment and let em know that some one appreciates, cares or pays attention to what they do (I do the same work on the non city side).

I supported a adult foot hockey team for a couple years

I supported a few adult softball teams for a bunch of years (it does pain me, that the good guys of the public works will play soft ball with a group of crooked cops, to me that shows support of corruption, but then every one has known how crooked the cops have been for a long time). Now the cat is out of the hat.

I supported a few kids softball teams for a bunch of years

The Village of Palatine never thought it important to have any of the people who keep the municipal sewers working to attend:

The Pumper & Cleaner Environmental Expo convention in Nashville, the world's largest annual exhibition of its kind, packed with some 4,000 odd companies exhibiting sanitation professionals, industrial vacuum contractors, drain and sewer cleaning, maintenance specialists, repair and installation.

Work shops / seminars presented by industry experts, covering industry-specific tools and techniques

The latest in new technologies, old technologies, manufactures of equipment, jet trucks, vac trucks, jet vac trucks, jet tailors, vac trailers, flushers or high pressure, crawler cameras, push cameras, main lining, service lining, slip lining, man hole grouting, infiltration, smoke testing, die testing you name it. Different vendors, parts, suppliers resources.

A convention to keep any municipal or private sewer system in the know and up to date.

In all these years most other municipalities thought it a good idea and made budget for it.

I was able to get permission from some one with in the village to pay the expense to have the 1 man sewer department attend the Nashville convention with me.

I thought it was a good thing, he learned a lot (I hope he has attended more since). I was able to give something good to the Village and community. No one asked for this, it was clean, above board, no dirt.......I have been broke before and after, so nobody did any favors here.

I had a scrapper come buy a bunch of times to pick up scrap steel. One time, I noticed that one of his tail lights were out, I said wait, your light's out, I got some bulbs lets fix it. I fixed it. The breaks were making a noise. I said here and gave him $30 to help him to get his breaks fixed.

I cannot tell you how many times, I see some one in a snow drift, trying to get out, pulled over and helped.

How about this one, The managment company of Radio shack called me up about a sewer pump burned out at the store on the curve in Palatine. I went and took a look. I noticed it was a Weil? pump. Told the management company to call Weil pump in Arlington Hts, gave them the ejector system serial and model number, told them to just have them fix it, that they are the company that installed it, any repair by another company will interchange componuts and it is best not to do that. End of story, no billing no nothing, just a little niceness on my part. About a year later, I got a call from a audit company asking about that service call, they could not find my billing. I could have said any thing, any amount. I said I did not charge, I anilized the problem