Restoration

As I sat down yesterday morning in front of the TV lacing my shoes, the local news ran a story on Angela Madsen, a disabled former US Marine that had just rowed across the Atlantic and whose boat trailer was stolen from the parking lot of the apartment building where she was staying. Angela is a paraplegic and works with other disabled veterans and children with disabilities to help them strive for their best despite being “differently-abled” , as she puts it.
News like this saddens the heck out of me. What kind of a world are we living in where someone would steal something from someone like Angela, who spends her life helping others?
All the way to work I kept running that story in my head, getting angrier and angrier by the second. The minute I got to the office, I checked out the story on the net because by then I already knew I had to do something about it. I wasn’t sure what I was gonna do, but I was at the least going to get on this here blog and beg you all for a few bucks to help Angela get a new trailer. And I knew, despite the fact that I had no idea what I was going to do, that I had to contact Matt and the Laughing Wolf over at Blackfive.
So I shot them an email. A few minutes later, I get a reply saying that they’re on it and Wolf had already contacted Soldier’s Angels and all were waiting for a response from me.
Let me just cut to the chase here, WSVN put me in contact with Angela, I put Angela in contact with Wolf and Soldier’s Angels and while we were a bit late in getting her a new trailer – the trailer company offered to build a new one at cost and someone else stepped up to pay for the materials – from this detestable occurrence, people came up to the plate and said “I’m here and I’m ready and I’m willing and able to help.”
And that my friends – especially when we think we live in a world of shithead boat trailer thieves – is what restores my faith in humanity. For every one of those careless, selfish, thieving bastards, there are dozens of selfless, honorable, beautiful human beings that come to the aid of perfect strangers, wanting nothing in return.