Good deeds you have done

[svHyLyte]

Good Deeds US Sailors can do now:

With the pissing match between the Dems and Republicans, much of the "non-essential" government services have been curtailed by the "partial shut down". How the US Coast Guard can have been deemed non-essential escapes me but it has. Consequently, Coast Guard Members have been denied their pay over the last 30+ daze and will continue to go unpaid until the Pol's in DC grow up.

As most know, pay rates is the US military services are low to begin with such that service members literally live from pay check to pay check and any interruption in their pay works a great hardship on them and their families.

Considering the foregoing, our Yacht Club and many of the local businesses that rely on the USCG for services and assistance when necessary are collecting Gift Cards that are delivered to the local Coast Gard station for distribution to their crews. Gift Cards can be for Groceries, Gas/Fuel, or simply Visa or MasterCard prepaid cards that the Coasties can use to pay other expenses. We are asking our club members to each contribute a $50.00 USD card that will be delivered to the Coast Guard's Cortez Station to help their crews.

If each boat owner in the US makes such a contribution, much of the distress being suffered by the Coast Guard can be alleviated and, considering what they are willing to do for us, it seems little enough for us to do for them.

I urge every "boater" in the US to look into where collections are being taken and to make a contribution, eh? We will do so monthly until this situation is resolved...

For more on this matter see: Cortez Businesses Help Coast Guard.

[Fiveslide]

Currently, I volunteer my time cleaning up USACE parks and campgrounds. I volunteer and donate a local group that helps local people financially with necessities like power bills, heating needs, and locals students with scholarships. I've given toes and rides and gas to the stranded. Once bought and installed an alternator for stranded person who didn't have enough cash to get their car of the side of the road. I help an 80 year old widow with her yard and home maintenance. I grow out my hair and donate it to organizations that make wigs for cancer patients, I've done this 4 times now and takes me about 2 years for my hair to get long enough. I genuinely try to help as many people as possible.

Please don't think less of me for what I'm about to admit, but this is the one time that something I did got the largest reaction. I'm a little ashamed to even tell this story, but like I said, the reactions were huge to me and I've rarely seen such genuine gratitude after doing something for someone.

Many, many years ago, a friend and I went to a "gentleman's" club a few days before Christmas. We were young, single, partners in business and we'd had a good year. It was a weekday, there were only a few people in the place, so the girls weren't likely to make a ton of money that night or in the next few days leading up to Christmas. My friend and I gave away thousands of dollars for nothing more than the girls were usually doing for single dollar bills. A couple of the girls cried tears of joy, said we just made the holiday for them and their kids. We drank our beers and left.

[LargeMarge]

2003 == Very Significant Other got sick, so we did what anybody would do. We acquired an old commercial truck, took less than a week to convert it to a HouseTruck-slash-Expedition Vehicle, and headed south from Oregon with South America as our general destination... back-roads all the way.

Someplace along the top of the Sahara Nevada mountains someplace along Highway 395 in the noplace desolation of Camelfart California, we were passed by a pair of motorcyclists doing probably twice the speed limit.

Navigator grins at me and says "WOW! THAT LOOKS LIKE FUN!"

A couple miles later, we come up to them parked on the narrow gravel shoulder of that remote two-lane. Broke down.

That was January, just below freezing. Light snow lightly drifting, dark coming on.

Natch, we pull over behind them with our flashers on. After introductions and an inventory of tools, duct tape, and bailing wire, plus bowls of steaming elk stew and hot tea, everybody gets back on the road safely. Because, you know, safe.

Their patches strongly suggested they were members of Mongol Nation motorcycle club. Well, more than strongly... it was 'IN YOUR FACE, STRAIGHTS!'.

That was 2003. My dearly beloved VSO is long-gone to the Great Boondock In The Sky.

January 2019, the retired Prez of the Reno chapter of Mongol Nation invites me to join them on chartered resort boat on a SCUBA vacation around Baja..."...six weeks, all expenses paid. Don't you worry about a thing."

[jmh2002]

^^^ Nice.

[jmh2002]

It's useful to keep making deposits into the bank of goodwill & kindness - because you never know, one day it might be you that needs to make a withdrawal...