Register-Guard Columnist
Appeared in print: Sunday, Dec 20, 2009
Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series on Bob Welch giving away $1,000 that a Eugene resident gave him to spread holiday cheer — with the stipulation that its source be kept anonymous.
“Here’s what you learn when you pass out the remaining $409.53 of $1,000 in gift money: it doesn’t take much to make people feel honored.
Really.
For the homestretch of this holiday giving spree, I changed my offense. Instead of handing out $50 and $20 bills as I mostly did last week, I spent much of it — $225 — on a washer-dryer set for a woman in Oakridge and an additional $150 on $5 coffee-shop cards to simply say “you matter.â€
At the Junction City Fire Station, I handed out eight coffee cards from Nina’s Pony Express. These folks are committed to laying down their lives for the people of their community. They deserve a few perks.
A woman delivering mail got a gift card; so did Junction City library director Lynn Frost, to counterbalance the cinematic put-down of librarians in my favorite holiday movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.†(If you haven’t seen the library’s new interior paint job, check it out. Very classy. And this being Small Town, America, Frost, of course, did it herself.)
Airport workers rarely get strokes, particularly around the holidays. After Christmas, they’re going to be dealing with a flood of Rose Bowl-going Ducks, so at the Eugene Airport I surprised a Horizon Express agent, a taxi driver and a really nice guy who works in a parking-lot pay booth with $5 gift cards from Perk and Play Coffee on Crescent Avenue. “Thanks,†he said. “I feel a white chocolate mocha comin’ on.â€
I tried to give cards to three Transportation Security Administration — nobody ever thanks those folks — but they couldn’t, by law, accept.
For lunch, I treated the 30 warehouse workers at The Duck Store’s Glenwood facility to $175 worth of Track Town pizza and pop. Because of the demand for Rose Bowl garb, the facility is literally working round-the-clock in three shifts. The hours are godsends to people needing jobs, but these elves looked tired.
At Creslane Elementary School in Creswell, fifth-grader Zach Landers helped me randomly choose seven teachers to give $5 coffee cards from the Creswell Coffee Company. The other cards went to the three people who — like at any other school, I assume — keep Creslane running: the secretaries.
In some cases, I did give out money. On Friday, I watched Kathleen Whitney do what she took it upon herself to do every day because she worries about kids crossing Territorial Road: put on her florescent vest, grab her stop sign and guide two kids — two — safely across. I gave her $60.
I gave $25 to a United Van Lines truck driver at the southbound Interstate 5 rest area between Creswell and Cottage Grove. Not because he had a wreath on the front grille of his 18-wheeler, but because he was the lone truck driver and I wanted to thank a trucker. “Hopin’ to be home for Christmas,†said David Estruch, of Fullerton, Calif.
I gave $20 to a Vietnam vet with a “need-money†sign — yeah, I talked to him; he’s the real deal. A Perk and Play card to the 31st — and last — person in line at the Gateway Post Office Friday morning. And $20 to a young father, Byron Myles, walking his triplets in a stroller because fathers need to spend more time with their children, and because it was such a rare and inspiring scene.
I sent a book on Oregon and some state-themed Euphoria chocolate to Barbara Ann Cross, the Georgia woman who was kind enough to let a Eugene girl interview her about the church bombing in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963 at her father’s church.
In the Lane Community College parking lot, a young woman rendezvoused with her up-from-California boyfriend for the first time since October. They were so giddy, hugging and kissing, that I said dinner was on me and handed them $30.
I was at LCC to meet a friend who was helping me take a refurbished washer and dryer to a woman in the Oakridge Mobile Home Park. (By this point, I was over budget but I’d raised additional money, in half an hour, by sending a handful of e-mails to friends.)
We pulled out an old washer-dryer set from the woman’s single-wide trailer and replaced it. The woman — she goes by “Grandma Cat†because of the feline kingdom she presides over — just kept saying, over and over, things like “Oh, my stars … oh, my stars†and “This is going to be an awesome Christmas.â€
Bob Welch is at 338-2354 and bob.welch@registerguard.com.