This is for all the hurting folks here on these Boards. I pray the Lord will heal your hurts and give you peace.
Love to all, Harold

A Trucker's Story

I try not to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring Stevie. His
placement counselor assured me that he would be a good, reliable
busboy. But I had never had a mentally handicapped employee and
wasn't sure I wanted one. I wasn't sure how my Customers would react to
Stevie. He was short, a little dumpy with the smooth facial features and
thick-tongued speech of Down Syndrome.

I wasn't worried about most of my trucker customers because truckers
don't generally care who buses tables as long as the meatloaf platter is
good and the pies are homemade. The four-wheeler drivers were the ones
who concerned me; the mouthy college kids traveling to school; the yuppie
snob who secretly polish their silverware with their napkins for fear of
catching some dreaded "truck stop germ"; the pairs of white shirted
business men on expense accounts who think every truck stop waitress
wants to be flirted with. I knew those people would be uncomfortable
around Stevie so I closely watched him for the first few weeks.

I shouldn't have worried. After the first week, Stevie had my staff
wrapped around his stubby little finger, and within a month my truck
regulars had adopted him as their official truck stop mascot. After
that, I really didn't care what the rest of the customers thought of him. He was like a 21-year-old in blue jeans and Nikes, eager to laugh and eager to
please, but fierce in his attention to his duties. Every salt and pepper
shaker was exactly in its place, not a bread crumb or coffee spill was
visible when Stevie got done with the table. Our only problem was
persuading him to wait to clean a table until after the customers were finished. He would hover in the background, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, scanning the dining room until a table was empty. Then he would scurry to the empty table and carefully bus dishes and glasses onto cart and
meticulously wipe the table up with a practiced flourish of his rag. If
he thought a customer was watching, his brow would pucker with added
concentration. He took pride in doing his job exactly right, and you had
to love how hard he tried to please each and every person he met.

Over time, we learned that he lived with his mother, a widow who was
disabled after repeated! surgeries for cancer. They lived on their
Social Security benefits in public housing two miles from the truck stop. Their Social worker, who stopped to check on him every so often, admitted
they had fallen between the cracks. Money was tight, and what I paid him
was probably the difference between them being able to live together and
Stevie being sent to a group home. That's why the restaurant was a
gloomy place that morning last August, the first morning in three years
that Stevie missed work.

He was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester getting a new valve or something put in his heart. His social worker said that people with Down syndrome often had heart problems at an early age so this wasn't unexpected, and there was a good chance he would come through the surgery in good shape and be back at work in a few months. A ripple of excitement ran through the staff later that morning when word came that he was out of surgery, in recovery and doing fine. Frannie, head waitress, let out a war hoop and did a little dance in the aisle when she heard the good news. Belle Ringer, one of our regular trucker customers, stared at the sight of the 50-year-old grandmother of four doing a victory shimmy beside his table. Frannie blushed, smoothed her apron and shot Belle Ringer a withering look.

He grinned. "OK, Frannie, what was that all about?" he asked.

"We just got word that Stevie is out of surgery and going to be okay."

"I was wondering where he was. I had a new joke to tell him. What was
the surgery about?"

Frannie quickly told Belle Ringer and the other two drivers sitting at
his booth about Stevie's surgery, then sighed. "Yeah, I'm glad he is going
to be OK" she said. "But I don't know how he and his Mom are going to
handle all the bills. From what I hear, they're barely getting by as it is."
Belle Ringer nodded thoughtfully, and Frannie hurried off to wait on the rest
of her tables. Since I hadn't had time to round up a busboy to replace
Stevie and really didn't want to replace him, the girls were busing their own
tables that day until we decided what to do.

After the morning rush, Frannie walked into my office. She had a couple
of paper napkins in her hand a funny look on her face.

" What's up?" I asked.

"I didn't get that table where Belle Ringer and his friends were sitting
cleared off after they left, and Pony Pete and Tony Tipper were sitting
there when I got back to clean it off," she said. "This was folded and
tucked under a coffee cup." She handed the napkin to me, and three $20
bills fell onto my desk when I opened it. On the outside, in big, bold
letters, was printed "Something For Stevie."

"Pony Pete asked me what that was all about," she said, "so I told
about Stevie and his Mom and everything, and Pete looked at Tony and
Tony looked at Pete, and they ended up giving! Me this." She handed me
another paper napkin that had "Something For Stevie" scrawled on its outside. Two $50 bills were tucked within its folds. Frannie looked at me with wet, shiny eyes, shook her head and said simply "truckers."

That was three months ago. Today is Thanksgiving, the first day Stevie
is supposed to be back to work. His placement worker said he's been
counting the days until the doctor said he could work, and it didn't
matter at all that it was a holiday. He called 10 times in the past week, making sure we knew he was coming, fearful that we had forgotten him or that his job was in jeopardy. I arranged to have his mother bring him to work, met them in the parking lot and invited them both to celebrate his day back. Stevie was thinner and paler, but couldn't stop grinning as he pushed through the doors and headed for the back room where his apron and busing cart were waiting.

"Hold up there, Stevie, not so fast," I said. I took him and his mother
by their arms. "Work can wait for a minute. To celebrate you coming back,
breakfast for you and your mother is on me!" I led them toward a large
corner booth at the rear of the room. I could feel and hear the rest of
the staff following behind as we marched through the dining room. Glancing
over my shoulder, I saw booth after booth of grinning truckers empty and
join the procession. We stopped in front of the big table. Its surface
was covered with coffee cups, saucers and dinner plates, all sitting slightly crooked on dozens of folded paper napkins.

"First thing you have to do, Stevie, is clean up this mess," I said. I
tried to sound stern. Stevie looked at me, and then at his mother, then pulled
out one of the napkins. It had "Something for Stevie" printed on the outside. As he picked it up, two $10 bills fell onto the table. Stevie stared at the money, then at all the napkins peeking from beneath the tableware, each with his name printed or scrawled on it. I turned to his mother.

"There's more than $10,000 in cash and checks on that table, all from
truckers and trucking companies that heard about your problems. "Happy
Thanksgiving,"

Well, it got real noisy about that time, with everybody hollering and
shouting, and there were a few tears, as well. But you know what's
funny? While everybody else was busy shaking hands and hugging each other, Stevie, with a big, big smile on his face, was busy clearing all the cups and dishes from the table. Best worker I ever hired.
*********************************************

Plant a seed and watch it grow. At this point, you can bury this
inspirational message or forward it fulfilling the need! If you shed a
tear, hug yourself because you are a compassionate person.

When you're lonely, I wish you LOVE. When you're down, I wish you JOY. When things get complicated, I wish you FAITH. When things look empty, I wish you HOPE.