Quittintime: BOSS CAN DO IT! WE CAN HELP!

Yesterday i emailed a few of you privately to ask for help sending our friendly curmudgeon Ron Strohbeck, aka Boss Hog, back to Louisiana in February to spend a couple weeks of his own vacation time working on post-Katrina housing and his farmer tan. He's perpetrated this before while affiliating with this group in Slidell: http://pcoslidell.org/ Prior to that he'd rendezvous'd with a troupe of BTrs impersonating carpenters to dig into the post-Katrina mess. In a nutshell, Ron gives a great big bang for the buck.

Ron used to be a powerful drama king in Carlinville, Illinois, selling Sugar Plum Fairy positions in the local production of "The Nutcracker Suite" to the highest bidder. Then the ballroom-dance-instruction bubble burst, the bottom fell out of home invasions using his Santa Claus suit, and the kids he was shaking down for spare change at the Lions Club Street Carnival and Fry Bread Extravaganza ganged up and stuffed him in the dunk tank. Consequently, this year finds him, like most of us, with less disposable income than before.

Ron called me last Sunday to chat about his urge to help out more in the Gulf, but he was not sure he could afford the expenditure on top of the time. We discussed the $$ he would spend to pay for gas and meals, as the church in Slidell is providing bunk space and a place to cook. Long story shortened slightly, $500 would make the difference in his being able to go or not, so i asked him to let me see whom i could charm out of a few dollars bec he's way too shy to ask for himself.

I tossed in $50 of seed money and several of you have matched or exceeded that amount in response to that email, to the point that i've rec'd verbal commitments of a little over half the target amount so far. In the meantime, several folks urged me to go public, while apparently someone got to Jean Paul to get him to reinstate my posting privileges on BT to make that possible over there. Hooray!

I agree, so i'm putting up posts on QT and BT to further the chance of getting Ron's fanny back up in the Katrina saddle and maybe even buy him some breathing room over the minimum amount i set as my goal to raise, in case he gets a flat tire or wears out a set of bib overalls.

Luka and Calvin have agreed to collect any dough and send a check to Ron from donations given through the PayPal button at the bottom of this screen; just note what the donation is for on the form you'll fill out. If you wish to send a check directly to me (this saves the PayPal fee) or have questions, here's my info. I'll consolidate the collection and send Ron your money along with a list of contributors.

Colleen Miller
825 Foxy Lane
Stevensville, MT 59870
Phone 406.777.1167

(DO NOT share this address with anyone else! ;^) )

Ron's one of the kindest, most thoughtful people i've met in my whole life, let alone from BT, despite his odd habit of voting Republican and a predilection for ruining mashed potatoes with a slurry of dead animal. I hope this season of spiritual reflection causes great lots of us to reach across our cultural and political divides to make this one, simple thing happen, to pay it forward in a way that is personal and makes us shareholders in an enterprise whose value can only increase.

Y'all have a spectacular Winter Solstice and give peas a chance.