Alittle long but good, <br><br>&quot;A Trucker's Story&quot; <br><br>I try not to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring Stevie. His placement counselor assured <br>me that he would be a good, reliable busboy. But I had never had a mentally handicapped employee <br>and wasn't sure I wanted one. I wasn't sure how my Customers would react to Stevie. <br><br>He was short, a little dumpy with the smooth facial features and thick-tongued speech of Down <br>syndrome. I wasn't worried about most of my trucker customers because truckers don't generally <br>care who buses tables as long as the meatloaf platter is good and the pies are homemade. <br><br>The four-wheeler drivers were the ones who concerned me; the mouthy college kids traveling to <br>school; the yuppie snobs who secretly polish their silverware with their napkins for fear of <br>catching some dreaded &quot;truck stop germ&quot;; the pairs of white shirted business men on expense <br>accounts who think every truck stop waitress wants to be flirted with. <br><br>I knew those people would be uncomfortable around Stevie so I closely watched him for the first <br>few weeks. I shouldn't have worried. After the first week, Stevie had my staff wrapped around his <br>stubby little finger, and within a month my truck regulars had adopted him as their official truck <br>stop mascot. After that, I really didn't care what the rest of the customers thought of him. <br><br>He was like a 21-year-old in blue jeans and Nikes, eager to laugh and eager to please, but fierce <br>in his attention to his duties. Every salt and pepper shaker was exactly in its place, not a bread <br>crumb or coffee spill was visible when Stevie got done with the table. Our only problem was <br>persuading him to wait to clean a table until after the customers were finished. He would hover in <br>the background, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, scanning the dining room until a <br>table was empty. Then he would scurry to the empty table and carefully bus dishes and glasses onto <br>cart and meticulously wipe the table up with a practiced flourish of his rag. If he thought a <br>customer was watching, his brow would pucker with added concentration. He took pride in doing his <br>job exactly right, and you had to love how hard he tried to please each and every person he met. <br><br>Over time, we learned that he lived with his mother, a widow who was disabled after repeated <br>surgeries for cancer. They lived on their Social Security benefits in public housing two miles <br>from the truck stop. <br><br>Their Social worker, which stopped to check on him every so often, admitted they had fallen <br>between the cracks. Money was tight, and what I paid him was probably the difference between them <br>being able to live together and Stevie being sent to a group home. <br><br>That's why the restaurant was a gloomy place that morning last August, the first morning in three <br>years that Stevie missed work. He was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester getting a new valve or <br>something put in his heart. His social worker said that people with Down syndrome often had heart <br>problems at an early age so this wasn't unexpected, and there was a good chance he would come <br>through the surgery in good shape and be back at work in a few months. <br><br>A ripple of excitement ran through the staff later that morning when word came that he was out of <br>surgery, in recovery and doing fine. Frannie, head waitress, let out a war hoop and did a little <br>dance in the aisle when she heard the good news. Belle Ringer, one of our regular trucker <br>customers, stared at the sight of the 50-year-old grandmother of four doing a victory shimmy <br>beside his table. Frannie blushed, smoothed her apron and shot Belle Ringer a withering look. He <br>grinned. &quot;OK, Frannie, what was that all about?&quot; he asked. &quot;We just got word that Stevie is out of <br>surgery and going to be okay.&quot; &quot;I was wondering where he was. I had a new joke to tell him. What <br>was the surgery about?&quot; <br><br>Frannie quickly told Belle Ringer and the other two drivers sitting at his booth about Stevie's <br>surgery, and then sighed. &quot;Yeah, I'm glad he is going to be OK&quot; she said. &quot;But I don't know how he <br>and his Mom are going to handle all the bills.&quot; <br><br>&quot;From what I hear, they're barely getting by as it is.&quot; Belle Ringer nodded thoughtfully, and <br>Frannie hurried off to wait on the rest of her tables. Since I hadn't had time to round up a <br>busboy to replace Stevie and really didn't want to replace him, the girls were busing their own <br>tables that day until we decided what to do. <br><br>After the morning rush, Frannie walked into my office. She had a couple of paper napkins in her <br>hand a funny look on her face.&quot; What's up?&quot; I asked. &quot;I didn't get that table where Belle Ringer <br>and his friends were sitting cleared off after they left, and Pony Pete and Tony Tipper were <br>sitting there when I got back to clean it off&quot; she said. &quot;This was folded and tucked under a <br>coffee cup.&quot; She handed the napkin to me, and three $20 bills fell onto my desk when I opened it. <br>On the outside, in big, bold letters, was printed &quot;Something For Stevie.&quot; &quot;Pony Pete asked me what <br>that was all about,&quot; she said, &quot;so I told about Stevie and his Mom and everything, and Pete looked <br>at Tony and Tony looked at Pete, and they ended up giving me this.&quot; She handed me another paper <br>napkin that had &quot;Something For Stevie&quot; scrawled on its outside. Two $50 bills were tucked within <br>its folds. Frannie looked at me with wet, shiny eyes, shook her head and said simply &quot;truckers.&quot; <br><br>That was three months ago. Today is Thanksgiving, the first day Stevie is supposed to be back to <br>work. His placement worker said he's been counting the days until the doctor said he could work, <br>and it didn't matter at all that it was a holiday. He called 10 times in the past week, making <br>sure we knew he was coming, fearful that we had forgotten him or that his job was in jeopardy. <br><br>I arranged to have his mother bring him to work, met them in the parking lot and invited them both <br>to celebrate his first day back. Stevie was thinner and paler, but couldn't stop grinning as he <br>pushed through the doors and headed for the back room where his apron and bussing cart were <br>waiting. <br><br>&quot;Hold up there, Stevie, not so fast,&quot; I said. I took him and his mother by their arms. &quot;Work can <br>wait for a minute. To celebrate you coming back, breakfast for you and your mother is on me.&quot; I <br>led them toward a large corner booth at the rear of the room. I could feel and hear the rest of <br>the staff following behind as we marched through the dining room. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw <br>booth after booth of grinning truckers empty and join the procession. <br><br>We stopped in front of the big table. Its surface was covered with coffee cups, saucers and dinner <br>plates, all sitting slightly crooked on dozens of folded paper napkins. <br><br>&quot;First thing you have to do, Stevie, is clean up this mess,&quot; I said. I tried to sound stern. <br>Stevie looked at me, and then at his mother, then pulled out one of the napkins. It had &quot;Something <br>for Stevie&quot; printed on the outside. As he picked it up, two $10 bills fell onto the table. <br><br>Stevie stared at the money, then at all the napkins peeking from beneath the tableware, each with <br>his name printed or scrawled on it. I turned to his mother. &quot;There's more than $10,000 in cash and <br>checks on that table, all from truckers and trucking companies that heard about your problems. <br>Happy Thanksgiving.&quot; <br><br>Well, it got real noisy about that time, with everybody hollering and shouting, and there were a <br>few tears, as well. But you know what's funny? While everybody else was busy shaking hands and <br>hugging each other, Stevie, with a big, big smile on his face, was busy clearing all the cups and <br>dishes from the table. Best worker I ever hired. <br><br>Plant a seed and watch it grow.<br>

 

[quote author=Javaluva link=board=10;threadid=6636;start=0#62264 date=1036510124]<br>You done made my mascara run... :'(...thanks, Ricki.... :-*<br>[/quote]<br><br>I knew that would get ya

 

you know how company emials work, I get about 5-6 emials of jokes a day, some I don't feel right to post on here.

 

[quote author=DarrellB link=board=10;threadid=6636;start=0#62682 date=1036551648]<br>Do real men cry?<br><br>Yep :'( :'( :'( :'(<br><br>Darrell<br>[/quote]<br> :