The good guys thread

[kuhio98]

THE TICKET UNDERWRITER

For years my friends and I went on an annual 3-day bike ride in California. A few years ago I was going through a divorce and I just couldn't afford the trip. Then one day a plane ticket arrived in the mail. A friend had paid for my flight. He knew I needed to get away from it all and be with everyone for the ride.

Karen
Cortez, Colorado

[carole]

Lisa i think YOU should consider yourself one of those good people, because i certainly do, you will always have a special place in my heart, and i am forever grateful to you.

[kuhio98]

Lisa i think YOU should consider yourself one of those good people, because i certainly do, you will always have a special place in my heart, and i am forever grateful to you.

Awww, thank you Carole. There are far more good guys in the world than bad. For some reason the bad get the press.
I hope others will post their good stories. They don't have to be from your personal experience. But, when you read or see something good happen, I hope that people will be more inclined to post it or forward it to others.

[kuhio98]

BECAUSE PETS NEED AID, TOO

After reading countless hearbreaking stories of "foreclosure pets" (animals whose families could not longer afford to take care of them). Laura Pople knew she had to help. She started Seer Farms, an animal sanctuary in Jackson, New Jersey, that provides a temporary home for pets when their owners experience an emergency, economic crisis or disaster.

[kuhio98]

BECAUSE STRANGERS HELP WHEN IT COUNTS

I recently had to fly overseas with my 1-month-old twins. I was having a really hard time handling both of them, and they were crying like crazy. Then a woman sitting nearby came over and offered to help. She held my daughter for two hours! She fed her a bottle, burped her and once she was sleeping peacefully, returned her to me wiht a big smile. I was so touched.

Quarratulain, Jedda Saudi Arabia

[kuhio98]

BECAUSE EVERYONE DESERVES A FRESH START

Women in the Nashville area who are transitioning from jail back to civic life have an easier adjustment thanks to Lea Robinson and her organization, Second Chance Reentry. She started the program five years ago to help female ex-cons find housing, jobs and rehabilitation -- even free haircuts.

[RICHARD]

Alex Zanardi was a race car driver who lost his legs in a racing accident.
I was pleased to see that he is still alive, well and racing, again.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...6004/index.htm



To Alex Zanardi, there is no such thing as a gripping real-life story that can't be improved in the retelling. To wit: the daring, last-lap maneuver on a downhill curve with which the former open-wheel driver stole a CART race from rival Bryan Herta in 1996. The move instantly became the stuff of legend—racing fans still know it simply as The Pass. But the following winter Jimmy Vasser, a Champ Car teammate, noticed that Zanardi's banquet-circuit accounts took the moment to new dramatic heights. After hearing his friend describe Herta's eyes widening in disbelief as Zanardi zoomed by, Vasser produced a photo of Herta wearing a helmet that day with an impenetrable black visor. "C'mon, Jimmy," Zanardi said with a smile, "you know I like to tell stories."

Some tales, however, defy embellishment. Eleven years ago this week at the Lausitzring track in Germany, Zanardi lost both legs in a crash so violent that he was administered last rites. But there was Zanardi on Sept. 5, competing at Brands Hatch circuit in London, a course he first navigated as a promising Formula 3000 driver in 1991—only this time as a handcyclist at the Paralympic Games. Zanardi, 45, won two gold medals in London, in the 16K H4 time trial and the 64K H4 road race, the latter by just one second in a sprint finish. "To win in this way ... makes me really proud," says Zanardi, who also helped Italy take silver in the mixed relay. "It shows that I am a complete cyclist, even if I have no legs."On Sunday, Zanardi capped what he calls a "magical adventure" by bearing Italy's flag in the Paralympics' closing ceremony. "I found happiness the very first day of training," he says. "It would have been worth doing even if I had won nothing here."

Before his accident Zanardi was one of open-wheel racing's most charismatic stars: the CART Champ Car rookie of the year in 1996, the points champion in '97 and '98, and a strong competitor in more than 40 Formula One events. Fans loved the way he married skill with showmanship, punctuating victories with doughnut spins before that became a finish-line ritual. After his first Champ title he shared a Wheaties box with Vasser, his Ganassi Racing teammate and the 1996 champion.

Zanardi's passion for racing didn't diminish after his crash. Weeks after the accident, before he even got the hang of walking on prosthetic legs, Zanardi was behind the wheel in a hand-controlled car. In 2003 he began driving in the European Touring Car Championships, winning four times. "I didn't go into touring cars to prove anything," he says. "I started racing again because it makes me happy."

In 2006, Zanardi got into a dispute in Italy with another driver over a handicapped parking spot. Seeing a wheeled contraption on the roof of the other man's car, Zanardi defused the tension by asking, "What's that?" It was a handcycle, and a year later Zanardi called the man, future Paralympic relaymate Vittorio Podesta, and asked where he could get one to train for the New York City Marathon. With just a few weeks' practice, Zanardi finished fourth in the handcycling division. After training full time for two years, he won in New York last fall.

The occasional parking-spot spat aside, Zanardi has embraced life as a double amputee with grace and good humor. "It's like his disability isn't even an issue," says his former race-team boss Chip Ganassi, who has seen Zanardi pop off a prosthetic, turn it upside down and set a bowl of peanuts on the foot just to make a crowd of old friends and new acquaintances feel at ease.

Zanardi prefers the term diverse ability to disability, and he's already thinking of ways to further diversify. He's toying with the idea of skiing in the Winter Paralympics. Driving in the Indianapolis 500—Vasser, who now co-owns an IndyCar team, promised to set up Zanardi with a car if he won gold in London—is another possibility, though Zanardi, who lives with his wife and 14-year-old son in Padua, Italy, admits that it's a faint one. "Right now I have a very happy life," he says. "I don't need to shoot off fireworks every day." But if the right opportunity came along? "You might see me shooting off more fireworks. Who knows?"