November 18, 2018 – davidbruceblog #2

• In order for Milton Ochieng’ to go to the United States to attend college, he needed money. He got it: His neighbors in the Kenyan village (with a population of about 1,100 people in 2008) known as Lwala sold chickens and cattle to raise $900 for his plane ticket to the United States, where Mr. Ochieng’ attended and graduated from Dartmouth College and then attended and graduated from Vanderbilt University Medical School. His brother, Fred, followed him to the United States. Together, they raised $150,000 to build a health clinic in Lwala. The Blood:Water Mission, a Nashville-based nonprofit that was founded by Christian rockers Jars of Clay, contributed money to help build the clinic. Its program director, Barak Bruerd, says, “It’s not common to have a couple of village boys come to the U.S. and advocate for a clinic to be built in their country. The fact that they were able to bring so much support to their community is amazing.” Dr. Milton Ochieng’ remembers when he was young he saw ill people being pushed in wheelbarrows to reach a paved road they could travel on to get medical treatment. In Africa, the American dollar goes far. In its first year of existence, the clinic treated 20,000 patients. Cost: just under $100,000. Dr. Milton Ochieng’ says, “There’s such a sense of love and people feeling they’ve gained so much from the health center. It keeps me going. … It makes you realize how great it is to be a doctor, how great it is to be serving humanity.” The clinic is named the Erastus Ochieng’ Lwala Community Memorial Health Center in honor of the brothers’ father.

• Opera tenor Enrico Caruso became a coin collector through his old friend Mr. Amedeo Canessa. During a conversation, Mr. Canessa showed Mr. Caruso a gold coin on one side of which the head of Queen Arsinoë was engraved. Mr. Canessa said, “That little thing costs 500 francs.” Mr. Caruso replied, “It’s beautiful. I like it. But what is the use of one? I don’t want one coin.” Mr. Canessa said, “There is only this one. It is a very rare specimen.” Mr. Caruso really liked the coin. He said, “Very well, then. It’s mine.” He then began to collect coins — more than 2,000 of them — as well as antique glass, bronzes, enamel, furniture, pottery, and watches. Mr. Caruso was generous with his wealth. A street cleaner — an elderly Italian — once saw him stopped on a street in a car. The old Italian shouted, “Carus!” Then he jumped on the car’s running board. Enrico engaged in conversation with him in the Neapolitan dialect, and he shook his hand. As the old Italian turned to go, Enrico stuffed some money into one of his pockets.

• People sin, but they can repent. For example, someone stole a hammer decades ago from Central Contractors Supply Co. in western Pennsylvania. Eventually, the thief repented and sent an envelope containing money and a note to the owners —the Gramling family — of the supply store. The note stated that the writer had stolen a hammer from the family-owned supply store 25 or 30 years ago. The note also stated, “I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway. Enclosed is $45 to cover the hammer plus a little extra for interest. I’m sorry I stole it, but have changed my ways.” Lots of things have been stolen from the store over the decades, said co-owner Lynne Gramling, but this was the first time that a thief paid for what was stolen. She took the money to her father, also a co-owner of the store. He was ringing a bell for the Salvation Army, and she put the money in his kettle. She said that the money was “really a lot more than a hammer would cost. He was very generous.”

• Garry Trudeau became an adult in the 1960s. He says, “It was the cauldron, the late 60s, when I began to think as an adult. All hell was taking place, the Black Panthers were on trial, students were shot in the Kent State protests, war was waging on the other side of the globe, it was very hard not to be swept up in all of that.” He made his comic strip, Doonesbury, topical. In order to write about very current events, he kept pushing his deadlines back, thus making many printers, who were paid overtime for their work on his comic strip, happy. Supposedly, one printer made so much money by working overtime because of Trudeau that he bought a yacht and named it Doonesbury.

• In the minor leagues, fans can sometimes get very close to the players and even give them gifts. Alan Trammell played 20 years with the Detroit Tigers, and he remembers playing a minor-league doubleheader for the Montgomery Rebels in which a fan got to use the loudspeaker. In the first game of the doubleheader, the fan announced over the loudspeaker, “The first Rebel to hit a home run gets fifty bucks.” No one hit a homer in that game, so in the second game of the doubleheader, the fan announced, “The first Rebel to hit a home run gets a hundred bucks.” Mr. Trammell hit a home run, and the fan leaned over the dugout and gave him a $100 bill.

• The operating room is a serious place, but funny things happen even there. One surgeon kept complaining that the air conditioning in the operating room was too strong. When he finished the operation, he turned to walk away, and fell — he had not realized that shortly after he had begun the operation his pants had fallen down. And one patient needed an operation after a bullet had hit some coins in his pocket, embedding pieces of money in his body. The patient looked at the surgeon, who was wearing a surgical mask, and said, “Well, I guess it’s only normal to wear a mask when taking someone’s money.”

• Willie, the son of the great 19th-century actor Joseph Jefferson, once cabled him to send £200 at once. Mr. Jefferson cabled back, “What for?” His son sent back the reply, “For Willie.” Mr. Jefferson sent the money.

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David Bruce; Money Anecdotes

• A homeless panhandler named Don (who did not want his last name released) begged for two years in front of the Blue Room Gallery, a non-profit art gallery in San Francisco. When his long-estranged mother died, she left him $187,000. Don quickly wrote a check for $10,000 for the art gallery and gave it to the Blue Room Gallery’s owner, Paul Mahder, to thank him for his kindness. Mr. Mahder started crying when he received the check. He said, “We both stood there crying. Me, because I knew how much this meant to Don. And Don was crying because, I think, he was able to really do something big for something he really cared about.” Don said, “They’ve been good to me for years at this gallery, and I wanted to pay them back. I know I haven’t led much of a life to be proud of, and I can’t even remember half of it. But for once, I wanted to do something right.” Don’s life has not been good. He has abused alcohol and crack, and he has been a criminal who served time. Mr. Mahder has been good to Don, who said, “When I had a heart attack and wound up in the hospital a year ago, who was the only person to visit me? Paul [Mahder]. And when I needed a doorway to sleep in over the past couple years, who let me? Paul. He gave me respect and hope when I needed it the most, and he never judged me. He treated me like a human being. That’s something you don’t forget.” Don spent $35,000 on a trailer so he can have a home, and he had plans to pay five years of rent in advance to a trailer park. He also bought a Rolex watch and gold bracelets and necklaces, and he tipped cab drivers $100. He also started drug and alcohol counseling. Don said, “I never had anything, and now all of a sudden being hit with all this money is a shock. Even little things are strange—like now I can afford to do laundry the right way, you know, washing some things hot, some things cold, watching what bleeds into other clothes. Never thought of these things before.” Social workers at Conard House, which helps people with mental illness, are trying to help Don make the adjustment to not being a homeless beggar. Seth Katzman, a director at Conard House, said about Don, “He’s trying very hard to get his life in order, and we want to make sure he makes the best use of his resources. These windfalls do happen now and then—usually not this big—and the important thing is not to waste it. Once, one guy insisted he get a new car, so he did and promptly wrecked it with minimal insurance. Boom, $25,000 went away just like that.” Mr. Mahder said, “There are certain homeless people you just stay away from, but it was clear from the first moment that Don was different. He was real, didn’t ask for a lot of money, was a nice guy.” Mr. Mahder also said that Don “loved the art so much he became sort of a marketing person for us—he told everyone he met that the gallery was great and that they should come see it.” Don was happy to give Mr. Mahder the check for $10,000. He said, “Ten thousand bucks only begins to say the kind of thanks I need to say to these guys. They saved my life when I was at the absolute bottom.”

• On April 16, 2011, a Middle Eastern businessman left a small fortune in the back of a taxicab that fortunately was driven by an honest man. Nigel Lipscombe, age 54, dropped off the businessman in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, and then discovered that the passenger had left something behind. Mr. Lipscombe said, “Another passenger got in and asked if it was my bag on the back seat. I told him it was the last passenger’s and I took it. When I looked in, I could see a laptop and what felt like some documents but I didn’t unzip the compartment to look. I went to the police station and the man was just coming out. [After he saw me, h]e was jumping about with delight.” The rucksack contained £31,000—a year and a half’s wages to Mr. Lipscombe—but he said, “I wouldn’t have kept it. I’ve always been an honest man. I wouldn’t do it if it was a million pounds.” His partner, Doreen Kavanagh, 42, said, “He did the right thing. I could have taken my kids to Disneyland. The girls are 21 and 22 now, but we always dreamed of going. We just never had the money.” The Arab businessman gave Mr. Lipscombe a $200 tip, but added $300 after Mr. Lipscombe joked, “Is that all I get?” A spokesman for Cambridgeshire Constabulary stated, “A man came into Parkside police station at 7.45pm on Saturday, April 16, with three friends and reported he had left a bag with $50,000 in it, €1,000 [Euros], a laptop, and his passport. We took a note and he left the station when the taxi driver pulled up outside with the bag. They all came into the station. We gave the man strong words of advice about carrying such a large amount of cash.”

• United States painter and teacher William M. Chase knew art. A Congressman who did not know art went around telling people about a bad painting that he owned, “Isn’t that grand? A great bargain, too. Got it for four hundred dollars, and William M. Chase says it is worth ten thousand dollars.” A friend of the painter heard what the Congressman had said, and the friend asked Mr. Chase about it. Mr. Chase explained, “He cornered me one day and wanted me to fix a value on it, but I told him I couldn’t do it. He then came at me with a question I couldn’t dodge: ‘Well, Mr. Chase, how much would you charge to paint a picture like that?’ I assured him most honestly that I wouldn’t paint one like it for ten thousand dollars.”

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Voltaire’s CANDIDE: Chapter 13. How Candide Was Obliged to Leave the Fair Cunegund and the Old Woman

The fair Cunegund, being thus made acquainted with the history of the old woman’s life and adventures, paid her all the respect and civility due to a person of her rank and merit. She very readily acceded to her proposal of engaging the passengers to relate their adventures in their turns, and was at length, as well as Candide, compelled to acknowledge that the old woman was in the right.

“It is a thousand pities,” said Candide, “that the sage Pangloss should have been hanged contrary to the custom of an auto-da-fe, for he would have given us a most admirable lecture on the moral and physical evil which overspreads the earth and sea; and I think I should have courage enough to presume to offer (with all due respect) some few objections.”

While everyone was reciting his adventures, the ship continued on her way, and at length arrived at Buenos Ayres, where Cunegund, Captain Candide, and the old woman, landed and went to wait upon the governor, Don Fernando d’Ibaraa y Figueora y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza. This nobleman carried himself with a haughtiness suitable to a person who bore so many names. He spoke with the most noble disdain to everyone, carried his nose so high, strained his voice to such a pitch, assumed so imperious an air, and stalked with so much loftiness and pride, that everyone who had the honor of conversing with him was violently tempted to bastinade His Excellency. He was immoderately fond of women, and Miss Cunegund appeared in his eyes a paragon of beauty. The first thing he did was to ask her if she was not the captain’s wife. The air with which he made this demand alarmed Candide, who did not dare to say he was married to her, because indeed he was not; neither did he venture to say she was his sister, because she was not; and though a lie of this nature proved of great service to one of the ancients, and might possibly be useful to some of the moderns, yet the purity of his heart would not permit him to violate the truth.

“Miss Cunegund,” replied he, “is to do me the honor to marry me, and we humbly beseech Your Excellency to condescend to grace the ceremony with your presence.”

Don Fernando d’Ibaraa y Figueora y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza, twirling his mustachio, and putting on a sarcastic smile, ordered Captain Candide to go and review his company. The gentle Candide obeyed, and the Governor was left with Miss Cunegund. He made her a strong declaration of love, protesting that he was ready to give her his hand in the face of the Church, or otherwise, as should appear most agreeable to a young lady of her prodigious beauty. Cunegund desired leave to retire a quarter of an hour to consult the old woman, and determine how she should proceed.

The old woman gave her the following counsel:

“Miss, you have seventy-two quarterings in your arms, it is true, but you have not a penny to bless yourself with. It is your own fault if you do not become the wife of one of the greatest noblemen in South America, with an exceeding fine mustachio. What business have you to pride yourself upon an unshaken constancy? You have been outraged by a Bulgarian soldier; a Jew and an Inquisitor have both tasted of your favors. People take advantage of misfortunes. I must confess, were I in your place, I should, without the least scruple, give my hand to the Governor, and thereby make the fortune of the brave Captain Candide.”

While the old woman was thus haranguing, with all the prudence that old age and experience furnish, a small bark entered the harbor, in which was an alcayde and his alguazils. Matters had fallen out as follows.

The old woman rightly guessed that the Franciscan with the long sleeves, was the person who had taken Miss Cunegund’s money and jewels, while they and Candide were at Badajoz, in their flight from Lisbon. This same friar attempted to sell some of the diamonds to a jeweler, who presently knew them to have belonged to the Grand Inquisitor, and stopped them. The Franciscan, before he was hanged, acknowledged that he had stolen them and described the persons, and the road they had taken. The flight of Cunegund and Candide was already the towntalk. They sent in pursuit of them to Cadiz; and the vessel which had been sent to make the greater dispatch, had now reached the port of Buenos Ayres. A report was spread that an alcayde was going to land, and that he was in pursuit of the murderers of My Lord, the Inquisitor. The sage old woman immediately saw what was to be done.

“You cannot run away,” said she to Cunegund, “but you have nothing to fear; it was not you who killed My Lord Inquisitor: besides, as the Governor is in love with you, he will not suffer you to be ill-treated; therefore stand your ground.”

Then hurrying away to Candide, she said, “Be gone hence this instant, or you will be burned alive.”

Candide found there was no time to be lost; but how could he part from Cunegund, and whither must he fly for shelter?

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Source: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Candide

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