To Help Mary Ann in her recovery!

 This post isn't about me, but I ask for your patience for a moment, I have something to explain. I said before, in connection to this, that I don't have many friends. The reason for this is that I suffer from depression. I tend to push people away with anger and sarcasm and such. So it takes a special person to acually put up with me and want to be my friend

Now, the first go at this didn't raise much money, I know, it's been a tough year for everyone and given the climate of things nationally and the upcoming holidays I hate to ask again, but it'swhat I'm going to do. But first, let me tell you who my friend Mary Ann Goodwin is.

I actually met Mary Ann's husband and son first, I inherited them from the driver I was replacing when I first started hauling windmill blades. I couldn't have been more lucky. Not just good at their jobs but great, I wasn't afraid to go anywhere if Jeremy was holding the remote. Butch was funny, all day every day. He took his job seriously, but there was just an immeadiate chemistry with them. So I not only got probably the best steerman and front car combination I could have from day one, I got friends out of it too. Later the Goodwins would become the broker that arranged all my pilots for windmill blades. So i was around the whole family alot. It really did feel like they were just family. One time i needed a ride to pharmacy, Mary Ann and Butch took me. We celebrated birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, you name it on the road. Often in the wind and cold in a parking lot somewhere on the side of the road. 

Unfortunately, I would not know Butch for a complete year. He passed the next spring. I remember Jeremy calling me, I was in Toronto at the time and he let me know Butch had passed. It left a hole.

Then a little more than three years ago, my phone rang on a saturday afternoon. I was just pulling into the yard and parking behind the pole barn and it was Mary Ann. I answered happily, my phone doesnt ring all that much most days. The happiness died instantly. She was crying but taking the time to call and let me know her son Jeremy had been in an accident a few hours earlier and had been killed. Someone ran a stop sign at speed and Tboned his pickup. Another hole. 

But with all that, Mary Ann doesn't complain. I know her heart aches, I know she still misses them both and always will but she is the type that sucks it up and keeps going. Life has kicked her around but you would never know it listening to her. She has a great laugh too, and she doesn't let her sorrow make her forget to laugh. 

Now there is something else. The Goodwins, Mary Ann, Butch and Jeremy, all three have bought cars and set people up with equipment and training to not just be a pilot, but be a good one. Unfortunately, people with big hearts don't just have awesome friends, they draw users like a raw steak in the outback of australia on a hot day. Their generosity and kindness has been abused in the past. It's not that people like this don't learn their lesson, they are just willing to take a risk on people, knowing the odds suck, but they can't leave anyone stranded or out of work. I know of a family out in the north east, I think it was Maine, that after the job was over, Mary Ann gave this family her work van. They needed a car, theirs was beyond fixing and Mary Ann gave it away saying "i've been wanting something newer with fewer miles anyway" and giving her trademark smokey laugh. I know of these stories not because Mary Ann told me, but other escorts related the stories. What help she can give, she does in a quiet and understated way. Got a stray dog and need help finding it a home? Call Mary Ann. Some kid languishing in foster care? call Mary Ann. She may not be able to take them in, but she will do her damnedest to make sure they get a home and feel loved.

Now, Butch and Mary Ann have been self employed for years and years. Being self employed you try to show as little profit as possible to save on taxes. You need that money in the bank for business purposes, and let me tell you, a semi can suck money out of your bank account like an industrial electrolux. So, social security isn't much help for Mary Ann right now.

So if you can help, this is who your are helping, One of the most selfless people I've ever known. I know alot of people, but few are friends. Mary Ann is truly a friend, and was for a time, really more like an Aunt than anything.