It wasn’tt all bad
All we know about the man who picked up everyone’s tab at a Walmart in rural Vermont last month is that he’s a fan of the New England Patriots. Wearing a jacket with the team’s logo, the man approached dozens of shoppers at checkout lines and offered to foot the bill and cover any items they’d put on layaway for the holidays. Julie Ann Gates, a customer inside the store, initially thought she was being pranked when the man said he’d pay her $200 bill. “I said, ‘Who can afford that?’” Gates recalled, “and he said, ‘Santa can.’”
When a blue-eyed husky named Sinatra went missing 18 months ago, Brooklyn resident Lesmore Willis wondered if he’d ever see his beloved pet again. But just when he’d given up hope, Willis received a Facebook message from a woman in Tampa, asking if he’d lost a husky. Sinatra had been found wondering her neighborhood, she said, and his chip indicated Willis might be the owner. How Sinatra made his 1,200-mile migration south is still a mystery. But Willis was overjoyed to be reunited with the dog, a favorite of his daughter, Zion, who died at age 16. “It really feels like getting a piece of her back,” Willis said.
Adam Gillian is a regular at Alexander Archbold’s antique shop in Edmonton, Alberta, where the homeless man often sells curiosities he’s found in the trash. When Gillian came in with a picture of the Disney character Bambi, Archbold paid him $20, thinking it was a replica animation cel. But the store owner later discovered it was a hand-drawn original from the 1942 film, and tracked Gillian down to give him $1,600, nearly half of its sale price. He then launched an online fundraiser to help Gillian get off the street. It quickly exceeded its $10,000 goal. “He has a talent” for finding antiques, said Archbold. “I hope he sticks with it.”