A Kilted Community? Time to put up or shut up!

[Doc Hudson]

If this is a community, it is time for it to help a member and friend.

Dreadbelly has bared his soul telling about his problems. You probably have an idea how hard that is for a proud man.

Lots of folks have posted comments about prayers and good wishes. But that don't pay the rent or phone bill. So if this is a community, it is time get off you wallets and offer material assistance.

Recently, I lost part of my roof to Hurricane Katrina. Without the assistance of many friends, we'd either still have only half a roof, or we'd have had to sell lots of stuff that we really don't want to part with. But our friends, stepped up, without being asked, and helped us get a new roof. That is what friendship and community are all about, helping each other.

So, I challenge each and every one of you, to help Dreadbelly. It doesn't have to be a lot, but a lot of small contributions will help. Since I'm posting this without Dr. Douglas's knowledge, or permission, I won't publicly post his mailing address, at least until I get his permission. So if you don't have his mailing address, contact me at dochudson2 AT yahoo.com and I will send it to you.

Now prove you are a community!! I dee double-dog dare ya!!!!

BTW, International mail and postal money orders work just as well as the US Mail and US Postal Money Orders. If we can contribute to International efforts to help strangers, we can bloody well contribute to an International effort to help a friend!!

[highlander_Daz]

Is there anyway or anyone we can paypal some money Doc? I think we should get behind dread, lets prove the clan system isnt dead and help our friend

[usndoc]

Email inbound.

[Mr. Kilt]

Check your email, Doc. I'm just heading off to work, so I won't be able to respond for a few hours.

[Doc Hudson]

Is there anyway or anyone we can paypal some money Doc? I think we should get behind dread, lets prove the clan system isnt dead and help our friend

Cash or a postal money order would be best, even with international mail.

Less chance of Social Services gigging him for the assistance.

[macsim]

Excellent idea. E-mail on the way.

[Mike1]

OK, it appears that Doc Hudson has come up with a means to show Dreadbelly some support. Doc has thoughtfully provided his contact details in his lead-off post, so if you want to show your support, please use that channel for all further contacts.

In the absence of our forum Admin, I do want to point out that this charitable effort currently has not been sanctioned or endorsed by the owner of this Web site.

[Archangel]

caution: I don't know how your SS works. Here in Canada, all must be reported, and deducted from total. Of course, the math and timing is never equals the same amount. If it is the same then we might be putting Dread into even more trouble. We should have some knowledgeable input here for that.

Of course, there's the Scottish way, send Doc the money as a gift for charitable needs that he is aware of and he will use his discretion to do good deeds in secret as he sees fit. We would demand no accounting.

[Doc Hudson]

In the absence of our forum Admin, I do want to point out that this charitable effort currently has not been sanctioned or endorsed by the owner of this Web site.

Don't recollect asking for sanction, endorsement by, or permission from Website owner or Moderators.

If this is a community, the members of the community help each other.

[Alan H]

This is really really hard to write, here, but I'm going to have to do it. First up, I'm sorry about this post, I honestly am sorry to be writing this. It's going to smell bad, but sometimes reality bites.

I've been onlline for almost ten years. During that time I've been involved in a number of online forums/communities, ranging from sailing to music to Tolkien-based-fantasy-role-play to boat design to computer support. I've been active in one of those communites for nearly nine years.

During that time I've seen dozens of people declare various disasters in their lives. One told us about an abusive husband which she fled, leaving her daughter and everything she had behind her, to move to Vancouver. Another told us about a parent who died and despite the person being that parents sole source of support for the last twelve years of their convalescence, the parent wrote that person...who now had no job skills...out of the will. I remember the story, corroborated by someone else that our online community knew, about how this woman had been abandoned by her abusive husband, and was now living a barely-subsistance life on the remains of their ranch in Northern California. She didn't have the equipment to farm the ranch so she was going to look for a job in the town nearby, but her car broke down and she couldn't get into town for the job. If she could just fix the car, she could get back on her feet again, right?

I cannot tell you the number of cancer or other disease victims who declare that they're broke, about to lose their apartments and their lives will go down the drain.

In five of these cases, kind souls within the community have done what Doc just did...reached out to help, and I have responded. In one case a group of people, me included (I sent $50) pitched in to buy groceries, a used piano and sheet music for a woman who loved to play the piano, but had told us that she'd lost it in a fire. Another time I contributed money to a fund to fly someone who had lost everything back across the country so that they could live with their family, since they needed regular mediation for their autoimmune disease. A third time I contributed money to fly a man back from Australia to the USA because he was in the throes of kidney failure, but the Aussie State health care system couldn't help him long-term, he had to be back in the USA where Medicare could help him. Early on in my internet experience I loaned (LOANED) five hundred dollars to a woman who needed to get her car fixed so that she could get into town to work that job.

Without exception, without ONE exception, every single one of those causes was a fabrication, or at best was made by someone who in the end rejected the very people who helped them.

The woman with the piano had plenty of money and in fact wasn't running from an abusive husband, but was leaving the USA before her divorce was final. She'd sold the car and emptied the house of furniture in a garage sale, and cleaned out the bank account while her soon-to-be-ex was on a business trip. She took the cash to Canada. I met her face-to-face, actually. I had a beer with her and her Vancouver boyfriend in the Fogg and Sudds in the West End, in Vancouver, before the truth came out.

The woman who wanted to fly back to the East Coast to be with her family because she was broke and couldn't afford the medicine for her autoimmune disease, instead of flying to New Hampshire, took the money we all contributed and moved to Florida to be with her online BDSM "Master".

The man who needed airfare from Australia....got 3/4 of his fare paid for by a very good friend of mine named Kathy who was a United employee, (she cashed in one of her "perk" free tickets) moved, with his girlfriend to a place within 15 miles of where I lived. I met him five or six times, face-to-face. He wore out his welcome with the people who agree'd to put him up. He rejected Kathy in a spectacular, obscenity-laden blow-up on the telephone when I was in the room. The people he lived with here in San Jose told me he never went in for treatment for his kidney disease. I busted hump to find his girlfriend a job, since she was his only means of support. She never bothered to show up to either of the job interviews I got for her. Someone else did the same thing...she didn't show up for either of those interviews, either. When the people who were putting him up finally got sick of Larry and kicked him out, his girlfriend left and went back to Australia. He publically accused me of trying to seduce her. He finally refused to return phone calls or e-mails from anyone, and last I heard he died about a year ago in a State facility here the South Bay.

The woman to whom I loaned five hundred bucks? I never heard from her again. I could tell you three or four more stories like this that involve me directly, and I could tell you another dozen stories, just like these to which I happened not to have contributed. They rip my heart out.

This is a brutal post. It's sickening. I'm sorry. Over the years I have opened my wallet and my heart to a number of "friends" from online communities. Without exception, those contributions have turned out to be wasted, or given to people who really did not need them. Five times, and another half dozen that I know of, but didn't contribute to..... the internets track record in terms of honesty and online reliability is not very good, and I do not trust it any more.

I'm sorry. I wish Dreadbelly the very, very best. I wish him the best of luck, and I will have my fingers crossed for the man and for his wife. This is nothing, whatsever, personal against Dreadbelly. I've thoroughly enjoyed the man's posts here on X Marks, and is sounds like he's in a serious bind with S.S. right now. It sounds like a tough situation. Hang it there, mate! But I will not open my wallet again for someone that I do not know in person, or that I do not have documented, printed, certified evidence that I can see physically sitting on a table in front of me, proving beyond a reasonable doubt that they are really in trouble.

I'm sorry, and honestly.... I'm not sure anyone understands how honestly sorry I actually am, to be writing this post.