A Burning Sadness

Friday August 22nd, 2008 - Minonk, IL

Shock. Sadness. Sympathy. Sobbing. Those are four words that kicked me in the ‘s’ as I read my email this morning before leaving the hotel in Arkansas. I sadly learned of a huge fire that completely destroyed my friend Les Sorenson’s house up in the Milwaukee area.

Les was the guy who owned the coin and stamp shop on Howell Avenue that was killed right in the store a couple of years ago now. They never did catch the lowlife maggot who did it and the whole thing was just wrong. Les was a wonderful soul and as gentle as they come. Every time I did a show in Milwaukee he’d bring his whole family out to see me.

He was a fan and a friend and I got to know and like his family too. I can honestly say I have never met a kinder bunch of people anywhere and now they get paid back by having their house with everything in it burn down. From what I heard they lost EVERYTHING.

Les was a packrat for sure and he had so much crap packed into his shop it was difficult to even walk through it so I’m sure the house had a ton of stuff in it. There was a lot of all kinds of stuff but Les especially liked autographs. The family was going to sell those so it could help make ends meet but there was just so much of it they hadn’t sorted it all out.

Les used to tell me how he built that house with his own hands. He was proud of it and always said he was going to have me out for dinner so I could see it but we never did get to do that and now it‘s too late. It‘s one more bit of proof that nothing is ever guaranteed.

To make it even worse they had a son who was in a nasty car wreck years ago and had a lot of special needs. He had trouble getting around and now he’s without a home too. I am very sad to hear of this and it bothered me all day in the car as I drove just over 650 miles.

I sent an email to the family saying I’ll be glad to do a comedy show to benefit them but in reality how much would it really do? I’ve tried to do benefit shows before and they’re a tough sell and I’m the first one to admit I’m not a big draw, especially in my home town.

This isn’t about me at all though. This is about trying to lend a hand to a family who has seen more tough times than anyone needs to. I know nothing about rebuilding a house but I do know about putting on comedy shows so if I can do that and help out I’ll gladly do it.

I know there are causes all over the place and many of them are legit and worthy and I’ll always pitch in whenever I can to help someone in need but this is a special occasion. The whole family is about as kind and gentle as humans get and I’d do anything to help them.

Nothing else I can say or do today will be more important than this. I totally don’t care about any baseball or football scores or who Obama’s oil can running mate is going to be or a whole lot of anything else either. Hearing of this really laid heavy on my heart all day and I feel totally helpless about what I can do to lend a hand. This makes NO sense to me at all. How can such friendly gentle people have this kind of evil keep crapping on them?