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A farmer had some puppies he needed to sell.
He painted a sign advertising the 4 pups and
set about nailing it to a post on the edge of
his yard. As he was driving the last nail into the
post, he felt a tug on his overalls. He looked
down into the eyes of a little boy.

"Mister," he said, "I want to buy one of your
puppies."

"Well," said the farmer, as he rubbed the sweat
off the back of his neck, "These puppies come
from fine parents and cost a good deal of money."

The boy dropped his head for a moment. Then
reaching deep into his pocket, he pulled out a
handful of change and held it up to the farmer.

"I've got thirty-nine cents. Is that enough to take
a look?"

"Sure," said the farmer. And with that he let out
a whistle. "Here, Dolly!" he called.

Out from the doghouse and down the ramp ran
Dolly followed by four little balls of fur.

The little boy pressed his face against the chain
link fence. His eyes danced with delight. As the
dogs made their way to the fence, the little boy
noticed something else stirring inside the doghouse.

Slowly another little ball appeared, this one noticeably
smaller. Down the ramp it slid. Then in a somewhat
awkward manner, the little pup began hobbling toward
the others, doing its best to catch up...

"I want that one," the little boy said, pointing to the
runt. The farmer knelt down at the boy's side and said,
"Son, you don't want that puppy. He will never be able
to run and play with you like these other dogs would."

With that the little boy stepped back from the fence,
reached down, and began rolling up one leg of his
trousers.

In doing so he revealed a steel brace running down
both sides of his leg attaching itself to a specially made
shoe.

Looking back up at the farmer, he said, "You see sir,
I don't run too well myself, and he will need someone
who understands."

With tears in his eyes, the farmer reached down and
picked up the little pup.

Holding it carefully he handed it to the little boy.

"How much?" asked the little boy... "No charge,"
answered the farmer, "There's no charge for love."

The world is full of people who need someone who
understands.

I recently read an artical by Jere Downs in the Florida Today. It shows a growing trend in America; people losing their homes and turning to RVing as a way of life, more our of necessity in a lifestyle choice. I hope you enjoy Jere's article.

CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. - Amazon.com has what many migrant workers want for the holidays: a job.
Hard-up retirees and unemployed workers with children have converged on this rural town in RVs and campers to spend a few months earning $10 an hour filling orders at an Amazon warehouse.

Amazon offers a free place to park and plug in. When work ends Christmas Eve, the campers pull out.
Many have lost their homes and live on the road, home schooling their children along the way. Others are retirees who had planned to see the country but now work along the way to supplement depleted investments. Those not old enough for Medicare typically lack insurance.
"We are among the economic refugees. We are lucky to earn enough to get our laundry done and eat macaroni and cheese," said April McFail, 52. "I think it says America needs something different. This is supposed to be freedom and a good life. Now it is a sad note."

McFail's husband, Terry, lost his job last year at Dow Chemical earning $18 hourly in southern Michigan. They lost their home to foreclosure in May. Pooling $8,000 in savings, they purchased a 1987 Winnebago and hit the road. They worked as campground hosts in South Dakota for the summer, arriving in September to begin work at Amazon.
A short time later, April McFail's diabetes forced her to quit the Amazon job. She could not manage 10-hour shifts four days a week lifting packages up to 30 pounds each. Health care benefits left over from her husband's job at Dow expire Tuesday.

'Amazon Gypsies'

Lunchboxes in hand, "Amazon Gypsies" walk down the hill to work from the company camp built on a gravel parking lot next to an auto junkyard. A nearby state park extended its hours through Christmas at Amazon's request.
Amazon pays campsite rental, water, sewer and electric. Some campers choose to save their propane and rely on electric blankets and heaters to stay warm at night.

Blankets cover the windows of the Wicklane family's 1997 Fleetwood camper. An electric space heater whirrs on the worn linoleum floor. After losing an electrician's job and a house in Florida last year, Kurt Wicklane found work unloading Amazon trucks in Kentucky to feed two daughters, ages 3 and 9, and a son, 5.

"My grandmother keeps calling me and asking me when are going to come back home" to Tampa, Heather Wicklane, 27, said while her children played outside their trailer at Green River Lake State Park. "I tell her we are home."
Around the clock, an estimated 500 "work campers" from Florida, Texas, Michigan and elsewhere supplement 3,000 temporary Amazon staff covering three shifts sorting, wrapping, stacking and packing holiday orders. Year-round, Amazon employs 1,200 full time in Campbellsville, a 90-minute drive south of Louisville.

The world's largest online retailer has long struggled to fill thousands of seasonal jobs in this town of just 11,000, said Ron McMahan, executive director of the Campbellsville Taylor County Economic Development Authority.
The state park would typically close Oct. 30. But it was upgraded with frost-proof utilities to accommodate the Amazonians, as the company calls its workers, with $48,000 in state funds, McMahan said. Amazon pays the state park $18 per night for each site occupied by workers, said Gil Lawson, spokesman for the Kentucky Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet, which oversees state parks.
With the help of local landowners willing to open more new campgrounds, Amazon may expand its work camper ranks to 1,600 slots next year, McMahan added.

"We will need more people who are willing to do whatever it takes to pay the bills," McMahan said of the work camper phenomenon. "This is economic development for us."

Idea isn't new

Nationwide, up to 500,000 people work while living in their RVs, said Steve Anderson, editor of Workamper News, a journal based in Heber Springs, Ark. The recession has added to their ranks, he said.

Meanwhile, baby boomers are retiring and taking to the road.

"Amazon realized this was something they need to pursue," Anderson said. The company places ads in his journal for work camper jobs at warehouses in rural Nevada and Kansas, in addition to Kentucky.

Work campers have long worked as campground hosts - greeting guests and cleaning up for a free campsite and utilities - in state and national parks. As the recession has deepened, these migrant campers have becoming increasingly crucial.

In Idaho last summer, work campers kept the state's 30 park campgrounds operational after budget cuts resulted in the layoff of 27 full-time state park employees, said Kathryn Hampton, volunteer services coordinator for the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation.
Work campers said they also rely on amusement parks, Christmas tree lots and pumpkin patches for seasonal work. Near the Las Vegas strip, the Clark County Shooting Park is seeking 30 work campers who can park free in exchange for guiding police and tourists at the gun range.
"Less than half of all work campers consider themselves retired, with the median age being 53," Anderson estimates.

Lifeboat on wheels

The RV that Joshua Lindsey, 35, his wife and three children call home is "their lifeboat," said the former stockbroker and real estate investor. Before losing everything in St. Petersburg, Fla., in the market crash of 2008, Lindsey said he earned more than six figures annually.
Now, working the graveyard shift at Amazon for three months "will provide my kids Christmas this year and food for the table and a means to get through to the spring, when there are a lot more jobs available."

More common among work campers are people like Bill and Dorothy Judge, longtime retirees and RVers working now because their investment incomes have declined.

They live in a $275,000 Winnebago Vectra, a gleaming, top-of-the-line, spacious RV that logs 7 miles to the gallon. Still, Bill Judge, 72, said he took a graveyard shift at Amazon in hopes of earning up to $9,000 in four months. That will buy new tires for the RV at $600 apiece and finance upcoming trips.

The Seattle-based couple has lived the RV lifestyle since 1994, living on pensions acquired from union jobs at Boeing and service in the U.S. Air Force. To cope with less investment income, the couple said they often stay for free overnight in Wal-Mart parking lots.
"I did not imagine I would be working in a warehouse job in my retirement. I have not worked since 1994," Judge said.
Come Christmas Eve, demand online will wither for books, DVDs, kitchenware, toys, apparel, sporting goods, jewelry, watches, health and personal-care items. That is the last day work campers say they expect to have jobs at Amazon.

The Wicklanes, camped beside Green River Lake, don't know where the next job will be. They plan to hunker down for Christmas.

"It would take a day to drive anywhere," Kurt Wicklane said of family far away in Florida.

"We may as well sit tight."

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