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10 - Orono Weekly Tiroes. Wednesday. May 17. 2000 receive First Orono Guides (left to right) - Heather Maitland, Bev Netusil, Katie Hayward, Jen Gun, Amanda Hayward and Kristin Blaker received their Guiding Participation Pin, Monday evening, and are now moving on to Pathfinders. Jen, Kristin, Bev and Heather are first time recipients of the Lady Baden-Powell Guiding Awards for Orono. BASIC BLACK ARTHUR BLACK DOWN, BUT NOT NECESSARILY OUT Curious thing about panhandlers: panhandlers: the more there are, the more invisible they become. A few years ago the sight of a man, a woman or a kid and his dog squatting on thé sidewalks of our big cities would have been a reason to call the cops.. Take a walk through downtown Vancouver, Toronto Or Montreal these days and you can count on seeing at least a dozen panhandlers. panhandlers. Except chances are you won't really see them af "all. As the homeless among ùs proliferated, we nonpanhandlers nonpanhandlers quickly became quite adept at looking right through these indigents on our sidewalks. sidewalks. 'We've learned to ignore them. Our eyes slide right by them as if they aren't there. That's a dangerous condition. condition. Why, a man like dordon Elwood could die without even being noticed. Which is pretty much what happened. I mean, you didn't hear about his passing, right? :Not surprising. Mister Elwood was never on Letterman. He wasn't a rock star or a pro hockey player. Gordon Elwood lived his 79 years in relative obscurity, in a ramshackle bungalow on the outskirts of.Medford, Oregon. He wasn't an unfriendly man, but he was just a mite reclusive. reclusive. And Lord, was lie cheap. He ate at soup, kitchens as often as he could and made a point of buying milk that was past its 'fresh' date. He got it at a discount that way. His clothes came from the Sally Ann and local thrift shops and he resented even that financial outlay. He kept his pants up with a bungee cord so he . wouldn't have to waste money on a belt or suspenders. For spending money he collected bottles and cans and turned ' them in for the deposit. Each night he curled up in a greasy sleeping 'bag on a bunged-out sofa in his almost furniture- free house. The odd thing was, Gordon Elwood didn't have to live that way. He was no hopeless hobo. He owned his own house, such as it was, and paid his bills, such as they were, from the proceeds of his sideline: TV repair. Forty-six years ago Mister Elwood took a correspondence course and taught himself to be a television television repairman. For nearly half a century he fixed other people's TVs. life. ■ . . , But it wasn't, quite. Suddenly, an organization called the Gordon Elwoqd Foundation surfaced. It consisted consisted of a board of directors - * couple of lawyers, an accountant, and other assorted business types, Their job? To dispose of Gordon Elwood's estate All $10 million worth of it. It turned out that Gordon Elwood was not only not poor - he was a closet stock market dabbler. Pretty good one too - made himself a multimillionaire. multimillionaire. And contrary to his public persona he was an astounding astounding ly generous man. His whole estate is being liquidated liquidated in the form of grants, dona- tions and pledges to various Oregon agencies that Elwood used while he was making his fortune' - the Y MC A. the Salvation Army, the Red Cross and a couple of nonprofit nonprofit organizations that that helped out people in need. Interesting, though. You or I could have walked down a street in Medford, Oregon last summer, say, and passed an old geezer in secondhand clothes wearing a bungee cord for a belt and pulling on a carton carton of stale milk. Chances are ' he wouldn't even have registered registered on our consciousness. Which would have been a pity. It's not eveiy day you get a chance to meet a multimillionaire. multimillionaire. ' V ft tit Orono Country Cafe K > Full Menu Main Street., Orono, Ontario • 983-9009 Didn't own one himself of course. You kidding? All that electricity? Gordon Elwood never spent a dime on anything he considered frivolous. . He even kept his house unheated. As a matter of fact, that's probably what took him. out. After one particularly cold snap last winter, they found him huddled in his sleeping bag, stiff as a board. Pneumonia. The town of Medford put him in a pauper's grave and you would think that would be the end of Gordon Elwood brief and miserable passage through "The spirit of the Lord is upon me... Sunday, June 11 at 7 p.m. at Newcastle Community Hall On March 26,2000 a group of people gathered for worship in a place for the first time 100 children, women and men showed up! 8 Sundays later their community continues to grow - June 11 is the day of Pentecost - 50 days after Easter - the day in the history of the Christian church when many believe the church was born. Come hear God's word of joy and hope - listen to great music and songs of faith and smile with us: as we believe the Holy Spirit continues to call us to build another of God'.s little churches - a day when we call to you to tell you that our church is born as well and you are welcome. A Newcastle Community Church Special Service Reverend David Chisling 3.A., B.Ed., M.Div - Preacher Nancy Chisling, Musician and Soloist, J.C. Coolen, Accompanist • The High Days and Holy Days Choir - 25 enthusiastic voices. Refreshments to folloM/ • Cheese, Crackers and a howl of Wings u Doing well - thanks for asking" We worship every Sunday morning at 10:30 in the little white church at the top of Mill Street, across from the apple storage facility in Newcastle - lots of parking, Sunday school and nursery. We smile a great deal and more often, we laugh out loud. If you are looking for a church, a place for a meaningful and we would suggest a spiritual spiritual Sunday morning and someone to smile hack at. you--we 're here. If you want a seat, come a little early. WHO ARE WE? A group of people moved by the Holy Spirit to form a church and we are doing it--that's all. ...because he has anointed me to bring good news" Luke4-.m