Carol,
 
> It's probably based in some aspects of just being a nice person ;-)
 
> When one of my sailors got in a horrible mess, I took care of him and his
> family. ...
 
Good story. My opinion is that if you are nice to people, people will be
nice to you ... not always but anyway.
 
Some years ago I was on a KLM flight out of Minneapolis to Amsterdam and
the pilot got sick. With only one flight a day there was no relief crew
handy and they had to fly one over from New York so the flight was delayed
24 hrs with no access to bagage due to safety.
 
Some 2-300 people on the 747 had to be dealt with, put up in whatever was
available and some passengers were really obnoxious. When it was my turn
this lady from Northwest sat there with hair in her eyes and _that look_.
So I said "Wow, some people have been giving you shit?". And we
started talking, I mentioned it certainly was not her fault, people can get
sick and I was certain she could help me. So she and her colleagues were
working a list of local motels to put people up for the night, while
talking she started smiling, banged-away on the keyboard and then said
"You're in the Hilton, here's a voucher for a 10-min call home to
Europe to explain your wife, here's a voucher to buy the clothes you need
in the Mall of America, here's a voucher that will cover all meals and
instead of going by bus here's a taxi-voucher to drive you to the Hilton.
Have a nice evening".
 
I've got other stories like that.
 
> WD> No, but Helly Hansen jacket (my son freaked-out when he discovered
> tha
> WD> my sailing-suit was HH), Tommi Hilfiger hat/cap, Adidas or whatever
> co
 
> Hilfiger.  Not sure if that's the right spelling but I kniw what you mean
> and do not understand that one.  Who the heck is he?
 
It started as a brand of cologne for men, then scarves, sweaters, now it's
the whole lot. Sometimes als marketed as "Tomi". It's big now in
NYC.
 
 \%/{at}rd 

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