After reviewing this letter Trish said I should repost the address. Don't worry of you are late for Christmas, make it a new years card.
Recently on the way out of town for an emergency mission trip I stopped into Colorado Springs to adjust the radiator blocker on my truck because the temps were getting near Zero and without them there would be very little heat in the cab.
I looked for an interesting place to take a break and make the adjustment. In my notes from a friend in Colorado Springs was the name of Gordons Cigar shop. I decided that would be a great diversion and so I made the short side trip off the interstate and drooped into Gordons. It was fairly easy to find and I had the radiator shields adjusted in moments. Now to investigate Gordons.
As I walked in I was greeted by several customers and Gordons assistant. I looked over the stock in the glass cases, and was informed that there was a special going on on Blue Mountain Cigars. I had never heard of them and the price point was above my pay grade, so I looked around to try and find the illusive last 2 Las Caliveras I needed for the ships memorial. No they did not have them, so I asked for a few other rare birds that friends were looking for and no success. I was just getting ready to go back to my truck and roll on down the highway when Gordon Rolled into the room. He was an older gentleman a bit portly, but understandable since he was a single amputee in a wheelchair.
I told him that Muddy77 had said his shop was really great and I was dropping by on my way through town. We conversed about muddy for a few moments and then I asked Gordon what put him in the wheelchair. It was a story that miracle movies were made of. He had contracted a rare 100% deadly form of cancer. He was just getting ready to move to Costa Rica at the time and had all his life savings on the line to purchase a nice cafe/bar on Santa Elena island. If I have that spelled right it is on the west coast of Costa Rica and has incredible sword fish and tuna fishing right off shore.
His attorneys had all the paperwork in order and all Gordon had to do was fly down and sign the papers and lay out the cash when life struck. He had to go to the doctors for a lump growing on his right leg and when the doctors got the reports back they told him he had 1 month to live. No one had ever survived this form of Cancer. They sent Gordon to surgery, and the doctors removed the lump. A Few days later he was back in surgery getting a bad infection cut out, and a few days later he was sent home to die.
He sopld his house and gave away his car, and all his belongings. He was supposed to die just after Christmas that year. His doctors and helalth care assistants called a specialist and the specialist said that the surgery to try and save his life would be 1 million dollars cash. Gordon did not have this, he had six hundred thousand cash though, but the doctor turned his nose up to Gordon and told him to go away and die.
For the next several weeks his doctor and health care assistants kept calling doctors begging for them to save Gordon and finally found a doctor that agreed to 600 grand. They rushed Gordon into surgery. He had been being kept on high levels of Morphene for the pain and when the surgeries were over, Gordon woke up and looked under the sheets at his legs and noticed that not only was his right leg gone, so was his right hip, and several ribs. They had taken off almost a third of Gordons body. Gordon told me he was not upset because he realized he was still alive. Personally I am not sure if I would have had the same attitude.
Good news was they had gotten al the cancer and it never hit his lungs so Gordon is the first and only survivor of this cancer. Bad news was when it was time to send him home, he had no home, no car no stuff because he had sold it all.
The rest of the story is one of courage and perseverence, but he went 11 months without a wheelchair because the government did not think he needed it. Duh he had only one leg...sheesh. Gordon struggled bravely and started working since he was flat broke. He got a job at a friends cigar shop. He worked there and saved all his money and in a few months struck out on his own by opening a small place on the local Army base with only 1200 dollars of inventory. After a few months the powers that be changed rules and what small profits he was making were getting swallowed by new rules. Gordon saw a space in a local shopping center become avalable and had the money for first and last rent and so struck out in town to see what he could do since the Army base was strangling his profits.
He bought furniture and televisions from Craigs list and opened his own shop and cigar lounge. He is making the bills but not profiting much yet. The big thing is he has something to do, and hopes that he will be able to pick up enough business from the younger men from the base like Muddy77 to make a living. He is living off of a terribly small Disability check, but surviving.
The reason I am writing this is because this mans story is an incredible testimony to the spirit of not giving up. I am a disaster relief worker, and Captain of a Rescue Vessel and director of the Winterhawke Foundation which comprised of 2 divisions keeps me busy and broke most of the time. Gordons story inspired me not to give up when I am down to my last dime and have no idea where the next penny will come from. It has gotten hard the past few years and I, like Gordon, liquidated everything I had to keep my 3 orphans homes open in India after the tsunami of 2004 and the Hattii Earthquakes of 2008. I struggle daily and if it were not for my all volunteer crews I would be sitting frustrated in Denver with no hope of restarting. Gordons story is one of a man who did not give up and deserves our acolades because he did not lay at home on disability, but decided to push on and do the impossible and go back to work and build his own shop.
Gordon is not on our community boards, but I think we as a community can do something for him. I am going to try and find a way to get him more advertising locally. In the mean time I would like to ask everyone who reads this to do me a favor. Send a Christmas card to Gordon and let him know that there is a community of guys around the world who are inspired by his story. We are an exceptionally caring group here at Cbid, and I have been overwhelmed by the generosity here of the people. Lets make his Christmas special. I know what is is like to be alone.
Gordons Cigars
204 Mt View Ln
Ste 8
Colorado Springs, CO, 80907
By the way Trish wrote me and said Cbid was going to try and step in at the wholesale level and help him out too.
