Bill McClellan of the St Louis Post Dispatch final article on Mike

hanke · Obsessive Posting Disorder

Bill McClellan of the St Louis Post Dispatch final article on Mike

hanke · Obsessive Posting Disorder

Fellow dog people look out for one of their own
By Bill McClellan
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Monday, Dec. 24 2007

Duffy was a schnauzer. He was 17 when he died. One night shortly before Duffy's
death, Michael Halwe had a dream. "I'm blind, Morgan. I can't walk. I wish
they'd let me go," Duffy said to his brother in the dream. The strange part of
that dream was that Duffy didn't have a brother named Morgan.

Still, the name stuck in Halwe's mind, and after Duffy's death, when Halwe
found a new dog at the Humane Society, he named it Morgan.

Morgan was a black puppy who was obviously mislisted as a golden retriever.
Halwe did not really care about breed. He wanted a dog that would be large
enough to work as a support dog for Halwe's mother. A golden retriever mix
should be big enough.

"I put my face up to the crate to look at him, and he licked me," said Halwe.

The kiss sealed the deal. That was 13 years ago.

Morgan never did grow large enough to be a support dog. He grew to be about 55
pounds. For a support dog, Halwe eventually got a Labrador retriever. His name
is Magic, and he weighs 98 pounds.

One day Halwe and his dogs were in front of their house in St. Charles when a
woman walked by. She looked at Morgan. "That is a beautiful bearded collie,"
she said.

Bearded collie? Halwe got on his computer and looked at pictures. Morgan did
seem to be a bearded collie. He was the very image of the dogs in the photos.
How could that have happened? What was a bearded collie pup doing at the Humane
Society listed as a golden retriever? It was one of life's mysteries.

Most of life's mysteries have not turned out so well for Halwe. Why do some
people lose their loved ones? First to go was Halwe's wife. She died in an auto
accident years ago. Next was his father, who died from a heart attack in 1991.
Then his only sibling, his sister, died in 2000 from liver cancer. His mom died
two years later.

Why do some people have health problems? Halwe has a ton of them. He has a hard
time walking because of neuropathy in both legs. He has diabetes and high blood
pressure. In February, he had a heart attack. That was a mess. A sheriff came
running into the house and Morgan nipped him. Then the paramedics brought the
gurney in and Magic jumped on it. "If I wasn't dying, I'd have been laughing,"
said Halwe.

Not long after that, I wrote a column about Halwe. Most of it had to do with
the fact that he had no health insurance, and that he had spent his life in
bowling. He went to Vincennes University on a bowling scholarship, and he
managed a couple of bowling centers and even bowled on the regional tour. His
highest finish was third place. He later went into the bowling supply business,
but the Internet pretty much did him in. People started buying directly from
the manufacturers.

In late October, I received an e-mail from him. He said he was going to lose
his house in a few days. "I have no idea where my dogs and I will be going. I
never thought I could go from middle class to totally wiped out in eight
months. It makes what you write about much more real."

He didn't respond to e-mails or voice messages.

Weeks later, he sent me another e-mail. "A stranger gave me some money," he
said.

We met last week at the Cave Springs Bowl on Mexico Road in St. Charles. I
asked about the stranger. He told me he had been on an Internet forum for
bearded collie owners and had told a man from Memphis that he was about to lose
his house. He had met the man at something called the Bearded Collie Camp at
Purina Farms in Gray Summit. Bearded collies and their owners from all over the
country gather for the camp every two years.

Two days later, he got a call from a woman in Kentucky. She said the man had
called her. She is also a bearded collie owner. "There is a reason my mother
left me a lot of money," she said. "How much do you need?"

"Can I borrow $2,000?" Halwe asked.

"No, but you can have $2,000," she said. She had the money transferred to his
account. Halwe was able to save his house. Other strangers from the Internet
chipped in. A woman from North Carolina sent him 50 pounds of dog food. Friends
from a sports forum on the Internet announced a first-ever get-together and
surprised Halwe with a check for $400. A man who knew him from the bowling
world heard about his problems and gave him $1,000.

His disability claim is pending. He lives frugally, and he figures he'll be
able to make it until his disability is approved.

"All of this is much too much to imagine," he told me. And so things have
turned around for Halwe, and the turnaround started because of the bearded
collie.

I am not one to ever discount a dream, but I kind of believe the wrong dog is
named Magic.

hanke · Obsessive Posting Disorder

here is the first one.

Michael Halwe had the misfortune to be really good at bowling. He was good enough to earn a college scholarship. After he left school, he was good enough to be hired by Brunswick to manage a couple of bowling centers. (Please don't call them bowling alleys.) He was good enough to make a living, if barely, on the regional tour, the minor league of professional bowling. Even after he left the tour, bowling was his livelihood.

Now he is on the edge of disaster. Life looks like a 7-10 split.

Halwe is 49 years old, but his story should probably begin when he was 13. He tore up his knee playing football. Until then, he'd been pretty much of an all-sports kid. That's not surprising. His dad was a fine athlete and played briefly in the minor leagues for the Cardinals. But when Halwe tore up his knee, he decided to concentrate on a less strenuous sport. He was good at both golf and bowling. He decided to go with bowling.

He was offered a bowling scholarship to Vincennes University, which, despite its name, is a two-year school. He earned his associate's degree, and was hired by Brunswick to manage a bowling center in the Kansas City area.

He was then offered the general manager position at the old Arena Bowl on Oakland Avenue. That was a 72-lane center, a big deal. Also, it was a chance to come back to the St. Louis area. Halwe was raised in St. Charles.

One of his assistants at Arena was Tom Hennessey, a Hall of a Fame bowler and a former member of the great St. Louis Budweisers. One day Hennessey watched Halwe bowl, and told him he had the potential to make it on the tour. When somebody such as Hennessey says that, it's special.

Halwe got his card and went on the regional tour. He never won a tournament, but he came in third once, and he did well enough to pay his expenses. He appeared briefly on the national tour, but made no money, and decided he had no future in competitive bowling.

"I realized I wasn't going to get any better," he said.

He also injured his back in a car accident. The injury did not require surgery, but Halwe figured his back would not stand up to the rigors of hours of practice for tournaments.

He went back to school. He earned a degree in psychology at UMSL.

But he went back to bowling. Actually, he had never left. For a number of years, he had worked for Twin Bridge Bowling Supply. The company sold balls, shoes, bags and anything else a bowler might need. In 2001, Halwe bought the business.

He could not afford health insurance. In 1990, he had been diagnosed as a diabetic. After that diagnosis, the cost of a policy became prohibitive. In addition, the business was not going well. Too many people were buying directly from the manufacturers on the Internet. There was little need for a middleman. Halwe limped along.

Literally. He limped. He thought he had blood clots in each leg. He occasionally went to a doctor who charged $50 for a visit.

In January, he thought he was having a heart attack. The feeling passed. In February, late at night, the feeling came again. Something was terribly wrong. He couldn't breathe. He was coughing up blood. He crawled to the phone and called 911.

An ambulance rushed him to the hospital. All sorts of tests were done, but no conclusions were reached. There did not seem to be any damage to his heart. For a person with insurance, that would have been that. But Halwe got the bills himself. They come to more than $7,000.

Halwe has no family. He was married briefly to a young woman who died in a car accident less than a year into their marriage. His only sibling, a sister, died of cancer. His parents are dead.

He sold his business a couple of weeks ago, but he didn't net a whole lot. He doesn't have much in savings. Bowling has provided a livelihood, but that's it.

I asked about Medicaid. He said he'll have to look into that. He has never applied for any kind of government assistance. He said he'd much rather get a job.

"I just don't know what I can do," he said. "I'm not trained in anything. I was a manager in the days before computers. I've been selling bowling supplies for a long time. I'm an expert in a dying business."

-- Edited by hanke at 18:45, 2008-01-19

Just_Another_Righty · Posting Guru

"I've been saved."
"I think I'm going to make it."

damnit

Thank you for posting this Hanke, it has finally brought me to the point that I hadn't gotten to yet. I needed to get here.

-- Edited by Just_Another_Righty at 13:30, 2008-01-21