2008 provided timely lessons in generosity and caution
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The last day of 2008 is a good time to bring you up to date on reader generosity, firewood that won't burn, tax preparation and furnace inspections.
Let's start with the Bike Before Christmas program for needy children conducted by the Pittsburgh police bureau and Jerry Kraynick of Kraynick's Bike Shop in Garfield.
After I wrote about the annual program Nov. 6, readers donated hundreds of bicycles and almost 600 children now have bikes they can call their own.
"It was our best year yet," Mr. Kraynick said. "It was so good that the police ran out of bikes to give away. I got a call on Dec. 20 that they needed 16 more bikes. The police brought me another batch of used bikes and I was able to repair them by Dec. 23. That was cutting it close."
Mr. Kraynick praised the people who donated the bikes; program co-director and police officer Melissa Gutch and her fellow officers who collected and stored the bikes before and after they were repaired; and the volunteer bike mechanics who donated their time and talents to make the program a success.
"They were great," Mr. Kraynick said of the mechanics. "Some of them were here every day."
He identified them as:
Terry Bittner, of Hampton, Joe Casey of Carrick, Tom Foster, of Plum, Bob McKinney of Iron City Bikes in Oakland, John Napolitano of Garfield, Marty Schneider of Morningside, William Thomas of Castle Shannon and Bob Welsh of Lawrenceville.
"I enjoy fixing bikes and giving them away," said Mr. Thomas, 82, a retired electrical engineer.
He thanked Mt. Lebanon police officer Tom White for contributing abandoned bikes that weren't claimed within 90 days. Mr. Thomas also thanked the "employees, volunteers and visitors" at St. Clair Hospital who donate used bikes. He said Free Ride, the nonprofit community bike repair and recycling shop in Point Breeze, "gives me all the bikes I can handle."
Mr. Kraynick treated the mechanics to dinner at the China Palace in Shadyside where one of the topics of conversation was how many bikes they thought they'd be able to repair next year.
• Nonflammable firewood has been the recurring discussion in the home of Jane and John Redmerski of McKees Rocks.
The couple, who are in their mid-80s, called Firewood Professionals in early November. It promised to deliver well-seasoned wood that "burns great" for the fireplace they have used for years in the family room of their home. They paid $100 for a half-cord of wood and $25 to have it stacked inside their home.
The wood appears to be more sodden than seasoned, Mrs. Redmerski said.
"It's heavy and it stinks," she said. "It won't burn; it smolders. We've used fire starters and kindling to try to get it to burn, but nothing works. Our son also had no success in getting that wood to burn.
"I spoke several times last month to a man named John, who repeatedly promised to bring us more wood, but it never arrived. And now he won't take my calls."
The company didn't return my calls, either.
• A tax problem for a Penn Hills reader turned into one of those he-said, she-said situations.
The man said a tax preparer didn't include his Social Security income "even though I handed him that paperwork while he was preparing my return." Unfortunately, the man didn't ask for a photocopy of his 2007 return "because I trusted the guy to do it right."
When the Internal Revenue Service contacted the man about his failure to pay taxes on the undeclared income, he contacted the tax preparation company. The company amended the man's return at no charge, but the man wants the company to pay him $300 for failing to properly file his initial return. The company said the man isn't entitled to it because he failed to give its tax preparer the information about his Social Security income.
Bottom line: If someone else prepares your tax return, review it with him or her before it is mailed and insist on a photocopy of it.
• It can be difficult to buy an appropriate gift for older family members, especially those who live alone. They often say they have everything they need and don't want you to go to any "trouble."
An ideal gift, especially at this time of year, is a gift certificate for a furnace inspection. Yes, a furnace should have been checked before the onset of cold weather, but there's plenty of winter left. And those on fixed incomes too often defer such annual maintenance. If your heating company doesn't serve the area where family members live, do your homework and find a reputable company that does.
Make it a point to be there when the inspection is done. Your time is the best gift of all.
First Published January 1, 2009 12:00 am
