Rick Badie's Gwinnett: Wanted: Good job for a very good man

It had been five years since I’d seen Bob Hanson.

We first met at Rexall’s Grill, a popular Duluth diner. Country boys like country cooking. This joint is the real deal, unlike those restaurants that try to lure customers in with names like Bubba’s Country Buffet.

Most times, though, there isn’t a Bubba, Bessie or Bonnie Sue cooking or serving. Go figure.

On Tuesday, the Badie Tour pulled into Rexall’s to dine with Hanson and solve some world problems. This time the conversation turned out to be more personal than worldly.

Ask any journalist why he or she got into the profession. By most accounts, the response will be some lofty answer about wanting to advocate for the downtrodden, elicit change or expose wrong. While that reeks of cliché, it’s on point. And end results always reward.

So there’s no shame in my game when this column space becomes a pulpit to uplift, lend a hand, publicize a predicament or try to bring about change.

Three years ago, Jack Stabinsky of Lawrenceville was trying to get into a Boston center that specialized in the care of people with multiple sclerosis. If he didn’t arrive in four days, he’d lose a bed in the Boston Home, a century-old facility.

Stabinsky lacked the financial means for a trip that, because of his condition, required airfare along with an ambulance to transport him from Boston’s Logan Airport to the facility.

Days after the column ran, two anonymous donors stepped up. One donated travel miles for the flight; the other paid for the ambulance. Stabinsky and his relatives up North have been eternally grateful to this community ever since.

Then there’s the story of Numan Abdul-Latif, a Lilburn resident who was bound with worry over a 2009 property tax bill he couldn’t pay. Again, readers didn’t disappoint, responding with cash and other assistance.

Hanson’s situation is altogether different. He doesn’t need medical care, airfare or a one-time bailout. He needs a job.

For the past 25 years, the UGA grad has been a customer service manager, account executive or sales manager for railroad lines and trucking companies. His last job was selling bread before he got laid off last year.

While his résumé may impress, his age may deter. He’s 62.

Initially, it was neither Hanson’s nor my intent to turn his situation into a cause célèbre. Both of us know there are plenty of Hansons in the job market, just like there are numerous Stabinskys and Latifs mired in struggle.

My hope is that exposure of one situation might cause people to think twice when they encounter others in similar plights.

Better yet, someone, somewhere might be moved to see their predicament and offer assistance. To be humane.

In Hanson’s case, that would be employment, and who could argue with that as a goal?