Sal burned the cure for cancer, which he wrote down on one side of a brown paper bag, saying, "If
I get cancer, at least I will be cured because I will tell the doctors how to save me. But those
horrible thugs that threatened my life will die slow and painful deaths if they get cancer."
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Sal saved my life three times. The first time, he pushed me out of the way of a piano falling from
a nine-story window. I remember Sal said, "I don't know why they don't use the stairs to bring
things that heavy to the ground."
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The second time he saved my life I was sleepwalking at an archery tournament and wandered onto the
field of targets. Sal ran out, dodging all the oncoming arrows and pulled me to safety. After he
woke me up he said, "I told you not to come to the archery tournament because it bores you and you
fall to sleep."
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The third time Sal saved my life I was on the brink of suicide, kneeling with my head in my stove.
Sal came into my house (he had a key), saw me there and said, "Good thing you didn't turn on the
gas, you would have been dead by now."
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Extraordinary people are rare. In fact, there are few of them. Sal Van Desperado was that rare one
in a zillion who can be called extraordinary for more reasons than I can list in a single blog or
five single blogs. Maybe no one else liked him but that doesn't matter because to have a single
friend, just one single friend, just a single, solitary individual friend, is more a friend than
most people who have 23 or 45 friends.
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Sal Van Desperado died due to the sloppiness of a short-order cook. Not from the food the guy was
cooking - from the gun he fired at Sal's head, which was meant for the guy sitting next to Sal. I
will miss Sal, especially the next time my life has to be saved.
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Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You
can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.
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