It was the last day of the month, and the last day of the third month of my attempt to make a $120 average in order to qualify for a "green pin." I was on a fundraising team somewhere in either Indiana or Kentucky circa 1980.
I fundraised all the bars. No result. Not one sale. Then, I came to the last bar with ten minutes to go to pick-up time. I stood outside and looked in through the window. It was a dark and dingy place. There didn’t appear to be so many people inside. Trying to keep faith, I drew a deep breath and opened the door.
Inside were just the bartender and several people at the bar -- one man who looked to be about sixty with white hair and dressed in a three-piece suit, and three ladies all dressed in evening gowns and expensive jewelry. Strange. As soon as I stepped inside, the man looked over at me and called me over: "Come on over here. Let me see what you’ve got."
I walked over and rather sheepishly opened my box of cheap jewelry, waiting to be laughed out of the tavern. Instead, the three ladies were suddenly all "ooing" and "aahing" over my box and wanting to try on necklaces, earrings, bracelets, rings, everything. "Okay, girls," the man said, "Pick out whatever you like and I’ll buy it for you." When they finally settled on what they wanted and the bill was totaled, it came out to be exactly what I needed to make my goal. Somewhat stunned, I thanked them profusely and closed up my box. I was on my way out when I suddenly stopped and came back. There was a question I just had to ask this peculiar man.
"Uh, excuse me," I said curiously, looking over his three-piece suit. "You don’t look like the kind of person who usually comes to this kind of place. If you don’t mind my asking, where are you from anyway?"
The man looked around at me and said, with a twinkle in his eye, "Maybe I’m an angel from heaven." To this day I am convinced that God’s help came to me that day in the form of an angel so that I could gain that green pin. It was the only pin I would ever be awarded in my three and a half years on MFT.
From 40 Years in America, p. 244.