User:Ram Patu/Rob Hancheroff
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Rob Hancheroff (1954-2006) was a Canadian philanthropist and good samaritan. He is also the basis of an urban legend.
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[edit] Life
A resident of Yorkton, SK., Rob Hancheroff made a vast sum of money in the trading of antiques. An accomplished auctioneer and pig farmer, he accumulated a great deal of wealth before the age of 40.
In 1995, he suffered the first in a series of heart attacks (he would have nine in all) and enountered a spiritual presence who commanded him to dispose of his fortune in order to save his soul.
Hancheroff donated possessions worth more than $300,000 to charity and spent the next ten years in poverty. He died in February, 2006.
[edit] Myth of the Highway Stranger
Between 1996 and 2005, dozens of drivers reported being assisted by a mysterious stranger on the #5 highway that runs between Tisdale and Yorkton. Like a ghost, he would arrive in the dead of night-- driving a white car variously described as a Fifth Avenue or a New Yorker-- to aid distressed motorists with flat tires or empty gas tanks.
[edit] Final Years
Rob spent his last days residing in a rented hovel in Spalding (located on the #5 highway.) Destitute, he scraped by on government subsidies and recouped bottle deposits. He lost three toes to gangrene from diabetic complications.
On more than one occasion, he was heard to say, "I am the Highwayman," which was either a song lyric that he particularly enjoyed, or a confession to a string of random good deeds.
His heart gave out while he was behind the wheel of his white 1985 Cutlass.
[edit] Hauntings
Hancheroff's house in Spalding has been reported as haunted by the new tenants. They talk of ghostly grunting, creaky floorboards, and profanity that comes out of nowhere. Furthermore, the Mysterious Stranger was spotted on Highway #5 in April, 2006, when he brought petroleum to three stranded teenagers.
Ram Patu is a documentarian who had the good fortune to have met Mr. Rob Hancheroff. "May he find peace."
Ram Patu 04:29, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Also see: J. R. Columbo, Mysterious Canada
