Sometimes television catches up with real life.
'Oprah's Big Give,' the newest TV reality show, features contestants attempting to change the lives of total strangers through philanthropy. They demonstrate the inspiration of giving back, making a difference, and living a life in larger terms than looking to meet one's own immediate needs.
This is new for television, but it's nothing new for Sandman and his circle of friends.
Sandman, 57, is the real, legal name of a man who grew up in East Peoria, served in the U.S. Navy, and is currently a welder for the Kress Corp. in Brimfield.
'That's what I've been called, so I made it legal 13 or 14 years ago,' said Sandman, of Brimfield.
An inspection of his driver's license shows that's indeed his legal name. Sandman, with no last name.
Sandman is known to many in Bishop Hill, through his occasional visits to the village, especially the Filling Station restaurant.
By his own admission, Sandman is 'large, hairy and scary.' He knows his long-haired and heavily tattooed appearance can make a negative first impression, so he goes out of his way to show respect by being soft spoken and using good manners. One could say he's generous to a fault.
It wasn't always this way, he says. He's spent some quality time being 'young, dumb and stupid.'
While stationed in Norfolk, Va., he had the misfortune of being on a motorcycle that slid under a bus — not just any bus, but the biggest one they have.
Sandman doesn't do anything in a small way.
'I was in the wrong place at the right time,' he recalled.
The accident placed him in a hospital for a year and dramatically changed his life.
'It made me take a different outlook on life,' he said.
The accident left him with a leg brace — and the need to find inner peace and happiness.
Spreading that happiness to those around him, especially around the Christmas season, is his mission.
He finds the commercialized Christmas season, which can start by Halloween, more than a little depressing. One of his cures is to give away flowers. He makes that possible by having an extra $50 taken out of his paycheck every week. That allows him to get a larger tax refund, using the money for charitable donations, or sometimes giving it straight to the flower store.
One weekend this past December, he surprised everyone at the Filling Station restaurant in Bishop Hill by giving away roses — 500 of them. He started by walking in and giving a box of a dozen roses to each of the women working there that day.
But it didn't end there; Sandman went back outside for more individually wrapped flowers and sat by the door and gave a rose to each woman who entered. He greeted each woman with a flower and a 'Merry Christmas.'
'Everyone was tickled,' recalled Linda Spring of the Filling Station. 'It made him so happy. You couldn't help but be happy, too.'
Sandman has been stopping by the Filling Station a couple of times a month for over a year now and has taken many opportunities to be generous to people , both those he knows and those he doesn't. Often, the gifts are anonymous.
A couple of times Sandman has handed Spring money and instructed her to 'do good with this.'
That gave her the opportunity to help local people in need and to surprise a few waitresses.
'I'd give them a $50 tip and they'd have a funny look on their faces,' she said. 'I'd have to tell them the story about Sandman and why they had to take it.'
She described the experience as absolute fun.
Sandman also sees his generosity as a way of giving back to all those who have been able to see past the 'hairy, scary' biker image. He wants to show people that bikers are not all bad.
Spring sees it as a classic case of the proverb, 'You can't judge a book by its cover.'
But in the end, it comes down to the fact that having someone else feel better, making a difference, leaves Sandman feeling good. And that's living large in a way that can be appreciated by everyone.