Oh, for the rare story with a happy ending

Oftentimes, the news we come across is not so good. Sometimes, though, it's good. And, every once in a blue moon, the news starts out bad and ends up good.

An example of the latter is Tim Spencer, the Bloomingdale man with the barking guide dog who drew the ire of his condo board. We came across the story simply: Spencer's wife outlined his situation in an e-mail she sent me. I replied quickly and said the Daily Herald was, indeed, interested. It sounded like a heartbreaking story of injustice.

That same day, staff writer Elisabeth Mistretta talked to Spencer and shared his story of the $300 fine that had been levied and a formal hearing scheduled to determine what to do about Iggie, who some at 1 Bloomingdale Place felt was barking at an unacceptable level. Spencer, who has a rare eye cancer that caused his blindness, felt the fines were unfair, as were the complaints about Iggie's barking.

That sad and controversial story turned out to have a happy ending. When Mistretta's initial story was published last week, there was an outpouring of sympathy for Spencer. Other residents of 1 Bloomingdale Place came to his defense; free or reduced-fee training for Iggie was offered. And as Mistretta reported on Page 1 of today's editions, the story has a happy ending. Fines were rescinded, and even the president of the condo board, who lived next door to Spencer, was key in forging the win-win compromise.

Other good news came to us via a reporter's heads-up work at a Naperville City Council meeting. There, a woman told of the difficulty of paying all the fees levied as the result of an overdue water bill. Councilman Bob Fieseler left the dais and solved the problem without saying a word. It was only after Naperville reporter Justin Kmitch asked about it that our readers learned Fieseler tucks away a portion of his city salary — less than $800 a month after taxes — and keeps it on hand “to help people out.” He didn't have enough on hand that night, but three other people had given Fieseler enough cash to cover the portion of the bill the woman said she couldn't handle.

Kmitch also discovered other council members set aside funds for similar problems or donate some of their city pay to charity or their church. It was the feel-good story of this brand new year, but it wasn't exactly reflected in the online comments. As of Thursday, it drew exactly one attaboy for Fieseler doing the right thing.

By contrast, our stories about Oak Brook Village President John Craig have prompted a couple hundred online posts, most of them outraged over Craig and his wife drawing four government pensions that total more than $140,000 a year while he's been a hard-liner on pensions for Oak Brook's police officers and firefighters.

The outrage probably was further fueled by Craig's comments at the village board meeting that answering emergency calls in Oak Brook might not be the most hazardous duty in the world. “Pension” has almost become the dirtiest word in our vocabularies these days. Many characterize those who have one as selfish, with an unfair sense of entitlement.

Maybe it's our incredibly skittish economy. Maybe it's how incredibly polarized our politics are these days. Maybe it's the almost daily revelations of some level of duplicity by the people running our government. Maybe it's all this newfangled technology that gives everyone a voice, yet seems to prompt many to scream to be heard.

But seems to be a plain fact of life that many of us simply revel in being angry.

Makes you want to go out and dig up a few more stories with happy endings.