I recently had a chance meeting with a well known Philadelphia businessman, some one who is constantly in the public eye.One thing that most of the general public is not aware of, is how much time , money and energy this gentleman devotes to several charities in the Delaware valley.

He agreed to this interview on one condition, complete anonymity, he would just like to get the word out that there are charities out there who need not only your donations but a lot of them need your time.

He started by telling me of his childhood and a Christmas that he would never forget,and of a person who left an indelible mark on him;

" I grew up on a small street , in a tiny three bedroom house in Philadelphia that no longer exists, ,when route 95 was built, our entire neighborhood was removed, absolutely nothing of it remains today.

I was the youngest of six children and very prone to get into trouble, I guess my 2 older brothers and my 3 older sisters kept my parents very busy, so a lot of the things I did went unnoticed. If my mouth did not get me into trouble, my fists certainly did.

As you can imagine, our house was very cramped with the 3 brothers in one bedroom and 3 sisters in the other, the street became our playroom.

We were poor, but we always had food on the table, and we always had clean clothes though they were mended hand me downs.

At Christmas I would usually receive one gift from my parents, or so I thought, wrapped in newspaper. When you are young you do not realize you are poor, you just know that sometimes you don't always get what you want.

I guess every neighborhood has their share of characters, somebody with quirks or oddities that makes them stand out, in our neighborhood there was the monkey man, he would always be pushing a shopping cart collecting cans , bottles, metal ,anything that could be sold for scrap.

They called him the monkey man because he walked hunched over, his eyes always towards the ground, my father told us that he had been away at war when his young wife passed away, the only thing he had as a memento of her was a photo that was in a locket, some neighbor hood toughs had beaten him up and stole the locket, so he was always searching for it.

I never seen him talk to anybody and nobody ever talked to him,except for the neighborhood kids who would make fun of him and scream "Monkey man, Monkey man " at him. One time I got caught up in the excitement of taunting him and I was teasing him with the other kids, he turned to me and looked me in the eye, The first time that I could remember we had ever made direct eye contact, I could swear that I seen his eyes swell with tears, he turned and hurried away, all the time with his eyes scanning the ground.

He had one nephew who would come about once a month to check on him, that was about the only human contact I ever seen him have.

One bitterly cold Christmas morning, there was a knock on the door, my father answered and hurried out the door with a young man who it turns out to be was the monkey man's nephew.

My father returned about an hour later. he said that Richard Neal, the monkey man's real name, had died in his sleep, my father said that in his hand was a locket that contained a photo of a young lady, my father then handed me a package wrapped in newspaper with my name written on it.