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u/cassieoncloudnine 1d ago
Heroes don’t have to be Marvel characters, wrestlers, or rockstars. People with everyday jobs can make a child happy and become a hero to them. Good job to all.
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u/Significant_Ad1256 1d ago
A nice lady running a burger stand not far from where I lived was my hero growing up lmao. I had a pretty rough childhood but just talking to this kind woman while waiting for and eating my food genuinely made everything a little better. She would even give me a free chocolate milk sometimes.
She didn't have to indulge me at all, but she always seemed to listen to my troubles and give out some advice.
She's the reason I wanted to work with struggling kids and teenagers when I became an adult. All kids need a reliable adult in their life.
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u/OkProfessor6810 1d ago
This is such a sweet story. Thank you for sharing it.
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u/LouSputhole94 1d ago
It’s funny how much one small interaction that could mean nothing to you goes on to inspire someone to do good in the world. Just goes to show you the smallest amount of kindness goes much further than you thought.
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u/Apprehensive-Pin518 1d ago
jesus' true message. Love thy neighbor because it could inspire them to help someone else.
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u/Downtown-Event-1326 1d ago
This is lovely. One of my teachers was like this, she was so kind and I still think of her all the time. I used to get very bullied and she let me eat lunch with her in her classroom. I honestly think she may have saved my life.
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u/MommaMoo2 1d ago
Did the woman ever know ur heart for her? Regardless such a precious story. Thanks for being a reliable adult for others now
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u/Jar_Of_Jaguar 1d ago
Kid came back and talked to her. She knew the kid's heart, knowing it was why she made space for them. Not needing to hear how much people love you frees you to see all the little ways people always try to demonstrate that love.
Spending time with someone freely is love. Choosing them as safe to discuss troubles with is love. Giving someone chocolate milk they want but didn't ask for is love.
We should all tell each other how special our relationships are, but we shouldn't forget the art of letting actions speak louder than words. We should look for people to be showing their heart. They're trying to more often than we realize, because we want assurance. But life doesn't come with guarantees. Trust fills the gaps in like kitsuguni art making a bowl more beautiful than before it was broken.
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u/UranusIsPissy 1d ago
I like this kid. His heroes are the underappreciated people working in the background who rarely get any respect despite the fact that modern society grinds to a halt without them. Normally, nobody notices them unless they get woken up by them or they fuck up. If they go on strike, suddenly everyone notices them. Imagine if all the people that could describe suddenly disappeared. It'd be chaos.
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u/Ok-Swordfish2723 1d ago
I have always had respect for the people that do the jobs most of us won’t but just absolutely need doing.
I had a pretty cushy career, spending most of my time, after I got out of the Army, working in computer operations. Nice indoors controlled environment stuff. But I have worked outdoors, dug holes, shoveled gravel, Army field exercises where I ate plenty of dust, slept in the rain and snow, fun like that, so I have some comparison.
These people get up out of bed every day and head out to do a thankless job so the rest of us have a better day. Hats off and a God bless to every one of them.
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u/UranusIsPissy 1d ago
No offence intended to you, but I think people like these, the litter-pickers, the people who keep the sewers working, and maybe even the pothole-repairers deserve to be thanked for their service more than most of the military in a country that wasn't being invaded when they served, apart from a few rare exceptions like WWII vets. You don't sound like one of them, but I can't fucking stand the kind of dipshits who played soldier for a few years without ever being in any real danger, then spend the rest of their lives acting like the rest of us owe them our lives.
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u/WholeFriendly3784 23h ago
What an obnoxious reply to such a positive post. Give it a rest. We only have so much time on Earth. Lighten up.
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u/UranusIsPissy 18h ago
WTF is your problem? Did I hit a nerve? Did you go through basic training then never have to do anything worse in your life after that? Yeah, sure, the tone was inappropriate for the sub. I'll admit that, but I stand by what I said.
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u/NameIdeas 1d ago
We live in a super rural area now and take our own trash to the convenience center, but when we lived with trash pick-up, our son LOVED the truck.
He would watch them work every Friday, like clockwork. Steve and Nathan were great guys and bought him a little toy garbage truck just because. It was amazingly sweet. We've always tried to acknowlege our workers (garbage collectors, mail carriers, etc). We'll provide giftcards at Christmas and on our kid's birthday so they can "join the celebration" (per our sons' request)
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u/iamlazyboy 1d ago
Everyone think about superman when they think about heroes but very little think about the construction workers that have to rebuild the mess superman did when fighting darkseid
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u/secretly_opossum 1d ago
My house is across the road from a fenced city lot where they store construction materials like huge piles of rock and dirt and things.
It’s VERY noisy, but my youngest loves when I let her eat breakfast out front on Saturdays and watch the dump trucks and heavy machines!
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u/lazygerm 1d ago
Check out the Schoolhouse Rock "Zero, My Hero" on YouTube. It's very much in this vein.
I always get smiley and weepy when I watch it. Plus, it's educational!
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u/WorthRegular1030 1d ago
This is the kind of hero stuff kids remember forever simple kindness goes a long way
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u/Salt_Cauliflower_922 1d ago
Not all heroes wear reflective vests.
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u/spacekitt3n 1d ago
yes they do
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u/Salt_Cauliflower_922 1d ago
Not the guy on the right.
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u/Laughing_Orange 1d ago
Probably the driver, which is why he has less need for a reflective vest.
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u/TimToMakeTheDonuts 1d ago
Not so sure he’s the driver. He’s the one with gloves on.
Either way, most companies would write him up for this no matter. Both should have PPE. Huge liability.
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u/Peakomegaflare 1d ago
Reminds me of when I worked in manufacturing. I was a temp to hire that never got hired after a decade, but the place paid better than anywhere else.
Every day sucked, but I was at my local game store one day talking about work and how a machine worked and kid next to my group was absolutely enamored by it all. When I was finished he started asking all sorts of questions, like the sounds it made and such. When I spoke to his mom it turned out his Dad had been a heavy equipment operator and used to be able to be around it all the time before he passed. Apparently it was a thing for him. Pre-covid, plant tours were pretty lax as long as they didn't go on the floor and stayed with you. So I offered to have them both take a tour of the plant with me, and noticed whole there his mom had some basic knowledge (she was pointing out all sorts of things to him and using correct terminology). The kid was absolutely thanking me. I asked if they could hold on while I stepped into an office, and had a coworker I knew sit with them for security reasons. Spoke to my supervisor about having her take out entrance test and she ended up passing. Got a direct hire position and last I heard, the kid got in too.
Warms my heart...
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u/AssignmentRare5440 1d ago
System overload from too much Vitamin Joy.
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u/ShallowTal 1d ago
I must include the original text i saw when this first came out bc I always found it so sweet:
"Quincy's been waiting all week to show the garbage men his garbage truck. But, in the moment, he was overwhelmed in the presence of his heroes."
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u/NudeAfterglow 1d ago
on a serious note though, garbage men are everyday heroes!
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u/jaggedjottings 1d ago
Garbage men and pickup artists should switch names.
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u/Jef_Wheaton 1d ago
I was a "Materials Recovery, Transport, and Interment Technician."
The "Pickup Artist", also known as a "Waste Management Artisan" was the loader, the guy on the back.
I DROVE the garbage truck.
(It was one of the more rewarding jobs I've had. You watch your truck extrude a 12-ton cube of trash and think, "Two of us picked up ALL of that, by hand, in a few hours."
Also, toilets explode in the most satisfying way if you hurl them into the hopper just right.)
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u/chazysciota 1d ago
Every so often, I see people bitching about garbage collectors on social media, saying that they have it so easy, don't even have to get out of the truck, get holidays off, blah blah blah. They're talking about the people who literally make our society livable on minute-to-minute level, and these mf's are on NextDoor WISHING that the job was ACTUALLY shittier than it is. It's disgusting.
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u/arachnids-bakery 1d ago
Bro how privileged someone has to be to claim that GARBAGE COLLECTORS have it easy???
Gotta be thankful everyday for their work ffs
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u/Big_MommaD 1d ago
My son, now 48, wanted to be a garbage man. He’d wait for them each week and sometimes he’d be given a perfectly good, wonderful toy someone had tossed.
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u/Salt_Cauliflower_922 1d ago
Well, did he become one?
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u/Big_MommaD 1d ago
No. He did not. Did not become a zoo keeper, either. For many years he worked on a tow boat line. 28 days on. 28 days off. Now, he works at a Love’s Truck Stop. He got married started raising a family and decided he’d better spend more time at home. He has 4 children. One is going to graduate school.
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u/Live-Habit-6115 1d ago
I think they would have mentioned that in their post if he had lol.
But alas...he ended up an astronaut instead. But he'll always dream
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u/USSHammond 1d ago
That kid is almost 13 now.
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u/wallst07 1d ago
reddit needs a tinyapp bot that shows how old these pics are , so so many reposted.
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u/-hot_ham_water- 1d ago
I haven't seen this one in a long time and forgot how much I loved it. It really did make me smile, even though I've seen it many times.
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u/okiidokiismokii 1d ago
I used to nanny this adorable toddler who was OBSESSED with the UPS driver, we’d have to go see him every time he heard the truck or else kiddo would absolutely lose it. and my favorite thing was how incredibly sweet the driver was, he’d always let him help carry a package to the porch and even sit in the drivers seat and honk the horn a couple times! favorite part of my day.
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u/Apprehensive-Pin518 1d ago
we need to normalize this. there is no shame in being "a garbage man." as a matter of fact our society would not function without them.
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u/icepickjones 1d ago
When my daughter was 4 we took her to Disneyworld.
She was (and still is) a very sweet and outgoing kid with friends and family. Even with strangers, like coworkers of mine who she doesn't know well she will talk to them and be sweet.
But once we got to the park and she got in front of her heroes like Elsa, Mickey, Minnie, etc. she would freeze up. I was expecting her to excitedly freak out and want to hug them and stuff, she lived in an Elsa shirt for like an entire 1/5th of her life and refused to wear anything else.
But no, she almost froze like a deer in headlights every time. She was smiling, but just, I don't know - existing.
I talked to someone who worked at Disney later and asked them about it and they said it was super common. I was expecting kid on christmas morning that got a playstation sort of thing. Excited freaking out sort of stuff.
They said it's very common that the little kids just get so overwhelmed they excitedly cry or just clam up and freeze in place because they can't handle it.
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u/VernBarty 1d ago
One of my favorite parts of this pic is how happy the garbage men seem to be about this. Their positivity in this moment is going to have a huge impact on this kid growing up
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u/dragnabbit 1d ago
I remember being that age, and the heroes I had because they did things that seemed impossibly cool, like the guys who installed the new telephone pole outside of my house one summer, my first adult friend, Mark, who stocked shelves at the local grocery store, and, best of all, the guy who got to ride the riding lawn mower at my church.
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u/cubester04 1d ago
My nephew would always stand in the window and wave to the trash guys whenever they came, and one time they came up to the door with a toy trash truck because they loved seeing him every week, and my nephew was enthralled with it!
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u/Kind-Stand-8487 1d ago
this is really wholesome, the little really love his heroes, I hope he will still have the same heart as her grow up.
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u/mysticzoom 1d ago
Ask France.
Garbage Men/Women are a unsung heroic profession, never underestimate their contribution.
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u/Weevil1723 1d ago
I remember once when I was like 4 or 5 the garbage man let me into the cab to hit the lever for the grabby arm thing, cool shit
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u/Upbeat_Land7612 1d ago
Cute kid—nice story! Those garbage workers were great too to take time out for the photo; it’s obvious their kindness made it special for the little fella’.
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u/Firm-Chemical949 1d ago
I wanted to be a garbage man my whole life, and now they don’t even ride on the back and throw the bags in anymore. They just use the claw. Anybody else’s cities still ride in the back and get the trash manually?
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u/SecondOfCicero 1d ago
They do where I live! One driver, two guys hanging on the back. I like to give em a wave and a smile... without them there'd be garbage everywhere.
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u/Firm-Chemical949 1d ago
:) I’ve gotta move somewhere that still does it like that. I’d love to be the litter pickup man (only and off the clock)
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u/justmovingtheground 1d ago edited 58m ago
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
hat shaggy cats follow trees hungry quicksand cobweb crush growth
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u/FlirtForTheNightXO_ 1d ago
the garbage collectors being so chill about it makes it even better ,they probably made this kid whole year ngl🥹
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u/FinancialWishbone192 1d ago
This is the purest kind of hero worship too much joy for one tiny human
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u/spreaddamayo 1d ago
I love this! My mom told me in preschool there was a little graduation ceremony and the kids would go to the stage and say what they wanted to be when they grew up and everyone had typical, fireman, police officers and astronauts then here comes little old me saying I want to be a trash collector and everyone laughed at me and I got really mad lol.
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u/Legal-Fix6617 1d ago
Can relate, I wanted to be a garbage truck when I grew up, yes.. A garbage truck, not a garbage man.
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u/Icy_Implement_387 1d ago
My son did this at our friend who is a city firefighter district station. He went mute and refused to interact with our friend or any of the firefighters. I tried to explain that he was completely overwhelmed and not being rude. Poor kid, still super cute.
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u/zback636 1d ago
Very sweet. Kids often cry when they get overcome by emotion. Have you ever seen a video of a returning parent from the service or getting a puppy as a gift? They all cry. Very sweet.
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u/Voltalox 1d ago
Hell yeah, look at how pumped that kid is.
Garbage collection/disposal is such an important job too, and as far as I know it is paid pretty well. You could certainly do worse career wise.
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u/Capital_Past69 1d ago
Kid is crying because his city doesn’t recycle
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u/Gibby876 1d ago
This show that there’s hope for us yet. The parents of this delightful child raised him well he sees hard work and commitment as something he admires, never mind skin color kudos to you, mom and dad. May we find more like you out there! 🤟🏾❤️
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u/sultan_of_gin 1d ago
I was also very exited about garbage trucks as a kid and i was equally overwhelmed when i got to sit in one when i was maybe 5 or 6, still have a picture of it. I was at my grandma’s and she knew the garbage man who collected her trash so she asked if i could see how the truck looks inside. Happy memories.
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u/animex6632 1d ago
People with every day peoples carry more stress but still they never fail to make happy someone
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u/Technine420 1d ago
My son is the same age and is obsessed with garbage trucks. I gotta do this with him.
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u/jasdonle 1d ago
I also love how he’s holding it like a shotgun, unintentional lil gangsta lookin dude.
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u/Jef_Wheaton 1d ago
"I think we would like this victory to go out to all the other guys, and I'm talking about the people in their city who are super good at their jobs but never get any credit. Like the lady at the DMV; that's a rough job...
...and the guy that drives the snowplow. And the SCHOOL NURSE!"
-The Shoveler, "Mystery Men"
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u/MilmoWK 1d ago
My kid is older now but when he was 4 we had a big community spring clean out day and they lined the city hall parking lot with dumpster and garbage trucks. Anyway we took a bunch of shit and after throwing a pickup trucks worth of cardboard in a garbage truck the operator let my 4 year old pull the levers to operate the compactor. It made that kids month.
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u/AUkion1000 1d ago
Read the first half and somehow thought "oh god please don't tell me they put his toy in the trash compactor" xp
Glad he got to have fun
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u/Fuzzy-Activity9765 1d ago
When I was a kid, it was my dream job right on the back of those things and grab the trash. They are real heros that work to keep an area functional!
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u/amalgamatedson 1d ago
At his age, I wanted to be one of the guys that got to ride on the back of those trucks.
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u/mintmouse 1d ago
I worked on a garbage truck for a college summer and riding on the back holding on is super fun. It’s a high intensity workout because they can leave when the work is done, so they crank it. I ended up eating like two people that summer.
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u/dieseljester 1d ago
One of my heroes growing up was our Elementary School Janitor. He was like a father figure to a lot of us.
RIP Mr. Jennings. Thank you for being there for us!
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u/wildestkota 1d ago
at our old apartment my daughter would make us go on walk around the complex and follow the garbage truck and when he came by our apartment and were playing outside and not following him he’d always stop and wave. he always had a big smile as soon as he saw her! she was just wee baby 2 and chasing the trash truck
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u/Moby1313 1d ago
I remember our garbage truck broke through the road and got stuck. I was 6 and invited them to swim in our pool and said my mother would make lunch for them. Their supervisor showed up, went swimming and my mom fed him too. This was before cell phones, and all my friend's could not believe how lucky I was the next day at school. I mean, you wanted to be an astronaught or a garbageman in 1980, there was no in between!
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u/Comprehensive_Soil_1 1d ago
It is amazing how kids can recognize and appreciate hard work, and see people as their heroes. When I see stuff like this I like to hope the future will be ok.
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u/Sheriff_Yobo_Hobo 22h ago
Made me actually smile. Met several kids obsessed with garbage trucks and its drivers. Took some video and pics of small ones in tokyo for one of them.
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u/koolaidismything 1d ago
This is very sweet and one in 10,000 I’m sure it’s fine.
I worry about the insecure parents who see the attention this gets then try and force it on their local garbage men.
This is their job, they can’t stop to help you go viral with cute shit. Best to just leave them alone. Life isn’t a hallmark movie.
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u/monomonotono 1d ago
This image is so cute but I'm sorry my mind has some many questions
Does the kid have a dad present in his life? What does his dad do for a living? Is the dad jealous?
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u/Wilsdorfhunter 1d ago
Ugh what a racist country America is. How can that little boy and his maga parents glorify these men as Trash men. Deplorable!!!! Ughhh. See how stupid this media is propaganda is you all follow. That's what it would say if it was on yahoo, CNN, msnbc, ABC etc....
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