About 20 minutes before the company Christmas party at the Hickory Grille, new employee Henry Norman was lamenting that he did not have a car.

The cook at the Hermitage restaurant has been bumming rides or walking to work from Spruce Avenue in Sharon. Neither option has made him happy.

"It became hoof to mouth," he said, acknowledging it is his responsibility to get himself to work.

But Norman, who left better-paying jobs in northeastern Ohio to move to Sharon and take care of his 83-year-old mother, knew he couldn't afford a car.

"The only way I'm going to get a car is if it falls from the sky," Norman said he commented just before the party.

At the Dec. 14 party, it fell.

Dan Campana, a waiter at the eatery, had pulled Norman's name for the party's gift exchange. He didn't know Norman very well, but had heard of his transportation woes.

A former outside sales representative for Enron Corp., who lost his job when the oil giant went bankrupt, Campana empathized with Norman's plight.

"I know what it feels like to be scrapping and having trouble making things work," said the Brookfield man, who had two cars and alternated driving them.

In thinking about what to get Norman in the gift exchange, Campana wanted to choose something that would make a difference in his life.

He unveiled his solution with more than a bit of drama. Pastry chef Jean Pratt gave this account of how things went: