Local could win $100,000 via deodorant

AUSTIN (KXAN) - In a departure from tradition, let us withhold the name of the subject of our story for a bit. Instead, let's just report that he won't reveal his age. He also won't say why, but one suspects he doesn't want to needlessly scare away eligible datees. On the other hand, the fact that he sweats profusely can hardly be an attractant to such potential datees. Still, he has no choice. He simply must sweat.

"I've got to sweat; I've got to work out every day," our hero said. "I've got to move around or else you just feel that something's missing."

A lot of things, indeed, are missing because of this ol' boy; a lot of things are missing from the local landfill. That's because he roams the land in an old beat-up hauling truck, relieving his clients of unwanted stuff of all kinds. He recycles as much of it as he can, including snagging lots of it for his "found object" art works. There's the sculpture he calls, "I brake for bats," made from an actual brake shoe from a car. Then there's the old hoe, missing it's handle, but buried upside down in a block of recycled cement painted with a recycled blue hue.

"I looked at it and I saw a whale's tail," he grinned, pinging various parts of the piece with an old sledge hammer that creates something bordering on pleasant tones.

"If you're creative, you can make some music," he said. "So my art's functional, plus it didn't go to the landfill, which I love about most of my work."

In addition to the art and the trash hauling, though, this guy mows lawns, does landscaping and even silk-screening, five careers at once. Hence, the sweat.

That sweat was lovingly captured in a video arranged for by the guys at The Butler Bros advertising agency where our friend keeps up the yard. They had the idea of using it to enter him a nationwide contest offered by Mitchum Deodorant in an effort to find the "Hardest Working Person in America."

The video worked pretty well, getting the dude into the Top 10 finals. Voting closes out August 15 and the winners will be announced during the week of August 16. The winner gets a cool $100,000. Our buddy says he'll split the prize with one of the Butler boys, the camera man who shot the video. Each will also devote five grand, a total of $15,000 to Lance Armstrong's Live Strong Foundation to battle cancer.

"We need to find a cure for cancer," he said. "I don't want to get cancer."

As for his share of the loot: "The money's nice but that's not my main goal because as long as I can stay healthy and keep working, I'm happy."

In the corner of his small garage apartment in Austin's Hyde Park neighborhood, he picks up some drumsticks and bangs out a roll on a few random drums he put together to create a makeshift set.

It will serve us well to introduce, at long last, our hare working sweater's name: Roly Rolon, sort of as in, roll on deodorant. We're not kidding. We're really not.