Every once in a while a story comes through that seems made for the movies. For seven years waitress Melina Salazar did her best in caring for her customers – even the most cantankerous ones. Apparently her biggest challenge was 89-year-old Walter “Buck” Swords. She made sure his food was hot and she just smiled through his demands and frequent cursing. (Reminds me of Helen Hunt in As Good As It Gets with the unreasonable Jack Nicholson.)Well, ole “Buck” just died and left his waitress Melina $50,000 and his 2000 Buick. She says, “I still can’t believe it.”
Now – how would you treat each customer of yours today, or each student, or every co-worker if you knew there was the possibility that one of them would leave you $50,000 and a Buick? Why don’t you just try it for three days? Who knows how your payoff may appear?
Dan Miller's Blog 
June 25, 2008 at 6:27 pm
I am so glad Walter M. Swords gave his tip to his waitress on his will after he went Home to be with the Lord. He has no known survivors, and he had two brothers (they are no longer living) and he was (possibly) a 32nd Degree Mason and a Shriner. Swords does not have anybody and he passes away quietly in his sleep, he lived to be almost 90. They should put his story in the Christian pamphlet, the Daily Bread. Melina Salazar was in disbelief after Swords went Home to be with the Lord and she got $50,000 and a car, and Vaya Con Dios, Melina, and God bless Swords and his friends.
November 3, 2011 at 9:00 pm
There is another story quite like Swords and Salazar according to website: http://hemeroteca.abc.es/nav/Navigate.exe/hemeroteca/madrid/abc/1969/04/17/111.html. Article from 1969.
Here is the English translation:
A banker has left in his will a thousand pounds a waitress Thelma Morman, in recognition of his delicate attention to serve lunch for several years. Mr. Gilbert member of the Birmingham Stock Exchange, died on November 28 last year and his will was made public yesterday. The waitress had been working for thirty years in the dining room where Gilbert Barrow stores usually have lunch.
Gilbert’s first name is Colin. Colin Gilbert is the British version of Walter Swords, while Thelma Morman (or some spellings say, Thelma Norman) is the British version of Melina Salazar.