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'Lookin' good:' Town repays Jose's love

Gary Jones with Jose Case and his new moped. PHOTO BY PAULA ROBERTS/Hendersonville Lightning.

Everyone in town knows how much Jose loves them.

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His love is impossible to miss. People see him riding his brightly adorned moped, always smiling, always waving, a ray of sunshine on two squatty rubber tires. They see him in a cow suit, hawking chicken sandwiches; they see him dancing in a Liberty costume, pitching tax preparation; they see him promoting Firehouse subs.

After Tuesday Jose, whose whole name is Jose Case, knows how much the town loves him.

On Tuesday night at Black Bear Coffee Chop on Main Street, more than 50 people turned out to cheer for Jose and watch him receive a new Carolina blue moped and a new cell phone.

Why?

"Jose needs a new moped," commercial real estate broker Gary Jones wrote when he launched a GoFundMe campaign just four days ago. "This one is now beyond repair. Jose is an icon to Hendersonville. Always smiling and working. 'Looking good' is his favorite saying. I will donate the first $100 and hope you will help by giving any amount you can to his Go Fund Me account. He is a nice guy. I hope you can help, and next time you see Jose, stop and talk to him."

Started on Friday afternoon, the campaign raised $5,520 in four days.

"Jose had that old Chinese moped," Jones said. "Me and Harold Blythe worked on it there at my office. We got it running again and he drove it until a few weeks ago and it quit again. It quit running and I said go get it and bring it back down here."

Jones borrowed a compression tester from his brother, detail shop owner Donnie Jones, and determined that the motor was shot. Gary told Donnie he thought he'd put an appeal on Facebook to raise money to buy Jose a new moped.

"Donnie said go to GoFundMe and they can donate money," he said. "I said that's a good idea. I did it from my cellphone and before I could get back to my office it had $300 or $400; 175 or 180 people donated money. We had $5,500, so we bought a Honda and then we bought a 4-year warranty, a new helmet, a new telephone, service on the Honda for four years and gas cards. Ingles gave him a $100 gas card."

Jones joked that part of his motivation was selfish — "so I don't have to work on his moped."

"Truthfully, he needed one," he said. "Everytime it broke down, he'd come to see me."

Like a lot of Hendersonville folks, Jones said he knew of Jose before he actually got to know him.

"I'd see him do the cow thing out at Chick-Fil-A and at Liberty taxes and at the Firehouse subs," he said. "A lot of people said they'd seen him and would wave at him but didn't really know him."

Plenty of riders might need a new moped but they're not Jose. Jose rides the moped in the heat and the cold, in good weather and bad. A smile is his umbrella.

City Councilman Steve Caraker read a proclamation making Tuesday "Jose Case Day" in Hendersonville. The people of the town applauded. Jose grinned.