Personally I was always a big fan of the Saturday Night Live skit where Chris Farley portrayed pudgy motivational speaker Matt Foley. It always made me wonder what would happen if I didn’t get my life on track and actually ended up “Living in a van down by the river.”

Luckily, I always stuck to the straight and narrow path and the closest I ever came to misfortune was living in a camper down by the river just outside of good ol’ Iola, WI. (it wasn’t nearly as bad as Matt Foley had warned!).

However, never once did I consider trying to capitalize on my misfortune like Aaron Heideman of Oregon. I guess I maybe I missed out on a prime opportunity to cash in.

Heideman is now living in his 1989 Dodge van (I’m sure it is parked near a river whenever possible) and is encouraging folks to write their hard-luck tales on the side of his van. His goal: to win an art competition worth a cool $250K.

Oh well, I guess that I never really understood “fine art” anyway.

You can check out Aaron’s touching tale by clicking here.