Hot dog

Ketchup.

Mustard.

Relish.

And a heap of onions.

Roy Hawkins can’t walk or use his right arm, has trouble speaking and has lost most of his memory from a stroke two years ago.

But the one thing he does recall is how he likes his hot dog.

Not just any old frankfurter, but the ones from the vendor outside the Real Canadian SuperStore in Kamloops

“I don’t know,” Roy says, trying to explain his hankering for a dog.

“I just remember this person and we’ve often walked by. . . my wife doesn’t really like them.”

Not remembering the word for what it was he wanted, Roy — using his still-functioning hand — made the shape of the hot dog.

“His appetite is not the same since the stroke,” says his wife, Irene.

“It’s not T-bone steak. . . something must have twigged in his memory.”

When Irene went to satisfy her husband’s craving, she had no idea what kind to buy — regular or a smoky.

The vendor at the SuperStore — he wants to be known only as the hot dog guy — gave her one for free.

He doesn’t remember Roy. He just wanted to send him the dog he desired.

“Oh, it was just a hot dog,” he says. “I didn’t think nothing of it.”

He even feeds the occasional hitchhiker passing through town.

The vendor knows about hard times.

His wife of 43 years died of cancer three years ago.

He’s retired, but runs the stand “just to get by.”

“What a nice thing to do,” Irene says, eyes wet with emotion.

“Without any motivation or any thought of getting anything in return for it, he just gave us one.”

Roy was also brought to tears by the kind gesture of a stranger.

“I had the hot dog and it was very nice — it was the best hot dog I’ve ever had.”