Unlike Ben's mountain lion, I mostly try to keep my mouth shut around here, but the exchanges about useless, unproductive ingrates leads me into a tale that unfortunately is true...
When our kids had all graduated from high school and were moving right along with their own lives quite well, Linda and I decided to do something to contribute to our community with both some of our time, and less importantly some of our money. We saw a notice in the local daily that a disabled veteran was in need of housing and other sorts of minor assistance. Thinking we were doing a Good Thing, we stepped up and took him into our home, providing lodging, food, and we thought perhaps some transportation should he need it.
He showed up at our home with his social worker, his canes and wheelchair. After the social worker had talked with us a bit about his disabilities and needs she left. He asked if we could drive him to get his car. I am convinced the social worker knew nothing of the car which was a fairly late model compact. He folded his wheelchair up and put it in the trunk, then returned to the house where he stowed the canes in the bedroom we provided. Seems he could get along OK without either canes or wheelchair, if only for a while. He had an income from whatever disability program he was on and needed only to pay the deductibles for medication (not much) and clothing and car costs. I think he had more disposable income than we did.
We learned a bit over the next weeks about his disability that was not connected to his military service, drugs were the cause from after his discharge under other than honorable conditions, his addiction to gambling, and his astonishing ability to raise money by begging. He would drive to the local shopping center and set up his wheelchair by the road, plop himself down and 'fly my sign'. The sign was big on the disabled veteran bit, requested any kind of help people were willing to give, and raked in an average of about $100 an hour, according to his own testimony. He would buy a few luxury items at the grocery store, bring it back to our house, and then return to the commercial area. He would loose all the remaining money at the Scoreboard casino in a couple of hours or three. This was repeated every week, sometimes twice in a week.
Wife Linda thinks American Independent Party is to bleeding liberal and his conduct began to grate on her, especially after we saw a young mother stop and hand him a $100 bill. Apparently she contributed often, though usually only ten or twenty bucks. I wondered if her husband was out at one of the mines working half a ten or twelve hour shift for that hundred. She finally threw him out after he flew the sign, lost all the money at the casino, and then asked Linda to pay for his medicines because he was broke.
He went to the emergency room, was admitted for 'heart problems' and stayed in the hospital until the social worker got him a very nice apartment in town and took him there, at your expense I am sure. Still there I expect.
My apologies for the length of this post, which is very much a digest version of the whole sordid tale, and for rudely imposing on a post not my own.
