There's this Thief I Know.....

After I turned in my badge and started drawing my retirement I cast about for a new Job. My retirement was good but I have always thought folks always ought to be productive and I had a lot of options since I didn't actually need the money at the time.

The first job was as a fitness specialist at a health club, thought I'd like that but didn't so I moved on to substitute teaching in the local schools. Did that for 10 years until last spring when I decided that while I'd enjoyed the work and a lot of the kids it was time to do something else.

Well I had this one boy from time to time at the local high school. He is a big blonde handsome well built kid. He's also a criminal. Not only that he isn't a very smart criminal who was constantly getting in trouble. Being a sub I had to put up with garbage a lot less than regular teachers so my normal tack with this guy was to throw him out if he gave me any significant grief at all, which I did on more than one occassion. Again, since I was a sub I didn't have to go to conferences, deal with his parents or anything else. If I sent him to his principal my problem was solved for that day.

Well I picked up the local paper yesterday and sure enough. My former part time pupil had gotten himself shot in a burglary.

It seem that a 69 year old man had taken an interest in the boy because he seemed so "clean cut." Well shortly after that break ins started ocurring at his home. He was burglarized 9 times. He steadily upgraded his security to the point of installing interior locks and outside motion detectors. Last week his motion detector goes off he gets his pistol looks around a corner and sees someone in the house that dosent belong there. The old fellow opened fire hitting the perp in the leg. He was found by the police a couple of blocks over and arrested. The paper had a note from the law saying that if you thought you'd been robbed by this character to let them know.

I gave the guy's former principal a call to let him know, he's principallling at another school and didn't know. He's a very nice guy but a bit of a bleeding heart. I think he was a little upset that his rehab efforts had been in vain. As for me, I figured this young man was destined to spend most of his life in prison long ago.

This is a much better ending than with another former student though. He's doing life in prison for stabbing two old ladies to death in a dispute over a dog. The only reason he isn't on death row is because like the thief above he was 17 at the time.

Oh, I should also mention I don't live in any slum. The median income here is still about $175,000.00 a year (no I don't make close to that.) Not Carmel by the Sea or Greenwich Conn. but very nice.

Yep, there are crooks everywhere. After all that's the reason I have a safe, an alarm system, good locks and a CHL.