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I had been letting an ex-con do yard work for me around my property. . . but then one of the Dentists in my office six miles across town had her purse snatched as she got out of her car in front of the office . . . and it turned out it was the guy I had been helping out was the snatcher. Damn. He seemed to be a nice guy. He comes around every so often now, but strangely I no longer have any odd jobs for him to do. I cannot trust him.

I have worked with a lot of ex-cons, since I founded and ran an emergency Food Bank for 26 years. . . which attracts the dregs of society as well as those who are just temporarily down. Many of the ex-cons were hard working volunteers at the Food Bank and many would steal the food if you turned your back on them. Some of them were trustworthy enough to watch the others. Some I could trust to drive the bag of cash donations to the bank. . . another you can't leave a dime laying on the desk without knowing it would be gone when he walked by. Anything not nailed down disappeared. . . but a most was not stolen by cons. It was stolen be average people.

When I was remodeling the office, I had purchased three ceiling fans and brought them in from my car and put them in my office. . . I turned around and a heavy woman was balancing them on her shoulders heading out the door. I asked where she was going with them. "I gots these free inside! They gaves them to me, cause I needs them!" I told here they weren't there for clients and she argued with me that a worker had given them to her. . . "Cause ev'ry body know that you c'n gets stuffs free here!" I collected my ceiling fans back from her and told her she was banned from the Food Bank — not even food help — for three months. A week later she came back and asked to see me. . . and confessed that she was stealing them and begged forgiveness. Surprisingly, she wound up one of our best volunteers!