Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man running down the sidewalk toward
the front of the building.
“He has a gun!” I yelled, as I ran into the adjacent training
room.
Before I knew what happened, there were over sixty armed men and women
in Association of Trust and Guarantee’s (ATG) offices. They were
dressed in bullet proof vests with their identification clearly visible,
their weapons drawn and ready to shoot if engaged.
“Hands in the air,” shouted the officer who entered the
training room. “Where are your weapons? Keep your hands up!”
He moved to the next room, while another officer pointed his gun at
me, my back now firmly against a wall.
This was me, the same person who couldn’t squash a bug without
feeling guilty, now staring down a police officer’s gun barrel,
feeling cornered like some common criminal.
The first officer returned and asked me, “Is anyone else in this
part of the building?”
“I don’t think so, unless someone’s in the restrooms
off the kitchen area,” I replied, wanting to put my hands down.
The smell of guns and sweat filled the air as did lots of quiet chatter
among the law enforcement officers. By now, the officers had separated
the employees so that none of us could see or hear each other.
Someone yelled, “Secured!”
It echoed through the thin walls until “All secured” was
heard.
One of the officers motioned for me to sit down, pulling out my chair
while keeping his gun trained on my every move – an ironic mixture
of chivalry and intimidation. “You can put your hands down now
and sit here,” he said.
I sat in that folding chair for over six hours, attempting small talk
with a few of the officers, but there were no takers.
“Did someone ask you to talk?” a female officer asked, sarcastically.
“Then, just sit there and do as you’re told!”
“Rude,” I thought to myself. I expected everyone to act
civil, perhaps even cordial. But this was akin to some sort of grown-up
time out. And I still had no idea why I was there. My butt hurt and
I simply wanted to go home.
**************************************************************************
Though twelve years have passed, that day remains one of the most vivid
memories. Why is it that traumatic memories are so vivid, while really
wonderful ones like weddings and births tend to reside in photos? Perhaps
there’s a connection between troubled times and names that include
“trust” and “guarantee”?
I don’t know, but I have come to distrust anyone who tells me
that “you can trust me!” I was thirty-seven for goodness
sake, newly divorced after a nineteen year marriage, with two teenagers
who had their own dysfunctional issues. Did I mention I was broke with
no friends? I just kept saying to myself, “I can trust that it
will work out, some how.”
I always felt like I wanted to go home but I didn’t have a home
to go to. No mom or dad to nurture me, to tell me I was smart or that
I could be anything I wanted to be if I worked hard enough for it. They
did teach me to work hard. But without the belief in myself, it didn’t
matter how hard I worked – I still got nowhere that much faster.
I knew ATG’s product was going to be a tough sell at first. It
was a non-insurance alternative to the high cost of Worker Compensation
insurance for small business employees. The State Insurance Departments
issued multiple “cease and desist” orders, claiming we were
selling an insurance product. While ATG and the insurance departments
were, according to my understanding, working on a resolution, many businesses
who signed up for the alternative product were sending their payments
to ATG. I learned later through the authorities, those payments were
being diverted to bank accounts in the West Indies.
ATG was also denying claims from injured workers, preventing them from
receiving much needed medical care for their on the job injuries. It
was my understanding that some claims were denied because they were
fraudulent, and Larry said he had proof to support the denials. That
proof never appeared during his criminal trial. Those whose claims had
been denied did show up, if only as the prosecutor’s exhibits.
**************************************************************************
Earlier that morning, my daughter Merideth and I had a fight about money.
She was getting ready for a day of fun at the water park with her friends
when she came into my bedroom and threw last year’s swim suit
on my bed. “It doesn’t fit, Mom,” she said as she
plopped herself down.
I looked at her and then the clock before pointing out the obvious,
“The stores are not open yet and I have to be at work by eight
o’clock. How do you think you will be able to buy a new swim suit
before I drop you off?” I really thought I had her with this one,
but no, she already had her answer prepared.
“They sell swim suits at the water park, Mom.” She grinned
triumphantly.
I was clearly unprepared for her this early in the day. I hadn’t
had my coffee yet. I didn’t have cash to give her for the swim
suit, either, then she informed me that there was an ATM cash machine
on the way, and I could stop there to get her the needed funds. “Oh,
I wish it was that easy,” I thought to myself. “I wish I
had a mommy who would give me money.” I couldn’t always
come through for her, but that morning, I decided I’d be the mom
who made it happen.
***************************************************************************
I pulled into the parking lot near the front door to ATG’s office
in my new black Geo Storm. There were already streams of hot heat rising
off the pavement. I reached in the back and grabbed a bunch of papers.
ATG was a little over a year old in 1994, and I had just moved from
being Texas’ top sales person to work out of ATG’s home
office, writing the company’s first training manual; it was my
baby.
I headed to unlock the front door. Even though employees started arriving
at seven-thirty, Larry insisted on keeping the office locked until eight
o’clock. The law required the doors be unlocked during business
hours, otherwise I think Larry would have kept the door locked all day.
Today my key would not open that familiar door, so I began to bang on
it to get someone to open up. Sissy, who handled injury claims, was
laughing at something as she opened the door, probably at me as I stood
there looking befuddled locked out of work.
“What’s the deal?” I asked her.
“Go see Larry. He has your new key.” She then headed to
her office.
Sissy and I never really had any kind of conversations other than these
short one-liners. I don’t even remember her last name. But I think
it interesting that Sissy walked away from ATG, scot free. After all,
she was responsible for processing all injured worker’s medical
claims. Many of those claims were denied, and it seemed reasonable that
she would be in deep – too deep to walk away with no criminal
charges. But she did. Several agencies called me to ask if I knew where
to find her. I didn’t. It was as if she fell through the cracks
and disappeared.
We left the door unlocked as the clocked reached eight. I glanced back
at the well worn, temporary ATG sign on the glass door and wondered
when we were going to have a real sign. It didn’t seem a priority
for Larry.
I walked to Larry’s office. His door was open, as usual, so I
knocked and stuck in my head. “So do I have a job or no?”
I said with a big smile as I began to walk toward his huge mahogany
desk.
Larry Kenemore, owner of ATG, was a big man - tall, with a muscular
frame that, in his earlier years, would have been firm, but at forty-nine
was mostly flab. He had distinguishing gray hair around his clean shaven
face. He wore laundered shirt and pants complete with his shined alligator
shoes and argyle socks.
I often wondered how he coped in federal prison without the luxuries
he had afforded himself.
He whirled around in his big black leather chair and smiled, “There’s
the door. But you will need this key to get back in.” He dangled
the office key in front of me.
By now Mollie, the young Macaw, was sitting on her perch outside her
cage whistling and saying, “Come here, Come here,” as her
head motioned for me to come closer.
“Larry, you really need to teach her something other than enticing
women to come closer so she can bite their tits.”
Larry laughed, “I try but she’s my bird after all.”
“So why did you change the locks, Larry?” I asked, while
grabbing the key and showing it to Mollie like it was some prize I had
just won.
Larry kept assuring everyone that he would work with the state agencies
and we would continue to be in business. We all thought the insurance
industry wanted to shut us down because we were threatening their market.
All I knew, for certain, was that a white van showed up parked by the
kitchen window. Then, a couple of weeks later, Larry insisted I take
a piece of equipment home to check my apartment for listening devices.
I had brought it back, and told him there were no “bugs”
in my apartment. I began to think we might be losing the fight when
Larry started attending the local anti-government groups and filing
liens against federal judges.
After Larry’s sentencing, a member of the U.S. Department of Labor
assured me that ATG’s worker compensation program concept was
indeed legal assuming the money had gone to the appropriate places instead
of being diverted to off shore bank accounts. I dare say that anyone
in their right mind would think long and hard about working again in
the worker’s compensation industry in the aftermath of all of
this drama. But, hearing the official’s explanation lifted some
of the guilt I had about working at ATG. How could any of us have known
about diversion of money?
The smile on Larry’s face vanished. “Someone has been coming
in here at night and going through things. So what is on your agenda
today?”
A strange comment, I thought. I wondered why he didn’t just look
at the alarm system documentation. We all had codes.
Instead, I answered his question. “I have to enter the last manual
edits, take it to the printers, and finalize the hotel and airline reservations
for the state director’s trip next month. Not to worry it will
all be taken care of today, which means we have the rest of the week
to focus on the new offices in Alabama and Louisiana. Anything you need
from me?”
The smile came back and his eyes twinkled, “No, ma’am, you
have done enough for me already.” I learned to not trust those
twinkling eyes and winning smiles.
I turned and walked well out of Mollie’s reach, and was about
to disappear through the door when Larry yelled, “Make sure there
is fresh coffee left for me!” I kept walking like I didn’t
hear him.
It was rare for him to ask any of us to make his coffee. I wondered
if he had been at the office all night and needed the jolt. He knew
all too well that my job description didn’t include “fetching
his coffee”.
****************************************************************************
Larry compared his fight with the state and federal government as “a
David vs. Goliath battle,” according to Bill Lodge, Staff Writer
of The Dallas Morning News article dated May 3, 1996. U.S. District
Judge Sidney Fitzwater said he granted leniency because he was convinced
that others were drawn into the scheme by “a thoroughly corrupt
person.”
I wasn’t allowed to go to the trial because I was a witness, and
Larry made sure there was a gag order to prohibit those involved from
discussing the trial with others before and after their testimony.
Larry maintained that he never intended to defraud anyone, that it was
“only bad business decisions.” He had convinced us all that
we were going to win the rights to market this alternative worker’s
compensation product and make lots of money in the process. He offered
us the “pie in the sky” and we lapped it up.
That desperation blinded us. We believed him, we trusted him; “we”
being the eighteen state directors and over nine thousand sales associates
confidently offering our product to small businesses long before the
government raided ATG’s home office. Many, including myself, had
done our due diligence on the company, the product and the man behind
the brand.
I still believe in people too much, and I suffer for it. I am sure that
there is some wire in my brain dangling free, needing to be reconnected
to its appropriate place. The kind of wire designed to tell me, “Danger,
Danger”. I have come to believe that everyone is out for themselves,
however giving they may seem.
There was a glitch in how information was made available in the early
90s. States didn’t publish information on the web like they do
now. If I had spent more money, which I didn’t have, for background
checks, I might have uncovered information that would have made me run
from ATG, but I didn’t. Instead I invested my life in a lie.
***************************************************************************
Within a year of working at ATG, I made the decision to move to Arlington
as their National State Coordinator, both my children, Mark and Merideth,
had already decided they wanted to live with their dad in McKinney.
It was the first time I would live alone in my thirty-seven years. I
had my first apartment and my first new car, a black Geo Storm.
I felt giddy. I was happy that their dad would be responsible for their
everyday needs. I felt free, like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
It wasn’t easy managing money I didn’t have. All my life
someone else had paid the bills. My stomach would be in knots when bill
paying time came, and I responded by consistently procrastinating. I
soon discovered first hand that phone companies will shut off the phones
when a stranger came to my door late one evening and began to bang on
it demanding,
“I know you are in there. Open this door!”
I was shaking like a leaf, but I managed to sneak up to the peep hole
and look out about the same time he was looking in. When I grabbed the
phone, and heard a sickening silence. I didn’t have a cell phone
then, either, so I ran to the bathroom, closed and locked the door,
moving the clothes hamper in front of it, and climbing into the bath
tub, praying that someone would call the police. No one did. After what
seemed hours, the stranger left. I didn’t tell anyone at the time.
I was too scared, and too embarrassed.
The freedom of living alone had lost some of its luster. It ended up
lasting for all of five months until Merideth came to live with me.
She had been caught shoplifting, and more than once had cussed her step
mom to tears. Instead of dealing with Merideth’s issues, her father
thought it best to send her to live with me.
******************************************************************************
The morning of the raid, after meeting with Larry, I went to my own
office, put my stuff down, and headed off to the kitchen. I glanced
out the floor-to-ceiling window and noticed the old white delivery van
was gone. We all thought the insurance commissioner had it placed there
with recording equipment to monitor our activities. But it seemed empty
inside the dark tinted windows. The landlord said it would take a while
to have it towed away since no one seemed to have claimed it.
He was right.
I made a fresh pot of coffee. It was another week dealing with the Texas
Department of Insurance as well as the State Insurance Departments in
Alabama and Louisiana. “Finally!” I said to no one. I poured
my coffee, stirred in sugar and cream, and then headed back to my office.
I put my half drunk cup of coffee on the warmer, sat down and began
to open my mail.
*****************************************************************************
There were teams representing at least eleven local, state and federal
agencies that day, each meticulously combing the building once it had
been secured. I felt violated as I watched strangers going through my
purse and my desk, after they searched me. Once we were questioned,
the movers loaded all the furniture into rented vans for storage. It
was later sold at an auction. Anything that contained information either
on paper or computers was taken for evidence.
*****************************************************************************
The officers finally said we could leave the building if we allowed
them to search our cars first. I didn’t give them permission to
search my car. The officers said it was for security reasons and I understood
they were protecting themselves. They didn’t understand it was
my first car, and they had already searched everything else I had there
at work, but I couldn’t seem to bring myself to allow them to
search my little Geo Storm. So I was free, but my car wasn’t.
I walked over to the service station on the corner of the parking lot,
where some of the ATG salesmen had heard local news networks and radio
coverage of the raid. They were standing among the many that have come
to be known as “onlookers.” They are the ones that hold
up traffic around an accident straining their necks to see the carnage.
The ATG salesmen told me there were simultaneous raids: Larry’s
family home in Arlington, Texas, the Union offices in New York and California
as well as the home office in Arlington. I would see Larry just once
more after the raid.
I later learned the raid on ATG was the result of an arduous, fifteen-month
investigation covering fifteen states, spearheaded by a 100-member task
force (not including those who participated in the raid) involving,
among others, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Federal Bureau
of Investigations (FBI), the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Texas
Attorney General’s Office, the Texas Department of Insurance and
the U.S. Department of Labor.
*******************************************************************************
When I interviewed for the position at ATG, I didn’t have any
experience in sales or technical writing. I was curvy with long brown
hair and sexuality oozing out of every pore in my body. Larry’s
eyes twinkled when I walked into his office that first day. He had moved
to Texas about 5 months before with the explicit goal of starting ATG.
I didn’t know until Larry’s trial that the State of California
Department of Insurance had issued a cease and desist order to a similar
company there. He thought Texas laws would be more conducive to building
up his new alternative product for worker’s compensation insurance.
His wife and children were still in California. He hired me; it was
a commission only position. When I proved my worth as one of the top
sales people in the state, he began to pay more attention to me. He
quickly brought me into the inner circle of the business. We began to
have dinners alone, and when he asked me to stay at his hotel room instead
of making the late night drive to my house only to have to turn around
and drive back in the morning, it made sense. I would get my children’s
father to go to the house and stay.
When my ex-husband remarried, his support money decreased substantially.
Larry soon offered me the position of National Sales Coordinator, making
more money in a month than I had made in my entire life. I was to create
ATG’s first training manual, and oversee the opening of the new
offices and the day to day details of the State Directors. I thought
it was a step in the right direction. The training manual was essentially
finished the day of the raid, but the authorities were the only ones
to ever read it.
Larry wasn’t my best lover but he did love being the one man who
slept with me in the midst of others who envied that position. It was
a common bond, because I loved being the one he slept with, even if
very few people knew about it. He loved my soft skin.
During a training seminar in which Larry was teaching at a podium in
front of the large room filled with over a hundred people, mostly men,
I had the distinct feeling that Larry was trying to undress me while
he was teaching. I kept moving around in the back of the room to give
him a challenge. Afterwards, I mentioned it to him and he smiled that
grin that seemed to make me feel good and said, “I would have
too, if you’d have stopped moving around so much!”
I felt like it was easier for men to have sex with whomever they wanted.
They seemed to carry their conquests on their belt like pelts killed
in the wild. Women on the other hand were sluts and whores if they did
the same thing. The differences between men and women were still defined
by the patriarchal society that hopefully will one day be more equal.
The affair didn’t last more than a month or so before his wife
and children followed him to Texas. The last overnight stay with Larry
was after he had leased a home for his family. He invited me to come
over and sleep with him in the master bedroom in the same bed he and
his wife would share. I stayed overnight but we didn’t have sex,
and I slept in another room. Even I thought he crossed the line with
that proposal. My mantra at the time was, “I have no morals, but
I do have high standards.” I think it came from a movie, I am
not sure.
I liked Larry’s wife, Sherry. She was entertaining, intelligent,
and seemingly kind. She was forty-one when she pleaded guilty on the
first day of Larry’s trial. She testified that her illegal involvement
with ATG was because she was afraid of Larry’s brutal beatings.
Sherry worked in ATG’s office everyday, and not once did it appear
she had been beaten. She was rarely even sick. She and Larry attended
the Baptist church every Sunday. Larry was involved with his son’s
little league team. The picture of perfection was hiding the family’s
darker side. As far as I knew, Sherry never learned about Larry and
me, or if she did, she never let it show.
Sherry’s defense as a victim worked. She was given leniency with
a reduced sentence of five months. After serving her time in federal
prison, she moved to the town near where Larry was incarcerated. The
Feds moved Larry a number of times because of his involvement with anti-government
groups such as the Republic of Texas. It was through Larry’s association
with this group that he learned how to file liens on government officials.
He tied up their personal property for several years, costing them thousands
of dollars to regain free titles. Larry’s actions resulted in
an additional four years to his sentencing.
*******************************************************************************
With Sherry’s arrival in Texas to be with Larry, I seemed to have
been knocked down a notch. The top recruiter for salesmen and North
Carolina’s state director then took a fancy to me. I remember
our first date. He brought me flowers. I wore a beige sun dress with
the back mostly open. It was Sunday morning and he took me for din sum.
He wouldn’t let me eat any one piece completely.
He said, “Taste it. Taste a little from each one.”
I must have sampled over thirty different ones that day.
His name was Ken. He was married, too. Wherever we went people responded
to him like he was royalty. I had never seen anything like it. He treated
me to fine dinners, short trips and presents. He was good in bed. He
loved my soft skin.
I was an enigma to him. I would warn him of danger before the danger
came. He began to depend on my intuition. He confided in me that he
wanted Larry to sell him the business. Larry refused. Ken told me that
if he couldn’t have ATG, then he would help in closing it and
I would be well advised to find another job.
I went to Ken’s condo one weekend and noticed that the front door
jam was broken. Someone had busted through the door.
When I mentioned it to Ken, he said, “Don’t worry about
it. They will fix it in the morning.”
I naively accepted his explanation, not thinking anything sinister had
happened. That was typical of me then. I seemed to have blinders on
when it came to men who appreciated me.
After all the drama from ATG, I was told that Ken was involved with
a mob family from up north. Little did I know I could trust Ken to keep
his word in helping to bring down ATG. He became an inside informer
to the State and Federal agents.
*********************************************************************************
About a month before the raid, I was called to speak to the federal
grand jury. I was so afraid that my knees literally knocked as I refused
to give them my finger prints. This angered more than a few grand jurors.
I didn’t give them my finger prints because they were considered
personal property, and unless I was under arrest I didn’t have
to relinquish them. Perhaps it was because my finger prints were one
of the few things I possessed that I could still say was and would always
be mine.
When I was called in to the federal grand jury, the federal prosecutor
asked me why I had changed my name. I said, “I grew up in a very
dysfunctional, abusive family, and when I divorced my husband I did
not want to take my maiden name. I wanted to have my own name. So I
found one I liked and legally changed my name when the divorce papers
were filed and approved.”
That name was on the federal indictment.
**********************************************************************************
I never retained an attorney. I didn’t have the money for one.
I had stayed right up to the end with Larry, and that choice was a wrong
one. It didn’t matter that I had done my due diligence after the
fact, or that so many others had believed in Larry, too.
The week after the raid, I agreed to meet with the IRS and federal agents
in a secure place. Because of Larry’s involvement with the anti-government
groups I didn’t trust anyone. I lived in a state of paranoia.
Even today, I still glance in my rear view mirror on occasion, looking
for “someone” following me.
I knew I was being followed most of the last year at ATG, but I really
didn’t know who it was. Were they government agents or anti-government
groups?
The Feds and IRS set up our meeting at DFW airport. They would assign
agents to make sure I wasn’t being followed. I stuck to their
directions and still ended up lost. I had to call in from a terminal
pay phone. They told me to stay there, and sent an officer to fetch
me.
That meeting was a turning point. They knew I was telling the truth,
and though some of the information they already had, there was a good
bit they didn’t know. After that meeting, my name was removed
from the indictment.
************************************************************************************
The last van full of ATG’s office furniture pulled away, entering
the stream of evening traffic. The sheriff’s officer pulled down
the crime tape and placed it in his trunk. He got into his vehicle,
and drove away.
My car was now free to roam around.
Hai Woon walked up behind me, and leaned in. “What’s happening
here?” she asked. I’d forgotten to call her to find out
what time she would be at ATG. She figured I was too busy.
“ATG was raided,” I replied. “It is an empty building
now.” I hugged her.
We got into my car and went to the grocery store before going to the
water park to pick up Merideth. When we arrived at the water park, Hai
Woon and I went in to find her. We made sure the car was locked so that
no one could steal Hai Woon’s purse on the floor. When we came
back to the car, the passenger side door was wide open. Her purse remained
on the floor, untouched.
We didn’t report it; we just got in and went to my apartment.
There, I shared with Merideth and Hai Woon all the details from the
ATG raid. It wasn’t until she left that I realized that I no longer
had a job.
Merideth wasted no time in expressing her feelings about it all. “Now
what? We didn’t have enough money while you worked there. What
are you going to do now?” She needed a cigarette.
I didn’t even know she smoked. “It will all work out, you
will see,” I said, as she slammed the back patio door.
There were many nights I would curl up in bed and cry. I didn’t
have anyone to turn to for help. I was going to have to do something
– anything – if we were to survive this crisis. We were
within two weeks of being homeless, and had to have a non-profit agency
pay our electric bill.
Fortunately, I did find a job as a telemarketer, working for a major
store chain that sold life insurance to its credit card customers. Everyone
could say they hated telemarketers, but I felt like I had hit rock bottom.
*************************************************************************************
About six months after the raid, I helped the prosecutors open the computers,
even though all documents were password protected. I guessed at the
passwords based on what I knew about Larry. And it turned out the forensics
were right – there were two set of books; one for Larry and his
wife, and one for the rest of the world. After all that had happened
I was still surprised. That was a defining moment for me. It was then
that I knew Larry was guilty. Up to that moment I’d held out hope
that Larry was right, that ATG was legal, and the insurance authorities
were wrong.
*************************************************************************************
During the run-up to the trial, while prepping for my testimony, I had
to tell the Feds about the affair with Larry. I didn’t want to
take the stand and have Larry sideswipe the prosecutors by saying I
was just getting him back for returning to his wife. It was true, I
was angry with Larry. Some of the furniture that was taken during the
raid was mine. All Larry had to do was tell the federal agents that
I had my own personal furniture in the ATG’s office for me to
be able to retrieve it. Larry refused to acknowledge it in any way.
Why, I don’t know. I was the one person who believed in him even
after the raid.
I did, however, prove through pictures which pieces were mine and I
was able to retrieve them, but it was some months after the raid.
I did testify briefly. I remembered waiting outside in the hallway on
a hard cherry colored wooden bench for hours before it was time for
me to testify. Because of the gag , I couldn’t hear anything that
happened in the court room. When my time arrived, I walked in slowly
so that I could look around. There were many from the local anti-government
group as well as ATG salesmen sitting in the gallery. When my eyes met
Larry’s, he winked and smiled at me. I smiled back.
Larry defended himself so I had to answer his questions as well as the
federal prosecutors. It wasn’t long before the twinkle in Larry’s
eyes faded. It was the last time I saw Larry.
It was a hot day and the heat was wafting up toward the skyscrapers
in downtown Dallas. I walked down the steps of the federal court house
a free woman that day. Larry, his wife and one of his grown sons, who
lived in Utah, were charged with conspiracy, mail fraud, money laundering
and theft of insurance funds. Five others were also indicted with various
other charges.
Larry was found guilty on all 24 felony charges and sentence to nineteen
years and seven months in federal prison. He would have to serve sixteen
years and eight months before he would be able to seek an early release.
He would be very close to seventy-years-old by then.
Lynda Bayless, associate commissioner in charge of the insurance fraud
unit at the Texas Department of Insurance in Austin said, “This
might be the toughest sentence ever handed down in a health insurance
fraud case.” She also said, “Employers and workers trusted
Kenemore to pay their medical bills and he betrayed that trust. Now
he’ll grow old in prison.”1 Larry’s wife and son,
along with the five associates, pleaded guilty but were given light
sentences. When Judge Fitzwater considered Larry’s son’s
sentence he said, “This is a case in which the guilt and the wrongdoing
of this man’s father is overwhelming. It is so overwhelming that
it almost sucks the culpability out of those who were put in the cesspool
around him.” 1
**************************************************************************************
My daughter and I moved back to McKinney, and we began to learn how
to live together. She was arrested for bringing illegal drugs to school
and was forced into rehab. She never kept her room until she had her
own place. She then turned into a little Miss Home Maker with her house
as tidy and organized as any could hope to be. Today, she manages the
finance department at a local furniture store.
I heard her say to her new sister-in-law, “My brother didn’t
have to work for what he got, I did. It was a valuable lesson.”
I guess we can trust that things will work out if you give them time.
As for me, I have been in a mostly trusting relationship for over the
last ten years with most of my wild days far behind me.
1 The Dallas Morning News, “Three Get Probation for Scheme
to Commit Insurance Fraud “ written by Bill Lodge Staff Writer,
Published August 24, 1996