Reaching Out
I’ve had two pleasantly surprising experiences this past couple of weeks, both involving letters I wrote. Both were written to men, one of whom I used to work with and know very well, the other to a man I was acquainted with in high school. He is a year or so older than me so I do not know him very well. I have known the the first guy, who I will call Brad, for more than twenty years. We both worked in Juvenile Hall at the time and were only slightly acquainted for the first several years. Before I go further, I need to take a rabbit trail. Brad was a Supervisor and I was a Probation Officer who took as many overtime shifts as I could get. During a phase of building a new wing to Juvenile Hall, a worker on a backhoe broke a water line to the gymnasium. This rendered the fire sprinkler system inoperable, so someone had to be in the gym to call the Fire Department should the empty structure spontaneously burst into flame. I was called several times to cover the 11 p.m. to 7 a