Posted by Loulou on Apr 14, 2015 | 4 comments

Well, mama just reminded me that I never did tell you the follow up story that a young waitress recounted to mama and papa at the Japanese restaurant in Texas.  And sorry for the delay in newsy bits.  I was waiting for a call from THEM and it never came.  But they’ll be on the way home soon.

They say.

So, young waitress, lovely blond, great smile, the picture of health comes to the table. And of course mama gets involved with everyone and so asked her how she got to Texas with a California accent because mama is interested in accents from all over creation and the waitress said, well, I got in some trouble in California and then came to Texas and that culminated in a couple of years in the Texas prison system.

Mama: Wow! What on earth precipitated that?

Oh, boy. It turns out that this beautiful, smiling young girl (actually now pushing 30) was once a drug dealer!  She didn’t use, just sold, as many dealers do, but when mama asked her later if she drank, she said, not much now, just a little wine.  And while she was in the correctional system for three years she became a spokesperson against drugs and councillor to young inmates who were in for drug-related offenses. After she got out she began courses to become a full-time social worker.  A sweet story one likes to hear. So there is hope for young people who have to serve time for offenses that might have been averted if only there were more mentors and councillors like this one.

So many young people are sent to prison for such small offenses, and it is clear that our society has overburdened prisons that are doing very little to rehabilitate inmates, but instead are the breeding grounds for even more hardened criminals when they finally get out.

But mama says that you never know who is waiting on your table…