In the late 60's, I had a good friend that I grew up with, he married just after high school and they had two children. Being young, (2 years younger than myself) he couldn't keep a job to save his butt. He started drinking, totaled his daily driver (only car he & his wife had). His Mom and Dad bought them a used car which he drove the wheels off of and never maintained it. He spent money needed for family on alcohol, finally his wife dumped him. He blamed her and everyone else for his divorce. He moved back to his parents house and seemed to get his act together, getting a job and buying himself a decent motorcycle. He then married his second wife and she was BAT S**T crazy. They spent every dime they both made drinking and running the bars. She finally got locked up for her SIXTH DWI, he divorced her and ran back to his Mom and Dad to sober up again. I bought a house in the neighborhood we grew up in (his parents lived in this same neighborhood). I was out working on one of the many cars that I had. I look up and who is standing in my garage, but my old friend, Come to find out, he'd gone off on a bender, wrecked his bike and had to have multiple surgeries to fix his shattered right leg. When he showed up at the house, he was on a cane having just been released by his doctor. We talked and he asked about what I was doing for a living. After I told him, he asked if there might be a spot for him as my helper. I talked to the guy is was contracting to and was told I could use him if I wished. He got hired on and he seemed to have a grip on himself and life in general, the kicker was he had no wheels so he road back and forth with me everyday. Things rocked along for the better part of two years, but as our work load increased, I was running two jobs on the opposite sides of the city. I drive to the job I had him working to drop him off, leave and go to the other job 2 hours away. One afternoon, I drove back to pick him up and the superintendent on the job came running out to my truck. He told me to get that "No good rotten drunk that worked for me off the job". I went to where my friend was last seen, lo and behold there are 10 to 12 beer cans strewn about and he is passed out on the floor. I finally get him outside of the job site and told him he was gone for drinking on the job. He asked how he was going to get home, I looked at him and told him to catch a cab, a bus or whatever that he was no longer welcome around me. His Mom and Dad came to me to plead his case, I told them that he was still the same old drunk he been for the last ten years and I was washing my hands of him. Fast forward to 2017, out of the blue I get a call from him. It seems he ran into my sister and she gave him my cell phone number. It seems that both of his parents had passed away, neither had a will and he wanted advice as to how to access their bank accounts and to get his parent's house transferred to his name. I asked him if he had contacted anyone for legal advice, which he said "they want up front money and I'm broke". I seems that he had continued drinking and screwing around until he could no longer hold a job. He was supposedly on disability and getting money that way. I did some leg work for him and indeed attorneys want substantial bucks to take on the case. I relayed the information, names and numbers I had gathered for him. It's not 2023 and I haven't heard JACK from him since I gave him the information.
