“The best money I ever spent.” That’s how my old man described giving money to a ne’er-do-well he wished to not see again. When someone was in need, my father would happily give cash away, no questions asked. He taught me a helpful lesson when he used one of his C-Notes (one hundred dollars to non-gamblers) to keep a neighborhood thief from storing his stolen tires in our garage while we were on a vacation. This fellow was shady, and after discovering the stolen tires, my father deduced who the culprit was. Dad floated him a hundred bucks after he expressed his hard times, and Dad knew he wouldn’t be repaid. That was actually Dad’s plan . . the neighbor avoided us from then on, and never returned to Locust Road. Perhaps. he was just avoiding the house with thirteen children … we’ll never know. I think expecting the shady neighbor to avoid contact with someone he owned money was a clever bet on the old man’s part, though. Thank God our father was a semi pacifist.