Saturday, April 2, 2011

The Sex Offender's Ashes

He was in prison for various offenses. While there, he was bruised and beaten by the other prisoners, who, no matter how bad their own crimes are, famously always hate anyone who's hurt children.

Later, he got out, then he faced the scorn of the town. No one had forgotten. Because of one of the town's well-meaning ordinances, he was forced from his family home, which had been in the family for a hundred years. All because of its close proximity to a school. Which was built only 80 years before, meaning the family actually had first dibs on the land.

He lived under the interstate bridge for a while. But he was spotted and driven out by Department of Transportation dicks. Then he camped down near the railroad tracks, until railroad dicks chased him out. Then he planted a tent in the forest quite a ways from town, but someone reported him and forest ranger dicks forced him to pull up stakes.

It got to the point where he couldn't go to the grocery store or even the post office. He became emaciated through the lack of food. And intellectually stunted through the lack of mail, which, though it dumps on us a ton of useless junk mail also occasionally bring us a book that we ordered online.

Finally, he died. Then they found his last request and it was to have his ashes scattered on the old home place. But because it was within 2000 feet of a school, that was going to be a problem. Both sides had an understandable argument. The family thought it was only right to honor his last request and put his ashes near the soil he called home. But the authorities thought there was a problem with it, since it was this guy's ashes. Who knows what he might be up to?

A big controversy ensued, and it ended with the family going ahead and doing it anyway. Now we're looking at a possible ordinance that families will no longer have custody of the ashes of convicted sex offenders. Instead, the authorities will see that they are properly disposed of or flushed.

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