My brother-in-law, who is a wise man and a seasoned traveler, told me before I left for Africa to be smart. I heeded his advice. I flew 20,000 miles and spent 2 days in four different airports. We were in a lot of places and I met a lot of people I never would have if Valdene's parents hadn't been missionaries in Africa for 50 years.
I can honestly say that I never met one person in Africa I didn't like. Everyone was kind and not once did I feel threatened.
And now I've said all that to begin my story. The day after I got back to America I went back to work. I opened the store and only a few minutes later a man in his early 20's walked into the store and asked me to buy a broken chain. He had I.D. and I did. I wrote him a check for 115.00.
Between the time he left the store and the time he got down to the bank he altered the check and cashed it as 215.00. He did a terrible forging job but the bank teller cashed it anyways.
Eventually the police got involved and I suspect he will be in a lot of trouble. I can't imagine for the life of me (and I've spent to much time thinking about it) why anyone would want to throw their future away with a felony conviction that will follow them around the rest of their life. This is a testimony to the mind altering and brain addling power of drugs on a human brain.
It was humbling to me when I realized that many of the people I met in Africa had absolutely nothing, but treated me with more respect than I'm used to here. As I said before, my experience in Africa was attitude changing more than anything else.
This is my last blog post. I am going to start a new blog, Called Inlow, Jeweler. I will blog about jewelry making, experiences of living in a small town, chapters from my Sci-fi western, and anything else that comes into my head. Until then, David Inlow
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