CHOICES
From time to time we’ve all had to make a choice. Some times the choice we make is a good one from which we or others benefits. There are other times when the choice we make is not good but in fact detrimental. My dad taught me that we are all responsible for whatever choice we make.
A mother in Florida believes her 18 year old daughter and the daughter’s 19 year old girl friend should not be held responsible for a choice they made. The girls conspired with a bank teller and one other person to rob the bank. They not only made a bad choice but they were also stupid.They used sun glasses for disguises and left the bank laughing and giggling with an undisclosed amount of money. Both were apprehended only twenty miles from the bank just minutes after the big heist.The mama now says the girls are not bank robbers and should not be punished but little girls had made a bad choice. I believe they made a bad choice but I think they should be held just as accountable as Willie Sutton, the notorious bank robber. I believe the mother will also be held accountable at some time for the bad choice she made in not instilling some morals in her daughter when she was a little girl.
I have made way too many bad choices. When I was a young teenager I went to a carnival and was lured to a booth which had a big table full of prizes you could choose from if you could throw a golf ball into a one gallon crock vessel and it would stay and not bounce out. When I turned to walk away the hawker said he would give me three tries and not charge me so I could see how easy it was. It was so easy that I got a quarter from my big money stash which I had accumulated delivering the daily paper morning and afternoon, six days a week and on Sunday morning and paid about $12.50 a month. What had looked so easy turned out to be impossible, except with the free balls. The prize I had already picked out was a pocket watch in a box which stuck out over the edge of the table of prizes about an inch or more. I discovered that if I tip toed my belt buckle would lift the box high enough to pull the thumb tack out that held it to the table and let the watch fall to the ground. I chose to pick the watch up and put it in my pocket and stand up before the Carnie could catch me. When I got home my mom and dad gave me a wrist watch because it was my birthday. The next day I gave the watch, which I had told them I won at the carnival, to my little brother. My little brother went to the carnival the next night and found the place where I had told him I won the watch and told the man he wanted to try to win a prize. The he showed him the watch I had given him and said my brother won this here last night.
The Carnie jumped out of the booth and took the watch from him after a fight. A friend of my dad called him and said someone was beating up on my
little brother. When Dad got there the man told dad that the watch was stolen. Dad told the man that if I told him I had really won the watch he would be back and clean his plow.
When dad got home he sat me down on the side of my bed, looked me in the eye and asked if I won the watch. I knew better than to lie to my dad and admitted stealing the watch. When I started to tell dad how the man had cheated me, he would have no part of it. He said I had made a bad choice for which I would be held responsible. I still remember the wooden paddle. I think many parents have made bad choices not to teach their kids to be responsible for bad choices they make. They want the village to raise their kids and are the first to jump on a teacher for swatting their kid on the bo-hinie.