Date:         Tue, 12 Aug 1997 11:28:15 -0500
From: Phanny <corbett@SLUAXA.SLU.EDU>
Subject:      SUB: CONTEST: There But for the Grace of God

I'd seen him before.  It took a minute to place him but finally I
remembered.  I'd passed him, standing in this very spot, nearly every
day for months.  I'd be vaguely uncomfortable if he wasn't there; he
was part of the landscape.

One day, I don't know why, he asked me for spare change.

I looked him over while I dug in my pocket .  Scruffy, unshaven, he
was dressed in dirty handouts from the Salvation Army.  The reek of
him made me gag.  As I dropped coins into his dirty hands I thought,
"There but for the grace of God..."

Back then, I'd been CFO for an up-and-coming high-tech firm.  Power
lunches, board meetings, BMW, the whole bit.  Then the stock slipped.
Shareholder lawsuits followed.  Investigations.

Things turned up, things that didn't look so good.  Embezzlement.

It took a while, but they finally got every penny.  I started to
drink.  When Anne left and took the kids I moved on to harder stuff.

And that's how I ran into him again, here in front of  the methodone
clinic.

Except I was the scruffy one, and he was in a suit, handing me a
dollar.