I must apologize to all my remaining friends.
An indication of how rare this is: spell check had troubles with my unique spelling of "apologize".
In September, a person I considered a friend got into trouble.
http://www.ocregister.com/news/ragsdale-277339-clarke-burts.html
A very good friend.
One of the family.
He is also my daughter's godfather.
At the time, I heard his side of the story (after all, I picked him up from county lock-up) and believed him. The story seemed reasonable because it touched on all the things I knew about this person: great salesman, helpful, lousy handling money,and old people that change their minds like their depends.
I was wrong.
Heart wrenchingly wrong. Shaken down to my core principals wrong. Questioning every decision I have made over the last 20+ years wrong.
Mike Ragsdale was arrested, again, and on the same charges.
http://www.ocregister.com/news/ragsdale-307017-year-arrest.html
I got the call Wednesday. Thursday I helped Loren get the car out of impound, and helped with Jill. Continued on helping Loren as much as we can since then -- but it can never be enough.
Try as he may, there is no money for bail -- not that Loren would want him out.
Since Wednesday, more has come out. The late night drinking, the pawning of Loren's jewelry, advance payday loans on her check, borrowing from everyone -- the list goes on.
As for Loren, she must file for separation to protect what little he left her with. Her and Jill will obviously be moving, and I will keep you up to date on that. There are a few assets that she can sell to cover rent and food, but not much. It is unknown how much may be lost in civil actions in the future.
As for me, all I can do is deeply, deeply apologize for not seeing what was happening and enabling this endeavor. I don't make friends often, but I usually try to keep them. If I loose a friend once a decade, I have about 6 months to go...
As for Mr. Ragsdale: This isn't the person I knew 20+ years ago. While we all change (except me, of course), it is inevitably for the better. I am proud that my friends are now moving into wonderful positions of responsibility and leadership. Spectacular successes are counter borne by this one spectacular failure.
Sorry for burdening you with my unburdening, but I felt that I needed to square up and put some things right.
jc
