A GOOD ????DAY

Yesterday I wrote about my stint as a collector for the power company. Collecting, my boss used to say, can put you in direct contact with murders, rapists, child abusers, thieves, drug dealers, users and just down right ugly people. Electricity is equal opportunity. Any one with a house and a few dollars can have it. When you knock on a door, you don't know what type of person you are talking to.While it was an unpleasant job at best, filled with sad stories, children begging you not to cut the power off and the occasional abandoned animals, sometimes you had a good day.


At first the day did not start out that way, in fact it was mind boggling awful. Bruce was my trainer and as we pulled up to a house with the doors and windows open we were both thinking that the owners were long gone. Bruce banged on the door frame half heartedly just to follow protocol.

That is when we saw movement so Bruce called out. There was no answer but a small sniffle. Then we looked inside and saw little furniture, just a folding chair , a refrigerator. and a mattress on the floor. Sitting on the mattress were three children, all preschool. The baby was naked and showed evidence of diarrhea. All three were filthy.


Bruce asked where their mother was but only got blank stares. Then the oldest, a boy, said something in Spanish. Since all we knew in Spanish was "No deniro, No luces" (no money no lights), we knew we had a problem. I cursed my mono lingual status. Bruce left me with the kids to find a Spanish speaking neighbor which he did.


The neighbor told us the people had been gone for several days. She said the parents were migrant workers who had probably run out of work and had left to look for some. No, they didn't know if or when they would be back. They said they had not seen the kids and did not know they were there. They thought the people had taken them with them as the house was so quiet.

I had checked the refrigerator and there was only a little stale cheese and some mustard. The children did not cry or ask for anything. They just stared at us with huge distrusting eyes. This was before cell phone days so Bruce left to call Family Services while I stayed to watch over them. The neighbors brought over some cold spaghetti and milk which the kids inhaled.

Soon a case worker showed up who spoke Spanish. She was able to determine how long the kids had been alone and that they had barely had anything to eat for three days. They were 5, 4 and 2. Evidently the parents had told them to stay put and not go outside.

Bruce and I were feeling a terrible rage at the parents who had abandoned their children. Had they returned right then, it would have been ugly. It is terrible to say but the only way I could ever forgive those parents is if they had been victims of foul play. That would be the only thing to make sense to me.


The case worker took over and Bruce and I kept in touch with her. We learned she eventually found relatives who lived in another county to care for them. The case worker did an amazing job to find the relatives, but never found a trace of the parents. It seems the kids flourished at least physically under the relatives care. You can only wonder about the scars that don't show.


So how was that a good day you ask?? It was good because we got there in time.