The criminal activity that landed him in the California state prison system had probably begun around 1970. The only letter I still have from him is postmarked November 21, 1973, from Chino, CA. I was in my first year of high school. He was forty and serving time for crimes against the County of Orange. He had been a credit and collections officer at the Orange County Medical Center (now part of the medical school of University of California, Irvine) where my mother also worked as a medical records clerk typist.
In those days, few people were aware of their own credit scores and online crowdfunding didn’t exist (no personal computers, no worldwide web). Medical bills could still be negotiated. Your office mates would open their wallets or checkbooks at a staff meeting—“Come on, guys, you know Al would do the same for you”; or your sister might break into her piggy bank for you, quite literally counting her pennies. Medical debt was real, one of many envelopes stamped Past Due in red ink piled up on the kitchen table or shoved into a drawer.
Then, as now, undocumented workers with no legal right to borrow money, nor the opportunity to open a bank account or a line of credit, had little recourse to clear a debt after an emergency room visit or longer stay in a county hospital. Sometimes the only option was to disappear into the next avocado grove or strawberry field, pawn the last piece of family jewelry, or encounter a misguided good guy, like my stepfather, if he weren’t already in jail….
On Saturdays, Mom would drive from our apartment in Garden Grove out to Chino, about forty to ninety minutes away depending on freeway traffic, to visit my stepdad, Milton, in the California Men’s Colony where he was incarcerated for embezzlement after having spent a few months in the Orange County jail, awaiting trial. Milton, a former Marine and Korean War veteran who spoke fluent Spanish and looked like the popular actor Anthony Quinn, was genuinely liked and respected by his colleagues and even by the patients and clients from whom he sought to collect payment, low-wage workers with little to no insurance coverage and no savings. To find them, Milton made phone calls or knocked on the doors of known relatives or last-known emergency contacts. Milt was a kind, compassionate man who had never forgotten his roots near the Texas/Mexico border.
Milt convinced many debt holders to come into the office to pay at least a little something their long overdue medical bills, and he was quick to put them at ease with a warm greeting and a ready handshake. Though I never witnessed these interactions, I can easily imagine such a scene based on the colorful stories he told us:
“!Hola, Ernesto! ¿Como está? ¿How are the kids?” Milton is genuinely pleased to see people no matter how much money they do or do not have.
Ernesto, a small weathered man, removes his hat before extending his hand to return the greeting. “Buenos dias, Señor Reade. Mi esposa y los ninos están bien, gracias. Y Guillermo, my baby, he’ll be starting high school next year.”
“Here, have a seat.”
“No, no. Thank you, señor. I just came to give you this,” handing Milton a small, stained envelope of cash, “for my treatment.”
“Un momento y I’ll write you a receipt,” Milton says.
“Bueno. But I’ll be right back.” Ernesto puts on his hat, hitches up his pants while digging in the front pocket for his keys, and shuffles out the door. His eldest son, Carlos, had been waiting in the truck. Now the two of them return, each carrying a crate of produce. Milton smells the pungent grapefruit as soon as the two enter his office.
“Ah, pomelos!”
“Si, senor. Y estos....” Ernesto sets down the box of citrus and removes the purple waxed paper divider from the top of the box in Carlos’s arms. Inside are a dozen extra large Haas avocados set carefully in molded press-board, as though selected and packed by “Harry & David” themselves. All three men smile at the bounty.
“Muchas gracias, mijo,” Milton thanks Carlos and nods to his father.
Several days a month, Milt would come home from work with a surplus box of tomatoes, a flat of strawberries, or several heads of lettuce. If my mother suspected anything, she never voiced her concern in my presence. She described him as “kind and generous to a fault.” This tall, dark, handsome love of her life was also, it turned out, an alcoholic (“he drinks to much”). When they married, Mom had no idea that both characteristics would land him, and her, in serious trouble.
Only later did the whole story come to light. After a routine financial audit revealed unusual activity, hospital launched an internal investigation, comparing the recorded payables with actual revenue. Milton was charged and convicted without having benefited monetarily. In exchange for his kindness, Milton received the fresh fruits of his clients’ labor and the satisfaction of knowing he had spared them and their families the oppression of unpaid medical bills. In the process, Milton had also cheated the county out of much-needed compensation for services, thousands and thousands of dollars he would have to repay with cash, not cantaloupe. He was fired, of course, but my mother kept her job (what choice did she have?!). Robin Hood was sent to prison. Each month she was reminded of her connection to Milton’s crime, not only by pointing fingers or whispers as she walked to her desk, but also by her lean paychecks. As Milton’s working spouse, she was liable for making restitution payments while he was incarcerated. The county garnished her wages. She paid the rent, bought groceries, put gas in the tank, and set aside what was left for bare-minimum maintenance of the old Dodge Dart to get her to work during the week and out to Chino on weekends. Such was her life as a single mom with a husband in prison.
As her daughter, and the only one of three children living at home, I was still adjusting to my parents’ divorce, the move from five-bedroom house to two-bedroom apartment, and my mother’s remarriage to a man I had resented, even hated. But I’d gotten used to the situation and, because of my recently acquired Christian faith and friends, I was beginning to understand the importance of love and forgiveness. I was learning about my responsibility to make right relationships with those I’d injured in any way and those who had wronged me.
So I wrote Milt a letter. I don’t know what I said, exactly, but by his reaction—a handwritten letter on lined yellow paper—I’d had asked his forgiveness for the hurts I had caused him (probably by being angry and passive-aggressive). He wrote,
You have, in my opinion, reached a milestone in your life which numerous individuals never seem to attain and that is the God-given quality of humility. To me it is a trait not easily acquired without a little coaxing from Him. So when we ask another person to forgive a certain flaw in our character, in reality what we are saying is, ‘listen, Lord, I weakened a little and I am sorry for straying from your path.’
He did not ask me for my forgiveness—I guess he’d already received it. Reading his words almost 50 years later, I realize he was talking to me while contemplating the deeds that landed him in jail. He “weakened a little” and “strayed”—but he was still Robin Hood at heart.
And what of the grandchildren of the people he helped by lifting the burden of debt? I hope they are not among the more than forty million Americans, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, who, as of June 2021, owed around $88 billion in medical payments—and that’s only what showed up on credit reports as a separate line item. It does not account for money owed to friends and family, nor medical debt bound up in balance transfers. I miss Milton sometimes, but I’m glad he’s not still alive to see the mess we’ve made of the healthcare system (and the prison system). Keep reading….
Milton was my first “Pen”-pal, but not my last. I corresponded with Glenn for about a decade during the late 1970s and early 1980s. His letters, from three penal institutions, are preserved in two large binders—the basis for another book. The book I’m writing now, a memoir, is about another part of my life of in which Milton’s jail time plays a tiny part. Thus this mini preview of what I hope will find its way as a book/e-book in many readers’ hands.
If you are interested in hearing more about either story, please let me know. I’m thinking about increasing the frequency of my Substack posts to twice, instead of once, a month—alternating posts between snippets of my memoir (as above) and short essays about writing (or other topics). Comments and readers are always welcome!
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Andi, I am sitting in my pajamas sipping a late morning cup of tea, catching up with reading. My cheeks are now tight from the tears that were streaming as I experienced your words. Insightful and moving for the heart.
Hi, Jill. I knew you immediately. And I figured it might be news to many--lots of little pieces of my life no one knows about! Thus an interesting memoir, I hope.