As I have posted before, I have had a pretty

checkered career and met quite a number of people from all ends of the social spectrum.

One thing I can say is that decenct and honesty are not necessarily characteristics of the well-to-do. Simply being wealthy does not automatically make a person honorable.

Being poor does not make a person dishonest, either.

I recall a guy walking up to he and handing me $20 and telling me that a guy named 'Wrongway' told me to make sure I got it. I guess it was one of those deals where I had loaned Wrongway a quick $20 and this guy owed Wrongway a quick $20 and when Wrongway was leaving town he had told this guy to pay me.

All of this sounds pretty petty, I know, but there's a point.

This little guy was living catch-as-catch-can, sleeping wherever and living a tenous existance. He had nothing.

Wrongway was dead, having beek killed a few weeks earlier in an accident.

There was no way I would even know about this, the amount of money was small, yet here was this little guy I had only seen around, and barely knew by name handing me what to him was probably a pretty hefty amount of money that he could have simply kept.

I was impressed.

I learned a lesson that day about honorable men.