Acting the Part

Four years ago Mae Laborde decided to pursue the Los Angeles dream, an acting career. Nothing unusual there, perhaps, except her age: Laborde was 93. The Santa Monica resident's first casting call led to a Sears commercial, and she's appeared on Mad TV and in ads for Lexus and Chase Bank. Now 97, Laborde is filming a small role in a still-untitled Ben Stiller movie. "To me, it was a happy surprise the way it worked," she says. The onetime department store clerk and bookeeper adds that other older peopole contemplating reinvention should "get off your rocker and get out there and see what's going on!" She links longevity to healthy eating -- but holiday cookies are an exception. "I don't want to be more than 100 (pounds)," the four-foot-ten Laborde laments. "Now I'm 102."

I thought I would drop in for a bite to eat. What's happining?

Doorbell

The doorbell again. Same familiar one short, one long push on the button. Harold. I know it’s him. Again. He comes every other day now. At different times, except during day light working hours.

Harold is a deaf beggar. He’s been coming around at least three years. He begs, that’s what he does best. No, I take that back, he evades bathing best.

He should try his hand at creative writing, or story telling. I have several of his stories that he printed on scrap wood. I’m not sure he can write or read script. Harold rates high on the best beggar stories list.

One day he came with his carefully prepared note, with a really sad story of how his seven-year-old son had been run over by a car. It happened right in front of the boy’s school. Harold said he saw the accident. The boy was just shaken up a little, but not hurt very bad. Lucky, yeah. That day he needed a shopping list of things, even aspirin for the boy’s pain.

Off and on I gave Harold chores to do. He did okay raking leaves. One day I needed some limbs cut up and put out front to be picked up. I let him use my circular saw, never thinking that he might not know how to use one. I watched him, fearfully. He did the job, I’m sure my watching him kept him from cutting his leg off.

About a year ago he came, late in the day, with a really pathetic, drooping face. His hands were shaking as he handed me another note. His wife had been shot to death by a man demanding money for drugs.

Wow. I was taken aback by this news. Harold had brought his wife with him one once, she wasn’t as deaf as him. He thought that maybe I had not been under standing his pleas for help. She was vocal, I mean she could really talk, whereas Harold only made grunting noises.

He asked for some help on burial expenses. How much? Four thousand dollars.

Harold, I can’t do that. I can only give you five dollars, that’s all. Okay, I’ll take it.

The next time he came I grilled him for several minutes about the shooting, which he said he saw. Harold said the man who did the shooting had already been sentenced to life in prison. This was only a few days after the shooting. Justice does not happen that soon. Sometimes it takes years for something like this to go to trial.

Sadly I made a judicial decision of my own. Harold was just doing his thing, begging. In the begging business anything goes. The bigger and more dramatic the story, the bigger the rusults. Telling lies or half-truths is only part of the trade. Perhaps a big part of the trade.

That day my handouts stopped. I even wrote him a letter, asking him not to come back. I gave him the story of how I had worked for everything I had and how being deaf doesn’t keep a person from getting a job. Of course he didn’t stop coming, and begging. But I have stayed with my practice. No, Harold. I can’t give you any more money.

Now when I hear the doorbell I continue what I was doing. But he still comes. I’m really tired of it. Someone suggested I get a restraining order against him. He is disturbing my peace. My policy has always been to help those who ask, there is a verse in the Bible that says to go ahead and give to those who ask. From that point it’s between them and God.

This is different. Harold would leach off me the rest of my life if I allowed it. Now I don’t even want to give him work, as that only encourages him.

What would you do? Take a minute and let me know what you think.