“An 86-year-old widower on his way to pick up a headstone for his late wife’s grave was cited today for soliciting a prostitute.  Dayton police had a decoy out today in an ongoing effort to get johns off the streets, according to officials.  The man told police he was lonely, and that’s why he was looking for a prostitute. He was cited, but not arrested because police said they were worried about his age and the man’s depression.”  [whiotv.com-12:49 p.m. Thursday, May 2, 2013]

We would tell you more but that was all there was of the story.  There should be more!  It begs for more.

• What kind of decoy does one use to entice an 86 year old to attempt to pick up the lady and presumably offer money for sex?
• How long has the wife been gone?  Was this a newly needed headstone or one he had to save over many years to purchase?
• Why was the man depressed?  Was he depressed because he was caught?  Because he misses his late wife?  Because when he found out just how much a happy ending cost nowadays, he realized he’d hadn’t yet saved enough for the headstone?
• How did the decoy and her handler decide to target an 86 year old?  Was it close to the end of the shift and they hadn’t scored as well as they planned and said “screw it, he’s still a man; go shake your wahoo at his winkie and see what comes of it?”

Last year we proposed that by the time a he or she gets to be in his or her eighties that he or she is due whatever is gettable in exchange for a lifetime of putting up with the world. (See “Entitlement Programs,” March 29, 2012).  If an 86 year old wants to pick up a hooker his only concern should be that of his missus, dead or alive.  He shouldn’t have to worry that it’s a hooker cop.

It took some digging but we eventually found out that the man had only recently lost his wife of 55 years and his daughter as well.  When the decoy approached him he offered her a few dollars to sit and talk with him.  Apparently talk was all he has left since the cancer that he suffers doesn’t allow for sexual activity.

We said back then that today’s eighty-somethings have done it all with more class than their elders did because they had to, and with more class than their youngers will because they can.   You just can’t find a no-class 86 year old.  Why did someone in a position of authority have to try to out-class a lonely old man.  Maybe those police should have followed the example of Andy Taylor of Mayberry and makes themselves available to serve however is needed.

The real Andy Griffith said, “I firmly believe that in every situation, no matter how difficult, God extends grace greater than the hardship.”  Sometimes it takes someone down here to be the vessel of that grace.  Maybe that’s why some of the better ones get to hang around for 80-plus years.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?