I was cruising around Aileen Wuornos' old stomping grounds in Daytona Beach in 1983 the last time I got nailed by the cops. When I woke up in jail the next morning, probably the same jail Wuornos spent time in, I had no idea what I'd done. I was too drunk to remember being arrested, and I wouldn't find out what I was charged with until later that day at my arraignment. At the time, I was waiting to be sentenced for another charge in Orlando. I needed to get out of Daytona in time to make it back to court.

I spent 10 days in Daytona's Volusia County Jail for drunk driving and resisting arrest. I remember bits and pieces: a lunchroom. A grassy field surrounded by a fence. A prostitute named Karen. Her nose had been sliced open and a thin white scar upset the symmetry of her face.

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A couple of months ago, I went to the funeral of my 90-year-old great-uncle, Henry Washington, and was amused to hear the preacher describe old Uncle Henry as almost perfect in his virtue, referring to him as "a saint, the sweetest old man you'd ever want to know."

Was this the same guy who had a rep for chasing the ladies, for whoring around? Or as my cousin put it, who "couldn't keep his dick in his pants?" Was this the same guy who kept trashy magazines in his desk at work, who got divorced back in the days when nobody got divorced? Yes, it was.

I'd seen those old black and white photos of Uncle Henry decked out in a white, double-breasted suit, standing bowlegged next to a black sedan, his fedora cocked over to one side like a pimp's. Uncle Henry was a randy son of a bitch, as rowdy as they come.

Then something changed, maybe he just outlived his old self, but he became a model citizen long enough to earn a preacher's sincere praise at his death.

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