Imagine my surprise when I opened the Seattle Times and saw a familiar face from the prison-Summit collaboration–Marvin Chapman. Marvin and I had a wonderful dog, Melli, in common. He and his partner, Alan, trained Melli, and I entertained her during a three week break at my home.
The picture in the paper shows Marvin inspecting a child’s bike in need of repair. Marvin isn’t handling dogs anymore, he’s working on bikes in the prison’s program which returns repaired bicycles to kids in the community who need one.
Marvin is 25 years old. He’s doing time for manslaughter. He was an excellent dog handler and I imagine he’s an excellent bike repairman. I guess Marvin’s trying to “fix” things and in so doing he’s fixing himself.
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