My Brother used to call them "The Little People." Dressed in their orange vests, cleaning up the road, paying their debt to society. You seem them around periodically. With their long poky sticks and plastic bags.
I have a theory (again with the theory, seriously?) about these guys. One of these days one of them is going to be one of my former students. Or I'll see them on America's Most Wanted, or some such.

Well, it's not theory anymore- just Bona Fide fact. In our hometown paper is a story of a certain former student who had been arrested for burglary. Heh, this boy didn't make it long in my school before he was given an extended vacation in the Alternative School.
And then on the way home I see the Little People doin' their Little People Thing, cleaning up the trash on the main thoroughfare. Trash they probably helped create. And there, off to the side, in all his Splendid Orangeyness and droopy britches, I see another former student. He had the habit of accusing teachers of being racist and not giving him a fair chance, that he really was innocent. Think that worked with the judge?

Bet those two boys know each other....