To the person who prowled the neighbourhood near Notre Dame School in Morinville on the weekend of Jan. 23 to 24:
I usually lock my car at night, but lucky for you on Saturday I was distracted and forgot. I see by your footprints in the freshly fallen snow that you visited pretty much every vehicle on our block that night. Did you find what you were looking for?
Was it the prescription contact lenses that were in a little box in my backseat, waiting to be mailed to my son back east? Perhaps you need them to read the inscription that was inside the books in the other box you stole. That box was waiting to be mailed to my dad as a late Christmas present. Don't worry, I can buy him a new copy of General Rick Hillier's book, and I'm sure he won't be disappointed that it isn't inscribed to him. Isn't it ironic that General Hillier risked his life to protect your freedom, and you abuse that privilege by stealing from others?
Perhaps you are enjoying the lovely studio portraits of our family that were enclosed for my mother and my poor elderly grandmother. I hope you look at them every day to remember whose property you stole.
Fortunately for us it will cost just a couple hundred dollars to replace most of what you took. Except, of course, for those two books. I suppose it's a little too much to ask, but since none of these items have any real cash value, do you think you might bring them back? I'll leave the car unlocked and you can put them back where you found them.
Gina MacArthur, Morinville
