Addiction is a tricky disease, man. ... If you don't do the things that helped you get better, you'll get sick again. I try to remain humble, try to remain teachable, and try to help people.
Amid the morning's chaos, three Air Force representatives appear at Paul's Place bearing bags of clothing and tubs of toys for the center's Christmas giveaway.
Technical Sgt. Janette Duncan knows Thomas and asks for a look around the two-level center, founded in 1982 by members of a couple of churches. The tour takes in the after-school wing, the computer lab, the room full of used women's clothes.
They greet 19-year-old William Thomas, one of Thomas' four children. In the fall he expects to enroll at Frostburg State University. But today he's volunteering at the center. Thomas says his kids drove him to get clean and he hasn't shied from letting them understand what he endured in the hope they'll choose better paths.
As his son puts it, "I have no excuse in my life as to why I shouldn't succeed."
The tour now over, Thomas returns to the lunchroom. It's 11, and the line of hungry people snakes down watery Ward Street.
"We about ready, everybody?" Thomas asks his ambassadors. Ready or not, here they come, shuffling in for food and warmth. Thomas spots one woman in line. "I like your smile," he tells her. "Even though it's raining, you come in with a smile."
