Johnie Armstrong

It is difficult to understand why a king, with all of his wealth and prestige, would lust after the little bit of wealth owned by Johnie Armstrong the outlaw.  Yet the king in this poem summons Johnie to his castle on the pretext of recognizing him, promising to do him no harm, and then betrays him, killing not only Johnie Armstrong but half of his followers .

When I read this poem, I thought about the landlord who rented properties to two very good friends of mine.  Both of my friends were ideal tenants...never a day late with the rent, taking good care of the properties, trying their best to be good neighbors to those people who lived near them.  Yet when they eventually moved out, he refused to give them back their deposits, even though it was a mere fraction of what they had paid to him in rent over the years.

He claimed that the unfinished wood floors had scratches on them (after 8 years!) and that the furniture and sundry other items he had stored in the basements of the homes were really theirs, left behind for him to dispose of.  He must have forgotten the Christmas baskets he sent every year with cards thanking them for being the best tenants he ever had.

When it comes to greed, unfortunately, some people will always find a way to justify their actions .  It doesn't matter how much they already have, or how little the person they are victimizing has.  All that matters is what they want.

I know my friends' landlord feels perfectly justified in keeping the deposits that he was supposed to refund.  Several years after they moved out, he happened to encounter one of them at a healthcare clinic, and had the audacity to approach him and ask him how things were going.  My friend was too polite to say to him what he should have, but if I had seen him, I wouldn't even have given him the satisfaction of speaking to him.