It was Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. I was at a liquor store, if you can picture that, in the next town over from mine. But as is typical on a Saturday at this place, I can't get in or out of the place without being accosted by a horde of people hassling me to give them money. But these aren't your garden variety smelly city street bums. These are kids rattling cans at me begging me to support their youth sports programs.

What the hell are we doing to our young people? We're turning them into a generation of shakedown artists. Pediatric panhandlers. And it's not like it's one or two places. If I run errands to a half dozen stores on a weekend morning, I'm running a gauntlet of baby beggars at at least five of them.

It's not like I'm so bad off that I can't toss a buck or two to help keep a kid off the streets. But these grade school grifters are so ubiquitous now that it's like paying a surcharge on every purchase you make. Plus, with all due respect to the lads, I hate their town. I won't give it away, but the name comes from an old English word meaning "Land of Rocks." It's the kind of place you go if you want to see veterans pelted with eggs at the Memorial Day parade or score some Oxycontin. In every sport I've coached, beating them is my main objective. In football their coach ran up the score against my team. Why would I want to help them financially? Would Larry Lucchino help the Yankees pick up the cost of Carl Pavano?

And they're clever these ones, staking out a liquor store so they can hit you up while you're indulging your vices. Then you feel extra guilty about giving them the stiff arm. I mean, why not just stand outside the pornography store? Shake me down right after I bought a copy of "Fantastic Foursomes?"

Anyway, on the way in, I managed to avoid contact with them. On the way out, carrying $50 worth of Sam Adams and Margarita mix, I wasn't so lucky. One of the kids ran his pee wee protection-racket on me. "Would you like to help out our youth baseball league?" So I said "Uh, sorry dude. I didn't bring cash."

So you decide: Is there still a chance I get to Heaven, or is it the inner circle of Hell for me? (I chose this picture because I think Heaven and Hell are perfectly captured in the image of Stacey Keibler in a Devil t-shirt.)