FORT WORTH, Texas — Many retirees spend their twilight years golfing, traveling or socializing with others their age.

Not Earl Phares.

The 78-year-old Navy veteran spends his days hunkered over an old-school electric typewriter, pecking out letters to Texas' murderers, rapists, burglars and con men.

“This is roughly about 50 inmates right here,” Phares said recently, motioning to a box filled with letters alphabetized by his prison pen pals' last names. “In the last 35 years, I've had over 500, all told.”

Phares said corresponding with inmates — and, in many cases, befriending them — is not only his pastime, but his calling. Many years ago, when he still drove, he said he would travel to Texas prisons, offering inmates spiritual guidance, friendship and a few dollars to buy items from the commissary.

These days, he does everything by mail.

It's a ministry not everyone understands.

And one not all of his prison pen pals appreciate.

“... I won't be writing anymore,” convicted robber Richard Perez said in his last letter to Phares. “I wish you the best, Earl, and good luck with your other pen pals. Myself, I have no use for someone I can't depend on. ... I understand that things and bills happen but not for six months. I know for a fact, others you have sent money to in that time, but you can't spare 10 or 20 dollars for me?”

Phares, who is on a fixed income, said he tries not to let letters like those get him down, pointing to several others he called “letters of testimony.”

In these, inmates write about the loneliness and despair they felt after their relatives and friends abandoned them. They tell Phares that they appreciate receiving letters from him and having someone to talk to on the outside.

It's these letters, Phares said, that keep his one-man mission — called Just Another Prison Ministry — going day after day inside his tiny, sparsely furnished Fort Worth, Texas, apartment.

“I just take an interest in the people in prison,” Phares said.

In 1972, after Phares got out of the Navy, he went to New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, where he studied for three years.

Afterward, he took a job as a court clerk in Dallas, where he routinely handled requests from inmates in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice who wanted copies of their records.

Phares found himself delving into their cases, work that was frowned upon.

“I started reading the stuff,” Phares said. “You're not supposed to take an interest in the people behind the court record; you're just supposed to shuffle paperwork.”

After a few years, Phares left his job, but he continued to help those behind bars get legal documents. He also tried to lift their spirits by offering words of encouragement or sharing religious-themed stories he wrote.

Soon, his days were filled with visiting and writing inmates, whom he refers to as his “kids” or his “sons.”

Phares even had a shirt made up. The front says, “My son goes to TDC.” The back reads, “That son of a Baptist.”

Phares said he doesn't care about the crimes they've committed.

If they write him, he writes back. If they need money, he'll probably send them a little.

“Share and share alike,” Phares said.

But Phares knows all too well that there is a flip side to his mission.

A while back, when he lived in Dallas, he let an inmate stay with him after he got out of prison, and some of his rare stamps turned up missing.

Melanie Taegel, 46, one of Phares's three children, said she worries that her father is too trusting, which is why she moved him closer to her home four years ago — so she could keep an eye on him.

“He is independent, and he gets around for his age,” she said. “But he is kind of stubborn, and he fell on the ice recently because he had to walk to the post office. As long as I can remember, he has always been up all night typing and writing. That is just his thing. It makes him happy.

“He is a good man.”