My Sunday Feeling

My friend Barbara lives about a half a mile from me.  She has daughters.  I haven't seen the girls in some time.  So I'm guessing high school and junior high. 

Last week Barbara put the following post up on Facebook: "Am I the only one feeling compassion for the young Dorrell girl?"  Which is a really good question.

After all, getting started in life is tough enough without getting one's self embroiled at a tender age in what is easily the most sensational scandal to engulf our little state since Monica and her blue dress.  25 is awfully young to blow up this bad.

But you know what?  I was 25 once.  And I did some awfully stupid things when I was a young person.  Granted, nothing this stupid.  But that was only because of the happy fact that I was, and am still, pretty much nobody.  That, and I never got caught. 

I do not judge Jessica Dorrell when I say that I really don't view her as much of a victim here.  Indeed, the rigged selection process by which she attained her present job, not to mention the 20 grand "gift" she was given by former Coach Petrino could be viewed in a certain light as nothing more than bribes in exchange for her silence.  What she did was wrong.  And the ripple effects of her relationship with Petrino have yet to be fully understood. It is safe to say that this is not going away any time soon.

But a young person such as herself, though fully accountable for her actions, has to be given some sympathy.  When you are young you cannot see the big picture.  You cannot see the end game.  You do not have the requisite life experience to view the gravity of some situations. Indeed, why are we surprised when a young athlete blows a fortune?   We should be more surprised when one actually hangs on to his money.

No doubt, being young and pretty certainly carries with it certain advantages and there is no doubt that Jessica had a great deal of experience with getting hit on.  Still, when the most powerful man in the State of Arkansas takes a shine to you, well, that's enough to turn any young woman's head. 

But I also remember getting a phone call one night in the distant past.  I had just moved back to Little Rock.  A woman I grew up with asked if she could come over for awhile.  R worked for a State agency back then.  She told me that the a State Trooper had just called.  He told her that the Governor wanted to know if she would like to come to the Mansion for a drink.

Guess who we are talking about?

Anyway, she wanted to come hang out with me because she didn't want to be there if the State Police came  knocking on her door to ferry her over to the Governor's Mansion.  R admitted to being flattered.  No doubt.  And curious.  But as she put it to me that night, "Nothing good can come from this.  And if my mother ever found out she would die."  R and I were-what?-26 at the time.

I don't know "the Dorrell girl."  For all I know, she has already retained Gloria Allred who is negotiating the rights to the made-for-TV movie.  For all I know, she is about to pose nude in Playboy.
But I hope this is not the case.  This situation has caused sufficient pain to completely innocent people as it currently stands without her trying to further cash in.

I hope that "the Dorrell girl" now realizes that she should have been more cognizant of what her own mother might think if her affair with Bobby Petrino ever saw the light of day.  And I hope that she is in those arms right now.  If any woman needed her mother right now it's Jessica Dorrell.  25 is awfully young for a life to explode. 

So yeah.  I feel a degree of compassion for her.  She's a kid.  Kids do stupid things.  And so I wish her luck.

Because she is going to need it.  Once you are in the history book, you don't get to come out.