My Sunday Feeling

I went back to Court last Friday to sing the National Anthem for a Naturalization Ceremony.  It is always an honor to be asked.  I always make it a point to look at the candidates for citizenship during the beginning of the ceremony.  I follow the Clerk of Court and the speaker for the day out of chambers.  The Courthouse Security Officers (CSOs) are in place.  The Clerk sounds "All rise!" And the Judge takes the bench.

"Hear ye! Hear ye!" intoned the Clerk. "The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas , the Honorable United States Magistrate Judge Joseph J. Volpe presiding is now in session.  All you that have business before this Honorable Court draw near and you shall be heard.  God bless this Honorable Court and God bless the United States of America."

It is at that moment that it seems like the enormity of what the candidates are about to do really hits home.  There in that first moment the full weight of civil authority-the black robe, the flags, the security-is placed before them.  I have seen jaws drop and eyes glisten. 

It is pretty heavy stuff.  And words are inadequate to express how humbled and honored I am to participate.

I have been doing this off and on for 4 years or so.  The last time I did it was in October.  I had just retired and was still pretty much lost at sea.  I remember being happy that the guys at the security point still recognized me.  Which was pretty stupid seeing as how I had been "gone" all of three weeks at that point.  But I was not myself in those days.  Not myself at all.  God, what a dreadful time.

Back to last Friday.  Back to a happier world.  I parked my car over on 3rd Street and walked South toward Capitol.  I then crossed Chester and headed toward the Federal Building.  I walked past where I used to park my car.  No car there.  I recalled a recent conversation with a lady from the IRS.  " I still look for your car in the parking lot.  Isn't that funny?  I still can't believe that you are gone." I sometime can't believe it myself.

As the Federal Building drew nearer I thought to myself, "How many times have you walked on this walk?"  It was all so familiar and yet it was all so different.  Not in a sad way like it was last October.  Just different. 

The CSOs waved me through the security point.  "You know Paul," one said as we shook hands. "we see you dressed up more now that you're retired than we ever did when you were workin'." Boy, it was good to see those guys.  The ceremony was in the old courthouse which is being renovated and updated.  I stood at the elevator with some lady from the General Services Administration.

"Are you in a hurry?" she asked.  "If you are you might want to go back to the new courthouse and take the elevator there."

" Shoot, I'll just take the stairs," I said.

"Nope," she said. "Staircase is closed for construction about the 3rd floor."

"Still?"

"Still."

Boy.  Some things don't change. 

After Judge Volpe dismissed me, I headed back down to the street.  I was restless and had nothing better to do so I did what I did every afternoon back when I was working.  I took a walk.  I saw ghosts behind the Regions building.  In my mind's eye I saw Kay coming out with her tea.  I saw Ed on his smoke break.  I saw Judge Holmes walking to the bank.  Jennifer was there waiting for me to take her to lunch. 

All so familiar and all so different.  After all, I hardly ever come downtown anymore. 

I went over to the US Attorney's office.  First time since the day I retired.  I remember walking into my buddy Richard's office on that day.  "I'll be damned Paul," he said. "I can't believe this.  I'll be damned." Handshakes and hugs last Friday along with lighthearted threats about  putting me to work.  Funny.  One of the Assistants there was always so formal when we worked together.  The 2-3 times I've seen her since leaving she never fails to put a bear hug on me.  What a privilege it was to work with these folks. 

All so familiar and all so different. 

It was a privilege to have had that life.  That career.  It is always reassuring to know that people love me and miss me. 

And now I know, I really know, that the page is finally turned.  I am the prodigal returning home.  I am treated differently now.

Because I'm but a memory now.  I am something else.

I am all so familiar and all so different to those dear people as well.  Those people back in that sweet somewhere that we all shared.  Not so long ago but now so very far away.

the deepest secret nobody knows

I've been doing a lot of writing here in the past couple of months.  Most of it has either originated or wound up on the Internet.  The reaction has been for the most part positive and it has been fun to engage in a running dialogue with the folks who are kind enough to post comments here and there.

A week or so ago, I posted a piece here about the death of my good friend Hugh Tedder.  The post was entitled "In Just Spring" after a line from a poem by ee cummings.  I confessed in the post that this was about the sum total of my knowledge of cummings. 

A lady named Beth posted a comment a couple of days later which you can read for yourself.  But she shared with me another poem by cummings called "i carry your heart with me."  It was so beautiful that I thought I would share it with you too.

i carry your heart with me (i carry it
in my heart)I am never without it (anywhere
i go you go my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing my darling)

i fear no fate(for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or man can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart.

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Blogger wouldn't let me render it exactly as mr. cummings wrote it but that's pretty close.  Not that cummings was much of a stickler on such matters as punctuation.

Isn't that the most wonderful thing you've ever read?  Well, it's right up there anyway.

The advent of the Internet has brought about a whole universe of trouble.  But every now and again it spits out some grace.  Like when a nice yoga teacher in Austin, Texas (of all damn things) shares a poem out of the wild blue yonder with a total stranger whose writing she liked.

And I hope someday to share the poem again.  I hope to share it again someday with someone who is "whatever a moon has always meant."

I very much look forward to that day. 

My Sunday Feeling. But On Saturday.

A law student at Georgetown named Sandra Fluke wanted to testify before the House Oversight Committee.  She wanted to say that students such as herself were paying too much of the out-of-pocket portion for prescription contraceptives.  According to Rush Limbaugh, this makes Sandra Fluke "a slut."  "How ya figure?" Sane America might ask.  So here you go.

"It makes her a prostitute.  She wants to be paid to have sex.  She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception."

Now this is breathtakingly stupid.  Even for Rush.  Let me count the ways.

In the first place I seriously doubt that he knows Ms. Fluke or any of the details regarding her intimate personal life.  Not that Rush is about the facts.  It's easier just to haul off and libel someone.  It's better for ratings.

Secondly, there are numerous men out there who have to take Viagra because they are not able to function due to underlying medical conditions such as cardiovascular disease or prostate surgery.  So by this logic these guys are every bit as slutty as the young Salome from notorious party school Georgetown that Rush maligned.

Thirdly, wanting contraceptives to be covered by insurance is no more wanting "to get paid to have sex" than my wanting coverage for Xopenex and Singular equates to me wanting to get paid to breathe.

Finally, and you ladies out there feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but most birth control pills are taken once a day.  This is true whether you are abstemious or whether you are clunking along aboard stiletto heels out on East Roosevelt Road after dark.  It is a false equivalence.  You don't pop a birth control pill every time you have sex.  Having said that, I do recall a couple of instances when a lady friend said, "Oops.  Hang on.  Be right back.  I need to take something."  But that was pretty much superstition as I understand the medical science."

Maybe Rush has pills and condoms confused.  That would be hard to believe given his past relevant experience with the former.  But who knows?

Again, I don't get it.  Most women I know have used contraceptives.  And I know a LOT of women.  Granted the economy issue is not working as well for the Repubs as it once did.  Ditto with National Security seeing as how Barack has seen to it that a whole passel of his Muslim brethren got an early trip to Paradise courtesy of Uncle Sam.

But this is 2012.  Women are a permanent part of the workplace.  And a whole lot of them view their sexual health to be a matter between themselves, their doctors and their significant others.  Just like any health issue me and Rush Limbaugh might have.

Besides, and I say it again and again, did they not see what happened when the Komen Foundation cut off Planned Parenthood?  Do they think pissing off women who take the pill is smart politics?  Do they?

Anyway, I don't think that Rush Limbaugh really believes a third of the shit he puts out there.  He's just making money.  Reprehensible as that is, the amusing side effect of these scurrilous pensees might be to cost the GOP many voters in the election.

Good work, Rush! 

Anyway, I wish Ms. Fluke well.  This is a fight she did not pick.  I doubt that she's having so much sex that she can't afford contraceptives.  Mainly because it is a ridiculous statement.  And Georgetown being Georgetown, the likelier guess is that she's too busy studying to have near the lurid sex life Rush Limbaugh imagines.

Or maybe even dreams about.

My Sunday Feeling

Whenever I am sad, which is infrequent, it feels like there is something in my eyes. I don't know how else to describe it.  But it feels as if I can barely raise my eyelids to see.  It is an odd sensation, and one with which I mercifully don't have to contend all that often.  But that feeling has returned. 

Because tomorrow my old friend Hugh will have been gone a year.

Can it be possible that a year has passed since I got that awful phone call from Laura that Sunday afternoon?  Maybe it doesn't seem possible because not a day has passed since his death that I have not thought of him.  Maybe my feelings of sadness are made more acute by the fact that my elderly friend Mr. Joe is one a ventilator over at St. Vincent's. They can't wean him from the vent.  There are not many good options.  Pull the plug and he dies in hospice.  Or he stays in bed on a vent for the remainder of his days.  Joe is awake and lucid.  God Almighty.  I scarce can take it in.

Now this is just a coincidence.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  Intellectually these things I know. 

But still.  Same month.  Same issues.  In a Catholic hospital. 

Intellect is useless to me now.  The mind reels as the heart breaks all over again.

So much has happened in the year since Hugh's death.  I have missed talking to him about all of the changes that have taken place in my life since this time last year.  He would have been delighted, and greatly amused, by my being in the private sector while he was in the government.  Hugh had a keen sense of the absurd.  He loved people.  And he loved me.  Our role reversals would have provided the fodder for many phone calls and e-mails. 

But he's not here. 


Mr. Joe has 5 daughters.  The man's crown in heaven is assured.  He sold me a big ass Oldsmobile for 300 bucks that I drove when I was at Tulane.  Chris Riviere dubbed it the "Land Yacht."  Whenever the pumps couldn't keep the water out of the streets after a storm I would give Chris and Hugh a ride to class in the LY.   

Small world.

I met with Cathy, his #2 daughter, at the neighborhood Starbucks.  She has Joe's power of attorney.  We sat in the sun 200 yards away across Markham Street where her father is tethered to the apparatus.  I helped her make a list of things to do.  Just as I did with Laura around this time last year.


It's still too close.  It's still too awful.  I have seen this play before. 


Someday in the fullness of time maybe I will have these things figured out.  The doctor that did Hugh's trache said it was just bad luck. Which is worse?  Wondering what could have been done to head this off?  Or the notion that our lives are governed-if indeed that's the word in this context- by random laughing chance?  You tell me.  Which is worse?  My buddy who recently retired from nursing at the VA didn't know the answer to that question when we talked about Hugh after I had returned from the funeral.


"When you work at place like the VA," Lenny said. " you become keenly aware of the fact that when your number is up, buddy, it's up.  And there's no explaining it in some cases." 


Maybe someday.  Someday in the fullness of time maybe I will get an answer. I can't bring Hugh back.  I can't make Mr. Joe well.  I can't ease the pain of 8 grieving women. For now, I can't do anything of much use.

 I can't even find a way to expunge the sadness from my goddamn eyes.

In Just Spring

I woke up early this morning to the dreaded "freight train" sound of wind howling from the West.  The wind chimes were cascading against each other so quickly they were creating an overtone.  I got out of bed and went to the kitchen.  The sky was black with sheets of rain. 

This is the end of February. This is what cummings referred to as "just spring" which is about all I remember of e.e. cummings.   Mother Nature usually reserves this amusement for March and April around these parts. 

But the birds and the trees don't read the calendar.  My yard is green.  Plants are blooming.  The recent mornings have been featured the sounds of the birds singing to each other.

This time last year we were just coming off one of the worst snow storms in memory.  They are calling for 75 degrees by Thursday.

This is crazy. 

And about this time last year is when things started going down the tubes in Jackson.  So much change in so many areas of my life since the just spring of 2011.  Some good.  Some God-awful.  And none of these changes I could have foreseen at this time last year.

Now that the storm has passed I am hopeful for the future.  I have learned a lot.  About myself and about others.  I have been blessed with opportunities that came from completely outside my little box.  I have been given wise counsel by able men and women who love me.  I thought I was listening. 

But one of my teachers warned me that "You won't get it until you live it."  I get it now.  And they were all right.  Each and every one of them albeit each in their own ways informed by their own unique experiences.

What an amazing ride it has been since the just spring of last year.

My Cajun friends return in the next week or so.  Undoubtedly we will get at least one more slap of winter before Spring is here for sure.  But what do I know?  I told them that it hardly snows in early December.  It snowed.  We had tornadoes in January. 

So I don't predict the weather anymore. 

And I am pretty much through predicting my future as well.  I'm letting the game come to me.

So far so good.  So far so good.

My Sunday Feeling

I pretty much get along with women.  Always have.  God knows, I have had my ups and downs as well.  But insofar as the gender goes, I like them.  They like me.  It's all pretty good. 

I think one of the reasons women like me is that were I a Member of Congress, and say I was interested enough to convene a hearing that might remotely concern women's health issues, I would have enough goddamn sense to include women on the panel testifying about the issue. 

But I am not Congressman Darrell Issa who chairs the Congressional Oversight and Government Reform Committee who called a hearing which was entitled "Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and State" concerning the Obama Administration's overhaul of the health care system which requires policies offered by employers to cover contraception. 

Look at the picture.  These are the experts that were called to testify.  See any wimmens? 

The official explanation for this apparent oversight was to the effect that the panel wasn't there to testify about women's health exactly.  They were there to testify how this provision in the new was a violation of the 1st Amendment.  And actually they even got that wrong.  A better title for this bit of political theatre would have been "Lines Crossed:  Violation of the Free Exercise Clause."

But I ramble.

But how can you have a discussion about a provision of a law that impacts women without including women?  I mean, surely there are female theologians and Constitutional scholars out there that might lend a different perspective to the discussion.  Not that Congressman Issa was remotely interested in that.

I think that this is just a preview of the dreary Presidential campaign to come.  The economy is improving.  GM just posted the highest profit in its history.  Unemployment, while still too high, is coming down.  The military is pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Bad guys are still getting whacked.  Things are looking up.  Obama's got a pretty good record to run on after stumbling out of the blocks early on.

So the GOP is going to run against gays.  And against the "food stamp President."  Hell, Santorum's even against the public school system. 

And they are going to run against women. 

Which leads me to a second observation.  Did these guys not see what happened to the Komen Foundation the other day?  Absolute sheer unshirted hell busted loose when they cut off funding to Planned Parenthood.  The decision was quickly reversed.  Heads, they rolled.  But the damage was done and a brand known for charity and the promotion of vibrant good health has taken a major hit.

Did the Rs not catch the hint?

Let me hit them upside the head with this brick.  Women aren't stupid and as we have seen they tend to be pretty touchy as a class over health issues.  Hence, pissing off an entire gender doesn't seem like the greatest campaign strategy in the world.  Duh. 

But what do I know?

This.  I like women and they like me.  This much I know. 

But then again, it's a really low bar. 

My Sunday Feeling

The literary world may little note this day.  But I have many irons in many fires and do not have time for the usual tripe.  Will show back up after I put a couple of projects to sleep.

Until then, talk among yourself. 

My Sunday Feeling

"No storm can shake my inmost calm
  While to that rock I'm clinging.
  It sounds an echo in my soul,
  How can I keep from singing?"
                                        
                                         "My Life Flows On" 

If you had told me at this time last year that between now and then that one of my best friends in this life would be dead and that I would be retired from the Federal Government only to take a job in the private sector four months later I would have warned you about spending so much time on the crack pipe.  But then again, last February was when all hell started busting loose at the seams around here. 

"Damn, Paul," the man said as we sat in a local watering hole last night. "That's a lot of change in one year."

"No shit," I replied, as I ordered a glass of bourbon. "The remembrance of these things makes me thirsty."

My drinking partner is in a business that is about to roll out a commercial website.  He wanted to know if I might interested in doing some copy for them. Next week, I will meet with somebody who wants to discuss doing loan closings for her company here in Arkansas.  I have also agreed to do some free lance stuff for a local charity.  And Monday morning I start a part-time job with a consumer protection organization that has an exceedingly alliterative name.

All of these opportunities, every single one of them, have fallen from the sky.  This is immensely humbling and gratifying in equal measure.  Because when I walked away from the only professional life I ever knew, it was traumatic.  Talk about fallen from the sky.  I was literally riddled with anxiety.  About the money.  About trying to find another job.  About you name it.  I am not the anxious type.  I didn't know how to make it go away.  It seemed as if my entire existence turned upside down.

I will not lie to you.  October was completely awful.  Easily the worst month of my life. 

Then things started getting better.  It took awhile but things started getting better.  I can't quite put my finger on it.  Maybe it was when I was able to fully process the fullness of the fact that there was a lot of grief in the preceding year and that there was a grieving process to go through.  The bucket brigade of therapist friends who materialized  were unanimous about this experience being a process that I had to go through before I could feel like myself again.  This was imminently sensible advice, which of course, I didn't want any part of. 

I am a guy.  I vastly prefer denial.

Maybe my feelings started to change when my poor long suffering financial guy, who probably didn't realize back in August that he was taking on a lunatic, told me, " Tell you what.  You can worry when I tell you to start worrying.  OK? Until then you might as well enjoy yourself.  You've earned it."

By November I had finally figured out that I could really live on what Uncle was sending me on the first of every month.  And that I would receive this FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.  That's hard to wrap your head around, especially for a guy like me who has always been so good to set money aside.  The notion of not really having to do that anymore, or at least not right this second, is a pretty radical one indeed.

I am not a wealthy man by any stretch of the imagination.  But there is a healthy balance in my bank account.  The 401k will be untouched at least for the next 4 years.  And then I may make a withdrawal to pay the house off.  Or not.  I don't pay myself first anymore as Uncle Howard taught me when I was young.  But I pay the taxes and the medical insurance first. 

But mostly, I get paid for breathing.  That's just amazing.

My accountant had an interesting take on it.  I had gone to Tracy to see if I needed to be an LLC.  He said that I did not.  But not for any reason that had anything to do with taxes.

"Paul," he said. "It's like you've been through a divorce.  Retirement is a huge change even though it's a good change.  You are feeling your way through things right now.  Even if you don't know it.  Why spend the money to set you up as an LLC based on what you know about your life right now only to have to dissolve it when you wind up teaching high school 2 years from now?"

He's right.  Everybody's right.  I'm feeling my way through things now.  I have given myself over to it.  And it's OK. 

I ran across the old hymn "My Life Flows On" for the first time in years when I joined a friend at church one Sunday last October.  I was still in full-blown nut status in those days.  As I stood there singing in the pew alongside Mark on that beautiful Fall day, I felt the first small measure of peace since I had begun the retirement process last Summer. 

Last Thursday, I caught myself contently whistling that stately hymn tune while I carried a bag on the golf course.  It struck me as interesting that such a simple little hymn can mean different things to a person at different times in a life.  That's why church musicians will always have jobs.

"You took a chance," my friend Danny said last week. "And you got dealt aces."



Because I have regained my inmost calm.  And no storm will ever shake it again.

My Sunday Feeling

Super Bowl Sunday aside, I have for the most part never been one to pay much attention to commercials.  I have made it a practice to toss most direct mail solicitations that contaminate my mailbox.  I'm the kind of guy that pretty much knows what I want from the merchants that I tend to do business with.  For example if Jos. A. Bank announces a sale, and if I am in the market for a new suit, then I will pay attention because I buy most of my clothes from the Jos. A. Bank store a mile or so from my house.  If an ad for Men's Warehouse comes on, it's in one ear and out the other.

Without going into inordinate detail, I have been encouraged to start paying more attention to all of the propaganda with which all of us are bombarded on a daily basis.  The reason for my newly found interest in these communications will be disclosed in the fullness of time.  For now it will suffice to say that I am paying attention.

I had ESPN Radio on in the car while I was out running errands.  Many spots for insurance, both life and casualty.  There were ads hawking credit repair services and ads for outfits that will intercede upon your behalf with the IRS ("Do you owe more than $10,000 to the IRS?).  There were ads touting cut-rate Viagra you can buy on the Internet to ads offering participation in a "clinical trial" to the first 50 sufferers from "decreased male vitality" that called in.  The latter was swiftly followed by a disclaimer delivered at live auction speed which stated that these claims had not been evaluated by the FDA and that the product was not intended to be used to treat any medical condition or disease.  Finally, I noted an ad for a certain brand of gin that the ad claimed was "so smooth you could drink it straight." 

The only conclusion that I could draw from my afternoon swim in the media was that ESPN Radio's target audience is a frequently red-lined drunk and tax deadbeat that can't get it up.  I switched to classical programming as I am none of these things.

Things weren't much better back at the house.  During the Razorback game, I noticed a spot for a financial service that was dedicated to "saving your house" if you were behind on your mortgage or had lost your job using "local attorneys" to intercede with your lender.  Not long after that appeared an ad for a tax service that made the assertion that the IRS had gotten "lenient" and that this service's "team of lawyers and enrolled agents" was waiting to spring into action to lower my tax debt and get that pesky levy discharged. 

I know one divorced couple that is not making much headway with the Service on their compromise offer on back taxes.  And I know one guy who is spectacularly unsuccessful in getting them to make the levy on him go away.  Ask these folks about how frigging "lenient" the IRS is.  And they, too, have local tax professionals in there pitching for them.

Finally, today's mail brought me a cardboard item of correspondence ominously marked "2nd Attempt" and "Respond Within Five Days."  It looked very much like the tax documents I have been getting from the government the last week or so.  Alas, it was a solicitation for an extended warranty on my vehicle.  This would explain the 2nd attempt.  Undoubtedly, I had tossed the first.

As H.L. Mencken said, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."  Conversely, the purveyors of the various shifty services (Well, not the gin.  That one was pretty straight up. Pardon the expression.) that I described above are obviously moving product and reeling in clients.  Otherwise, they wouldn't be spending the money to put out the word.

And, all kidding aside, the target audience for these products are obviously the desperate and the incompetent.  Times are hard.  People are strapped.  Shady actors slither out from every other rock during times like these. 

I found another ad I heard yesterday to be exceptionally pernicious and misleading.  The ad was for an outfit that was touting gold as the only "safe" investment.  This pitch has gained some cache in recent times with lunatic Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul advocating eliminating the Federal Reserve and returning to the gold standard. 

The ad was pretty slick.  A woman's voice, choked with emotion,  is heard telling of how her husband lost his job and can't find work. I paraphrase the pitch. "The economy is getting worse and the government is proposing even more wasteful spending that will put our country even further in debt.  That's why I rolled my 401k into gold, the only truly safe investment."

Of course, the ad is disingenuous on numerous fronts.  The speaker is most likely paid voice talent and not some harried wife and mother.  The economy is growing and more people are finding work.  The government is proposing spending cuts.  And gold prices are unstable.  Indeed, if our speaker had her 401k in a FDIC insured account she wouldn't have to worry about losing any money if the bank collapsed. 

But again, the target audience for these pitches are the desperate, the unsophisticated and the paranoid.  Who evidently listen to and watch a lot of sports. 

I have said it before and I will say it again.  If you have tax problems go a CPA or a tax lawyer.  If you are having financial problems, go see your lender.  Trust me.  They don't want your stuff.  They want your money.  Odds are that unless your situation is truly unworkable or if you have gone strictly deadbeat on them in the past, they will try to work with you.  If it can't be worked out go see a bankruptcy lawyer to see what relief is available.  If you aren't feeling well go see the doctor.

But stay off the Internet.  Lay off the 1-800 numbers. 

Like I said, I've never much paid any attention to advertising.  I'm paying attention now, boy.  And it is really interesting to hear what people will say to get you to part with your money.

A Man In Full

"This is a tragedy.  It is one of the great sorrows of my life.  With the benefit of hindsight I wish I had done more."

                                                                                                         Joe Paterno


Joe Paterno never wanted to retire.  On more than one occasion he reminded people that Paul "Bear" Bryant died shortly after he quit coaching at Alabama.  He did not wish to suffer the same fate.  And sure enough, JoePa, the beloved Head Coach at Penn State for 46 years, died yesterday almost 2 months after being fired by Penn State's Board of Trustees on November 9 after it became known that the most horrific story in the history of college sports had occurred on his watch.

Nobody could have seen this one coming.  How could you?  The Grand Jury indicted Paterno's former Defensive Coordinator Jerry Sandusky for unspeakable crimes against little boys.  One of the Counts described in graphic detail Sandusky allegedly molesting a 10 year old in the shower in the football team's locker room. 

A young Graduate Assistant witnessed the assault.  After speaking with his father, they both went to Paterno to tell him what he saw.  A day later Paterno informed his Athletic Director about what he was told.  The two accounts before the Grand Jury differ.  The GA testified before the Grand Jury that he advised Paterno that he had witnessed a sexual assault.  Paterno's testimony was that the account he heard was not as graphic as that.

Whatever the truth of the matter may be, an entire Nation was shocked by the fact that law enforcement was not advised of what Sandusky was alleged to have done to that poor boy on that awful night in the locker room.

Heads had to roll.  And one of them belonged to Joseph Vincent Paterno.

Paterno said the reason he didn't call the police himself was that he didn't want to go outside procedures for reporting incidents and that he reposed trust that his A.D. would take care of the situation.  And I believe that.  I also believe that a man in his eighties might not exactly be programmed to understand the gravity of the situation although how any sentient human couldn't be alarmed by the allegation that a former employee was seen naked in your team's shower with an equally naked little boy is pretty much beyond me.  But maybe that's what JoePa believed. 

But maybe a guy in his eighties doesn't need to be in charge of a football program.  And that's on Penn State's brass.  They tried to get him to retire in 2004.  He wouldn't do it and they didn't have the guts to push the button.  The tail of big time sports wags the dog in a lot of places.  I can't think of many other million dollar operations that have octogenarians at least nominally at the controls.

But let's get to it.  What is Joe Paterno's legacy?  He leads all NCAA Division I coaches in victories.  That record is not likely to be in danger. This is mainly because you will never see another head coach at one place for 45 years.  Ever.
His players tended to graduate and afterwards become useful and productive citizens.  Lord knows a bunch of Nittany Lions made it to the NFL.  Paterno and his wife Sue donated millions to the college.  And JoePa was a genuinely unpretentious sort whose number was in the phone book and who walked back and forth between the college and the modest ranch house where he and Sue raised their kids.  Bet you can't just ring up Urban Meyer.

But unfortunately, at least for the near term, Joe Paterno's legacy will be tarnished by the sex scandal that cost him his job and which will undoubtedly subject his Estate and his former employer to liability.  And to the limited extent that some good came of these unspeakable crimes, it is equally without doubt that new protocols are now in place in college athletic departments setting out mandatory reporting requirements concerning sexual assaults on children.  You know that while such incidents are isolated at the college level it is bound to have happened before.  Ask Roy Boeheim.  Or better yet, ask Bernie Fine's wife. 

One of his former players said that Joe Paterno died of a broken heart.  Of course, this is romantic nonsense.  There aren't many good outcomes when an elderly person gets lung cancer.  But I have no doubt that Joe Paterno grieved mightily as the full gravity of the inadequacy of his response came to rest upon him.  After all, the man has children and grandchildren.  You can't coach for as long as he did without loving young people.  And I am certainly willing to concede that the stress of all of this certainly didn't help matters any.  It had to have taken a terrible toll.  How could it not?  But still,  while you can bet that Internet message boards will be full of posts blaming Penn State's Board of Trustees for Paterno's demise, this is dangerous foolishness. 

The public record of the man in full is exemplary in the extreme.  Whether that public record will ever be free of the taint of this awful scandal is highly problematic.

A child got molested in his locker room.  For whatever reason, the authorities weren't notified.  All of these things happened on this good man's watch.  I don't know if the passage of time can unring such a horrific bell. 

And while the scar on Joe Paterno's otherwise exemplary public record is not the tragedy to which he correctly alluded at the top of this post, there are tragic dimensions to his downfall.

He studied the classics at Brown.  He understood tragedy.  In his dotage, maybe he forgot hubris.

Rest in peace, Mr. Paterno.  Rest in peace.

My Sunday Feeling

I have said this before and I will say it again.  I typically am not remotely interested in the past or current sex lives of politicians.  After all, none of us are without sin.  And it would be unrealistic to believe that our political leaders are completely immune from the human condition.  So I have a pretty high bar when it comes to levels of hypocrisy that offends even me.

Maybe it isn't the hypocrisy of Rick and Karen Santorum that offends me as much that I am stunned by their sheer gall.  As is widely known, Santorum is running for the Republican nomination for President.  His is an exceedingly conservative platform in which he would make abortion illegal even in the case of a woman impregnated by a rapist.  He is opposed to some, if not all, forms of birth control.  And he and his wife both profess to be opposed to sexual relations outside of the bonds of matrimony.

That's fine.  He has tapped into a constituency out there that sings off this same sheet music.  Doesn't bother me.  I wouldn't vote for Santorum if he was running for dog catcher unopposed.  Indeed, I pretty much tune out most of the static over on that side of the aisle.  I am immune.

But the story of Karen Santorum's creepy past got my attention.  Here is the Reader's Digest condensed version of the story.  When Karen Garver was in her twenties she lived for years without the blessing of  clergy with with an OB/GYN in Pittsburgh.  So far, who cares?  Right?  Here's where it gets interesting.  The good doc was some 40 years older than her when they began shacking up.  Not only that, he was an abortion provider.  And if that isn't sufficiently stunning in and of itself, little baby Karen Garver was brought into this world by guess who?  You got it.  The guy she took up with later on in life.  You can read about it here:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/16/karen-santorum-rick-santorum-abortion_n_1208867.html

As I said on my Facebook page the other night, you just can't make this stuff up.

To which a friend of mine from high school posted something along the lines of "people can change.  You should have seen me 24 years ago." 

Of course people can change.  Indeed my Bible encourages both change and repentance.  We all know a person who has struggled or has had a family member struggle with drugs or alcohol only to come out of that experience opposed to their use.  There are are militant former smokers.  And, like my high school friend, we all have done stuff in our collective past lives that we are not particularly proud of.

But it is one thing to "have done with lesser things" as the old hymn puts it.  It is quite another thing altogether to urge that the law of the land be changed regarding certain behaviors and medical procedures based on a belief system that you evidently did not embrace yourself during one fairly long stretch of your life.

Again, what were these people thinking?  That Karen Santorum's past would never be a campaign issue in a Republican race in which the candidates are falling all over themselves to prove who has the greater commitment to "traditional moral values?" 

Which leads me to the question concerning whether this is all just a scam anyway.  And I'm not just talking of the Santorums although their hypocrisy in this regard is simply the more stunning example.  Maybe none of the guys running to be the GOP standard bearer in November really believes this junk in the first place.  Maybe they are just pandering to the lunatic political base that has taken over the Republican party?  Indeed, a former associate of serial philanderer, and fresh from the oven newly devout Roman Catholic, Newt Gingrich said that if the prevailing political winds were blowing from the left, Newt would be a liberal. 

I don't know and I don't much care.  I do know that it is easier to wrap yourself in the flag and to pound the Bible than it is to actually run the country.  But I digress.

People can change.  And thank God for that. 

But just because you have changed doesn't mean that you are necessarily the best person in the world to be out front and center on issues that evidently didn't concern you very much at all at one point in time.  Most similarly situated people might prefer to keep what is past in the past.  But most people with dubious pasts don't have the gall to inject themselves into the searing light of a political campaign. 

The old smoke filled rooms that used to produce candidates look better and better to me each election season.

My Sunday Feeling

I got a text message Friday night. 

"Tim Tebow has been arrested for driving drunk.  A hooker was in the car with him.  He also had an ounce of cocaine in his possession."

"Whaaaaaaaaaaat?" I texted back as I reached for my iPad in order to get jump on the Internet. 

"I can dream can't I?" was the response. 

This exchange fairly illustrates the the mixed feelings from football fans surrounding the confounding recent success of Bronco quarterback Tim Tebow.  For those that don't follow football, Tim Tebow is a second year quarterback for the Denver Broncos who, as I type this, are scheduled to play, and most likely be defeated by, the New England Patriots this evening. 

The Broncos turned to him out of desperation after former Chicago Bear bust Kyle Orton reprised this role with the Broncos in steering them to a 1-4 start.  Since then the Broncos limped into the playoffs at 9-8 although they did win 5 straight with Tebow at the controls.  Which, quite frankly, stunned most NFL experts.

After all, although Tebow won the Heisman Trophy he did it in a running system at Florida.  Although he is by any measure a phenomenal physical presence for a quarterback, it is Adventureland whenever Tebow is required to throw the ball longer than 30 yards downfield.  Think of a paler version of Vince Evans and you have Tim Tebow.  Further, it is whispered that he is not exactly the brightest bulb on the porch. 

But you know what?  The kid has won football games with more frequency than he lost them this year.  And he has gotten the Broncos to within spitting distance of the Super Bowl in spite of his deficiencies as a traditional NFL quarterback and in spite of the predictions of the "experts" who said that the Broncos could not win with what amounts to a tricked out version of a college offense.

This would be the sort of story that you would think every football fan could get behind as everybody likes to see an underdog do well.  But as you can tell from the text cited hereinabove, not everybody is a Tim Tebow fan.  And this is why.

Tebow is an evangelical Christian who is not shy about proclaiming his beliefs.  At Florida his eyeblack came imprinted with John 3:16 on it, an adornment which the NFL forced him to eschew.  When a Bronco touchdown is scored or when they win, he points upward toward Heaven in Praise of God.  This rubs many people the wrong way, including me. 

But you know what else?  I don't much care.  I do wish he would eschew the rather Pharisaic practice of somewhat giving God credit for success on the field.  While Tebow  hasn't exactly said that he finds the hand of God in all of this, he hasn't much gone out of the way to disabuse anyone of this impression.  While I find all of this to be pretty irritating, it is no more irritating to me than it is when other athletes give God credit for making the big free throw or hitting a home run. 

This is Bad Theology to believe that God intervenes in human history to fix athletic contests.  I would like to think that the Almighty has enough on His hands with disease, war, famine and every other cause of suffering on the part of the human children He allegedly loves and for whom the cynic might suggest that He hasn't lifted much of a finger to save.

But with me, it goes in one ear and out the other.  I have little interest in any professional athlete's views on how and when God moves in those mysterious ways, His wonders to impart. 

And it bothers me not all that some evangelical fans have a heightened interest in the Broncos due to the success of Tim Tebow.  This is no better or worse than Catholics that follow Notre Dame for that reason or Baptists who are fans of the Baylor Bears.  But what DOES irritate me is the view of some fans that the Broncos' success is a sign of God's favor or that the Tebow's accomplishments despite his many deficiencies is practically miraculous.

Don't take my word for it.  Just look at how Facebook blows up every time Denver wins. 

Look.  Might I suggest another explanation that does not take into account divine providence?  The Broncos have a great running game, an even better defense, a what-the-hell approach to offense by the coaching staff and sheer dumb luck.  There you have it sports fans.

And I find it equally irritating that some people seem to want Tebow to fail for this reason.  Or are predisposed to view him as a phony.  Look.  As far as anybody can tell, and believe me there are those in the media who have tried to find evidence to the contrary,Tim Tebow is completely sincere in his faith and that his many good works come from this sincerity.  Even if he is a pain in the ass about it at times. 

And sure.  There wouldn't be this kind of buzz about Tebow if he weren't such a polarizing figure which I'm sure that the Broncos front office views as a mixed blessing at best.

Here's what I predict.  Tim Tebow and the Broncos will get sent packing by the Patriots.  But it will be closer than some folks believe because New England's defense is held together with spit and baling wire.  And Denver's defense is awfully stout. 

In the off season, the Broncos will try to find another quarterback because nobody, and I mean nobody, believes that they will ever go to a Super Bowl until they have a quarterback who can actually read defenses and throw passes that don't go end over end.

But I wouldn't put it past Tebow to pull it off tonight.  And I kind of hope that he does, because this is fun despite the fact that I find his public displays of religiosity completely off-putting.  Or that some people can't stand him. 

I just don't care about any of that stuff.

My Sunday Feeling

"The past is not ever dead.  It's not even past."
                                                                 William Faulkner

It is also said that history is written by the guys that won.  The folks that showed up in period drag for yesterday's commemoration of the death of David O. Dodd's execution by the Union troops that occupied Little Rock in 1863 would probably agree with both sentiments. 

It occurs to me that the phrase "occupy Little Rock" was not an abstraction in those days.  Forgive me.  I ramble.

I confess that I don't know much about Civil War reenactors.  Yesterday's performance was the first time I had ever encountered any of them live and in person.  It is my understanding that their attention to detail in their garb and equipment is painstaking and sincere.  Certainly there is something to be said for historical preservation.  There is much that is right and purposeful about remembering and maintenance of traditions.  And I suppose it might even be fun to spend the day pretending to be Johnny Reb. 

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of that.

The execution of David O. Dodd resonates still for a couple of reasons.  First and foremost, it is a compelling story about a brave young kid who refused to rat out a friend during a time of war.  And it cost him his life.  Personal bravery and steadfast courage in the face of certain doom are both exceedingly appropriate metaphors and/or examples to ponder.  The story of David O. Dodd is also a metaphor for martyrdom for the folks that showed up at Mount Holly Cemetery yesterday.  Martyrdom is a romantic concept.  To some, the death David Owen Dodd is a symbol of denial of self in the furtherance of a noble and just cause.

The speeches were instructive.  The great conflict that gave rise to yesterday's event was referred to repeatedly as "The War Between the States."  There were copious references to "freedom" and "the cause." The blessings of Jesus Christ were invoked repeatedly.  "Dixie" was sung by the troops.  Many variations of the "Stars and Bars" were on display.

And these folks have an absolute right to peaceably assemble (something of a figure of speech since the ceremony involved the discharge of ersatz weaponry) and make speeches in which they espouse whatever they wish to believe while wearing the symbols of these beliefs.

But it's bad history.  I am willing to bet that if you asked any of the organizers of yesterday's service to explain the root cause of the Civil War, none of them would mention the institution of slavery in the South.  I'm leaving the rank and file out of this.  I'm willing to suspend disbelief long enough to think that some of them are out there just to have a good time or because they gave up golf.

But as the great historian Casey Stengel might say, "You can look it up."  Off the top of my head, it is my recollection that every declaration of secession from every state that broke off from the Union mentioned preservation of "the peculiar institution" to borrow Mr. Lincoln's phrase.  And the "Northern aggression"-which was completely unaggressive until noted whiskey drinker U.S. Grant was given the keys-was instituted to put down the rebellion in service of preservation of the Union.

But you heard none of that yesterday.  And that's OK.  Everybody is entitled to their own view of history. You're certainly entitled to your own facts, I suppose, just so long as you're not in a debate.  And there was no debate about the sanctity of the cause yesterday.  Everyone there was a True Believer.  Well, everybody but the media types and a former lawyer armed with both a camera and unrequited curiosity about such events. 

The story of David O. Dodd is what it is.  But it's not what it's not. 

And we are certainly free, in this great country of ours, to believe what we will.  Even if the guys that won get to write the history.

I Gotta Nikon Camera. I Love To Take Photographs.

Every January 7, local Civil War reenactors gather at historic Mount Holly Cemetery in downtown Little Rock to commemorate the death of David O. Dodd the so-called "Boy Martyr of the Confederacy" who was executed by Union troops for being a spy.  Those who are interested in the story can find it here:http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2536# .

Here are some pictures from today's ceremony.  Suffice it to say these people take this stuff verrrrrry seriously.  I'll have more on this tomorrow.

My New Year's Day Feeling

The course was pretty jammed up last Friday.  So Rick and I spent as much time talking as we did actually playing golf.  At least it seemed that way.

" 2011 was a big year for you," he said as he was teeing it up.  "Lots to deal with."

" Yeah," I said. "But it's mostly dealing with stuff.  Some people have real problems.  I don't have real problems."

"Don't sell this short," he said as he looked down range. " One of your best friends died.  You walked away from a career.  Granted, you wanted out for years.  But that's a major life change.  And then there was all that other shit.  That's a lot to deal with."

He pulled his tee shot into the woods.

" That's what I get for going all sensitive on you," he said.  "Let's talk about something else."

2011 was turbulent.  No doubt about that.  But as the Buddhists say, "Storms can't hurt the sky." The storms pass.  The sky abides.

There is not a day that passes where I don't think about my friend Hugh who died last February.  As I have said before, people die.  I get that.  They have car wrecks.  They have heart attacks.  They get cancer.  But Hugh was a big strong man.  And he flipped over into a traumatic respiratory disorder none of us had ever heard of after catching the flu.  None of us had any frame of reference for something like this.

The surgeon who did his trache pondered the irony with Laura and I.  "All of us have had the flu," he said." It doesn't turn over into something like this except maybe in the elderly.  This is just bad luck.  Bad luck, pure and simple."  Motor vehicle accident?  I have a frame of reference for that kind of bad luck.  Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome?  I got nothin'.

Or as Chris Riviere said after the funeral, " Boys, back when we were at Tulane could you have believed that something like this would happen to one of us?"

Non, mah bah.  I still don't. 

In retrospect, I don't believe that I consciously thought of Hugh exactly when I made the decision to accept early retirement.  But I was keenly aware of the shortness of our temporal lives.  My father, who died at 52, had too many mouths to feed to consider retirement.  But he did express an interest on maybe going to law school at night.  To maybe become a patent lawyer.  Well, he didn't get that chance.  A friend of mine in Jackson who expressed approval of my walking away from the Federal Building reminded me that Hugh wouldn't get the chance either.  Life is short. 

I still don't really know what 2012 will bring. Ending my safe and secure career was scary at first.  But it's OK now.   I have been approached by 2 or 3 people who want to know if I am available to talk about working for them.  That is flattering and reassuring.  Sure.  I will be happy to talk to them.  Finished the edits on the first resume I have done in 20 years.  Those will be unleashed on an unsuspecting populace soon.  I look good on paper.  Then again, you've never seen a resume that starts off, " Well, to be perfectly honest....."  Anyway, we shall see what we shall see.  There are things I think I want to do that don't involve practicing law.  But I was also a pretty fair country lawyer.  I don't know what the future holds.  But I won't have to take in laundry or dip dogs in order to make money.  I'm not anxious.  I am at peace.

Rev. Nixon senses a spirituality about all of this that he encourages me to heed.  "Listen to yourself," he said the other day. " Take your time and let that new voice inside you lead you to whatever it is that you are supposed to do." 

I don't know about the spiritual aspect of all of this.  But retired or not, Vic is still a Methodist preacher.  He knows what he is.  His antenna for the spiritual is still on high gain. Me?  I'm still in the process of figuring it out.  But I am at least trying to listen to that new voice. 

2011 was for the most part just godawful.  But I am not anxious.  I am at peace. 

After all, the storm has passed.  The sky still abides. 

Happy New Year.

 

My Christmas Feeling

It occurs to me that I have never been sick on Christmas before.  At least I can't remember a Christmas when I was THIS sick. 

Now it's no big deal.  Jim Mark told me on Monday that I had a sinus infection for which he gave me a shot in the ass and dreadfully expensive antibiotics.  That aren't working apparently.  I'm running about a half degree of fever and my throat feels as if I swallowed some steel wool.  Oh well.  If this is the worst that happens to me during the future Christmases I am allotted I will be fortunate.  Not too far from where I am sitting there are folks in the cancer center at UAMS who are spending Christmas tethered to a pole.

I will get better.  Some of them will not.

I hear church bells.  Christmas on Sunday. 

My day began with the phone buzzing with text messages and the IPad ringing with posts on Facebook.  One of Hugh's girls wished me a Merry Christmas first thing.  I imagine that this will be a hard day for them.  I wished Susannah a Merry Christmas and I told her that I loved her.  That's all I can do from over here.  Come to think of it, that is about all I could do if I were in Jackson.

I have some presents but I don't much feel like opening them.  My original plan for the morning was to go play golf at War Memorial down the street.  It is a time honored tradition that guys walk War Memorial for free on Christmas day.  I will not be in that number today.  I will be doing good to get the stuff out on the grill this afternoon.  Oh well.  It is always best to measure one's expectations at Christmas.  Christmas can be pretty overwhelming if let it. 

Last night I joined the Baptists for a little service.  I hadn't been in that old church in years.  My new golf buddy Randy Hyde is that pastor there.  I had never heard him preach before.  So I walked my Methodist self in and took an aisle seat in the middle.  Carolyn Staley, the assistant pastor there, came up to me and gave me a hug.  She told me to go sit with her husband "so you won't have to sit alone."

I was sincerely moved by that small, considerate gesture.  I live by myself.  I do lots of stuff in my own company.  It's no big deal to me.  But it was to her. 

I don't much know what I believe anymore.  And I know that much of the biblical narrative of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth does not withstand the scrutiny of history.  Christopher Hitchens pointed out once that humans existed in organized societies some 10,000 years before the Nativity.  It was his position that to believe that God would wait that long, evidently doing nothing, only to intervene in human history to impregnate a young girl in the middle of the desert is ridiculous.  It is a fair point.

But, as I have said before, there is power in myths.  And often truth is subsumed therein.  And as Dr. Hyde said last night, even in those days as it is in our present age, when the Middle East coughed the whole world heard it.  So what better place to introduce the Kingdom of God?  It is a fair point as well. 

Who knows? 

All I know is I  that enjoyed the service last night.  I felt very welcome there among my Baptist neighbors.  I enjoyed seeing my golf buddy up in the pulpit.  And it pleased me to conceive that God exists so you won't have to sit alone. 

Merry Christmas.

My Sunday Feeling

"I burned the candle at both ends...it often gave a lovely light."

I heard Christopher Hitchens speak at the Arkansas Literary Festival a few years ago.  In retrospect it would have been about the time that he was diagnosed with the esophageal cancer that eventually killed him last Thursday at the age of 62.  "god [sic]is not great" had just been published and he was on a promotional tour in the Deep South.  As I sat in my seat awaiting the lecture it occurred to me that there was a period of time in Little Rock's not too distant past where the very idea that an avowed atheist could give a public lecture at a literary festival would be unthinkable.  Then again, the idea of a literary festival was pretty much unthinkable around here as well.

I didn't know what to expect.  Hitchens was nothing if not disputatious as one of the many obituaries gently pointed out.  Would he chain smoke at the lectern? (One of his friends has reported that he smoked @ 130 cigarettes a day.)  Would he be entirely sober? (Hitch drank a staggering amount of Scotch.  No man this side of Faulkner wrote better with a buzz on.)

The Christopher Hitchens that I saw that day was gentle and soft-spoken.  He was courtly and deeply respectful of the audience, especially of the elderly members who had questions.  If atheism needed a PR man, Hitch was a good one that Spring day in the River Market.

Hitchens believed that religion "destroys everything."  There is a story in "god is not great" that I remember to this day.  A man was set upon by a masked gunman on a country road in Northern Ireland. 

"Are you Catholic or Protestant?" the gunman asked.

"Neither," the nervous hostage replied." "I'm an atheist."

"Well then, " came the response. " Are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?"

Now I don't know whether this story is apocryphal or not.  But it is a perfect example of the complete madness of sectarian strife.  One doesn't have to be an atheist to admit that Hitchens had a point about the potential dangers of religion and power.  Look at the examples.  The child abuse scandals involving the Catholic church.  Radical Islam or "Islamofascism" as Hitchens put it.  Look at how the Republican Party in this country has been hijacked by Christian conservatives.  Garry Will, as devout as Hitchens was not, has sounded much the same alarm.

One of the more moving tributes to Hitch that I read came from a British journalist who said," With the death of Christopher Hitchens it feels like our culture just lost a limb."

Perhaps this apropos of nothing.  But I thought of what passes for culture nowadays when I consulted Facebook this morning.  Someone had posted a picture of an American soldier in full combat gear kneeling in prayer.  Below the picture was a caption that said that the young soldier was fighting to preserve our rights "including the right to say 'Merry Christmas.'"

Now this is profoundly stupid on any level you care to explore.  Pick one.  Factually, legally, what have you.  The fact that otherwise sentient people actually believe such utter tripe is evidence of a very real strain of paranoia to go along with the dumbing down of the culture. 

This was the sort of inanity that Christopher Hitchens loved to skewer.  He was argumentative, occasionally inconsistent, self-destructive and despised by many of his peers.  But his opinions were never opaque.  And he was utterly fearless in presenting them.

The culture has indeed lost a limb. 

My Sunday Feeling

The lady had just been released from jail.  She had been incarcerated for "hot checks" the first week of December.  She has 2 kids and a job at a fast food place here in town.  I'm no criminal lawyer.  But I know people in the prosecutor's office.  And just like that other well known legal scholar Mick Jagger, I ain't too proud to beg.  The prosecutor told me the Judge would let her out if she could come up with half of what she owed.  800 bucks.  Which might have been 800,000 as far as this lady was concerned.  And she had no relatives or other people here in town to pony up the "get out of jail card." 

Mercifully, a local pastor agreed to pay the money.  He went down there himself and got her out.  God bless him.  And 2 days later she met with me and the social worker.  While I am not overly familiar with the internecine procedures of District Court, there was something about how all this went down that had me confused.

She sat on one end of the table in the Conference Room.  I sat on the other.  The LCSW sat between us.

"The reason we are meeting today," I said. "Is we want to figure out just how you got in this fix and what we have to do to keep you from going back to jail.  You OK with this?"

"Yessir," she said. " I don't want to go back to that jail ever again."

"And we don't want you to go back."

"Tell me," I said. when did you first learn that you had been charged with writing hot checks?"

"When I was in traffic court here in Little Rock."

"I'm sorry.  Traffic court in Little Rock. OK.  Let's start there then."

"I got a ticket last Fall.  Illegal lane change.  That and I didn't have no insurance. So I had to go to the traffic court."

"OK."

"And that Judge up there said that there was a warrant for me over in Sherwood and that they were sending somebody to Little Rock to pick me up."

"So that's when you first learned about the warrants."

"Yeah but I kinda knew about the hot checks before then really."

"I beg your pardon?"

"They took my state tax refund to pay on them checks about 2009 or so."

"2009?  When did you write the checks?"

"I bounced 2 checks to Kroger about 2004.  I ain't written any checks since then."

"Can they do that?" the LCSW asked.

"Sure they can," I replied. "I've seen the IRS do it a million times on delinquent Federal debts." 

"Ma'am how do you know that's why the offset your refund?" I asked the lady.

"I don't know what that means," she replied.  "What's offset?"

"I'm sorry.  When they took your refund.  How did you know the reason they did that?"

"I got a piece of paper that said it was for those checks. I didn't think no more about it.  I thought it was taken care of then."

"OK. So they took you to Sherwood.  What happened there?"

" They took my fingerprints and snapped a photo.  And ROR'd me."

She actually said "ROR."

"They told me to go to Court in December. So I went to Court and that Judge told me I had to pay $1600.00 or he was gonna throw me in jail.  I was by myself.  I didn't have $1600.  So they put me in jail."

OK.  This was making sense now.  For some she didn't show up on the hot check charge.  Maybe she moved and didn't leave a forwarding address.  Maybe she never read the letter advising her of the Court date.  2 little checks plus a fine for a FTA and the running of interest and court costs can turn into a 1600 buck problem pretty quickly.  There wasn't much else the Judge could do.  Not and be fair to others that had similar stories that he had to make guests of the County. 

"You have any other criminal charges?" I asked.

"Just that theft of property in 2003," she said.  "But I've applied to the Governor for clemency."

"OK," I said. " Let's talk about THAT."

This went on about another 20 minutes.  I struck by the fact that this lady was pretty clueless about she had gotten to this juncture.  They offset her tax refund.  She thought it took care of the problem.  That had the ring of truth.  But she also knew the acronym for "Released on Recognizance."  This indicated to me that she had a nodding acquaintance with the system.

Not that it matters.  She goes back to Court in January.  She will be put on a payment schedule.  She will pay it or she will go to jail.  If she goes to jail, her kids will get picked up and they will be put into foster care.  That's what we told her. 

And it also struck me that the jails are full of low level criminal types for whom the social problem drives the legal problem.  Folks for whom 1600 bucks is a princely sum.  Folks that live from "pillar to post" as the old folks used to say, stumbling from one calamity to the next.  Most of us can scarcely imagine getting into such a fix.  But then again, most of us are really lucky.



So far so good.  Money got found.  Her social worker is on top of the problem now.  But the keys to the jail are in the lady's hands.

And if she doesn't understand that, she doesn't have ears to hear.  And the jails are full of those types of those people too.

Hillcrest Tree Lighting During Which I Took Pictures Of Everything But The Damn Tree

How Not To Pick Your Spots

I don't know if this story is apocryphal or not but it sure is a good one and is instructive on many levels. 

Years ago, tennis star Andre Agassi was playing in the Legg-Mason tournament which is held in Cincinnati.  His private plane touched down at 1 AM at an airstrip in rural Kentucky across the Ohio River from Cincinnati.  Andre, then solidly in the avis rara stage of his career, supposedly got freaked out by the lack of security in attendance (or more accurately NOT in attendance) when he got off the plane.

"Andre," the lady the tournament sent to pick him up supposedly said. "It's 1 in the morning and you are in rural Kentucky.  Unless you play basketball or are on Hee Haw, nobody around here has a clue who you are."

Which brings up to the recent news of the arrest of mega head case Mindy McCready, who was arrested in Heber Springs, Arkansas by the authorities (State and Federal) on a warrant out of Florida where she is engaged in an exquisitely nasty custody fight with her parents over her child and from whence she had hit the trail. 

Now, if I am on the lam and am a country music singer of some fame if not notoriety, I think that the last place I would try to make myself invisible would be Cleburne County, Arkansas or any other small town in the South where you probably can't swing a dead cat without hitting a country music fan. 

Good thinking!  What?  She didn't have the gas money to make it clean on to Nashville? 

As for Andre, he has settled comfortably in a relatively conventional life of husband and father.  But I think if he ever needs to take a powder somewhere, I bet nobody knows him to this day in rural Kentucky.

Or Heber Springs either.  If Mindy ever reads this, she could profit from his example.  If she ever has to hide from the authorities again that is.

My Sunday Feeling

Herman Cain may be many things.  But he's not stupid.  And since he is not stupid, how did he think that allegations of sexual harassment and infidelity would not  eventually come to light during the white hot atmosphere of a presidential campaign?  The most recent is a lady from Atlanta named Ginger White who claims that she had a 13 year relationship with him.  Even had phone records and text messages to back up the claim.

Guess Herman Cain never heard of Houston Nutt.

Let me say this again.  I could give a rip about what two consenting adults do in private, be it a romantic interlude or a commercial transaction.  As I wrote about a certain prominent Arkansan's wandering from the marital hearth, if Hillary could live with it, I could live with it.  I honestly do not care.

But really.  What made John Edwards, Bill Clinton, and now Herman Cain think they could get away with it?

We all engage in compartmentalism.  Which is to say that we tend to rationalize our faults and/or put them somewhere in our heads where we don't have to trip over them too often.  A more extreme example of this behavior would be found in the interview of accused child molester Jerry Sandusky on the front page of yesterday's New York Times which may be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/sports/ncaafootball/at-center-of-penn-state-scandal-sandusky-tells-his-own-story.html?hp

As you can see, Coach continues to deny that he engaged in any deviant sexual behavior with minors.  And he reveals himself to be a whiner in the process. 

But sexual predators are a different breed of cat altogether.  In Sandusky's case, he talked himself into believing that he was helping these kids and he sticks to this story in the interview.  It is one thing to slip around on your spouse. (She's a bitch, she doesn't understand me, we're only married for the children's sake).  It is quite another thing to take a shower with a 10 year old boy.  (How the hell do you talk yourself into thinking THAT'S normal?)  So let's forget pedophiles, although it is useful to note that Sandusky actually thought he had a shot at being Head Coach at Penn State someday despite his unsavory sexual proclivities. Evidently, he must have thought his criminal deviancy would never pop up in a background check. 

But let us return to mere garden variety egomaniacs.  There is the thought being bandied about that Cain wasn't really all that serious about running for President much in the way it was the suspicion that Mike Huckabee was mainly in it for the money down the road.  But still, why put yourself in the public spotlight thereby running the risk of humiliating your spouse and/or hurting your family and supporters?  How could you?

A buddy of mine has a working theory that a person has to be borderline crazy to want to put themselves through electoral politics at a certain level.  Or maybe any level.  I have a buddy in the Arkansas State Legislature.  You ought to hear some of the stories he's told me. 

There may be something to my friend's theory.  You would have to be crazy to think that you can cat around with and give money to a woman not your spouse for 13 years and that it can be kept a secret when all of a sudden you decide to thrust your philandering self into a race for a public office.  He wasn't sleeping with her?  Right.  Name me another man in our common experience who is giving money to a woman over that length of time who isn't showing him where the horse bit her. 

I mean c'mon.  That's crazy.  And he was leading on that side of the aisle for a bit.  And now serial philanderer Newt is "trending" as they say.  In the race to become the standard bearer for the party that allegedly stands for an exceedingly cramped view of Christian morality. 

This is crazy. 

But maybe the R's are counting on their lunatic base to compartmentalize as well. 

AWOL

No Sunday post today.  Too much stuff going on.  Will be back next Sunday with yet another heartbreaking work of staggering genius.

Talk among yourselves.