Sunday, April 22, 2007
The Virginia Tech Massacre
For several days, since we as a nation and citizens of the world began watching the unbelievable events at Virginia Tech unfold as thirty-two lives were taken and untold numbers of lives were forever altered, I have mourned with the rest of the country the loss of bright, promising lives of people who were on the verge of their high flight into their futures. Indeed, the students and staff whose lives were cut so tragically short seemed to be among the best their generations had to offer – the diametric opposite of the disturbed and deranged soul who saw fit to take their lives as he was planning to take his own. People who are deeply unhappy as Cho Seung Hui was are seldom likely to go to their destination alone. As they say, misery loves company.
By tracing Cho’s actions in the days and weeks prior to his snapping, and investigating his history while at Virginia Tech and prior, the authorities have been fleshing out a profile of a young man whose shyness and anti-social behavior had seemingly alienated him from the whole world. Before everything is said and done and this incident is all over, the authorities will have to answer for ignoring the red flags that showed that underneath the shyness and anti-social behavior lay a seething rage that was buried, but rather than being dormant, it was growing in such intensity that anything other than a massive volcanic eruption was probably not even an option. Depression is anger turned inward, and by the time one of the members of the English department tried to reach out to him and help him get the counseling he so obviously needed, he was already out of reach of a mere layperson (even a learned one).
When she tried to persuade school and law enforcement authorities to strike an intervention on his behalf, both for his safety and that of those around him, her pleas were met with deft pass-the-buck “not our problem” dodging tactics designed to absolve them of any responsibility in the matter. This was their take on the situation, despite the fact that the Virginia General District Court found him to “present an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness.”
As the days have passed since the attack, tales of his shunning even the most basic friendships and, conversely, stalking and seeking out the attentions in inappropriate ways of girls he probably felt were “unreachable” have come to light and show that he himself was probably already beyond reach except by the most diligent professionals. As authorities have delved further into his background before he came to Virginia Tech, they heard accounts of his having been steadily picked on for his ethnicity, his unclear manner of speaking and other things. The average person might respond that “everyone gets picked on sometime”, but not everyone truly understands the difference between being picked on or made fun of and being targeted. Like his “martyred” idols Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the teenagers who put Columbine High School on the map in a similar massacre in 1999, it would seem that Cho was (or felt he was) targeted rather than just garden-variety teased like most people have been. Since most people can’t distinguish the difference, perhaps it’s time the authorities teach them and work toward putting a stop to it – not just because it’s wrong (it is, you know), but in the interest of public safety.
For people who can’t distinguish between being picked on and being targeted, I suggest you sit down and watch the movie “Carrie”, and when she erupts in telekinetic fury so strong she is able to throw cars at people, insert a more realistic vision of Carrie with an Uzi. If you can’t figure it out after that, you are probably the same kind of person who would poke a stick at a dog continually like water torture, and then scream out at the unfairness of it when the dog attacks you.
There is also the “Get over it!” crowd who says, “All that happened X years ago (fill in the blank with the correct number). Why hasn’t he gotten over it?” Try asking that question of an adult Helen Keller, blind and deaf since an illness took her sight and hearing when she was two years old, or Christopher Reeve a few years after his horseback riding accident left him a quadriplegic. The answer might be chillingly similar – some things can’t be gotten over. Or sometimes they can be gotten over, but only through intensive therapy. Everyone is born with a different psyche, some more sensitive than others, and sometimes the emotional abuse leaves wounds and scars that cannot be healed but people can learn to function around them. Sometimes they can’t.
I am in no way defending, condoning or justifying Cho Seung Hui’s actions, and like most of us, I am still trying to come to grips with the loss of the lives of people who probably never even saw or heard of him before they were staring down the barrel of the gun he thrust in their faces. This is not an entreaty to turn this dangerous psychotic into a “poor Cho” victim. What I am saying is that people like Cho don’t just “happen” – they are created, shaped out of their experiences. When Michelangelo was asked how accomplished the transformation of a piece of flawed marble into the striking sculpture the world came to know as “David”, he said that “David was already in the piece of marble…he merely removed everything that wasn’t “David”, including the flaw. Creating a human target has the opposite effect – it chips away at everything that is human until little or nothing is left but the monster that is in all of us but that lies dormant in most people. The monster is unleashed when everything else is chipped away and nothing stands in its way.
We all knew them – the kids in our schools who didn’t measure up to our standards of “normal”. You remember -- the girl whose clothes were faded and too big because all she had to wear were her sister’s hand-me-downs; the fat boy who was always the last one chosen to play on the sports teams; someone whose ethnicity or religious background wasn’t the same as ours; someone who looked “funny” or was just “different” from us. The outcasts. While it would be nice if everyone could be blessed with good looks, popularity, a “Father Knows Best” home life and/or many other good things, it isn’t likely that it will ever happen, but to make targets out of people for whatever reason is cruel and shameless – people should be taught early just to walk away from those they don’t like for one reason or another and leave them the hell alone. Usually the people doing the targeting are not the upper echelon of the social caste system – they’re on top, so they don’t have anything to gain from such actions. Generally it’s the mid-level echelon – the top-level wannabes who can’t quite reach that euphoric level of social nirvana, so to make themselves feel better about it, they find someone who is lower on the social totem pole than they are and terrorize them – as if being on the bottom of the social totem pole weren’t already bad enough, thank you. There are, of course, those top-level folks who might feel they are slipping in the social ratings and are in need of an ego boost, so they weigh in with their two cents, but usually not. So the targeted ones are no longer simply social residents at the bottom of the caste system with the rest of the social ne’er-do-wells – they are virtually disenfranchised. With nothing left to lose. Doesn’t sound like freedom to me (with apologies to Kris Kristofferson).
We don’t all have to like each other, but we do have to live here together on this planet. Someday people are going to teach their children that it is inarguably wrong and unacceptable to bully people and treat them as human targets, and figure out means of preemptive intervention when it does happen. Most importantly, they will teach that there are consequences from their actions, sometimes deadly, and sadly, one lesson that we can take away from what happened at Virginia Tech is that when the shit hits the fan, it is almost never distributed evenly.
By tracing Cho’s actions in the days and weeks prior to his snapping, and investigating his history while at Virginia Tech and prior, the authorities have been fleshing out a profile of a young man whose shyness and anti-social behavior had seemingly alienated him from the whole world. Before everything is said and done and this incident is all over, the authorities will have to answer for ignoring the red flags that showed that underneath the shyness and anti-social behavior lay a seething rage that was buried, but rather than being dormant, it was growing in such intensity that anything other than a massive volcanic eruption was probably not even an option. Depression is anger turned inward, and by the time one of the members of the English department tried to reach out to him and help him get the counseling he so obviously needed, he was already out of reach of a mere layperson (even a learned one).
When she tried to persuade school and law enforcement authorities to strike an intervention on his behalf, both for his safety and that of those around him, her pleas were met with deft pass-the-buck “not our problem” dodging tactics designed to absolve them of any responsibility in the matter. This was their take on the situation, despite the fact that the Virginia General District Court found him to “present an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness.”
As the days have passed since the attack, tales of his shunning even the most basic friendships and, conversely, stalking and seeking out the attentions in inappropriate ways of girls he probably felt were “unreachable” have come to light and show that he himself was probably already beyond reach except by the most diligent professionals. As authorities have delved further into his background before he came to Virginia Tech, they heard accounts of his having been steadily picked on for his ethnicity, his unclear manner of speaking and other things. The average person might respond that “everyone gets picked on sometime”, but not everyone truly understands the difference between being picked on or made fun of and being targeted. Like his “martyred” idols Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the teenagers who put Columbine High School on the map in a similar massacre in 1999, it would seem that Cho was (or felt he was) targeted rather than just garden-variety teased like most people have been. Since most people can’t distinguish the difference, perhaps it’s time the authorities teach them and work toward putting a stop to it – not just because it’s wrong (it is, you know), but in the interest of public safety.
For people who can’t distinguish between being picked on and being targeted, I suggest you sit down and watch the movie “Carrie”, and when she erupts in telekinetic fury so strong she is able to throw cars at people, insert a more realistic vision of Carrie with an Uzi. If you can’t figure it out after that, you are probably the same kind of person who would poke a stick at a dog continually like water torture, and then scream out at the unfairness of it when the dog attacks you.
There is also the “Get over it!” crowd who says, “All that happened X years ago (fill in the blank with the correct number). Why hasn’t he gotten over it?” Try asking that question of an adult Helen Keller, blind and deaf since an illness took her sight and hearing when she was two years old, or Christopher Reeve a few years after his horseback riding accident left him a quadriplegic. The answer might be chillingly similar – some things can’t be gotten over. Or sometimes they can be gotten over, but only through intensive therapy. Everyone is born with a different psyche, some more sensitive than others, and sometimes the emotional abuse leaves wounds and scars that cannot be healed but people can learn to function around them. Sometimes they can’t.
I am in no way defending, condoning or justifying Cho Seung Hui’s actions, and like most of us, I am still trying to come to grips with the loss of the lives of people who probably never even saw or heard of him before they were staring down the barrel of the gun he thrust in their faces. This is not an entreaty to turn this dangerous psychotic into a “poor Cho” victim. What I am saying is that people like Cho don’t just “happen” – they are created, shaped out of their experiences. When Michelangelo was asked how accomplished the transformation of a piece of flawed marble into the striking sculpture the world came to know as “David”, he said that “David was already in the piece of marble…he merely removed everything that wasn’t “David”, including the flaw. Creating a human target has the opposite effect – it chips away at everything that is human until little or nothing is left but the monster that is in all of us but that lies dormant in most people. The monster is unleashed when everything else is chipped away and nothing stands in its way.
We all knew them – the kids in our schools who didn’t measure up to our standards of “normal”. You remember -- the girl whose clothes were faded and too big because all she had to wear were her sister’s hand-me-downs; the fat boy who was always the last one chosen to play on the sports teams; someone whose ethnicity or religious background wasn’t the same as ours; someone who looked “funny” or was just “different” from us. The outcasts. While it would be nice if everyone could be blessed with good looks, popularity, a “Father Knows Best” home life and/or many other good things, it isn’t likely that it will ever happen, but to make targets out of people for whatever reason is cruel and shameless – people should be taught early just to walk away from those they don’t like for one reason or another and leave them the hell alone. Usually the people doing the targeting are not the upper echelon of the social caste system – they’re on top, so they don’t have anything to gain from such actions. Generally it’s the mid-level echelon – the top-level wannabes who can’t quite reach that euphoric level of social nirvana, so to make themselves feel better about it, they find someone who is lower on the social totem pole than they are and terrorize them – as if being on the bottom of the social totem pole weren’t already bad enough, thank you. There are, of course, those top-level folks who might feel they are slipping in the social ratings and are in need of an ego boost, so they weigh in with their two cents, but usually not. So the targeted ones are no longer simply social residents at the bottom of the caste system with the rest of the social ne’er-do-wells – they are virtually disenfranchised. With nothing left to lose. Doesn’t sound like freedom to me (with apologies to Kris Kristofferson).
We don’t all have to like each other, but we do have to live here together on this planet. Someday people are going to teach their children that it is inarguably wrong and unacceptable to bully people and treat them as human targets, and figure out means of preemptive intervention when it does happen. Most importantly, they will teach that there are consequences from their actions, sometimes deadly, and sadly, one lesson that we can take away from what happened at Virginia Tech is that when the shit hits the fan, it is almost never distributed evenly.
Monday, April 16, 2007
No X in Espresso
I would like to go on record to tell my friends, the world at large and anyone else who gives a damn a few things of very little importance to anyone but, perhaps, me.
There is no “X” in Espresso – don’t they put enough stuff in it that it doesn’t NEED an X?
Johns Hopkins University has an “S” at the end of John, just as it has at the end of Hopkin. More than one John and more than one Hopkin. I don’t know if this means they have a number of toilets at Hopkins or a multitude of people named John – I do know that it is not possessive, because there is no apostrophe between John and his “S”. But however it got there, it’s a very audible “S” (okay, an audible “Z”) and they really mean it.
There is no “H” at the end of height, and I think it’s the heighth of stupidity for someone to say otherwise.
There is no “T” in “across”, and it makes me cross to hear a T in “across”. It makes me want to dot my Ts and cross my Is.
There is no “T” in “Alzheimer’s”. The word is not “all timers”, and only in jest can it be called “Old Timer’s”, although that’s a pretty sorry joke.
The words “athlete” and “fiscal” only have two syllables apiece.
To thaw means to unfreeze. To unthaw a chicken is to put that sucker back in the freezer. They’re harder to cook when they’re unthawed, and when someone tells me they are going to unthaw a chicken to cook for dinner, I assume it’s an unthawed-out plan, and it freezes me right in my tracks. (Oddly enough, my spell checker did not throw a rod over or any funny wiggly lines under “unthaw” or “unthawed”. Who’d’ve thawed it?)
Just so you know.
There is no “X” in Espresso – don’t they put enough stuff in it that it doesn’t NEED an X?
Johns Hopkins University has an “S” at the end of John, just as it has at the end of Hopkin. More than one John and more than one Hopkin. I don’t know if this means they have a number of toilets at Hopkins or a multitude of people named John – I do know that it is not possessive, because there is no apostrophe between John and his “S”. But however it got there, it’s a very audible “S” (okay, an audible “Z”) and they really mean it.
There is no “H” at the end of height, and I think it’s the heighth of stupidity for someone to say otherwise.
There is no “T” in “across”, and it makes me cross to hear a T in “across”. It makes me want to dot my Ts and cross my Is.
There is no “T” in “Alzheimer’s”. The word is not “all timers”, and only in jest can it be called “Old Timer’s”, although that’s a pretty sorry joke.
The words “athlete” and “fiscal” only have two syllables apiece.
To thaw means to unfreeze. To unthaw a chicken is to put that sucker back in the freezer. They’re harder to cook when they’re unthawed, and when someone tells me they are going to unthaw a chicken to cook for dinner, I assume it’s an unthawed-out plan, and it freezes me right in my tracks. (Oddly enough, my spell checker did not throw a rod over or any funny wiggly lines under “unthaw” or “unthawed”. Who’d’ve thawed it?)
Just so you know.
Labels: Language
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Thirty Years In Baseball and Happy Jackie Robinson Day
Somehow I feel like I should hear Mel Allen’s voice announcing this topic. This year is the 30th anniversary of my becoming a baseball fan. I have a huge baseball display in my basement that includes very little of any real value to anyone but me, with the possible exception of the sheet music from the original 1908 version of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”, which I bought on ebay for next to nothing. I saw a copy of it at Cooperstown at the Baseball Hall of Fame and was very pleased to see it, in an “I’ve been validated!” sort of way. (Makes me sound like a parking ticket, doesn’t it?)
The reason it took me until the age of 20 to become a baseball fan is because when I was growing up, any time I joined my father in watching any kind of sport on television, my questions were met with “Shut up! I’m trying to watch the damned game!” Although he really was a nice person, my father was not noted for his patience in general, but especially with children and animals; oddly enough, though, the more impatient he got, the more kids and pets loved him, until he or they crossed the line and he reached the point of being almost abusive. By the time I might have been joining him in front of the TV to watch sports, I already knew not to cross that line, so I never asked too many questions after the first one, and never learned much about sports until I encountered someone who had the patience to answer all of my questions, no matter how inane they might seem.
Even though I didn’t become a baseball fan until 1977 and didn’t care a rat’s ass about it before then, oddly enough, my dad and I shared a baseball moment three years earlier that was pretty special, even to me, and lo these many years later, I cherish it. One April evening in 1974, just about 33 years ago today, I was about 16 years old and full of myself in a way that only 16-year-old girls can be, and I was going through the house to do something really important. My dad said as I went by him, “Hey, baby, come here.” That sounds sexual, but he always called me “baby” because I’m the baby of the family (not because I did some dirty dancing with Patrick Swayze and nobody puts me in a corner). Anyway, when I answered impatiently, my dialogue was “WHAT?!” but my tone of voice said, “What the hell do you want? I’m busy!” “Come here a minute.” “What do you want? I’m busy!” This time I articulated the words and not just the tone of voice. “Come and watch this. This is important. That guy at bat, Hank Aaron, is about to break a record.” “Well, that doesn’t sound like such a big deal. Last time I broke a record, all I got was a fight from my brother.” “No, not that kind of record – a sports record.” I was getting nowhere with my argument of having something better to do, so I sat down and joined him in watching Hank Aaron break Babe Ruth’s homerun record. At the time, it was merely an act of shut-up-Daddy, but with my later becoming not just a baseball fan, but a Braves fan, and Daddy’s being gone for almost three years, now that moment looms large in my memory and it feels so damned good to have that memory of sharing something really special with my dad, even if I didn’t appreciate it as such at the time.
It’s actually Hank Aaron’s fault I’m a baseball fan anyway. He was supposed to show up for a promotional game for which Mike had bought advanced tickets that even had Hank’s name on them, touting him as the guest of honor. That night, I showed up and he didn’t, and I still haven’t ever seen him live and in person. But it was that night that I started getting a serious tutorial in the finer details of baseball.
When Hank retired from playing in 1976, his homerun total was 755, a record which Barry Bonds is getting closer to breaking every year, and frankly, this will probably be the year he does it. However, what saddens me is not that Barry Bonds will break Hank’s record – Cal Ripken, Jr., broke Lou Gehrig’s long-standing consecutive games played in 1995, and I am passionately fond of Lou Gehrig, but I cried like a proud mama when Cal broke his record. (I can almost hear Tom Hanks saying, “There’s no crying in baseball!” Tom doesn’t watch baseball at my house.) What saddens me greatly about Hank’s record-breaking performances is that every time I have ever heard him interviewed on the subject, all he talks about is the racism he faced at the time. So rather than taking pride (and I mean pride, not arrogance) in his accomplishments and being proud to represent baseball so stunningly, all he seems to have taken away from his achievements is the negative side of it. Granted, I’m sure it was no fun receiving death threats and being targeted with overt racism; I’m sorry it overshadowed the event and I don’t mean to minimize it, but damnation, Hank, if that’s all you got out of it, you might just as well have stayed home. Isn’t it about time you stopped focusing on that and look at it and say, “Hey, I did something fan-damn-tastic that nobody else ever did before, and as for the racists, well, fuck ‘em. They can’t take that away from me, even if someone else comes along and breaks my record someday.” Well, anyway, I’m proud of him and glad he did it and proud to have his likeness on my Wheaties box and a Christmas ornament in my baseball collection.
The reason it took me until the age of 20 to become a baseball fan is because when I was growing up, any time I joined my father in watching any kind of sport on television, my questions were met with “Shut up! I’m trying to watch the damned game!” Although he really was a nice person, my father was not noted for his patience in general, but especially with children and animals; oddly enough, though, the more impatient he got, the more kids and pets loved him, until he or they crossed the line and he reached the point of being almost abusive. By the time I might have been joining him in front of the TV to watch sports, I already knew not to cross that line, so I never asked too many questions after the first one, and never learned much about sports until I encountered someone who had the patience to answer all of my questions, no matter how inane they might seem.
Even though I didn’t become a baseball fan until 1977 and didn’t care a rat’s ass about it before then, oddly enough, my dad and I shared a baseball moment three years earlier that was pretty special, even to me, and lo these many years later, I cherish it. One April evening in 1974, just about 33 years ago today, I was about 16 years old and full of myself in a way that only 16-year-old girls can be, and I was going through the house to do something really important. My dad said as I went by him, “Hey, baby, come here.” That sounds sexual, but he always called me “baby” because I’m the baby of the family (not because I did some dirty dancing with Patrick Swayze and nobody puts me in a corner). Anyway, when I answered impatiently, my dialogue was “WHAT?!” but my tone of voice said, “What the hell do you want? I’m busy!” “Come here a minute.” “What do you want? I’m busy!” This time I articulated the words and not just the tone of voice. “Come and watch this. This is important. That guy at bat, Hank Aaron, is about to break a record.” “Well, that doesn’t sound like such a big deal. Last time I broke a record, all I got was a fight from my brother.” “No, not that kind of record – a sports record.” I was getting nowhere with my argument of having something better to do, so I sat down and joined him in watching Hank Aaron break Babe Ruth’s homerun record. At the time, it was merely an act of shut-up-Daddy, but with my later becoming not just a baseball fan, but a Braves fan, and Daddy’s being gone for almost three years, now that moment looms large in my memory and it feels so damned good to have that memory of sharing something really special with my dad, even if I didn’t appreciate it as such at the time.
It’s actually Hank Aaron’s fault I’m a baseball fan anyway. He was supposed to show up for a promotional game for which Mike had bought advanced tickets that even had Hank’s name on them, touting him as the guest of honor. That night, I showed up and he didn’t, and I still haven’t ever seen him live and in person. But it was that night that I started getting a serious tutorial in the finer details of baseball.
When Hank retired from playing in 1976, his homerun total was 755, a record which Barry Bonds is getting closer to breaking every year, and frankly, this will probably be the year he does it. However, what saddens me is not that Barry Bonds will break Hank’s record – Cal Ripken, Jr., broke Lou Gehrig’s long-standing consecutive games played in 1995, and I am passionately fond of Lou Gehrig, but I cried like a proud mama when Cal broke his record. (I can almost hear Tom Hanks saying, “There’s no crying in baseball!” Tom doesn’t watch baseball at my house.) What saddens me greatly about Hank’s record-breaking performances is that every time I have ever heard him interviewed on the subject, all he talks about is the racism he faced at the time. So rather than taking pride (and I mean pride, not arrogance) in his accomplishments and being proud to represent baseball so stunningly, all he seems to have taken away from his achievements is the negative side of it. Granted, I’m sure it was no fun receiving death threats and being targeted with overt racism; I’m sorry it overshadowed the event and I don’t mean to minimize it, but damnation, Hank, if that’s all you got out of it, you might just as well have stayed home. Isn’t it about time you stopped focusing on that and look at it and say, “Hey, I did something fan-damn-tastic that nobody else ever did before, and as for the racists, well, fuck ‘em. They can’t take that away from me, even if someone else comes along and breaks my record someday.” Well, anyway, I’m proud of him and glad he did it and proud to have his likeness on my Wheaties box and a Christmas ornament in my baseball collection.
Labels: Baseball
Funny Stuff at the Court House
In my recent court experience, I encountered some pretty funny stuff at the courthouse. They have all kinds of signs there, with all kinds of rules and regulations. One of them is that if you are there to proffer charges against someone, you must pay $10, and it must be cash. You do this at a certain window, where they have a sign that says:
Business Licenses
Marriage Licenses
Criminal Cases
How thoughtful of them to lump “marriage licenses” and “criminal cases” together – although it strikes me as being somewhat redundant.
For marriage licenses, the sign says it’s cash payment only – checks will not be accepted. I suspect they are afraid the marriage might not last for as long as it takes to clear the check. (Who, me, jaded? Nahhhhhh! Well, yeah, I guess so.)
I guess this funny stuff makes up for all the people who work there who are decidedly lacking in a sense of humor, which seemed to be pretty much everybody I encountered. Guess they had to check it at the door.
Business Licenses
Marriage Licenses
Criminal Cases
How thoughtful of them to lump “marriage licenses” and “criminal cases” together – although it strikes me as being somewhat redundant.
For marriage licenses, the sign says it’s cash payment only – checks will not be accepted. I suspect they are afraid the marriage might not last for as long as it takes to clear the check. (Who, me, jaded? Nahhhhhh! Well, yeah, I guess so.)
I guess this funny stuff makes up for all the people who work there who are decidedly lacking in a sense of humor, which seemed to be pretty much everybody I encountered. Guess they had to check it at the door.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Car 54, Where Are You?
Early yesterday morning, I called and left a message on the voice mail of the Sergeant in the criminal division of the police department of my town who called me last week.
Meanwhile, later on that same day – 0930 – Got a call from a Sergeant about Kristi. He said that after researching this case, he found that they had some 38 or 39 separate reports by her of people watching her, stalking her or bothering her while she lived here in town (none of them mentioning me), and had pretty much written her off as the town nut. (I bet that file really is three feet thick, too – see “Call of the Wildchild”, Part 1.) He said she was so paranoid that when the police came to the door to answer her calls, she wouldn’t even talk to them. He said that she obviously “has some mental problems” (no shit!) and sometimes people like this can go along for years doing just fine, but when they go off their meds, you never know what will happen. I told him what had been happening in my case with her, including the two officers who’d been out to the house and told me not to worry my pretty little head about it, and about the recordings I have of her six calls, the last of which was more vicious than the others and sounded like it was a recreational harassment call and she was having way too much fun. The Sergeant advised me that I should have my phone number changed and made unlisted, and I said absoLUTEly not – why should I be inconvenienced because SHE is out of control? (Besides, that wouldn’t stop her – it would only slow her down, at best.) I offered to send him a copy of the recordings of her phone messages, and told him I’d even autograph a copy if he wanted me to. I also gave him her PI’s name and number, and he said he would call him and try to get the pertinent information on her, and then drop (draw up?) the warrant for her arrest. He didn’t think there would be any problem getting it done, once we find her, because of their history with her and mine, which is recorded. The first time she’s arrested, it will be a misdemeanor, and if she contacts me after that, the next time it will be a felony. And awaaaayyy we go!
Meanwhile, later on that same day – 0930 – Got a call from a Sergeant about Kristi. He said that after researching this case, he found that they had some 38 or 39 separate reports by her of people watching her, stalking her or bothering her while she lived here in town (none of them mentioning me), and had pretty much written her off as the town nut. (I bet that file really is three feet thick, too – see “Call of the Wildchild”, Part 1.) He said she was so paranoid that when the police came to the door to answer her calls, she wouldn’t even talk to them. He said that she obviously “has some mental problems” (no shit!) and sometimes people like this can go along for years doing just fine, but when they go off their meds, you never know what will happen. I told him what had been happening in my case with her, including the two officers who’d been out to the house and told me not to worry my pretty little head about it, and about the recordings I have of her six calls, the last of which was more vicious than the others and sounded like it was a recreational harassment call and she was having way too much fun. The Sergeant advised me that I should have my phone number changed and made unlisted, and I said absoLUTEly not – why should I be inconvenienced because SHE is out of control? (Besides, that wouldn’t stop her – it would only slow her down, at best.) I offered to send him a copy of the recordings of her phone messages, and told him I’d even autograph a copy if he wanted me to. I also gave him her PI’s name and number, and he said he would call him and try to get the pertinent information on her, and then drop (draw up?) the warrant for her arrest. He didn’t think there would be any problem getting it done, once we find her, because of their history with her and mine, which is recorded. The first time she’s arrested, it will be a misdemeanor, and if she contacts me after that, the next time it will be a felony. And awaaaayyy we go!
Labels: Nutty Neighbors
Thursday, April 05, 2007
But Wait -- There's More
The good news is, while I was working at the bookstore tonight, I got a call from a policeman from my town with “new information” about the case. He left his name and number and a message for me to call him.
The bad news is, I didn’t get the message until after the 5 PM deadline he’d set for talking to him tonight, and he won’t be back to work until Monday. But hey – maybe I’ll invite him over for notes and a CD (preferably the extended dance version). Cross your fingers.
The bad news is, I didn’t get the message until after the 5 PM deadline he’d set for talking to him tonight, and he won’t be back to work until Monday. But hey – maybe I’ll invite him over for notes and a CD (preferably the extended dance version). Cross your fingers.
Labels: Nutty Neighbors
Here Comes The Judge, There Goes My Case
Well, that was a bust. All in all, the afternoon that started out holding a great deal of promise, both from the standpoint of venting my spleen and getting something done about her Kristiness and from getting a little free entertainment in on the side (at the expense of the others present for their day in court) turned out to be pretty much of a loss, and I feel rather like a deflated balloon.
The courtroom didn’t look much bigger than the classroom that housed my first grade class in 1963, so I’m guessing that this was Inferior Court rather than the Superior one. The place was absolutely jam-packed, seemingly with people who had bona fide business there rather than the press and your average court groupies.
First thing, the court clerk instructed everyone to turn off cell phones and pagers, warning us that the judge does not like to be interrupted by them and, should he hear one go off in his courtroom, he is likely to put the offender in jail for 20 days. (Would that we could do that when people come through line at my bookstore talking on the damned things while we are trying to conduct business!) People started scrambling into their purses and pockets to turn their electronic gizmos off, and even though I had already turned mine off before even going into the room, the mere threat of 20 days in jail was enough to make me double-check.
Second thing, the clerk told us where we would stand when the judge called our case, with the complainant (formerly known as plaintiff) on the right and the defendant on the left of the podium in front of the judge. She then said that because the judge could possibly literally hold the lives of these people in his hands, there was to be no talking whatsoever in the courtroom when the judge was in the courtroom, other than from those whom he was addressing, so if there are adults in the room who could not refrain from making comments or talking during the proceedings, they should leave the room or risk the wrath of the judge.
Third, the clerk said that we are all courteous to one another in this courtroom, and there would be no interrupting when someone is talking and no confrontational remarks. The tone she used brooked no argument, but it also sounded a little like Romper Room once removed, and I would not have been surprised if she had ended it with, “Now, children, play nice.”
Because I have a total terror of standing and speaking in front of large numbers of people (anything larger than three qualifies), I was hoping to have the luxury of observing a few of these episodes go by before it was my turn so as to see exactly how it was done and perhaps get an idea of what else not to do that the clerk might have omitted from her instructions. The more people who went before me, the less of a packed house I would play to, so this was a factor, as well. I also admit that as we were waiting for the games to begin, I was observing a few situations in the embryonic stages that I thought might be interesting to watch unfold, so I was hoping to see at least some dramas come to fruition. (No, I don’t stop at wrecks on the highway; why do you ask?)
One scenario was developing right before my eyes. A lady who sat down in front of me was having a very serious case of the twitchies, and was almost convulsing. I surmised this was an attack of nerves, since I was apprehensive about my own upcoming ordeal, even though I knew I was in the right. (DTs also came to mind, but I was not the judge there, so I didn’t.) When they began calling out the names of all the players, one man’s name was called and the person had trouble pronouncing it; the woman in front of me pronounced it for them, and the man didn’t answer the call. Obviously the flipside of why she was there. A few minutes later, a man entered the room and took the only empty seat in the place, a chair at the end of the bench where I was sitting. They asked him his name, and he said the name the woman in front of me had said previously. A little while later, another woman came in, wearing long, curled-under fingernails and other accoutrements of tackiness; when they asked if she had business here, she said no, she was “with” someone, located him in the court and came around to the other side of the guy in the chair beside me and we scooted down to make room for them to rotate. A few minutes later, the woman in front of me (the one with the severe twitchies) turned around and gave the two of them an “if looks could kill” glare and held it on them before turning back around. Presently the man said something to the woman with him, and the one in front of me turned around and hissed, “Liar!” So much for playing nice and not talking. A couple dozen possible plotlines went through my mind as to who they might be to each other and how this would play out, but alas, I didn’t get to stay and watch.
When the roll call was given, Kristi’s name was called and no one answered. I, of course, showed up with my CD, police reports, notes, photographs of my deck to show that even if the latticework weren’t in place, it’s much too close to the ground for anyone over the age of three to be hanging around under it and a couple of pictures to show that the latticework was in place when I bought the house, as well as a CD player upon which to play the 7-call CD in case they had no such in the courtroom. So being the first one called (but of course!), I had to climb over the people who were a soap opera waiting to happen, complete with my folder and purse and CD player.
The good news is that unlike almost every other occasion in my life when speaking before more than three people at a time, I didn’t hear my heart thundering in my ears like a teenager’s car radio turned up full-blast, my breathing was normal and the butterfly farm normally present in my gut on such occasions was blessedly absent.
The bad news is that the whole thing was a bust. The judge said since I don't know Kristi and can't prove that she is the one making the calls, I can't have her arrested. He is going to "look at this case a bit more" and ask the police to get "a little more involved and investigate some more", and get back in touch with me. I offered to let him listen to the CD and even take it with him if he didn’t want to hear it there in open court, and he declined. I came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn't nothing he could do about it, and the judge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. No, wait, where did that come from? (Apologies to Arlo Guthrie, but the whole thing just seemed so damned familiar, I had to include that!) In other words, I'm screwed. Thank you, judge, I appreciate throwing away $15 ($10 for filing and $5 for parking) and half a day's leave, for not one damned thing. So now I’m back to wait-and-see. The police would have had a lot more to go on if the judge had listened to the CD (the last policeman that answered my call to arms declined to listen to the extended dance version and listened only to the most recent call that was still in my voice mail), including the PI’s number, with which I can do absolutely nothing but which might have been at least moderately useful to the cops.
Since I would have had to take my purse and folder and CD player and climb back over the seething threesome to get back to the only vacant seat in the courtroom, I elected to make a graceful exit and not stay to watch the rest of the show.
I did realize later that the judge’s last name was the same as my great-grandmother’s maiden name; I wonder if things would have gone differently if I had asked him where his family was from and intimated that we might be forty-seventh cousins twice removed?
The courtroom didn’t look much bigger than the classroom that housed my first grade class in 1963, so I’m guessing that this was Inferior Court rather than the Superior one. The place was absolutely jam-packed, seemingly with people who had bona fide business there rather than the press and your average court groupies.
First thing, the court clerk instructed everyone to turn off cell phones and pagers, warning us that the judge does not like to be interrupted by them and, should he hear one go off in his courtroom, he is likely to put the offender in jail for 20 days. (Would that we could do that when people come through line at my bookstore talking on the damned things while we are trying to conduct business!) People started scrambling into their purses and pockets to turn their electronic gizmos off, and even though I had already turned mine off before even going into the room, the mere threat of 20 days in jail was enough to make me double-check.
Second thing, the clerk told us where we would stand when the judge called our case, with the complainant (formerly known as plaintiff) on the right and the defendant on the left of the podium in front of the judge. She then said that because the judge could possibly literally hold the lives of these people in his hands, there was to be no talking whatsoever in the courtroom when the judge was in the courtroom, other than from those whom he was addressing, so if there are adults in the room who could not refrain from making comments or talking during the proceedings, they should leave the room or risk the wrath of the judge.
Third, the clerk said that we are all courteous to one another in this courtroom, and there would be no interrupting when someone is talking and no confrontational remarks. The tone she used brooked no argument, but it also sounded a little like Romper Room once removed, and I would not have been surprised if she had ended it with, “Now, children, play nice.”
Because I have a total terror of standing and speaking in front of large numbers of people (anything larger than three qualifies), I was hoping to have the luxury of observing a few of these episodes go by before it was my turn so as to see exactly how it was done and perhaps get an idea of what else not to do that the clerk might have omitted from her instructions. The more people who went before me, the less of a packed house I would play to, so this was a factor, as well. I also admit that as we were waiting for the games to begin, I was observing a few situations in the embryonic stages that I thought might be interesting to watch unfold, so I was hoping to see at least some dramas come to fruition. (No, I don’t stop at wrecks on the highway; why do you ask?)
One scenario was developing right before my eyes. A lady who sat down in front of me was having a very serious case of the twitchies, and was almost convulsing. I surmised this was an attack of nerves, since I was apprehensive about my own upcoming ordeal, even though I knew I was in the right. (DTs also came to mind, but I was not the judge there, so I didn’t.) When they began calling out the names of all the players, one man’s name was called and the person had trouble pronouncing it; the woman in front of me pronounced it for them, and the man didn’t answer the call. Obviously the flipside of why she was there. A few minutes later, a man entered the room and took the only empty seat in the place, a chair at the end of the bench where I was sitting. They asked him his name, and he said the name the woman in front of me had said previously. A little while later, another woman came in, wearing long, curled-under fingernails and other accoutrements of tackiness; when they asked if she had business here, she said no, she was “with” someone, located him in the court and came around to the other side of the guy in the chair beside me and we scooted down to make room for them to rotate. A few minutes later, the woman in front of me (the one with the severe twitchies) turned around and gave the two of them an “if looks could kill” glare and held it on them before turning back around. Presently the man said something to the woman with him, and the one in front of me turned around and hissed, “Liar!” So much for playing nice and not talking. A couple dozen possible plotlines went through my mind as to who they might be to each other and how this would play out, but alas, I didn’t get to stay and watch.
When the roll call was given, Kristi’s name was called and no one answered. I, of course, showed up with my CD, police reports, notes, photographs of my deck to show that even if the latticework weren’t in place, it’s much too close to the ground for anyone over the age of three to be hanging around under it and a couple of pictures to show that the latticework was in place when I bought the house, as well as a CD player upon which to play the 7-call CD in case they had no such in the courtroom. So being the first one called (but of course!), I had to climb over the people who were a soap opera waiting to happen, complete with my folder and purse and CD player.
The good news is that unlike almost every other occasion in my life when speaking before more than three people at a time, I didn’t hear my heart thundering in my ears like a teenager’s car radio turned up full-blast, my breathing was normal and the butterfly farm normally present in my gut on such occasions was blessedly absent.
The bad news is that the whole thing was a bust. The judge said since I don't know Kristi and can't prove that she is the one making the calls, I can't have her arrested. He is going to "look at this case a bit more" and ask the police to get "a little more involved and investigate some more", and get back in touch with me. I offered to let him listen to the CD and even take it with him if he didn’t want to hear it there in open court, and he declined. I came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn't nothing he could do about it, and the judge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. No, wait, where did that come from? (Apologies to Arlo Guthrie, but the whole thing just seemed so damned familiar, I had to include that!) In other words, I'm screwed. Thank you, judge, I appreciate throwing away $15 ($10 for filing and $5 for parking) and half a day's leave, for not one damned thing. So now I’m back to wait-and-see. The police would have had a lot more to go on if the judge had listened to the CD (the last policeman that answered my call to arms declined to listen to the extended dance version and listened only to the most recent call that was still in my voice mail), including the PI’s number, with which I can do absolutely nothing but which might have been at least moderately useful to the cops.
Since I would have had to take my purse and folder and CD player and climb back over the seething threesome to get back to the only vacant seat in the courtroom, I elected to make a graceful exit and not stay to watch the rest of the show.
I did realize later that the judge’s last name was the same as my great-grandmother’s maiden name; I wonder if things would have gone differently if I had asked him where his family was from and intimated that we might be forty-seventh cousins twice removed?
Labels: Nutty Neighbors
Monday, April 02, 2007
Acourting We Will Go
The judge who heard my complaint asked me how I knew this woman, and I told him as I had told the cop, I don’t know her – that’s the whole point. I have never seen her, met her, spoken to her (other than the brief moment when she caught me off-guard) or had anything whatsoever to do with her. He asked how I knew where the calls were coming from, and I told him that her number had shown up on my caller ID. He asked if there was a printout of that, and I said “no”. “Then how do you intend to prove it was her?” Well, Judge, how about a recording of all the calls save for one? Oh, okay. He told me there will be a hearing for probable cause, which means that I will present my evidence as to why I think she should be arrested for my charge, and determine if I have a legitimate complaint against her. He told me to obtain the police reports from the times I had called the police, and bring the recordings, and they will send me a letter to let me know when The Big Day is going to be. She will get a copy of the letter also, and is entitled to be there to present her side, but who knows if she will? The Big Day is this week, so I will let you know how it goes.
At some point during her recorded ramblings, Kristi kept saying my girls were watching her from under my deck. I have seen decks on houses in my neighborhood that are high enough that people can actually sit under them in lawn chairs and have a party, but at its highest point, my deck is only about two feet off the ground. Its entire underside is enclosed with latticework all the way around, so unless “my girls” were either leprechauns or able to walk through walls, I don’t see that happening, but that’s just one of many, many unlikely things she is alleging in her diatribes. A friend advised me to take pictures of the deck, using a ruler for scale, to prove that no one over the age of four could hang out under it even if the latticework was not there. The same friend advised me to take a CD player so I could play the CD of her calls, in case the court doesn’t have one available. Excellent advice, which I plan to follow. For “scale”, I am even thinking of getting my friend who is 4’9” tall to stand by the deck and show that even as little as she is, she couldn’t hang out under it. This will work especially well if she comes to court with me, which I think she is planning to do. Her husband is the one who converted the cassette to CDs for me, and we are considering putting them into mass production and selling them on ebay after all this is over. At $2 apiece, I could probably recoup any costs I may incur (not to mention the ones I have already incurred – the cost of a cassette recorder and the price of having charges filed against someone) pretty quickly.
Other friends have had some other entertaining ideas about what we could do with this, if we but dared. Most of them are totally out of the question, but quite amusing to think about doing, even if we can’t really do them. One friend said that she is just begging to be messed with, and suggested we take all the phone numbers I have and post them somewhere on the internet and set up some kind of crazy thing for everyone to say. Another friend suggested we go en masse to the O’Charley’s where she works and see if she recognizes me. (This friend is one of many who thinks she is going to be so surprised when she sees me and I’m not who she thinks I am.) As tempting as all this would be, of course we can’t do it, or it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy, as we WOULD be stalking her. Too bad – this could be fun!
I have not scotched the idea of mass-marketing the CD. Who knows – she could be the next American Idol! (Does American Idol have a comedy category?)
At some point during her recorded ramblings, Kristi kept saying my girls were watching her from under my deck. I have seen decks on houses in my neighborhood that are high enough that people can actually sit under them in lawn chairs and have a party, but at its highest point, my deck is only about two feet off the ground. Its entire underside is enclosed with latticework all the way around, so unless “my girls” were either leprechauns or able to walk through walls, I don’t see that happening, but that’s just one of many, many unlikely things she is alleging in her diatribes. A friend advised me to take pictures of the deck, using a ruler for scale, to prove that no one over the age of four could hang out under it even if the latticework was not there. The same friend advised me to take a CD player so I could play the CD of her calls, in case the court doesn’t have one available. Excellent advice, which I plan to follow. For “scale”, I am even thinking of getting my friend who is 4’9” tall to stand by the deck and show that even as little as she is, she couldn’t hang out under it. This will work especially well if she comes to court with me, which I think she is planning to do. Her husband is the one who converted the cassette to CDs for me, and we are considering putting them into mass production and selling them on ebay after all this is over. At $2 apiece, I could probably recoup any costs I may incur (not to mention the ones I have already incurred – the cost of a cassette recorder and the price of having charges filed against someone) pretty quickly.
Other friends have had some other entertaining ideas about what we could do with this, if we but dared. Most of them are totally out of the question, but quite amusing to think about doing, even if we can’t really do them. One friend said that she is just begging to be messed with, and suggested we take all the phone numbers I have and post them somewhere on the internet and set up some kind of crazy thing for everyone to say. Another friend suggested we go en masse to the O’Charley’s where she works and see if she recognizes me. (This friend is one of many who thinks she is going to be so surprised when she sees me and I’m not who she thinks I am.) As tempting as all this would be, of course we can’t do it, or it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy, as we WOULD be stalking her. Too bad – this could be fun!
I have not scotched the idea of mass-marketing the CD. Who knows – she could be the next American Idol! (Does American Idol have a comedy category?)
Labels: Nutty Neighbors
Call of the Wild Child, Part 5
Call 7: Early March, exactly two years to the day since the first call, Kristi called yet again. Fortunately, I was asleep, and my ringers were off, so the voice mail recorder got her call. Now “my daughter” has a name – Trina. She also has some job skills of which I was unaware – she and her friend Tammy are running a whorehouse up in north Georgia while they are stalking Kristi. Hey, I’m all for multi-tasking, so what’s the problem? Kinda makes me feel like a proud mama! Yeah, that’s my girl, all right! Rock on, little one.
So how does one go about proving one doesn’t have a daughter – or children of any kind? This call did it – this one was the last straw. At the beginning of this call, Kristi can be heard laughing, and throughout the entire call, as she is ranting and raving in a most maniacal way, someone else can be heard laughing in the background. It sounds like she is having entirely too much fun at this, so after I added this one to the long tape that was being developed, I started looking through my notes again (I didn’t want to have to listen to all the messages again – it’s rather creepy the first time, let alone multiple times later) to see what else I could find as to her current location. (I’m such a lousy stalker, I don’t even know where she lives.) [Guess I should ask Trina, eh?] All I have for her is a cell phone number, and although numerous people have told me those can be used to locate someone’s address, despite numerous attempts, so far it hasn’t happened. I suppose I could go to the PI for her address, but he was such an asshole the last time I talked to him that I’d just as soon not. He probably wouldn’t give it to me anyway. I googled one of the numbers I had written down in my notes, and it turned out to be the O’Charleys where she works, complete with street address, so now I had a work address, even if that was the only one I had. Now we can play hardball. (Perhaps the POE-leece will have to go to the PI for her address if they can’t find her at O’Charleys, and I don’t see him not giving it to THEM.)
I left the cassette of her messages with a friend to convert to CD, and the following Monday I went to the county courthouse and filed charges of telephone harassment against her, because I was told that what she has done so far does not entitle me to file a restraining order against her, since she isn’t calling me a certain number of times a day. With the work address, I at least had a fighting chance of getting some action taken against her.
So how does one go about proving one doesn’t have a daughter – or children of any kind? This call did it – this one was the last straw. At the beginning of this call, Kristi can be heard laughing, and throughout the entire call, as she is ranting and raving in a most maniacal way, someone else can be heard laughing in the background. It sounds like she is having entirely too much fun at this, so after I added this one to the long tape that was being developed, I started looking through my notes again (I didn’t want to have to listen to all the messages again – it’s rather creepy the first time, let alone multiple times later) to see what else I could find as to her current location. (I’m such a lousy stalker, I don’t even know where she lives.) [Guess I should ask Trina, eh?] All I have for her is a cell phone number, and although numerous people have told me those can be used to locate someone’s address, despite numerous attempts, so far it hasn’t happened. I suppose I could go to the PI for her address, but he was such an asshole the last time I talked to him that I’d just as soon not. He probably wouldn’t give it to me anyway. I googled one of the numbers I had written down in my notes, and it turned out to be the O’Charleys where she works, complete with street address, so now I had a work address, even if that was the only one I had. Now we can play hardball. (Perhaps the POE-leece will have to go to the PI for her address if they can’t find her at O’Charleys, and I don’t see him not giving it to THEM.)
I left the cassette of her messages with a friend to convert to CD, and the following Monday I went to the county courthouse and filed charges of telephone harassment against her, because I was told that what she has done so far does not entitle me to file a restraining order against her, since she isn’t calling me a certain number of times a day. With the work address, I at least had a fighting chance of getting some action taken against her.
Labels: Nutty Neighbors
