Barbara Sheehan was on Anderson Cooper today. She was acquitted for killing her abusive husband. He was a policeman, which in my opinion can be the worst.  Abusive police officers I mean. Unfortunately, there seems to a “good old boy” club with law enforcement. I know that they are not all bad. Many times though there is a fine line between the cops and criminals. I think many times those who like power and control are drawn to law enforcement as a career. Hopefully there are more that are drawn to the profession out of the desire to protect and serve.

This was not the case with the husband of Barbara Sheehan. She had lived with abuse from her husband for years. She was controlled, terrorized and victimized by this sob all of her married life. She warned women to run, if they ever are involved with a man who wants to control or manipulate them. Unfortunately many women have had experience with men like that. I know I have.

It just outrages me that women usually end up in prison for trying to protect themselves and or their children from abusive men. I went through this with my first marriage. I came from a family of extreme abuse. I swore I would not marry a man like my father. My father was not overly physically abusive when I was older but as children we were knocked around a lot. We are always verbally and emotionally abused on a daily basis. We lived in terror. It ended up that I walked right into a very familiar situation.

When my father heard that my ex-husband had hit me, he said, “Oh he never hit you that hard!”

I stupidly thought, “Well he didn’t really hit me that hard.” Then I said, wait a minute he is not supposed to hit me at all!”

When I called the police on my ex-husband, they told me that if I didn’t like it that I could leave the house. It was his house too. It wasn’t until Lisa Bianco got bludgeoned to death by her husband who was just released from prison that the laws became stricter. It was a bit late for me.

Fortunately I was never beaten to the extent that many women have been. I do know that the most dangerous time though, is when you are trying to leave. Restraining orders a joke. I am so glad that those days are over. What really troubles me is that most times when women kill their husbands in self-defense, they end up in prison. They should receive medals, as far as I am concerned.

Carol Alden is in a Utah prison for 15 years for manslaughter after years of abuse. Her husband murdered and tortured pets of her children and threatened to kill her children and her. When she killed him in self-defense she ended up in prison. This is insane. I hope that there are more women who do not go to prison when protecting themselves and their children now and in the future. Maybe these abusive men would stop and think that it isn’t okay to use your wives and children as punching bags. Maybe they would stop and think that maybe their wives wouldn’t go to prison for killing them after keeping them as hostages all of their married lives.

I also think that the laws should be changed so that if someone attempts to murder a spouse or child and that person lives, in spite of it, that the perpetrator should go to prison for life. Remember the father who set his little boy on fire? The little boy lived, severely scarred and damaged and had to fear his father getting out of prison in the future. You know what? The man did get out of prison! His son would have to live in fear of his monster father for the rest of his life.

Barbara Sheehan is still facing 5 years in prison for gun possession, the very same gun that she took from her husband’s hand after she shot him. He was still living and was going to shoot her with the gun that he had in his hand. Many people do not understand the terror that a woman or child goes through with a monster for a husband for father. If a man has threatened to kill you, and beats and tortures you, if you stand up to them the terror is beyond description. They become bigger than life. You don’t think that they will die. They will keep coming at you and they will kill you. I understand how Barbara shot her husband 11 times without knowing that she actually fired 11 bullets. I say BRAVO Barbara. Her children for the first time in their lives have felt free from worrying about their mother being murdered by their father. They are glad that he is dead and do not miss him. Her son said he remembers his father pouring boiling sauce on his mother as she sat on the kitchen floor. Her daughter said that her father threw her into a chair and many times her mother protected her from her father’s rage.

It is time that violence toward women and children and all people stop. Those who abuse need to be held accountable. 

The news
A man named Michael William Nivens (37) woke his girlfriend up because he noticed that his steak tasted different from hers.  He ended up stabbing her with a steak knife after he approached her about the steak.  This is what his girlfriend Jennifer Elizabeth Wear (32) told the police.

According to Jennifer, Michael drank five beers the night before he stabbed her.  He had told her over and over that he loved her.  The next day, he stabbed her with his steak knife.

When Jennifer went to sleep, she woke up to Michael putting the knife to her and telling her that he loved her.  According to the police report, Michael asked Jennifer why she wanted him to die.  Then he wanted to know why his steak tasted different from hers.

He pulled her hair and stabbed her with the knife.  Jennifer has cuts on her forehead and the back of her neck.  He also stabbed her fingers.  Michael admitted to the police that he stabbed his girlfriend.

There is no word whether or not Michael was arrested and charged for stabbing Jennifer.

My thoughts
I was shocked to read something like this.  Michael must have issues with Jennifer.  Did Michael have too much to drink?  Did he think she was trying to poison him?  Maybe she tried something different on his steak.  Maybe she used a different sauce with his steak.  If she didn’t do something different with his steak, maybe she did it with hers.

In Michael’s defense, maybe Jennifer was trying to do something to his steak.  There must have been some reason why his steak tasted different from hers.  I noticed while I was reading the story that she never explained why the steak tasted different from his.

Michael didn’t have to stab Jennifer over food.  If he noticed something different, he never had to eat the steak.  He didn’t have to stab Jennifer just because he noticed something different about the steak.  Stabbing Jennifer was not the right decision.  Now he will most likely go to prison because he noticed something different about his steak.  I can only imagine what will happen to him in jail if the other prisoners find out why he was in jail.

What are your thoughts this man stabbing a woman over food?  Do you think he had reason to stab her?  Do you think he overreacted to the situation?

The story
A man named Edgar Salvador Lucio Zamudio (22) beat up his friend Ricardo Rios (47).  They were at Ricardo’s house and got into a fight.  Ricardo asked Edgar to have sex with him.  Edgar refused to have sex with Ricardo and became upset with him. 

Ricardo threw a cement block at Edgar’s car.  Edgar became upset with Ricardo and beat him to death.  Edgar left the scene of the crime.  Ricardo’s body was found at his home.  Ricardo had a broken jaw, nose, orbital bone, and several ribs.

Edgar was taken into custody.  He is being held on a $1 million bail.  If he gets convicted, Edgar faces 25 years to life in prison.

My thoughts
I can’t believe that friends would fight over something like this.  I think both men could have handled Ricardo’s proposition differently.  Ricardo shouldn’t have risked his friendship with Edgar by asking him to have sex with him.  He also didn’t have to throw the cement block Edgar’s car. 

Edgar also shouldn’t have resorted to murdering Ricardo over a car.  He could have called the police and let the police handle the situation.  Now it’s too late to fix the situation.  Now he could possibly spend the rest of his life in prison and no longer has his best friend.  Edgar is only 22 years old and his life is possibly ruined.

What are your thoughts on this story about a man murdering his best friend?  Do you think both men are at fault?  Do you think that both men could have handled the situation differently?

It was the first day of high school. Peter felt like a big kid now. He finally made it to high school. In one of his classes he saw a very attractive girl. He said to himself I have to get to know her she is hot. When the teacher called roll he found out her name was Abigail St. James.

After school he saw her at the light waiting for it to change. He hurried up and stood next to her. He said “hi

my name is Peter I saw you in History class”. Abby said ” hi my name is Abby I am new here. We moved here over the summer.” The light changed and they both started across the street. Steve said I live down here too. Do you mind if I walk with you.?” She shook here head no. So they talked as the walked. Abby said her father got a big promotion so the had to move here. Abby said she missed all her old friends. Steve told her to make some new friends everyone is very nice around here. Abby said it is not easy making new friends.

Abby said ” This is my corner, thanks for walking with me.”

Peter said “I enjoyed it usually I walk alone. It is nice having someone to walk with.” Then he asked her when she left for school in the mornings. Abby told him. Peter said “Do you think we could walk to school together too.”

Abby smile and said that she would like that.

Then Peter gave her a hug as the parted. Abby said “ow” and winced.

Peter said “What’s wrong? I didn’t hug you that hard.”

Abby said “My father punished me last night and my back is sore.”

Peter suddenly got real concerned and asked how her father punished her.

Abby said “He hits me across the back with a belt.”

Peter suddenly got mad and said “I will take care of him. No one deserves that kind of punishment.”

Abby Pleaded “Don’t Peter! please don’t go anywhere near him it will just make things worse. He doesn’t do it

very often. Please Peter promise me you will stay away. If you care for me at all Please promise.”

Peter didn’t like it but he promised.

They parted and went there own way.

When Peter got home he went to his Mother and said “Mom do you have some time to talk I am real confused and concerned about something that happened today.

His Mom said ” I don’t have anything to do for about an hour. Lets talk now.

They sat down at the kitchen table and Peter told her all about meeting Abby and all that happened on the way home. he said Mom I think I really like Abby and when she told me I wanted to go beat him up but she made me promise to stay away.”

His Mom said “son you wouldn’t be my son if you didn’t feel that way, but beating up on Mr. St James is not the answer. Abby is right that would only make things worse. Mr. St James has an illness the makes him lose control

and beat up on his family. Mr. St James needs help. The best think you can do is be Abby’s friend and listen to

her. I think she really needs someone to confide in. It looks like she wants you. See if you can get her to go to UMY

(United Methodist youth) with you. Introduce her to some of your friends and when she is ready she will go to

the authorities and do what needs to be done. In the mean time I will contact DPS (Department of protective

Services) and see if they can start an investigation.”

Peter said “I guess I can do that. It won’t be easy I really want to knock some sense into Mr. St James. I feel so

bad for Abby and her sister.”

So for the next few week Abby and Peter walked to school and back everyday together. They talked about

everything. Abby did go to UMY with Peter and she had a good time and said she would go again.

One day as they met Abby was all upset. Peter asked her what was wrong.

Abby said last night her father broke her little sisters arm because she reached in front of him. She said it was

bad enough when she got hurt but she couldn’t stand by and watch Sara get hurt too. She asked Peter to come

with here she wanted to talk to Pastor John and ask him for help, but she didn’t want to go alone.

Peter said “let’s go.”

They walked to the church and found Pastor John.

Peter said “Pastor, do you have time to talked to us. Please it is very important”

Pastor saw the looks on there faces and said “come into my office.”

They sat together in front of the pastors big desk holding hands and Abby told the whole story. When she got through she was crying. Peter tried to comfort her as much as he could. When Abby got through Pastor had a look of concern on his face. He said “It is time to call the Police. This has gone too far. You are not safe in your own home. I had a feeling something was going on when you were always wearing long sleeves. I am sorry, I never guessed it was this bad..” Then he said “how long have you known about it? Peter.”

Peter said “since the first day of school. I walked her home and tried to give her a friendly hug and she winced in

pain. I wanted to go beat up Mr. St. James but Abby made me promise to stay away. Then Mom convinced me there was a better way to handle the situation.”

Pastor said “you and you sister will have to get checked out in the hospital and pictures will be taken and you

will probably be taken away from your Mom for a while. By the way where was your Mom when all of this was going on.”

Abby said “She works nights. Dad had me so scared I was afraid to say anything. Then when he hurt Sara. I decided I had to do something I didn’t want Sara getting hurt.”

The secretary got on the intercom and said the police are here. Pastor said send them it.

The police and a DPS office walked into pastors office. They were told the whole story. the DPS office said

“come on Abby we will get Sara out of school and get you both checked out”

Abby said “can Peter come? I really need his support right now.

The DPS officer said “it is highly unusual but ok” It might make things easier on you and your sister.”

Pastor said “Peter I am going to call your Mother. Didn’t she just become a foster parent? Maybe she can take

Abby and Sara for a while.”

Both kids had a big smile on their face. “Do you think it will work?’ They both said.

The DPS office said “I don’t see why not. but it is not up to me.”

Then the DPS office left with the kids and the police went to arrest Mr. St James. When the DPS officer got

to the hospital with the 3 kids Mrs. St James was already there. Then the DPS officer asked Mrs. St James if she

was ever abused by her husband. Mr. St. James started crying and said yes she was too. So Mrs St. James was

examined along with the girls and all the pictures were taken and all the reports made.

Mrs. St John was sent to a safe house along with the girls. The DPS officer said that Peter and Abby could not

have any contact while the family was in the safe house except at school. The location of safehouse has to remain a secret because some abusers come after their family and threaten them again. Peter said he understood and went home and the St James’s went to a safe house. Mr. St. James was arrested and thrown in Jail and when the trial came up he was found guilty and sentenced to a long time in Jail. Mr St James was also told he could never go

near his wife and girls again.

A few months later Peter got a call from Abby. They were out of safe house and in an apartment on the other side of town. She gave Peter the address. She said she needed to see Peter bad, so Peter got on the cross-town bus and went straight over to their apartment. The door opened and Abby was in his arms before he could even knock. She said hug me as hard as you like it, doesn’t hurt anymore. She said it was hard they all went to therapy and learned not to blame themselves. All the blame went where it belonged on her fathers shoulders. Abby said her mother is still working nights so she takes care of Sara after school. Abby said “why don’t you stay for dinner”. Peter said

“only if you let me buy Pizza, this is a celebration”. Peter called his mom and she said it was all right and was real glad to hear the family is doing so well.

here are some facts and myths about domestic abuse.

Myth: Only women and children are abused

Fact: Men are abused too but it is harder to get people to believe a man is being abused because he is usually

bigger.

Myth: Domestic violence is not common.

Fact: One woman is battered every 15 seconds.

Fact: One out of every four women will suffer some kind of violence at the hands of husband or boyfriend.

Myth: Domestic violence happens only in low-come families.

Fact: Domestic violence happens in all kinds of families-rich and poor, urban, suburban and rural- in every part of the country and in every racial and age group.

Myth: A beating is really just a couple of slaps and isn’t harmful.

Fact: More then 30% of hospital emergency room admissions are battered women. Domestic violence is the

single greatest cause of injury to women in the United States.

Myth: Wife beating happens only once or twice in a marriage.

Fact: Most beatings happen over and over. The batterer hits more often and harder

Myth: Some women want to be beaten. They ask for it. They deserve it.

Fact: No one deserves to be beaten. Everyone has a right to live free of violence.

Fact: Domestic Violence is a crime. It is against the law for anyone to beat of hurt another person.

Fact: Domestic Violence leads to murder. Husbands or domestic partners murder 3/4 of all women who are

murdered.

Fact: Domestic Violence harms children even if the children are not the targets of violence. Children who

witness their mothers’ being beaten or abused are likely to develop serious emotional problems. Many of these

children have low self-esteem and problems with trusting other people.

Fact: men who abuse their wives or partners are more likely to abuse the children in the home too. The presence

of spousal abuse is the single greatest risk factor in predicting child abuse.

Fact: Emotional and physical abuse lowers a woman’s self-esteem. Battered women are 4 to 5 times more likely

to require psychiatric treatment than women who are not abused.

Fact: A minority of adult batterers were themselves abused as children. One study found that only 30% of

battered children would grow up to be batterers as adult.

Fact: Domestic Violence costs the U.S. economy and estimated $3 to $5 billion annually in job absenteeism.

and another $100 million annually in medical expenses.

If you are in an abusive relationship. Please call for help Most communities have shelters for abused women and children there all also many many people that want to help, but you have to make that first call. The abuse will not

stop until you make the first call. Hear are the national numbers for domestic violence don’t be afraid to call them, they want to help. 800-799-7233 or tty 800-787-3224.

This book is an e-book and is offered on smashwords.com.  It explains the rights that men have lost.  We currently do not have rights in domestic or divorce courts when there is a woman involved.  It also discusses the rights of every man, woman, and child.  I lost my rights wrongly.  We must stand together and fight to ensure no others suffer the same fate as me.  http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ge).

I have also started a blog site for men.  http://www.rightsofmenlost.yolasite.com

                                                                   By Gerald Erwin                                                                               

                                                                      PREFACE

 I want to get to the meet of the matter, but I think it is important for the reader to know the real me before we get started.  This would entail me telling you about my life before the legal problems my ex-wife got me into.  I have never done anything violent in my life, nor have I put my hands on a woman in a harmful or aggressive manner in my life, yet I am a convicted felon twice over for doing just that.  Knowing my past would reinforce the concept that I am not a violent man and didn’t do anything to deserve the destruction of my life, which, incidentally was caused by a woman seeking revenge and nothing more. 

                                                                    CHAPTER 1

                                                    THE NIGHTMARE OF CHILDHOOD

I’ll start the story at the point where I was five years old.  We were living on Cocheese Street off Getwell in Memphis, Tennessee.  My father had gotten a job with Finance America as the manager of the Memphis branch three years before.  My mother was working at the Shelby County Road Department as a secretary.  My brother and I attended the Edgucare on Getwell.  At this time it was a very nice area.  We are talking thirty-five years ago, however. 

At the time I was five, they had saved up enough money to buy a piece of property in Ellendale Bartlett.  My parents sold the house in Memphis and we stayed with my grandparents, my mothers parents, for six months until the house was built.  By the time I was six years old, we moved into the newly built house.  The house was on the corner of Earlynn and Cynders.  

My brother, whose name was Lee, and I were going to start the next school year at Ellendale Elementary School.  I was starting there in first grade at the old Ellendale School building which was the last year that old building would be used as a school.  There was a new school building being built and wasn’t done with construction as of yet.  Everything seemed to be going pretty well for us, well for the first year anyways.

I started stealing pencils, erasers, and glue from desks while waiting for the bus in the afternoon.  I don’t know why I did that, I guess I just had a fascination with those items.  One day I just snapped to.  What I meant when I said that was I discovered GOD.  I then realized that a sin is a sin is a sin, meaning that it didn‘t matter what the sin was, it was just a sin.  I stopped stealing on that day. 

Mom was big into horses and was so since she was a little girl.  She paid rent at a barn around the corner from the house to keep Cherokee, the name of the horse.  Dad was having to go out of town here and there for business so mom kept herself busy by taking care of the horse and attending horse shows every week.  I grew to like those shows and grew to love Cherokee.  There was a drawback though, and that was most of the time she went to the barn to take care of the horse, my brother and I had to stay in the car, even in the hot summer.  We used to get on her CB radio and play.

I didn’t realize why at the time, but mom was always down in the dumps.  I realize now it was because dad was always gone out of town on business and she hated that.  She started to make stops at a liquor store next to the barn where she kept Cherokee.  She may have started drinking before hand, but if she had, she wasn’t hiding it any more.  

Not long after we moved into that house, the beatings started.  My brother and myself would get beat over the smallest ordeals and it rapidly became a regular thing and it rapidly intensified.  Her favorite weapon of choice was a thick, wide, black, leather police belt that my dad had gotten when he joined the reserves at the Shelby County Sheriffs Department.  She was sure not to discipline while he was around.  But she went hog wild with the over disciplining as soon as he left.

I was a very bright young boy.  My parents went to Hawaii when I was six years old.  My aunt was left in charge of us while they were gone.  It was a business trip for dad, but they were also using it for vacation.  One night during the week long vacation my parents were on, there was a very big wind storm.  I stayed up to watch TV.  

I didn’t know about the wind storm but was frightened when the garage door kept making noise.  It appeared and sounded as if someone was tampering with the garage door trying to get in.  I didn’t want to wake my aunt up for fear that I would get into trouble.  I called the sheriffs department and had them come out to investigate.  They came out and checked it out but all was fine.  At least I knew at a young age how to protect my home in case of an invasion.

We got home from school by 3:30pm and mom didn’t get home from work until 4:30pm.  My parents didn’t want to pay for after school care so my brother and I would stay in the garage until she got home, since they didn‘t trust us enough yet to give us a key to the house.  If she went to the barn first it would be even later.  Our dad worked in Memphis and even though he got off of work at 5:30pm, it would usually be after 6:00pm before he got home.

We had a neighbor that was the same age as us.  His name was Michael.  He was in the same grade as me and in 4th grade, he would be in the same class.  We would hang around him a lot.  He would hardly ever do what his mother told him to do.  He was an only child and spoiled rotten.  But we didn’t care because we were having fun.  Michael even taught us how to play poker.  We would play penny poker, hey we were kids and didn’t have real money.

We would hang around Michael for several years.  He would act in such a way that made me question his sexuality.  After a few years, I began to think he was gay or bi.  At that age he may have just been confused.  Perhaps he was sexually abused.  I will never know the truth of why he acted or behaved the way he did.  

This was long before I realized that all were equal.  I was raised with racial tendencies.  I would eventually have my eyes opened.  I now realize that it doesn’t matter.  Everybody deserves the right to be whom they want to be.  Everyone deserves the right to be what they want to be.  I am religious, but now realize that I would not dare to cast the first stone, I have much to answer for myself.

The summers were pretty cool.  We would go to a baby sitters house during the day while our parents were at work.  She lived on Whitten Road and is still there today.   She didn’t want to worry about us because she had a dozen brats or more to worry about.  She would fix a couple of sack lunches and take my brother and me to the Whitten Road Park.  She would dump us off at 8:30 in the morning and pick us up at 2:30 in the afternoon.  

We would eat our pb&j sandwiches and drink our mason jars of Kool-Aid as soon as we got there and play all day at that park.  We would play box hockey, climb trees, play board games in the pavilion, eat wild blackberries from the woods, swim with friends in the pond in the woods, climb the barb wired fence into the next door pasture and scare the cattle into a stampede, find returnable bottles to get money to spend at the neighborhood store, etc.  Yea, we did some crazy stuff. 

My grandfather on my mothers side was part owner of a compressor business.  He made very good money and saved every penny he could.  He owned a ski boat and loved taking the family to the Tennessee River to ski.  My brother and I were too little to ski but we would still go camping.  I remember my brother getting stung in the eye by a bee one year when we were very young.  The family convinced my grandfather that he couldn’t take it all with him when he dies, that he should enjoy spending at least some of it while he could. 

He took their advice and bought a piece of property at Greers Ferry Lake in Arkansas in 1975.  He rented a backhoe and broke ground soon after.  He dug a big hole in the side of the mountain and that is where he would begin to build a house that still stands today.  We went with dad one time in 75, after grandpa dug the huge hole in the side of the mountain where the basement would be built.  

The view from this mountain is simply breath taking.  From the property on the edge of the hill you can see the vast range of mountains that stretches for miles with the big blue lake that sits in the valley.  I was five at the time my grandfather broke ground, but my little brother and myself started to go with him when I was seven.  We would go with him every weekend for years to help him with the building of this house.

Grandpa brought a Honda trail bike with us to the lake.  It was a mini bike but we had a blast with it.  We rode the heck out of that thing.  We would work on the house, ride the bike, go skiing, lizard hunting, hiking the mountain side, and Saturday nights grandpa would take us to Heber to go skating at the skating rink.  He let us be boys, which was a refreshing change to that of our mom and that was she wouldn’t even let us be kids.  The weekends were a blast but the Sunday trip home would always come and we both knew we had to go home to mom.  

He would also get cases of pudding in tin cans from the lady across the street from his shop.  His shop was on front street and still stands there today.  The building is vacant now but the last business there was Memphis Machine Works.  I couldn’t remember where it was at first.  I am a pollution Control Inspector for  the City of Memphis.  I inspect restaurants.  

One day I was inspecting Guss’ Chicken on front.  I saw this building and was hit by a feeling that I had seen that building before.  I started having visions of what the area looked like 33 years ago.  One day I was at his shop and got a wild hair to go outside and look for that woman to see if I could get some pudding.  I never found her but that memory is still with me to this day.  

When I was 6, my littlest brother was born, but soon after I turned 7.  His name was Wes.  Mom’s drinking got worse and so did the beatings.  As an adult, I found out that I was mom’s favorite.  I was the only one that was planned.  My brothers were supposed accidental blessings.  That’s why we were abused.  Mom was a very selfish woman.  We kept her from getting everything she wanted and she resented us for that.  She tried, though, to get all she wanted by putting us last.  She always put herself first before us.  

It was always the we got hotdogs while she ate steaks kind of thing unless dad was around.  He kept telling her what’s good for the adults is good for the kids.  When he wasn’t around though, the selfish little girl in her would come out.  She would have a Mexican dinner from Poncho’s and we would have pimento cheese sandwiches.  We hated that crap but she didn’t care.  If we were hungry enough, we would eat it.  My brother and I would go to bed hungry many times.

My father gave us sound advice that year.  It was words I live by to this very day.  The first one he gave to us was: Don’t ever hit a women boys.  They are weaker than we are.  If you ever lay your hands on a woman, you’re a pussy!  There is one exception to that rule.  If she ever balls her fist up and punches you, she has put herself in a man’s place.  It is then and only then that you put her back in hers.  To this day a woman has not balled her fist up and hit me and to this day, I have never hit a woman.  

Another piece of advice that I also live by to this day:  A man is only as good as his word.  I don’t care how rich or poor a man is, if he doesn’t keep his word, he is not worth s@*t!  He gave others and I remember those words as though he told them to us yesterday and live by them all to this day.  

I am always on time no matter what.  If I can’t be there, I call and give a time I can.  I don’t lie.  I was never good at it.  I blame my mother for that.  She had a knack for always knowing if we were telling the truth.  I always keep my promises.  I know how it feels to be let down.

It was also at this age that I realized I had an artistic ability.  I was eating cereal one morning when I looked on the back of a box of Lucky Charms.  The cereal company was having an art competition.  I decided, what the heck.  I drew and colored an exact replica of Lucky Leprechaun.  I didn’t trace anything and was quite amazed at how well I did.  My parents were astonished at my art.  They never helped me submit the art but I didn’t care, I was still proud of it. 

One time my brother and I got together and decided we were tired of the beatings.  We threatened to call the police about the abuse.  She just slammed the phone down in front of us daring us to actually do it.  She taunted us with the phone.  It was a scare tactic that she used and it worked.  It kept us from reporting her and we continued to deal with the abuse for many years.

Mom got a second horse.  Her name was Misty.  She didn’t ride her In shows that much.  She still rode Cherokee most of the time.  I enjoyed going to them shows.  While mom was busy running the barrel races, my brother and I would play around the arena goofing off.  However, when she was done we had to be back for fear of getting into trouble.  She had a lot of trophies and ribbons in a small room of the barn.  That woman was serious about her passion for horses and would stop at nothing to achieve her passion.  That is only part of the reason we always came last. 

This one weekend we went over to my grandparents house.  We had a small cookout.  My brother and I were mostly playing in the backyard with the back neighbor kids whom was our friends, Kristy and Jeff.  I had a crush on Kristy, and would never tell her.  That particular day was a bad blow to the music world, for Elvis died the night before.  I remember the exact spot I was standing in that backyard when I found out that he died.

During the summer at the park, personnel took everyone to the theater one day.  Star Wars had just come out.  It was a big movie and everyone wanted to see it.  The day I saw that movie was the day I became a Star Wars fan.  It would be many years before the entire series would be completed.  I still love Star Wars to this day and will ignore all when it is on.  

The babysitter’s son was home quite a bit that summer.  His name was Chucky.  He was pretty cool.  He would wrestle with us sometimes and he loved to play rough.  He would sometimes take us through the woods behind the house to the store.  

I don’t hold anything against my dad for not being around.  He had to do what he had to do to try and appease that selfish woman and put food on the table.  He was the bread winner of the family.  I loved that man and every time he came home from work, my brother and I would jump in his arms.  He and my grandfather would forever be the best friends I ever had, guy friends that is.  The woman I married many years later would become my best friend.  However, my father and grandfather on my mom’s side were my best friends for they never betrayed me.  

None of us boys could stand mom.  She never hugged us and she rarely ever told us she loved us.  I remember one night as a young boy, I went with mom to the store.  She asked me in the store parking lot, “how much do you love me”?  I said, “my love for you is as vast as the stars in the heavens mom”.  My skin crawled as I said that for I was lying through my teeth, but it pleased her to hear that poetic type description about my love for my mother coming from her 7 year old son.

I still pulled my pants down to my ankles to use the bathroom at the urinal.  That is until one day I was with my parents at Cherokee Lanes on Park, a bowling alley that is no longer there.  These particular lanes had a cool layout.  There were the regular lanes that most people would use.  There was, however, a different set of lanes in the back that you had to use this corridor to get to.  People liked to use those lanes when their was betting involved.  They were avid bowlers and that was the place they bowled.  This boy told me one night at the lanes that I was old enough to pull my zipper down to use the bathroom.  I tried it out and found that it was so much easier.   

We started the new school year at a newly built school.  Over the summer I turned 8.  I was in second grade and Miss Bobbitt was my teacher.  School was going ok but the highlight was going with our grandpa every weekend to the lake.  It was an escape from our abusive life with mom.  We literally hated that woman.  I know that hate is a strong word, but we really did.  Come to think of it, those weekends with our grandpa in the mountains were the best times of our childhood.  

Mom was drinking all the time and the abuse was about as frequent.  The abuse was taking its toll.  My brother was always getting into trouble and was grounded for something all the time, but I, on the other hand, became very timid and shy.  I couldn’t look a girl in the eyes.  I became a nerd so to speak.  I felt compelled to excel in school.  Nobody ever had to tell me to study, I did that on my own.   

Our mom got an Australian Shepherd dog.  His name was Bo.  He followed mom everywhere.  He was fun to play with but he became mean when it came to his steak bones.  He wouldn’t let anyone near him when he had one of those bones.  I didn’t care for Bo that much.  My favorite dog was Shanook.  He was an Alaskan Malamute.  He was huge.  My brother and I would ride him like a horse when we were little.  He was very old and ran away to die a year before.  He had been with us since we lived on Cocheese.  I still think about Shanook to this day and remember how gentle he was.  

Here is the reason I brought that dog, Bo, into the story.  At this time mom trusted me enough to give me a key to the house.  In the mornings before getting on the bus, we locked Bo up in the hall bathroom and jammed my little brother’s toy box up against the door so he couldn‘t get out.  There was one day in particular I had a feeling.  I had a feeling he was going to get out.  I triple checked the door.  I even stuffed so many toys in the toy box that the lid wouldn’t close.  It was so heavy I could barely move it.  I remember thinking, that’s not going to be enough.  I remember feeling uneasy all day at school.  

When the bus dropped us off that afternoon, I saw mom’s truck in the driveway.  I remember thinking why is mom home?  I quickly ran up to the house and ran in.  What I saw was unbelievable.  Bo had gotten out of the bathroom and ransacked the house.  It was then I realized I had the gift that mom had.  The gift of premonition.  Her expensive leather saddle with laced silver was in the closet behind the master bedroom door but was not closed that morning.  That saddle I later found out was worth 1,200.00 dollars.  That was a lot of money in the 70’s let alone now.

She was livid, yelling at the top of her lungs.  I tried to tell her that I closed him up, that I double and triple checked the door, and that I loaded the toy box down with extra toys.  She wasn’t hearing any of it.  She only knew that her favorite saddle was destroyed and somebody had to pay, and it wasn‘t going to be that dog!  She told Lee and me to lean over the chewed up saddle, which by this time was sitting at the foot of the bed next to the window.  

She took the leather saddle strap that was laced with silver and began to use it like a whip.  She swung at us with all her strength.  We screamed with horrific pain but she wanted the screams of pain to be louder with each swing.  She would take running swings when she got tired.  She swung till she just didn’t have the strength to swing any more.  

When she finally stopped, she told us to go to bed without supper.  We stumbled down the hall crying uncontrollably.  We got our pajamas on and laid down in the bed very softly.  It was still daylight outside and would be for hours.  She had made us go to bed around 4:00pm.  She had hit every where but the butt.  I remember praying out loud for GOD to smite her for what she was doing to us.  That was by no means the only time I prayed those words.

The abuse was taking it’s toll.  It had been bad for some time, but that incident concerning the saddle was the straw that broke the camels back.  I started checking locks multiple times.  That branched off into flipping the light switch multiple times to make sure the power to the light switch was completely turned off.  It rapidly got worse.  I would be walking down a sidewalk and would step over a crack, but then I had to make sure that I did not step over the next crack with the same foot.  If I did, I would step twice, skipping kind of, on the other foot to even it out.  I would also always be looking at the ground and never straight forward.   

I was bright enough to realize that this is not normal behavior.  I realized that this behavior was called OCD, (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).  No one else was acting this way so I knew it wasn‘t normal.  I started in reverse order that the problems escalated into to fix the problem.  At first, the way I broke myself of the cracks in the sidewalk problem was actually quite simple.  

I would take that old rhyme and twist it to the extreme.  Step on a crack and break your mothers back.  I forced myself to step on a crack, hoping to break my mother’s back.  In time, no matter how hard it was, I would force myself not to pay attention to the cracks in the sidewalk.  In time I forced myself to look straight forward and not at the ground.  It would take me years to force myself to change my habit, but I proved to myself that it could be done and eventually the rest followed suit. 

The next Sunday, after the incident with the dog destroying the saddle, my grandmother, my mom’s mom, came over to have breakfast with us.  Dad was gone on a business trip.  Mom told me to put Bo in the bathroom and to make sure I secured the toy box against the door this time.  I remember to this day where everyone was sitting, and that was 33 years ago.  

Mom’s back was facing the hall that led directly to the hall bathroom, grandma was sitting across from her, Lee was at the head of the table, and I was sitting at the end, to mom’s right with my back to the dining room window.  We were eating and we heard a loud bang.  It was coming from the bathroom.  We heard it again.  I said that’s Bo.  We heard it several more times.  Finally he pushed the door open.

I looked straight at my mom and said, “see, we did close him up.  He can get out”!  I can’t begin to tell you how astonished and appalled I was to hear those words come out of her mouth!  Saying them like it was no big deal.  “Oh well,………it’s in the past”!  We suffered horribly over nothing!  She never would apologize for anything!  I looked straight at grandma and she looked away but not before saying, “what are you looking at me for”?  The family knew she was abusing us but they just sat back and did nothing.  They felt it wasn’t their place.  I never felt the same about my grandmother after that day.  In my opinion that was the same as abusing us themselves.

When dad got home from his trip, he already knew about Bo getting out and the saddle that was destroyed.  Both Lee and I tried to tell him about the beatings we were getting from mom.  He passed it off as though we were exaggerating.  He loved mom madly and couldn’t believe or comprehend that she was capable of such an atrocity.  It wouldn’t be long, however, before he would find out the truth.

Mom got two more horses that year.  Now that was a little much if you ask me, but she had to have them.  One was Jigger boy and the last one, a quarter horse, was JC.  I didn’t quite understand why she had to have all those horses.  We weren’t going to shows and/or races anymore.  She was now keeping them at a friend’s barn, some guy from work, deep in Shelby County.  I think she just had to make an impression to people.

That summer at the park, we would spend most of the summer climbing the big oak tree in front of the pavilion.  We would have a contest that summer to see who could get the highest by the end of that summer.  One day towards the end of summer, I got bored and decided to climb to the very top of that tree and be crowned the king.  

I got to the highest spot anyone had gone.  I remember looking out over the park before I took that last step.  There was a park commissioner playing tennis with my brother on the tennis court and the other, which was a female, was playing Chinese checkers with two boys in the pavilion.  I took that last step to earn my crown.  I heard a snap under me and thought to myself, uh oh,….that limb was dead. 

I fell thirty feet to the bottom hitting every limb on the way down.  The female employee came up to me and asked if I was ok.  I, of coarse said, “no“.  Of coarse I was whimpering when I said that.  I had to go to the emergency room that day.  My mom was notified immediately and she told them to wait till she got there so she could take me to the emergency room.  

When she got there, I said while whimpering, “I can’t see, I can’t see”!  I had a concussion on my forehead big enough to put my fist in.  She didn’t want me to go to the emergency room via the ambulance for it would have cost her extra.  I mean I had a concussion the size of a fist and could have had severe brain swelling and she was worried about the extra cost.  A plastic surgeon had to sew part of my left ear back on.  I earned the nickname of superman that summer.   I got crowned alright!

I started the third grade.  I turned 9 during the summer.  My teacher was Miss Tupper.  She was a mean old goat.  My first hard crush was that year.  I met a girl by the name of Kristen Leslie.  She was blonde with blue eyes.  She was beautiful!  She said hi and struck up a conversation.  

I was very shy but we were just friends.  We would hang around each other every day for we were in the same class of course but we would talk all the time and eat lunch together.  She was my best friend in third grade.  I hated our teacher but I hated even more when the school year ended.  I wouldn’t see her all summer and I didn’t know if we would be in class together the next year.  I hated the fact that I didn’t have the guts to tell her how I felt.

I was doing pretty good in school  but the effort started to pay off in third grade.  I got my first honor roll in third grade.  I remember where I was standing when I opened my report card and noticed it was all A’s and B’s.  Miss Kathy, a neighbor across the street, was holding her son Jason when she heard me say in disbelief that I got an honor roll.  She said, “that’s very good Jerry”.  I was high on the hog that day.  When my mom saw it she just said, “that’s good Jerry”.  She acted like it was no big deal.  There was nothing we could do to be right for that woman.

By this time grandpa was finished with the downstairs.  The downstairs took the longest for he built the downstairs underground.  He built it with concrete, ran electricity, ran the water, built the only bathroom, and installed a septic tank.  In the spring grandpa started the upstairs.  It went pretty quick for all of it was wood.  By mid summer I turned 10.     

We were still allowed to go to the park the summer of 1980 which was to my surprise.  We would still do crazy stuff like swim in the pond in the woods, cause a stampede in the pasture next door by crawling in the weeds up to the cows by making moooing sounds, then jumping up right in front of the cows, and play gun wars with friends in the woods next to the pasture.  Tree climbing days were over for me, however.  One thing was different though.  The original park commissioners were not there this year.  I remembered thinking it was because of me that they weren’t there anymore. 

August had arrived and the school year was beginning.  I remembered feeling very anxious, wondering if I was going to be in the same class as Kristen.  When I discovered that I was, I sighed in relief.  I was going to be in class with her again this year.  I had Miss Kramer.  She was pretty cool.  She did things a little differently.  She had the desks put is six different groups.  The were lettered from “A” to “F”.  Everybody was on a point system.  

At the beginning of each month our scores were added up.  The highest were put in group “A” and the lowest in group “F”.  Kristen was almost always in group “A”.  Sometimes in “B”.  I fought to get the highest scores that I could so I could at least be on the same side of the room as her.  Twice I was in the same group as her.  One day my mother came to my class and Kristen said, “your mother is beautiful”.  I just simply replied, “yea I guess”.  We were both in “A” at the time. 

Lee was wild so to speak and loved to scare Wes.  Wes was three at the time.  There were times that mom and dad left us at the house alone for a little bit while they did errands.  This one day Lee got a wild hair up his butt and decided to act crazy and scare Wes to the point of crying.  He grabbed a baseball bat and chased Wes around the house with it swinging the bat like he was going to hit him.  Wes, was of course, scared out of his mind. He ran into his room and closed and locked the door and jumped under the bed.  Lee was still swinging away and hit the door, scaring him even more, and accidentally put a hole in it.  Well, it was as accidental as accidentally on purpose could get. 

Lee begged Wes to take the blame for it.  When dad came home, he asked what had happened.  He was upset by the way.  Lee told him that Wes swung the bat playing and hit the door.  Wes reluctantly concurred. Dad didn’t buy it but what could he do?

I was the worry wart of the family.  I always worried about everything, including the little things.  One time not long after Lee put a hole in Wes’ door, I partially broke the plastic guiding clip that kept the sliding closet doors straight in our room.  I spent a couple of weeks gluing and re-gluing that clip trying to get it to the point of looking like it hadn’t been touched.  It kept coming apart and it was eating me up with worry trying to fix it before it was noticed.  Dad finally saw it and was upset, not because it was broke, but that I didn’t come to him about it. 

October rolls around and grandpa is putting up the last remaining wall on the second story.  The roof was already completed.  We helped grandpa put on the roof.  He got help from a friend and neighbor to help raise the wall.  His name was Mr. Rose.  He helped grandpa here and there.  They were putting up the wall and grandpa seemed to have strained himself.  As we were heading back to Memphis, granpa seemed to have been in pain the whole way.  That would be the last time Lee and I would go to the lake with grandpa.

Lee had done something to upset mom.  She made the mistake of telling dad before she disciplined him.  She was in the process of beating him with the black police belt.  Dad immediately came home and came up behind her just after she hit him across the back.  When she pulled back for another swing, he grabbed her arm and said, “don’t you ever hit my kids like that again”!  He realized on that day that we were telling the truth.  But unfortunately, that was the beginning of the end.  See mom was a control freak and she realized on that day that she was losing control.

School was going pretty good.  I made honor roll most of the six weeks.  A few times it was mostly B’s but I was still doing pretty good.  Kristen and I would talk all the time and ate lunches together.  We would sit together in the library.  During recess we would get teams together and play Frisbee.  Classmates would ask if we were boyfriend/girlfriend.  We would just tell them that we were just friends.  I still didn’t have the guts to tell her that I liked, liked her.  I never even asked for her phone number.

Grandpa admitted himself into the VA hospital.  I didn’t know why at the time but later discovered that it was for exploratory surgery.  He never came out of that hospital.  We visited him at the hospital.  He looked so sad. I didn’t know why at the time but later I found out that he had cancer and it was terminal.  We said our goodbye’s and kissed him on the cheek, not knowing that that was the real last goodbye.  His eyes started to tear up for some reason.  That was to be the last time we would see him.  

A week later dad sat us on the couch and told us that granpa had passed.  I cried so hard for my best friend in the whole world was gone.  He died, not from the cancer, but from a heart attack.  A blood clot that originated from the exploratory surgery had broken away and lodged in the heart.  At least the good lord didn’t let him suffer.  He passed in February of 1981.   To this very day I miss that gentle giant!

Soon after grandpa’s funeral, dad quit his job with Finance America.  Mom tried to tell us that he quit because he was fixing to get fired.  She was always trying to turn us away from our father.  It would never work, mainly because we knew that she was full of crap and the other was we just simply didn’t like her.  I think he was fixing to get laid off because soon after that, Finance America closed its Memphis Branch.

Dad got a van and started to sell tools out of the back of it.  He was gone a lot for the money he made depended on his sales.  That was another nail in the coffin so to speak.  That is, it was another reason mom wanted to leave dad.  Not only did she know that she was losing control but her financial security was diminishing.  Mom never had to take care of herself and she, quite frankly, began to panic.

Mom came by the house after we got off the bus one day not long after dad started a new job.  I think it was In March because it was warm outside.  It was her Chevy truck but it wasn’t her driving.  There was a man driving and she was sitting right next to him.  She said, “boys this is Bob”.  I may have been 10 years old but I was no where close to being stupid.  She brought Bob around a couple of times, while dad wasn’t around of course, to basically get us used to him.  People need to wake up and realize that kids are much smarter than they give them credit for.

The end of the school year was near and I still didn’t tell kristen Leslie how I felt.  I will tell her next year for sure I thought.  I was sad to see the last day of school come and go for I knew I wouldn’t see her until next year.  Little did I know at that time that it would be years before I would see her again.  She was my best friend in school.  She was also very sweet.    

Mom asked me one moning while we were getting ready for us to go the babysitters and her to work what I thought about Bob.  I said he seemed to be alright.  She said I think you’re old enough and mature enough to tell you something.  I’m thinking about leaving your father.  I remember thinking, I knew that was coming.  I knew she was seeing Bob on the side before she told me that.  I just said, well ok.  She told me not to say anything to my father.  I look back and think I should have.  She just wanted out over control and money.  She was a selfish, self centered woman, and I couldn’t stand her.

The middle of the summer came by and mom packed our stuff and left.  She made us boys sit in the back of the truck and as we drove off, I could see dad standing at the garage door.  The garage door was up and he had his arms extended up above his head resting on the bottom lip of that garage door.  He looked sad but then again so were we.  We loved our dad very much.  We wanted to stay with him.  We couldn’t stand mom.  I wish I had the guts back then just to tell her to go away and never come back.  I wish I had the guts to tell the authorities and the judge that she abused us and on a regular basis.  We might have been able to stay with our dad!

                                                                   CHAPTER 2

                                               THE BEGINNING OF A NEW WHATEVER

We moved into the Garden Walk Condominiums in Raleigh Memphis.  Mom’s new friend, Bob helped us get settled in.  Come to find out, he lived in a condo just down the street.  As if I didn’t see that coming.  Bob was actually a pretty cool guy.  He would sleep over on the couch.  Now that was very sweet.  He stayed on the couch and didn’t take advantage of our mother!  Actually I could have cared less now that I think about it. However, parents shouldn’t take the intelligence of their children into question.

A week went by and we were pretty much settled in.  It was still summer so we had to stay at the condo by ourselves.  Before we moved out of Ellendale Bartlett, I turned 11 years old.  Lee was 9 and Wes was 4.  I didn’t mind watching them just as long as we didn’t have to be around mom.  

Another week went by and mom was notified by child services.  Apparently somebody notified child services due to the fact that I was taking care of two younger brothers and wasn’t old enough to do that.  So mom hired a baby sitter.  Her name was Shelly.  She was 12.  She was not even a year older than me.  She lived next to Bob and I think that’s how she became our sitter.

Shelly was pretty cool.  She wasn’t worried too much about me for I was pretty much the same age as her but rather my two younger brothers.  Come to think of it we became pretty good friends so to speak.  The three of us would play card games, board games, go walking, or just hang out.  She would have her sister and friend come over.  Her sister’s name was Monica and her friend‘s name, who also lived in the condos, was Tracy.  We would all hang out. 

One day I had a chance to lose my virginity.  While my brother’s were occupied with a board game, she told me quietly in the hall, “I want to show you what a slut is.  Give me a minute then come into your room”.  I said, “ok”.  A minute went by and I walked in and she was butt naked in my bed.  She said, “shut the door”.  I shut the door.  She said, “get in the bed”.  

It would be totally obvious to anybody else that she actually wanted to have sex with me, but wasn‘t to me.  I was too shy to realize that.  I just said, “well ok, when you get your clothes back on, shut the door behind you”.  Yea I was an idiot!  Young, dumb, and full of everything but piss and vinegar so to speak.         

Right after we moved in, I met a guy by the name of Phillip.  My brother, Wes, was playing on the playground and got hurt.  Phillip came to his aide.  That is when we met.  We became friends and are still friends to this day.  Phillip was kind of a nerd , but I liked him.  He was a good guy with a good heart.  

That boy was very smart, but he didn’t have a lick of common sense.  His mom was cool but babied him.  He was the only child so he got special treatment.  He was such a momma’s boy.  His dad was mean.  He worked at night at Velsicol.  He got that job the day before Phillip was born.  I know this because I worked in Industrial Monitoring and inspected Velsicol and was there frequently.  His dad and I became pretty good friends when I was an adult.  All and all though, Phillip was the truest friend and one of the best friends I ever had.    

One day Princess Diana and Prince Charles’s  wedding was on TV.  It was on every channel.  All we had was basic TV.  I remember thinking, why is that on every channel?  I could care less what was going on in another part of the world.  After all it didn’t pertain to us, or did it?  

While that was on, I remember thinking also that school was going to start in a couple of weeks.  We were going to start at a different school, Egypt Elementary.  I remember getting depressed for I was thinking I might not ever see Kristen again, therefore I would never get the chance to tell her how I really felt about her.  But I  mostly missed the friendship we had developed.

The first day of school came.  I started fifth grade.  I did very well in all subjects.  I was in fifth grade but was at twelfth grade reading level.  My favorite of the two teachers was Miss Yarbrough.  I was the teachers pet so to speak, but she was cool.  

That was the first year that we had more than one teacher.  I made honor rolls quite a few times that year.  Quite frankly the city school system was behind the county school system, but it was still an adjustment.  The city school system sucked, but I had to make do.  But then again, it wasn’t like I had a solid choice.  

I did befriend the manager of the lunch room at the elementary cafeteria.  Her name was Miss Edwards.  She was very sweet and a great conversationalist.  She always called me Jeff though.  She said she didn’t want to call me Jerry because I looked more like a Jeff.  I didn’t care what she called me quite frankly.  I went to her office and talked to  her every morning for years.  Once I got into high school, it became only once in a while.  Other than that, the year was pretty much a blur.  Miss Edwards was real nice.  I felt bad for her.  When I met this woman, her husband had passed on a few years before.  The loss didn’t make her bitter for she was one of the sweetest women I ever knew.  

Soon after school started, mom and Bob came home one afternoon dressed up.  Lee and I asked them why they were dressed like that?  Mom told us that her and Bob went to see a justice of the peace and got married.  That was a bit sudden I thought.  I guess they were in a hurry.  They got married two weeks after mom and dad’s divorce was final.  

We immediately moved into Bob’s condo that evening.  At least he did have Star Wars and Animal House on tape, and it was Beta.  That was a blast from the past.  I do remember every day after school that year I watched Star Wars and Animal House while doing homework, and in that order.  I must have watched those two movies at least a couple of hundred times.  To this day they still never get old.

I do have to say Bob was a gentle man, very laid back.  He never laid a hand on us but one time, and that was to spank us.  Quite frankly I know we deserved it, and on more than one occasion at that.  When I asked later why he would never discipline us, he said he didn’t feel it was his place.  Surprised the heck out of me.  He may have been a step-father, but I actually thoroughly enjoyed spending time with him.  

Bob didn’t fit the cliché type of step-fathers, and that seemed weird coming from a retired gunnery sergeant from the Marines.  Even though I missed my dad, I did grow to like Bob quite a bit.  Bob joined the Marines when he was 17 years of age.  His mother past away when he was born.  His father abandoned him and his sister, and left them with their aunt in Missouri.  His father got remarried and had another family all together.  Bob was raised on a farm and grew up picking cotton for 50 cents a day.  He hated it.  

He got in trouble with the law when he was a kid several times.  The judge gave him a choice, jail or The Marines.  Of coarse he chose The Marines.  He kept re-enlisting and ended up making a career out of it.  He was a gunny and a helicopter pilot.  He told me once, when I asked him why did you keep going from one war to another.  His answer was he enjoyed killing.  One day he snapped, and started feeling guilty about that.  He left the Marines and turned over a new leaf.  Never again would he harm another creature as long as they didn’t cause harm to him or his.  He became one of the coolest, nicest, most gentle guys you would ever meet.   

The beatings weren’t as often but they did still occur.  One time my brother got some change out of mom and Bob’s coin jar.  When mom discovered that he took money, she was livid.  She made Lee lean over the bed and started to beat him with the police belt, that she still had.  The whole time yelling at the top of her lungs that she hated thieves.  I was standing at the bottom of the stairs.  I could hear the screams.  Every three or four hits I would hear her yell, get back up there, I’m not done yet.  This would go on and on.  I remembered crying for I didn’t have the guts to go yank that belt from her.  The next morning he came in my room before getting ready for school.  He had bruises all over his neck, back, and legs.  Not a single mark on his butt.

The first Christmas after my parents split was kind of weird.  I knew my father had to keep up the bills at the house, therefore I knew he didn’t have a lot of money.  He got me a 150 in 1 scientific set, which I loved and made use of to the extreme.  My brother got a car that ran on water.  It actually ran on water and it was amazingly simple technology.  Right after Christmas they disappeared off shelves and was never seen again.  

I did enjoy the time we got to spend with our father.  Soon after the divorce was final he moved into an apartment.  It was an apartment off Night Arnold.  That was a crappy apartment and was in a crappy area in that time, which is way more so now.  Is a matter of fact, those apartments are vacant now.  

At this time he was a security guard at the Hickory Ridge Mall.  We especially loved the lock ins overnight on the weekends.  They were very cool.  It would be him and one other guard and us over night at the mall.  He was friends with everybody.  My dad had one heck of a sense of humor and his charisma made everybody love him.  The guy that ran the arcade would load up the games with free credits for his kids, which was us.  His shift started before the mall closed.  We would get to play free games and we would also get free cookies from the bakery.  My brother and I would have a great time.

Right after mom and Bob got married we got into Boy Scouts.  We were in troop 263.  At the jamboree we went by the slogan: Troop 263, the best in Tennessee.  When neither my brother or myself were picked by the council at the jamboree to be members, I had a feeling we were going to pushed out.  It wasn’t long before I realized that that was coming to pass shortly.    

I was the scribe of the troop.  Boy Scouts was fun, especially the camping trips.  I loved to go camping.  I went through the ranks pretty fast but a little over a year it came to an abrupt halt.  The scout masters stopped seeing me on badge requirements.  I was at the life badge.  I was studying for my Eagle scout.  All my requirements were met in the manual and all I needed was to perform some tasks after the badge requirements were met but the scout masters wouldn’t get with me on any of it.  We rapidly lost interest and quit scouts a couple of months later. 

Shortly after I turned twelve, we moved into a house in the old Forrest Lakes sub-division.  We were on Lakehurst and we were the last house on the left in the cove.  Back in 82, it was a nice area in Memphis.  I remember seeing a few cases of beer in my closet when we moved in.  That summer was the first time my brother and myself drank beer.  Hot beer does suck by the way.  There are some beers that taste good warm, but Coors and Michelob were not in that category.    We spent the rest of the summer at home by ourselves during the day.  Mom would take Wes to the sitters because he was too young to stay with us.

My brother and myself met a guy around the corner from us.  His name was Derek.  Lee was about to be in 5th, I was about to be in 6th and Derek was about to be in 7th grade.  We all three became good friends.  We would hang out and do a lot of things together.  My mom was lame so we would spend the night at his house quite a few Friday nights.  We would go up to the Raleigh Springs Mall.  In 82, the mall was the local hangout or rather the place to be.  It was packed, wall to wall with people on Friday nights.

My father met a woman in 82.  She was the assistant manager of the GCC (General Cinema Corporation) theater in the Hickory Ridge Mall.  She was half his age.  She was 19 years old and my father was 39.  She was pretty cool though.  Her name was Toni.  Because she was in management, we got to see all our movies for free.  The movie that stands out above all others that year was The Thing, or for the decade for that matter.

I also developed another crush that summer that would last for a couple of years.  I was riding my ten speed bike one afternoon and Derek was talking to his girlfriend, Stacey, and some other girl and Keith was with them.  Keith was another friend that lived on that street.  He was older than all of us.  I didn’t remember seeing this girl at school but she lived down the street.  I rode up and started talking to them.  I was too shy to talk much to the girl I had never met.  Her name was Michelle and come to find out she went to a private school.  I did get that much from everyone’s conversation.  She was beautiful.  Stacey said that she liked me but I knew she was messing with me for she had never met me.        

The first day of school was upon us yet again.  I was now in 6th grade.  I was in Mr. Lanier’s class.  Mr. Macklin was our Social studies and health teacher.  Mr. Lanier loved football.  Our last period was P.E.  Our teacher would take us out everyday and the boys would play football.  I kind of liked it.  Our teacher was always the quarterback.  We would pick teams and then we would play.  My grades were good as they always were. Every six weeks he would put a poster on the wall outside with a list of the players and rank them according to their abilities.  I always got the most dependable.  What a load that was.  We played all year long every day.  

At the beginning of the last six weeks I made a huge blunder while my class was playing football.  My team was at 1st down and on the ten yard line.  The ball was put into play.  I wasn’t guarded so I made it all the way to the end zone.  The quarterback threw the ball high to me.  I was facing the sun and couldn’t see the ball.  It stayed in the air for the longest but I couldn’t see the ball.  I thought, he threw the ball but where did it go?  I finally saw it just as it hit me in the forehead.  It hit me so hard that I was thrown back and tumbled down the hill and into the ditch.  I got a migraine from that hit and laid down in a dark room on a bench after that.  When it was time to go in I barely made it back to class.  That was the last game I played that year.       

I made a few good friends that year at school.  One of them, whom turned out to be my best friend for many years was named Chris.  One Friday night, which happened to be his big brother’s birthday, I went with them to bowl in Bartlett.  It was the midnight owl, from 12 to 3.  Afterwards, on our way to drop me at my house, I smoked my first joint.  I didn’t know what to expect, but wanted to try it.  

After we got through smoking the joint, I remember thinking I didn’t get anything off it.  I also remember with that same token that when I got to the house, everyone was in bed and I was so hungry.  I ate all the leftovers in the fridge and drank all the tea.  The next morning Bob asked me what happened to all the leftovers.  I told him I was hungry when I got home so I ate a small snack.  He said, “holy s@*t son, it’s getting to the point we can’t afford to feed you!  

I was the human vacuum cleaner when it came to leftovers.  Nothing got wasted.  Most of the time we had to microwave food to eat. But once in a while mom did cook and when she did, none of it was wasted.  Is a matter of fact Bob did most of the cooking when cooking was done.  Mom could cook a mean batch of spaghetti though.

I loved to bowl.  My parents gave me my first bowling ball when I was 6 years old.  It was at Christmas.  My dad taught me how to bowl.  He taught me the proper stance, approach, and release.  I became pretty good at it.  I bowled frequently until I was 12 years of age.  I showed promise.  A boy of my age that averaged in the upper 180’s to lower 200’s.  That was impressive at my age.  I don’t know what happened.  After I got older, I didn’t bowl as much.  I guess I just got interested in other things.

In the spring I asked mom If I could get a mower and start my own lawn cutting business.  She wouldn’t let me.  She said I was too young.  The reason I wanted to do that was simple.  Mom was selfish.  She wouldn’t buy us anything.  She would only buy me one pair of pants every six months.  I was a growing boy.  I needed more than that.  As far as shoes went, she would wait till the sole had almost completely separated from the shoe before she would get me another pair.  She would never buy us year books either.  The last one she bought I was in third grade.  

You would think we were just poor.  That was not the case.  She was saving her money so her and Bob could make trips to Las Vegas and gamble at least a couple of times a year.  Like I said, she would always put herself, her drinking, her needs, and especially her wants first, before us.  

When mom and Bob first got together, they would go to Momma’s BBQ in Bartlett on Stage Road to play the gambling machines.  One of my favorite shirts that year was a Momma’s BBQ t-shirt.  Those machines were illegal and the machines were eventually shut down.  It was after that Mom and Bob decided to take seasonal trips to Vegas.  This was before gambling in Tunica  came about.

The summer had arrived.  I had been big into the Saturday afternoon Kung fu Theatre.  My favorite actor was Jackie Chan.  Yea, that’s where Jackie got his start.  One day in June us boys went to Central Hardware with Bob.  On our way back he asked us, “boys, how would you ya’ll like to get into karate”?  I jumped at that.  I said very enthusiastically, “yes”!  The next Saturday, we went up to the Raleigh Oaks Plaza to the ATA Taekwondo facility.  That day we met Mr. Roark and we got our first introductory class that day and I would go back at every possible chance I could from that day forward.  

I went to karate every day except Sunday and that was only because the center was closed on Sundays.  My parents would not give me a ride to and from classes even though it was only a mile drive.  So for several years I walked a mile to class and a mile back.  I would go once a day and in the summer twice a day.  Once at lunch time and once in the evening .  I was pretty physically fit when I was in my teen-age years.

I learned good values from karate.   Some of those values were as follows: hard work, dedication, determination, respect, discipline, and most of all, for me was self confidence.  We also learned that our knowledge of martial arts should never be used on the offensive, or aggressively.  It was only to be used defensively.  Since I was too shy to approach girls, that sport would be my love for several years.   I was still very timid and shy.  When it came to being picked on, I couldn’t hold my own.  I had a threshold a mile long.  In 7th grade, however, that would start to change. 

Bob did give me some good advice when he discovered how well I took to martial arts and how good I was at it.  He said, “son, I don’t care how tough you think you are, there is always someone out there tougher.  So don’t get stupid boy”!  He also, while I’m on the subject of advice, said, “I don’t care how tough you think you have it, there is always someone who has it tougher”!  To this day, whenever I think I have it tough, I try to keep an upper chin to a given situation, for I know there is always someone who has it tougher.  I try to live by that advice to this day. 

I don’t know what happened exactly but my brother and I were fighting all the time.  Not because we hated each other or anything, just fought like brothers usually do.  He was always the aggressor.  He would get bored and start picking on me just to have something to do and it would generally end up in a fight.  Yea, my younger brother picked on me.  Isn’t that a laugh!  My favorite phrase for several years was, “stop it damn it ,”!

I was now a teenager and starting the seventh grade.  Mr. Larshae’s Civic class and Spanish were my favorite classes that year.  There was one incident that stood out above all others that year.  You see I was not only shy but I was also very timid.  I fell victim to a school bully and very easily I might add.  I won’t tell his name because my goal is not to embarrass anybody.  He must have had insecurity issues because he had to feel needed by making others laugh, and he used me to do it.  He knew I didn’t have an aggressive bone in my body so he felt there would be no resistance from me.  You see I had a threshold a mile long.   

For two weeks on the bus going home he would slap me on the head repeatedly calling me Benny Hill.  Everyone on the bus would fuel his childishness by their laughter.  He would do this everyday and it humiliated me.  He knew he was doing that to me and how he made me feel and he fed on that.  I kept thinking he would eventually give up and stop doing that but he just kept on day after day.  Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore.  

I don’t know what came over me but I couldn’t take it anymore.  He slapped me on the head one time too many I guess so I sat up on my knees facing him.  He was sitting in the bench seat directly behind me.  I knew I had the tactical advantage for I was at a higher point then he was, me on my knees and him sitting down.  I was not an aggressor by any means and even though he had been bullying me for two weeks, I had to let him make the first move.  

I said, “I told you to quit it” and pushed him back in his seat.  He pushed me back and then it was on!  One of the things I leaned in karate was, 1 good solid hit was worth 1,000 pecks.  My first punch was very solid right into the left side of his face.  He tried to retaliate but to no avail for he was at a lower position than I was.  I landed a second solid hit on his nose.  He tried to stand up but was disoriented and we ended up in the isle.  One more solid hit then I put him in a head lock so he couldn’t hit me.  He tried to hit me but eventually gave up.  I then pushed him back in his seat.

When the bus stopped at my stop I got off and so did he.  He got in my face and dared me to hit him again.  I just looked him dead in the eyes and said, “I got what I wanted”.  He got back on the bus and it left.  He changed that very day.  He became one of the nicest guys in school, someone everyone wanted to be friends with.  We became friends as well.  

I changed as well.  Finally after all those years the thick shy and timid shell I was in, cracked.  It would still be years before I finally emerged a free man but it was a beginning.  This message goes out to those who bully others.  Bullies are like empires.  They will at some time and always eventually do fall, and usually very embarrassing to the would be bully when it happens.  You probably will eventually come across someone like me at some time or another who will get enough and will put you in your place.

I want to make something very clear.  Standing up and defending yourself in no way makes you a violent person.  It just means you will be steadfast and not allow the world to push you around.  I would defend myself and fight quite a bit over the years, always in the defense.  I got my ass handed to me a few times but I also took quite a few to the wood shed.  I grew up in Memphis, and Memphis is where I became a man!

My Dad and Toni got married that year.  We went to dinner one night shortly after they got married.  It was at Bennigan’s.  It was a buffet place and one we frequented with our dad.  Toni announced to us that she was pregnant.  I said, “wow, that was quick”.  I was actually being sarcastic but she said, “yea, it happened on our honeymoon”.  I remember thinking, I may have fallen off the truck at night, but it wasn’t last night!  That’s why they were in such a hurry to get married.  Nine months later I had a half-brother.  His name was Chris.

That fall Derek’s father tore down the old fence in their backyard and put up a new one.  We took that old wood and hauled it over to the woods next to our house.  We got a couple of hammers from our houses and got a hold of some nails and built a two story clubhouse, built with 4×4‘s and pickets.  It was very sturdy too.  We would hang out in that clubhouse quite a bit and would also spend the night in it.  

In the spring I got with my mom and told her again that I wanted to start a lawn mowing business.  She again said no.  I told her yes I am.  I said, “you always said you weren’t going to just give us things, that I have to work for it.  Well I want to work for it”.  She said ok.  Bob bought me a lawnmower from Central Hardware.  Of course I had to pay him back, but the business took off.  I made quite a bit of money by the end of summer.  

I bought clothes with that money.  There was one thing I got that had nothing to do with clothes.  I bought a 40 gallon fish tank and all the accessories that went along with it.  Right off the bat I had 400 dollars tied up in that tank.  I set it up in the dining room.  At night, when I was by myself, I would gaze into that fish tank.  When I was feeling blue or stressed or just anxious, I could star at the tank and be soothed by the gracefulness of the fish.

The summer was very packed.  I mowed lawns during the morning, then went to karate at lunch and then again in the evening.  I was very dedicated to karate and was a blue belt by the end of summer.  The only person that was at the school more often than me was the head instructor, and that was because it was his job.  By this time Mr. Roark had moved back to Nebraska and was replaced by Mr. Northup as the head instructor.

We also went on our first family vacation which was also our last, with mom and Bob.  We went to Disney World.  We went in our parent’s new Buick Riviera.  There were six of us in that car for one week.  It was mom and Bob, Lee and Wes, Bob’s grandson, Danny, and myself.  We went to Disney World, The beach at Destin, and an airplane museum.  It was a great vacation but it would be the last time we went on vacation as a family.  Mom wanted to drink and gamble instead.  

I also started sneaking out every night in the summer.  I would go walking.  I would walk up to the school, the Exxon gas station, around the neighborhood, or to the community center.  I was a loner so to speak and just enjoyed being alone.  

I would also take my single pump BB gun and go night target shooting.  I was a crack shot with that gun.  The old Fred Montesi Store on Austin Pea at that time was closed down.  The store had a loading dock that faced Lakehurst.  I would hide behind the brick wall 60 yards away, with no scope mind you, and take out the fluorescent light bulbs on the loading dock in the dark.  All I had to do was estimate the drop of the BB at that distance.  1st shot 90% of the time and they would come crashing down.  By the way, in my defense, the store was out of business and it was 26 years ago so any statute of limitations there would have been are long over by now. 

I hardly saw Michelle.  She kept to herself and never came outside.  She lived with her grandparents.  My mom grew roses in the front yard.  At night I would cut a rose and put it on the hood of her grandparents car.  I was so scared but Derek convinced me to call her, he had the number.  I called her as he listened in.  He would give me pointers as what to say.  I asked her out but she declined.  I would eventually give up and move on. 

We started the school year yet again.  I was in eighth grade.  I turned fourteen over the summer.  I started Pre-algebra that year.  I also had Spanish again.  The biggest memory I had that year was in English.  Am, is, are, was, were, has, have, had, do, does, did, can, could, shall, should, may, might, must, be, being, and been, which were the action verbs we had to memorize that year.  26 years ago and I still remember that.

I have an excellent long term memory.  My short term memory is shot but if something makes it into my long term memory, I usually don’t forget it.  I remember the day I was born.  Most people think that is impossible.  I remember being put to bed in my crib with a bottle.  I remember the first apartment we lived in on Hudgins off Brooks before my brother, Lee was born.  After Lee was born, we moved to a two bedroom in the same apartment complex.  

I also remember the first time my mom wore my tail out.  Dad had just started his new job and was out of town.  Mom had changed my diaper and got me ready for bed.  A few minutes after going to bed, I had a movement.  I couldn’t control it, it just happened.  I had just learned to walk so I got up and told mom.  She was pissed!  She took off my diaper and said, “I just changed you”.  She wore my tail out for taking a dump in my diaper.  I can never remember a name to save my life but I never forget facial characteristics or sound characteristics of a voice.

I did the same as always that year.  We spent the night over at Derek’s house and would go hang out at the mall, hang out in the clubhouse, go to karate, and study my butt off.  I did start spending the night over at Chris’s house and we would get so high.  By the end of the school year I was a red belt.  I didn’t care for Mr. Northup.  He didn’t grade tests very fair.  I was more dedicated that anybody there and was better in the art than most but he would always hold me back, advancing me slowly.  There were men in their 30’s and 40’s that weren’t half as good as me, but would advance much faster than me.  But I kept pushing and training.

Mr. Northup knew I was good though.  We used to have a special class on Friday nights.  We didn’t use sparring equipment and it was full contact.  This one Friday night when I was a beginner red belt, I was sparring with this guy that was an advanced blue belt.  I took it easy on him because he was lower than me. That was a mistake because he took advantage of that.  He hurt me pretty good.  

After that night, Mr. Northup would never let me spar with him again.  I wanted to teach him a lesson and Mr. Northup saw it in my eyes.  Every night after that, we would line up in double rows for sparring.  We sparred for five minute intervals and then move down to the next opponent.  When I got to him, he would stop the sparring every time.

My brother was always grounded for something but mostly for his report card.  He didn’t get to go to karate as much as me and ended up not advancing as quickly as I did.  I felt bad for him always being grounded to his room.  I guess that’s why he would get bored so often and pick fights.  He eventually lost interest and quit karate.  He was a blue belt.

That year was also the year of my biggest fight with my brother Lee.  We were playing Pac Man on the Atari 5200.  He was bored and was messing with me.  It was a Friday night.  He would pick at me for a couple of hours.  I finally had enough.  We went outside in the street and started fighting.  I was determined to kick his ass that night.  We slugged it out till we were exhausted.  He wanted to take a break but I wouldn’t stop.  He finally gave up and dropped his hands and walked in.  Did he learn his lesson and quit messing with me?………Of course not!  We would still fight periodically over the years, that’s just brothers for you.

The summer started and I was back to cutting grass as of the Spring.  I was sneaking out of the house every night again that summer.  This summer was different.  The difference was I finally got my 1st degree black belt recommended and I was fifteen.  I was so proud of what I had accomplished for I earned that belt more so than most.  It would take me to the third testing, which was the 2nd six weeks of the next school year before I would make the decided.  

I knew I was going to get that rank.  Mr. Northup could slow me down at best, but he couldn’t stop me.  The first two testings of the black belt were my fault.  Those testings were the only ones in quite a while that were deserved, the others before I was purposely slowed down.  Adults were advanced much quicker than me that weren’t half as good at the art as me.  But that’s ok because I knew in my heart I was better than that.  

When I got the decided, I got a black stripe at the bottom of my top.  A red stripe would have meant that I was an instructor.  I didn’t want to be an instructor.  I knew Mr. Northup didn’t advance me as quick as the adults, so I wanted to focus all of my training on myself.  I would still help others if they needed help, but would work very hard at becoming the best I could be.

On my birthday, I got myself a daisy 10 pump hand gun BB gun.  It would also shoot pellets.  I got that for myself for my parents wouldn’t get it for me.  They gave me permission to have one, they just wouldn’t get it for me.  I practiced on targets and got deadly accurate with that gun.  I tried my skill on a live target.  I aimed for a black bird.  I was in my yard at the fence and the bird was next to my friend Dennis’ wooden steps across the street on the other side of the cove.

I took careful aim, aiming for the head of that bird.  I took into consideration the drop of the BB from that distance and the velocity of the wind.  I had pumped ten times and was ready to fire.  After slowing my heartbeat and halting my breathing after taking a deep breath and letting out half, I fired.  I hit my target, dead on I might add.  

The bird died in my hand.  I felt so bad, for all creatures have the right to live.  I buried that bird.  I never again harmed another creature.  I love to hunt for deer for I love deer meat.  I would never kill for sport ever again, only for food.  Hell I won’t kill spiders, crickets, or grass hoppers, instead take them outside and free them.   

The next school year had begun.  I was in 9th grade.  There was more than one thing that stood out that year. One was Algebra.  I had Mr. Glisson.  He was one of the coolest teachers I ever had.  Not to mention  he lived around the corner from me.  That made it easy to go over to his house and get with him on some difficult problems.  The other thing was hanging out at the fence across the street from school in the mornings.  I got stoned here and there at the fence but I remembered feeling guilty about it.  I couldn’t understand why but by the time I was in 11th grade, I would figure it out.

This was also the year I got busted sneaking out.  A friend, named Greg, and his brother got together and did something mean to my parents car.  I snuck out one night but when I made it back, there was paint and shredded paper all over the car.  The evidence pointed right to my so-called friend down the hill.  They had left empty paint cans, the color of the paint on the car, by the dirt path that led to their house.  It didn’t help their defense either, I might add, that the paint was also the color of their house.  I got my parents up and we washed the car but couldn’t get it all off.  

We took them to court and tried to sue, but the judge was crooked and let them off.  He said since it was their first offense, they’re not liable.  What kind of crap is that?  Destruction of property is destruction of property.  I don’t care if it’s the 1st offense or the 99th.  We later found out that the judge was paid off, took a bribe.  A year later that same judge was indicted for taking bribes. 

My friend Greg was mad and was seeking revenge.  My brother, Lee, and Danny clogged up a single pump BB gun and shot their dog with it.  It didn’t even hurt the dog at all but he took offence to it and I guess I can understand now why that would have upset him.  Greg, his brother, and another one of my friends named Jody, got together and devised a plan for revenge.  It ended up costing my parents $1,200.00 dollars.  

Well I did something in return.  That, I considered, was a personal blow.  I snuck out one night a couple of months later.  I got into the shed in the carport and found an old 1 gallon gas can.  I took all the household chemicals I could find and mixed it in that can.  It made a chemical reaction that caused the can to get hot.  That can got so hot, that I had to drop it for it burned my hand.  I thought this was great.  I put on dark clothing and  I snuck down the hill in the dark to their driveway.  I poured the contents of that can into their gas tank.  I then ran back up the hill and mixed those exact proportions of chemicals up in the can again.  I then ran back down the hill and did the same as before.  

Two weeks later I was walking up by myself  through their cove.  Greg’s dad forced Greg’s brother to come outside and confront me.  He was told to go outside and whoop my ass!  He said that we messed up his dad’s engine by putting sugar in the gas tank.  I told him that I had no idea what he was talking about for I didn‘t put sugar in the gas tank.  

He was wiping tears from his eyes.  He was a red belt in karate but he knew that I was a black belt and was in no way someone to mess with.  I didn’t want to fight but was ready to defend myself.  All I did was give them payback for what they did.  He told me that he wanted to fight.  I knew otherwise.  I just simply said, “you don’t want to mess with me”.  I turned around and walked off.  That was the last time we ever exchanged words.  

I later told Bob what I had done.  I told him to not tell mom, but since justice was not served by the court, I took matters into my own hands.  He asked, “what did you do”?  I told him that he may not want to use that can ever again.  He did ask me why.  I told him about the mixing of household chemicals and pouring it into their gas tank.  What happened he then asked me.  It destroyed their engine and they had to replace it.  I told him about the confrontation with Greg’s brother and what I told him.  He didn’t say anything, for revenge is not what responsible parents teach their kids.  But the smirk he gave after the conversation said it all. 

My mom started to put two and two together and figured I had to be outside to see the damage to the car.  I tried to tell her that I saw the paint from my window but she was a smart cookie.  I confessed.  I hated the fact I couldn’t lie to save my life.  I was grounded for a month.  No going outside except to karate class and school.  I think Bob did tell her what I had done.  I think that’s why mom grounded me.  She didn’t sound angry or upset in any way.  I don’t think she was against what I did, but rather she would have preferred, as a responsible parent, that I didn’t take matters into my own hands.  Sometimes the things that are better said, are those not said at all.

My parents had bought an old car for me and it was sitting in the driveway waiting for the time when I could drive.  Bob would make some repairs to it in preparation for me when I got my driver’s permit.  That was my car.  Lee knew it was intended for me so he didn’t mess with it.

Not long after that my parents bought an old Ford Torino for my brother Lee.  It was going to be a while before he could drive but they got it from my aunt.  She was selling it so they bought it from her at a good price.  I don’t remember the exact year of it but it was a latter 70’s model.  Lee snuck it out one day with Derek while our parents were at work.  They wouldn’t have known but Lee accidentally broke a pole in the carport trying to park it.  Bob discovered it and my parents realized Lee was joy riding in the car.  They grounded Lee and sold the car.

I stated driving at fifteen.  Six months before I was sixteen.  Bob bought an old 1974 GMC Sprint for me.  It was like an El Camino.  By the time I was 17 I had that car completely restored and it looked like it just came off the showroom floor.  Bob taught me how to work on that old car.  I dumped a lot of money off into that thing and was proud of it. 

The Spring had arrived.  I still mowed lawns but was training my brother, Lee to take over.  I was turning sixteen this summer and was going to get a job.  As I turned sixteen I quit karate for two reasons.  1St was, I was going to get a job and wasn’t going to have the time to devote to the art anymore.  The 2nd was, I didn’t care for Mr. Northup or his polotics.  When I told him I was quitting, he just said ok, have a nice life.

I didn’t care for the head instructor of the Elvis Presley School either.  He was an arrogant bon of a sitch.  When Mr. Roark left he said he ran that school like a club.  I liked Mr. Roark.  He was a good person and good at the art.  He also liked to embarrass people.  Every other testing was at the Presley school.  He called a guy up during one testing and told him he was banned from Taekwondo.  The reason he gave was because he was participating in another art which was not allowed.  That guy was a real jerk.

There was one student that I truly respected.  He was a year older than me.  No matter how good I got or how hard I trained, he was better than me.  He amazed me at how he flowed with the moves.  He was a great martial artist.  His name is Ken.  He will always have my deepest respect and is still my friend to this day.  

During that summer Derek was already employed at Catfish Cabin.  Years later that building would become Shooters Bar And Grille.  He got me on there and I worked there till the spring of the following year.  I wasn’t making diddly for money, only 3.35 an hour but I was getting a check.

That summer Bob took it upon himself to finish grandpa’s house in Arkansas.  The first few weekends I went with them. I just had a driver’s permit so we took both vehicles.  Bob rode with me because he was the only one who had the guts.  I remember the first time he rode with me on that trip to Heber.  He smoked two packs of cigarettes in a three hour trip.  Bob was not only a retired gunnery sergeant, but also a defensive driving instructor.  I got the rules of the road drilled into my head.  I do have to admit, that man was patient. 

I had a driver’s permit for the first part of that summer but in July of that year I obtained my first driver’s license.  Bob told me to go during Friday at the end of the day.  It was super hot that day and my car did not have air conditioning.  All we did was drive around the block and then parked.  Bob was right.  The test was easy that day.  I was finally starting to get the taste of freedom.  Soon after that was when I started working for Catfish Cabin.  Since I was working and I worked weekends, I got to stay home so I could work.  There were perks with responsibility.  

                                                                     CHAPTER 3

                                                                THE DAY I MET GOD

I started the 10th grade.  I had been having periodic migraine headaches since we lived in Bob’s condo when I was 11 years old, but now they were getting more frequent and much more intense.  I also started having temporary black-outs or temporary blindness this year.  I also started having balance problems as well.  I didn’t know what was going on but it was alarming me, for I knew this was not normal for a teenage boy.

I was not participating in the sport and art of karate anymore but still practiced balance moves in my room.  I remember trying to hold my balance while doing a slow round kick or round house.  I couldn’t keep my balance long enough to complete the move.  At first I passed it off as I was getting rusty, but would soon realize that the problem was much deeper than that.

I remember a few  things from that year.  One was Coach Troy from Biology.  I loved Biology but he dictated most of the class and dang near every class.  By the end of the school year, one could say we rewrote the book.  We did a whole lot of dictation, word for word from the book in that class.  We couldn’t get away with just reading the book and being done with it, we got graded on our dictating folder, and a lot of our final grade depended on it.  

Another thing I remembered was Algebra 2 with Dr. Boone.  This guy had been in the country longer than I had been alive and still yet shredded the English Language.  I could barely understand a word he said.  It was bad enough that my mathematical comprehension was badly decreased but to have a teacher I couldn’t understand made it that much more difficult.  

I met a guy named Mike that year.  We became very good friends and was hanging out together for years.  Some time later we discovered that our mothers were childhood friends and participated in horse shows together.  Small world, ain’t it.  I also met a guy by the name of Glen and through him I met Jeff.  They were from Bartlett.  Most of the close friends I had were in Bartlett.  I didn’t like going out with girls from my school either.  I was a private person and not only preferred it that way, it kind of worked out that way.  I just didn’t care for rumors, and kids were full of gossip, especially girls. 

I tried to tell mom something was wrong but she passed it off at first.  A couple of months passed and the problems were getting worse and she set up an appointment for me at the military hospital.  Bob was retired from the military, so he got permanent benefits from the government, which included dependants.  The doctor would check me out and do the standard tests and would tell my mom that I needed to come back for further tests.  

Another appointment would be set up for me several weeks later.  When I came back for the next appointment, the doctor that saw me would have been shipped off and another stepped in and I would do the same thing over.  The migraines were unbearable.  The black-outs were getting more frequent as well.  I was actually very lucky that I didn’t have one of those black-outs while I was driving.

Me getting tossed around at the Naval hospital actually happened quite a bit.  Meantime my situation declined rapidly.  My digestive system almost came to a stop due to the dehydration and constipation.  It was excruciatingly painful to go to the bathroom.  The situation with the movement of my digestive system was so slow, that I only went maybe once a week.  When I did finally go, I was in so much pain when my system did move, that I had to stand up in an upright position to get my system to move with only slight results. I am so sure that the pain was similar to that of giving birth, for I did give birth to quite a few basketballs, or at least it felt like I did.

The only reason I am being this descriptive of how much pain I was in and how messed up my system was, is to give the reader a better idea of what I was going through.  I think any reasonable parent out there would know without a shadow of a doubt that something would be terribly wrong with there child and would do anything they possibly could to alleviate the problem or situation of their child’s pain.  My mother did not pay attention to it until it was almost too late to help me.  I was lucky to survive the ordeal really or should I say blessed.    

I had two different kinds of migraines.  One was a long irritating headache that would last for hours.  That type of headache would put tears in my eyes.  That type of migraine was very painful.  The other was a debilitating headache that was so painful, I would drop to my knees.  That one would only last a couple of minutes but was mind boggling painful and would cause me to drop to my knees instantly, and at times would be accompanied by blackouts or temporary blindness..

I kept working my night job at Catfish Cabin.  It got to where it was difficult to walk in a straight line at times.  I’m sure I looked like I was drunk or on drugs quite a few times, but would be sober.  I would get very sick a couple of times as well but I kept working.  School was tough also.  It was getting difficult to concentrate at times.  I felt so bad so often, that I thought it was normal.

Derek had already been fired from Catfish Cabin.  His dad wouldn’t let him quit so he would be late or not even show up and was eventually terminated.  I was a D.A. (Dining Room Attendant).  What was bad was I was the only white guy that worked in the kitchen.  I was messed with quite a bit.  This was long before I got to the point that nobody would mess with me.  I wanted to quit but I needed the money too bad.

Toni was still in management at the theater at the Hickory Ridge Mall..  She pulled some strings and got me a job interview at the GCC theater in Raleigh.  It was the Raleigh 6 Cinema.  I went to the interview.  I met the manager whom was Mr. D.  Two weeks later I received a call from Mr. D to let me know I was hired.    

Mom got a wake up call in April.  I was off work one weekend so I stayed the weekend with dad and Toni.  It was late March.  I got sick that Saturday morning and stayed on that couch till Sunday evening, only getting up to go to the bathroom to throw up.  I counted the times I threw up.  24 times in 24 hours.  There was nothing left in me.  I was throwing up bile.  I felt as though I was in shock.  My head was cold, my skin was cold and clammy, and I was sweating even though it was not hot at all.   

At this time dad and Toni and Chris were living in Mississippi.  He took us boys back home Sunday evening.  He met mom half way.  We stopped and everybody got out.  I will never forget what he told mom.  He said, “there is something seriously wrong with Jerry.  That military hospital is not helping him at all.  Either you take him to a real doctor or I will”.

She finally bit the bullet and set me up an appointment with Dr. James T. Robertson at Baptist Memorial Hospital Central.  He was the world’s best and most well known  neural surgeon, at that time.  I went to the appointment and the doctor noticed something was off immediately.  He told me to stand on one foot and of course I couldn’t keep my balance.  He immediately set me up with a cat scan.  

Within one hour of me setting foot in  that doctor’s office, he discovered the problem.  The cat scan showed a tumor.  It was the size of a lemon and was centralized in the lower left ventricle of the cerebellum. My mom just simply said, “wow……I just thought he was thinking it upon himself”.  Both the doctor and myself looked at her with utter disgust.  He said, very boldly I might add, “no mam, this young boy has been in SEVERE pain”.  I looked at her and said, “told you”!

Mom said that to put the blame away from her.  The truth of the matter is mom kept dealing with the military hospital in hopes of saving a buck.  She let her son suffer in hopes that the situation would pan out in a positive gain for herself.  To this day, 24 years later, I can’t pass a sobriety test sober as a pack rat.  I also lost some IQ points.  Until high school, I was one of the smartest people in school.  After the migraines started, I noticed that school became harder and harder.  My ability to concentrate was greatly decreased.  My mathematical comprehension suffered and my reading comprehension was virtually non existent in comparison to what it once was.

I was set up for an emergency brain operation the next afternoon.  My mom and I went to lunch before admitting me into the hospital.  A lot of things were going through my head, but quite frankly things were happening so fast I didn’t have time to think.  I do recall being nervous about the upcoming surgery the next day, but I was willing to do anything at this point to stop the unbearable pain I was enduring.  But then again, I had no choice for I would have eventually died from that tumor.

I was admitted into the hospital after lunch.  It was April of 1987 when I went in.  I got settled in.  I remember being bored, but what was I going to do.  I was so nervous I couldn’t sleep that night.  At this time, brain surgery was still relatively new.  I was in the hands of the best, which did make me feel better but it was still brain surgery.  Nowadays it’s pretty much in and out.  Technology has gotten so advanced since then, but the field was relatively a newly pioneered field at that time and that was what made me so nervous.

The next morning arrived but I wasn’t allowed to eat anything.  The same occurred at lunch time.  Is a matter of fact, instead of lunch I got a catheter jammed into my penis instead.  I didn’t know what to expect.  Before the man came in to put it in, mom told him to wait a minute and give her a moment to prepare me for what a catheter was and what was about to happen.  

She explained in explicit detail what was about to occur .  I only had 60 seconds to mentally prepare for it.  He walked in.  He was a very big black man and was about to grab my penis and cram a thick tube down the shaft.  I was thinking, “oh hell no”!  I was violated and endured quite a bit of pain to boot.  And to think, I didn’t get the common courtesy of a reach around.

After the catheter, I only had minutes before I was rolled into surgery.  I asked everyone to leave the room to give me a minute to myself before surgery.  Everybody left the room and I was alone.  I carried my catheter to the window and prayed my first real heartfelt prayer to GOD.  

I said, “GOD, I know you’re there.  I have always known.  You know as well as I that I knew you before today, before we were introduced.  I always knew and felt your presence.  I may have given only a have hearted prayer before, but that was because I feared you.  Well today I need you more than ever before.  This is something much greater than myself and I can’t do it alone.  If you see it to forgive me and spare me, I will testify for you and your son in every conversation that you are brought up in for the rest of my days.” 

I was wheeled into surgery soon after that first heartfelt prayer.  I saw Dr. Robertson on the way in.  He told me to relax for everything was going to be alright.  I remember being a bit nervous and thinking easier said than done, he wasn‘t the one getting his melon cut on.  I did feel a little easier, however, for I just knew GOD was with me.

The surgery went well.  I did wake up wondering if they were going to start.  It was already over.  The nurse was asking me questions to make sure I didn’t have any permanent brain damage from the anesthesia.  She asked a series of questions like what day it was and so on.  Then she said, “ok Jerry, tell me what’s your name”.  I remember saying in rebuttal, “you just said my name”.  She said, “well what is your name then“?  I thought about it for a minute and said, “I don’t know, what is it”?  

I was put into ICU.  I stayed there for three days.  My right arm was paralyzed but was only temporary and due to the surgery.  My condition was favorable enough to put me into my own room after those three days.  I stayed there the remaining duration of my stay.  I even remember Easter Sunday was spent in that hospital.  I also remember thinking that it was taking the pathologist a long time to determine what kind of tumor it was.  I kept trying to get myself prepared for hearing the, you have cancer news.  I don’t care how much you try to prepare yourself for that, it still shocks you to hear that, especially a kid.

Fourteen days had elapsed and the pathologist finally came in to give me the news.  He was babbling jargon and mom finally just asked him point blank if I had cancer.  I kept telling myself for two weeks to get ready and hear the news that I have cancer.  I knew what he was about to tell me.  I will never forget how he said it though, for it cut through to the very depths of my soul.  

“Yes, this boy has cancer”!  So cold and heartless were his words.  I tried to prepare myself for those very words but nothing can or could prepare a kid for that.  I asked, “how long do I have”?  He said we’re going to set you up an appointment with St. Jude.  I dropped my head and cried my eyes out.  I cried for what seemed like forever but was actually thirty minutes.  I was discharged from the hospital with appointment instructions for St. Jude.  After I finished crying, I had another prayer with GOD.  “OK GOD, it’s up to you now.  This is beyond me”. 

When I got home, my entire family was there to greet me and welcome me home.  Good news travels fast I guess.  Mom had prepped Lee for the news before I walked back there.  When she told him that I had cancer, he cried hard.  He said, “we’re going to beat this mom”.  I was totally astonished to see him cry.  I thought before that day that he was incapable of crying.  Not to mention we fought like cats and dogs.  I was amazed to know the boy had a heart.  

After that brief moment of tears, after my solemn prayer with GOD, I never worried again.  I kept up with my everyday regular activities as if there were no worries or nothing was different.  I was very active in healing myself.  In a short time I was stronger than before the surgery.  I had a big bald spot on the back of my head.  The first thing I did when I got home was to have Bob take me to his barber and have him give me a crew cut.  At least it looked halfway normal now with the exception of a foot long scare on the back of my head.  

I also had a big hole in the back of my skull.  I was given explicit instructions that I was not to be active in any contact sports for a year.  There was a huge window in my skull where only skin and muscle tissue was covering my brain.  At least the migraine headaches were gone.  I was feeling so good.  I couldn’t believe that I felt so bad for so long, that I thought that was normal.  

I went back to school almost immediately.  School was different.  My reading and mathematical comprehension were lessoned.  All my teachers took it easy on me for the rest of the year.  There wasn’t that much time anyways.  By the time I made it back, there were only six weeks of school left.

I can’t remember what the English teacher’s name was but do remember that she was black and a major stoner.  She was stoned and had red eyes all the time.  We didn’t do much that year.  There was a reason that I made it a point to tell you that she was black.  It is amazing the favoritism that is shown to someone just because of their color.  At the beginning of the year, a black male student was put in the hospital to have open heart surgery.  

Don’t get me wrong, he was a nice guy.  She made a big deal out of it and asked everybody to keep that student in our prayers.  I did pray for him and the surgery came out fine.  Six months later I had to go out for brain surgery and not a word was said.  When I got back, I didn’t  even get a welcome back.  Funny old world, ain’t it? 

I also went back to work at Catfish Cabin.  Doug, the manager and owner, took it easy on me because I tired easily.  It did take a while for me to get back to full strength.  Apparently brain surgery takes a lot out of you.  I would just work for four hours at a time and be pretty much exhausted after that.  I was already hired at Raleigh 6 and Mr. D did hold the job for me.  I gave my two weeks notice but Doug told me to just go ahead and make that day my last.  He didn’t fire me or anything, just allowed me time to heal before starting my new job.

I started my new job at Raleigh 6 Cinema.  It was a cool job.  I made some friends there that I am still friends with to this day.  I was a doorman.  I worked 35 hours a week.  Working that many hours and keeping up my grades in school was a task but I managed.  I also popped popcorn sometimes.  I ate so much popcorn that I literally hated popcorn and it took me years before I would eat it again.  I got to see all my movies for free, which was the coolest part of all.  I was a movie nut!  

I remember when Rob Cop first came out.  Mr. D had a special midnight preview for the employees before it officially was able to be seen by the public.  He did that numerous times for his employees.  I also remember midnight movies.  We had rock shows for the hard rockers out there and I was one of them.  I got to see those movies free and recall being drunk and stoned through some of them, especially Pink Floyd’s The Wall.  I think back and recall those good times and I must admit, he was one of the coolest bosses I ever had.

About the same time as I started at Raleigh Six, I went to my first appointment at St. Jude.  I remember feeling guilty.  I felt guilty mainly because I was the oldest there by far.  I was only 16 but most children that went there were little kids.  My first appointment was just a consultation and to get acquainted with the staff and to take a tour of the hospital.

I was wondering at this time why I hadn’t heard from my dad in a week.  Apparently he had a lot on his mind.  Dad and Toni split.  They actually split before I had my surgery but didn’t want to tell me before because they didn’t want to cause me undue stress.  Now that I think about it, I saw it coming.  They fought like cats and dogs constantly.  Dad did take it kind of hard.  Toni and my half brother, Chris, moved to Florida to her parents house.  Chris was my brother but would only see him one more time and that was five years later.  That would be the last time I would ever see him.

Six weeks had gone by since the surgery.  I was pretty much at full strength, even stronger than before.  I was very active.  One day I was playing basketball with Derek and Lee in the driveway.  We left the front carport door open to hear the phone in case it rang.  

I heard the phone ring and ran in to answer it.  It was mom.  She said, “Jerry, I have some good news.  You’re cured!  You do not have cancer”!  I said, with a calm voice, for I was not surprised at all, “that is good news mom.  I’m going to go back outside and finish our basketball game”.  I finished the game and afterwards had a prayer with GOD.  I didn’t bow my head, but rather looked up and told GOD, thank you.

The tumor I had went through seven different evaluations.  The final evaluation was a ganglio glioma.  The tumor’s mass was the same as that of cancer.  The tumor was produced by an abnormal growth of neurons.  Neurons in the brain do not reproduce, but for some reason mine did.  I was literally expanding my cranium.  I made history books.  Less that a hundred of those type tumors were reported in medical history throughout the world at that time.  

I was given a second chance.  Why our heavenly father granted me a second chance I couldn’t tell you.  Maybe it was because I knew our heavenly father and his son since I could remember, and I can remember farther back than most.  Perhaps my future was set before me and was intended for something of importance.  All I know for certain is that I am alive to tell you the story of my life and the hardships that I was forced to endure, we all have our crosses to carry, as a friend once told me jokingly.

Now some healthy brain tissue was removed.  There was damage to the brain, that part was inevitable at that time for brain surgery was basically being pioneered and was new so to speak, at least compared to now.  I am alive, and life is to be savored.  When there is one part of the body that suffers damage, there is another that will triumph to compensate.  I lost IQ points but in compensation I gained unconditional common sense and street smarts.  All that I needed to do was break out of the shell my abusive mother cocooned me in.  It would still take me years to break completely free of the chains of mental torment that selfish woman I called mother put me in.

I told Bob soon after the surgery, that I wanted to start going to church.  He found a good church for us to go to.  We began attending the Church of Christ.  It was the Raleigh Church of Christ.  I no longer feared GOD but loved him.  I defended his word in every single conversation that religion is discussed, even when I stopped attending church. 

I made another prayer to GOD.  I prayed to him telling him again thank you for sparring my life.  I asked our heavenly father for a few other things as well.  I prayed, since you saw it to spare my life there are some things I would like.  I didn’t ask for money or material possessions as most probably would have.  I rather asked to grow up and marry a good wife, to have children, and to have a good career.  Just before I ended the prayer I asked for one more thing, to make my wife a nymphomaniac.  That’s right, I asked GOD to give me a wife that loves sex.

Some of our best comedians have been at it for a couple of decades or more.  Do not even think or fathom that our heavenly father, being around since the beginning of time, hasn’t developed one.  I personally believe he has, and a quirky one to boot.  I have gotten everything I have ever asked, even if the request was unorthodox.  However, even though I got that wife that loved sex so, that request has bitten me square in the “ASS”!  TEN FOLD EVEN!  If you read this entire story, you would know that I got everything I asked GOD for, whether I wanted it or not.  The moral of this story is, be careful what you ask GOD for!  It may take a day or even years, but you will more than likely get it, like it or not.

I never had to go back to St. Jude.  One time, not long after I was given the news that I was cancer free, I was down on Danny Thomas.  I pulled over to the curb and starred at the hospital.  I recalled feeling guilty and fighting hard to keep back the tears.  With my head on the steering wheel I wondered why was I sparred when many weren’t.  Why was I fine after one visit and many others were made to endure months or even years of utter pain and suffering.   I knew in my heart that GOD had stepped in and sparred me.  I wasn’t worthy and I knew it.  All I knew was something big was in store for me, but it was not yet to be revealed to me.

I still work for the city of Memphis.  I was black balled out of my rightful position as a pre-treatment tech for the third time.  I was transferred to Environmental Maintenance and work today as an Environmental Inspector, which means I inspect restaurants and grease traps.  Actually that job is less stressful.  I do not have to take blood pressure medication but here and there.  Everyday is a constant reminder of what GOD did for me.  You see Environmental Maintenance is located on St. Jude Place, directly across the street from St. Jude.

I may be a sinner and GOD may be disappointed in me from time to time for being a sinner, but our heavenly father has always smiled on me.  Our heavenly father has always given me whatever I asked for, like it or not.  You see, I never was violent or did a violent thing, and until recently, I was in a shell of shyness.  I never had to worry about anything as far as vengeance goes.  Anybody that has ever betrayed me in any way has gotten GOD’s wrath.  This is also known as karma.  I never had to do anything, just sit back and watch.  

His wrath strikes back at you at what matters most in your life.  This means that if you love material possessions, you will lose them.  If you strive for a career, he will keep it out of your reach.  He who lives by the sword, shall die by the sword.  He who lives by the gun shall die by the gun.  Perhaps you will be humiliated by a barrel of a gun shoved in your face before you meet your maker.  GOD’s wrath is also absolute.  If you have wronged somebody in your life, do everything you can to atone for the sin, for if you don’t, you will be struck by karma 10 fold, trust me.  

GOD’s wrath, or karma is the reason I have never done a violent thing in my life.  I may have had an anger problem, which now I have conquered, but never done anything violent.  I have never bullied anybody nor will I allow anybody to be done that way.  I know first hand how it feels.  I will always defend those less fortunate from aggressive type personas as well as those wrongly persecuted.   

Not long after my surgery, my parents got the bill from Baptist Memorial Central.  The bill was for over $100,000 dollars.  That is a lot now but small in comparison to 1987.  My parents had Blue Cross Blue Shield medical insurance.  The medical insurance paid only 80% of the bill.  This is why I don’t like Blue Cross Blue Shield.  You pay high monthly premiums and still get knocked in the dirt if something happens.  Insurance is such a scam.  It is your hard earned money that pays for that insurance but the company will still find ways to worm their way out of a claim in some shape, form, or fashion.

After learning about the bill, I wondered how mom and Bob was going to be able to pay the remaining 20%, which was over $20,000 dollars.  I learned that mom and Bob had supplemental insurance.  This insurance pays for the remaining of a medical bill, so there was nothing that came out of their pocket.

Mom and Bob had supplemental insurance, so the cost shouldn’t have been an issue.  Here is the kicker that I discovered when I realized that my parents had supplemental insurance.  I was made to suffer many many months of torturing agonizing pain seeing doctors on the Millington Naval Base so my mother didn’t have to pay the co-pay for medical visits seeing a real doctor. 

I forgave my mother for the abuse and the parental negligence that I was forced to endure.  However, the psychological damage she inflicted would take me years to overcome and the physical damage to my brain and central nervous system that was due to her negligence is irreversible.  I was not allowed to serve in the military because of my medical history and any hopes of a real technical or medical degree was abolished due to the irreversible damage caused by the tumor and/or the size of the tumor which greatly increased said damage.   I am alive and I am so thankful for that.  There are many that wasn’t as fortunate as myself to survive such an experience and lived to tell the tale.

Let’s recap shall we.  I was made to suffer with this problem for many months, even years.  To this day, I have a permanent partial loss of gait, which means I can’t pass a sobriety test sober as a pack rat, I lost IQ points, I have ADD, short term memory problems, I find it very difficult to focus my attention on anything, my reading comprehension and mathematical comprehension are greatly lessoned, and I am hard of hearing.

I have had two hearing tests at FedEx.  My hearing is off the charts.  I hear fainter sounds than the average human being and hear deeper sounds than the average human being.  The tumor was located in the lower left ventricle of the cerebellum.  Most of the tumor was located in the motor section of the brain.  Part was located in the sight of the brain and part was located in the hearing of the brain.  Somewhere between the inner ear, cochlea, auditory nerve, and the part of the hearing section of the brain that controls interpretation of sound, the message gets jumbled up so to speak, and many words sound alike.

When a person talks to me, they must be facing me when they talk.  If they turn around and keep talking, I will not be able to understand what they are saying.  I watch their lips to help decipher what they are saying.  I text on my phone a lot.  Texting is easy to understand, minus some the abbreviations that are used.  I sometimes find it hard to hear on the phone so most of the time, I prefer the use of texting.    

Bob said that he was going to sue the Naval hospital for incompetence.  Because of their incompetence, I was made to endure many more months of severe pain that I should have.  If they had just given me a Cat Scan, the problem would have been revealed immediately.  I don’t know if anything ever came of that lawsuit.  I will say this, however, in my senior year of high school, mom told me that they were not going to send me to college.  

That same year mom and Bob took a trip to Las Vegas, to gamble, and later that year went on a cross country trip around the South and Southeast states.  A year later they went on another trip to Las Vegas, to gamble, and then went on another cross country trip in another part of the region of the states.  After that, the casinos in Tunica were built and they didn’t have to travel far, but it does make one wonder, doesn‘t it?                            

                                                                    CHAPTER 4

                                                             CHANGE IS COMING

I met some very nice people at the Raleigh Six Cinema.  We had a blast up there.  Kenny, Derek, and myself would do some crazy stuff together.  That was not the Derek that lived around the corner from me by the way. We would watch movies, go drinking, hang out at Raleigh Twin Cinema with Emir, among other things..  

I also started smoking that year.  I was 17.  Mom and bob found out.  Bob sat me down and said, “I’m not going to stop you.  If I tried to stop you, you’ll just go around the corner and smoke behind our back.  All I can do is warn you about the health problems that it can cause“.  I think back now and wish so much I listened to him.  I finally quit smoking three months before my daughter was born.  She is now 11 years old.  It was January of 1999 when I quit,  However, I never could quit that smokeless tobacco.  

I met Renee a year before.  She was friends with Carolyn across the street.  I was friends with Carolyn’s brother, Dennis.  I found out she had a crush on me six months after my surgery.  Lee and Derek told me I should go out with her.  I was already thinking about that.  I asked her out and soon we became an item.  It was difficult though because her dad would not let her go out.  We went out one Friday night and parked for a while.  Her dad somehow found out and immediately came up with every reason he could to ground her.

I was still very shy.  I was still slowly coming out of my shell.  But I had a very long way to go.  I still couldn’t approach a girl.  I already knew that Renee liked me a lot which made it much easier.  It would still be years before I could approach a girl no holds barred and by that time I had to call them women.  

I fell in-love with her.  She was my first love.  She couldn’t take the way her dad was treating her, though.  She eventually moved with her mom in Kansas.  Her mom came in town and got her.  The day before she left, I skipped school and we hung out the whole day.  We went up to the Raleigh Six and saw a  movie.  I didn’t pay much attention to the movie.  It was Who’s That Girl starring Madonna.  I didn’t want that movie to end.  It wasn’t because I liked the movie mind you.  The next morning she left for Kansas. 

We tried to do the long distance thing.  Twice a week I would call long distance to her and talk at least an hour.  I was so sprung!  She didn’t have a job so I was the only one calling.  I was paying anywhere from 100.00 to 160.00 bucks a month in long distance bills.  That was a lot of money to spend on long distance calls for anybody but especially for a teenager that only brought 140.00 dollars a week home.  This was, by the way, before long distance calls got so cheap.  Remember this was in 1987.  

One check a month went to the phone bill.  The straw that shattered the camels back so to speak (that term was coined by me) was when she got a job with Pizza Hut.  After a month she still wasn’t calling me.  I asked her why she wasn’t calling.  She said, “because I’m saving my money”.  Now that was selfish!  It took me a while, but eventually I grew a pair of nuts and told her to kiss my ass! 

The last day of class in Dr. Boones class, Mike and I had a plan to take orange coolers to class.  We told the teacher it was orange juice and he believed it.  We got done with ours and got rid of the evidence.  Two girls saw that we got away with it and told the teacher they needed to go to the bathroom.  They slipped out  to the store and got some coolers too.  A guy by the name of Brian came by the class.  He was the class goober.  He yelled out, “it smells like beer in here”.  

Dr. Boone came up to Mike and I and asked if we had beer.  We said no.  He said let’s go see the assistant principal, Mr. Bowlan, and hear what he has to say.  He grabbed the girls bottles and took us to the assistant principal.  We got busted with Kelly’s bottles.  We ended up getting drug and alcohol rehab during the summer.  I didn’t care for Brian after that.   

The school year ended with yet another honor roll year.  It would, however, become increasingly difficult for me.  Not only did I have a concentration problem, which was caused by the tumor that I had, but I was having a problem with ADD, and it was getting worse the older I got.  

The first speeding ticket I got out of town was on a weekend when my parents were at the lake.  I had to work that weekend and my parents went to the lake to work on the house in Heber.  They had to work quickly to complete the house in time to retire.  I got off of work Friday at 11:00 pm.  Kenny’s girlfriend just moved to Nashville and he was really missing her.  I didn’t have anything to do so we both got a wild hair and when we got off at 11:00 pm, we got our stuff together from our houses and fueled up before heading out and hit the road  to Nashville by 12:00 am.  We made it there about 1:45 am.  You do the math.  A three hour trip to Nashville plus going through town to her place.  I was going very fast I know.  I did the speed limit through Memphis, Jackson, and Nashville but on the interstate, it was on!

I took a small nap on the couch while they got busy.  We left around 9:00 am to head back to Memphis.  We got on the interstate and put the pedal to the metal.  Just before hitting Jackson we came across two semis in single file.  I immediately got off the gas and told Kenny, “I have to slow down, there’s a cop around here somewhere“.  Remember me saying I had the gift of intuition.  Well not ten minutes later a Chrysler 5th Avenue came up behind me.  I was doing about 80 mph at the time.  

He turned his blue lights on.  I immediately pulled over.  It was a trooper and he was in his personal car.  I thought, oh no!  He got out and walked up to my car.  He said, “sir, can you step out of the car please”.  “Yes sir”, was the only way I could reply.  He told me to move to the back of the car.  He asked me, “do you have any idea how fast you were going”?  I said, “85 maybe 90”.  Knowing dang well he got me doing way faster.  

The trooper said, “I was between those semis and clocked you at 104 mph and you were slowing way the hell down before I clocked you“.  He said, “I know you could have outrun me easily in that car!  Why did you pull over as soon as you saw my lights”?  I told him my step-father is a retired gunny and that he told me about one time when he was much younger that he was racing and a police officer tried to get him.  He said, “son, you might be able to outrun the squad car but you will never outrun the radio”.

The trooper just said, “He gave you some wise words son”.  He said that I reminded him of his son and that he’s going to cut me some slack for respecting the law.  He wrote the ticket for 74 in a 55.  This was long before the speed limit was raised to 70 mph.  I thought that was exceptionally cool considering he could have thrown me under the jail.  Needless to say, I drove the speed limit the rest of the way home.   

Derek and Kevin, another friend of ours, got a twelve pack of bud light.  Lee and I made plans to sneak out that night and meet Derek and Kevin and  go to the clubhouse and consume the twelve pack.  At midnight Lee and myself snuck out the back door.  It was pitch black in the den.  We had no idea that our mother was sitting in the chair waiting for us to go out the door.  

We met Derek and Kevin on the side of the house.  You could look through the widow on that side of the house and see the kitchen and mom and Bob’s room.  We were all talking and Lee happened to look in that window.  Lee whispered loudly to me, “Jerry, mom and Bob are up”.  I immediately looked in the window and saw them in the kitchen.  

I turned to Derek and Kevin and said, “ ya’ll take the beer to the clubhouse.  Lee, follow me quickly”!  We ran to the back door.  I told Lee, “it’s too late, were busted but we can still do some damage control.  I told him to stand against the wall by the door and just talk to me as if we’re having a normal conversation“.  He stood with his back against the wall and started to talk to me calmly.  Not two seconds later Bob came through the back door.  He asked, “ what the hell are you boys doing?  I said, “we’re just shooting the breeze Bob”.  He said, “ya’ll get in here”.  

Apparently mom woke up and sensed we were going to sneak out.  How she knew I don’t know.  She got out of bed and sat down in the chair in the pitch black and waited on us.  We were grounded, but only for two weeks.  They didn’t catch us doing much.  Thank goodness they had no idea we were going to get smashed in the clubhouse, if they had, we would have probably been grounded for a few months!

The next school year had begun.  I was in the 11th grade.   The mathematical class I was in was Geometry.  That subject was hard but barely managed and slide by with a C that year.  The science class I was in was Chemistry.  I was still taking accelerated courses.  I was trying to prepare myself for college.  I was having increased difficulty and just didn’t want to admit to myself that I lost IQ points and my mathematical comprehension, English comprehension, and scientific comprehension were lessoned as a result of the tumor I had.   

This was the year Lee got kicked out of the house.  He was always getting into trouble of some sort.  One morning, he was picking on Wes.  Wes went to Bob with the problem.  Lee and Wes got into an argument in front of Bob.  Bob finally got tired of it and told Lee to move out.  I was 17 years old and Lee was 16.  Mom called up our father and told him that she would stop child support if he took Lee.  Dad was only paying $152.00 in support to begin with but he said ok.  Lee moved in with dad but matters only got worse.  He quit school three weeks into the ninth grade and was in and out of trouble with the law.

One morning I woke up feeling guilty.  I was not using my second chance wisely.  I sat up in the bed and thought, “ok Jerry, what’s it going to be?  Is it going to be the drugs and alcohol or your future”?  My future won hands down.  I made the decision to stop smoking pot.

My parents had a friend by the name of Charlie.  She was meaner that a rattlesnake.  One night in the fall, I went to Jessica’s birthday party.  Charlie lived down the street from Jessica.  She saw my car and called my parents and told them I was at a keg party.  Well that part was true.  Jessica’s birthday party just happened to be a keg party as well.  Charlie came up to me and told me that my parents told me to come home.  I said, “screw that!  I’m not doing anything wrong”.  I didn’t like Charlie anyway and wasn’t starting to listen to her.  Her attitude was she was the head honcho and that the buck stopped with her and I wasn’t having any part of it.  I guess that’s why she didn’t like me, because I knew what she was about and she knew I knew it.

She called my parents and told them that I said screw them.  Mom was pissed but I didn‘t know why at first.  I didn’t even go to the party but instead went home to talk to my parents.  My mom told me what Charlie said I said.  Before I could even get out that I didn’t say it like that, she doubled up her fist and swung as hard as she could backhanding me in the face.  That small woman sent me flying back several feet on my back.  I got up and said that old hag lied about what I exactly said.  However, I may have deserved some punishment for I was still being disrespectful.  “But know this!  That will be the last time you ever lay a hand on me”!  She never laid another hand on me again.

The abuse was more frequent then I talked about in this story.  I chose not to emphasize the abuse, for that is not what I wanted the reader to focus on.  Rather I wanted the reader to know that even though I came from a broken home, even though my mother was an alcoholic, even though I was abused mentally, physically, and psychologically as a child, I still grew up a good kid.  I defeated the odds.  I became a hard working, law abiding citizen.     

I did continue to drive fast.  For some reason I had a need for speed.  I liked driving and would sometimes  just go out for joy rides.  It’s not like today where gas is so expensive that one can’t afford to joy ride anymore.  I liked driving down this long stretch of road named Paul Barrett PKWY.  It was very long.  The hum of the engine was always soothing to me.  This one time in October was the time I got busted for going way too fast.  I was cruising at 100 mph.  I had slowed down to turn left  on Paul Barrett PKWY.  I heard sirens in the distance.  I thought to myself, “oh man, some-body just got bus-ted”.  I happened to look in my rear view mirror and saw the blue lights.  I thought, “ oh damn, it’s me”.  

I immediately pulled over to the shoulder and got out.  The Shelby County officers jumped out of the squad   car with their pistols drawn.  I remember thinking, “oh s*^t”.  They arrested me, handcuffed me, and put me in the back of the squad car.  I thought I was fixing to go to jail.  I found out very quickly that I wasn’t near that lucky.  They ran my tags and discovered who’s name was on the plates.  Mom and Bob were friends with the Sherriff at that time.  They told me to get out and drive slowly home, that they were going to follow me home and talk to my parents.  I said, “please take me to jail instead”.  They refused and just told me to drive slow and not to try and outrun them for they knew were I lived.  

I crapped in my pants continuously on the way home.  I was very surprised I didn’t lose more weight than I did.  We walked in.  My parents were down in the den.  They were astonished to see two officers of the law  following me in.  My mom asked, “officer, what’s going on”?  I thought, here we go.  The black male officer said, “mam, we clocked your son at 101 mph”.  The Sherriff told us to bring him home.  My mom just said, “don’t worry about that officer, you can bet your sweet ass I’ll take care of this.  Thank you officers for bringing him home.  I was grounded from the car for three months which sucked very much.

I walked everywhere.  In December we had a big snow.  I walked up to work at the Raleigh Six Cinema.  I walked in.  Mr. D was the only person other than myself that was there.  He asked, “where is your car”?  I said, “a couple of months ago I was clocked doing over a hundred and got grounded from the car.  He started laughing hysterically and called me a dumb F*^k!  All I could do is laugh back saying, “yea I know”.  I still had another month to go but due to the snow, mom decided that I was punished enough and let me drive the car again.  But the need for speed was still with me.

That Spring I started seeing a girl by the name of Jennifer.  I was still hung up on Renee but figured I need to get on with my life.  She was real sweet.  Every time I kissed her she would go BOOM BOOM.  What can I say, I was always a good kisser.  We would go up to the Raleigh Springs Mall at Milano’s Pizza.  That pizza shop was run by Italian folk.  She was supposedly friends with the one arm pizza guy.

Not long after that she broke up with me.  The excuse she gave was the Italian guy up at Milano’s that was her supposed friend threatened to kill me if she saw me again.  I thought, right.  Not long after that I discovered that her and my supposed friend Derek were seeing each other.  I thought, “and the truth is revealed.  Her father tried to separate them by moving her to her mom’s in Mississippi.  One time I let that sorry excuse for a friend talk me into giving him a ride over the state line to see her.  I waited in the car while they did their thing. 

That happened quite a bit in my younger years.  Quite a few times my friends wanted my girlfriends.  I would eventually figure out who my real friends were.  He joined the military and after boot camp they got married and are still married today.  They also have kids.  After that trip over the state line, I no longer considered him a friend.   

One day I was at work and was standing in the hall taking tickets when I saw a person that looked like Kristen Leslie.  I asked if that was her and she said yes.  I told her who I was and asked her if she remembered me.  She said she didn’t remember me.  It had been seven years but it still hurt my feelings.  I  asked her to wait for a minute for I had to clean a theater that just let out.  When I came back she was gone.

I did see Kristen once more about two or three months later.  This time she said she did remember me.  She had looked back in a year book from that year.  I told her about my parents getting a divorce and that we moved and that I couldn’t tell her good bye.  I told her not to go anywhere that I had to go clean a theater that just let out.  I thought that since she remembered who I was that she would wait.  I tore through that theater getting my job done.  But when I I came back she was gone.

I never saw Kristen Leslie again.  That was twenty-three years ago.  I still think about her often and regret never letting her know how I really felt.  Take it from me, if you have feelings for someone, tell them.  Even if they don’t share the same feelings for you, at least you will know the truth.  You never know when tomorrow will never again come.  Even if you get embarrassed, at least that embarrassment will eventually pass, but the wondering what would have or could have been never will. 

The summer started.  This summer was the year I turned 18.  On my 18th birthday, my parents took me to Red Lobster.  I was made to wear a corny lobster hat while the staff sang me happy birthday.  Turning 18 was great but I was waiting on 21 so I could legally go to bars.  However I could grow out my mustache and beard and would get into Shooter’s.  It was a bar that had just opened.  I had worked there a couple of years before when it was still Catfish Cabin.

One of the coolest things that mom and Bob had ever done was that year.  I didn’t say the coolest but one of the coolest.  I wanted to go to the Monsters Of Rock concert at the Liberty Bowl Stadium.  At first my parents were not going to let me go.  But I eventually convinced them to let me go.  They not only let me go, but as a future birthday present, because this was a few weeks before I actually turned 18, they gave me the money to get the ticket.  I woke up after they had gone to the lake and found the money and a note saying happy birthday Jerry, under my pillow.

I went with Derek and Shane.  We met Shane’s brothers at their trailer and started drinking before.  I know I said I was going to stop drinking and smoking pot, but we were partying.  Oh yea, I did inhale too.  We got to the stadium as Metallica, my favorite band of all time, was playing their first song.  We climbed to the top of the stands and started to smoke a joint.

After a while, I realized that they were letting people go onto the ground.  I went downstairs and started to make my way to the stage.  It was hot and took me all day to get close to the stage.  I was hoping to get to the stage by the time Van Halen went on.  There were women taking their shirts and bras off for all to see, you know, because it was hot.  I couldn’t help it, but there was this fine blonde chick that was sitting on this guys shoulders and she was topless.  I had to grab me a hand full of that woman.  She looked back at me and smiled.  

By nightfall I was suffering from heat exhaustion.  It was a treat to be hit by the hose.  I finally made it to the stage when Van Halen got on stage.  I was so pissed.  Apparently David Lee Roth quit the band and Sammy Hagar was singing for them just before the concert.  I heard they were having problems and not getting along but wasn’t aware it had come down to that.  I was upset and started to make my way out.  Overall the concert was very cool and will never forget the Monsters Of Rock.  

The next school year had begun.  I was a senior this year.  The schedule was quite easy for me.  First period was Trigonometry, the 2nd was English with Miss Woody, the third was Physics, and the last was DECA.  After that I went home for the day or work.  In that class you got to leave early if you had a job.  Miss Woody was hot.  I remember her being pregnant a couple of times and also remember she was still very sexy  as a pregnant woman.

I found out that Kendra, another employee of Raleigh Six, whom I worked with, had a friend that had a crush on me.  Her name was Krystal.  Kendra told me that Krystal had a crush on me so I asked her out.  We were together until after I graduated.  She was a virgin.  That next Christmas she went with her mom and sister to see her dad in Washington St.  Her dad a job with a company and got transferred to Washington.  She gave her virginity to me the night before she left to go spend Christmas with her dad and family. 

I steered clear of Brian  as long as I could.  If you remember about me telling you that he was the guy, at the end of tenth grade, that yelled out, “it smells like beer in here”.  I was still mad at him for being an idiot.  Nobody liked him.  One Wednesday night I was off and Phillip, another friend of mine whom also worked  up there, Kenny and myself and one other guy went to see a movie.  I was in the parking lot getting ready to go in.  A car full of guys drove up and Brian was in the back seat.  I unleashed my true feelings about him and was quite loud at doing so.  

Derek and La Tangela, the assistant manager came outside to hear what the commotion  was about.  There was no physical altercation but La Tangela, whom we also called La Tranchela, called Mr. D at home and told him I was in a fight.  She didn’t like me and was trying to get me fired.  Well she was successful in doing so.  Mr. D came up there immediately, had me pulled out of the theater and fired me on the spot.  Not long after that, Mr. D figured out how she really was and fired her.  She thrived on causing drama.  As I said before, anybody that wrongs me, gets theirs.

Brian was a geek, but a popular geek.  He was popular but nobody liked him.  One time, at a party, Brian got very drunk.  Some guys picked up Brian.  He was asking for them to please be his friend.  They laid him out in the middle of the street, a so called prank, but you get the idea that nobody really cared for that guy.

Back in the latter 90’s, long after graduation, he made the news.  He was HIV positive by then.  I don’t know how that happened, nor do I care, but do care about the horrific act that he committed.  He had gotten this girl pregnant and she had a child.  This was before he had contracted the virus.  

He wanted to get out of paying child support.  The child was clear of the HIV virus before this situation.  He derived a plan to get out of paying support for the child.  He extracted some HIV tainted blood from himself and infected the child, his own child mind you, in hopes the child would not be able to survive, therefore ultimately getting out of having to pay child support.  This guy was a real winner, don’t you think.  He eventually went to jail for attempted murder.

Within a month I was hired on at Subway across the street.  It wasn’t as fun as Raleigh Six but at least I got free sandwiches.  I still occasionally talk to Phillip, Kenny, and Derek from the Raleigh Six.  A few years later General Cinema left Memphis and the Raleigh Six and the Twin at the Raleigh Springs Mall closed up shop.  Malco has ever since ruled the cinema experience in the Memphis area.  Quite frankly, it is my opinion that they are better.

I was cornered by mom that spring for a private talk.  She told me that her and Bob were not going to help me with college.  I thought that was great.  She didn’t give me any warning and it was too late for scholarships and didn’t know how to apply for them anyways.  Mom decided it was more important to drink and gamble than to help me with college.  I took all those accelerated classes for nothing.

Prom came and that was pretty cool.  It was a group of us.  My friend Joel and his girlfriend Lisa, Mike and his girlfriend, John and his date, and me and my girlfriend.  We rented a limo.  We had dinner at The Shelby Place.  We went to the dance but we didn’t stay.  We stayed for a couple of dances but decided to go riding around In the limo.  We went back to Joel’s place and partied the night away.  I got laid twice that night.

The end of the school year came and I didn’t do so well in trig class.  I got my first D ever in school.  I played it off as though I partied and chased women instead of focusing on school but the fact is it had become increasingly hard for me.  I would turn 19 years old by July of that summer. 

The summer came and school was over.  I was still seeing Krystal  and ended my job at Subway.  I got with IBEW, (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) and got a job with Dillard Smith Construction Company.  I worked on a crew that installed above ground transformers.  I only worked on that crew for two months.  Soon I got on with the asphalt crew and worked there until June of the next year.

Krystal thought she was pregnant.  She ended up not being pregnant.  Her mother decided to move her and her daughters to Washington to get her away from me.  Her father came into town and took the family to the Hungry Fisherman.  That building would eventually become Neon Moon but now the lot is vacant.  The building has been leveled and now there is just a lake there.

I didn’t want to do the long distance thing for I knew first hand that it didn’t work.  I loved Krystal with all my heart but just couldn’t do it.  Soon after turning 19, she moved and would only see her once more after that.  

Joel’s mother got remarried.  As luck, or bad luck would have it, His mother and new-step father died in a car wreck on their honeymoon in another country.  He broke up with his girlfriend, Lisa, before this happened and moved with family in Texas.  I haven’t seen him since.

I tried to get with the military.  I got a 97 on the ASVAB, an entry exam to the military.  Since my mother didn’t want to send me to college, I was going to try the military.  I wanted to go into the medical field.  The MEPS doctor disqualified me for life because I had a brain tumor several years before.  I would try again some years later.  My neurosurgeon gave me a clear bill of health to go anywhere in the world I want and do anything I want but still got disqualified.

When I was 19, I tried to get on with State Tech, now called Southwest Community College.  There was no way I could pay for it myself and I wasn’t going to get any help from mom.  So I tried to get grants and scholarships.  The counselor in financial aid said, “you have to be out of your parents house for one year”.

Six months later I tried at State Tech again.  This time the same man said, “you have to be out of your parents house for two years”.  I said’ “according to who”?  He said, “Reagan”.  I said, “according to Reagan 10,000 a year or less is also poverty”!  I was only making 10,000 a year.  I tried one more time a year later.  This time the same black man said, “you have to be out of your parents house for four years”.  I said, “let’s call it what it is shall we.  If I was black I would have gotten all the funds I would have ever needed two years ago”!

I worked for Dillard Smith a bit when I, one day, was at the Raleigh Springs Mall with Phillip, my friend since childhood.  I saw Lisa on our way out.  She was with her mom and sister.  We talked for a bit catching up.  After all, I haven’t seen her for a while.  I asked her for her number and she gave it to me. 

 I later called her.  I asked her out.  She said she would love to go out with me.  I said, “you would”, for I would not have fathomed that she ever possibly would.  She was exceptionally gorgeous and had a body built like a brick out house and she knew it.  I already knew her but this was a leap for me since she didn’t already have a crush on me.

I went out with her for a year and a half.  Her father was Red, a boxing promoter at the Omni new Daisy.  She was the ring girl for the boxing matches the first Tuesday of every month.  I would get into those boxing matches for free since I was with her.  After the boxing matches, we would eat at Krystal’s in Fraser.  I loved spending time with her for she was fun and spontaneous.

All my friends knew her for I introduced her to all of them.  After all, I was spending all my time with her and didn‘t treat her as a trophy girl.  She was my friend.  We would hang at her place and watch Dr. Who, a British TV. Show.  She would never commit to me though.  I wanted so bad for her to be my steady girlfriend but she just would not commit.

My parents helped me get on with Shelby County with the Road Department.  I was hired so I quit Dillard Smith.  I was hired on with the Bridge Shop.  Mom was in personnel and Bob was managing the Automotive shop.  I would go to the shop all the time and see Bob.  He would have a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other.  He shared management with  Jarvis.  He always had new jokes to tell.   

Mom decided I needed to move out.  I was twenty years old.  I didn’t care for the curfew that I had in the first place.  My curfew was 1:00 am and I wouldn’t come in till 2:00 or 3:00 if I even came in at all in rebellion for the curfew.  After all, I was 20 years old and not 12.  

I left the house and moved in with my dad.  We moved into the Edge Water Apartments.  We moved into the apartment.  Dad was so cool.  At this time he was with Lincoln Class Co. as an estimator.  He also traded me my paid for GMC sprint for his S-10 truck.  All I had to do is finance it with the Shelby County Credit Union and I did so.  I loved that truck.  

Lisa and I would still hang out and do fun things together.  My apartment complex had an indoor pool and we would go swimming there.  One day I asked her why she wouldn’t agree to see me exclusively and she said that the only reason she wasn’t seeing anyone else was she didn’t have time.  She was cutting hair and a lingerie model on the side.  She may have been busy but that answer cut like a knife.

At this time I had started karate again at the same place.  Mr. Northup was gone.  Mr. Boswell was running the place by then.  At one time he was calling me sir.  Funny how the world works.  I got Lisa in under me.  She was  with Mr. Boswell for some time.  My main goal was for her to learn self defense.   

My Uncle Jim, my dad’s brother, died of alcoholism in 1991.  At his funeral I thought about it long and hard.  My uncle and grandfather on my dad’s side lived in West Memphis.  He was buried in the town where they were from, that is my father and his brother, and that was Cleveland Mississippi.  All the way there and all the way back from his funeral I thought about it.  I was totally in-love with Lisa but I had dignity.  

After I got home, I got out of dad’s car and hopped into my truck and drove straight over to Lisa‘s.  She just happened to just be getting home from Teakwondo.  I told her, We need to talk”.  She said, “ok”.  We went into the house and went to her room.  I said, “you told me that the only reason you aren’t seeing anybody else is you don’t have the time.  Well now you have all the time in the world you could possibly want”.  She said, “ok”.

After that day I realized that she was seeing my friend Jeff, that he was hanging around her when I wasn’t around.  I knew him.  Even though he was my friend, I knew how he was with girls.  He was a dork but he had to be a jokester with girls to get them to want to be with him and he was clearing a path to be with her.

She soon realized that after I was gone, she really wanted me and that she had feelings for me and didn‘t want her heart to be broken again.  She never would swallow her pride and tell me though.  But after she was seeing Jeff, I sure as hell wasn’t coming back.  I called him up and told him what I had leaned and at first he told me it was Mike and I believed him.  At that time that was the only guy I could possibly believe could rob my woman from me.  

I soon leaned it was not Mike but rather Jeff.  What a coward to avoid me!  I called him back up and told him to meet me in his front yard, that I was going to whip his fat ass!.  He would never come out!  That’s ok I thought, they deserve each other.  I still miss her to this day but at the same time I realized  I had my dignity and he didn’t.

I met this other girl through Kendra.  Her name was Alisha.  She was a very cool woman but she liked to instill her desires.  She was strictly country.  I was country but loved rock & roll since I met Bob.  He got me started with ZZ Top but soon was to be extended in to full blown rock.  I have been a die hard Metallica fan since I was 12 years old.  Is a matter of fact, I’m listening to them now at forty years of age.  I liked the old country my mother listened to when I was a kid but now loved rock.  Alisha was into dungeons and dragons and got me into that.  I was a necromancer  and was good at it.  

For a while I got a second job working as a night clerk at the Mapco gas station on summer across from the Summer Twin Drive Inn.  I was working two full time jobs and had a girl friend too.  That was tough on me but like I said, I was always a hard worker.  I didn’t last but six months.  The store manager was arrested for embezzling 10,000.00 dollars from the store.  He was fired and corporate decided to clean house.  I quit before they could fire me.

I stated to have nightmares.  They all had one thing in common.  They all involved guns.  One nightmare, I was going down a corridor with a mini gun strapped on me.  There was countless doors down this corridor that never ended.  I was taking my foot and breaking doors down firing at monsters that were 12 feet tall.  Destroying them as I got to them.

Another nightmare, which was completely different, our country was infiltrated by the Russians.  Some men and myself formed a militia.  We were in the mountains in a wooded area, at my family‘s lake house in Arkansas.  A long line of infantry men was coming down the path down the side of the mountain.  We stayed hidden and waited for the middle of the line.  We were equipped with AK-47s.  When the middle came up, we let them have it.  After a few minutes, I was the only one left and was out of ammo but we have taken out most of the infantry.  I ran up the hill.  When I got up the hill I was back in the neighborhood where I grew up which was Raleigh Memphis.  I made it to the cove.  There was a girl on a bike and a boy on skates.  I told them to get out of there.  They disappeared and was immediately surrounded by Russian infantry men.  They all began firing at me at the same time.  I was about to die.  The commanding officer came up to me.  I was covered in my own blood.  I spit blood on him and laughed while saying, “it took all of you to take me”.  He then pulled a pin out of a grenade and threw it at me.  It exploded and I came flying off that couch, feeling my body to see if I was ok and still alive.

One more nightmare I had was set in the old west.  I was in a gunfight with my mother.  We both drew but I was the faster draw.  I killed her but fell soon after her for I was hit myself.  There were several other nightmares but I described enough of them to give you the idea what they were about.  I self analyzed them and came to realize that they concerned my resentment to the way my mother treated us.  After realizing what they were about, I stopped having the nightmares.  

Back to the story at hand.  While I was at Mapco, gay men started to hit on me.  Even the store manager was gay.  I am not homophobic by any means.  I am completely heterosexual.  I started thinking about it, women would hardly ever tell you what’s on there mind but guys generally have no reservations.  I thought all those years that I was literally ugly.  After this era of time, I realized that I am not so bad looking.  My confidence was starting to build.  I was 21 years of age at this time.  I was still shy but was almost out of my shyness shell but would still be a few years yet before I was out completely.  I have to, in a cosmic sort of way, thank gay men for helping me realize that I wasn’t ugly. 

Alisha broke up with me several months later and at first I couldn’t understand why.  I spent a lot of lunches with The Shelby County Road Department trying to figure it out and a lot of spare time as well..  I would think and think and it would come to me, but it would take a couple of weeks to figure it out.  

At the end we were supposed to go see a movie, but by the day it was supposed to happen, an army of people were involved including my brother Wess.  We were going to the movie at the Summer Twin Drive Inn.  When the time came to pick Kendra up, she was just getting out of the shower.  Her guy friend was to meet us but was two hours late.  He said he had a problem with his boss and couldn’t get there on time.  Some time in the middle Alisha met up with this guy at Kendra’s from KIX 106.  It took a couple of weeks but I figured out the plan.  She had plans with me but at the last minute she came up with this plan to see that guy and used her friends to stall and to make us late for the movie so she could make it happen.  I knew something wasn’t right and got my brother and walked to my truck.    

Remember me saying that I had the ability to figure something out if it didn’t seem right.  Well I did figure it out and after a couple of weeks after we last saw each other.  Well the last time we saw each other we made arrangements to go to see a movie.  My brother Wes was involved and at first I didn’t realize that he was.  He became friends with her.  She liked him but I didn’t mind.

June 21st of 1991 was when she was to report to her recruiter to go to boot camp.  I tried to go by her house at 6:00am to say good bye.  Her step-father came out and said she didn’t want to see me.  I left thinking she never wanted to see me again.  I wouldn’t see her again until after boot camp.  I loved Alisha and it would take me quite a while to get over her.  

I had gotten a couple of Gordon’s Jewelers cards and gave her one when we were still together.  I completely forgot about it until a few months after she went to boot camp.  I got a bill in the mail from Gordon’s.  She had purchased two male wedding bands and put them on the card.  I was furious at first and cancelled the card immediately.  One night she was visiting my brother, Wes, and was there with a female friend.  I started to have a gut feeling that she was actually gay.

A couple of years ago we bumped into each other at Bubba’s on 64 highway just outside of Bartlett.  We had a few drinks together.  She told me she was gay.  I just simply said, “I knew it”.  We hung around each other for the rest of the night.  We ended up back at her house.  I was exhausted so I spent the night.  

The next morning we had sex.  We did not have sex while we were seeing each other.  It didn’t matter to me because I was still in-love with her.  She did admit that if we had had sex while we were together, she probably wouldn’t have joined the military and gone to boot camp and that she probably wouldn’t have gone gay.  I wished things had gone a different way for us.  She had a witty sense of humor and a smart ass attitude, and I dug it.  

I started to realize that I allowed myself to fall deep for a woman and fell even harder.  I wouldn’t change anything though.  If you read the whole story, you would, take from the context, that I was a woman hater.  That is the farthest from the truth.  I love women, always have and always will!

As of the summer of that year, I started to go down to Teague Texas to party with my uncle Mike.  He was so cool and he was in a band called Diamondback.  I would go down during the summers and party with him.  Should I mention the fact that the women in Texas are exceptional, yea I think I should!

In my early 20’s I was hit on by gay men all the time.  I am not homophobic by any means or stretch of the imagination.  I have to thank gay men for helping me to brake most of the shy shell I was in.  I literally thought I was ugly thanks to the abuse of my mother. 

I soon realized that, women do not tell you what they think but guys hold nothing back.  They tell you what’s on their mind.  I started realizing that I am not bad looking.  I started taking chances hitting on women.  At first I still got shot down but after a few years would eventually get past that and improve my attitude.  I didn’t hit it off at first.  Quite frankly I still sucked with the women but soon realized it was the attitude that would win them over.  I don’t get every one of them but I am more confident nowadays.   

I had a couple of friends that I liked hanging out with from my Dillard Smith Job.  I was no longer employed with them but by this time, Shelby County, but still liked hanging out with them.  Chris was one of those friends.  He had a hot red headed sister.  Believe it or not, that was not the reason for hanging out with him.  She went to Florida that summer.   She was to get back the day before I turned 21.  She said she would show me a very good time.  I was very excited for turning 21, which meant I could go to a bar legally.  

The day came.  I was 21.  She got back but avoided my calls.  I ended up not hooking up with her.  Instead I hung out with Mike.  We got a couple of bottles of whiskey and celebrated with a girl in Midtown whom had her birthday on the same day as me.

When my uncle, my father’s brother died, my grandfather, on my dad’s side, was put in a retirement home.  My grandfather didn’t like it too much.  The home was in Mississippi.  Dad decided to move him in with us.  The lease was up at Edgewater and we moved into a three bedroom apartment at the Brentwood Place Apartments across the street on Sycamore View.

It was dad, grandpa, Lee and myself.  It was cramped.  Lee and I didn’t get along well at all.  After a year grandpa decided to move in with his daughter in Horn Lake Mississippi.  He was just too old to deal with the constant fighting of my brother and me.

I went several times down to Texas to hang out with my uncle Mike and party with his band.  I loved hanging out with him.  I would get a wild hair and out on a whim, hit the road.  I didn’t know where I was going until I got there.  It just happened that half of the time it was in Texas.

Dad floated between Boone and Son’s and Lincoln Glass Company.  In 1991 he worked with Lincoln Glass Company.  He had fallen off of a platform and landed on his chest.  I had taken him to an emergency medical facility to get x-rayed.  He had a tumor in his left lung.  He was admitted into the VA hospital the next day.  The next day he had his left lung removed.

After that he was setup for radiation and chemotherapy.  That was very hard on his body.  The reason he did radiation and chemotherapy was to make sure.  His tumor was the most aggressive there was.  90% of the time, when that tumor breaks off it goes directly to the brain.

To tell you how rude some people are.  We had a couple of female neighbors that lived directly upstairs.  My dad was really sick from the Chemo and radiation.  They were a couple of party animals and partied all night every night.  One night my dad was feeling really bad and couldn’t get any sleep.  I went upstairs and tried to explain to them that my father was really sick and couldn’t sleep from all the noise.  I asked them to please keep it down.  The brunette laughed in my face.

I thought long and hard about how I was going to teach them a lesson.  I went to Gold Smith’s at the Raleigh Springs Mall.  I got a regular sized stereo system.  I took it home and set the system up.  The speakers were bad so I took them back and the older woman that was an associate, ordered me some more.

I kept calling and going by but the speakers never came.  I was getting upset for our neighbors were still being rude.  This went on for more than a month.  Come to find out the woman forgot to order them and to boot she went off on me and talked to me like a kid.  I had used my Gold Smith’s card.  I got with the manager and expressed my dislike for the treatment I got. 

She fired the woman and told me that I could have any set of speakers in the store I wanted.  Naturally I picked the biggest and most powerful set in the entire department store.  I wheeled them bad boys on home.  I set the system up.  I told dad and grandpa to go for a ride.  I told them that when they get back, they will never have a problem again.

They left and went to the store.  I turned the volume and base all the way up on full blast.  I then proceeded to turn the system on.  Dang it sounded great and was amazed at just how loud it was.  It sounded like I was actually at a rock concert.  I went outside to the opposite end of the building.  The entire building was shaking.  I was just gitty with excitement. 

I kid you not, three minutes had elapsed from the time I turned the system on to just test it and when I  came back in to turn it off.  As soon as I turned it off I heard the phone ring.  It was the property manager.  She said that the woman upstairs was complaining about the loud music.  I said, “well that was fast.  I am just giving them the same thing they’ve been giving us“.  She laughed and agreed wholeheartedly for we complained on them constantly.  

She said I know but the woman upstairs has a migraine.  I agreed and never turned it that loud again.  Dad and grandpa came home and I was happy to inform them about what happened.  We never again heard another peep out of those inconsiderate selfish whores again. 

My little brother, Wes, and myself took dad to his mom’s house in Texas.  He wanted to spend a month at grandma’s house.  He knew it would be the last time he saw his mom, but he got to spend some quality time with her.  While down there, our grandma took my brother and me to a real Mexican restaurant.  It was great food but my brother ended up staying on the camode most of the evening and I, for several hours.  I almost didn’t get to go with Mike to a gig in a neighboring town.

That was the last time I got to party with uncle Mike.  I tried to go two years later.  But I made the mistake of going down before I got some rest.  I usually would go when a wild hair got stuck in my butt.  I started to pass out from exhaustion, so I pulled over to sleep for about an hour.  My battery was dead.  I ended up walking five miles before somebody finally picked me up and carried me five miles back to my truck, the Ford Splash, and jumped me off.  I turned around and went back home to get another battery.  I’ll never forget the great times I got to spend with Uncle Mike. 

I was fired by Shelby County.  Apparently one of the inmates that was a supposed trustee bought beer and it snapped me in the ass.  That wasn’t the reason I was fired but it led up to it.  I loved my job with the county but there was discrimination going on like you wouldn’t believe.  

My step-father, Bob, had been running the automotive shop for 16 years.  When Rex, the manager, died of cancer, the position came open.  Bob put in for it.  They “gave” it to Herrington’s brother-in-law.  These days it’s not what you know but who you blow!  Herrington’s brother-in-law must have sucked those genitals very well.  Mayor Herrington was the biggest bigot I have ever known and took every chance to screw the white man!   Bob put in for retirement the same day.  When that happened, I wanted to leave anyways.  I was terminated in October of 1992.

Toni and Chris were living in Florida.  Dad was terminal so Toni brought Chris to see his father one last time.  Toni brought her boyfriend.  Dad was still in-love with her.  He brought her up in conversations all the time.  It was bad enough that Toni brought her fiancée’, but they were holing hands on dad’s couch.  I thought, what balls this woman has.  I know she didn’t love dad anymore but for GOD sakes, my father was going to die.

In January of 1993, my father was taken by ambulance  to the hospital.  I went behind the ambulance.  He seemed ok so I went to work.  At this time I worked at Fred’s Dollar Store on Sycamore View.  By that afternoon my aunt Carolyn, my dad’s sister, called me and said my father took a turn for the worse.  I told my boss that I had to go.  

I went directly to the hospital.  Everybody was already there with the exception of my brother Lee.  My dad’s sister, aunt Carolyn, and her family, were already there.  Everybody wanted to put that man on life support.  I said, “NO”!  I have been with this man and he is my father.  Everybody was telling me that he wanted to be put on life support if he gets bad.  I said, “yea, he told you that and us, but that was when he could still walk”.  They all eventually agreed with me.  My family pulled some strings and got Lee released from jail to see dad before he left.  I know he held on till Lee got there.  

It was the hardest thing I ever said in my life.  Sure I wanted my father to live, he was my best friend.  I, however, knew how much he suffered first hand.  The plug was pulled.  I cried uncontrollably.  I whispered to dad immediately after the plug was pulled to go with GOD, my father, my friend”!

Talking about this now still hurts and fills my eyes up with tears as if it happened a few days ago.  This was, as of this coming January, 18 years ago. My father was my best friend.  Toni brought Chris up from Florida to dad’s funeral.  Dad left me the 30 ought 6, a damn good gun.  Toni talked me into giving it to her for Chris.  Toni gave it to dad for Christmas some years ago.  She said she wanted to keep it in the family.  I was saddened and wasn’t thinking straight.  I said ok.  I later would think, “what the hell am I doing “?  I would regret doing that for her.  Chris was never a hunter.  That was the last time I would ever see Chris physically.  He never touched the gun.  I was such an idiot!  He left this world with what he came in with, and that was nothing except for the love for his kids.      

                                                                       CHAPTER 5

                                                THE YOUTH IS WASTED ON THE YOUNG

My father died on January 16, 1993.  I was tore up but my brother, Lee, was affected the most.  After we got home from dad’s funeral, I left for a while.  I got back and Lee was laying in dad’s bed.  I could tell he was hurting.  We loved dad equally but it went further for him.  He took advantage of dad’s love for his kids.  When my father was alive, my brother hocked his 380 auto once.  My dad didn’t want that gun to be lost.  

You see, us Erwin men have always taken guns seriously.  My brother was on drugs at the time.  My dad got it out of hock.  My brother got it back when my dad was gone and hocked it again.  Our dad found out and Lee just said that it was his, that he could do whatever he wanted.  Dad was shaking he was so mad.  I asked, “why do you put up with this behavior”?  At the same time I couldn’t blame him, he was his son.   It would be years though, before I understood this type of love.  That is the reason Lee was affected the most.  He loved dad so much but yet took advantage of his love.

After my father died, things were tough.  It was hard to adjust being without dad.  I was 22 years old when he passed.  I missed him.  He had a great sense of humor.  If you asked him how he was doing, he would just give you a weather report that reflected his mood.  I do that to this day.

After I moved out of Brentwood Place Apartments, since the lease was in dad’s name, I moved into an old man’s house.  I was a care giver for him.  I didn’t have a job so it was great for me.  His name was Russ.  I found out about the job through a friend, Mike, whom I had gone to school with.  This wasn’t my best friend Mike however.  He was just there temporarily while he was in town.  

He introduced me to a man by the name of Don.  He was the captain of the North Precinct of the City of Memphis Police Department.  He helped take care of Russ.  Russ was 97 years of age.  The job didn’t pay much but room and board and cable and phone were free so it was a pretty cool setup for me.  The house was haunted but that’s another story.

A friend of mine named John told me about our other friend, named Cody, had a pair of 68 Mercury Cougar’s for sale.  Cody was living with his dad and his dad made him get rid of them.  One was an XR7 and the other was a plain jane.  I was always a die hard Chevy guy myself but thought I would take a look.  John wanted the XR7.  

That was also the day I met Robby, a Cougar guru if you will.  The plain jane was partially buried in the mud in the woods.  Cody got a tractor and pulled it out.  It was in supreme condition.  No rust whatsoever and I mean none.  That was the day I became a Ford fan.  I loaded it up on a flatbed wrecker truck and had it taken to Russ’ house.

I spent a lot of time working on this car.  Robby ran the serial numbers on the block and turns out to have come from a truck.  I met a guy by the name of Mike, whom was a Ford man.  He got me in touch with a guy selling a 302 hydraulic roller out of a 1989 Mustang Cobra.  I bought it for a 100 bucks and rebuilt it.  Robby helped me out with a lot of the repairs.  Robby also set me up with a painter and I had my car painted midnight blue, but that was much later.

My friend from high school, Mike and I were still hanging out, quite a bit I might add.  He got with this girl in Mississippi and fell madly in-love with her.  She used him as many redneck women do and threw him aside.  Mike was very depressed.  

I had a Rossi 38 special revolver that had belonged to my late uncle Jim.  It wasn’t a great gun but it was a family heirloom.  I kept it under my matters.  Russ stayed in his room most of the time only to come out when he wanted a shot of whiskey.  His favorite whiskey was Makers Mark.  I slept upstairs.  The house was a split level behind the Raleigh Springs Mall on Priscilla.

One night Mike and I were partying at Shooters.  We both drank quite a bit.  We wanted to go home but weren’t done drinking.  We went to my house, stopping for beer on the way.  We drank for a while and I fell asleep in bed, or shall I say passed out.  I told Mike he could stay if he wanted but I was passing out.  

Mike got to feeling depressed about his girlfriend that had just broken up with him.  He was wanting attention.  He got my gun out and called his mom and threatened to kill himself.  His mom, being a drama queen, believed him.  He wasn’t actually going to do it, not with my gun anyways.  It was broke and needed to be fixed.  He failed to tell her that.  

She came to my house to get him.  She took my gun from him and threw it away and wouldn’t tell me where.  I asked her why and she said it was my fault for letting him get my gun.  “But I was freaking passed out“, I said in a pissed off manner.  “I didn’t know he was going to pull that crap.  The gun was messed up anyways and Mike knew it, he just wanted attention“.  She just simply said, “oh well”.  It wasn’t hers to throw away and reminded me of my mom‘s attitude.  I didn’t live with kids so I didn’t feel the need to lock it up.  In my opinion she still owes me for a gun, a family heirloom at that.

Not long after that, I had my first real brush with the law.  I was at this bar on Sycamore view.  I met this woman.  She wanted to go to a dive and she asked if I wanted to go.  I was very willing to go.  She decided to play cat and mouse on the way there.  We turned off Sycamore View onto Raleigh LaGrange.  She was in a faster vehicle than me.  My Cougar wasn’t running street legal yet.  Before we got to stage, she lost me.  I was around the corner from my house so I decided to go home.

I turned right onto Stage and then an immediate left onto Scheibler.  I just happened to look in my rear view mirror and saw a vehicle turning right onto stage just as I was hitting Scheibler.  There were no lights other than headlights.  I turned right off of Scheibler onto my street which was Priscilla.  I pulled into my driveway and turned off my truck.  A car pulled in behind me.  Now note he still didn’t have his strobes on.

He threw me on the hood of his car and slapped handcuffs on me.  He then turned his strobes on, pulled off of my property, and asked why I didn’t pull over when I saw his lights.  I said, “you didn’t have your lights on”!  He then asked me if I wanted to take a breathalyzer.  I said, “you never turned on your lights, slapped me in cuffs, dragged me off my property, violated my rights, and you want me to take a breathalyzer”?  “NO”!

I was carted off to jail.  I didn’t stay in jail long.  My mom and Bob paid the 100.00 dollar bail and took me home.  I ended up accepting reckless driving.  After all, I was doing 90 in a 45 so I was driving very fast.  That would haunt me on my insurance for three years.  That was the only time I was ever in trouble with the law until November of 2006 with the exception of the trouble my brother Lee got me in when he used my name to get out of trouble with the law.  I have always been a hard working law abiding citizen.

I needed extra money to continue working on the car.  I got a night job with Imperial Security.  During orientation the chief of security with Imperial bragged that he made 500.00 dollars a week.  I remembered thinking, “and you’re bragging about that”.  He gave everybody pep talk telling them they could make a career with Imperial.  At this time minimum wage was 4.45 an hour and that was what they paid us.  And this company was charging the customers 21.00 an hour to watch their property.  What a joke right!

Payday was every Friday morning.  I needed to borrow 100.00 dollars from Imperial.  It was taken straight out of my check.  This one week I worked doubles everyday to make extra money to compensate for the money being deducted.  I worked 80 hours that week.  When I got my check I was floored.  It was for 222.00 dollars.  Now add 100.00 dollars for what they deducted because of what I borrowed.  That’s a grand whopping total of 322.00 dollars for working 80 hours.  I immediately looked at that woman and said, “I quit”.  They never gave me my last check, the thieving bastards.

I had a little money in my pocket so I tried to do the buy and sell thing.  I bought a Toyota.  All it needed was a transmission.  I got it really cheap through a friend.  I also bought a second Toyota.  It was running.  Mike, my friend that was a Ford man, introduced me to a German fellow by the name of Fred.  He owned a shop called Import Auto.  Mike was a mechanic by trade and worked for Fred in his shop.  I helped out but didn’t make money.  I was trying to learn.  That didn’t work out too well.

I managed to sell one Toyota and was trying to hold desperately onto my money until something else came along.  The other Toyota still needed a transmission.   Fred let me store my Cougar on his property so I didn’t have to worry about that.

Russ only had one surviving relative and that was his son.  Well I guess he wanted to get his inheritance before he ended up croaking from old age himself.  Russ was getting pretty bad anyways.  They put him in a home.  I guess old man Russ just gave up.  Within less than two months Russ died.   He passed away on June 12, 1994 on Father‘s day.  

Russ was an Atheist most of his life.  I think he was actually afraid of GOD.  I got him to accept Jesus Christ as lord and savior before he was put in a home.  I told him that his sins are forgiven and forgotten forever.  He looked at me with mortal fear in his eyes and said”, I hope so”!  I wished he could have understood the power and love of our forgiving GOD.

Russ’ son was in a hurry to get me out of the house so he could fix it up and sell it.  I had just lost my home, I was jobless, I had two cars that didn’t run, and the woman that I had been seeing just broke up with me.  She knew I just became homeless and said, “you can’t provide for me the way I need to be provided for”.  

I was staying with Mike, the Ford guy, and his girlfriend on their couch.  I spent the majority of my money getting the car fixed so at least I was mobile.  I was feeling down and had a little money left in my pocket.  I was depressed that the buying and selling thing didn’t work out.  I decided to go to Shooters for a while and have a couple of beers.

I bumped into a friend of mine named Terry.  He was a real country bumpkin but as genuine as they get.  I told him what has been going on with me and that I was down on my luck.  He told me to come over to his place and sleep the night on the couch and worry about it in the morning.  

Terry’s brother was living with him.  They lived in the English Village Apartments.  His brother was gone so we just called it the night.  I laid on the couch and went to sleep.  The next morning I woke up and leaned up.  I looked out the window and saw some kids playing on the playground across the street.  I said a prayer.  I said, “GOD, I need help.  I am in a tough spot and can’t see how I can get out on my own.

Within four hours I was employed at Great Dane Trailers full time, I was enrolled into school full time at night at Concorde Career Institute for Medical Assistant, I had money in my pocket, a place to live, and a refrigerator full of food.   I was and am truly blessed.  My life was getting back on track.  When I can’t go any further, I just hand it to GOD and he sets it right for me.

Terry’s brother decided to move in with his girlfriend and Terry was looking for a roommate.  Terry was a painter at Great Dane Trailers and told me to go put in an application.  I did and was hired on the spot.  My first day on the job was on my 24th birthday.  I was a laborer.  I scraped BB’s off of fresh welds on trailers but I was happy to have a job.  Plus I got my foot in the door.

I had a Sears credit card.  Terry and I went to Sears and spent 1800.00 dollars furnishing the apartment.  The items were overpriced and at that time the Sears card only had 18% interest.  That was atrocious at that time but a far cry better than today’s cards that charge 24% or more.  Like I said, we overpaid for the stuff but it got us started.

I started working at great Dane Trailers.  It was Monday the 6th of July 1994, my 24th birthday.  I was in that Toyota.  It was costing me a fortune in repairs but was transportation.  Come to think of it, every used car I ever had ended up costing me a fortune to keep on the road.  

The only cars I ever had that I didn’t mind spending a lot of money on was my first car, which was the 1974 GMC Sprint, and the 1968 Mercury Cougar, which I still had and boy oh boy did I spend a lot of money on it.  If I had all the money that I ever spent on vehicles to keep the on the road, I am certain that by now I would have a house and a nice one at that.

It was taking some getting used to being without dad but I was managing.  There was a pattern starting to emerge.  My grandfather on my mom’s side died of lung cancer, my father died of lung cancer, and my uncle Darryl on my mom’s side died of stomach cancer.  I was starting to get nervous.

Lee was doing pretty good.  Losing dad forced him to grow up.  It would still be some years though before he would act like a mature man.  We may have fought constantly through the growing up years and into adulthood, but after we lost our father, we became good friends.

Three months after working at Great Dane I started on the flooring of trailers.  I wasn’t actually flooring them but was securing the flooring to the trailers.  I couldn’t work overtime because I had to leave early to go to school.  For a year I didn’t get much sleep but thought it would be worth it.  The director of the school told us in a lecture that we had the potential to make up to $50,000.00 a year as a Medical Assistant.  It was expensive too.  $7,500.00 dollars for one year of school and training.

I met a guy though my aunt and her friend, which was a family friend.  His name was Richard.  He was a plumber.  He seemed to be pretty cool at first.  Six months after moving into English Village, the lease was up and Terry didn’t want to renew the lease.  He was getting married.  

Richard had mentioned that he needed a room mate and would be glad to let me move in with him.  So I said good bye to Terry as we moved everything out and moved in with Richard.  I thought he was cool but soon realized he used people, especially women.    

Now throughout this book all I wrote was first names of people I met and knew throughout my life.  On this occasion however, I will mention the last name of Richard and that was Dillon.  He was not a very nice guy at all and a chronic liar at that.  He was another one of those people that would rather stand on the roof and tell a lie instead of stand on the ground a tell the truth.

To give you an idea how ruthless this guy was, I’m going to tell you about the worse thing I ever saw him do.  He started to see this woman.  Her name was Rita.  Her and I became very good friends.  He moved her and her four kids in.  She worked for UT in the printing room.  She only got paid once a month and at that time it was $1,400.00 dollars.  That was before taxes mind you.

She knew he was messing around on her and let him know she knew.  When she got paid, Richard made her cash her check and took all but four hundred dollars of it and kicked her and her four kids out on the street to fend for themselves on that little bit of money until she got paid again the next month.  

As if that wasn’t bad enough, she tried desperately to get food stamps for her and her kids.  The food stamp office said she made too much money.  What kind of crap is that.  She wasn’t black or Mexican is what it really was.  In other words she wasn’t a minority.  If anybody lives in Memphis or has been there, they know that the Caucasians are the minorities in the mid south.  There is so much racial hatred in Memphis but the political hatred was astounding.

After Richard did that to Rita, I didn’t care for him that much.  I was basically buying time until I could find another place to move.  Richard and I befriended a young woman by the name of Shannon.  He got to where he didn’t like her or her friend very much at all.  I wonder why that is?  Could it be he had relations with Shannon’s friend, whom was Kim, and tossed her aside like all others, or could it be that her friend told everybody that he was a less than a minute man.  

I still talked to Shannon and Kim and it upset him.  Richard was a coward in every meaning of the word.  One night I was talking to Shannon and her friend out in the street.  He got mad that I was still talking to them after he told me not to, as if he was my parent.  He came up behind me and slapped the back of my head.  He slapped my head so hard that I saw a big star.  He immediately jumped back on his property so I couldn’t touch him.  I was so mad, I was shaking.   I told him to come off his property and take an ass whooping like a man.  He never would come off his property and he was no man.  I never got that chance.

He told me to leave and never come back.  I never got my stuff out of his house.  To show my appreciation for how he treated me and his fellow man, and woman, I left him a going away present.  I will not go into what that present was, however.  I am a much better person than that.  Not to mention it might be less than what a dignified gentlemen would do, yet it was very gratifying to say the least.  

After I left Richard’s, I moved in with a woman I met through Richard.  Her name was Manning.  She lived in Midtown on Hawthorne.  Midtown was a world of its own but was laid back and kind of cool.  Her father was a heart surgeon and was a founder of the Southerland Heart Foundation.  We started off as roommates even though we were intimate before but we ended up more than, but didn’t last long.  She ended up getting with someone else and I tried to just go with the flow but just couldn’t do it.  I was there for five months and moved yet again.

After I left Manning’s place, I rented a room at Mike‘s place, the Ford man.  He lived in Nut Bush on Maria St.  I hated Nut Bush but I was doing the best that I could.  I just had to take things one day at a time.  I was still building myself up after being homeless.

When My car was over at Fred’s shop, somebody stole my Holley Double Pumper carburetor.  I knew it was Mike but never said anything about it.  I wanted to get something different anyways.  He had a shop in the back yard which made it very convenient.

This was the year Lee got me into a lot of legal trouble.  I got a new Ford Splash pickup truck when I lived at Richard’s.  At first the insurance rates were affordable.  A month after I got the truck, my insurance premium jumped to over $300.00 dollars a month.  I was wondering why in the world it was so high.  Someone at an insurance company told me to go to the records room at 201 Poplar and have them pull my record and that’s exactly what I did.

When my record was pulled, I was floored.  Somebody was using my name in traffic violations.  One was a D.U.I. and another was a hit and run felony charge.   I asked her where that was at.  The female clerk told me that it was Brownsville, Tennessee.  I knew exactly who that was.  It was my brother.  The clerk told me one other thing.  She said I was charged with a hit and run.  The guy called in and said he had been drinking and got scared and that’s why he didn’t stop.  She said, “there’s a warrant for your arrest in Brownsville”.  She said, “oh yea, your license has been suspended.  I thought, “Damn almighty“.

Well I understood why my insurance was higher than my truck note.  I had to take off work at Great Dane and go to Brownsville and turn myself in to straighten this mess out he got me in.  I went before the judge and told him who I was and how I found out that I had a warrant for my arrest in a city that I have never been to until that day.  At first he said that there was nothing he could do.  I told him there was.  Compare the signatures.  I was never there so there could be no possible way they would match.

He let me go and told me to have the ticket pulled and be back at court at 1:00 pm.  I said, “yes sir, I’ll be here”.  I had the ticket pulled and met back at court at the pre-disposed time.  He looked at the ticket and said, “sho enough doesn’t match.  Mr. Erwin, I will notify Nashville immediately about this and have this removed from your record.  If I were you Mr. Erwin, I’d find your brother and whoop his ass”!  You heard me correctly.  The judge in Brownsville said that exactly.  Well I had the hit and run taken care of.  

I went back to Memphis but wasn’t done yet.  I had to take another day off of work and try and see the district attorney.  I still had to see if I could get the   D.U.I removed.  I went to 201 Poplar.  I gave my name and said what my problem is and asked for the district attorney.  

He came out but was in a hurry.  He said, “ I’m sorry but there is nothing I can do“.  I said, oh yes there is.  My brother was processed at 201.  Check my fingerprints and compare them to the arrest report.  Fingerprints don’t lie”.  He said, “ok.  Go upstairs and let them fingerprint you.  This afternoon we will compare them”.  

I went upstairs and got fingerprinted.  That afternoon he compared the fingerprints.  He said, “ no, they don’t match”.  He immediately took me into court and interrupted the judge and gave him the report and a quick story of what I had to do to clear myself.  The judge, whom I can’t remember his name, said, “Mr. Erwin, I’ll take care of this right away.  I would sure hate to be at your next family reunion”.  Now that was taken care of and my insurance premium was much more affordable.  

They knew that they messed up.  They took my brother’s word and didn’t go any further with it.  It really messed up a completely innocent man.  Now all I had to do is reinstate my license.  I explained my problem to the sergeant.  She said that she could fix that.  I wondered how could she do that.  Well she inputted a code 500 on my license.  

That stands for possible fraud.  If anybody uses my name, they must show ID to prove they are who they say they are.  If there is no ID, they get taken to jail and fingerprinted to prove they are me.  To this day, I can not get it removed.  To this day, I can not forget my license under any circumstance.  I have to keep my ID with me at all times.

This is not the only time those guys at 201 made a mistake.  I will explain further in the story.  The Erwin males seem to have multiple curses.  There is the curse of the big toe, cancer, and being screwed by women.  I, however, seem to have broken new ground.  A third of your life is spent asleep.  That leaves two-thirds.  In my life, a third of that has been spent unscrewing the crap that people had screwed me in.  I have been judged and convicted wrongly my entire life.  Most of which was by my appearance alone.  

Some of the screwing was just plain out right discrimination.  There has been a lot of that in Memphis for decades.  First it was the blacks and then the women.  They got together and screamed about equal rights and things started to turn for them.  Now it is the white men.  Everybody should be equal no matter who or what they are.  I have been fighting discrimination by the City of Memphis in some way or another, by appearance or the color of my skin for many years.  Half of my life has been wasted fighting discrimination, and quite frankly, I’m tired of it.

I didn’t hear from Lee for about a month.  When I did talk to him, I wasn’t mad anymore.  Well not very mad anyways.  I usually do not hold a grudge for the most part.  We were ok.  I even warned him not to be stupid and ever use my name again.  

I never whooped his ass over it.  The trouble he got me in still follows me to this day.  It’s off of my record but seven years ago I tried to get on with the National Guard.  The National Guard does a more thorough back ground check than FedEx does.  That stuff my brother caused to be put on my record is still there.  Not many can see it, only those that do FBI background checks, but it shouldn’t be there to begin with.  Those judges said that they would notify Nashville and have those things removed but it wasn’t wiped completely.  The National Guard told me it was still there and wouldn’t take me because of it.

I was still at Great Dane and now a welder in the fabrication of trailer beams.  My supervisor was Mark and he was a cool supervisor.  I was nearing the end of school and had to extern with the school.  This means I had to work a job as a Medical Assistant but I wouldn’t get paid.  It was basically for experience.  I could only do that during the day so I had to switch to nights at Great Dane.  

That was difficult, for again I was working two full time jobs.  What made it worse was my night time supervisor didn’t like me because I was white.  His name escapes me but I was the only white person back in that department.  Whenever cleanup was needed he kept everyone else on the line but made me do the cleanup.  He even tried to get me fired once.  Needless to say, I didn’t care for him too much.  

I was having money troubles so I decided to sell my Ford Splash.  I put it in the Auto Trader.  A man answered the add and told me he could sell the vehicle for me.  He would handle the financial obligations of the vehicle until it sold.  He showed me a contract to sign so it all looked legitimate.  I was young and  naive. It turned out to be a scam run by a man by the name of Bob.  Bob owned a redneck bar many people know of and hang out at.  It’s an after bar hours bar.  Most people that hung out there didn’t start the night there but did end up there before the night was through.

It was called Muggs.  Bob, a ruthless business man, owned the joint.  He used to brag about how much he screwed people over.  I didn’t know he was involved in the scam.  He wasn’t a visible member.  He had a man do it for him.  This man had a deformed right arm.  People felt bad for this guy, and that’s how they sucked you in.  

I released the truck to them.  Two months later I got a call from Ford Credit.  My truck hasn’t been paid on in three months and was about to be repossessed.  I knew I had been had.  The supposed company was supposed to make the financial obligations until the truck sold but had not made a single payment and hadn’t been sold.

I snuck over to the building that the company worked out of at 5:00am one morning.  I went around to the back.  There was my truck.  It was loaded with construction and plumbing equipment.  The reason they used the scam was to use someone’s vehicle.  They would go through the Auto trader to find a vehicle they could use.  It enabled them to operate their business without paying for trucks, insurance, repairs, or maintenance.  I broke in my truck and took it back.  I saw Bob come out.  It was then I realized he had been  in charge of the whole thing.  He said he would make sure his partner took care of it.  I said too late, I’m taking my truck.  

I caught the note up and kept the truck for a while longer but just couldn’t keep up with it.  I cornered The man that I talked to about the truck, that contacted me through Auto Trader one day at the Citgo gas station on Sycamore View.  He looked scared and told me that he had cancer.  I didn’t believe him but said GOD bless you, may you get what’s coming your way.  

It turns out he actually did have cancer.  Ten years ago I inspected Muggs through my job with the City of Memphis.  The place had the same name but Bob was long gone.  I asked the new owner what had happened to him.  He said that he got cancer.  

When he died, his mind was gone and his last breathe was in the fetal position.  I just said that he reaped what he sowed.  The new owner knew him and said, “yea, he did a lot of people wrong”.  Those who wrong others will always get what’s coming to them in the end.  I had lost my anger about the situation years before, but it was comforting to know that he wasn’t around to screw anymore people.

I lived at Mike’s for four months.  At this time in my life I was moving an average of once every six months.  Mike told me I had to move.  He did tell me that living there would just be temporary.   I then moved in with a female friend of mine by the name of Debbie.  We were just friends.  We moved in to the Abington Town Homes on Raleigh LaGrange.

She worked in the medical field, billing code or something like that.  She was contracted by doctors to translate code I think.  I’m really not sure, but it wasn’t my business anyway.  I didn’t care as long as the bills got paid.  The place was in both our names but every time I got paid, I would give her money to pay the bills.  I didn’t have a checking account for I was basically scared of banks, didn’t trust them.  

I was still working for Great Dane Trailers.  I had been in welding and been in welding for a year and a half.  I really loved welding and was good at it.  I was in repair and finish of main trailer beams.  They put me there because my welds were so smooth.  

I had graduated from Concorde Career Institute the year before.  When I graduated, nobody wanted to pay me much more than minimum wage and at that time was still $ 4.25 an hour and I also had to pay a student loan back.  I could make more money by far as a welder so I decided to just keep doing what I was doing.  I loved welding anyways.  

I was 25 years old at the time we moved into the town home but would be 26 in three months.  To this day the average medical assistant makes $14.00 an hour, a far cry less than the $50,000.00/yr potential we were promised by the director.  To this day I make quite a bit more than $14.00 an hour so my decision to not go into that field only helped my future.

My grandfather on my dad’s side died in the spring of 95.  He actually lived to be old.  He survived colon cancer but had prostate cancer when he past on.  He was 86 years of age.  He didn’t die from the cancer.  The Dr. said that when you’re of that age if you contract it, it grows so slow that you would die of old age before the cancer takes you.  

My Uncle Jim died in 91, my dad in 93, and my grandfather in 95.  My dad’s sister was the only child still alive.  She had a dream that all three of them were fishing together.  In her dream, as soon as grandpa got there, the boys said, “well, we’re finally back together again.  It’s been a long time”.  That made me feel at ease with the parting of my family.  However, all the men in my family have died from cancer or had cancer when they past on..  I am the senior male in the family on both sides and been that way since 95.  I am trying to use family history as a weapon of defense to survive the inevitable.

95 was also the year that mom and Bob retired and moved up to the lake house at Greers Ferry Lake Arkansas.  There was still work to be done to the house but the work could be done while living in the house.  They just left the house in Memphis behind and moved.  The house in Memphis never did sell.  Bob put a lot into that house, something to the effect of 30,000 dollars.  But since it never sold, and they couldn’t keep up two places and stay financially afloat, the house went into foreclosure.

Back to the story.  The truck and all other bills were  hard to keep up.  The next spring I got laid off from Great Dane.  What made all this even worse was one of the clients’ of Debbie didn’t pay her and she didn’t tell me.  She was taking my money and doing whatever and the rent and utilities were not getting paid.  I ended up filing bankruptcy and letting my truck go.

I didn’t mind letting my truck go because my Cougar was finally road worthy.  I was over at a Robby’s house.  He was helping me replace the stock rear end with a 9 inch rear end out of a mustang of the same year, which the body dimensions were the same.  After we were done Robby said, “I almost forgot, I’ve got something for you”.  It was a job posting for a construction inspector for the City of Memphis.  That was a coincidence because I didn’t tell him that I just got laid off that day from my job.

I put in the application to the City of Memphis but I knew it would take a long time to get the job if I was hired.  So I got a job welding with Southern Fabricators.  I was there for three months.  I was called for an interview and was hired on the spot but would still be some time before I went to work my first day.  I let it slip to my friends at lunch one day that I was hired on with the City of Memphis.  The next morning one of the supervisors put me on grinding detail.

I was hired on as a welder and not a grinder.  I ended up getting some steel in my eyes.  That would be an O.J.I.  I was terminated for it.  I applied for unemployment to hold me over till I got on with the city.  Southern Fabricators tried to deny me but I won the case and got unemployment until I got with the city, which was only three weeks but it was the point.

I started my new job with the City of Memphis.  I started on November the 25th.  I was working for Construction Inspections.  My supervisor was Johnny.  He was a bit mean, but loved the job so it kind of equaled out.  This job started off great.  I immediately started off with ten day vacation and had to burn them before the end of the year.  I worked a couple of weeks and then I was off till the beginning of January.

It was New Years 1997.  I hated going out on New Years.  The amateurs partied that night and was always a hassle.  I did get a horrible hangover though.  I celebrated New Year’s at Shooters.  Shooters was my main hangout at that stage in my life.  It took several days to recuperate from that night.  

The fourth of January was on a Thursday.  Thursday nights were a good night at Shooters but I really didn’t feel like going.  I was still feeling like crud from New Year’s.  I thought, what the heck.  I went up there to just hang out with friends and get a beer. 

I saw my friend Karen.  She was a mutual friend of my roommate Debbie.  I met Karen through Debbie but something like a couple of years before.  She was sitting on the elevated platform.  I will admit that I wanted to go out with Karen but her friend was so cute.  I went up to her and said hey and jumped right in and asked about her friend.   She told me that she just had a breakup with a bad relationship and that I should talk to her.  I said ok but that I need to drink a couple of beers first.

What can I say, I was still a bit shy.  I grabbed me a beer and walked around to the other side of the bar and checked her out from afar.  I literally could see her as my wife.  I know that sounds weird for a guy, but I could.  I downed the beer and grabbed another and went to talk to her.

We hit it off from the start.  Her name I will not give but she was to be my future wife.  We talked for what seemed like a couple of hours.  Karen wanted to go somewhere different and since my future wife rode with her, they both left but not before I got her number.  I tried so hard to wait.  I wanted to give it a couple of days so it wouldn’t look like I was desperate.  I was very nervous but that Sunday I called. 

We talked for an hour.  We kept getting interrupted by my roommate, Debbie.  We only had one phone line and she needed the phone to work.  I suggested to my future wife that I come over so we could talk, and that way we wouldn’t have to worry about getting interrupted.  She said ok.  

She lived with her parents in Country Wood, which is in Cordova.  Their house was on Rembrook.  I somehow knew that we were going to hook up, I just felt it.  I got there and she was wearing a black dress.  She had just gotten home from work a couple of hours before.  We talked for the longest and we both felt a serious connection.  I ended up spending the night and the rest is history.

                                                                      CHAPTER 6

                                       THE LOVE OF MY LIFE AND THE BEST FRIEND I EVER HAD

The next day I had to go to work.  I was planning to go by at lunch and see my future wife.  I do not want to tell her name for legal reasons.  However, anybody that knows me will know who she is.  I will call her my future wife for now, but when the time is appropriate, I will call her my wife and eventually my ex-wife.  It turns out that I needed to go by anyways because I accidentally left my beeper there.  By the way, that really was an accident that I left my beeper.  Remember, this was 1996, so beepers were still being used.  

I stopped by her house at lunch.  I was already in the area since most of the inspectors in our department worked new development in Cordova.  Cordova was blowing up very fast.  When she opened up the door, I told her that I accidentally left my beeper there the night before.  It turned out to be a good idea to have gone by.  Apparently, her ex-boyfriend didn’t know how to absorb the, I don’t want to see you anymore speech.  I don’t remember his name but do remember he was a bug man and remember that he looked through her mail.

He left soon after I got there.  She asked me if I came back to try her lasagna.  She offered to let me try some if I wanted to come by at lunch if I was interested in trying it.  I said yes of coarse, but in actuality, came to see her.  The lasagna was good don’t get me wrong but was very interested in seeing her.  We saw each other pretty much every day since.

Her parents were in Florida with her only son, Eian.  He was three years old.  She lived with her mother and step father.  They would be back in a couple of weeks  so we took that opportunity to really get to know each other.

The next month was Valentines Day.  That was the first Valentines in quite some time I celebrated with someone else.  It was pretty much the same for her.  I got two champagne glasses and a bottle of beer.  I really liked her.  I thought that was cute seeing she lives a champagne taste on a beer pocket book.  We toasted and the rest was pretty much history.

Right after that was the Metallica concert at the Pyramid.  We met two of her friends at the Huey’s in Midtown on Madison.   Their names were Paul and Kristen.  Paul was a hardcore redneck but I liked him, he was good people.  After we ate, we went to the concert.  

It was awesome except for two things.  One was this: I had a floor ticket so I got to stand right by the stage.  That wasn’t the bad part, the getting my beer moshed out of my hand was.  The other was this: girlfriend and Kristen brought me a beer and my future wife asked if I ever had a brown El Camino.  I said well, a GMC Sprint, but yes.  She was upset because Kristen and I went out a decade earlier.  I didn’t recognize her for she changed quite a bit.  But we only went out once and we didn’t mesh good, so that was that.

After the concert we were headed to her house to take her home.  On the way she was talking as if we weren’t going to keep seeing each other because the idea that Kristen and I saw each other, no matter how long ago or the interval, which was one time, made her sick.  I told her that I loved her.  I know that was quick and a bit obnoxious for a guy to do that early in the game, but I didn’t want to stop seeing her.  I was really into this woman.

It didn’t take her long to get over it, for we were seeing each other almost immediately, well it was more like a week but you get the point.  We were around each other all the time, except when we were at work.  I was having problems with my roommate still.  She wasn’t paying the utility bill and it was in my name.  She wrote them a hot check to get our utilities turned back on.    I got tired of not getting the bills paid so I started to pay my half directly to the apartment manager.  It didn’t take long for the bills to overwhelm me since I was doing it myself.  Six weeks after we started to see each other, she moved me into her parents house.

That was a bit awkward at first, but enabled me to pay off MLG&W.  Debbie racked my bill up to over four hundred dollars not paying the bill like we agreed not to mention we still had a lease with the apartment complex.  But I can only blame myself.  I soon got with the City of Memphis Credit Union and opened up a checking account.  My girlfriend worked for the Commercial Appeal and we both direct deposited our checks into my credit union account.

A few months after we started seeing each other, my future wife came up pregnant.  She lost the baby and it tore her up.  She always wanted a big family.  I didn’t want kids.  I didn’t care for kids, especially the baby kind.  I mean if the woman already had kids, that was ok, just didn’t want any myself.  The main reason I didn’t want kids though, was that I was afraid that I would pass on the cancer certainty on to my children.

I felt bad for her because she was so upset that she lost the baby.  I felt so bad, that I did a very stupid thing and promised her we would try again several months down the road.  I would later get into an argument with myself over that issue.  What the hell are you thinking, I thought.  You do not want kids.  But I promised and I was always a man of my word.

My Cougar needed a new engine and transmission.  My future wife took her tax return and helped me pay for the parts.  She helped me because I had gotten a small truck to use for work.  She just wrecked her car so I was not only driving my vehicle for work, but taking Eian to and from daycare and my future wife to and from work.  I was driving 150 to 175 miles a day. 

The Construction Inspectors with the City of Memphis were the lowest paid inspectors in the state and we were the only ones that had to provide our own transportation.  We did get reimbursed monies per mile, but wasn’t enough.  That was part of the reason she helped me with parts for my car, so as to help us, but she loved my Cougar and wanted me to get it back on the road.  Her mother warned her against doing that but she did it anyway.  I wasn’t going anywhere anyways.

We had to move out of the house and got a place of our own.  Her parents gave us a few months to save our money.  We eventually got a place of our own.  We moved into the Green Brook Bend Apartments.  We got a two bedroom on Quail Hollow.  I really loved the fact that we never had to fix something ourselves.  Whenever something broke, just call the manager.

We had been living in the apartment for several months when Bob was diagnosed with lung cancer.  He had exploratory surgery.  The doctor discovered that the cancer had already reached the lymph nodes.  My girlfriend got on the internet, like she usually did to find everything out about a particular illness, and told my parents about a diet to help Bob.  They didn’t listen as always.

My future wife became pregnant around the same time that Bob was diagnosed with cancer.  At first I thought it was not a good time, but then again, when is.  If you wait till you are ready or you can afford it, you will never be ready.  Not to mention I did make a promise to my future wife.  When my future wife broke the news to her parents, I believe her mothers’ two word comment were, “oh f**k!  Yea she was always supportive of her daughter.  We weren’t married yet but we already decided that we wanted to be together for all time.

We had an ultrasound at six weeks.  We discovered that we were having a girl.  I thought that was odd because boys were dominant in my family.  I have to admit, at first, I was disappointed.  I wanted a boy to carry on the Erwin name and to play sports with and stuff.  My future wife said, “don’t worry, she could be your princess“.  I thought about it for a couple of days, and realized that she was right.  She could be my princess.  

I started talking to her in the womb.  In the middle of the pregnancy I started to play games with her.  I loved playing kick the daddy.  She had a strong set of legs.  She was going to take after daddy’s strength.  I would say, “ok it’s time to kick the daddy”.  She would kick and my head would come off the stomach about one inch.  My future wife thought of a name for her.  Her name was going to be Corgan.  That is a beautiful name.  My future wife was big on Irish names.  That was fine, especially since I’m part Irish.  I have a plethora of nationalities in me.  I am a Heinz 57 and proud of it.  The Irish just stands out more than any other.

That January before Corgan was born I started working for FedEx.  It was tough working for Construction Inspections with the City of Memphis during the day and FedEx at night but I always was a hard worker.  I was 28 years old at this time.  I started working for Paul, my future wife’s friend whom was now also mine.  Paul was a roofer.  He roofed on the weekends.  I helped him on the weekends toting shingles among other stuff.  So that was the city during the day, FedEx at night, and roofing on the weekends.  I was a tired puppy but would work like that for years.  

I also quit smoking three months before Corgan was born.  That was very tough.  However, that was easy compared to quitting the smokeless tobacco.  Smokeless tobacco is more addictive than heroin.  I never was able to quit the smokeless tobacco and still dip to this day.

My future wife and I didn’t want our baby to be born out of wedlock so we went to a justice of the peace.  I wanted to give her the wedding she wanted and deserved but wasn’t going to happen right now.  We already wanted to get married, but wanted to wait until we could afford it.  We made the decision to see the justice of the peace and at our five year anniversary, get re-married.  Three months before Corgan was born, we were married.

My friend Mike, from high school, got married.  Him and his wife had a baby several months before Corgan was born.  Three months before Corgan was born was the last time I saw or talked to him.  He stopped answering my calls, returning my calls, or seeing me.  He disowned me and our friendship. 

It wasn’t just me though, he disowned all of his friends from school.  I believe it was because of his wife and his mother.  I could just hear his mother, you’re not going to go anywhere with those redneck friends.  His wife, Tammy, didn’t like anybody he was friends with.  Twelve years of friendship just thrown away because we didn’t meet the criteria.  With friends like that, who needs enemies?  His mom still owes me for a gun!  

Corgan was born on April 24th.  I watched the birth.  That was the coolest thing I have ever seen.  I will have to admit, however, after seeing the birth, I was nervous about weather or not my wife would snap back after the delivery.  Believe me when I say, they do!  After I cut the cord the nurse cleaned her up and handed her straight to me.  I said, “hey Corgan, welcome to the world baby”.  She recognized my voice and stated to laugh.  I was hooked from that moment on.  She was then, is now, and always will be my princess.  That was the happiest moment of my life.   

Bob’s birthday was in July.  He was not doing good at all and we all knew he wasn’t going to last but a few more days.  The City of Memphis was having a fire department orientation on Sunday the 11th.  I have been waiting for that day for over a year.  But it was the last time I would ever see Bob and I knew it.  I went to the lake that weekend.  Orientation was once every two years.  I thought I’ll just catch the next one because I need to see Bob.   Corgan was three months old at the time and he got to see her. 

It turns out that it was the biggest turnout in Memphis’ history.  The orientation was held at the Memphis Cook Convention Center.  Over 5,000 people showed up.  The chief of the fire department didn’t have another orientation again till early 2007.  At that time they had an age limit of 35.  I missed that limit by 6 months.  It didn’t matter that I was already employed with the city and had 11 years behind me.

Bob’s birthday was the 11th of July.  He held on as long as he could to make it to his 65th birthday.  He was now eligible for social security.  That means when he dies, his wife will get his social security benefits.  He passed away on the 15th.  I loved that man with all my heat.  He suffered greatly.  I wouldn’t wish cancer on my worst enemy!  

That was hard on the entire family, especially mom.  Everybody loved Bob.  The next weekend the entire family made it up to the lake house for Bob’s memorial.  He wanted to be cremated.  That weekend I cried like a baby.  He was a good man and a great step-father.  I loved him like a father.

Mom was going to survive though.  She was getting retirement the county, Bob’s retirement from the county, and his social security.  At first the military denied her benefits because they didn’t pay the extra monthly premium since she wasn’t the original wife.  She proved in court that he got the cancer from Agent Orange and got the benefits, or so that’s what she told me.  

So she was getting four checks a month coming in.  The house was paid for of course and so was their van.  So the only bills she had was electricity, taxes, gas for the van which wasn’t much, insurance, food, and propane in the winter for heat.  She was going to be fine, or so we thought.

It rained that Saturday night of the weekend we were having Bob‘s memorial.  The next morning I was putting the trash in the burn can.  I took out the garbage so she didn’t have to worry about it, she had enough to worry about.  In the country, people burned their trash.  The can was wet from the rain the night before so to help get the fire started I put some gas on it.  Little did I know about the smoldering piece under the wet stuff.  

When the gas dripped down on the smoldering piece, a small explosion occurred.  The can fell.  Their was fire all over the ground and the gas can was in the middle of it.  Mom just lost her husband, I sure didn’t want her to lose half of the mountain also.  I jumped on my side and kicked the can to make it roll out of the fire.  

The can was half full so it splashed inside the can.  When that happened, gas spewed out of the tip towards me.  It ignited immediately.  I saw it ignite and turned my head, but before I could, the first fireball hit me in the face.  I turned around with my back facing the can.  The can was still rolling but not out of the fire as of yet.  It splashed again and this time more violently causing an even bigger fire ball and it hit me in the back.

I was only wearing shorts with no shirt.  The can was out of the fire and finally made it to my feet and ran towards the house.  My brother Wes had a towel beating the flames and almost had them out.  As I ran past him, he looked at me with astonishment for my back was on fire but I didn’t know it.  He came to and swiped my back with the towel and put me out.

When I came to a stop, the pain started to hit me.  My Wife and my aunt ran me to the hospital in Heber.  They didn’t know how to treat a burn so extensive so they pumped me full of morphine and had an ambulance run me back to Memphis to the burn center at the MED and my wife followed.

The Doctor patched me up and gave me pain meds and my wife and I went back to the lake.  I had second degree burns on the face and second and third degree burns on the back.  I was in pain and made it to Bob’s memorial but was burnt to a crisp.  My face was hideous but didn’t worry about it at that time.

Bob’s memorial was Sunday.  Mom took it pretty hard.  She was cool most of the weekend but when we were at the memorial, she lost it.  I felt bad for her.  I missed Bob.  He was a funny old man and always had new jokes to tell.  He had one hell of a sense of humor.  

A few months before Bob passed, my wife was on the phone with him.  It was hot and the air-conditioner wasn’t working right and was hot in the house.  She accidentally made the comment, :I’m dieing over here”.  His reply was, “so am I”.  She felt bad for saying that but I thought that was so funny.  He kept his sense of humor till the end.  I will never forget him and will always miss him.

We made it home Sunday night.  The doctor at the MED took me off my day job because he didn’t want me exposed to the sunlight.  I still was with the city of Memphis of coarse but was in another department.  I was no longer in Construction Inspections but rather now I was in Environmental Maintenance.  I put in for Pollution Control Inspector but the department wanted me to get some experience in the department so I started off as an aide.  I was working at FedEx at night.  I didn’t work on roofs till I healed from the burns.

The Doctor would not take me off my night job for it was at night, but also would work my shoulder constantly to keep the new skin flexible.  I would curse that doctor many of nights.  He wouldn’t give me any pain medication.  I would come home in the morning to change my bandages, only to peel my bandages off that stuck to my new skin.  I was in severe pain.

I was off my day job for six weeks.  My face healed remarkably well.  There was no scar tissue on my face.  My shoulder and back, however, had a lot of scar tissue.  But I was still trucking so to speak.  After six weeks I was back full force.

My Cougar was on the road and was completed.  She looked like a new car.  I had compliments on her every where I went.  She was loud too.  I could crank her up in the morning and across the parking lot in my bedroom, while it was warming up, I could feel the window vibrating.  I loved cranking that car.

Not long after I healed and went back to work, I put in for pollution control Inspector.  Everybody kept telling me that I didn’t want to do that for the job wasn’t in our department but at the Stiles North Treatment Plant in Industrial Monitoring.  The job was nicknamed the grease police.  I needed to make more money, so against my co-workers advice, I put in for it. 

I went to the interview.  Al interviewed me.  He had a loose and weak handshake.  Never trust a man with a weak handshake.  I got the job, but it was a prison.  I was hired November of 1999.  Six months after I got the job, I realized what kind of man he really was and tried to leave, but Al wouldn’t let me go.  He would give me a bad reference to keep me from leaving.  To this day, the worse mistake I ever made was working for that man.

I started wanting to get into wastewater operating.  I got into the home study Sacramento State at California (SAC) courses on wastewater operating.  First was Operation of Small Wastewater Treatment Plants and then It was Wastewater Treatment Plants Vol. 1 and then Vol. 2.  You would mail in the tests to the school and they would grade them and then mail you the results back.  

I was good at it.  I got a 4.0 average.  I liked it so much though that I kept going.  I went on to Advanced Waste Treatment, Treatment of Metal Waste Streams, Industrial Wastewater Treatment Vol. 1 and 2, Pre-Treatment Facility Inspection, and Utility Management.  I kept going until there was nothing left.

I tried to take the state licensing exam but didn’t qualify.  By now I was sampling industrial wastewater but the state wanted hands on in plant.  I tried for two years but they wouldn’t let me.  So I would put it away for the time being.       

My Cougar’s wiring harness was fried.  A company wanted $2,500.00 bucks to put in a new one.  I didn’t have the money to replace it.  I had also bought a 67 cougar.  It was a rust bucket but it had 57,000 original miles.  It was still running too.  

I made the difficult decision to sell them to get us out of debt so we could get into a house.  I ended up selling the two cars for 1,800.00 dollars.  It would be a decision that would haunt me to this day.  It got us out of debt so we could get into a house, but that was my baby and would regret selling her.

By July of 2000, my son Colin was born.  Our family was getting too big for that apartment so we started thinking about getting a house.  My wife stopped working for the Commercial Appeal  and had, by this time, been working for Trans Union for over a year.  Trans Union was a credit reporting agency.  It was a good job for her.  

We needed to get in a house but we had a problem with our credit.  The problem was with Experian.  Apparently my student loan was the problem.  I contested that debt.  While a debt is being contested, it comes off your record.  While that debt was being contested and investigated, and before it was put back on my credit, we got a loan for a house in Bartlett in September of 2001. 

I had quit working for FedEx while we were still living in the apartment.  I was still with the City of Memphis and working on roofs with Paul on the weekends.  I would go months at a time without a day off.  I was tired all the time but I did what I had to do to support my family.

Colin was born in July of 2000 and we moved into the house in September of that same year.  We had cable at the apartment.  We had to have it transferred over to the house, our new address.  We called Cable Vision to have this done.  The earliest they could get us transferred was in two weeks from then.  We had no choice but to wait.  We watched every single VCR tape we had at least once. 

The day came for the service tech to come to the house.  I came home for lunch.  I wanted to make sure that everything went smoothly.  I got home at 11:00am.  The tech was to be there between 11:30am and 12:00pm.  I thought I had time to get some boxes up in the attic.  My wife was breastfeeding Colin and was stuck on the couch.  

The phone rang, it was the tech.  I rushed down the stairs to the attic but missed his call.  He was 15 minutes early.  He said in the recording that he would call back in 30 minutes.  I said let me get this last box up in the attic.  He called immediately.  He said, sorry I missed you.  You will have to set up a new appointment”.  I was pissed beyond belief.

I went as far as to get the district manager involved.  He apologized and said, “you will have to re-schedule”.  I asked, “when is the next available time he can make it”?  The district manager said, “two weeks is the earliest time“.  I told him to go ahead and set it up, but I shouldn’t have to pay for that tech’s incompetence.  I said, “I am going to go out and get a satellite.  If you can get here before him, you can keep my business, if not, well you’re ass out”.  Cable Vision lost.  I will never have them again. 

My son Colin, had gotten RSV and was in and out of the emergency room here and there.  My wife decided to quit Trans Union and stay home with Colin.  I know Colin needed extra attention, but it wasn’t, in my opinion, bad enough to justify quitting her job and it was her decision and not ours.  Our family was getting big and I didn’t make enough to support us all, even with the roof work on the side.  

My wife had always said she wanted to be a stay at home mom and I had told her as long as our family keeps getting bigger, that it wasn’t going to happen, but she used this excuse to make it happen.  I know this is selfish of me for thinking this, but I was figuring out that she was very selfish when it came to “us” and would resent her for that decision.  The reason I felt this way was we both had vacation.  If need be we had the FMLA, Family Medical Leave Act.  I couldn’t afford to keep us afloat myself, but my stress didn’t matter to he as long as she got what she wanted and the way she wanted it.  

My brother, Lee, was living in Houston Texas.  A few months after we moved into the house, Lee got jumped and beaten with baseball bats.  I had to go to Texas and get him and bring him back to live with us until he healed.  I borrowed a trailer from a friend from our church group and hooked it to my truck.  When we were in the apartment, I had gotten a new S-10.  

I left one Saturday morning.  I went through Louisiana.  The trip was off to a bad start.  I blew a tire on the trailer in Louisiana.  I found a small town and replaced the tire.  I made in to Houston that afternoon.  We loaded up his stuff on the trailer.  

On our way through Texas ,trying to get home, I blew a tire on the truck.  I put the spare on and crept into Dallas.  I pulled into a Wal-Mart.  I called my wife and told her what happened and that I was getting another tire.  She said, “I’ve got some news to tell you”.  I immediately knew what she was going to tell me.  I said, “you’re pregnant again”.  She said, “yep”.  I got the tire put on and made it back home.  

Our family was getting big and we didn’t know what to do.  My brother was now living with us and him and my wife didn’t get along.  I was stressed beyond believe but would figure it out.  It was to the point where I went to work to relax.  My brother and wife were constantly at odds but when he threatened to kick her ass, I told him he had to go.  He was my brother and I loved him, but that was my wife.

She left Trans Union before I went to Texas to get Lee.  We had to get her on my medical insurance.  Since there was a change in family status, we didn’t have to wait for open enrollment.  I went up to the benefits office to get her on my insurance.  It was a load of hog wash but the women in the benefits office said that to get her on my insurance, we all had to get physicals.  We all got our physicals and turned the paperwork in.  

After over a month, we didn’t hear any news on weather or not we were all accepted for my insurance with the City of Memphis.  They had drug their feet so long, that the time limit on the physicals had elapsed.  We had to start the process all over again.  We all had our physicals done again.  Then we waited, yet again.  They drug their feet, yet again and this was no surprise to me.  By the time we were accepted by the medical insurance, she was pregnant and the insurance company deemed it pre-existing and would not cover the pregnancy nor the birth.

My wife was forced to get on Tenn-Care.  It did what we needed for the most part.  We made the decision to have her tubes tied when Aiden was born.  The time came for the birth.  We were not aware of this nor have I ever heard of this stipulation at that time.  

Apparently, you have to notify the state in writing six weeks in advance that you want your tubes tied, even though you are already on the table giving birth.  Now this is stupid beyond compare.  You would think that this being the insurance of poor people, that they would be more than happy to tie tubes to keep from paying for multiple babies in the future.  Many poor woman in this state have multiple kids to get more benefits from the government, this being even more taxing on the tax payers in this state.

My wife did not get her tubes tied.  Both Colin and Aiden were born by a C-section.  My wife said that she had been cut on enough, that she was not doing it again.  I wasn’t a male pig.  Most guys will not get fixed because they do not want their stuff cut on.  I told her that I would do it.  Our family was getting too big for us and something had to be done.

I killed three birds with one stone.  I was going to be out for six weeks anyways having carpel tunnel surgery on both wrists, and at the same time have a tendon in my right hand repaired that was damaged when I was 14 years of age.  I had put my hand through a window and it never healed right.  I figured I would get fixed at the same time.  

It turned out to be a good thing that I decided to have a vasectomy at the same time.  The doctor told me that I would not be able to walk for one day, three at the most.  While the procedure was taking place, I was injected with enough pain killer to drop a horse.  Now don’t let this frighten you from doing this yourself.  It is actually a very safe procedure.  I just had very sensitive and larger than normal genitals.  I ended up not beige able to walk for a week and a half.  

A lot of men do not want to have this procedure done for they are frightened that it would hinder their sexual appetite.  I can tell you from experience that it doesn’t in anyway.  Not only does it not hinder your sexual appetite, but the male can relax with the knowledge that they do not have to worry about their partner becoming pregnant.  With this worry taken out of the picture, the drive may actually increase.  

Aiden was born on the 19th of February in 2002.  We were now a family of six.  We now had four kids.  Eian wasn’t mine biologically but I have known him since he was three.  I wiped his butt and changed his diaper many of times.  He was mine and loved him as if he were.  There was three boys and one girl.  

Things were tough on us financially.  I was doing all I could to keep us afloat.  I was working for the City of Memphis, roofing work on the weekends, and recycling metal on the side.  But it still wasn’t enough.  My health was paying the price for so much stress I was enduring.

My wife and I had discussed the financial situation and was determined that she would get a job working at night.  She applied and got a job at FedEx as of November 2002.  I hated her working at night.  I knew that we needed her to work and knew it had to be at night.  We had four kids and couldn’t afford day care for the kids so I worked during the day and the weekends and her at night.  I missed her most when I went to bed at night.  What can I say but I was in-love with my wife and wanted to be around her. 

In late 2002, mom was diagnosed with Familial Amyloidal Polyneuropathy Disorder with a vitamin B deficiency.  She didn’t take care of herself very well.  There were signs in the past but she didn’t know what the problem was.  She lost her sense of smell back in the early 90’s and lost her sense of taste soon after that.  Not long after her and Bob moved up to the lake, she was having circulation problems and her feet would get tingly and her hands and feet would go numb.

Familial Amyloidal Polyneuropathy Disorder is kind of like Lou Gerick’s Disease.  The difference is, when you are diagnosed with Lou Gerick’s Disease, you have about six months to live.  Amyloidal Poly-neuropathy Disorder is much slower.  You can live for years after diagnosis.  Of coarse mom’s years of drinking and her continued alcohol abuse did not help in any way.

Mom got a boyfriend not long after Bob passed away.  His name was Gordon.  She also got a part time job to help make a little extra money until she could secure his military pension.  When she got his pension, she quit that job.  Not long after she was diagnosed with that disease, she lost the use of her legs and was confined to a wheel chair.  Mom and been were not a couple anymore but were still friends.  He was in-love with her, why I don’t know, but they remained friends.  I would guess it was her decision.   

My wife started school at Southwest Community College in 2003.  She was majoring in Human Resources Management.  After a bit of time she transferred the credits to an online college and finished college online.  So she was going to school online and working part time at night.  Mean time I’m still undergoing incredible amounts of stress.  

My grandmother on my late father’s side passed away.  She died of old age.  My brothers and myself went down to Texas for the funeral.  I saw my uncle Mike.  I love that guy.  He was so cool.  There wasn’t much of my family left.  I’ll never forget that sweet old woman.  She could make some killer beef ribs.  I will always love grandma and will always miss her.      

I was diagnosed with high blood pressure and hypoglycemia a couple of years before.  The growing up years of eating junk because my mother didn’t want or like to cook had finally caught up with me.  Even after I left the house, the lifestyle stayed with me.  I was muscular but also overweight.  

My wife was always big on getting online to find out about health issues.  She discovered information about hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils and the need to avoid them.  I changed my diet and within a couple of years was pulled off of blood pressure meds and my hypoglycemia problem went away.  

By 2004, mom was completely paralyzed and was losing the use of her arms and hands.  I felt bad for her.  One day she asked for my forgiveness for how she treated me.  She told me she had already talked to my brothers.  I saw the remorse in her eyes for what she had done.  I forgave her and asked GOD to spare her for she was sorry for what she did, but it was now out of my hands.

My aunt had gotten mom to sign over power of attorney over to her a couple of years before back when she was first diagnosed and was losing the use of her legs.  Mom traded the van in a couple of years before for a car but could no longer drive.  After she lost the ability to drive, my aunt, her sister, canceled the car insurance and sold the car.  My aunt was taking care of mom’s financial obligations.  Gordon was doing most of the footwork but my aunt was occasionally going up to the lake to check on mom.  

Mom was getting bob’s pension from the county, his pension from the military, his social security, her pension from the county, and social security on herself since she was disabled.  The only bills that my aunt had to pay out of mom’s account was for taxes on the house, food which wasn’t much, propane for heat, water, garbage dump fees, satellite, and electricity.

My aunt had my mom put in a nursing home, just outside of Atoka, Tennessee, just months before the end of 2004.  She had to surrender mom’s account and mom’s income to the home.  Mom had five checks a month coming in and not very many bills.  Mom’s sister took care of mom’s bills out of that income for over two years.  There was a substantial amount of money left over each month, not to mention the money my aunt made off the car.

On January 1st, New Years morning at 5:30am in 2005, mom got up for her morning cigarette.  The nurse helped her into her chair and went on to finish her rounds.  After 30 minutes, the nurse wondered why Judy, my mom, never came out of the room.  She walked into the room.  There was mom still sitting in the chair, gone.  Her eyes were still open.  Her heart had just stopped.  She passed away all alone on New Year’s morning.  Her suffering was over.

Mom wanted to be cremated and buried with Bob on the property at Greers Ferry Lake.  We went to Mom’s memorial.  I did not shed one single tear.  I loved her because she was my mom but that was as far as it went.  I forgave her, but the love was already gone.  Lee cried for mom.  I think it was because the last person alive he could blame for his inadequacies was now gone.  Lee is now a man not only in body, but as of now, mind, and stands on his own two feet.  I am quite proud of him.  

None of us boys ever saw a penny of the monies left over from mom’s estate or what partially resembled an estate.  Her sister had power of attorney.  She kept that money.  Even though she didn’t do that much, Gordon did most of the foot work, she did help take care of Mom so I didn’t say anything.  That wouldn’t be the last time she did that as I will discuss later.  

Not even a year later, my step-sister got a Bay Liner boat.  It was used but it was very nice.  My step-sister, whom at the time I loved as a sister, paid $4,500.00 dollars for that boat.  She said she got it with a tax return.  I thought about it when my aunt pulled what she did and thought, that’s a lot of money to get on a tax return seeing she was a waitress at Perkins in Mississippi and her husband didn’t have a job nor did they have any dependants.

Three years ago, she got a jet ski.  She said that a customer gave it to her.  I thought, right.  Not long ago my niece put a pic of my step-sister on her jet ski on Facebook.  It was a two seat jet ski and was nice.  I laughed very hard.  A customer gave her that.  Her and my aunt are the best of friends.  My aunt was buying her loyalty for if and when things went down.  The buying of her loyalty paid off.

Back home, I was working like a dog, and since my wife worked at night and needed the evening to sleep, I took care of the house.  I also raised those kids.  I resented her for not helping.  I put her through college and all she had to do is work part time and go to school online part time and didn’t get much help from her.  She was always tired.  Whenever we had church group at our house, she would always get a wild hair up her butt and clean the house late at night.  She wouldn’t start until after 10:00pm and carry on to the wee hours of the morning.  

Knowing I had a roof to work on the next morning and having to get up at 5:00am, I would go to bed.  She would get so mad at me for not helping.  I would just say, “you never help me and I have to get up in six hours“.  She was selfish like that.  It didn’t matter what I sacrificed for the family, it’s what I could do for her at that very moment.  Now I’m going to tell you how I got paid for my sacrifices in the next chapter, THE MEAT OF THE MATTER.   

                                                                      CHAPTER 7

                                                            THE MEET OF THE MATTER     

In the spring of 2005 is where I will begin.  It actually begins before that, but that is when I will start.  I was working for the City of Memphis during the day and roofing on the weekends.  My wife was working at the FedEx hub in Memphis on the ramp at night and doing school part-time online.  She was off on the weekends and I, of course didn’t work on roofs at night. 

Two years before, I brought up the idea of  being sexual swingers because we were both very sexual people.  She hated the idea and was plainly upset that I had even brought it up.  I felt bad for bringing up the idea so I let the idea go and didn’t bring it up again.  Well that was until 2005, not long after she was working on the ramp at FedEx.  She had made the comment that being around the men on the ramp was exciting in a sexual way.  I asked her if she wanted to be sexual swingers.  She seemed to be exceptionally hot about the idea.  She immediately told me that she had someone in mind.

Two weeks later she came to me and asked if I had found someone.  I haven’t found anybody of coarse, for I wasn’t really looking as of yet.  She said that she didn’t want to do it because she didn’t want to share me.  I agreed wholeheartedly for I didn’t want to share her either.  It was never brought up again.  It wasn’t long before I realized that she actually had no problem sharing herself, she just didn’t want to share me.   

We were watching a movie.  I don’t remember the name of it but the details of the movie are etched in my head.  It was about this couple who was very happy for the majority of their marriage.  They, however, fell on hard times.  She met someone through work and began having an affair.  I said, “that’s just like a woman.  Problems start to come about and she goes astray”. 

I’ll never forget what my wife said.  She was always against the concept of cheating or so I thought.  She said, “I realize what causes people to want to cheat”.  That struck me as odd that she would say that.  That moment became a freeze frame in my head.  That is where it started for me.  

You overlook things so to speak.  You don’t always know what to look for and love is always blind.  A man doesn’t want to believe that his wife is having an affair.  When you are in-love, a man is oblivious to everything.  Time goes on and you think things are ok.  Of course arguments take place.  That’s going to happen from time to time.  That’s just part of the marriage.  Her mood starts to change but you pass it off as that time of month.  Fights start to occur and you begin to think about what you may have done to piss her off.

 Now, as far as sex is concerned, usually a woman stops having sex with you when she is mad with you and/or she is seeing someone else.  I didn’t have that happen.  Sex between my wife and I was so good that even when we were upset at each other we still had sex, dang near everyday even, we just didn’t cuddle afterwards.  Our sex drives were very high.  Now I, by no means, have anything to be ashamed of , but when you have to strap a 4×4 on your ass to keep from falling in, things aren’t well in Denmark.

She started talking about  a friend at work a lot.  The name of her supposed friend was Stylee.  I started to feel uneasy about how much she was talking about him.  She was hanging around him a lot.  I knew something was going on and a gut feeling hit me that it was more than friendship.  I asked her point blank if she was having an affair and she looked at me and said no.  Certain things she said over the weeks were telling me that she was.  

One day after gas prices were going up, I decided to unload the back of the car to reduce the weight therefore save gas.  My wife was bad about putting things in the trunk instead of taking it in.  I unloaded the trunk.  The weight of two dead men was in the trunk of that car.  

I put all the junk on the kitchen table.  I went through it putting it up.  I found a white bag and thought it was just garbage but instead of throwing it away I thought just in case I would go through it and make sure it was garbage.  I found a condom and three contraceptive foam packs in that bag.  I was astounded at what I had just found.  I have been fixed so there was no reason for us to have those items.  

I woke her up and said, “you have some explaining to do“.  She said it isn’t mine.  It belongs to my friend Allison.  When we went over to her ex’s house to get her things, she put it in the trunk, she told me.  I didn’t believe her.  I left the house and went to the store.  She called me and said her friend, whom was also my friend, just confirmed that it belongs to her.

I was thinking,  right.  She said you can call her.  I wasn’t going to call her because she was either going to tell the truth and say it was hers or cover my wife’s butt and say it was hers.  Either way, she wasn’t going to tell me it did belong to my wife and I knew it.  But I knew who would tell me the truth.  It was my wife, but without knowing that she was telling me and it would happen that night.

While I was out, I went to radio shack and purchased a digital recorder.  I didn’t understand how to work everything just yet, but I knew how to push the record button.  My wife gave a friend from work a ride home every night.  I knew she was going to have a conversation about just that with him at the end of the night on the way to drop him off at his house.  

The next morning when she got home, she went straight to bed.  I knew I wouldn’t have much time since I had a roof to go to that morning.  I got the recorder out of the car.  My heart was racing at the anticipation of what I would hear.  I didn’t know how to use the voice activation just yet so the recorder’s time was completely used up.  I had to go through the entire thing.  

After she got to work, four hours and twenty-three minutes of dead air was what I had to go through to get to the real juicy stuff.  There was only fifteen minutes and forty-six seconds left by the time they got in the car.  I remember thinking, hurry up and tell him!  She said Jerry and I are having problems, that’s why we’re not having sex and that’s why I’ve been getting some on the side.  Now I want the reader to remember that.  She said that she had been getting some on the side and not that’s why I had an affair with Stylee.  Why would she put it like that.  With just a little over five minutes left, she said, “Jerry found my bag”.  She didn’t say found “a” bag or “the” bag but “my” bag.  I couldn’t believe I heard that.  I played it over and over again.  

She admitted on tape she had that affair with the mechanic in question.  I threw the recorder on her and woke her up abruptly.   She tried to tell me she didn’t have an affair with the mechanic.  I told her, “tell it to someone whom might believe it, because you just admitted to it on tape”.  

She finally admitted to the affair but one of her friends must have told her to never admit to anything because she never did again.  No matter what evidence I had, she would always explained it away as something else.  She had literally become the queen of deny, deny, deny!  

She asked me if I had listened to the whole thing.  I said that I didn’t need to for I have the answer that I needed.  Now that I think about it, I should have listened to the whole thing.  I believe she asked me that because she was afraid I was aware of something else.  I believe she told Jason that on the recording to make him feel that it was ok.  I really believe that that was the night that her and Jason got together.  She said that in such a way that was suspicious but I wasn‘t thinking clearly at the time.  Now that I think about it, if I had listened to the whole thing, there is no telling what else I would have learned.  Regardless, she had an affair.    

I wasn’t going to go into the logistics of the details of what she did or the evidence I had against her.  The reason is this, I do not want my kids to see this sometime in the future and think negatively of their mother.  No matter what she has done to me, I couldn’t have asked GOD for a better mother to my kids.  She loves them and does everything she can for them.  After some time of thinking about it, however, I believe it is imperative that I go into her other exploits, to give the reader a better feel for what I had to go through.

Women have the audacious ability to turn things around and make it the man’s fault for them cheating.  She told me, “you’re just as guilty as me.  I just got someone to say yes”.  I told her, “I am guilty of thinking about it and you’re guilty of actually getting a hot beef injection.  How in the hell do you think I am just as guilty as you”? 

I thought we were past the affair she had with the mechanic.  We made amends, yet again, and decided to work things out.  Well I thought we had made amends.  It turned out that “we” didn’t make the amends, but rather “me” did.  She was just buying time till she found something else.  But until she did, she went wild.  Things were slowly getting better, or so I thought.  Not but a few months would go by before I would catch her again.

She was still giving Jason, her friend from her load team at work, a ride home every night.  Now I pay close attention to the odometer.  The first car I ever had, had a gas gauge that didn’t work.  I kept that car in perfect running condition so I could tell how much gas I had in the tank with the miles on the odometer.  I was so good at the estimation that I could run the tank almost dry and I never ran out of gas.  

The habit of paying close attention to the odometer stayed with me.  I still pay close attention to the odometer, for performance reasons.  If the gas mileage dips, I find ways to make it better or look for the reason it dipped.  I even check the gas mileage at every fill up.   I guess you could say that I am kind of OCD about it.  I used to drive to and from FedEx every night so I knew the miles.  I knew what the miles were when I got in the car and what the miles were when I got out.  I would drive to and from work during the day and she would drive to and from work at night.  Her SUV would use too much gas so we shared my Saturn.

I started noticing that more miles were being put on the car than just a normal trip to work and back home, dang near double the mileage even at times.  She was hanging out with Jason driving around every night after work.  I didn’t think much about it at first until I started noticing slight differences.  My legs are shorter that hers, but we found a notch on the seat slider that worked for the both of us.

One morning I got in the car and the seat was slid almost all the way back.  I couldn’t even touch the pedal.  I knew my wife still could though.  I asked her about it and she explained it away as Jason went to the back of the parking lot and got her car for her and she just forgot to put the seat back.  As far back as the seat was I knew he must have been a very tall guy.  She has always gotten her own car.  Something just didn’t seem right.

Another morning I got in the car and the seat was leaned back.  I knew she never rode like that.  But Jason did.  He drove a ghetto sled, and that was when it ran, and lived in the ghetto.  I asked her about that and she just told me that she didn’t know what I was talking about.  She had a feeling that I might be onto her so the next night she didn’t want to drive the car.  She figured I might run the recorder again.  I anticipated that she would make that decision so while she was asleep I ran the recorder and a small thin microphone in the SUV. 

That night when she got up and left for work, she went in the SUV, which I figured she would.  I figured out how to set VGA, voice activation, so I had plenty of time.  At the end of the night the recorder picked up my wife getting in the truck.  Jason also got in.  The microphone was taped under the back seat pointing up front.  It was black and the darkness kept it hid.  She was talking and the radio was on.  She cranked up the truck and I could hear the RPMs pick up as she pulled off.  A few seconds later the truck stopped suddenly and was put into park. 

She kept talking.  The radio was turned down shortly after the truck was put into park and she was still saying words but it was here and there and it was muffled.  I later figured out why I couldn’t hear her.  The seat and Jason was between her and the microphone.   Less than a minute after she became muffled, I heard him let out a loud moan.  She said, “is that all you got? Here, let me clean that up”.  I guess he was less than a minute man.  

I brought it up to her after I heard the recorder.  She thought about it for a minute and explained it away as he was singing with the radio.  I later would remember that the radio was almost silent.  She told me that I was delusional and that I was hearing things.  I wanted to believe her so bad.  I didn’t want to believe that my wife was doing what I knew she was doing.  She got all hussy and told me the only way we can work this out was for me to go to the looney bin at the hospital.  

Even though I needed the rest due to the fact that the anxiety that I felt kept me from resting, that would turn out to be the worst decision I could have made.  Going to the hospital at St. Francis for anxiety was a great cover for her.  She knew that she wanted to leave me.  She needed to make everyone, including her mom and the courts, think that I was crazy and delusional.  

By me going to the place where people whom suffer from mental illness goes, she had her iron clad reasoning and explanation, therefore her tool for manipulation.  It made it all too easy for her to manipulate her family and friends and my family and friends into thinking she was so innocent and I was the crazy one with delusional tendencies.   

I agreed to go to the hospital.  I haven’t had a good nights sleep in over a month and haven’t been able to eat much for over a month.  I checked myself into St. Francis on Park Ave.  I was there for a week.  I knew what my wife was doing on the outside but I was full of zanex for a week.  I was there for anxiety.  I will admit though, that was the best sleep I had in years.  After a week I went home but it didn’t take long before I caught her yet again.

Another gut feeling came over me not even a month after I got home.  She went to work in the car one night.   I had the truck.  I left the house and went up to FedEx and parked in the back behind the fence line and waited for her and Jason to leave.  I saw the Saturn pull out into the drive lane inside the secure parking area.  I ran to the tuck , cranked it up, and sped around the fence to the driveway.  Not long after I got into traffic, I got right behind them.  It was night and my headlights were on.  I knew they couldn’t see me.

Jason was driving.  I know there is a big difference between my wife’s puffy hairdo and a big bald black head.  I stayed a couple of car links behind them so as to not be seen, especially at traffic lights.  I actually watched my wife, whom was sitting in the passenger seat, lean to the left and lay her head in Jason’s lap.  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what she was doing.  

Later when she got home, I brought that to her attention and she explained it away as the reason I saw Jason’s head on the driver’s side, was that he was tired and sat in the back behind her.  I wasn’t buying it this time, but so much wanted her to admit what she was doing.  Jason was a very tall man.  There wasn’t enough room in that cramped car for him to sit directly behind her.  She said, “that hospital didn’t help you at all”.  I was still in-love with my wife and didn’t want to walk.  

I just wanted her to be a real wife.  The cheating was bad, I’ll admit, but the sex with others isn’t what bothered me.  No matter how hard she tried, she would never be able to find anybody better than me when it came to sex.  It was, rather, the emotional bond that she had developed with the other individual.  That, in my opinion, was worse than the sex.  She was merely satisfying a fetish.  This is the reason I decided to go underground after I had enough and left the marriage and try to understand why a woman would do this. 

The next night I recorded her yet again.  When she dropped Jason off, they were having a conversation.  He finally asked if she would make him feel better.  She said, “make you feel better, make you feel better.  What about me?  I make you feel better just by being with you”.  Jason said, “I know (censor in place of her name), but damn”!  She said that because he would have an orgasm too quick and she never got satisfied.

What occurred with Jason happened in the late summer of 2005 into the winter 2006.  A couple of months later she hooked up with her friend, Devin.  It was the weekend of Easter in April.  It was the Friday before Easter.  She talked about going to Walmart after work to get stuff for the kid’s Easter baskets.  I decided to surprise her and meet her at FedEx and go to the store with her.  

I went up to FedEx’s parking lot that Saturday morning at 4:00am.  She came out but she didn’t hear me call her name out.  I caught up to her on the interstate.  I called her on the phone.  She was definitely surprised to see me next to her on the interstate.  She told me that her and Devin were meeting at Walmart to shop for Easter.  I didn’t think much about it.  In fact I just said ok.

I fell behind a little bit and when I got there, they were already in the store.  He never said anything to me.  When I came in, they talked quietly for a second and split.  She met with me and we looked at some things.  What got my attention was when she asked Devin if he found anything to get.  She called him Devi.  I asked her why in the hell would she call him Devi.  She just said He is a friend.  We got our things and she said good bye to Devin. 

I told him it was good to meet him.  He had a fear of GOD look in his eye.  I didn’t understand why at first.  My wife told me that we met before.  He had come over to the house some time back to play basketball with Eian.  This was before the incident with the mechanic.  Come to think about it, he had the same look in his eye then, which also makes me wonder how long she had been “friends“ with him.  I walked back up to him and his eyes got huge.  I said that I forgot that we had already met ant that it was nice to see him again.  He just nodded and never said a word.

Easter was that Sunday.  Two days later was Corgan’s birthday.  Corgan is my daughter.  We had her party the next weekend.  We had her birthday at Pump It Up in Cordova.  My wife told me, after the party started, that she invited Devin.  I remembered feeling upset that she invited Devin, for he didn’t know Corgan.  Why would she invite Devin?

I got that gut feeling yet again that it was more than “just friends”.  The Monday after the party, which was the 30th, I set up the recorder again.  She was savvy about that recorder, so I had to get creative on hiding it.  I set the recorder in the trunk of the Saturn and ran the microphone through the back seat and down the middle of one of the creases.  The microphone was black so I taped it to a black rail.  At night it would be totally invisible.

That night she left in a hurry to get to work.  I knew that when the RPMs got lower and she ran over two speed bumps, that she had just passed the security check point.  She drove slowly for a bit and didn‘t turn but once.  I took it that she had gone all the way to the back.  She lowered the window and I heard a deep voice talk to her.  It was Devon.  I knew his deep voice anywhere.  His voice is very distinctive.  He said, “I’m sorry (censor in place of her name), I just couldn’t do it.  I am so sorry.  That statement makes me believe that she wanted something to happen at Pump It Up.  Remember she had a fetish thing.  The excitement of doing something without getting caught.  She never said a word.  He said something else and said that he will meet her inside.

She pulled down a little bit and parked.  She turned the car off and got out.  She went to the back seat, where she put her backpack and got something out.  She whispered something.  At first I couldn’t tell what she said.  I played  the recorder over and over.  I thought that I finally understood what she said but to be sure, I slowed the speed of the sound.  She said, “I am so juicy”.  She closed and remote locked the doors.

She didn’t realize how sensitive the microphone was.  The recorder was on VGA.  It didn’t come on and start recording unless there was sound.  At 3:46am I heard a train whistle blow.  The train tracks were more than 500 yards away.  It recorded that sound from inside a locked car.  At 4:16am I heard someone approaching the car.  The car doors were unlocked but it would be more than sixteen minutes before my wife got in.  The voices got closer.  It was a very deep voice.  The voice was Devin’s.  She had parked right next to Devin.

He opened the door and a few seconds later he closed the door.  I heard the car start.  He didn’t pull out of the parking space but rather revved the car several times to warm it up.  The radio was turned on but soon after it was turned on, the volume was lowered.  

More than ten minutes went by and I heard a faint subtle moan from a female.  It was a moan of a sexual orgasm.  Soon after, he let out a loud moan and then hollered in relief.  56 seconds had elapsed from his holler to the moment she got in the car.  In between that I heard the car door open and he was talking.  She jumped in the car and sped off and was laughing as she sped off.  She didn’t want to be with him in the Saturn because she figured I might set the recorder up.  Well I did set the recorder up, but she didn’t realize how sensitive the microphone was.

This was very sad that she would do this.  She didn’t want a relationship, just sex.  Jason had a girlfriend, but did not matter to her for she didn’t want a relationship.  Devin had a girlfriend as well.  His girlfriend worked on the same load team as my wife, Jason and Devin.  Devin’s girlfriend was usually on a different plane than my wife and Devin.  What made that situation even worse was Devin’s girlfriend was pregnant with his child, about seven months pregnant.         

Thinking of what I knew was true and what I was hoping to GOD wasn’t was tearing me apart.  When I got out of the hospital, things continued to go down a negative path.  Now I did my fair share of wrong as well and I am in no way making myself out to be a saint.  I too had an affair.  It was a revenge thing but I felt so terrible afterwards.  I thought, why did I feel bad?  She cheated on me multiple times, yet she obviously didn’t have a problem with it.  

I realized that I was the one that was still in-love.  Perhaps she did it to satisfy a sexual fetish she had.  Maybe it was a revenge thing for holding on so tight.  Maybe it was a combination of things.  I searched for reasons for the longest of why she would hate me so much as to do those things to me.  I know I am no saint by any means but I am mainly leading to the injustice that was done to me that led to my ultimate demise, my way of life that is.  

The straw that shattered the camels back so to speak was on our last wedding anniversary that we shared together.  At first I wasn‘t going to go into the logistics of the situation, but after thinking about it for a couple of months, I think the reader should know everything.  A couple of months before, I noticed that my wife put in an application for employment at Nevada Power, where her ex lives.  She did this online.

Several months before that, my wife accused me of looking up porn because porn advertisements were popping up.  I had a problem with porn at one point.  I had an addiction to it.  I broke free from that addiction and in no way was I looking up porn on the computer.  I knew who did though.  It was our oldest son and he let me get accused of it because he didn’t want to get into trouble.  She didn’t believe me so I took matters into my own hand.

I went online and downloaded a key logger.  I didn’t tell her about it because I wanted to catch him in the act without anybody knowing it.  The key logger recorded every key stroke and took screen shots every twenty seconds and logged every site visited, not to mention the time was logged also.  Every afternoon I would put in the password, and look at all the messages sent and received and all sites visited.  It didn’t take long for him to look up the porn.  

Not even two weeks later, I busted him.  I saw everything he saw.  I brought it to his attention.  He tried to deny it at first.  I told him to watch the computer screen.  I showed him what sites he visited and the times he did it and showed him everything he saw.  

He had an “Oh S**t” look on his face.  I told him I wouldn’t tell his mother but never to look that stuff up on that computer again for I will know.  I did tell his mother but I told her that I found cookies on the computer from the sites he visited and it couldn’t have been me because I was no where around when those cookies were left on the computer.  

She bought it.  I didn’t want to tell her that I spent money on a key logger.  She handled the books so I didn’t want her to know that I saved some money from each roofing job I did.  If she found out, I would never have money again.  I left the key logger on the computer.  That is how I found out that she put in the application at Nevada Power.  I passed it off but it would soon come to a head.  

I knew something was about to take place, just didn’t know exactly what.  I, again, went to Radio Shack and purchased a phone recorder.  I had set it up the day before out anniversary.  We went to dinner on our anniversary at the Butcher Shop in Cordova.  We turned in pretty went home pretty early for I had been up right at 24 hours with no sleep.  My Wife had switched to the day side at FedEx and I worked nights at FedEx and the City during the day.  I was exhausted but it was our anniversary.  

When we got home, I took a zanex to make me go to sleep immediately.  I stayed in the chair watching TV until my wife got done with homework.  She was going to school online and she supposedly had a few hours of homework to do online.  I stayed in the chair because I wanted to go to bed at the same time as her.  I didn’t mind sleeping in the chair because the phone was bugged, so if she talked to someone, I would know.  I woke up around 1:00am and she was supposedly just getting done.  We went to bed.

The next morning she got up, got ready, and left for work.  I went to the recorder and pulled it out.  Somebody has done a lot of talking for there was an hour and twenty three minutes that was recorded.  While listening, I realized that she had drunk a lot of beer and began to relax about talking for I was asleep.  She talked to her ex in Las Vegas for twenty three minutes.  She was talking about moving in with him.  She then got off the phone with him and called her friend Kristen up and talked for over an hour.  She talked to her about the arrangements that she had made with her ex.  I had felt like such an idiot for all her friend, which were my friends too knew about what was going on and I had no clue.

I finally had enough so I walked.  I did call her ex up and clued him in as to what she was all about.  I already had my checks at my employer diverted to another account for I anticipated this happening.  I then moved in with a friend of mine.  This was a friend that I did roof work with for several years.  His name was Tim. 

I was at my job the next day.  She called me up while I was at work.  She was crying.  She said she talked to her ex.  He said you can send our son out but as far as you and I are concerned, it’s not going to happen.  She was crying  to the point it was difficult to understand what she was saying.  I did catch the jest of the conversation.  

She said I ruined her chance of leaving the state and starting a new live.  I told her, “I am not about to apologize for stopping you from leaving the state with my kids“.  I told her , “you already took everything from me!  You’re not taking my kids too!”  

She seemed to immediately straighten up and said, “why don’t you come over after work and take the security door down in the garage.  Two of the three hinges are broken.  After that we can have dinner as a family.  When we are done we will go in our bedroom and close the door and discuss dividing the debt so we can divorce in an amicable fashion”.  

That should have been my first clue that something was amiss.  I said ok.  I went by my new residence first to take a shower and change clothes.  As I was leaving, my friend, Tim, asked me where I was going.  I told him I was going over to me wife’s house to have dinner and discuss the division of the bills.  He said, “don’t go over there.  If you do, you will go to jail”.  I said whatever.  I should have listened to his advise.  In my defense however, I, in no way would have believed that the love of my life, the best friend I ever had, and the mother of my children could have done to me what she was about to do.

I went over there despite my friends warnings.  I took the security door down and put it on the curb.  After that I had dinner with the family.  It was spaghetti.  Four years ago and I remember what we ate that day.  After that my wife and I went into our bedroom to discuss the division of the bills.  She closed and locked the door.  I remember feeling uneasy about that.  She just simply said, “I don’t want the kids to come in.  It’s none of their business”.  I said ok.  

The bed was made.  She laid on her right side on the bed and rested her head on her right hand.  You’re going to take this, that, these, and those bills and give me eleven hundred dollars a month she said.  I then said, “and what bills are you going to take”?  I have the kids she said.  I said there is no way I can pay all the bills, give you eleven hundred dollars a month, and rent a room at my friends house.  

At this time she had transferred to days at FedEx and I was rehired at FedEx working nights.  I said when you can come up with something we can both live with, call me.  I have to work tonight and if I leave now, I’m barely going to get a three hour nap.  She immediately leaned up in a sitting position on the bed and said with a stern voice, “I know why you are mad at me, it’s because I don’t want you anymore”.  I immediately felt uneasy and started to get nervous for what my friend said quickly passed through my mind.  

I abruptly unlocked and opened the door and started down the hall.  She rushed in front of me chest butting me trying to start a quarrel.  I picked her up and put her to the side and rushed past through the den and into the kitchen.  She ran in front of me grabbing my shirt.  That was my favorite t-shirt by the way.  It was the Where The Wild Things Are t-shirt.  She grabbed a hold of that shirt like a cowboy grabbing the rains of a bronco getting ready for a wild ride.  She said, “you aren’t leaving until you give me the keys to your car.”   

Three weeks before I told her I wanted to put the car in my name.  It was my car but when we got it, my credit was in the toilet so we put it in her name to save money.  I expressed my desire to put it in my name so if we ever split up, there wouldn’t be a problem.  She just said, “don’t worry.  The court would give me the SUV because I have the kids and you would get the car so you could go to work.”  I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.   

Again she said, “ you’re not leaving until you give me the keys to your car”.  I said, “I’m not going to give you the keys.  You know I have to work to give you money for the kids“.  She wasn’t letting go so I pushed her to try and brake her grip.  She was wearing heals and lost her balance.  She fell and drug me to the floor.  I thought that’s ok, I’m not trying to hurt her anyway.  I am just trying to get free.  

Our oldest son, Eian, walked by us, very calmly I might add, and picked up the phone and dialed 911.  He said very calmly, “my parents are in a fight.  I need the police over here right away”, and then hung up and quietly walked off.  This was going on at the same time I was trying to get away from my wife.  I remember thinking, “this is a set up”!  I freaked out because I knew that the Bartlett police department had a very fast response time since the city is relatively small and the police love to harass people.  I started to hit her hands to break her grip.  It wasn’t working.  

I don’t know why I remembered this in a time of crisis but I recalled something my little brother told me several years before.  He said, “if a woman grabs your shirt and will not let go, bend at the hip and stretch your arms out straight to slide out of the shirt.  I did just that and it worked.  I was free.  

I ran for the car.  She came after me and said,” don’t worry I’ll get the spare keys and get it later.”  So I ran back in to get the spare keys and ran back to the car which was already running.  She jumped in the doorway to keep me from closing the door.  She started to say something but also at the same time grabbed for my cell phone.  

My cell phone was brand new but her thinking was since the account was in her name, I wasn’t taking it.  I could have gotten another account but she was not letting me leave with it if she could help it.  I grabbed my cell phone to keep her from getting it.  My foot was already on the brake but it slipped off in the confusion.  The car started to roll backwards.  The door of the car got hooked on the rear fender of the truck and got caught and started to be pulled back in the opposite direction that the car was rolling until it was perpendicular to the car itself.  

Both of us stopped what we were doing simultaneously because we couldn’t believe what was happening.  I immediately stepped on the brake.  Anybody knows that when you step on the brake, the car jolts in an up and down fashion.  When that happened, the door broke loose and snapped back and hit my wife in the chest.  I stopped the car and got out and went to my wife and said with tears in my eyes, “You have to know I didn’t mean to do that hon“.  

I, however, knew I didn’t have much time, so I left.  I had to hold the door shut for it wouldn’t latch since the door hinges were bent.  I made it into Memphis but felt bad for my wife so I called to check on her.  A Bartlett police officer answered the phone and told me that I need to come back.  I tried to do the right thing and went back.  I later found out from a Bartlett investigator, whom was also a member of my church group, that I didn’t have to go back.  The investigator would have come to me to figure out what happened. 

I really hate that hind sight is twenty-twenty!  They were waiting on me at the cove and arrested me on the spot.  It didn’t matter what I said in my defense because they were not listening.  My wife told them the mark on her breast was from me and that I meant to hit her with the car door.  

I know that she lied to the police and meant for them to arrest me by the way she stood with her hands on her hips in front of the squad car, looking very upset, and the copy of the police report that I got, where it states on said report that she alleged things.  I was set up for revenge for stopping her from leaving the state with the kids and I walked right into it.  I was carted off to jail and stayed there for two days.  This was in November of 2006. 

My wife wasted no time in using my arrest against me.  She had me arrested for aggravated domestic assault.  This enabled her to get an aggravated domestic assault restraining order.  She got this for more than one reason.  I wasn’t able to contact her or the kids, while they were with her, or come around.  I couldn’t come close than 500 yards.  She also wanted to keep me away from the kids.  

This also enabled her to sell everything of mine, tool box, hand tools, power tools, air tools, welding equipment, torch equipment, generator, and my car and there was nothing I could do about it.  Thousands of dollars worth of stuff and I got nothing.  She also got me fired from FedEx.  You can not work on federal property with a felony conviction.  I wasn’t convicted of anything yet and I thought you were supposed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.  That, I learned, was not so.  By the way, she also got my new phone and gave it to Eian!  He still has that number to this day.  

I went before the judge.  I have to admit, he was a sweet old man and I did and do respect him.  Him and the prosecutor knew there wasn’t much to go on.  I hired an attorney by the name of Jack Sherman.  He had a reputation for being an aggressive attorney.  They offered me simple assault with no probation.  I decided not to take it because I was fighting a restraining order and didn’t want anything negative on my record that could possibly keep me from my kids.  I now wish I took that deal but can’t go back now.  

The judge and the prosecutor both knew there wasn’t much they could go on so even with a felony type charge, he let me go on a 600.00 dollar bond and the judge wished me good luck.  My aunt paid 66.00 dollars and I went home.  My friend that I roomed with gave me the I told you so look when I got home.  He didn’t have to say anything, it was just understood.  

My aunt paid the bond so I would be able to keep working.  I wasn’t able to contact my wife or my kids.  The school that my kids went to misunderstood the details of the restraining order.  I was able to see the kids as long as they were not with her but my wife told them that the restraining order implied that I couldn’t.  I wasn’t able to see my kids until Christmas of that same year and that was under supervised visitation with my wife’s parents.  

I was completely devastated at what my wife had done to me.  She was trying to hurt me by keeping me away from the kids.  She didn’t care or take into consideration how it was affecting them by keeping them from seeing me.  They loved their daddy and their daddy loved them.  I get teary eyed just thinking about what she did and that was a little over four years ago.  The devastation took its toll.  I started drinking and daily at that.  I thought I had it under control   This is just the tip of the iceberg at how mean and vindictive she could be.  

My attorney, Jack Sherman was representing me in an aggravated domestic assault charge and a restraining order, but it was not over yet by any stretch of the imagination as you will soon find out.  I had gotten a loan through my retirement to pay for another car, which I was still paying for the car that my wife sold and would still be paying for it for another two years.   

A couple of months went by and no contact was killing me.  Then again that was her goal.  I finally tried to send a message through email.  I was astonished when she replied.  We started to talk.  I have to admit, I was still in-love with her.  We started to see each other again.  We were currently in a legal separation but we still started to see each other in February of 2007.  

In March of 2007 I bought a motorcycle.  I couldn’t afford much but happen to catch a year end close out sale at a Honda dealership.  I got a 2007 Honda VTX 1300.  I couldn’t afford therapy but could do a couple hundred dollars a month to ride a bike.  In my opinion, a bike is the best therapy there is no matter what ails you.  The hum of the engine as you reached one hundred mph and the stripes of the road becoming one.  I could think so clearly at that time.  It didn’t matter what the weather was like outside.  Cold, heat, rain, sleet, snow, whatever, I was riding.  It didn’t matter if I had been drinking either.   I rode that bike everywhere.  

Now comes the reason I brought the bike in the story.  April comes around and it is my weekend with the kids.  The divorce was at a standstill but we were still seeing each other.  Everything seemed to be going alright, that is until the weekend of the sixteenth.  I found out she made certain plans with a coworker by the name of Carl.  I was very upset for we had started to see each other again.  I knew she was hiding this from me.  She had put me on the backburner.  

I was working at Kroger in Bartlett as a stocker at night.  I was still working for the City of Memphis during the day.  I would call her in the middle of the night to see if there was anything she needed, since Kroger was right around the corner from our house.  Sometimes she would be talking to Carl as she clicked over.  She was talking to him for several hours every night.  She told me that he was just a friend from work but the fact that she was talking to him for hours every night and that she had put me on the backburner yet again, told me different.

I had gotten his phone number from my wife’s cell phone.  I knew she was seeing him.  When I got the kids on Saturday, I knew she was hooking up with him.  I called the number because I thought she was there.  A woman answered.  At first I thought I called the wrong number.  I called the number again and the same woman answered.  I asked if Carl was there.  She said no but I am his wife.  I thought this was golden.  I was more than happy as to clue her in that my wife and her husband were together.

She said that she needed to contact Bill.  Bill was another man that worked in her department.  He had gotten injured and was doing much better.  He decided to have a BBQ for his coworkers and that is where Carl and my wife supposedly went.  She called Bill and then called me back.  

She told me that Bill had said that Carl  left two hours before then and that he hasn’t seen him since.  If Carl and my wife weren’t at his house and wasn’t at the BBQ, I knew where they were.  I wouldn’t have proof until the next day when I got the tracking device from her truck and downloaded the information onto my computer.

Less than a year before, I had purchased a passive tracking device, meaning it wasn’t live, from the internet.  I wouldn’t know where the individual had gone until I removed the device and downloaded it on the computer.  There was a coworker of mine named Steve, whom was over the restaurant inspections.  He was a two faced back stabbing individual.  He was a major butt kisser.  Whenever someone did wrong, he ratted on them to get brownie points.  I was much faster and more efficient than he was.  It made him look bad so he turned me in for a conflict of interest situation.  

I had been cleaning grease traps on the side.  I had just been put on the industrial side so I didn’t think there was a problem.  Since the restaurant inspection side was in the same department, it was considered a conflict of interest.  He tried to get me fired.  

Well I knew he was writing up inspections that he never did, thus guilty of way worse than me or anybody else.  He was guilty of fraud.  So I got a tracking device with my own money and attached it to his truck.  I also used my cam recorder and followed the tracking data and correlated it with the inspections that he did and had proof that he never did those inspections.  I had enough to get him fired.  Lucky for him I lost all the proof when I left the marriage.

Well back to the my wife and Carl story.  I gave my wife’s number to Carl’s wife.  She supposedly called my wife and went off on her. My wife got pissed and was seeking revenge.  She got with our mutual friend Paul, and manipulated him into thinking I was going crazy and was delusional.  He fell for it and collaborated her story in every way.

Now when they made it to my house, I had run out of dip.  When the kids went to bed, I had started drinking.   I ran out of smokeless tobacco.  I decided to go to the store.  I took my bike.   

Now before I go further, I realize that leaving the kids was wrong and have not done that again and never will again.  Now back  to the story.  I went way out of my way to get to the store.  I rode pretty much aimlessly.  The vibrator on my phone went off so I pulled over to answer it.  It was my friend, Paul.  Him and my wife were at my house and wanted to get the kids.  

I covered 16 miles in less than ten minutes.  I got up to the house and revved up my bike to basically show off my new toy to my friend.  My wife was on the phone with the cops and told them that I tried to run her over with my bike to get them there quickly to get the kids.  I never talked to her just our mutual friend.  Now the bike was already parked at this time.  

Two squad cars pulled up and my friend and I were talking.  It was two women that made the scene.  A short petite blonde woman and a tall relatively young black woman.  By the way, I was screwed before they even got there!  The short white woman escorted me to the squad car and put me in the back and told me to sit tight till they can figure what’s going on.  

The female officer shortly came back to the car and asked my version.  Immediately after I finished she said, well we’re not going to arrest you for DUI.  “I said, uhhh, ok”.  She said, “ we’re not going to arrest you for child neglect either because that would hurt you”.  I again said with a slightly disgusted voice for I knew what was about to be said, “ yea ok”.  She said, “we’re going to take you in for domestic violence”.  The officer had not listened to a single word that I had said.  

I said with a very pissed off voice, “you got to be ****ing kidding me!  No photographic evidence whatsoever, no marks, cuts, abrasions, blood, breaks, I never got close to her, and I never said a word to her, just talked to a mutual friend and you’re taking me in for that”!  “Yes sir we are”. The black woman must have been in training because the white woman kept telling her about procedures.  Therefore, I am not upset with the black woman but I will never forget the white woman’s face.  

She violated my rights, discriminated against me, wrongfully arrested me, and illegally detained me.  She knew that she was going to arrest me before she got to my house and before she asked my version of the story.  And come to find out she put in the report that a motorcycle was involved so the grand jury upped it to aggravated assault.  I was now facing two like felony charges.

I didn’t think anybody was going to help me this time.  I was just sitting tight waiting for my chance to see the judge.  However, my aunt bailed me out, yet again so I could keep working.  I got out after twenty-four hours and my aunt drove me home. 

Now when I got out of jail, I went to Freeman Park in Bartlett.  My son was having a soccer game.  There was a restraining order out so I didn’t  want them to know that I was there.  I walked through the parking lot and slid under her vehicle and pulled the tracking device away from her truck.  I then hopped back on my bike and went home to download the information.  

I got home and put the device in the USB port.  She met up with Carl in the front of the FedEx parking lot.  When he got there they went to the rear right of the parking lot.  I later asked her why she went to the rear of the lot?  This was Saturday evening and there were very few vehicles on the lot.  She said that she felt that her truck was more secure in the back.

Now I want the reader to know how absurd this excuse was.  The FedEx parking lot has more security cameras than a bank does.  The lot is almost as secure as Fort Knox so to speak.  I guess they wanted a nice undisturbed game of Tidly Winks for the two hours after Carl left Bill’s.  Carl had to make an appearance at the BBQ so as to not make anybody suspicious.  After all, some people there knew Carl’s wife.  She was a manager on the night side at FedEx.  

Now my wife told me she didn’t press charges for anything, that I did it all to myself.  She said that I made a series of bad choices.  She told me that she knew the incident with the car door was an accident.  If that is so, why did both police reports say different?  Why did she have such an angry demeanor and have her hands resting on her hips when the Bartlett police officers arrested me on the first charge?  Why did she come to the Bartlett court when I went before the judge if she hadn‘t pressed for anything?  Why did she tell the Bartlett prosecutor, when he told her there wasn’t anything for them to go on and he was putting simple assault on the table, that she didn’t care, but said it with an upset tone.  The Bartlett prosecutor told me what she said and how she said it.  If she wasn‘t pressing for anything, why did it go down that way?  She was actually wanting me to get into trouble with the law and put harmful marks on my record for revenge. 

When I didn’t take that plea, the case went State at 201 Poplar.  If I made a series of bad mistakes like she said I did, and she wasn‘t pressing for anything, why was Eian with her at court at 201?  If I was guilty of what she accused me of and she was in court with Eian on the first charge, why did she not come to Anne Pugh’s court one time on the second charge?  When the second case left Anne Pugh’s court and made it upstairs to Judge Lamme’s court, why did she never come to court again until it came to a head and nearing the end, and that was to basically to set the record straight with the state prosecutor?

The reason was that on the first charge, she just wanted to put a blemish on my record, without realizing what she was potentially doing to me.  After making accusations to the police and having me arrested the second time, she realized that what she was doing would not only have a serious potential to hurt me for life, but hurt her also when it came to child support.  That’s why she didn’t come to court again until the end, to set the record straight.  That’s why she never brought Eian again.   

                                                                           CHAPTER 8

                                 THE TRAIL TO THE COURTROOM IS NOT THE SAME AS A SPEEDY TRIAL

Since I was facing two like charges, my bond this time was 6000.00 dollars.  I didn’t think anybody would help me this time so I was sitting tight waiting for court.  However, my aunt bailed me out again and paid the 600.00 dollars bail to get me out so I could keep my job.  

My wife had a power over me.  She could put me in jail whenever she wanted and she knew it.  She wielded that new weapon like a kid whom had just found their daddy’s gun.  Sure I can get out with this thing called a bond.  But what was going to happen to me when I got through the tunnel and into court.  When I did get through that tunnel and into court, she realized what she was potentially doing to me which is the reason she tried to set the record straight.  

Of coarse she tried to set the record straight without implicating herself at filing false police reports, which by the way, would be a felony conviction in itself and twice over I might add.  She did this by implying that it was just a misunderstanding between her and the police officers.  Like the prosecutor is going to believe that the police misunderstood her two times in a row.  This is a terrible problem in this state and across our nation.    

Not only did I have to worry about court, but my wife was lying to her family and friends about it.  She was also successful in turning my own family and friends against me.  She is nice, sweet, and adorable to the whole world.  This is an extension to the reason she convinced me to go to the  hospital, aiding in convincing everyone that I was crazy and delusional.  That also aided in manipulating everyone against me, including my own family and friends.    

The female officer violated my rights in more ways than one but my wife’s mouth is what got me in that situation to begin with.  I had to borrow from my retirement yet again to pay an additional fee to my attorney to fight the second charge.  A total of 2,450.00 dollars cash is what I paid Jack.  In addition I paid 1,100.00 to my divorce attorney and 2,400.00 for a car from a we tote the note lot that didn’t last but two months.  It would take me three years to pay this off and that included a tax return. 

My attorney, Jack, asked if I was getting a divorce.  At first I told him that I wasn’t seeking one at this time.  He convinced me that if I am ever to win the jury over, that I need to be the first to file.  Then it would appear to the jury that I was leaving her and she was trying to stop me.  

Well I was leaving and she did try to stop me.  I was still in love with my wife but had grown tired of her not acting wife like.  So that is the reason that I had borrowed extra monies from my retirement.  Immediately after Jack talked me into being the first to file, I filed.

The first charge left Bartlett court and went state at 201 poplar upstairs but the second was downstairs in Anne Pugh’s court in the same building in April of 2007.  I would like to know why this woman is allowed to sit on the bench of domestic court cases.  It is common knowledge that her daughter was raped.  In my opinion, that’s a conflict of interest.  She is a man hater!  Any man that walks into her courtroom is guilty as hell until they prove to her that they are innocent!  I sat in her court waiting for my case to be called.  She was rude to every man that stood before her and treated us all the same, and that was like scum.  

My attorney suggested we get it out of her court and send it upstairs with the other charge to be tried together.  I agreed with that suggestion wholeheartedly.  He kept delaying the charge upstairs, buying time till he could successfully get the second charge out of Anne’s court.  I would show up, he would continue it, and then I would go to work.  

While this was going on my drinking was getting worse.  I was going through two bottles a week at this time.  It didn’t matter what it was either, whatever was on sale or whatever I felt like drinking at the time.  I was also dating quite a bit as well.  Nothing serious for the most part, but an occasional mini relationship here and there.  

I would, however, stop seeing anybody while my wife and I were seeing each other.  It wouldn’t be the same for her though.  She would hook me, reel me in, use me for sex or other purposes, then throw me back or put me on the backburner when something or someone else she wanted to try came along.  It would take several times of her doing this before I would come to my senses and realize what she was doing and that she was very bad for me.  

I started having the kids over every other weekend without supervised visitation not long before I was arrested the second time.  I was also able to have lunch with them on Fridays.  I was so relieved that they wanted to be with me.  When their mother instigated that quarrel to try to get me to leave a mark on her, which I wouldn’t do but she was successful in getting from the car when she charged it, she made sure all this happened in front of the kids in an attempt to turn them against me.  Now that made her more sadistic than anything she had ever done to me.  This kind of behavior is illustrated by woman all over the country, but especially in Tennessee.  I will confront this type of behavior and exploit it in a later chapter. 

By July it was successfully sent upstairs.  He continued it then, and the next date was in August.  Then he did the same thing in August and then September.  Now Comes October of 2007.  Both charges were together in Judge Lamme’s court.  He got to me and my attorney wanted to continue it once more.  I was ready to get it over with already.  

I couldn’t believe Judge Lamme said what he did.  He said, “We’re not going to continue this case anymore.  I can’t believe this man is still on the streets”.  Yes, that’s what he said.  I was judged without a jury of my piers.  He judged me on appearance.  Muscular, bald head, handlebar mustache, and tattoos up and down the arms, this man is violent thus guilty of what he was charged with.  

Judge Lamme violated my rights.  He gave a cruddy excuse but the one he gave was this: “two charges involving the same victim and having two different bonds, the bonds shall be stripped.  We will schedule a new bond hearing so both can be wrapped under the same bond for one week from today“.  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  I didn’t want a bond hearing.  I wanted to get this over with.  

My attorney came over to me.  I asked, “am I going to jail for a week”?  He said, “we both knew this was going to happen”.  Remember what I just said.  We both knew this was going to happen.  I said, “No we didn’t!  You may have, but I didn’t”! 

I was taken into custody and handcuffed.  Just as I was taken into a holding cell I was allowed to make one call from my cell phone.  I called my employer.  My manager was not in so I left a message telling him that I was going to be out of pocket till the next Tuesday due to the fact I was being put in jail.  

I then had to surrender my phone and personal belongings.  I was then dressed out in Shelby County Jail prisoner attire, which was orange.  I was then placed in a holding cell for 24 hours.  I was then placed in solitary confinement for the duration of my stay.  I didn’t understand why at that time for I was in no way a trouble maker.  

In solitary confinement, you are not allowed television, no phone privileges, no radio, no contact with people, you are not allowed in general population, 23 hours in the cell and one hour outside the cell to walk up and down the corridor or take a shower, no contact of any sort with the outside world which also means my attorney.  

It is my right under the Constitution of the United States of America to consult with my council or attorney.  Judge Lamme, the prosecutor, and the Shelby County Jail violated my rights.  Let’s recap shall we.  The arresting officer discriminated against me, violated my rights, wrongfully arrested me, illegally detained me, and Judge Lamme, the prosecutor, and the Shelby County Jail violated my rights.  

The days seemed to never end and the nights were endless as well.  I paced in my cell day in and day out.  At night I was exhausted from the pacing so I sat and starred at the wall in front of me.  I befriended an inmate at the jail who worked for the kitchen and delivered meals to the inmates in solitary confinement.  He snuck me a razor so I could shave.  In solitary confinement, you’re not allowed a razor for shaving.  He also snuck me a pen so I could right.  I wrote some of my best poetry and is probably still on the walls in that cell.  

I will show you a select few of my poems that I wrote on the wall of my cell.  While being an unwilling guest of the Shelby County Jail, you have a lot of time to think.  These poems speak of the abysmal depression that I felt, the love and friendship that I had lost, the hatred in my heart for the wrong that was done to me, and the betrayal that I was forced to endure.  These poems were written before I realized how bad my ex-wife was for me.  

For several years I wore a mask, a mask to hide the anguish I felt in my heart.  I drank heavy to run from the pain, but to no avail.  No matter how hard and how far I ran, the nightmare was close behind.  It was when I sobered up and forced myself to face my pain head on that I realized the true potential of what I could actually do.  

I have a passion in me, a passion for the truth and a passion for resolve.  I have always had a way with words.  The pen is mightier than the sword.  The pen can do far worse damage than the sword ever could.  The world will know the truth.  I will win the hearts of the world with my words.  I wish no physical harm on anybody, I never have and never will.  No physical anguish will be bestowed on anybody that was involved in the destruction of my life.  However, my words will do to them far worse than that which they did to me.  

                                                         FIELD OF BROKEN DREAMS

                                                         Fear

                                                         Pain

                                                         Depression

                                                         Lost love

                                                         Broken heart

                                                         Joy of life gone

                                                         The plan

                                                         Grow old with my love

                                                          No longer

                                                         Walking through a field

                                                          I feel nothing

                                                          No wind

                                                          No sunshine

                                                          I can not see

                                                          I am nothing

                                                          No longer does life have

                                                          Lust for me

                                                          For in my eyes

                                                          Dreams are no longer

                                                          Achievable 

RUNNING FROM THE DARK

Life was great

Everything I wanted, I got

A wife that loved me, family, children, and a good 

Career

Where did it go

Why did it go away

Pain is a close companion now

And an unwanted friend

Can’t sleep

Can’t eat

I drink to make the memory go away

But it never goes far

I try to outrun the darkness

But there’s no escape

Every minute of everyday

Is torture beyond compare

Or Comprehension

Somebody shoot me

I just want to die

The only reason I live

The children

My death would be unbearable

To the ones I leave behind

Therefore I endure the monotnous drag

The only smile I can feel

Is that of my children

Nothing good comes from divorce

The father and mother aren’t the only ones

Affected

Where did America’s till death do we part go

We need to rethink what we are doing

The fabric of family is fading

So many lives are torn beyond repair

Come to think of it

Mine is still in disrepair

And probably will be for the rest of my days

    THE ENDLESS NIGHT

I lay here tossing and turning

Wishing I could sleep

My mind races out of control

My mind is fixed on you

Can’t get you out

So tired I can’t stand it

So tired I can’t sleep

So tired it hurts

The memory of you will not go away

I try to think of other things

But always back on you

Your memory won’t leave me alone

Your memory won’t stop haunting me

When will your memory leave me in peace

       MISSING YOU

I miss the passionate kiss

The spooning

The love of bliss

The friendship we shared

To no other it could be compared

The lunches we had together

The afternoon passionate ventures

That seemed to last forever

The stale jokes that made us laugh

Holding one another endlessly

For a lifetime it could not be

Cut in half

No one will ever compare

At best, just fair

Hard times are ahead

I am so blue

It should be easy to tell

I will for a lifetime

Be missing you

FINAL PLUNGE

I am engulfed in pain

Pain that I can not outrun

GOD, please hear my cries

Betrayal

More than all of that in the past

Combined

Aches

The aches that are in my heart I can not

Overcome

Love

Never ending

Love that I will never be able to overtake

Nor will I ever be able to endure

Again

Depression

GOD himself would be astonished at the

Magnitude

I stand at the mighty Mississippi

Should I take the final plunge

Pain would exist no more

Love would be gone

Forever more

Aches would be overcome

No more worries of betrayal

No more depression

I think I  want to go for a swim

I got off on a tangent, yet again.  So back to the story at hand.  The days seemed to last forever but Monday finally arrived.  I was anxious to get this over with and go back to work.  Court starts at nine o’clock so they started to get the inmates together who needed to go to court at seven o’clock.  Seven came and went.  Eight came and went.  So did nine o’clock and so on.  I watched that clock the entire day.  

I kept telling the guards that I needed to go to court.  They finally told me that my attorney didn’t show up.  Jack Sherman knew when my court date was.  Why did he not show up?  He didn’t show up Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday either.  Jack is at court every day for other cases as well.  Why did he not show up at court at all for the whole week until Friday afternoon?  I found out why and will discuss this as well later.  

I was in a holding cell waiting for my turn.  My attorney had me taken to a room for a discussion.  He met me in the room and told me that the prosecutor is not showing me any mercy. He said the prosecutor is allowing only this deal.  Accept two counts of aggravated assault and two years of state supervised probation on each count which is to be served concurrently which means one after the other.  

At first I said, “ that bitch dug her grave, let her lie in it!  I will not accept any plea deal”!  I was then escorted back to my cell.  Now if you think back, I was supposed to have a bond hearing.  Why didn’t I get that.  So my bond hearing was stripped from me as well.  Keep reading because it just keeps getting better.  

I went back to my cell.  While I was there I started thinking.  My wife doesn’t make that much money.  Without my child support, they would have to move in a much lesser place, my kids would probably have to go to a city school.  Being a product of Memphis City Schools myself, I know they suck.  I couldn’t let my kids pay for her mistake.  They mean the world to me.  

Thinking at the time that my crazy wife was going to carry this through, I felt I had no choice but to accept this plea.  I told the guards that I needed to contact my attorney for I need to accept a deal from the prosecutor.  About an hour passed by and I was told that my attorney got my message and wanted to talk to me.  

When I got with my attorney, he said I think we have a strong case.  I later would think about that because he never left.  Friday afternoon late and he never left but rather was waiting on me to come back.  I said, “you’re not the one facing 12 years, I am”.  I guess he had to make it look good.  We went into the courtroom.  This was about 5:00pm.  Now I want you to remember that time table for future discussion.  The only people in there were Judge Lamme, the prosecutor, my attorney, some legal aids, and myself.  

I remember after three years everything that was said word for word and where I was sitting when it was said.  The prosecutor said, “Miss Erwin is not in court right now but I am going to quote her.  She said and I quote, I will help the prosecution in any way but due to family circumstances, I do not want Gerald Erwin to go to jail.”  

Now my ex-wife, whom was my wife at the time, told me that she didn’t press for anything.  She said that I did it to myself by a series of bad choices.  She told me that she did not lie to the police.  She denied ever pressing for anything.  That quote that came from the state prosecutor was a written quote from my ex-wife to the Bartlett prosecutor.  That part I did know because the Bartlett Prosecutor relayed that same exact quote from her.  

She gave a written quote to the Bartlett Prosecutor when she was actually trying to put a blemish on my record, therefore hurting me and my record.  That was her revenge for stopping her from leaving the state with my kids.  That is undeniable proof that she did that to me to purposely hurt me.  Her making accusations the second time was revenge for ruining things between her and her co-worker, Carl.  When she realized that I had a potential to go to jail for over a decade from her accusations, she tried to set the record straight.  I can prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that that quote was not given to the state prosecutor in any way, shape, form, or fashion.    

When the state prosecutor gave that quote, I remember thinking, that crazy woman is going through with this.  This is, of coarse, before I realized that he was giving a quote that was given to the Bartlett Prosecutor and not to him per say.  I accepted that plea under oath and was released an hour later.  I was given specific instructions to contact a Miss Jones from the probation office within ten days.  Shortly after eight, my aunt picked me up and took me home.  This was October 17th, 2007.

For years after the arrests were made, I so longed for an apology that I so deserved but would never come.  A year after the court appearances were completed, we went to a therapist to try to get along better.  After I explained the story, My ex-wife plainly stated that I was crazy, that it was all in my head.  I know what I know and in the words of Forrest Gump, “that’s all I got to say about that”!  

She was trying to get the therapist to help her brain wash me.  I told her that it has been proven that if you lie to the therapist, you will not receive any benefit from the sessions.  I merely filled out a nine page essay about the story, and that was the short version.  I then gave it to the therapist then left and didn’t go back.   

She lied to her friends and family and my friends and family and to herself so much that she actually believed the lies that came out of her mouth.  I thought that was just an exaggeration that such a thing could happen.  My father kept claiming my brother, years ago when we were kids, would rather stand on the roof and tell a lie than stand on the ground and tell the truth.  I didn’t realize that was a metaphor of the truth.  That is, however, until now.  

She started with the lie to convince and manipulate her family and friends and then my family and friends to believe her and to turn them against me.  After the ultimate demise of me, she kept up with the lie because she couldn’t admit to herself that her actions utterly destroyed a persons life.  She lied so much over and over that she really doesn’t know any different now.  She kept saying that I was lying.  I felt so strongly about my lie, that I decided to write a book about it!  I wonder if you, the reader, can sense the sarcasm in the last sentence.   

Two and a half years after the completion of the court case, a year and a half ago, we talked about working things out.  We talked about seeing a therapist and getting back together.  She kept up with the same thing about it being in my head and that I did it all to myself.  I know what I saw and heard and I know what she did and there is nothing that will ever change that.  

I thought about it for a couple of weeks.  My Lord and savior, Jesus Christ, commands that we repent, and truly be sorry for our sins.  For if we do that, he will forgive and forget forever.  He also says that you must forgive yourself, for how can I forgive if you won’t.  That’s a double pun.  This means you must be willing to forgive others for their sins against you, for 1, and the second is you must be able to forgive yourself for your own sins.  

I took it a step further by forgiving her for what she did without her apologizing.  But if she won’t acknowledge what she did and apologize for it, then I can not ever forget.  I am a very forgiving man.  That apology, however, is one thing I deserve and have earned.  I told her a couple of weeks later that if she will not give me that one thing that I so richly deserve, then there will not be a need for a therapist and we will not be getting back together!  She lost a good man, forever!

Not too long ago she let it slip that she didn’t mind having the police involved for she was scared of me.  That’s what I said, she was scared of me.  She didn’t get the police involved because I was physically abusive towards her but rather being scared.  She knew she wouldn’t be able to get them there over just being scared.  

The first time her son called the police.  To get me put in jail she told them that I meant to hit her with the car door.  The second time, since it worked so well the first time, she told them that I tried to run her over with my bike to get them there quick so she could successfully get the kids from me.  If I really wanted to harm her, you would think that I would have been successful at least one of those times.  Now I am not only a criminal but an incompetent one to boot!  I might add that she said that once and that was it.

I will add that I will always protect her from enemies, foreign and/or domestic.  Not because I love her mind you, but for my kids.  Like I said before, no matter what problems we may have with one another, I couldn’t have asked GOD for a better mother to my kids.  She loves those kids and they love her.  I love my kids more than life itself and will in no way interfere with their happiness nor allow anything or anyone to interfere with said happiness.  Therefore, I have no choice, compelled even, to always keep her from harm, to protect her if you will.  

Immediately after returning to work after eleven days in jail, there were problems.  The new director of the treatment plants for the City of Memphis was picking up were the old director left off and at the same time showing his newfound power to everyone at the Stiles North Treatment Plant.  I have been in Industrial Monitoring for the City of Memphis at the Stiles North Treatment Plant for eleven years as of this past November.  Ten Years ago I was involved in a conflict of interest thing with my department.  The plant director and my manager tried to terminate my employment over it.  My union stepped in and kept them from doing just that but ended up getting a weeks suspension instead.  

Ever since then, the old plant director had a personal vendetta against me.  If he couldn’t terminate me he was going to do his best to color me a bad employee and make me look like a black sheep.  He had me written up for petty things over the years.  My personal favorite was being written up for spitting in a garbage can.  I am a Pollution Control Inspector but for the last ten years I have been working as a Pretreatment Tech.  I inspect industry and sample their process wastewater.  

The first time I put in for the position as a Pretreatment Tech, they couldn’t get anyone to do better than me on the interview, so the director had my red letter state that I was irresponsible in dealing with the public.  The red letter is a copy of the interviewers comments and is available for the employee once the hired individual officially takes position.  The false accusations on the interviewers comments enabled me to get knocked out of the hiring process all together with HR.  I was passed up by two people that were way less qualified than I was.   

If I was irresponsible in dealing with the public, why have I dealt with the public for years before the interview?  Better yet, why have I continued to deal with the public for years after?  Why am I still dealing with the public to this day?  The old director got in my face, with no witnesses of course, and said, “while I am here, you’re going nowhere.”  I had given up tying to gain another position with my employer.  I knew I was being “black balled” for years, but that proved it for me on that day.

                                                                       CHAPTER 9

                                                                   THE AFTERMATH

Now when I had to go to jail due to my wife’s actions, I had to use emergency vacation to cover it.  The old director since retired.  The new director decided that he was going to terminate me over that.  He said that I couldn’t use vacation for jail and that my manager didn’t authorize the use of my vacation.  My manager did authorize it for he signed the PD5 document and turned it in, how else did I get paid for the vacation I used.  

My union stepped in, yet again, and I was able to keep my job.  Then the director revoked those days and had the payroll take the funds to cover the vacation back.  My union earned their pay again and got all but one day returned to me.  I got a one day suspension out of it, but at least I was able to keep my job.  Thanks to my wife, it will be years before I could find a decent job again.

The old manager of Industrial Monitoring, Al, has since retired.  A new guy stepped in to take his place.  His name was Henry.  He didn’t know anything about what we were doing but you couldn’t tell him anything.  He had tomorrows newspaper in his ass pocket.  He got that position because he had a chemical engineering degree and the fact he was a severe yes man.  He didn’t go to the bathroom without consulting the director first.

The latest form of discrimination by the City of Memphis was last year.  It is now January of 2011.  There were two new positions for Pre-Treatment Tech put on the board in the spring of 2010.  I put in for it, but so did four other people.  The pay ranged from a little over $36,000.00/year for entry level to a top out of a little over $53,000.00/year.  This was the second time I put in for the position.  Remember that I was a pollution Control Inspector, but for ten years, I worked as a Pre-Treatment Tech.  One of the people that put in for it was a woman in the front office.

The woman in our office that put in for the Pre-Treatment Tech position was a Pollution Control Aide.  She was given that position to get her in the office.  She knew how to do everyone’s reports.  She was more like a legal secretary than anything.  She never worked day one as an aide or day one as a Pollution Control Inspector.    

The new director of the treatment plants, Don, is an engineer nut.  He decided to take one of those positions down and hire an engineer temp.  That left one position available for Pre-Treatment Tech.  I thought for sure I would get the job.  I thought I was a shoe in.  

The director of the treatment plants’ boss decided to move the Pollution Control Inspectors over to St. Jude Pl., which is sewer maintenance.  The reason for the move was to get the Pollution Control Inspectors, who checked restaurants and grease traps, closer to sewer maintenance in an attempt to get the two entities to work closer together to get a better grasp on overflows caused by grease.  Since the woman that put in for Pre-Treatment Tech was a Pollution Control Aide, she was fixing to have to move with the Pollution Control Inspectors.  This is where the discrimination occurred. 

Henry, the new manager of Industrial Monitoring, couldn’t let her go over to sewer maintenance.  For one, she never worked a day as an Aide, thus wouldn‘t have been able to do the “real job“, and two was, she knew how to do his reports and his paperwork.  He definitely had to keep her there for he didn’t know his butt from a hole in the ground.

Several months had past before HR made a decision on the new Pre-Treatment Tech.  I came into the office one day and she was so excited.  She was telling everybody that she got hired as a Pre-Treatment Tech.  When she officially took the position, I ran down to city hall to get a copy of my red letter.  Remember that the red letter is a copy of the interviewers comments.

When I saw the red letter, I was not surprised at all at what I saw.  The management, one of them was Henry, had said a bunch of lies, to again, knock me out of the hiring process.  Henry said that I didn’t do computer work, I didn’t do reports, I showed no initiative, I did some sampling and restaurant inspections,  that I had some disciplinary problems in the past, that I did poorer on the interview than anybody else, and that I didn’t do pre-treatment type inspections or analysis.  They were all lies to make it look like I wasn’t qualified enough to be hired as a Pre-Treatment Inspector.

I did use and knew how to use a computer.  I did use a computer to generate reports.  Two months before the new job was filled, the management put me on restaurant inspections so it could be said that I did both type jobs and therefore look more like I had less experience than I actually did.  My computer crashed two months before I went on restaurant inspections and the management refused to replace my computer because the management wanted it to look like I didn’t do computer work or made reports.  

The woman that was hired was doing my reports and making up my chain of custodies the last two months before I went on restaurant inspections.  The disciplinary problem that Henry was referring to was that conflict of interest thing that occurred ten years before, so the management was still holding that situation over my head, just couldn’t make it look like they were. 

 I put a pencil to it and had done over 20,000 pH inspections and analysis over the last ten years, not to mention the other inspections I had done with the industry over the past ten years.  I did have initiative.  I worked for one year, on my own time, on the treatment plant property as a wastewater treatment operator to get the experience the state wanted so I could take the state certification exam for wastewater treatment operator.  After 3:00pm, when I got off my day job, I would work from 3:00pm to 11:00pm without pay and did that for almost a year.

I knew somebody on the interview panel.  The interview panel consisted of three people.  One of the interviewers had told me that I had done very well.  Henry was the main interviewer on the panel.  There would be a question asked and the answers given would be ranked from 1-5, according to the actual answers they supposedly wanted.  I was sitting directly across from Henry.  He didn’t wait till the end of the interview to grade the answers.  I actually saw the grades that he was giving me.  Even when I nailed an answer, he would only give me a 2 or a 3.  

The woman in the front office did know about the regulations and the parameters when it came to industrial monitoring, I will give her that.  I will, however, maintain that nobody knew their job better than me.  Not to mention, the three other people that had never worked with us before did not do better than myself on the interview.  The interviewing process was supposed to be changed, according to a lawsuit.  That change never happened.  I was black balled yet again.     

I immediately filed a grievance with the union.  The union could only go so far, for the Pre-Treatment Tech position was a non union type position.  I currently have an ongoing case with the EEOC.  I currently do restaurant inspections over at sewer maintenance.  I have been over here since last November.  I do, however, believe it was a blessing that I did not get that position.  If I had gotten that position, I would not have been in the union any longer and thus would have been terminated for some stupid reason by now.  It is the general principal of the matter though.

Here is where the poetic type justice comes in.  Henry called me a few days ago and said there was a data discrepancy with some of my water meter readings and wastewater meter readings on some of my reports that dated back to 2002.  He said that I needed to come to a fact finding hearing at 2:00pm at the Stiles North Treatment Pant the next day and that I need to bring a union Stuart.

My previous manager, Al, had looked at my chain of custody reports and saw that I was making notes at the bottom of the reports whenever there was a problem.  He had told me that he liked that I was doing that and to keep writing those notes.  So I know he was reading my reports.  He never had a problem or stated that there was a problem with anything else I was doing.

The problem that Henry referred to was in the water meter and wastewater meter reading tables.  I would set up the next week’s paper work and computer files the week before I did the actual sampling.  I would use the previous inspection for a particular industry and delete the dates and put in the new inspection dates and save it under a new name and date.  If I didn’t get any meter readings due to the meter being covered or the meter was broken or the dials had condensation on them and couldn‘t read the dials or the meters were several feet under ground and couldn‘t get the information from them unless I went into the hole and retrieved the information, needing a confined space entry permit, instead of deleting the new table, I would just put a statement on the report that I couldn’t retrieve the meter data and to disregard the table readings below.

The plant manager and Henry said that I should have just deleted the tables instead of simply leaving them there and stating that the readings should be disregarded.  What was ok with one management was not so with another.  The plant manager stated that the EPA would have a field day with those reports and they can go back and investigate up to five years prior.  Now Henry would have the un-daunting task of going over five years worth of my inspections and reports with a fine tooth comb so to speak to fix all the questionable statements and tables.  I wonder if Henry can still say that I didn’t do computer work, reports, and inspections those last ten years.              

I already told you that my wife got me fired from FedEx.  You’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law as you know.  Well that is in no way the case in court or society.  Well another situation occurred where an employer convicted me before a court did.  

Not long after I lost my job at FedEx I tried to get on with UPS.  I went to the interview one night and was interviewed by the plant manager.  He liked me so much that he hired me on the spot.  I was truthful in the interview.  He said after he hired me that this is contingent on the results of a background check.  He asked if I have been convicted of a felony.  It was still in the court, so, no I haven’t been convicted of anything.  He said it will take a couple of weeks till the background check comes back.  I went home feeling good because I had another night job.

A couple of weeks went by and some company that did the background check for UPS sent me a letter stating that they found something pending on my record and could keep me from gaining employment with UPS.  A week after that, UPS sent me a letter of apology to me.  We’re sorry but there is not any position available at this time.  

I called UPS wondering what the problem was.  I told her that the company that did their background check told me that because they found something on my record that was pending, I might not get hired.  She told me that that was not the reason, that it was against the law to hold you accountable for a crime that you were not convicted of.  I said, “lady, UPS and that company just did for the manager hired me on the spot“.    

Even though I “AM NOT” a criminal, I understand the dilemma that most convicted felons face.  Not very many employers are willing to go on a limb and give a person a second chance and they are so quick to judge.  It is, therefore understandable by myself, that at least fifty percent of convicted felons wind up back in prison.  They feel compelled to do what they have to do to make ends meet.  

This is another reason the state of Tennessee needs to change their laws.  They make it to where the convicted individual has no choice but to commit another crime and the majority of the time they wind up back in prison.  The state loves this for they get millions of tax dollars to get felons off the streets and housed in prisons. The state does not take into consideration that making a man revert to commit more crimes just adds to the statistical data of violent crimes.  I say do not take the felons off the streets and put them in jail, but rather get them off the streets by giving them jobs.  I am referring to “real” jobs.

I got a job with Pizza Hut on Getwell not long after that as a delivery driver.  It was embarrassing, but the only reason I got the job was the fact that the Pizza Hut corporation gets a tax break for hiring convicted felons.  That job was actually dangerous.  I liked that job, however.  A lot of the deliveries were in the ghetto and there wasn’t much tipping in the ghetto.  

I have an intimidating look.  I guess that was part of the reason why I was a favorite for delivering in that area.  There isn’t anything I fear anymore other than the wrath of GOD.  My fear mechanism was pretty much shot because of my drinking.   One night I had a gun pulled on me.  I accidentally pulled into the wrong driveway.  I just flipped the man off as I threw my car into reverse and backed over his shrubbery trying to find the driveway.  We didn’t have pizza delivery signs on top of our vehicles showing the public we were delivery drivers.  That would actually be begging people to rob us in that area.

I worked at Pizza hut at night from November of 2007 to August of 2008.  In the spring of 2008, it got hot quick.  I didn’t run the air to save gas.  It was very hard to make money, especially due to the fact that at this time gas was over 4.00 dollars a gallon, but also there was no money to be had in the ghetto.  I will discuss the price of gas more in the chapter 11.  

I still had the long sleeve shirts from the winter.  I kept asking the manager for short sleeves but she kept telling me that she didn’t have anymore.  I thought, ok, I’ll improvise.  I cut the sleeves off to the shoulder.  It was a black shirt.  I wore a black toboggan, black slacks, black shoes, black and shaded tattoo sleeves up and down the arms with many scars and a handlebar mustache.  I’ll never forget what she said the moment she saw me.  She said, “oh hell no!  I ain’t gonna have you looking like you’ll whoop the customers ass if they don’t give you a tip”!  I got two new grey short sleeve shirts that night.  Sometimes there are benefits to looking intimidating, but it can give the wrong impression to the law, and it did just that.

I have an intimidating look, so what.  I know how to defend myself and quite good at it, so what.  Since when is it against my constitutional rights to be so.  I may be good at defending myself, and have gotten good at stomping a hole through someone’s ass, but that is so I don’t have to.  I have always tried my best to do things diplomatically.  I have always used aggression as a last resort, usually for those that do not want to listen to reason and try to solve the matter physically.  Not to mention I only used said aggression for the defensive and never for the offensive.     

At first I was working every night.  I was making decent money but I was tired all the time.  My wife and I were seeing each other again, but it wouldn‘t last long.  I know, I was a glutton for punishment.  I worked every night and that included Friday nights.  She started to call me Friday evenings and ask me if I was working that night.  I would tell her yes, that I work every Friday night.  She did that quite a few Friday nights.  Soon after she started asking me that, she put me on the back burner yet again.

I asked her if she was seeing someone and she told me no.  I didn’t believe her because she lied constantly.  I attached the tracking device to her truck again.  A few days later I went to her house after work during a thunder storm and retrieved it.  I took it to the house and downloaded the information.  The Google Earth was an older version.  It didn’t go deep into Shelby County.  All it showed was the route that she took but no list of roads.  

The next Friday night she asked if I was working that night.  Again I told her yes.  However, we were slow that night.  I got let off early so I decided to hop on my bike and travel the area and try to simulate the path that she took.  I didn’t find the exact place she went but the next Friday night I found her truck.  She was cheating on me yet again.  That would be the last time I would ever see her on a romantic level.  I gave her many more chances that most men would have given her.     

I also started my probation.  I hated the fact that I had to do it.  Every month during my monthly visit to the probation officer I had to write down my address and vehicle information.  The legal document labeled me “the offender”.  I was humiliated.  It was a humiliation that dug into the eternal depths of my very soul.  I am not a criminal but in the eyes of society, I am and always and forever will be.  

I have been on probation for three years now and still have one to go.  I do have to say this however, I couldn’t have asked for a sweeter woman to serve my probation under.  She gave me respect, therefore she will always have mine.  Miss Jones is a credit to the employees of the State of Tennessee, and I will always vouch for her.

You see shows and movies about people getting arrested and convicted for crimes they didn’t commit all the time.  I remember thinking whenever I would see a show like that: that poor schmuck, surely that doesn’t really happen or I don’t know what I would do if that were to happen to me!  Well I’m here to tell you it does happen everyday, and it happened to me!  I now have no respect for cops, the law, the courts, or anybody in the judicial system for they are all crooked as an old rusted hanger that has been used to unclog a toilet in a gas station restroom that hasn‘t been cleaned in months!

I may have only spent fifteen days total in jail but when you’re in jail for something you didn’t do, it seems like a lifetime.  Time seems to stand still in there.  I am still on probation so I can’t leave the state of Tennessee without permission.  I may not be in prison but I might as well be for I am in no way free.  This state is my prison.  When my probation is up I am leaving the state.  I have too much time invested with my employer, the city of Memphis, so I will come here everyday to work.  But the days of spending my money here and the state of Tennessee getting my tax dollars are coming to an end.  This state can lick my big balls and suck my firm ass! 

While all this is going on my depression is hitting an all time low.  My drinking was getting insatiable.  I was going through three bottles a week.  By the way, I am talking about fifths to liters.  My tolerance was getting to the point that I could finish off a fifth hours after I opened the bottle and police officers would have no idea I even had a drop in me.  I am not bragging about that by any means but merely stating how bad my drinking had gotten.  My body will ultimately pay the price for my drinking ten to twenty years from now.  

I was drinking all the time.  In the morning, in the afternoon, and at night.  I also drank at lunch and between deliveries at my night job.  I was able to maintain and not drink while my kids were with me, but it wouldn’t be long before I would lose control then too.

My divorce was almost over.  This was towards the end of 2007.  I was dragging my feet delaying the inevitable.  My wife said her mom wouldn’t help with an attorney but she would help pay the mortgage.  This meant she hired an attorney that would sauté my guts and then demand seconds (for my ex-wife’s dog,……. which was my dog).  

The judge made us go to arbitration.  Her and her attorney were in one room and my attorney and myself were in another.  She wanted me to take half of her student loan.  I got out of that of course.  But when she stated that she wanted alimony I blew my top.  

She was already getting almost a thousand dollars a month child support, the house, carry the kids on my insurance, half of my pension, and most of my deferred comp.  I yelled at the top of my lungs so there was no mistake, that I would quit my job before I pay her alimony.  The entire floor knew without a doubt, that that wasn’t going to happen.  I left because of her actions the first, second, third, and fourth and final time.  I gave her more chances than most would have to act like a wife but she decided to keep acting un-wife like instead.  

I was already going to have to live on a bring home of 996.00 dollars a month.  I gave a few choice words and they dropped that.  The divorce was final in January of 2008.  Oh yea, she hid from the court that she had a pension with FedEx and so that she wouldn’t lose everything, which would have been proof of the reason why I left her in the first place, she was…well lets just say she was expecting child number five with father number three.  I had a real winner didn’t I?  Any divorce horror story someone can come up with, I can top it.  That is unless the person in said divorce comes up dead.  But then again, if that happened, it wouldn’t be a divorce.  It would merely be “separation by death” which tends to be a permanent separation. 

It was an accident that I found out about her abortion.  Our divorce was final on January 7th of 2007.  That was on a Monday.  The next Friday, she called me around 8:00 in the morning.  She was telling me that she was bleeding real bad and was on her way to the doctor’s about it on her way to work.  She talked to me normally as if nothing was going on.  That was on the 11th.

In April of 2007 my daughter was sent home from school with lice.  My ex-wife took two days off work  to get Corgan clean from the lice.  She couldn’t take anymore time off so she asked me if I would take off and stay with her the next day.  She would be able to go to school in two more days.  I said ok.  We were getting along so I agreed to do it.

The next day I got to the house around 8:00am.  I spent the day  washing the rest of the clothes in hot water and spraying the entire house.  I was putting up the clothes and hanging them up.  I was putting up my ex-wife’s clothes when I saw something peculiar.  My ex-wife never makes up her bed.  There was a piece of paper hanging out between the mattress and the box springs.  I thought that was weird because that wasn’t there before.

I pulled it out and looked at it and it tore my heart in two.  It was paperwork from an abortion clinic.  I looked at the date.  The date was the 11th of January, four days after the divorce was final.  I was actually having a conversation with her as she went in to have it.  I knew it wasn’t mine for I was fixed for one and two was we hadn’t had sex in quite a months.  I started backtracking the days and realized it was a guy named Jason.  It was a different Jason than the one from her old load team.  She was on the dayside now and it was a Jason on her new flight.  I was so distraught that the next day I had a major panic attack over it and ended up in the emergency room..         

The way of life I knew was over in my opinion.  So many times I sat on my couch between pizza deliveries crying my eyes out wanting to kill myself.  I would have a box cutter at my wrist, since I couldn’t have my guns ever again, waiting to slash my life away.  My name, integrity, everything was destroyed.  I kept begging GOD to make it all go away.  Give me one reason to live I would ask in a hopeless destitute of depression.  Every time my kids would come to mind.  

My kids loved their daddy so and I loved them just as equally so.  Taking myself out of the picture would hurt them to no end.  So I would buck up and stop crying and take another drink.  You go though trials and tribulations in your live.  GOD had plans for me but it was not yet to be revealed to me.

Now I wouldn’t talk to my wife for some time for I was so mad at her for what she supposedly did.  I got tired of not talking to the kids.  I eventually gave in and called even though there was still a restraining order.  It was her phone so I knew she would answer.  I called and she answered, which I knew she would.  I very calmly said that I would like to speak to the kids but I would like to know one thing first since you are on the phone.  She said, “well ok, but it’s my phone.  You knew I was going to answer”.  “Yes I did, I replied“.  

“It’s a little late now but why didn’t you even try to set the record straight with the prosecutor?  She said, “I did“.  I tried to tell him it was a misunderstanding.  I tried to tell him that it was an accident that I was hit by the car door.  I tried to tell him the second time I was just wanting the kids that I wasn’t pressing charges for domestic violence.  I told her that the prosecutor quoted her to say, “I will help the prosecution in any way, but due to family circumstances, I do not want Gerald Erwin to go to jail”.  She said, “I didn’t say that”.  I simply said, “yea right, like the prosecutor is going to commit perjury in court”.  

I later found out from a friend, whom is a lawyer, that a prosecutor is not sworn in, so technically they can’t commit perjury.  Did you understand that?  A prosecutor can lie in court and it’s perfectly legal for them to do that.  My wife said, “if you don’t believe me, ask your aunt.  She was with me the entire time I was with him“.  By the way, she had nothing nice to say about the prosecutor‘s attitude.

I immediately called my aunt.  We started talking and I said what the prosecutor quoted my wife  as to say.  I did not tell her that my wife and I had a conversation.  Now I have known this woman all my life.  At this time I was 37 years old.  I have heard five negative things come out of her mouth my entire life and two of those were in that one conversation and it concerned that prosecutor.  

She said, “that prosecutor was a real jerk.  He was not nice to us at all.  She tried to set the record straight with him.  She tried to tell him that it was and accident that she was hit by the car door.  She tried to tell him that the second time she just wanted the kids and that she didn’t press for domestic violence.  He said that he didn’t believe her.  He said that she was lying to keep him out of jail.  He was a real prick”.  By the way, that was a quote.  Almost word for word what my wife had said except my wife used another word than prick.

I fell to my knees in disbelief.  I accepted that plea for the sake of my kids.  My life I would give to them.  My life I would sign over for them.  But come to find out I accepted for nothing.  My name, integrity, my rights, everything gone for nothing.  

The next day I went to my attorney, Jack Sherman, and told him that the prosecutor lied and the conversation that I had with my wife and aunt and that I want to go back to court.  Jack said, “I’m sorry there’s nothing I can do.  You passed the ten day of limitations”.  I want you to remember that as well. “You passed the ten day of limitations”.  I said, “there is no limitation on perjury”.  This was before I found out that a prosecutor could legally lie and that it was ok by the courts for them to do that.  

Jack said, “I’m sorry, there is nothing I can do”.  By the way, I’m not revealing the prosecutor’s name for legal reasons but If you really want to know, all you have to do is search my case at 201 Poplar at the records room.  My fate was handed to me on October 17, 2007.  The prosecutor who took the case for the state will be on said file.  It is public information!

I went on trying to accept what was done to me and that there was nothing I could do.  A year and a half passed and I could take it no more.  I wanted this to end.  I talked to several attorneys.  They all said the same thing.  I’m sorry but you passed the year of limitations.  Each time I asked my self , why did my attorney say I passed the ten day of limitations.  That was another piece of the puzzle but the final piece was when I talked to the last attorney.  He said jack had never been to trial.  He was always good at negotiations, but had never been to trial.  

When the prosecutor lied against me, he failed to realize one important thing.  Since I was a kid, when something didn’t smell right or seem right, I had the insatiable ability to sniff out the truth.  An un-relentless obsession to search for the truth.  A tenacious ability to seek out the answers to a mystery.  

And the truth is this:  My wife tried to set the record straight.  The prosecutor, knowing he wouldn’t have a case without her, figured out a scheme to get my conviction. Knowing Jack didn‘t want to go to trial since he didn‘t see a positive ending made it easier to do so.  From my appearance, he was so certain that I was guilty of that which I was charged of and that she was lying to keep me out of jail so as to keep paying child support, that he was willing to lie.  Whatever it took to get said conviction and another notch on his belt. 

He arranged with Judge Lamme to put me in jail.  While in there in solitary confinement, I couldn’t consult with my wife, aunt, or my attorney so as not to know what was going on.  This was a horrendous violation of my rights.  Jack said, “we both knew this was going to happen”.  I said, “we didn’t.  You may have but I didn’t”.  

I work for the City of Memphis, Industrial Monitoring and can get in and out wherever I want whenever I want with virtually no questions asked.  I have been at 201 Poplar on the 6th floor quite a few times since that day.  Nobody holds court after lunch on Friday, yet they did that evening.  

Jack didn’t show up for court at all that week but did late Friday afternoon.  He was there and never left when I changed my mind and met back up with him that evening.  Jack said, I’m sorry but you passed the ten day of limitations” and did not reveal that it was actually a year.  He said that because he didn’t want to go against the prosecutor for it would be revealed that he made a deal with the prosecutor.  With that being so it would also be revealed that he didn’t have his clients best interest at heart, making him vulnerable to being disbarred, and he couldn’t have that could he?  

So he went along with the scheme in a way as to make me feel that it was my decision.  It may have taken me a year and a half to figure out why things didn’t set right with me, but I eventually got their name and number.  And I paid that bum $2,450.00 bucks cash from my retirement to do me wrong like that.  And to think it took me three years and a tax return to pay that off and to find out I was ultimately screwed!

I have a passion in me.  A passion to know the truth and a passion for resolve.  You showed me no mercy, therefore you will be shown none!  You not only inspired me to let the world know the truth about what you, Judge Lamme, and Jack did to destroy my life, but to discuss the violation of men‘s rights as well as women’s throughout this nation.  

I am not a betting man.  I despise it really.  But I am willing to bet twelve months of my pay against your ten bucks that I am not the only person you did this to.  How many men and women are in jail that don’t deserve to be because of you?  How many lives have you destroyed with your lies just to get another notch?  How many have lost their rights because of you?  How many have a record because of you thus have lost their cutting edge to get a real job?  Do you sleep good at night knowing that you lied to get what you want?  

I am willing to bet everyone in the justice system thinks you’re a real go getter, that you get the job done.  Well Mr. Prosecutor, Your word doesn’t mean crap to me anymore.  Not only is your integrity meaningless with me, but when I am through, you’re integrity will be scrap with the rest of the state and nation.  What would everybody think if the truth was revealed?  

It is my opinion that prosecutors should be sworn in with every case.  If they’re going to take a person down, they should do it with the truth.  They should be held accountable for what they say and do just like everybody else!  If prosecutors are not allowed to lie, there wouldn’t be as many innocent people thrown in jail.  

It may be too late to get my rights back, with the exception of my right to vote, but I can seek restitution in other ways.  Let’s see, I was discriminated and harassed for 12 years from my employer, which is The City of Memphis, violation of rights, discriminated against, wrongfully arrested, and illegally detained by the Memphis Police Department, violation of rights by the prosecutor, Judge Lamme, and the Shelby County Jail, and sold down the river by my attorney.  Let’s also add that I was suicidal and became an alcoholic because of what was done to me.  Not to mention the putative damages.  And now the biggest blunder of them all, my rights being wrongfully stripped from me.  

How much is a person’s rights worth.  Tens of thousands of men, and women, have laid their lives on the altar of freedom to ensure that we get to keep the rights and freedoms that our forefathers bestowed upon us.  Most are oblivious to these rights and freedoms for they are born with them.  They take them for granted.  But that’s ok because this is America, the home of the free and the brave!  I, however, have had a taste of their true value for they were stripped from me wrongly.  I may be too late to get my rights back but I smell a civil suit brewing.  I am presently looking for an attorney that has the backbone to take the City of Memphis and the State of Tennessee on.   

One of the stipulations that the court mandated I do is to go through anger management.  This was also humiliating for I didn’t do anything violent thus not guilty of what I was convicted of.  I decided that I should make the most of it since I did have anger issues.  I had anger issues but I was not violent.  I knew where to draw the line.  

I participated in class wholeheartedly and learned quite a bit about myself.  I learned how to signify what causes my anger and how to constructively deal with said anger.  I do not snap with the world as I did, especially with my kids.  I feel much more relaxed as well these days.  

I really think that everyone should go through this class.  There is, without a doubt, a lot of angry people in this country.  The target should be school.  The young people are the ones that have the most severe anger issues and should come to realize how to realize what they are angry about and how to constructively deal with that anger.  Learning at a young age would give them the tools they need to deal with anger in their later years.  If America learns how to deal with anger, there will be less domestic issues in our society.  There would be a decreased potential for violence in this country.  How many lives would exponentially be saved if violence or the potential for violence was wiped out.

One chapter in that course that got my attention with no holds barred is this: passive aggressiveness.  Eighty to eighty-five percent of that course concerned me, but that one chapter, passive aggressiveness described my ex-wife to a T.  A passive aggressive person will do whatever it takes to “get even” or “get you back” for whatever.  They don’t like physical confrontation so they will go to great lengths to get you back without any physical confrontation.  They may say sly remarks to hurt your feelings.  My wife and I were in an argument one time and she knew that my best friend, whom was also her friend, and I were at odds with one another and she said, “I hope he kicks your ass”.  

One of the precursors to this type of anger is “road rage”.  My ex-wife was so bad about this.  She couldn’t stand it when somebody “cut her off”.  She wasn’t happy till she cut them back off.  She loved doing this while I was in the vehicle.  If somebody cut her off, she would cut them back off.  When they cut through traffic to confront her, they would take one look at me, which I would be in the passenger seat, look forward, and keep going.  That happened quite a bit.  

Now I am aware of this type of anger.  If I get the slightest hint that a woman is passive aggressive in anyway, I will turn around and run.  Walking is out of the question.  I don’t care how hot a woman is or how good the sex is, nothing or no one is worth going to jail over.  My little brother, Wes, said something to me a few years ago that made total sense and I live by to this day.  He said, “I don’t care how good a crotch looks, they all come with their separate problems”.  I know that was a bit crude, but it was good “redneck words” to live by. 

The whole world thinks that passive aggressive people are nice, sweet, and adorable.  They think it is impossible for them to do anything that is concerned with anger.  Most people have no idea what they are remotely capable of, but I do.  I know what they are capable of for my live was completely destroyed as a result of that type of anger.

In September of 2008, I was living in my grandmothers house in old Raleigh Memphis.  She is now old and living with her daughter, my aunt in Atoka, Tennessee.  That house had been in our family since the late 60’s.  I have a lot of memories in that old house.  I was abused by my mother so it goes pretty much without saying that some of my best memories from childhood were with my grandfather, whom was my best friend.  He died in 81 from cancer.  I was ten years old.  To this day I miss that man!      

I was living in the house taking care of it in 2008, since the economy tanked and the market was bad.  I was to take care of things till the market came back.  I was still in financial recovery from the divorce so this situation was very good for me.  My aunt was keeping things going for some reason but I helped her save some money by reimbursing her for some things.  I also fixed some things around that house by repairing the old stuff and also did yard work.  

My drinking was at an all time high.  I was going through a gallon of liquor a week.  It had gotten to the point where I was waking up every morning in the fetal position for I was extensively damaging my internal body.  That wasn’t enough to make me want to stop.  My daughter, whom was my princess, busted me one morning and that wasn’t by any means the last time.  The disappointment in her eyes is what made me think.  I then tried to stop but couldn’t, I soon realized that I had lost total control!

My tolerance was also very high.  One  Friday night in April of 2008, I polished off a fifth five hours after opening it.  I ran out and was barely buzzed.  I waited an hour.  I decided to go to Bubba’s on Hwy. 64 and have a few beers.  I had a total of three beers and was buzzing a little bit.  I decided to go home.  My driving was just fine.  I decided to cut through my old neighborhood to avoid the cops, right.  I went by my old house that my ex-wife now has to see is she was still up, I was really wanting a cigarette.  We were getting along fine so I thought it was ok.  All the lights were out so I just turned around and headed home.  My lights were off because it was in a cove and I didn’t want to wake anybody with my headlights shining in their window.  

When I got out of the cove, I turned the lights on.  There was a car coming in the opposite direction.  I knew from the headlights it was a squad car.  I thought it was ok because I hadn’t done anything wrong.  He turned around and followed me.  I made sure I went under the speed limit.  Before I made it to the Bartlett City limits he turned the blue lights on.  I remembered thinking, why is he pulling me over because I wasn’t breaking the law and I wasn’t driving erratic at all.

They had me stand on the curb.  They asked if my ex-wife had a restraining order against me. I tried to tell them that that restraining order had elapsed almost two years ago.  They asked if she renewed it.  I said, “no”.  They asked if they could search my car.  I told them to go ahead, I had nothing to hide.  

Sixty seconds later one of the officers came back and put handcuffs on me.  They found a lot of junk in my car.  This is what they found: a duffle bag with dark clothes which I explained I spent the night at my girlfriends house the night before and just didn’t take it out, an antique gun scope that was bent which I explained was a family heirloom from my late father that I was going to get fixed just never found the time, an antique telescope from my late step-father that was bent as well and I explained was also a family heirloom that I was going to get fixed just never found the time, latex gloves and I explained that I got those from my job for I handle samples and use those to work on my car for it is always broke down, and a bald cap from a sumo wrestlers costume from the previous Halloween that I never got off the floorboard of the car.  They accused me of having a burglary kit and I was looking to break into my ex-wife’s house.

They woke up my ex-wife and kids searching the house and tried desperately to talk her into pressing charges against me.  My kids, I later leaned were crying and begging the cops not to take me to jail again.  She refused of course but it didn’t stop them from harassing the hell out of me.  I was guilty of having a dirty car.  They cleaned it out for me and confiscated those items.  

They never realized that they were so focused on harassing me, that if they just had a  DUI squad car come up and give me an alcohol test, I would have registered legally dead.  That’s how bad my drinking had gotten and how high my tolerance was.  They never had a clue I had a drop in me.  Needless to say it was quite a while before I went into Bartlett after dark again.              

A friend, that I had known since high school, and myself were talking here and there.  We would talk about all kinds of things.  Since he had become religious, quite a bit of our conversations concerned religion and the history of Christianity.  He also mentioned that he had a friend in AA.  I had mentioned that I was thinking about getting help.  If I wanted to live long enough to see my kids grow up, my life depended on it.  Remember the old cliché that GOD puts people in our path for a reason.  Well, this wasn’t just a cliché, it was a fact.  A couple of weeks went by and I called him up and said, I need help.  I can’t get off alcohol on my own.

A couple of hours went by and he called me back.  He contacted his friend in a local church, whom was the person he was referring to in AA, and told me that his friend would help me.  That afternoon his friend met with me and had a cup of coffee with me at Public Coffee.  After talking for a bit, he took me across the street, where for the first time, I went to an AA meeting.  

It was Came To Believe.  I was nervous at first, but quickly warmed up for everyone in that room was like me.  The people in there are humble and there is nobody better than anybody else.  I immediately felt at home.  Some of the best people I have ever met were in that room.  My ex-wife’s divorce attorney was also there.  I thought that was a bit funny.  She was actually very nice when she wasn’t trying to sink her teeth and claws in my back.  

At first it was very hard for me.  I went from minute to minute for several weeks.  Then for a while I was at day by day.  As time went by I was able to go week by week and eventually month to month, just getting the urge once or maybe twice a month.  All this time I was going to meetings twice a day.  It seemed like I would never make it through the duration of the white chip to the red chip, but fought the good fight till I earned it.  The duration between the red chip and the blue chip was even harder, but finally earned the blue chip.

I would pour out my feelings in that room.  Everyone in that room knew I wanted to kill myself but couldn’t because my children needed their father too much.  I grew up around alcoholism so I decided to seek refuge in the bottle.  I was in the bottle without coming out for three solid years.  I was able to drink myself sober so to speak.  

Another of the many things I leaned about in AA was the “taking of prisoners”.  At first, when I heard that phrase, I thought: I didn’t take prisoners.  All the women I was with, it was consensual.  But I later realized that that was not what the program was implying.  It is the taking of someone without regards to their feelings or emotional wellbeing.  It is dominating them in every way whether they were acceptable to this or not.  If I harmed or hurt anybody while suffering from alcoholism, I am truly sorry from the deepest depths of my heart and truly hope that you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.

My tolerance was unbelievable.  My mom was a little woman but a power drinker none the less. She was a power drinker for more than half of my life.  She is gone now but if she were still alive, I believe, without hesitation, that I could have drunk her under the table.   

Now I was facing an even tougher problem.  I had to get off the alcohol if I wanted to live long enough to see my kids grow up.  It was a struggle from the start, but I was determined to do it.  That is why, the very day I stood up, tapped that woman on the shoulder, and said I’ll take that blue chip, I got a standing ovation.  I was so proud of myself for what I achieved, for the longest, seemed unachievable.  But I proved to myself it could be done.

I occasionally have another drink, but  I do come to my senses.  I stand up, dust myself off, and roll with it again, or jump back on the wagon for it is a fight we will never stop fighting.  The urge still hits me here and there.  I do occasionally slip and drink but I know where I’ve been and I know were I’m going and that’s to a life of sobriety.  

Life is getting better for me.  I still have trials and tribulations but I have found that it is much easier to face life and all the negative as well as the positive situations sober,  The things I have learned in Came To Believe will be with me for the rest of my days.  My kids and Came To Believe saved my life.  If GOD is willing and the creek don’t rise, I’ll get to see my kids grow up for now I not only have a boat, but a paddle too.

Now I am going to back track just a bit.  I lived in my grandmother’s house for a year and a half.  If you remember me telling you, that my late grandfather was part owner of a compressor business and that they had a shop here in Memphis and a shop and warehouse in Little Rock, Arkansas.  His business partner was named Leland.

A while before I went to AA, my aunt had said things to me that didn’t make sense.  My grandmother had dementia when my mother  passed away.  She now has Alzheimer’s and lives with my aunt in Atoka.  I lived in the house, taking care of the house until the market came back.  I was also making repairs to the house.  It was old and needed a lot of work

One day I was talking to my aunt in the driveway, since she was there to pick up the rent check.  I was curious about something.  I asked, “when grandpa died, did he not leave anything to grandma”?  She said, “no, Leland got the insurance check and mom didn’t get anything“.  

I may have been drinking all the time, but that didn’t quite mesh right with me.  She also said, “Mom’s accounts are dry”.  I thought why would an 86 year old woman have multiple accounts?  I was drinking quite a bit and wasn’t thinking clearly.  I did, however put it in the back of my head for later analysis.  This was before I started going to AA, but wasn’t much longer before I started AA and started analyzing and processing all the data that my aunt would tell me during normal conversation.

She had told me one time that grandma was getting bad so she got grandma to sign over power of attorney to her a couple of years before.  I want you to remember that.  It was 2009 so that would have made it 2007 when that supposedly took place.  At the time I was thinking that that was reasonable, for grandma was suffering from dementia.  Dementia does not get better.  You can slow it down with medication but you can not stop it.  I did not think about it at that time but the puzzle pieces were accumulating.

The utilities and cable were included in the rent.  I spent my own money to help save my aunt money on the utility bill.  I re-sealed the widows around the house which took ten silicone tubes, bought and put in energy efficient bulbs all around the house, double insulated the hot water heater,  and changed the outside security light to a brighter light but used a third of the electricity.

I hated cable because their customer service sucks.  I could get twice the channels and still pay less with satellite.  I called my aunt and told her I wanted to go to satellite.  I said, “since the cable is included in the rent and you are no longer under contract, call them and discontinue it and I will deduct that money from the rent to compensate for the satellite”.  She said, “if that’s the way you want to do it, then ok”.

She knew I was very tight on the budget.  I was divorced and paying $1,000.00 dollars a month for child support.  I was giving plasma twice a week just to eat and she knew it.  She couldn’t use grandma’s money to pay for the small things.  She has to be able to justify the use of that money.  So the small things she would take care of herself.  She took off work early the day the tech was coming over and came to the house.  She watched the man hook up the satellite and the equipment.  Then after I signed, legally binding me to a two year contract, she told me I had to pay the same amount each month.

As time went on , my aunt would say other things that didn’t make since.  One day she came over to my place after she got off work.  She said grandma was getting bad off.  She said that grandma had started taking off her clothes in the living room like great grandma in Huntland, Tennessee did.   I thought about it and just saw grandma and had a conversation with her a couple of weeks before.  She seemed to have her wits about her then  She was taking her medication so I knew that she didn’t slip like that in just two weeks.  

My aunt told me that she needed me to move out of the house so that she could fix it up and sell it to pay for grandma’s health care.  I said, “mom had Medicare and that helped her out with medical costs.  Grandma has Medicare and Medicaid so I know she is taken care of as far as medical bills go”.  My aunt did not listen to me.  She was animate when it came to her decision. 

I started AA and was sober when I went to my cousin’s oldest son’s 1st birthday party.  My daughter was telling my uncle about my house being haunted, and he said, “that’s not you dad’s house, that’s your grandmother’s.  Wait, that’s his aunts house”.  I remember thinking, that’s as much us boys’ house as it is my aunt’s house.  My grandmother had two daughters.  They would inherit the estate when grandma passed away.  When my mother died, her part of the estate goes to her sons and not automatically to my aunt, her sister.

My aunt and uncle were in competition with the Joneses.  They had to compete with their cars.  I spent Thanksgiving over at my Aunts friends’ house year before last.  They had a huge big screen television.  Six months later so did my aunt and uncle.  The way they paid for it was sad.  My aunt told her daughter that she owed them rent.  She did her taxes the next tax season.  My aunt had the funds directed to her personal account.  She kept $800.00 dollars and gave the rest to her daughter.  Not even a month later they had a huge big screen television just like the Joneses.

That was the straw that shattered the camel’s back.  Something didn’t seem right and I had the sneaky feeling that we were just squeezed out of the estate, just didn’t know it yet.  A few days later I was over at the kid’s house and was talking to my ex-wife about it.   She told me how to look up grandmother’s will online.  I looked online and was floored at what I saw.

I looked up grandma’s properties.  She had the big house in Raleigh, the two lots on Yale road, and the property at the lake.  Her house had big closets.  The closets were double rowed with clothes.  She had a materialistic lifestyle and she could not afford that on part time work at Hubbard’s Hardware.

I leaned about the life insurance policies that multiple partners have on each other.  When my grandfather died, Leland did get his insurance payout.  That wasn’t for his benefit.  Rather that was to pay off the family to keep them out of the business.  When grandpa died, what he had became his wife’s.  That would be grandma.  She invested those dividends and lived on the interest.  That was how she was able to afford that extravagant lifestyle.  Hubbard’s Hardware was just something to keep her busy so she would have something to do.

I also discovered that my aunt and uncle paid $50,000 cash for that lot next to ours at the lake.  Now my aunt was a computer programmer for Coca Cola and my uncle was an insurance adjuster.  They had a two story house in Atoka, a restored high performance Mustang, a blower put on that Mustang, a brand new fully loaded high performance Mustang, a blower put on that Mustang, someone had to turn the wrenches because my uncle couldn’t turn a wrench one, a full size Ford truck, a Mustang car club that took quite a bit of money to get started, a nice ski boat for the lake, and storage and upkeep for that boat.  Quite a bit above their financial means if you ask me.  Would the IRS be interested in this information?  How did they pay for all this?  I’ll give you a hint and it starts with grandma.

I found out one other thing.  My grandmother’s will was signed over to my aunt in March of 2005.  She told me 2007, so I knew now that she was not truthful about that.  My mother passed away in January of 2005.  The reason my aunt waited to get my grandmother to sign the estate over was this:  It takes six to eight weeks to get a copy of the death certificate in the mail across the state line.  When she got said death certificate from my dead mother, she had my grandmother sign over the estate, then my aunt used the death certificate to change the will to where she would get everything.  

She is the executor of said will.  She wanted to liquidate everything and hide it all in her own estate to make it look like grandma is flat broke.  That way when my grandmother does die, there is supposedly nothing to dole out but grandma’s furniture and clothes, minus what she has already picked out of coarse.

What proved me right was my brother, Wes.  Wes talked to my aunt and uncle.  They were upset at what had transpired.  Wes told me that my uncle said, “the only way he could know everything is to have broken into our lock box”.  I said, “that’s proof right there that I was right about everything.  My aunts worse day was not when I moved into grandma’s house, but rather when I sobered up and put the pieces of the puzzle together.  

I made my aunt aware that I knew what was going on.  She was upset to say the least but so was I.  The next day I was at work.  I was on my way to an AA meeting at lunch time.  Something told me to go to the house, that my aunt was there.  I went by the house.  A furniture truck was just leaving.  My sister/step-sister was there also.  Remember me telling you that my aunt bought her loyalty.  They cleaned me out while I was at work.  There was nothing left.  They even took my personal bed.

My uncle pulled up.  He sent me a text.  He didn’t want to confront me.  He said, “I hope your happy, I got laid off today”.  I said why would that make me happy?  That did, however, tell me how stupid they really think I am.  My uncle and aunt kept their accounts separate.  My uncle paid the house note.  It would be months before he would get some other type of work, and didn‘t make as much to boot.  How did the house note get paid for.  Perhaps it was because there wasn’t a house note to be paid.  There again I will give you a hint and it starts with grandma.

My aunt was the sweetest woman in the world.  During my divorce, I went by her work, since I was sampling Coca Cola anyways, all the time to shoot the breeze with her.  I would give this woman a bear hug every time I saw her.  I was so heartbroken to know what she did.  Money will take the sweetest person in the world and turn them into a money hungry monster.  

So be it.  She obviously needed it more than us.  I had already talked to the boys.  Even though she was well compensated, we agreed, since she was taking care of grandma, to only take 25% instead of half.  But I guess that wasn’t enough for her.  I never had it, therefore I do not miss it. 

I disowned my aunt and step-sister.  My ex-wife I couldn’t, because of the children.  She knows, for I have already told her that if it wasn’t for the kids, I would have turned around and walked away and never looked back.  I was betrayed by my mother, my ex-wife, my aunt, and step-sister.  All women and all were close to me.  I am not a woman hater by any means, I still love women very much, but I am more cautious now-a-days.

Since all this transpired, My ex-step-sister befriended Gordon, my late mother‘s old boyfriend.  She would go by whenever she was at the lake and hang out with him.  He had said that he loves her like a daughter.  He was still heartbroken over my mother’s death.  Mom wanted to be buried next to Bob and that just hurt him to no end.  He understood it, but was still hurt over it. 

My ex-step-sister used that ploy to take advantage of him by playing nice.  I know she cared for him in some sort of way but he took his family out of the will and was going to leave it all to her.  She played it up.  I was sickened at how bad she would talk about him behind his back.  

Last year, Gordon got drunk and flipped his truck and died.  My ex-step-sister got everything.  She didn’t do anything illegal to get it like my aunt did, it was just sad how she got it.  This used to be a sweet woman as well.  Money will turn people into something they are not. 

Since I was a kid I have been buying car parts from the NAPA in Memphis.  I have repaired many vehicles through NAPA in my life and restored three of them.  I would be afraid to put a pencil to how much money I have spent repairing my vehicles over the years.  Parts guys come and go but in 2009 I met a man that would later become a brother.  He is a crazy guy with a tremendous sense of humor with a hard case of sarcasm.  

I had to go in that store occasionally but loved to shoot the breeze with this fellow.  He had a knack for making me laugh every time I went in.  In early 2010, he went on a smoke break, and as we often do, go outside and shoot the breeze for a bit.  In this particular conversation it came out that he was going to “the lodge” later that evening.  I asked what are you talking about?  He said well I’m a mason.  I knew what that was but never met one, at least not that I was aware of.  I asked him how do you become one?  He said, “by doing what you just did and that is ask about it.” 

I went through a series of events and situations to become a member.  One of those events was an interview.  I had to explain my situation to the interviewer and the interview took almost an hour, most of which was the explanation of my situation.  After the interview, the interviewer shook my hand and told me quietly that the same exact thing happened to a member in his family.  

I won’t divulge any of the secrets of Free Masonry for it is forbidden to do so.  I will say this, you must believe in a supreme being and you must be a good man with a good heart and be willing to become an even better man.  I am a Master Mason now and am very proud of that.  For the first time in my life, I obtained and attained something that can’t be stripped from me, for it is locked in my heart and will never be taken from me in life, and that is Masonry.    I now have a Masonic ring of a master mason on my left hand.  On that ring is a Masonic emblem with a Confederate Flag in the background.

Some people consider the Confederate Flag an emblem that represents oppression.  That is the farthest from the true meaning of what the Confederate Flag truly represents.  The flag represented freedom.  Freedom to persue the way of life that southerners so richly loved.  They were willing to fight for their beliefs and their way of life.  That is the reason they broke from the Union, in an attept to preserve “their way of life”.  

When the South lost the fight, their way of life they so desperately loved, was stripped from them.  They would never again know that life!  That is exactly what was done to me!  That is the reason there will always be a place for a Masonic ring with that particular emblem on my hand and it will rest on my hand until the day I die!  In November of 2010, I became a member of the Scottish Rite.    

There is one other thing I would like to talk about in this chapter, and that is my good friend Robby.  He was a big Ford man and an even bigger Cougar man.  He is the one that helped me so much when I was restoring my Cougar.  There wasn’t anything that man couldn’t do mechanically.  He is also the reason I have a great job with the City of Memphis.

We lost contact after he got a girlfriend and got married.  I learned that he was having liver problems from his mother, whom also works for the City of Memphis.  There was a project that he started and never finished.  He was making a convertible cougar.  There is only two in existence.  I discovered not long ago that my good friend passed away from complications with his liver.  R.I.P. Robby Duncan, I will never forget you my friend.  I will always be in your debt.

                                                                     CHAPTER 10

                                                             RIGHTS OF MEN LOST

In Tennessee, if the police make a domestic call of any sort, someone is going to jail.  In Tennessee all a woman has to do is allege something and the police arrest the man and take them to jail.  There doesn’t have to be any proof, just their word.  An old friend, whom is retired now, but used to be the captain of the North Precinct of the Memphis Police Department told me something a couple of weeks ago.  If there is no proof, the police will not normally arrest anybody unless the person whom is alleging that a domestic aggression occurred presses for an arrest.  That’s the key isn’t it.  A woman is not going to go to the trouble of calling the police and make allegations and not press the issue, meaning follow through if she wants the man to go to jail.

I am not afraid to tell the world what happened to me.  I have talked to hundreds men and have come to realize that I’m not alone.  It is alarming how many men have had a woman, sometime in their life, allege something to the police to get them put in jail.  By the time a man is in his early to mid 20’s, roughly 25%  have gone through this at least once.  By the time they are in their mid 20’s to early 30’s, roughly a third.  By the time they are in their early to mid 40’s, 50-60%.  That’s more than half of the men have had a woman allege something to the police to have them arrested at some point in their life.  And women do this just for satisfaction and/or revenge.  Most do not realize the potential of what they are doing until it’s too late.  My ex-wife did exactly that to me.  

This type of behavior is so common, that television networks incorporate this into their programming skits.  Most have seen this:  A woman doesn’t like how an argument is going or the man is leaving them, or better yet she catches the man cheating and gets so mad, she will do something drastic like hit herself to make a mark, hence the evidence for the police to see so the man will be arrested and taken to jail. 

This type of behavior is an abomination and should not and can not be tolerated anymore.  My own cousin got into an argument with her boyfriend not too long ago and called the police and tried to have him arrested.  I love my cousin but that is absolutely pathetic!  I am now friends with her ex-boyfriend.

I just saw on CBS Early Morning News that a teen mom on reality TV assaulted her ex-boyfriend on camera.  Now that was not very smart, but she was trying to start a physical confrontation.  That is terrible but what is even worse is she did this in front of their baby daughter.  That is happening more frequently on TV and producers use it to make money.  This happens very frequently off camera in society.  She is now facing felony assault charges and three counts to boot.  I think it is high time society sees that woman are the aggressors in most situations in today’s society. 

The courts are packed at 201 with cases everyday.  Many of the domestic cases are just allegations and half of them I guarantee are “poppy cock”.  Memphis has been deemed the most violent city in the nation.  I beg to differ.  More violent than Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, New York City, Washington D.C., I don’t think so.  I will admit that Memphis has a plethora of nationalities.  People have a difficulty getting along, but the most violent, nope!

We have to admit it men, women are the smarter of the two sexes.  Men have the brawn and that’s why society keeps their eye on us.   But this is no longer the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries.  Women are very smart.  But along with the added intelligence comes the addition of crafty manipulation.  This is not just an opinion but merely an intuition that the combination of the two makes them the more dangerous of the two, sexes that is.   

The domestic laws that are on the books in Tennessee are decades old and need to be updated.  The laws were established to help the true victims when they were written, and that’s battered women, and my heart does go out for them for the animals that will hurt women do belong behind bars.  The laws are still in effect today and make it too easy for women to manipulate said laws and use the judicial system as a weapon to achieve personal satisfaction and/or revenge.   

Tennessee could take lessons from Mississippi and Arkansas.  In those states, if the police make a domestic call and there is no photographic evidence whatsoever, both parties will go to jail and both will appear before a judge, and he will make the final decision as to what happened.  If Tennessee had laws like that, half of the domestic cases at 201 would disappear.

Bill Haslam ran for governor of Tennessee and is governor now.  He is pledging tougher laws for violent offenders.  Tougher laws are ok for the true violent offenders as long as you make them in such a way that women can’t manipulate the laws and use the judicial system for their personal satisfaction or personal benefit.  Make the laws tougher on women who file false reports instead of just a slap on the wrist.  By a slap on the wrist I mean probation for filing a false report.  Society needs to be sent a message that this will no longer be tolerated.  

The purposeful destruction of a man’s life is nothing to be taken lightly.  Make it to where both parties get arrested if there is no photographic evidence and make them both accountable for the alleged accusations by making them both appear before the judge.  Many of the so called violent offenses in this state would disappear.  This would, therefore, alleviate a lot of the overflow at the jails and the city and county court houses on domestic issues and the City of Memphis would be knocked way down on the most violent city’s list. 

The state is aware that many women are doing this.  The politicians are aware that women are filing false reports everyday.  They are, however, not willing to change the laws that are on the books.  Maybe add to them but not change the existing ones.  The reason is this: there are tens of millions upon tens of millions of  civilian dollars and tax dollars being pumped into the judicial system and the correctional system from the supposed offenses.  

There is another reason the politicians do not want to change the laws that are on the books.  There are a lot of politicians that want to take guns out of the hands of Americans.  It is our Constitutional right to bear arms.  They can not interfere with the Constitutional right, however.  They know most women do not want, use, or even own a gun.  They are using the women, however, to achieve getting the guns out of the hands of men, one at a time.  A handful of men lose there right to own, possess, or carry a firearm everyday in Shelby County.  Most of the supposed domestic cases are “crap”.  Take all the cities and counties in our nation and that adds up to hundreds everyday. 

I would like to start a not for profit organization just for men.  Anybody that lives in Tennessee or travels through it has seen the billboards with the woman cowering down with a message next to it saying: If you hit a woman out of anger once, you’re a punk forever!  Well I’d like to put up billboards with this message: You don’t like the way the argument is going,……your man is leaving because he is tired of  being treated like a dog,……..you caught your man cheating…. Well buck up and swallow your pride for once.  If you falsely accuse the man of domestic abuse just to get the man put in jail once, you’re integrity as a woman will be shot forever! 

I have designed and built a website just for men.  It is a site for blogging.  The address of this sight is www.rightsofmenlost.yolasite.com.  I want to know your personal stories and opinions.  I couldn’t afford a personal domain at this time so I used one that was free.  I hope to eventually have enough monies in the near future to have a personal site.  I will let the readers know if and when such a time occurs.  

If that message angers the women who endorse the message about the true battered woman, then I do apologize.  Men who do batter women do belong behind bars.  You should, however, be angry at the woman who twist and manipulate the domestic laws, and therefore abuse said laws.  It is the abuse of the law that destroyed my life wrongly and angered me to the point of writing this message.  I have never laid my hands on a woman in a harmful or aggressive manner in my life, yet I am a convicted felon twice over for it.

The court systems are geared all around the women, and that’s across the nation.  Men have no rights in the divorce, child support and domestic courts when a woman is involved.  The court system treats us like “dogs”.  Women will love and cherish you and give you children.  But when they get it in their head to leave you, they will use those children as weapons of mass destruction to better their situation in any way they can in the divorce.

I was with my ex-wife in a therapists office a couple of years ago.  We were trying to get past our resentments to get along better for the sake of our kids.  The therapist was a woman.  She said marriages are lasting longer these days.  Couples are more likely to stay together than divorce in today’s society.  I said it doesn’t matter if you’re divorced once or five times, you’re still within the category of failed marriages.  

By the way, 70% to 80% of all marriages that end up in divorce court, the woman is the one that is leaving the marriage.  Why is this?  Perhaps most men want to try and work things out due to the possible fact that they know if they get divorced, they will be financially ruined.  Woman know that the courts will be in their favor in most cases.  Most often they will emerge smelling like a rose, especially if there are kids involved.  Woman will also use the kids to hurt the man.  Kids are not to be used as leverage.  Women need to stop thinking of themselves and start putting their kids feelings ahead of their own.  It is the children that hurt the most in the divorce.

Women and men alike need to understand the repercussions of their actions when it comes to divorce.  One divorce doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal.  But most marriages end up in divorce court.  The fabric of our society is mostly made up of broken homes today.  People wonder why this country is going to hell in a hand basket.  

Look into your children’s eyes and you will see that they will grow up in a completely different negative type society than you did.  Our youth of today grows up in broken homes.  Our youth grows up without the true foundations of moral values.  You therefore must understand that your actions will eventually add to the degradation of the moral integrity in our society if something is not done to improve their chances.  I know most of you love your children unconditionally.  Think of them before you ultimately act.

Woman wonder why men don’t want to commit or they are afraid to commit or better yet, don‘t want kids.  Young men can see men in an older generation and see what women have done to most of them.  They see the devastation and the aftermath of what happens to them in a failed marriage.  Men aren’t that stupid.  We can run the numbers.  Most marriages end up in divorce, so the odds are against them from the get-go!.  Most men have some sort of horrific story to tell about an event that happened some time in their life concerning women, a relationship, marriage, or divorce.

By the way, I need to make something very clear!  Most of the women that leave the marriages of today, aren’t doing it because the man is cheating in most cases.  Is a matter of fact, remember that old statistic that 70% of men cheat at some time in their marriage and 30% of women cheat at some time in their marriage.  That is no longer true, therefore no longer valid.  Most women will lie because they don’t want you to know the truth.  The number of men that cheat, of course still occurs but has decreased while the number of women that cheat has greatly increased.  More women than men cheat in today’s society. 

This is due to the fact that most women have joined the work force.  In the 70’s and prior, most women stayed home.  Now most women work.  It is considered a luxury to be a stay at home mom nowadays.  Women are working along side men and are exposed to the same stimulus and situations that men are.  Women are very powerful in today’s world thus subject to the same things and temptations that men are. 

Another reason that should not be overlooked is the use of the internet.  Before I got divorced, I searched dating sites and sex sites to see if my wife was there for I knew she was cheating.  I never found her but was floored at what I did find.  Hundreds of thousands of women looking to get some on the side.  Some would want a friend they can talk to and get some on the side while they’re are at it.  Some would say that discretion is a must.  If you see a “it’s complicated“, chances are the women are at odds with their husband and are not having sex with their husband and want some release with no strings or no commitment.

Women cheat for different reasons than men.  That old cliché about the same old reasons why men might be enticed to cheat are the same today as they ever were.  The majority of women, however, are creatures that are always looking for greener pastures.  The pastures that I am referring to are these: affection, love, attention, sexual, financial, and/or status.  Even if they are still in-love with you, if they feel slighted in any way, odds are they will justify searching for other pastures at some time or another.  They, most of the time, still love their husbands, but want a no strings release.

30% of men over the age of 30 have ED problems.  Men need to do any and everything they can to fix that situation.  The majority of women will eventually get tired of waiting for what they so desperately want and need.  They will eventually veer off the reservation to find something on the side, they “will” get theirs.  Women can no longer say that men want sex more than women and no longer say that they all have what men want.  They want and need sex just as much if not more than men.    

Women are creatures of justification.  This means they will justify leaving the reservation and make themselves believe that it is your fault for them doing so and most men will feel guilty and feel bad like its their fault.  They made the decision, not you, men!  So stop apologizing for the things they do.  Most women I have talked to have admitted to cheating at some time or another in some type of relationship in their past.  The only women that I have encountered that have not cheated, do not come from our society, but rather from another world all together where morals are taken very seriously.  And they call us men pigs!  Please realize that I am not saying all women are guilty of this, just most.

Men need to understand something.  Women of today’s society do not want to be controlled in any way.  Please a woman in “every way”, and they’ll be yours.  Do not try to control them and do not put a leash and stipulations on them, they will be yours forever.  Love them with all your heart everyday as if each day is the last, their heart will be yours forever and a day.   

I want to define something for you.  Child support is a civil debt.  A civil debt is defined as a debt between two people, between a person and an entity, or between two entities.  If I get behind on my credit card debt, do I get thrown in jail?  If I get behind on my house note, Do I get thrown in jail?  The answer to both of those questions is no.  Then why are men who are behind on their child support, which is a civil debt, get thrown in jail?  It is against our constitutional rights to get thrown in jail over a civil matter or a civil debt.  

There are dead beat dads out there and they should be held accountable for their debts, but in another way.  The only way that they can be dealt with by law is to put that debt on their credit report.  The nation frowns on dead beat dads and they will not be able to get a house or a nice car if they do not keep that debt current.  

Men do not belong in jail over child support and should not have their rights violated over a civil matter.  Women should be ok with this as well and I will explain why.  If the government knows that a strong portion of the populous is ok with someone’s rights being violated, they will search for other avenues to exploit to find other members of the populous that are ok with the violating of other’s rights.  Before you know it, all of our rights will be gone.  Think about it, America is slowly becoming a nation of socialism.

Men have lost most of their rights but most Americans are affected by the constant violating of rights.  How many times have you watched the news and saw a police officer in trouble or terminated over beating a man in custody or tazing a man or woman to death?  This is sad.  It is more frequent than you see on TV.  For every one situation you do see, there are hundreds if not thousands that you don’t.

One morning I saw something on the news that upset me greatly.  Then again it usually does.  Instead of calling it news, they should call it bad news.  This one morning in particular, there was a story of a man up north that was assaulted by an officer.  He did break the law.  The police got a description of his vehicle.  When they caught up to him, they pulled him over.  

One of the officers asked him to get out of the car.  The suspect just simply told him to shut up.  The officer opened the door and dragged the guy out.  The suspect was not retaliating in any way.  The officer threw him down on the ground and proceeded to beat him with a baton.  The suspect still was not retaliating.  The officer then pulled out a can of pepper spray and used it on the suspect.  You heard me, he pepper sprayed the suspect.

That officer is a disgrace to the badge.  Not only should he be terminated for violating the suspect’s rights, but should be held accountable for the atrocity he committed.  He should be arrested himself and charged with assault with the pepper spray and charged for aggravated assault for beating the suspect with a baton.

Next I want to talk about the rights of the men that are incarcerated at the Shelby County Jail.  Last month a man by the name of Edward Jackson died while being transported to the MED.  He had been incarcerated for domestic abuse with his wife and violating a restraining order.  He had gotten into a fight with a fellow inmate.  He had some bruises on him as well as a cut on the head.  He got into an altercation with the guards on the way to the MED and arrived dead.  I am almost certain there will be a cover up with what truly happened.  

There was a story last week on the news about a man by the name of Mario.  This incident occurred in West Memphis.  He got into an argument with his girlfriend.  She assaulted him.  When the police arrived, he had cuts and scratches all over him but she did not have a mark one.  She knew she messed up so she made sure she was the first to call the police and allege that he assaulted her.  She called the police.  Whomever calls the police first, 99% of the time, it’s the other person that goes to jail.  He tried to tell them what happened but the police was not listening to him at all.  They arrested him.  This is a travesty.  He had the marks of proof which showed that he was assaulted by her and he was the one that went to jail.

I personally know of a situation, that didn’t involve me, where all a girl had to do is cry wolf.  Ten years ago a friend of mine was involved a serious legal situation and it involved his daughter.  To make a long story short, she got very angry at her dad and alleged that he had sexually molested her.  This got him into a world of trouble.

The state took her and put her in foster care.  He ended up taking extra loans out on his home and business to fight the situation in court.  He had almost lost everything.  I saw the toll it took on the family.  She begged him to let her come home.  Eventually the charges were dropped and the state let her go back home.  But the damage was already there.  An entire family was nearly destroyed over just allegations.  

Total devastation came about over alleging from revenge.  People in general need to fully understand that making allegations for revenge can cause permanent harm to someone’s life.  Don’t cry wolf, for eventually no one will hear your cries.      

Americans are losing the battle of the first amendment.  That amendment gives the freedom of speech and press.  There is constant censorship taking place.  The latest hard core hit was the government taking control over networks and most Americans aren’t even aware that this happened.  Now nothing is publicized over the news stations without prior government approval.   

By the way, most judges will throw a man in jail and tell them that they will remain in jail until they can catch their child support up.  Now that’s just plain stupid!  How can they pay if they are in jail?  Not to mention they will probably lose their job because of being in jail thus losing their ability to pay said child support.  Men need to get together and kick the idiot in the teeth who came up with that! 

Men need to come together and fight for our rights that were taken from us!  It doesn’t matter what color, nationality, or sexual preference, because we all have a common cause.   I think I can speak for most men when I say there is no problem with women having equal rights, but it should be exactly that, equal.  After all, we are all equal in the eyes of the law, well we’re supposed to be anyways.  When women got equal rights, the liberals seemed to have taken all the men’s rights, which should have been divided equally, and gave them all to women.  America has a fault of overcompensating. 

There is power in numbers.  When women got together and cried out in one voice that they should be equal, they got the power and the rights.  When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. rallied the black people together and marched for equal rights, their cries were heard and their demands met.  Dr. King led the black people into a new era in our nation.  He showed the people of our nation that all should be treated equally.  Even the Klu Klux Clan, as warped as most of us think their beliefs are, stick together so their rights are understood.   I do not believe in white supremacy or supremacy of anything or anyone but  I do admire the Clan’s audacity to fight for their rights.  Like I said, there is power in numbers.  So now it is our turn men.  We need to fight for our rights.

This message goes to men and women alike.  If we bend the rules a little bit, the government will take what you let them and will fight to never let them go.  If we allow just one person’s rights to be violated just because we believe they are not politically correct, the government will take their rights, with your approval, and search for other’s rights that they can take, with your approval.  Before you know it, we will have no more rights for them to take for they will have taken them all, and it will be with your approval.  Make no mistake, this government is for the people, of the people, by the people and it is high time we take “our” government back. 

Speaking of rights that have been taken, remember the twin towers that were toppled and the damage to the pentagon by multiple aircraft that were flown by terrorists.  The news media alerted the public that when the terrorists where in flight school, all they were concerned with is knowing how to fly the plane and not take off or land.  This should have raised a huge red flag of biblical proportions.  You heard that on the news once and never heard it again.  How were those men able to go to our flight schools and then take our planes and cause the death and destruction that they did?

When that happened, the government used that catastrophe to their advantage.  They were able to take out three birds with one stone so to speak.  1st  the government took the right of privacy away in the name of “national security”.  2nd the government got the public to rally behind it, just like Pearl Harbor, but more so.  By doing this the government paved the way to do anything it wanted without any recourse.  3rd By getting the public behind it with the guise of fighting terrorism, it could protect its interest in the Middle East and that is oil.

Think about it, Osama Bin Laden was in the cross hairs of the scope on more than one occasion but the ultimate order to assassinate  would not come.  Why is this?  Perhaps it was because the government knew that if Osama was taken out, the public would lose interest in fighting terrorism thus the government would lose the financial backing of congress.  The government couldn’t let that happen until her interest in the Middle East was secured.

Remember me saying the government will take rights away with the approval of the public.  Most people in the pole were ultimately ok with the right to privacy taken if it meant a secure and free lifestyle being preserved.  Secure, free, and privacy are three words that should not be used in that sentence together.  That, however,  is the way it is now.

The government belongs to the people and not the other way around.  Our founding forefathers gave us rights, liberties, and freedom.  That being so, then how is it possible for the government to take our rights and liberties from a person or a group?  How is it possible for the courts to strip the rights and liberties and such from anyone?  It didn’t or doesn’t belong to the government or any type of entity to take in the first place.  

Those rights and liberties belong to us.  Now we all have to agree that some people are just too dangerous to allow weapons in their possession, the mentally unstable sort.  They are a danger to themselves as well as others.  But even they should have all the rights of everyone else minus weapons.  If we allow the government to decide who gets what, then how are we truly free?   

I got off on a tangent, which I do that quite a bit.  I want to get back to talking about men and our rights that have been violated.  I met this woman on the internet.  She is a commanding officer in the NAVY.  We met for coffee at Star Bucks.  I told her my story.  I always tell my story and hide nothing from anybody.  For one, telling the truth is very important for if you don’t, chances are that it will blow up in your face in the future and almost always will.  The second is I want the world to know what happened to me.  

She was amazingly understanding of my situation.  I quickly understood why.  She proceeded to tell me about her brother and what happened to him.  He was in prison for life for a murder that he didn’t commit.  This situation did occur in Tennessee.  He was accused of killing his ex-girlfriend.  

During the trial, he produced a half dozen witnesses to verify that he was nowhere near his ex-girlfriend at the time of her murder.  In other words, he had an alibi and an iron clad one at that.  The DNA was compromised as well.  The only witness for the defense was a girl her brother had met on E-Harmony.  He never actually met up with this girl but rather just talked to her.  She had supposedly told the prosecution that he admitted to her that he had committed the crime.  What ever happened to being convicted with a “guilty without a shadow of a doubt”

What she told me next not only explained how this crappy conviction could happen but floored me as well, for how could this trial even take place where it did in the first place.  What she told me was that the prosecutor and the judge were friends of the murdered girl’s parents.  Well I don’t know about you, but that to me is a blatant conflict of interest.

They wanted her parents to have closure and justice for what happened to their daughter.  That is in no way true closure or true justice.  How could it be true closure and supposed justice for anyone by putting an innocent man in prison.  Sure he will get an appeal for the travesty of justice or the lack there of for what happened, but the appeal process can take years.  Sure he will be set free once the real truth is known, but how many years of this innocent man’s life will be wasted in prison.

I hear quite frequently about men and women that are injured or killed by the use of tazer guns.  I see all the time on the news where someone was tazered even after they were subdued.  This is a weapon that can very easily cause death and should not be considered an accidental death if death should occur.

I have had my rights violated more times than I can count.  I will stand for this no more.  I am in no way a violent man but if an officer of the law violates my rights one more time, I will no longer see them as an officer of the law.  My rights were stripped from me wrongly.  I am taking my rights back, for they shouldn’t have been taken in the first place.  I will defend said rights to the “DEATH”!  I was born free and I will die a free man!  If any officer dares to interfere with my right for the pursuit of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, I will defend said right to the “DEATH”!   

If an officer pulls a tazer on me, I will see this as a violation of my rights, therefore I will no longer see them as an officer of the law.  I will see the tazer as an intention to cause harm and/or death.  If a tazer is pulled on me, I must be killed, for if I am not killed, I will defend said rights to the end.  

                                                                             CHAPTER 11

                OTHER PROBLEMS OUR POLITICANS ARE DOING WITH OUR TAX DOLLARS AND OTHER GRIPES

Do you think the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism is what is bankrupting our country.  The politicians would like you to believe that.  It is just mind boggling at the money this country is wasting.  Quite frankly, this is ridiculous.

Each year 11 billion to 22 billion is spent on welfare for illegal aliens by state governments.  2.2 billion is spent each year on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.  2.5 billion is spent each year on Medicaid for illegal aliens.  12 billion a year is spent on primary and secondary education for children that are here illegally, and most can’t speak a word of English.  17 billion is spent every year on education for American-born children of parents who are here illegally, also known as anchor babies.  3 million a day is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.  30% of all federal prison inmates are illegal aliens.  90 billion a year is spent on illegal aliens for welfare and social services.  That’s 338 billion a year spent on illegal aliens.  200 billion in suppressed American dollars are caused by illegal aliens each year.  Illegal aliens are robbing us blind and the government is letting them do it and we are the ones paying for it..

I can’t tell you how many times I stood in line at the supermarket behind a Mexican woman with her kids with two baskets full of groceries.  I can’t begin to tell you how sick it makes me to see her pull out a food stamp card (EBT).  And they are more than likely illegal.  If they are legal, their husband is working but getting cash under the table, therefore making her look on paper to be eligible for government programs.  There I am so broke I can’t see straight and only have 20 items or less and it takes all my money just to get by.

Or how about immigrants that come over legally and get our tax dollars given to them to start businesses and don‘t have to pay taxes for seven years.  We were born in this country and are true Americans and we don’t get anything handed to us.  I have no problem with people coming over and becoming American citizens.  After all, this country was founded by misfits from other countries.  

Most of us are Heinz 57’s.  I am a Heinz 57 and proud of who I am.  So I have no problem letting people in and becoming citizens.  But I do have stipulations.  1. Learn our language, which is “English“.  2.  Work your butt off to get by just like the rest of us.  3. Don’t steal from our government.  It really upsets me to no end when I call a company and the recording says, “to continue in English, press 1”.

The following are links to verify this data.

http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecenters7fd8 

Verify At: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML 

http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML 

Verify At: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANscriptS/0604/01/ldt..0.HTML 

Verify At http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANscriptS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML 

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/%20TRANscriptS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML 

Verify At: http://transcripts.CNN.com/TRANscriptS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML < 

http://transcripts/..

Verify At: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.HTML 

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSC%20RI%20PTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML 

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When our president, Obama, was running for office, I was unable to vote.  I wouldn’t have voted for him anyways if I could vote.  He kept promising change, but change what?  He never could or would say what.  But since he got elected, I thought I would give him a chance and see what he could do.

Billions of tax dollars was given to corporations in the biggest bailout so to speak in history, to try and turn our economy around.  Our grandchildren’s children will still be paying that debt off.  I would like to know why this was done.  Without the people, there would be no corporations.  It is the people that drive our nation and our economy.  The money was given to the corporations to bail them out, but did they pass that on to the people?  The answer to that question is a big fat no.  It is now the end of 2010 and our nation has just seen a record number of foreclosures in our history. 

As you know, our president said on many occasions that he is no longer a Muslim.  Once a Muslim always a Muslim.  If he is no longer a practicing Muslim, then why has it been recorded numerous times, him admitting he is Muslim.  Does he even know what he is?  

Every president has to provide a birth certificate to prove that they are a true born citizen.  Why has he not provided one and why does he refuse to do such?  Did you know that our president and our first lady has admitted to attending, on numerous occasions, flag burning ceremonies?  Did you know that our president refuses to hold his right hand over his heart during the Pledge Of Allegiance and refuses to recite it?  Why are we continuing to let this unpatriotic American stay in office serving “our” great nation.  I have seen and heard all I care to and by next election, I will be able to vote and will not be voting for Obama!  Obama, You have failed!

The price of a barrel of oil is fluctuating and been doing this for several years.  The government wants you to believe that it is due to price and demand.  What the government will not tell you is there is enough oil in this country to keep us running for 200 years, they just want to use up everyone else’s first.  The oil companies are driving up the price of oil to pad their own pockets as well.  Why do you think the oil companies were recording record profits every quarter for over tow years.

The liberals and politicians want the public to think that the fluctuating oil prices are due to the world’s demand, price and demand.  This is only partially true.  When the price of gas at the pump was over $4.00 dollars a gallon, many industry that was producing bio-fuels were popping up.  That is the main reason the price at the pump came down.  They wanted to starve out their competition so to speak.  Many of those companies went under, thus getting rid of their competition.  

The price at the pump is slowly going back up.  Those companies that produce bio-fuels are starting to come back.  In less that two years the price of a gallon of gas is projected to reach $5.00 dollars a gallon.  I am willing to bet that the price of a gallon of gas will come down again and those companies that produce bio-fuels will again, all but disappear.  This is, however, not before America’s back will be literally broke.    

During the disastrous oil spill in the gulf, why did it take BP months to repair and cap the oil well.  The initial explosion was terrible, I think we can all agree on that.  I believe that BP used that travesty to their advantage.  Letting the devastation go on as long as it did, caused the drilling in the gulf to stop thus causing the demand to increase thus causes prices to sky rocket once again.  Gas prices at the pump are projected to reach $5.00 dollars a gallon within two years.  Americas back is fractured, but I foresee our back being broken completely and us being crippled.  

If you listen to the news, the oil companies were recording record profits every quarter for over a year.  Not to mention a good portion of what you pay at the pump is taxes.  So between the oil companies and the government, it is no wonder this country has been devastated financially.  Americans are too use to driving.  Because of this, when the price of a gallon of gas goes up, the people will pull monies that they would normally use for recreation, entertainment, restaurants, etc. and fill their tanks with fuel to keep going.  

That is why our country was tanking from the domino effect.  It started with the restaurant and entertainment industry.  Many of those people lost their jobs and the unemployment rate started to go up and then the recreation industry soon followed with similar results.  Then the people started panicking and thus holding on to their money and the other corporations and industry suffered.  So you can blame the oil companies and our government for our country tanking  financially and our government for keeping our economy from recovering.  

What about our social security.  That is our money but the government doesn’t want you to ever see it.  Why is this?  I’ll give you a hint and it starts with they can’t keep their damn hands out of the cookie jar.  They already spent your money.  Why is this?  It is not theirs to spend.  We put “our money” in there.  

The government just raised the age limit to receive benefits to 70.  They raised it from 62 to 65 and my late step-father was caught in that web.  So it was changed from 62 to 65 and from 65 to 70 and that was in my life time.  They want you to die so that you never get “your money” that they have already spent.  Right now this generation is holding the older generation up.  Social security will run out of money before this generation is old enough to get the benefits of it.

Why is our government raising the age limit.  Who died and made the government king.  Last I checked, this was our government.  Our government can not do anything without the approval of the people.  I don’t know of a single person that approved that measure and I can assure you that I never did.  I pay into a pension so I will not be affected by that measure very much, but what about the millions of Americans that will be.

At the peak of the Iraq war, with billions of U.S. dollars pouring into their country, a group of Iraqi men saw a way to get rich quick. They put up $2,000 in cash, formed a company named Al-Aian Al-Jareya, and used their connections at Iraq’s defense ministry to win an $850 million military equipment contract. 

Their company was a joke. But there was nothing funny about what happened next. Al-Aian Al-Jareya bilked the U.S.-funded Iraqi army out of millions by peddling old equipment at outrageously inflated prices. In just one example, Al-Aian Al-Jareya charged $4.5 million each for 64 Mi-8 military helicopters-three times the amount that they should have cost. 

Almost everything the company delivered was dangerously faulty. According to Salam Adhoob, a former Iraqi corruption watchdog, an inspection of the merchandise found “four repainted defective helicopters that were more than 25 years old.” He also recently told a Senate investigative committee that weapons and bulletproof vests provided by Al-Aian Al-Jareya were damaged goods. “And yet not one of these criminals has been held accountable by the U.S. or Iraqi government,” he testified, not even the Iraqi defense ministry officials who allegedly skimmed millions off the top for themselves. 

Six years after the war began, we’re still learning about the great looting of American tax dollars in Iraq. Tens of billions have been stolen, wasted, or simply lost with almost no oversight or accountability. Now that Iraq is running an oil-fueled surplus of its own—as America spirals into an economic crisis—it’s time to demand some money back. 

Getting it won’t be easy. Corruption in Iraq is a familiar tale. One 2005 report found that up to $8.8 billion in U.S. dollars meant to help rebuild the country had simply gone missing. But that revelation apparently did nothing to stop the rip-offs: A May 2008 government audit showed that $15 billion in Pentagon payments to contractors could not be accounted for. To hear Adhoob tell it, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. He told the Senate committee about scores of “ghost projects” that had been funded, including a $24.4 million electricity venture in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province that had been paid for but never built. 

It gets worse. A former senior U.S. adviser to the Iraqi government testified that top Iraqi officials have collaborated with al Qaeda to steal Iraqi oil, selling it both for personal profit and to fund al Qaeda terrorists attacks. Said Adhoob, “I am convinced that American soldiers died because of this corruption.”

Billions more of your money is on its way to Baghdad. And late last year, several top fraud monitors within the Iraqi government were fired, apparently for political reasons—making it easier for some people to help themselves. (Adhoob was not one of them; he had already fled the country, fearing for his life.) 

So what can be done? Some cynics insist that corruption is now too deeply entrenched to root out. Still, the United States can hardly expect to leave behind a functioning Iraqi government if profiteering isn’t exposed. The Obama administration should demand the reinstatement of fraud monitors in Baghdad. It should then push for a high-profile crackdown on those responsible for the looting of government coffers. 

Back home, Congress should freeze the assets of those prosecuted for wrongdoing. And it should grant more resources to investigators like Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, who has exposed and prosecuted several big corruption cases. The severity of the situation calls for a special congressional panel to investigate this plague as well. 

Apart from tough laws and severe penalties, there needs to be adequate follow-up to make certain that perpetrators pay. Of the tiny number of officials in Iraq who have been prosecuted so far, many have quickly landed back on the street thanks to bribery and political connections. Some have even established cushy lives outside Iraq, funded with the money they stole. In one case, a former electricity minister accused of taking huge kickbacks and misspending millions hired private contractors to break him out of jail and help him flee the country. His new home? Chicago. 

Maybe if Iraq had more of its own money in its treasury, officials in Baghdad would be less inclined to condone theft. In the past six years, Americans have spent $48 billion on reconstruction projects. Between 2005 and 2007, Iraq earned a whopping $90 billion in oil revenues, according to an August report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. And yet Iraq has spent a mere 10 percent of this money on reconstruction (while U.S. billions have rolled in unabated). What’s more, in 2007, the U.S. Treasury shelled out $435.6 million in interest payments to the Iraqi government for the $10 billion in surplus oil revenues it has stashed at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. 

As a stunned Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) put it at one hearing last year, “What kind of an absurdity is it that we are paying for the reconstruction of Iraq if Iraqi oil sales … are going into foreign banks and not being used for reconstruction?”

It’s time to demand Iraq spend more of their own cash on rebuilding and begin reimbursing us for out-and-out theft. It’s time they stopped playing us for suckers.  

This was information that was pulled from the Readers Digest.  We lost a lot of tax dollars in Iraq.  I would like to know why is it that when there is a threat of any sort and America is called to kick some ass, why do we rebuild the country after we blow it up?  You can find any information you want to know about anything on the internet. 

The Obamas have wasted 10 million in 2009 alone.  Yes, the same hypocrite who says our energy costs must “necessarily skyrocket” to fund his political ambition, is giving Marie Antoinette a run for her money when it comes to spending national treasure on personal luxuries. Also the same hypocrite Michelle Obama who tells everyone they have “cut back” is enjoying life in the fast lane as well, at our expense. According to the CFP, it has been estimated the Obamas spent at least $10 million on “drunken White House parties” in 2009 alone. We are nearly half way through 2010 and there doesn’t appear to be any slow down to the lavish partying by this regime either.

President Obama and first lady have wasted millions on concerts, parties, lavish multi million dollar date nights, shopping sprees in other countries and the list goes on and on.  The Obamas are, in my opinion, greedy self serving politicians.  We, the tax payers, are footing this outrageous bill.  They have the audacity to tell us to buck up and cut back to save money while they are partying like it’s 1999.  This information came from fireandreamithell.com.  

Michele Obama took 40 of her friends on a vacation to spain and stayed in a 5 star hotel.  This 5 star hotel costs $2,500.00 a night.  Guess who is footing the bill.  I’ll give you a hint and it is the tax payers.  I guess she forgot where she came from because she is sure living it up like a queen and not a First Lady.  This piece of information came from the NY Post. 

I know this chapter got off on a tangent from the original meaning of this book.  However, I did say that the prosecutor, when had lied against me, enticed me to not only tell the world about what my ex-wife did, the police officers did, the prosecutor did, and the judge and jail did, but to explain to the world about the abominable domestic laws that are in place in Tennessee.  Since I am writing this book, might as well tap into the economy and the wasted state and federal tax dollars as well and get all my frustrations out in the open.  This is just a tip of the iceberg when it comes to wasted tax dollars.  I could write a novel about just that.

I also want to talk about the wasteful city, county, state, and federal entities that could save the tax payers billions of dollars.  They could save billions of dollars in tax payer money just in the cost of fuel alone.  All the government entities use gas hog vehicles.  All they look at is saving money on the present physical year.  They get a fleet discount of course. 

Why are the government entities buying from the vehicle manufacturers that are in bed with the oil companies.  The Ford F-150 got 17 to 18mpg back in the 90’s.  In the 00’s those same vehicles got 14mpg.  Now you’re lucky to get 12-13mpg out of those same trucks.  Why is the gas mileage getting worse instead of better?  This is true with other full size American trucks as well.

I don’t look at just what I can save right today, but also what I could save five to ten years from now.  Better yet, I look at the cost of using the vehicle in five to ten years of use.  The government entities should spend a little extra up front on more fuel efficient vehicles.  They would save up to 30 – 50% cost in fuel over the life of that vehicle.  And that is just one vehicle.  What would a fleet of vehicles save?  How much would be saved in fuel if all government entities across the nation followed suit?

There is another this I would like to briefly discuss with the reader, and that is the companies of our nation sending our jobs across seas.  This is adding greatly to the overall unemployed.  When companies send our jobs elsewhere, people become unemployed.  A lot of the time they can’t find the jobs in their particular field.  The government is just sitting by and letting this happen.  

I say the government should stop taking kickbacks from companies sending the jobs elsewhere.  The politicians should stop padding their own pockets.  Do they not realize they are hurting the next generation.  This generation has already suffered a heavy hit from job loss.  Sooner or later even they will be affected, in some way or another, by the trickling effect of so many jobs going overseas.    

Even if the government continues to allow jobs to leave the country, they could benefit from helping Americans to get trained for better jobs.  They would get interest from the government monies they loan out for education and school.  This is already happening as we all know.  But, in addition to investing in Americans and furthering job skills,  American average salary would increase.  This means that their tax revenue would also increase.  Invest now and reap later.  

 Many times false allegations of domestic abuse happen for specific reasons.  It could be used as tool in a divorce or custody battle to get leverage. People will use these allegations as weapons to be welded during court proceedings, sometimes filing actual false allegation or maybe to get a false restraining order to try and defame the other party.  If could also be to get revenge on the other person for their own failures or maybe for daring to be happy without them.   No matter what excuse they use this is a very serious problem with very serious consequences.

 Understanding false domestic violence charges is difficult because many different definitions are going around as to what is and is not abuse.  The easiest to identify is physical abuse however, even in this one there are shades of grey.  Take a man that grabs a woman’s hands so she will stop hitting him.  Who should be guilty of domestic violence?  Many women want to take the stance that ‘I should be allowed to abuse him because it does not hurt him’, but when he moves to stop her violence he is being abusive. Abuse is abuse no matter what. If you hit another person it is assault no matter if it hurt or caused damage.

 No one can fully explain why someone would file false charges or portray false allegation of domestic abuse on a person intentionally. What ever their motives may be they should have to be made accountable for those actions.  Not only do we need stronger criminal laws for people that do this but we also need harsher civil penalties that can be imposed.  False allegations are detrimental to an already struggling over burdened legal system. It’s even more detrimental to the people that accused falsely and their families.

The allegations stem from the couple’s marriage that lasted from 2000 to 2004. The reality star says that the abuse started just a couple of months after they were married and that her then husband was extremely jealous and controlling.

“If Damon were not home, I was required to call him and ask permission to leave the house,” the documents claim.

Kardashian claims that at times she was not allowed to leave at all, due to Thomas’s jealous nature.

“He told me that he did not want an opportunity to ‘hit’ on me.”

The papers make multiple claims of both psychological and domestic abuse against the producer. Kardashian was just 19 when the couple married. Thomas was 29.

Kardashian is most known for her “rear assets”, the television show that follows the life of her family called ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians’, and for her videotaped sexcapade with R&B star Ray J.

Bullying can be either physical, mental or sexual. The bully uses fear to control its victim and make themselves feel powerful in doing so. From a victims point of view I have fantasised of just how it would feel to be that powerful bully for a day. How great it would feel to be strong and powerful. To have control. Control is power. When a bully feels like they are losing control they panic and tend to step up their game to intimidate their victim.

Lets have a look at bully’s through life which a person may encounter…

1. Bullying at School - children are often subjected to bullying at some time during their school life. This may be mild or severe. In each case bullying should be taken seriously. The school must be contacted straight away. All schools have an anti bullying policy which is available for your information. The procedure must be followed to ensure that all parties are protected. If the school is unsuccessful in dealing with the problem do not give up. Contact your local authority for further advice and help.

2. Bullying at Work – Bullying in the work place is just as common as the school playground although it is often covered up and not addressed properly. There are employment laws in place to protect employees from such treatment so you do have rights! When working for small companies (who are basically a law unto themselves) it is hard to prove that you are being bullied or harassed. many employees simply quit their jobs and then contact ACAS for advise. BIG MISTAKE! I was bullied at work by the boss and had no chance of eliminating the problem so I quit, contacted ACAS who did not want to deal with the case as I had no proof! How on earth is an employee who is subjected to bullying by the boss supposed to prove it?! They advised me that I should have written a grievance letter and handed it to him. Easier said than done. My advice would be to anyone who is being bullied at work to contact ACAS as soon as you start to feel intimidated, harassed or bullied in your workplace so that you can follow the silly procedures that are in place to achieve JUSTICE!

3. Bullying at Home – Domestic violence is not the taboo subject it used to be. A lot of brave women and men have come forward to share their experiences. Bullying at home can be in the form of physical, mental or sexual abuse. When domestic violence is mentioned people think of women being abused by their husbands, this is not always the case. Domestic abuse happens to both male and female. Often the victims are too ashamed or scared to speak out and need a helping hand. The Home Office have stepped up their approach to domestic abuse and have developed an on-line guide with advice and information for those affected.

There is still not enough exposure or help out there for both bullies and their victims. Why not have an alternative approach and ask the bullies to come forward. Help the bullies. Most bullies are insecure with problems of their own. Some bullies are merely victims of another bully. The situation can spiral out of control. We as a country have the National Health Service and the relevent charities/public services to deal with this. So what are we missing?
Why are there so many suicides due to bullying and abuse?
Exposure!
Keep talking…