An "Army Brat", Is Not Just a "Brat"

I was born an Army Brat… I’m as comfortable sleeping in a room at the Guest House, shopping at the PX and working in the Orderly Room signing trainees back in from Chapel as I am anywhere else. I understand how the how the military works. I guess it’s in my blood

During my “teenage runaway” phase, I could walk onto any Army base anywhere in this country without a penny in my pocket and, by sunset, I’d have a place to stay, something to eat, medication if I required it, cigarettes and transportation to wherever it was that I needed to go.

When I needed something, I learned very early in life not to waste time pleading my case to the sergeant over a corporal who had just refused my request when I could go immediately up the chain of command to a Colonel, a Major (or even a General) over both of their heads and get what I wanted right away.

My father was a former Merrill’s Marauder, the epitome of the “battle-scarred NonCom", who fought in the jungles of New Guinea and Burma during WWII and went on to fight in some of the worst battles of the Korean Conflict.

He died on active duty in Letterman Army Hospital in the Presidio, San Francisco, in 1955.

After my father died, my mother moved us to a small town in a rural area where she felt the schools had more to offer and where there was no military “presence” to constantly remind her of my deceased father. We still spent a lot of time going back and forth to military bases, however, for medical and other services.

My mother never remarried after my father’s death and still receives a widow’s pension from the Army. My first few years of college were funded by my father’s unused G.I. Bill benefits for which I was eligible since I was covered under the “War Orphans Act” that gave extra privileges to the children of military personnel who died on active-duty during the years of the Korean War.

Since I was far too young when he died to remember much about him or what he was like, my introduction to the subject of “Combat-Related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” (or “P.T.S.D.” -- also called “battle fatigue” or “shellshock”) came from my mother’s stories about my father.

In particular, she told me about an incident that happened very soon after they were married:

Soldiers who are forced by circumstance to fight in environments like those of the enemy-infested jungles of the South Pacific during WWII or the rice paddies of Southeast Asia during the War in Viet Nam seem to develop different ways and means to aid them in detecting the enemy. These methods usually employ the hyper-sensitization of one specific limb or organ which increases their ability to physically sense the movements of anyone nearby. A practiced expert can detect the enemy in this manner even when the enemy is well-accomplished at the art of covert military methods and even when the subject is in a sleeping state.

My father developed this ability through the use of his feet. When he slept, he always did so with his feet sticking out from under the covers because it was through the soles of his feet that he had learned to sense movement taking place around him. Even though, by the time he and my mother were married, his jungle fighting days were well behind him, he still couldn’t abide anything covering up his feet while he slept.

When they were first married, my father pointedly warned my mother to always awaken him first before getting out of bed during the night to go to the bathroom or get a glass of water. My father knew that his “hyper-vigilance” and super-sensitivity to human movement that he experienced while in a sleeping state could have disastrous results for my mother should he fail to become completely conscious before he reacted physically.

But, of course, there came one particular night when my father was sleeping so soundly that my mother felt it best not to wake him and slipped out of bed to go to the bathroom.

She was able to make to the bathroom without disturbing him but, on the way back, she accidentally brushed against the soles of his bare feet sticking out from under the covers at the foot of the bed.

My mother described how, in an instant, my father leapt up, put her in a headlock and had already begun pushing her head to one side in a movement designed to break her neck when he became fully conscious of what he was doing and was able to stop himself just in time to avert disaster.

Afterwards, according to my mother, trembling and almost in tears, he admonished her for not having followed his instructions. The deadly -- very nearly lethal -- speed he exhibited during this incident so shocked my mother that she never again attempted to sneak out of bed in the middle of the night without waking my father first.

My First Memories, Letterman Hospital

For most of the first two years of my life, the wards of Letterman Hospital were my playground.

One of my very earliest memories is of sitting on the floor underneath my father’s hospital bed playing with a Christmas stocking given to me by one of the WAC nurses of the type commonly sold by dime-stores in the 1950s that were filled with hard candies and small toys.

I remember thinking that, from my vantage point on the floor --underneath the neat row of beds all placed in a perfect line -- it looked like a tunnel to me.

Since my father passed away in February of 1955, the event from which this memory stems would have to have taken place during the Christmas season of 1954 when I was only a year and 10 months old.

During that same time period, most of the wounded soldiers from the Korean War were cycling through Letterman Hospital in the Presidio in San Francisco. As such a small child, I could not have been consciously aware of this fact, of course.

However, of necessity, very young children are quite adept at reading body language as well as being extremely sensitive to changes in the tonal qualities of adult voices.

This nearly equates to a type of “antennae” through which children seem to be able to sense the emotional states of the adults around them.

So, while I may not have been old enough to grasp the concepts involved in the war, I have to believe that my childish brain was keenly aware of the pain, shock and suffering that the soldiers and their families were experiencing all around me.

My mother once commented that many of the returning soldiers sharing wards with my father were exceptionally nervous and high-strung and would dive under their beds during firework displays, when a car backfired or during cannon fire out on the nearby parade grounds.

So, one could say that I have been acutely aware of the symptoms of combat-related P.T.S.D. (or “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”) almost from birth. This could be the reason that so many Viet Nam Vets thusly afflicted have been drawn to me -- and me to them -- over the course of my life.

At the age of 18, I married a Viet Nam Vet roughly twice my age who had pulled three tours of duty in Viet Nam in the 1960s (one in the Army and two as the employee of a private satellite-communications corporation).

My first husband suffered greatly from P.T.S.D. but, almost nothing was known about it at that time, so, methods of identifying and treating it were only in their infancy.

The syndrome manifested itself in him through the use of alcohol.(I say “use” rather than “abuse” because it would only require one serving of hard alcohol to turn this normally placid, intelligent and creative man into a raving lunatic who bore a frightening similarity to “Mr. Hyde”.)

This talented writer -- befriended by the likes of John Steinbeck -- and songwriter, whose love song to me later topped the country music charts, was also the same man whose mother felt compelled to shield me by standing between us during one of his “rages” when he drew his pistol and threatened to shoot me.

When I began living with my present husband (of over 20 years of marriage), he, too, was using liquor to self-medicate. My husband was a helicopter door-gunner and crew chief in the First Cavalry in the late 1960s whose tour of duty in Viet Nam began in the months following the infamous “Tet Offensive”.

We fell asleep on a palette of blankets on the living room floor on the first night we spent together. During the night, I woke up, turned the TV on and set the volume down to the lowest possible setting so as not to disturb him. The only show on at that hour happened to be an old war movie.

In deep slumber, my husband-to-be seemed to hear the faint sounds of the battle scene and he began to toss and turn, moaning slightly. Then, I watched as he broke out in a sweat which, in a matter of seconds, completely soaked the blankets.

I got up, turned off the TV and, before my eyes, his sweating and thrashing about slowed, then ceased altogether and he returned to a state of deep sleep.

It was then that I knew without a doubt that he suffered from stress induced by his combat experiences and that he still suffered with it more than 20 years after Viet Nam.

During the first year of our co-habitation, I experienced several of his P.T.S.D “rages”. I had been unable to convince him to accompany me to speak with a counselor at the now defunct Viet Nam Veterans’ organization “The Flower of the Dragon” in Cotati, California, after several nasty episodes, so, I went, alone.

I described my husband’s behavior to a counselor there -- himself a VietVet (as were all of the counselors in that organization) -- and he told me, using no uncertain terms, he believed that my husband was suffering from acute combat-related P.T.S.D.

“It’s a difficult thing,” he said, “Most of the guys who went over there [to Viet Nam] don’t think that they have it [P.T.S.D.] -- they think they’re just crazy… And there’s no way you can make them come in for counseling. They have to want to do it and they won’t because they don’t believe that their erratic behavior is directly attributable to P.T.S.D. The truth is that we all suffer from it to some degree…”

He handed me a brochure that described the symptoms of Combat-Related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder by relating the experiences of a fictitious, “compilation” Viet Nam Vet and said, “See if you can get him to read this. If you can get him to at least read it, he’ll find out that all the things he’s experiencing are common symptoms of P.T.S.D. and it might make him think about getting some help. Otherwise, there’s not a whole lot you can do.”

I gave the brochure to my husband who promptly tossed it aside and never looked at it again… I tried putting it on the refrigerator door, in the bathroom, on his dresser -- everywhere I could think of where he might idly pick it up and read it before he became consciously aware of what he was doing -- but none of them worked.

Years went by. At times, he was fine. Although, at other times, I might be forced to run and hide in the shrubbery for a few hours until the “rage” passed. During that span of time, however, I was successful in convincing him to give up hard alcohol and this helped forestall most of the very intense rages that plagued him (and, thereby, me).

For me, the final straw came the day that I lost the key to my car during an outing with a girlfriend to the county fair. I didn’t have a spare, so, I called my husband at the shop where he was an auto mechanic and asked him to come down to the fairgrounds, jimmy my car door open and hot-wire it during his lunch hour.

By the time he arrived, he was agitated and completely out of control. Screaming, swearing at me and throwing tools around in such a violent display of temper that an elderly woman who lived across the street came running out of her house with a telephone in her hand shouting that she’d already called the police, they were on their way and my husband should leave the area immediately if he didn’t want to be arrested.

He took her advice and left the scene on foot.

The woman allowed me to use her phone to call another friend to come and get my girlfriend and me and take us back to my house where my friend’s car was parked. This same friend also offered to let me move into her spare bedroom. I took her up on her offer that same day.

A couple of days later, my husband showed up at my girlfriend’s house looking for me but I refused to open the door. I shouted through the locked front door that I would not be going home with him until he could prove to me that he had actively sought -- and was receiving -- counseling for his rages.

He returned a week or so later, this time, with an appointment slip for a counseling session at a nearby veteran’s organization -- stating that I could come with him or that he would go alone but that he was convinced that he did have a problem that required professional help. He added that he would do anything that I required of him if I would just come back home.

I moved back about a week after that and we went to joint counseling sessions for many months. The counselor was able to convince my husband to try a several-week, in-patient program that was just starting for Viet Nam Era Vets with P.T.S.D. at a large veterans’ hospital in the San Francisco Bay Area and, to my amazement, my husband signed-on.

After that extended, intense program, my husband claimed to have more “tools” in his arsenal with which to deal with situations that had made him angry in the past and, with several adjustments in dosage and type, he began taking medications regularly which lowered his blood pressure and helped him to sleep at night.

It was after returning from one of the several in-patient programs he attended for Viet Nam Vets with P.T.S.D. over the following few years that he showed me a brochure he’d been given about the subject.

“When I read this, it blew my mind,” he said, “This guy went through the same things that I did after coming back from Viet Nam.”

I looked at the brochure and laughed… it was the same one that, he’d refused to read years earlier.

After a long, drawn-out battle with the VA which, at first, estimated his disability at ten percent, then, sixty percent, my husband’s disability due to combat-related P.T.S.D. was finally rated at one-hundred percent. It took another eight years to convince the Social Security Administration of this fact so that he could draw a Social Security Disability monthly award as well…

He now receives an allotment that is sufficient to pay the rent and utilities and buy the groceries. Most of my time is taken up caring for him as he still has a tremendous amount of difficulty in filling out paperwork, paying bills on time, getting to and from doctor appointments and communicating with landlords, accountants and others in authority. I also now perform similar tasks for my 92 year-old mother.

I am unable to work at a full-time job outside the home because of the unpredictable nature of these commitments and, so, I have become, in essence, a “personal assistant” in the employ of my husband and my mother. “Employ” is probably an inaccurate term, though, since I really don’t receive wages from either of them. In the last few years, however, I have -- mostly through the use of the Internet -- enjoyed some moderate success as a freelance writer and this earns me a few dollars here and there…

I recently received most of my father’s campaign medals due to a request that I filed with the National Archives and I was also able to produce sufficient documentation to have my father’s name listed on the official “Merrill’s Marauders” website on its “Pass in Review” page for deceased comrades-in-arms.

You might ask why I felt the need to do this and I would offer that, without his or her deceased soldier-parent’s medals, an “Army brat” might risk feeling like just another “brat”. . .

"30"

Northern California, I’d Recognize You Anywhere…

While having my morning coffee, I idly turned on the TV just for something to watch. One of the satellite movie channels was on (forgive me, conglomerate media corporations, I really can’t tell one of your channels from another. . .) and a movie was just beginning that I’d never heard of (although, this is not, by any means, an unusual occurrence -- I’ve never heard of most of them. . .) called “A Walk in the Clouds” with, among others, Keanu Reeves and Anthony Quinn.

From what I was able to discern after watching the entire film and reading the credits afterwards, “Clouds” was loosely based upon a book written by a couple of Italian (more likely “Italian-American”, I feel) gentlemen and is the story of an aristocratic, originally-Italian/ subsequently Italian-American (although, that’s a guess on my part because I've never read the book) wine-making family.

Apparently, in its infinite wisdom, the studio deemed the movie better served by engineering the plot to center around an originally-Spanish/subsequently-Mexican family, instead of how it was written. (I bet that little idea was so not well-received by the book’s authors…)

I’m also betting that the studio’s decision to change the nationality of the family had a heckuva lot more to do with budget concerns than anything else because once they'd paid for the acting services of Keanu Reeves and Anthony Quinn (which couldn’t have come cheap), they probably didn’t have enough money left to film it in far-off Italy...

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make really has nothing to do with this specific film except for the fact that, when I began watching it, I had no idea what it was about nor where it was filmed; however, when the 3-second opening panoramic view of the family winery was revealed -- which, remember, was supposed to be in Mexico or, if one read the book (which I didn’t), Italy -- it took me all of one-half second to blurt out loud to nobody in particular (unfortunately, I do that a lot. . .) “looks like Napa”.

Sometime around middle of the film, my husband (who had been outside doing yard work) took a break from his chores, came in and sat down on the couch for a couple of minutes. I told him that I’d gotten interested in this movie without really meaning to and gave him about a five or so second rundown of the plot.

Meanwhile, a shot of one of the lead characters sitting at an outdoor table in a grove of trees prompted me to blurt out loud once more (this time, at least, to someone in particular. . . Wow, the medication seems to really be working for me. . .), “See? Now, those are redwood trees! I’m sure of it! So, I was right; this had to be filmed in either Napa or Sonoma County!”

Hubby was so impressed by my acutely perceptive faculties that he immediately returned to his yard work and I watched the rest of the film by myself so that I could read through the credits at the end to discover where it was filmed.

Sure enough, when the location acknowledgements rolled around, I was validated when the film-makers acknowledged first “Napa County and the town and people of St. Helena” and, next, “Sonoma County”. (I’m assuming that since Napa County was first on the list, most of the film was shot there.)

All of this brings me unerringly (if not briefly) to the point I wanted to make in the first place which is how quickly I was able to identify Northern California's landscape.

A savvy music-buff can probably "Name That Tune" in three notes and I can “Name This Place” (if the “place” is Northern California) in approximately 0.5 seconds. . .

In other words (at the speed of standard cinemagraphic film with a soundtrack of 32 frames per second) I can “Name This Place” in an astounding 16 frames!

Those of us who were born and raised here are used to seeing our little corner of the planet on the big screen. . .

Hollywood directors use our locale a lot in films -- partly because of our comparative proximity to Tinseltown but mostly because (and I say this with all objectivity) we happen to live in one of the most beautiful places on the entire face of the planet.

That’s not just my opinion, mind you. . . Although, I haven’t exactly been a stay-at-home my whole life, either; I’ve seen most of the “Upper 48”, roughly three-quarters of the states of Mexico and three different Hawaiian Islands. So, while I can’t vouch for how the northern San Francisco Bay Area stacks up against the Yangtze River Valley or the Swiss Alps, I'm pretty sure it could hold its own. . .

Plus, there's got to be some reason why such a large number of “transplants” live here instead of wherever it was they came from. . .

Statistics will bear me out because, according to copious travel-industry studies over the years, San Francisco and/or the Golden Gate Bridge is the number-one destination for travelers from just about every country in the world.

In reality, though, there’s not just one thing that people like about Northern California. We have just about every type of terrain, mini-climate and activity that anyone could want and they’re all less than a day’s journey away. In point of fact, you can reach the beach, snow-ski resort, city or rural countryside in an hour or two's drive.

But, as our mothers’ used to say, it’s not just physical beauty that counts. . .

When one is talking about the beauty of a place, there are other factors that have to be considered, such as the caliber of its people, the levels of its available activities, the quality of its air and water, the responsiveness of its local services and crime statistics.

Some people qualify a place according to the number of fine restaurants that can be found there while, for others, that criteria might include its proximity to major sports or entertainment venues -- all of which can be found here. . .

There are also people who "can't live too far from the ocean", "the mountains", "the desert", "the forest" -- you fill in the blank -- and just about the only ecosystem you won’t find here is a tropical rain-forest. We’re a tad too far north for that; however, to be fair, we do have temperate zone rain-forests in Northern California.

It is the North Bay’s very flexibility and variety that Hollywood types find so attractive about it, so, it’s no wonder that a practiced eye can pick out local color in just about 7 out of every 10 movies in a random sampling. . .

Observe films and TV shows carefully and I think you'll find that, if the lead characters aren’t having a cup of coffee at a diner on Fisherman’s Wharf, they’re chasing some bad guy down Lombard Street, escaping from Alcatraz prison, sitting under a redwood tree or genteelly sipping a vintage Napa or Sonoma County wine. . .

As far as backdrops go, our vineyards look like France. . . or Italy. . . parts of our coastline bear an amazing resemblance to beaches in Massachusetts, Virginia and even England and (in the winter when we get the most rainfall) our hills could easily be mistaken for those in Ireland.

Our dense redwood forests are where Ewoks dwell and, it was in our swimming pools that girls with perfect teeth competed in a famous beauty pageant.

1950s-era teenagers have been known to tool up and down our streets listening to Wolfman Jack and at least one of them became a time traveler while attending one of our high school's reunions.

Orphaned young girls with sunshiny dispositions have been known to play croquet on the front lawns of our Victorian mansions while several members of one local, aristocratic family stabbed each other in the back every week on TV (and that’s not to mention the settings of all those car commercials -- and yes, even pornos. . .).

There is something unique about the lay of our Northern California land, its vegetation and its geology that allow its native sons and daughters (and even some of its transplants and frequent visitors) to be able to pick it out in crowd -- even if the "crowd" is two-dimensional celluloid.

To the rest of the world, Northern California is “The Birds”, “The Maltese Falcon”, "Dynasty" -- even “Charmed” -- and a multitude of other pseudo-realities but, to us, it’s really just “home”. . .

“30”

WHO PUT THE “CHRIST!” IN THE CHRISTMAS COOKIES?

Well… I’ve been baking Christmas cookies again this year. . . Tons and tons and TONS of friggin’ Christmas cookies. . . A hundred and sixty-five dollars’ worth of just the Christmas-cookie ingredients Christmas cookies and a solid two weeks searching for good-sounding recipes and another solid week and a half of chopping nuts, dried fruits, chocolate chips, etc. Christmas cookies (and those “etceteras” are tricky to chop, believe me). . .

This year, I’ve baked fruitcake cookies, apple cookies, eggnog cookies, German chocolate cake cookies and one cookie that was more like a cheesecake -- baked in one big piece and then cut up into “bars” -- that I came up with myself because I couldn’t find the recipes that I used last year that were so good Christmas cookies.

No pun intended (well. . . maybe. . .) but, I’m burnt out on baking Christmas cookies and I’ve still got a good three or four more people (at least) left to bake for on my list of “Christmas Cookie Recipients”.

I would’ve had almost all of them done already if it weren’t for the fact that my husband gets up in the middle of the night and “sleepeats” about every hour or so. He found my stash of baked Christmas cookies and ate half of them before first light the next morning. Pretty good for a guy in his sleep, isn’t it? If he could get as much stuff done during daylight hours, I’d have a greenhouse, a garage and a guestroom by now. . .

But, even so, I’m not as burned out on baking Christmas cookies as I was this time last year. Last year I packed the Christmas cookies in cartons. This year, they fit into paper plates covered with SaranWrap®. (I’m not stupid, really -- just a little “slow”. . .)

This year (except for the cheesycaky ones), I also tried to pick out recipes for cookies that sounded like they’d be delicious but that I wouldn’t care for too much. (I told you, I’m not really stupid.) Evidently, however, it appears that ALL cookies hold some modicum of appeal as far as “The Nocturnal Sleepeater” is concerned. . .

In my own defense, though, last year we were living in a spacious country house with a HUGE kitchen and PLENTY of counter space upon which to rest the cookies while they awaited distribution. This year, we’re living in a cramped, country single-wide with NO space, period. Which means that I had to improvise a stack of bakery racks on top of the dryer -- crude -- but somewhat effective. . .

That is until “The Sleepeater” ran amuck. It’s more like “staggered amuck”, really. He doesn’t even “run” in full consciousness, much less in the middle of the night and, when he does run, he looks like a Tyrannosaurus Rex to me; holding up its shriveled forepaws at chest height. It’s difficult to explain, so I think I’ll stop trying -- for the present, anyhow. . .

Anyway, you see, he has to pass right in front of the dryer on his way to “The Sleepeater’s” favorite after-hours hang-out: The kitchen. So, I suppose a goodly portion of the Christmas cookies were doomed from the beginning. . . **sigh**

So, I guess I’ll be getting back to my Christmas-cookiely duties in the kitchen, now. The T-Rex will be home soon and the Christmas cookies will have to be cooled before he commences his midnight sortees. . .

Although, you know, I’m beginning to get the sneaking suspicion that, somehow, I accidentally stepped through a “portal” that transported me into some alternate universe’s holiday remake of “Ground Hog Day” -- a nightmarish dimension where dinosaur-like “Sleepeaters” lumber through people's mobile homes nocturnally preying upon fresh, unwary, innocent Christmas cookies. . .

Yeah. . . Welcome to MY world... It's not for the faint of heart.


“30”

The "Beer Police"

A friend of mine recently sent me a .wmv that was supposed to be amusing that shows two office types that are stranded when their escalator stalls on them...

It's supposed to be funny because it's a ridiculous precept -- but, I dunno just how ridiculous it really might be...

One time, on my lunch hour, I picked up a sandwich and a beer at a major grocery chain store (whom we'll allow to languish in anonymity... for the moment...) on Marlow Road in a neighboring town and was waiting in line to pay for them when the power went out.

For some reason, the generators didn't kick in and, what was worse, all of the doors locked down and nobody could get in or out... :^s

After standing there for about 35 minutes -- in the dark -- in the stationary "10 items or less" line, I said to myself:

"Screw this, I'm hungry and this might take my whole friggin' lunch hour -- IN ADDITION to the fact that, in essence, Safeway is holding me prisoner in their Marlow Road store against my will..."

(Which I figured was a pretty "uncommon circumstance" and, as such, might just call for me to take "extraordinary measures"...)

So, I ate the sandwich standing there in the line -- which made me very thirsty, so, I popped the beer open using an attachment on my Swiss Army knife and drank it standing there in the line, as well.

Even before that, I'd tried (unsuccessfully) to convince the checker that one could -- by means of addition and then multiplication and then addition again -- add up the prices of one's items, add the (I think it was 7% at the time) sales tax by multiplying the total by .07 and, if one had exact change and didn't care whether or not s/he got a receipt, the lines might thereby be considerably lessened.

Also, it might have an added benefit for, those who could pay for their purchases thusly, might then go off in search of somewhat more comfortable places to sit while they waited for the power to be restored.

I even suggested that all of the items could be entered into their proper registers after the power came back on and the receipts then thrown away if they just needed a paper trail of the items for inventory or whatever...

But none of them would go for it. :^(

After, all-told, about 47 minutes, the power came back on and -- when I set the sandwich wrapper and the empty beer bottle down on the counter, the checker frowned at the bottle, hefted it, shook it a little, held it up to the light and gasped, "Well, THAT'S weird -- it's empty!"

I said (quite matter-of-factly), "No, it's not weird... I drank it right after I ate my sandwich -- about 15 minutes ago..."

She looked at me like I'd said I'd just tried to blow-up the Golden Gate Bridge with C4 explosives and shrieked, "YOU CAN'T DRINK BEER INSIDE THE STORE!! IT'S ILLEGAL!" 8^0

I looked at her with sarcasm positively DRIPPING onto the floor from a face that showed only shocked amazement and said in an "awestruck" loud whisper:

"Wow... I'm imPRESSed... Not ONLY are you a CHECKER here at the Safeway on Marlow Road, you're also a bona fide member of the BEER POLICE! Now, THAT'S truly a-MAZ-ing! How DO you find all the energy?"

A look clouded her face like she smelled something bad and she took my money, put the empty bottle and the wrapper in a grocery bag and sent me off on my way...

“REALISTIC” DRAMAS?

There are thousands of movies, made-for-TV movies and dramatic series that claim to portray events in people’s (or fictional characters based upon real people) lives with a modicum of “realism”.

Because of the nature of the dramatic events in people’s lives, a large portion of these portrayals include at least one scene that takes place in a courtroom, jail or prison and, while the rest of the events in these dramas may be faithfully represented, I find it disgusting and frustrating that -- as they relate to the accused, prisoners and others held in custody -- 99% of these instances are anything but “realistic”.

You’ve seen it a thousand times:

The accused is found “guilty”, everyone in the courtroom gasps in disbelief, the judge pronounces a sentence of imprisonment (or even the death penalty), and the defendant turns around to be embraced his or her weeping and distraught wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, parents or children before the bailiff remands he or she into custody.

What is wrong with this picture?

I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it: With the distinct exception of his/her attorney and the judge when specifically requested to do so, at no time, under no circumstances are defendants allowed to communicate with (much less touch or embrace) anyone in any courtroom under any jurisdiction in this country.

Am I “splitting hairs”? I don’t think so. . .

I firmly believe that the prevalence of this oft-repeated chunk of utter fantasy being played-out hundreds of times each day over the airwaves in otherwise “realistic dramas” contributes significantly to the distorted, complacent and patently false opinions held by most people regarding the present state of the judicial and penal systems of America.

Along with an erroneous belief that the judicial system somehow treats perpetrators more “justly” than it does victims -- an assertion completely belied by facts -- the mythological scene of a sentenced prisoner being comforted by family and friends isn’t the only misrepresentation of the treatment of those in custody that one finds in “realistic” dramas. . .

Another is the “you’re free to go” fallacy. . .

The Scene:

The last-minute “courtroom confession” of the genuinely guilty party or the testimony of an impeachable “surprise” witness has proved the innocence of the defendant. The judge then proclaims, “All charges against the Defendant are dismissed. You are free to go” and the former defendant is swept from the courtroom by a wave of jubilant celebrants.

Nothing could be further from the truth. . .

The simple fact is that it doesn’t matter how falsely a person has been accused of a crime (or crimes) or how obvious it is that they are innocent. In court proceedings, when a judge issues an order to release a former defendant, that person will be escorted from the courtroom by a bailiff, sheriff’s deputy or other law enforcement officer and immediately returned to the detention facility they came from. During this removal, the former-defendant will not be allowed to communicate with anyone (with the possible exception of his or her attorney) and forced to wait for a minimum of several hours to a maximum of several days (in some cases, weeks) before being allowed to walk free.

This is standard procedure in every state in the Union.

I don’t point out these discrepancies to nit-pick. I don’t even point them out because of some inner need on my part to advocate historic and factual accuracy. I point them out because, in particular, these two fallacies serve to whitewash in the minds of the public the images of governmental systems which have lost all traces of the notions of human dignity, humaneness, empathy and justice.

Somewhere, in today’s “Patriot Act” climate, the fundamental precepts of personal liberty upon which the judicial and penal systems in this country were originally based have been buried and forgotten but, even worse in my opinion, is the climate which allows these principles to go down without so much as a whimper or gasp from our collective societal sense of what is right and proper treatment toward those who stand accused -- from which 100% of those who may be found to be falsely accused are taken.

Subtle and yet pervasive in the minds of the public is the axiom “If they weren’t guilty, they wouldn’t have been arrested”. The proliferation of “cop shows” and crime dramas seems to have cemented this unsound rule of thumb. Yet, there are sub-sections of the population that know all too well how fallible this axiom is.

These groups are not confined within racial lines but, they can be found roughly divided into socio-economic ones.

In the Declaration of Independence, the future Framers of the Constitution set forth “the pursuit of happiness” as one of the primary rights that should be guaranteed to the citizens of the newly formed revolutionary country, the United States of America. This is another guarantee which has fallen to the wayside -- knocked down and shoved into a limbo-like pit by misguided effort to guarantee our “safety” -- a guarantee which, realistically, can never be made.

A staggering percentage of Americans have indicated they are in favor of losing some of their personal freedoms and privacies in order to secure their physical safety, never realizing that no such security exists and, further, that any person or agency which claims to be able to make such a guarantee is lying through its teeth. What is worse is that any such person or agency making such a claim knows that it is lying through its teeth because safety beyond all doubt or risk can never be attained.

The populace could give up every, single one of its Constitutional rights and it would still not stall or foil an intelligent, suicidal terrorist bent upon destruction. Unfortunately, given Man’s penchant for crazed violence, there will always be at least one intelligent, suicidal terrorist bent upon destruction.

Taking out of the equation the whimsical, false guarantees we as a nation have been given -- such as the promise of every American’s complete safety -- we are forced to compromise with the only attainable, realistic, securable guarantees which have been afforded to us: Those of Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

To our misfortune, however, when we turn our collective gaze back to these hallowed precepts, we find them in a shambles -- disheveled and soiled with huge, integral pieces missing -- as if edited by a horror movie slasher. What has happened is the “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” sleight of hand whereby the now-mythological “rosy” state of the Union cunningly projected in the media by those who would wish to deceive us has served merely as a distraction meant to divert us from any accounting of our rapidly vanishing means to counteract their detriments.

Little by little, piece by piece we have been stripped of our lawful right to assemble, our ability to raise our voices in protest and the power of our votes that might oust these perpetrators and replace them with representatives more sympathetic to the plight of the common man.

The proof of what I say is, and has been, all around you. . .

Look at what happened to the protesters against this newest war upon Iraq: They were beaten, shot at, cuffed and carted off to be booked into jail. Then look at what happened to our system of voting when the brother of one of the presidential candidates “fixed” an election with the power of his governorship. Now, turn to the present when the President and his other executive branch lackeys can remove and detain anyone they care to for whatever amount of time they desire.

If they fear that Constitutional guarantees against torture and false imprisonment might “interfere” with their plans, they simply export their victims to “combat zones” throughout the world where these rights can be questioned and their invocations bogged down in endless red tape -- all the while leaving their victims without benefit of counsel, representation, habeas corpus or even the necessity of conferring formal charges against them.

Recently, our esteemed President has even voiced his total and complete disregard for the rules of the Geneva Convention -- a minimalist document that even Nazi Germany (while admittedly violating it) conceded was right and proper. . .

My question to Americans is: Are you scared yet? Has the situation yet become frightening enough for you? Have you even come close to pushing the panic button over your rapidly disappearing rights?

If not, I ask: Why not?

How much more do you have to lose before you wake up to the daily, ordinary, hidden war being waged upon you and your most sacred documents and rights?

By the time the concentration camps in Germany were in full operation, the German people had lost all means by which to dismantle them and declare them illegal. . . Will it take having that same thing happen here before you open your eyes?

I hope not. I pray not but, day after day, time after time, the mythological “empathy” for the rights of the accused that was one of the greatest differences between our mode of government and any that came before it has dried up and blown away while a whimsical, theatrical sham -- a puppet theater of patent lies -- is dangled in front of your eyes and passed off as truth.

It continues its success because, if you are not Black, Hispanic, Native American, of Middle-Eastern decent, a recreational drug user, a Socialist, Radical, Leftist or extremely poor, you won’t even know how much of what you’re being fed -- every day, every hour, every minute -- is the fantasy of “the man behind the curtain” and nothing more. . .

The recent elections of Democratic party members to a majority in the House and Senate was a good start but, now, these same representatives must work quickly to restore all that has been lost and the rest of us cannot allow lethargy to stay them from the work yet to be done.

Our job is to question, illuminate, point out, cry out, write, speak, vote and keep it up for as long as it takes to set things aright. . .

On Horticulture ... and Whitman...

I wonder if anyone else who claims the title of “horticulturalist” (or “plant lover”) can trace, as I can, the roots of that preoccupation back to just one plant that stirred their, up until then, latent love of nature.

I know I can . . .

For me, it all goes back to one, grand, magnificent specimen: the Chinese wisteria on Sebastopol Road in Santa Rosa, California. Sadly, it is now gone -- the victim of “development” (which has always seemed more appropriately called “destruction”, to me...) at a site that I was to learn had been an historic plant nursery with ties to Luther Burbank, the so-called “Plant Wizard of the West”.

I believe that one cannot be an admirer of just one facet of nature and not be made more aware of the other pieces of nature’s puzzle that fit, oh so nicely, into place once one has discovered how all of these integral eco-systems feed into one another.

When one has grasped a true appreciation for the plants, one begins to understand how even the products of “disastrous” conditions become fodder for life in other quarters.

Take for example a mighty limb of some stately tree that has fallen victim to storm or disease. At first glance, the broken branch hangs discordantly and seemingly out of symmetry with all that surrounds it -- an unfortunate “victim” of time and circumstance; until, that is, one pursues the thought further. Then one can appreciate the grubs that invade the now useless limb as being sometimes the only food by which the local birds sustain themselves in an otherwise harsh winter. Those birds become, then, fodder for the hawks, the snakes, the mountain lions and others whose lives depend upon that food source in the same harsh environment.

This “accident of disaster” then seems not so much an unfortunate happenstance as it does an integral part of the life cycles of every living, breathing creature around it.

Carried to its logical conclusion, therefore, one can surmise that all victims become part of a much greater whole of interdependent life cycles -- each dependent upon the other to survive. Which necessarily leads one to revere the otherwise distasteful and to appreciate the “unfortunate”, rather than revile it.

This turns all that one thought one knew upon its head as, for example, one learns reverence for the carrion eaters, rather than disgust. For it is they -- the worms, vultures, ravens, wolves and others -- who, by their paws, beaks and stomachs, neaten our environment to its most pristine and welcome condition.

Therefore, we learn that all have their place in our universe -- from the lowly to the lofty -- and all deserve our respect.

Carried to its extreme, this “all things being grass” philosophy (so eloquently described by Whitman) goes far in assuaging our perceptual pain over even the most horrible incidents (the events of September 11th come to mind...).

Only then, may we realize that we puny creatures, we humans (for all that we think we are), don't know the full repercussions of such calamities for we are not privy to the full cycle of time and what it holds in store, not just for our species, but for everything -- everywhere... and that this is so because, perhaps, we were not meant to...