Travel is stressful. You are willfully pulling yourself away from the known, comfortable environs of your home and thrusting yourself into the unknown. You subject yourself to the mind-numbing intricacies of a burgeoning bureaucracy, place yourself in a mass of people who are as tired, dazed and sweaty as you are, and put you and your loved ones in imminent danger of falling to the earth, or into an ocean. Man, what fun!
Robin and I got up at 0245. What’s the 0 stand for? In the immortal words of the late Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam, “O my God it’s early!” We put the last items in our suitcases, loaded the car, dragged Jessica’s ass out of bed and drove to Indianapolis International Airport.
We arrived at around 0330. General guidance is that travelers get to the airport at least two hours before their flight, to make sure they make it through TSA. Our flight was scheduled to board at 0520. And sure enough, no one was at the Delta counter to check us in. Apparently the Delta counter doesn’t open until 4:15am. We here at Delta are not aware of TSA suggestions to travelers. In fact, Delta Union Spokesperson Squinty McSquintface said, “Come to work 2 hours prior to our first flight to help our customers, are you crazy? That’s fucking early!”
We got my TSA Known Traveler number added to my ticket so I could use the TSA Precheck program and stream-line my access to the TSA security screen. Having slain the check-in baby bureaucratic check-in dragon, we sallied forth to slay the TSA Screening beast of many heads.
Armed with my paper ticket, I waved it at the bored TSA agent who said, “You’re good, boss,’ and waved me through. I dragged my carry on luggage, my leather briefcase and my CPAP machine, and snaked my way through the serpentine barriers that TSA thoughtfully placed to allow travelers to obtain their steps for the day before they’ve departed. I put my things into bins and headed to the metal detectors.
Did I mention it was early? Neither Robin nor I had coffee yet. That detail reared its ugly head. In the TSA Precheck line, you don’t have to take off your belt, or your shoes. But you still have to empty your pockets. “Beep,” said the TSA Precheck Dragon. The TSA Black Knight asked, “Anything in your pockets, boss?” Apparently TSA agents are into irony, and groupthink.
I did, indeed, have items in my pockets. So back to the bin area I went to place those items in a bin. Back to the TSA Precheck Dragon, who dutifully chirped, “Beep.” The TSA Black Knight, who had just defeated me, asked, “Anything in your pockets, boss?” I guess his attention span was worthy of being an extra in 50 First Dates. Sure enough, my iPhone was in another pocket. The third time was a charm, and the TSA Precheck Dragon let me pass, after asking me my name, what my quest was, and what was my favorite color.
My original bins were all patiently waiting for me, then I had to patiently wait for my other two bins. Those came just as Robin finished coming through the regular line. Even a time-saving feature like Pre-Check can be defeated by one idiot with no coffee in him. We walked a ways toward the gates, then I had to turn around and go back to the Pre-Check area to pick up the cane I had forgotten. President Obama once famously said of Joe Biden, “Never underestimate the ability of Joe to fuck things up.” Ha! Ol’ Joe has nothing on me.
All right, let’s call it a draw, then!
The rest of the morning went without a hitch. We flew to Detroit, and had a 5-hour layover. The rest of the trip would be in First Class, so we were looking forward to that leg of the flight, which I will address in the next blog.
Ranger and I go back a looooonnnng way. He and I have been through dozens of states. I don’t want to name drop…but he’s been with the actor Tom Arnold, and Senators Lugar and Coats, and now he’s going to make his first trip to Hawai’i.
Ranger has been a way for me to stay connected first to my daughters, and now to the Devilish Duo, my grandsons Roman and Stevie. I take pictures of Ranger on the trip, often concocting scenarios that cause the recipients to smile, giggle or laugh. He’s been an effective tool for maintaining familial connections over long distances.When I first mentioned Ranger to Robin, we had our first Vortex of Death appear above her head, and I smelled a very strong scent of vanilla. If you read Day of Rest, you might recall that the scent of vanilla meant that someone was going to die. The scent is significant because I have anosmia, so I don’t have a sense of smell. Robin did not want Ranger coming along.
After some cajoling, and an intervention by Jessica, Robin relented, so Ranger can come along. The scent of vanilla receded, and our preparations continued. It occurred to me to me that I have a guaranteed solution to the troubles in the Middle East. We insert Robin into Gaza, and let the Vortex of Death take care of everything. Plus there will be a very nice scent of vanilla everywhere.
So we are set. All that separates us from a tropical paradise is a few hours of bureaucracy and the joys of public travel. All old hat for me. I just enter into a mindset of, “It’s all good.” Plus, I’ll have Ranger. I hope snow leopards can’t sunburn.
A few months ago, Robin asked me where I would like to go for my 60th birthday, which is at the end of this month. She thought I would choose to go back to Wales. I was sorely tempted. My sense of Hiraeth is very strong. But…no.
The Lonely Tree on Llyn Padarn, at the base of Yr Wyddfa.
A couple of years ago, Robin traveled with her mother and two sisters to Hawai’i to visit their family there. While she was gone, she sent back pictures of the beauty there, with numerous “wish you were here” comments. So, I decided rather than the moderate, enchanting land of sheep, poetry, pubs, mountains and faeries, I would travel with her to the land of Aloha.
As of the date of this posting, we are nine days and a wake up from our flight to Honolulu. We have a short flight to Detroit, then the long leg to Hawai’i will be in First Class. It’s the first time for either of us to enjoy a first class flight. We’ll do first class on the way back to Minneapolis, then be in coach for the final leg.
Robin found us a condo in Waikiki, just a block from the famous beach. We’re also about a block from a Catholic Church, so we can remain in a state of grace during the trip. Robin seems to think I’ll be sinning during our vacation. I’ll go with my gut and trust her instincts on this.
Our plans are to make a short flight to the Big Island to visit Volcano National Park. We’ll take a day to visit Pearl Harbor, then we’ll travel to the North Shore to spend a day at the Polynesian Cultural Center. Other than that, we’ll be visiting her family when possible, go the beach, do some shopping, get some authentic Hawaiian shaved ice. We’ll drive around and visit other beaches and beautiful places. A good time will be had by all.
Robin will be 60 in a couple of years. I think she has her sights set on a visit to Germany. Her maiden name is Reuter. She studied the German language in high school, and has started refreshing her skills via Duolingo. I just passed the 2-year milestone in Welsh.
In Who Do You Follow?, I showed you a little of the issues with Islam, especially in the West. Muslims believe that the Quran is the literal word of Allah, and that the later verses abrogate, or supersede the earlier verses. The later verses are more militant, with respect to infidels, or non-believers.
In this blog, I will describe shariah law, and its incompatibilities with the West in general, and specifically our constitutional republic. So we’ll take a look at what shariah law is, the issues with shariah in the West, and finally, why shariah is incompatible with our form of government.
According to the National Center for Constitutional Studies(, there are, broadly, two types of law: Ruler’s Law and People’s Law. The descriptions of each should be self-explanatory. One of the main differences between the two is in the use of force to impose the law.
Under Ruler’s Law, kings or dictators can justify the of force to impose the law, and can have often used religion as justification for doing so. Under People’s Law, starting in Ancient Israel, accepting Jehovah created a powerful, individual call to right actions, without the use of force.
Jehovah created Man with Free Will, including the will to choose to move away from what He wants for us. Thus, our laws impose consequences for the choices selected by the people. Our Founders created our system of government based on natural law, and the Judeo-Christian God. One can disagree with this form of government, or have issues with this form of government, but this is a fact about the nature of our form of governance. It has served to make us the pre-eminent political and cultural force in the world.
Let us contrast this with the doctrine of shariah within Islam. Shariah Law covers the legal, political and military issues faced by Islam. It is a list of compulsory laws that has the use of force at its core, and as you read earlier, is based on the literal word of Allah.
Shariah is an Arabic word meaning “straight path”, or an endless supply of water. (Quran 45:18) “Now We have set you O Prophet on the clear Way of faith. So follow it, and do not follow the desires of those who do not know the truth.” It is used to describe the rules of a lifestyle ordained by Allah. Shariah is held by mainstream Islamic authorities. At issue within Islam is the level, and nature, of enforcement of these laws.
In the West, we typically separate religion from government, and in most cases codify religious tolerance into our laws. Shariahlaw is the perfect expression of the divine will of Allah, and is considered a complete way of life that. governs the social, political, cultural, military and religious aspects of a Muslim’s life, from the time they’re born until the day they die.
Historically, shariah law has been imposed through jihad, often referred to as ‘holy war‘. At other times shariah is put forth through more stealthy practices called ‘dawa‘ (call to Islam). Regardless of how shariah is implemented, the NCCS points out that it rejects the “fundamental premises of American society and values:” 1. the bedrock proposition that the governed have a right to make law for themselves; 2. the democratic republic governed by the Constitution; 3. freedom of conscience; individual liberty 4. freedom of expression (including the liberty to analyze and criticize shariah); 5. economic liberty (including private property); 6. equal treatment under the law (including that of men and women, and of Muslims and non-Muslims); 7. freedom from cruel and unusual punishments; an unequivocal condemnation of terrorism (i.e., one that is based on a common sense meaning of the term and does not rationalize barbarity as legitimate “resistance”); and 8. an abiding commitment to deflate and resolve political controversies by the ordinary mechanisms of our democratic republic, not wanton violence. The subversion campaign known as “civilization jihad” must not be confused with, or tolerated as, a constitutionally protected form of religious practice. Its ambitions transcend what American law recognizes as the sacrosanct realm of private conscience and belief. It seeks to supplant our Constitution with its own totalitarian framework.(NCCS)
In Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, the Constitution states that it “shall be the supreme law of the land.” In Islam, the Quran is the supreme law over everything. That alone makes our way of life incompatible with shariah, by either direct jihad or dawa. Under the Quran, one must live as a Muslim, live in dhimmitude (a state of being a second-class citizen), or die. Our First Amendment states, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
It is a certainty that there are Muslims in the United States who fully support our way of life and the freedoms it provides. We should support the rights of anyone to live and practice their faith freely. We cannot support those who seek to impose totalitarian practices, especially those using force or intimidation.
In my last post, Man of the West, I laid the groundwork for this post. I ask a simple question. Who do you follow? Today you’ll find out who I follow, and a bit about why. I will also introduce you to what I believe to be an antithetical force to who I follow, and I’ll explain why it’s antithetical.
In Man of the West, I professed my faith as Roman Catholicism. That means I am a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ. I believe Jesus Christ to be the Son of God. Christianity is based, in part on Judaism. We share the Old Testament in the Bible with the Jewish faith. The Jews believe there will be a Messiah. Christians believe that the Messiah is Jesus Christ.
In the Old Testament, both Christians and Jews know of the Ten Commandments. These commandments were given directly to Moses by God, while the Hebrews were escaping bondage in Egypt. They are part of a Covenant between God and the Hebrews, and provide a list of behaviors. They are as follows: 1. I am the LORD your God; you shall not have strange gods before me. 2. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain. 3. Remember to keep holy the LORD’s Day. 4. Honor your father and mother. 5. You shall not kill. 6. You shall not commit adultery. 7. You shall not steal. 8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 9. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. 10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods. (via Catechism of the Catholic Church)
A cursory look at these commandments would indicate that a person who lives by them will be leading a good life. It would also indicate that they are concerning a person’s own behavior, and none of the commandments intrude on others.
Christians go even further. In Matthew 22: 35-40, Jesus gives us the two greatest commandments. And one of them, a doctor of the Law, putting him to the test, asked him, “Master, which is the great commandment in the Law?” Jesus said to him, “‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind.’ This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like it, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
Again we note that a person who follows these two commandments will lead a good life, and that these two commandments do not impose on others. The Ten Commandments and the Two Great Commandments are based on Love. Love for God, and love for others.
Now, we are human beings. We are fallen and broken. We don’t always live by those commandments, but when we don’t, it’s not due to the commandments themselves, or due to any instruction from the Bible. It’s due to us not doing as we’ve been instructed. This is key. The Bible does not instruct us to impose on others.
Even the instruction in Matthew 28: 19 says, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…” This passage, in the past, has been mis-interpreted to mean via the use of force. The words themselves, and the Commandments, show that the use of force is against God’s commandments.
This is who I follow. Now let’s take a look at the antithesis of that belief, specifically Islam. Please keep in mind the following analysis is based on the cursory research of an infidel, a non-believer.
Islam is a monotheistic religion that began with the prophet Muhammad‘s divine revelations. Islam is divided into three main sects: Sunni, Shia and Muhakkima. These divisions arose after the death of Muhammad.
The religious practice of Islam is centered on the Five Pillars of Islam, based upon the sect one is in. The five pillars are the Muslim Creed, called Shahada, prayer, or salah, almsgiving, or Zakat, fasting, or Sawm, during Ramadan, and a pilgrimage to Mecca, called the hajj.
In Islam, Muhammad began receiving divine messages from the Angel Gabriel when he was 40 years old. The messages ended with his death at the age of 62. These messages incorporated parts of the Torah, the Jewish Holy Book, the Psalms and the Gospels from the Christian Bible. Muslims believe the Quran, the Muslim Holy Book, are the literal words of God.
Muslims also rely on hadiths, oral and written interpretations of the words, and the actions, or sunna of Muhammad. And this is where things become problematic. Remember, these are the literal words of God to Muslims.
In the Quran 2:191 it is written, “Kill them wherever you come upon them and drive them out of the places from which they have driven you out.” (quran.com)
In the Quran 3:28 it is written, “Let not believers take disbelievers as allies rather than believers.”
In the Quran 3:85 it is written, “Whoever seeks a way other than Islam, it will never be accepted from them, and in the Hereafter they will be among the losers.”
In the Quran 5:33 it is written, “Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and spread mischief in the land is death, crucifixion, cutting off their hands and feet on opposite sides, or exile from the land. This ˹penalty˺ is a disgrace for them in this world, and they will suffer a tremendous punishment in the Hereafter.”
In the Quran 8:12 it is written, “[Remember] when your Lord inspired to the angels, “I am with you, so strengthen those who have believed. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieved, so strike [them] upon the necks and strike from them every fingertip.”
In the Quran 9:5 it is written, “Fight and slay the unbelievers wherever ye find them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war. But if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity, then open the way for them; for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.
In the Quran 9:29 it is written, “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of truth, even if they are of the people of the Book [meaning Christians and Jews], until they pay the jizya [taxes on non-Muslims] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”
In the Quran 9:123 it is written, “O you who have believed, fight against those adjacent to you of the disbelievers and let them find in you harshness. And know that Allāh is with the righteous.”
In the Quran 22:19-22 it is written, “These are two opposing groups that disagree about their Lord: as for the disbelievers, garments of Fire will be cut out for them and boiling water will be poured over their heads, melting whatever is in their bellies, along with their skin. And awaiting them are maces of iron. Whenever they try to escape from Hell—out of anguish—they will be forced back into it, ˹and will be told,˺ “Taste the torment of burning!”
In the Quran 47:4 its written, “So, when you meet (in fight Jihad in Allah’s Cause), those who disbelieve smite at their necks till when you have killed and wounded many of them, then bind a bond firmly (on them, i.e. take them as captives). Thereafter (is the time) either for generosity (i.e. free them without ransom), or ransom (according to what benefits Islam), until the war lays down its burden. Thus [you are ordered by Allah to continue in carrying out Jihad against the disbelievers till they embrace Islam (i.e. are saved from the punishment in the Hell-fire) or at least come under your protection], but if it had been Allah’s Will, He Himself could certainly have punished them (without you). But (He lets you fight), in order to test you, some with others. But those who are killed in the Way of Allah, He will never let their deeds be lost.”
To be clear, there is danger in pulling verses out of a text with out the context. But, given that the Quran is the literal word of Allah, it is hard to see how these can be taken any way but literally. Certainly, there are numerous Muslims who do take them literally.
Here’s what I see. I see my Christian faith calling me to love God, and love my neighbor. It has at its center, free will, given to us by God himself. We can use it to follow him or live in sin. What you don’t find in the Bible, certainly not in the Gospels, are any verses calling for the smiting of unbelievers.
I am not generalizing. There are many Muslims who only seek to live their lives as best they can. They do not seek to bother anyone. But they are not the ones causing trouble, not just here but around the world.
The verses from the Quran trouble me. I feel like I have been placed in the hands of people who may, or may not, literally translate what they believe to be the literal words of Allah.
In my next blog, I will continue this examination by taking a look at shariah, and its incompatibility with the U.S. Constitution.
While you think about what you’ve read, answer this question for yourself. Who do you follow?
I want to state, unequivocally, that I am a man of the West. I state this not as a matter of pride, nor as a matter of opinion. I state it as a matter of fact. I am building toward writing something that might be dangerous and contentious, but to do that I need to lay some groundwork. I will be using the ideas and thoughts expressed here to build upon and use later, and for the sake of clarity it is important that people understand what I mean when I say certain things. So my goal today is to explain what the West is, contrast it with other constructs, and then explain my opening statement.
In the U.S., the West can evoke images of the cowboy, a rugged individualist, strong when need be, gentle when need be, and an iconic part of our heritage. But that is not what I mean. I refer to the bigger picture, and refer to the cultural heritage shared by nearly half the world.
The West was framed by the Ancient Greeks, the Ancient Romans, and the Ancient Hebrews. From these roots, we developed a monotheistic religion that has shaped our spiritual and cultural roots. Some refer to it as Judeo-Christian, and as far as our religious thinking goes, that is correct. The Ancient Greeks and Romans provided us with our philosophical and governmental roots. Democracy came from Ancient Athens, branched government with checks and balances came from Ancient Sparta, and was refined in Ancient Rome. These ideas spread by conquest, both political and religious.
Consider the people that shaped us from that time period. Moses, Abraham, Elijah, David, Solomon, Jesus, Peter and Paul shaped our spiritual ideas. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Augustine, Cicero, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius helped shape our philosophical and political ideas. These august people created ground-breaking, monumental ideas upon which future ideas were formed.
The conquests mentioned previously spread throughout the Hellenic empire, then the Roman Empire, then to the subsequent empires founded upon those principles. Geographically, I’m referring to Europe, North and South America. This western influence has affected other areas of the world, but when I refer to the West, I am referring to these geographical areas.
The greatest influence, in my opinion, of Western Thought is the concept of rights. This concept was described and explained in Ancient Greece, refined in Ancient Rome, then was combined with Judeo-Christian spirituality through the Catholic Church to create the concept of Natural Rights.
Natural rights are considered fundamental, universal and inalienable, and are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government. This is the basis for our Declaration of Independence, and the U.S. Constitution. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by our Creator with certain, unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
So the West has this common background, history, and a common set of ideals. It’s not about skin color, social class, or education levels. It’s similar to looking at the settings of a house, and being able to say that it is in the suburbs. It stands in stark contrast with the East.
The East was historically referred to as The Orient. It is geographically located in West Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. The dividing line, though, is more cultural than geographical. The subcultures within the East are varied, and include Arab subcultures, Persian subcultures, Indian subcultures, etc. Some of the philosophers who shaped Eastern thought were: Confucius, Sun Tzu, Laozi, Mao Zedong, Parshvanata, Siddhartha Gautama, Mahavira, Bodhodharma, Bhai Gurdas, Miyamoto Musashi, Yi Hwang, and Muhammad.
Historically, the region was considered the “Far East“, and served as the “other” to thinkers in the West. Each region has a history of warfare and conquest. The Persians attempted to absorb the Hellenistic city-states, Alexanderthe Great moved east from Macedonia, all the way to India. Ghengis Khan ruled a vast portion of the East at one point, and had contact with Europe, Persia and what is now the Middle East.
So, in very general terms, the world is divided into the East and the West. That brings me back to my premise. I am a man of the West. I am Roman Catholic and live in the United States of America. My faith is based on the mono-theistic tenets of Judaism, and the later teachings of Jesus, then Saint Peter and Saint Paul. My country was founded upon these Judeo-Christian beliefs, and upon the concept of Natural Rights. In and of itself, being a man of the West doesn’t make me any better, or worse, than a person of the East. It’s just different.
That difference is something I seek to address, and as I stated earlier, I wanted to clarify some terms before I got into it. I hope you found this interesting, as well as enlightening.
What is to come may be worrisome and create unease. But that is for later.
For Protestants and Roman Catholics, last Sunday was Palm Sunday, the start to Holy Week. At Mass, our church had a guest speaker who orated the Scriptural story of Christ‘s compassion. He was really good. You could feel yourself in the courtyard of Pontius Pilate, watching as he questioned Jesus, then placated the mob as he turned Jesus over to be crucified.
There is a lot of mystery surrounding Holy Week. In Roman Catholicism, a mystery is that which is unknowable, or valuable knowledge that is kept secret. They serve as a source of thought for the faithful. During Holy Week we consider the sacrifice of Jesus, the sorrow of his Blessed Mother Mary, the betrayal of Judas Iscariot. The one that struck a chord in me was the denial of Jesus by Simon Peter.
Peter was Jesus’ right-hand man, the man who would go on to found the Christian faith. The story of his denial is so important it was included in all four Gospels. According to the Gospel of Matthew, “Peter replied, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.” “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “This very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” But Peter declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the other disciples said the same.” (Matthew 26: 33-35)
Anyone who has ever made a promise can know what Peter felt at that time. We all make oaths, promises, vows. In the moment, we are caught up in the importance of the promise. We stand straight, stick out our chest, and look forward with bravery and determination. We start out was the heroes of our own stories. We will prevail.
Aaaannnnnnddddd then we fail.
Turns out, unsurprisingly, that Jesus was right, and Peter was wrong. He denied Jesus three times, just as was foretold. After the third denial, the cock crowed, and Peter remembered what Jesus said. Peter ran off, weeping bitterly.
And weep bitterly he should. It’s a hard fall from the heroic pose to the exposure of your base failure. The shattering of one’s self-image is a personality-shifting, life-altering event. People in Alcoholics Anonymous call this “hitting rock bottom”. I identify with Peter here, because I’ve been there. A couple of times, actually. I’ve become quite a rock-bottom aficionado.
For most of my youth and early adulthood, I lived with a self image of the White Knight. I was a protector, a paladin. I faced evil, I supported Right is Might, not Might is Right. I championed the forlorn, the defenseless. My word was my bond. “I will be brave, loyal, and chivalrous in all my deeds, and will devote myself to the service of God and my liege. So help me God.” I joined the Army Reserves, I was a soldier.
Aaaannnnnnddddd then I failed, sometimes spectacularly.
I’ve almost reached the age of 60. My white armor is soiled, blood-stained, dented, marred and tarnished. Here’s a mystery. Maybe it’s supposed to be that way. Peter didn’t want to weep bitterly. He wanted to serve the Lord. Perhaps his failure prepared him to form, then lead a new religion. To serve the Lord, it cannot be about you. When Peter protested that he would never deny Jesus, he made it about him. His failure showed that making it about him was not going to work. Peter learned what Christ taught, “Not my will, but Your will be done.” Armed with the wisdom gained by his failure, Peter built Christ’s Church.
Peter’s story is also about redemption. He really screwed up. He could not stay awake for Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He cut off Malchus‘ ear, then he denied Jesus three times. It had been a long day, he saw his friend Judas betray Jesus, he saw his Master get arrested, and he did not fulfill his self-image. So yeah, he wept bitterly.
But then he went on to start a world-changing movement. Jesus didn’t choose him because he was perfect. Jesus chose Peter because He knew how Peter would respond to his rock bottom. He became the Rock on which the Church was built. He influenced millions, if not billions, of people. That speaks volumes about the power of redemption.
Look, at the risk of sounding preachy, I believe in the power of Grace. My better half is the epitome of Grace AND Redemption. I have personally witnessed this power. It’s why I’ve made it to 60, and only partially insane for my efforts. It doesn’t matter what you think of yourself. That’s right, I’m looking right at you, gentle reader.
It. Doesn’t. Matter.
You can be redeemed. No matter what you’ve done, He can redeem you. I believe in a God who can forgive anything. Yes, think of the nastiest, most evil serial killer ever. On his deathbed, if he fully repented and asked God for forgiveness. I believe He would forgive him. He is boundless love. He is Grace, He is a Redeemer.
That is why He suffered and died for us. No matter what we have done, we can be forgiven. We can be redeemed. Read that sentence as many times as you need to to get it. It’s as simple as Jesus loves you.
I was driving back home from a doctor’s appoint, when a thought hit me, like a bolt from Zeus. I had just caught myself wondering, “How did our world get to this state?” Zeus reared up his godly head, cast his bolt, and the answer appeared. We chose this.
I’m Roman Catholic, so the concept of free choice is not new to me. Yet, we can definitely take that for granted. Through out history, man has strived to create a place where they could live in peace. Predatory animals, disease, natural disasters, predatory humans, all serve to threaten peace. The basic desire is to be left alone so we can pursue whatever we desire, and to be protected from danger of a scale we can’t handle ourselves.
248 years ago, we created a system of government with a type of government that was delineated in writing. First in the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and they are endowed with certain, unalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Guided by those principles, we then created the US Constitution. “We the People, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility. Provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty, to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution, for the United States of America.”
I was able to write those from memory, with a little help from Schoolhouse Rock. We used those concepts to create a government whose primary responsibility is the safety and security of its citizens. For the longest time, each citizen was actively involved in the enforcement of those concepts, sometimes giving their lives in its defense, voting for those in government who served the public interests, as outlined in the US Constitution.
The long and short of it is, I am able to drive peacefully to the doctor, receive some of the best health care in the world, drive peacefully home, and sit here and type out my thoughts without fear of governmental sanction. My two grandsons, the Devilish Duo, can play in the neighborhood and our backyard with little fear of predation. Our choices over the past 248 years have created one of the safest places in the world to live.
Get past the noise from social media. Yes, gun violence is a thing. Yes, child sex trafficking is a thing. Yes, crime is a thing. But, by and large, when you compare us to the world, we have the safest place to live. Based on our choices.
Yet, our recent choices have not been good. The news across the country is not good. Prosecutors setting aside the law to pursue personal agendas. Judges setting aside the law to pursue personal agendas. Crime is going unpunished. Our established borders are being willfully violated. Established science is being set aside for societal agendas. There are US citizens who are willfully, purposefully seeking the destruction of the world’s safest place to live. Our country, 248 years old, is under assault. I can spend the rest of this blog, and numerous others, expounding on the reasons why.
If you are looking for reasons, I would refer you to Mark Levin. He is a podcaster, radio talk show host, TV commentator, author and constitutional law attorney. He has written best-selling books like, Men In Black: How The Supreme Court Is Destroying America, Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America, Unfreedom of the Press and The Democratic Party Hates America. This books spell out, in detail, what is happening and why. He even outlines strategies for counteracting what is happening, with actions in line with our founding documents. His book, The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic, he spells out the framework for the Convention of States movement, designed to amend the US Constitution through Article 5 of the Constitution.
Rather than wade through all that, I’m going to bring it back to the topic at hand. Choices. We have allowed prosecutors to stop enforcing the law, or to substitute laws for their personal agendas. We have allowed judges to do the same. We have allowed our government to stop performing its primary function. We have allowed lawlessness to run rampant, and we have allowed science to be perverted and set aside for social agendas.
We can look at everything around us, throw up our hands and say, “Fuck it! I can’t do anything!” You would not be more wrong. Sure, taken in total, the moral rot and decay of our society can be overwhelming. However, we are Americans. We don’t shy away from fights that need fighting, and the heart and soul of this great nation is worth fighting for.
Dr. Jordan Peterson has a simple solution for life’s problems. Clean your room. Start with what is around you. Orient yourself to what is right and important, get your house in order, then find like-minded people who can work on your neighborhood, then your city, then your state. Demand that your government do its duty. It is unlawful for people to block city streets. Its is unlawful for people to cross our border without following the process. It is unlawful for government officials in any position to either not fulfill their duties, or to operate outside of those duties. Demand that laws are enforced.
Read the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. You cannot defend something you don’t understand. You can’t counter an argument without proper information. Know your city’s ordinances and state laws, and your state’s constitution. This is free, and only requires your time. Arm yourself with knowledge.
Don’t accept a politician’s cry for more legislation. If we are not enforcing what we already have, why in Hell would a new law help? Don’t accept demonization. A lot of the people crossing our borders illegally are human beings. Yes, they are violating our laws, and should be sent back, but they are human beings. But too many are criminals and terrorists. Find them, fix them, and don’t allow poison into our country to kill our fellow citizens. Our country allows peaceful assemblies. It doesn’t provide for non-peaceful assemblies. It doesn’t provide for riots, road-blocking, intimidation or violence.
We can bemoan that our current conditions force us into certain choices. That is a falsehood, based on personal convenience. We look at a choice, we see that making it will lead to hardship and pain, and we choose something else that is easier. We then attempt to justify it by saying we had no choice.
No. We have done this for the past 10-20 years, or more, and we can see the results. Now is the time to reassert our country’s core beliefs. Just like a Catholic who espouses non-Catholic beliefs is not a Catholic (I’m looking at YOU, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi!), a person who espouses anti-American beliefs is not an American. Don’t want to be labeled as Un-American? Espouse American beliefs.
Gets me every time. I’m almost 60, and I’ve gotten very judgy. Like I’m a bout of gout away from yelling at kids passing by to stay off my lawn. As it is, I stare at them intently as they pass, prepared to defend my lawn with deadly force if they try to trespass.
I’ve become quite good at judging books by their covers. I have watched enough Criminal Minds, and studied enough books on profiling, criminal psychology, etc., that I’m like Hotch when I’m in the mall, at church, or staring out my window with deadly intent.
I will identify a person’s personality, their back story their life history, all by how they look. I can explain why they did what they did. I…know all about them. It’s a gift. An awful burden. Ask Robin. She’ll tell you. My awesome, wonderful gift to know a person by how they look.
So we went to Mass this afternoon. It’s Lent, and we’re re-learning how to be Catholic, including the Day of Obligation. Manchester United had their Manchester Derby today; their rivalry match against Manchester City. For the record, the Brits pronounce ‘derby’ as ‘darby’. Why? Because they’re Brits. See? It’s a gift. My Reds lost 3-1. Anyway, we didn’t go to Mass this morning, so we had to go in the afternoon.
So anyway, Robin, Jessica and I get to church and begin filing into our pew. I look across the way ands there is a teenage girl standing in her pew, and she was the epitome of a teenager. Her arms were crossed, her hips were cocked, and her face looked like she had sucked the world’s worst lemon. I nudged Robin and whispered to her, “She clearly does NOT want to be here!” Robin smirked and said something to Jessica, who looked and nodded. I had her all figured out.
Or did I? I’m old enough to be curmudgeonly, but I’m also old enough to have a bit of wisdom. I had an incident flash into my mind involving one of my best friends Craig. I saw a picture of one of his daughters, who I thought was smirking and I made some mindless quip. Turns out she always looks that way, and I felt like a dick. She’s a first-class kid, and my gift was shown to be the sham that it is. I did the whole, “Let’s deliver the profile,” thing and my profile was wrong.
So that got me wondering. In between Bible verses, and songs, and psalms, and other church-type things, I looked at other people there. What were there stories? There was the silver-haired woman with the cutest baby who made very loud raspberry noises throughout the service. Single mom? Grandma? The family behind her was a husband, mom, and two young daughters. The couple to my right looked Hispanic. I briefly wondered what their stories were. I tried thinking about their lives. Based on what I could see.
Gift or not, I couldn’t do it. Imagine knowing the total lives of the people around you at church. What would you do with that knowledge? Imagine having that knowledge for every single person in the world, past, present and future. Just trying to imagine the lives of the few people around me fried my brain, which doesn’t take much, nowadays. I can’t comprehend omniscience. And don’t get me started on omnipresence. Hollywood tried with Everything, Everywhere, All at Once…and all I got from that was a sense of profound confusion.
Maybe we’re all just trying our best to make it through this world. I don’t know why the teenager looked pissed. I vaguely recall being a teenager, and I do recall being pissed a lot. But she has hopes and dreams. She has a history, a future. So does silver-haired lady with the baby, who clearly has a future. So does the Hispanic couple. Hell, so do I. What do people see when t hey see me? A curmudgeonly man with a cane, bearing the same pissed off look on his face that the teenager has?
There, in the church, God was rapping on my head. He had a lesson he wanted to impart to me. He wanted me to reach a realization. Learn a lesson. Maybe it’s that the cover isn’t as important as your story? Ugh,
It’s like God is reaching out to me. I’m reaching out to him, and I just, Can’t. Touch.
It’s been less than a week since my last blog. I would like to post an update.
I am over my solitude.
I am so over it. My feet hurt, which is hard to do when I can’t feel anything below my knees. My right knee, which I twinged in the Pisgah National Forest, has settled into an on-going, throbbing pain, interspersed with moments of shooting agony. I should probably be taking it easy and let my arthritis calm down. Instead, I’ve been putting 3-5 miles a day on my feet and knees. Today alone I’ve done 11,000 steps, about 4.64 miles. I’m sitting here, with a bag of ice on my knee, and a heating pad on my lower back. Ahhhhhhh, life!
I miss home. I miss the Devilish Duo. I miss Roman’s Pinky–like hijinks, and Stevie’s plans to take over the world. I miss Jessica’s sass. I miss my dogs. Who else is there? Oh yeah. My best friend. The love of my life. The yin to my yang. The Tom MacDonald to my Ben Shapiro. The Rob McElhenny to my Ryan Reynolds. Robin, my much better half.
After 34 years, it’s the little things you miss. When she comes home from work, I am usually treated to her telling me about her day. Look, I listen to her, not because I’m fascinated about the mundane minutiae of her life, but because it’s her talking. As I often tell her, “I love your feckless meanderings.” It’s true. It’s not about what she is saying, it’s about the fact that she is sharing it with me.
Yeah, THAT’S The Look!
I am a much better man because of her. Thus, I do miss the positive influence she has had on my life. I eat better and drink better to avoid The Look. Married guys know about The Look. The Look says, “You know you’re being stupid. You need to stop it on your own, allowing yourself the deception that it was your idea. If you make me stop it, you’ll definitely be sorry!”
Happiness is coming to the understanding that she is usually right. While I have hedonistically enjoyed not having her correct my errors, I do appreciate that she does so because she does love me.
I also miss the cwtch. Cwtch is a Welsh term to describe a hug, but one with more emotional meaning. Yes, I’m saying I need a hug, but a Welsh one. A cwtch is something only a significant other can give. If I cwtch a stranger, I’m probably getting tased, then arrested. As they say in Wales, “Anyone can hug, but only the Welsh can cwtch.”
To cap off this trite bit of dross, I’ll post this little bit of a song.
Show me the way to go home, I’m tired and I want to go to bed, I had a little drink about an hour ago, And it’s gone right to my head, Wherever I may roam, On land or sea or foam, You will always hear me singing this song, Show me the way to go home.
I have been in Charlotte, North Carolina for three weeks. I’ll be here for three more before I can go home. That’s a lot of solitude. It’s not been so bad.
When I was younger, I hated to be alone. I would rather chew my arm off rather than be alone for an extended period of time. It led to some really bad personal decisions, which I will NOT re-hash here.
Perhaps it’s part of the maturation process, but I have enjoyed the solitude. I love Robin, and really, really miss her, but I’ve been digging living like a bachelor, without the baggage of being a bachelor.
Take the simple act of going to the bathroom. I have Crohn’s Disease, which can generate some truly noxious side effects. Those escape me, because I have congenital anosmia, so I don’t have a sense of smell. Thus, when I leave the bathroom at home, I had gotten used to hearing Robin say, “SPRAY!” from across the house. Sometimes it’s bad enough that she say it while I’m still in the bathroom. I can’t describe the smell, but I did open the door to a UN team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, in full chemical suits, trying to seal off my bathroom.
Here, in my AirBnB house, no spray. Nobody yelling at me to “SPRAY!”. No UN OPCW teams, just blissful silence. Sure, an errant spark may cause the house to explode, and yes, the paint seems to be peeling, and there’s a circle of dead birds around the house, but it is a nice vacation from spraying.
Another plus is the menu. My first week, I tried buying fresh veggies and cooking clean. But that takes so long, and I am needing all my time to work on these reports. Thus this week I bought frozen meals. Today I had Buffalo chicken Mac and cheese, with a couple of slices of cheesy Texas Toast. It took me 8 minutes to fix, and I had enough time to throw this blog together. Plus, it was sooooo good.
I have, at least, been keeping the house clean. I vacuum the carpet, I do my laundry, I clean the toilets, I wash the dishes. But I do them on my schedule. Robin’s schedule is logical. Her schedule makes sense. It’s just at a different tempo than my schedule. Having one schedule has been relaxing. I don’t want to say Robin is a harsh mistress, but she sometimes makes my Drill Sergeants from Basic Training seem like nice guys, and those guys called me every name in the book. Robin just has a different book. And she’s never a harsh in a good way.
Another plus, I get to have a beer a day. At home, a 12-pack of beer will often last over a year. Robin has this way of looking at me and saying, “Should you be drinking so much?” Try as I might, I can’t muster a counter-argument for that. Thus, minimal beer drinking. Here? I have a beer with every dinner. It’s amazing what the beer does to the taste of the food. I feel like I’ve awakened my adult taste buds. The Buffalo chicken Mac and cheese I had tonight was soooooo good with beer. It’s like they were made for each other. When I’m eating clean. Beer doesn’t awaken anything except for Robin’s disapproval. So much disapproval.
I could go on, but I really do love my wife, and am looking forward to getting back home and getting re-civilized. Spraying, clean-eating, tee-totaling re-alignment of my schedule to fit in with the woman of my dreams. Plus there’s the Devilish Duo. I miss those little scamps too. And my daughter Jessica. I haven’t been insulted, hassled, or disrespected in almost a month. Yeah, she’s a chip off the old block. I even miss my son-in-law.
But, that’s for three weeks from now. Right now, I have to usher the UN OPCW team out of my house. This is the US of A, dammit! GIT! And no, for the 400th time, I don’t need to spray!
I’m in Charlotte, North Carolina, where I’ve been for two weeks. I’ve been assessing schools in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools district, and I have a couple of weeks to go. I had a Skyrizi injection for my Crohn’s Disease on Thursday, and yesterday I had a day of very low energy and cold-like symptoms. Nothing like feeling like crap far from home.
My schedule is pretty hectic. I get up between 5:00 am and 5:30 am every morning. I’ll go to a high school to assess their weapons screening process (Yes, that’s actually a thing.), or I’ll start by assessing a school’s student arrival. At each school, I interview the administrators and conduct scenario assessments. I walk around and take a bunch of pictures and identify areas the school might be able to improvise the safety and security of everybody in the building. I’ll do two schools a day, sometimes three elementary schools a day. I definitely get my steps in.
When I get back to my AirBnB, I record the results of the interviews and scenario assessments, prepare for the next day, eat dinner, do a Welsh lesson or two, and go to bed between 9:00 pm and 10:00 pm. Over the weekends, I work on the reports. We generate a 45-60 page report for each school, complete with pictures. The report is generated by the information we enter into an online tool, but the process can be pain-staking, and generally it slowly turns my brain into oatmeal. I did not think it possible, but I can feel my soul slowly draining out of my body as I work on the reports. But I do them because they help schools to improve their safety and security. I do them because schools are great and wonderful places in a sick, twisted world, and I want them to continue to be great and wonderful places.
That brings me to my topic today. my low energy forced me away from my reports and gave me something I haven’t had in awhile, down time. I spent some of that on social media. If anything, social media steals more of my soul than report-writing, with none of the benefits. It’s easy, after a half hour on X (formerly known as Twitter), to think the world is going to Hell in a hand basket. Social media is designed to provide you with dopamine hits, while ramping up your anxiety. It’s an endless loop of breaking you down and building you up, and it sometimes leaves me feeling like I need a shower.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed with negativity, and sometimes I wonder what I can do in the face of this onslaught. Dr. Jordan Peterson once said that when you want to change the world, start by cleaning your room. For society that is our family. We, as a society, are in the midst of a prolonged period in which we have been prodded and prompted to do other things than support our families.
In today’s society, words are malleable, so let me define my terms. A family is people related either by blood or law. It forms the basis for society. The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and therefore of society. Families offer structure and safety as members mature and learn to participate in the community. So that is family, to me. The fact I have to define it is a symptom of the societal rot we face, but so be it.
I started with my birth family. Maw, Paw, Shelly and Tom. Grandma Green, Maw’s mum, and Grandma and Grandpa Satterly, Paw’s mom and dad. I got married to Robin and started my own family, but never left my birth family, Robin is my wife of nearly 35 years. Jessica is my oldest, Carole is my youngest. Jessica got married to Christian, and they’ve had two sons, Roman and Stevie. Jessica, Christian and the Devilish Duo live with Robin and I. Maw and Paw have passed, but Shelly and Tom are still with me. Tom and his wife Jen, and their two children are part of my family. Shelly had a son, Jarod. Jarod married Emily. Shelly’s divorced. Tom had a son, Thomas, from a previous marriage. I never said families are pristine.
Ain’t a one of us perfect, by any stretch, but come Hell or high water we are family. I know there were times Maw and Paw weren’t proud of me, but I was still their son. I know there were times Robin wasn’t proud of me, but I was still her husband. They set standards I’ve tried to live up to. Sometimes, as Inigo Montoya said, I “more studied than pursued” those standards, but they were always there. I hope I have set those standards for my children, and I hope Jessica sets those standards for her two hellions. That’s what families are for. Tom has tried to live by Maw and Paw’s standards, as has Shelly. I know they’ve passed those on to their progeny.
Know right from wrong. Try to do right, and when you do wrong, own up to it, learn from it and get better. Don’t be a dick. You are no better than anyone else. Leave places better than they were before you got there.
Yes, large swaths of our country are going to shit. I don’t have the wherewithal to do anything about that. I ain’t running for President, or for any office. But I can try to take care of my family. I can love them, set high standards, and help them live up to them. I can try to live up to those standards myself. It’s all I have control over.
Clean your room, love your family. It’s all any of us can do. If we do that, our country will benefit, and it will sort itself out.
I am sitting in a Holiday Inn Express in Brevard, North Carolina. It is a wonderful town in western North Carolina, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I have been tasked with assessing the schools here for the past week, before moving on to a major project next week in Charlotte, North Carolina. I’ll be back home on the 16th, then head back after the new year for a month.
The people in Transylvania County Schools are friendly, open, honest and are earnest in their desire to protect the children in their schools. From the Superintendent, Dr. Lisa Fletcher, to the school Principals, to the School Resource Officers (SROs), and the teachers, they all have the interests and welfare of the students in mind.
The folks here are salt-of-the-earth people. They hunt, they fish, they hike. As a matter of fact, this area has over 250 waterfalls. They have a large county, and this morning they had a two-hour delay. There are students and a school up in the mountains. They had rain overnight, and this morning the temperatures suddenly dropped, causing ice to form on the roads. The people in the lowlands were 10 degrees warmer, and didn’t have this problem. Safety first.
People here don’t care what you look like. What they care about is whether you are a good person. If you are not, they will have little to do with you. They don’t care about your politics, your causes, or your beliefs, except how it leads you to behave. The issues they deal with here are similar to those faced elsewhere. They have Christmas decorations in their schools, which I find refreshing.
Each school has a full-time SRO. This is an outstanding example of police-school collaboration. The SROs I met are dedicated, highly trained officers who deeply care for the students in their care. The educators I spoke to are extremely happy they are there. They use the true SRO model, which stresses the non-enforcement aspects of their job. They are there to make connections with students and staff, and from what I saw, they are magnificently succeeding in this mission. They were very open with me, treated me well, and were very receptive to the ideas I had, and in the observations I made.
I’ve visited and assessed hundreds of schools, across this country. This little town in western North Carolina should be the model for school districts across the country. The police, especially trained SROs, are not the enemy. They should not be de-funded. They should be fully funded and supported. Lieutenant Greg Stroup, God bless you and your SROs!
On November 1, 2023, college basketball lost a legend. Coach Bob Knight passed, leaving quite the legacy. His 43-year coaching career began at Army from 1965-1971. From 1971 to 2000 he coached Indiana University, winning three NCAA National Championships, one National Invitational Tournament Championship, and 11 Big Ten Championships. He coached the U.S. Men’s Basketball team to a Gold Medal in 1984. He was National Coach of the Year 3 times, and the Big Ten Coach of the Year 8 times. He coached the Texas Tech Men’s Basketball Team from 2001 to midway through 2008, turning the team over to his son Pat Knight. He took Texas Tech to the NCAA tournament 5 times. His championship team from 1976 was the last national championship team to be undefeated.
The Chair Toss
Coach Knight, also know as “The General“, was also know for his fiery temper. In one infamous incident during a rivalry game in 1985, Coach Knight threw a chair across the floor while an opposing player was lined up for a free throw. He was ejected from the game. Later on, when asked why he threw the chair, he replied, “I noticed during the game that there was an elderly woman standing court-side. She looked tired, so I tossed her a chair.” You can bet that story grew in the telling!
troy media.com
He lost his job at IU in 2000, after allegedly choking one of his players during a practice. He was often prickly during media interviews. After an NCAA tournament win against Temple, Leslie Visser of CBS Sports, asked him how Indiana was able to beat Temple. Without missing a beat, Coach knight replied, “Well, Leslie, we scored more points than they did.” She was not used to coaches answering her in that fashion. But if he thought a reporter was asking a stupid question, he let them know it.
Coach Knight and Steve Alford
He was a complex man, who brought out the knives, and the plaudits, from others. I was a student at Indiana University from 1981 through 1987. I was getting a Bachelor of Science in Education, and I aspired to be a coach. I saw that Coach Knight taught a Coaching of Basketball class, and I thought, “There it is!” I was warned not to take it. Various people told me different stories. He wasn’t present for any of the classes. He had his assistant coaches do them. Nobody really learned anything, he just “mailed it in”. I held to my own counsel, and signed up.
Class was held in Assembly Hall, the arena where IU played their games. We were directed to a classroom deep in the building, and 15-20 of us sat in the classroom, waiting to see what would happen. Then, the door opened, and in walked a living legend. Coach was tall. He played ball himself, and was around 6 foot 6 inches tall. His eyes were intense. He looked at you like he was weighing your worth, and figuring out ways to increase that worth. Ways that would be uncomfortable, demanding, and exhausting.
Coach Knight and Damon Bailey
He spoke, “Welcome to Coaching of Basketball. There are two requirements for this class. The first requirement is to be here every time, on time. If you miss, or are late for, one class, you’ve earned a C. The second time, you’ve flunked this class. If anyone here can’t deal with that now is the time to leave, and drop this class.” Three guys actually got up and left. Assembly Hall was on the north side of the campus, and was away from other class buildings. It was quite the walk, and the bus system had yet to be developed. For some, the logistics were too much.
Coach Knight and Coach Krzyzewski
Coach didn’t appear to be bothered. He told those of us remaining, “The other part of your grade is a notebook. You are to record everything you learn in a notebook. You will turn that in near the end of the course. It will be evaluated for its content, then you will get it back, hopefully to use when you start your coaching careers.” He looked around the room with his intense gaze. “Any questions?” Nobody moved a muscle.
The class met once a week. We had 45-60 minutes in the classroom. Coach would cover various areas of the came of basketball, then we would head to the Assembly Hall floor to be run through drills for the skills were learning. Assistant coaches ran us through the drills. It had been several years since I had gone through basic training, but the amount of profanity thrown my way was very reminiscent. I was in the best shape of my life, I was moderately good at the state sport of Indiana, but when I hit the floor, I couldn’t top anything right. The assistants were good enough to let me know, and applied correction. It was cool. We all felt like we were on the IU Basketball Team, which made up for the invective thrown our way.
Coach Knight and Isiah Thomas
The best part was, at the end of each class, Coach had a question and answer session. We could ask him anything, and he would opine on it in his direct way. One class, a young man with long hair, stood top and asked a question. Coach answered his question, then said he had a question for the young man. Coach asked, “How will you find yourself a job with hair like that?” The young man didn’t bat an eye and replied, “I’m young and in college. When I go out into the job market, I will clean myself up.” Coach approved of that answer. He appreciated the young man’s strength and honesty.
The second class we had, a student came in 10 minutes late. He was sweaty and breathing heavily. Coach, who had been speaking, acerbically asked, “Where the Hell have you been?” The student replied, between pants, “I have a class in Jordan Hall…” (Which is across campus, quite some distance away.) Coach interrupted him, “Well, you had better drop that class. You’ve now got a C, and if you’re late again, you’ll fail this class.” We didn’t see him again.
At one class, a young man stood up and asked, “How do you coach quickness?” Coach paused at that. After few moments thinking, he said, “I think it will be easier for me to show you than to tell you.” He pointed across the room at a box of chalk on a chalkboard. “Would you bring me that box of chalk to me, please?” The young man looked over at the box of chalk, got up, got the box and took it over to Coach. Coach thanked him and had him put it back. When the young man was seated, Coach pulled out his wallet and took out a $20 bill.
He looked at the young man and said, “If you can do the same thing before I count to ten, I’ll give you this $20 bill. GO!” The young man sprang up, ran across the room, grabbed the box of chalk, and ran toward Coach, who had been silent the whole time. Just as the young man got to Coach, Coach said, “Ten.”
The young man froze in place, his arm with the box of chalk outstretched towards Coach. The rest of the class burst out laughing. Coach had a slight smile on his face as he spoke to the young man, “Would you like to try again? I’ll give you a standing start!” The young man chuckled and replaced the chalk on the chalkboard. “No,” he said ruefully, “I’m good.”
When the laughing died down, Coach explained. Quickness can’t be taught. One is either quick, or they were not. A coach’s job was to bring out what quickness the athlete had. It was a great point that came in handy, not just in coaching, but in teaching, and in fatherhood.
I ended up with an A in that class. My notebook did come in handy when I coached a seventh grade boys basketball team the next year.
Coach’s legacy extended far beyond the court. Every year he gave a talk to the student body, for free. He always talked about life lessons, not basketball, and he always opened up the floor for questions at the end. One year a student, someone I vaguely knew from my high school, got up and asked a question. The student was overweight. Coach answered with a non sequitur, “Why don’t you lose weight?” There were gasps all around the hall. Some people would have wilted, but not this young man. He stood tall, looked directly at Coach and said, “I’ve tried many things to lose weight.” A young college student like myself doesn’t have the resources to make it work.” Coach nodded, then answered his question.
A bit later I learned the next day Coach called him and asked him to come to Assemble Hall. When he got there, he was met by the team nutritionist, and the team’s strength coach. They had worked out a nutrition plan, and a workout plan. Everyday he went to Assembly Hall to workout. He lost weight, and ended up as a student manager of the basketball team. I heard later that he ended up coaching.
Like I said, Coach was a complex man. He appreciated directness, and respected strength. He never touted his good deeds, and he loved his players like sons. His teams were always a joy to watch. He was a master of the motion offense, and his teams never played anything but man-to-man defense. He was more proud of his graduation rate than his titles and awards. He got great pleasure out of seeing his players go and be successful.
His death was a loss to the sport of college basketball, but he will always be a Legend in Indiana. Here in Indiana, Basketball is King, and he was definitely royalty. He won over 900 games, but dozens of former players are his true legacy.
America has a problem. It started back when the phrase, “The Silent Majority” was used by Richard Nixon. We have become complacent. We, as a people, have become accustomed to living our lives without active participation. We watch events on TV, on the interwebs, and on social media. We comment on them, we talk about them, but we don’t do anything.
The latest example is the response to October 7. There are news clips after news clips of pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas people rallying all over the world. One in particular sticks out in my mind. A Jewish student at Harvard was surrounded and assaulted by Palestinian/Hamas supporters who put their hands on him to prevent him from leaving, and shouted, “Shame!” at him. A Cornell student was arrested after posting online threats against Jewish students.
What are we doing? Waiting for someone to do something? Why would somebody do something if we aren’t pressuring them to do something? Why not do something ourselves? Democracy is not something that is done to you. It is meant to be participatory. So is public safety. Yet we sit on our couches, watch events unfold, and shake our heads at what we see.
mirror.co.uk
In England, a man was arrested for posting a video on Facebook questioning why there were so many Palestinian flags in his neighborhood. There was a large pro-Palestinian/Hamas rally in Washington, D.C., where red paint was smeared on the gates to the White House. Black Lives Matter has joined with pro-Palestinian/Hamas groups.
It’s odd to me. Approximately 5.5 million Palestinians live in Gaza City and the West Bank. None of the Arab countries in the region, including the Palestinian country of Jordan, want anything to do with Palestinian refugees, yet there are large demonstrations in all the Western countries. No where have I seen any counter protests. No where have I seen people standing up for the Jews in their community.
aljazeera.com
Take a step back and, just for poops and giggles, take the religion and ethnicity out of the equation. Who is acting like they are part of the human race? Is it the side that perpetrated a surprise attack against civilians, committing inhuman, depraved atrocities on them? Or is it the side that is working to remove the responsible entity, so that they can’t commit similar attacks in the future? Attacks they have claimed they will continue to do? “The Al Aqsa Flood (October 7) is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth, because we have the determination, the resolve, and the capabilities to fight.”
So what can we do? We can call or write our elected representatives, except those that support the death of Jews and the elimination of Israel. Rashida Tlaib, an elected representative of Michigan doesn’t display an American flag outside of her Washington, D.C. office. It’s a Palestinian flag. She also posted on X, “Michigan, from the river to the sea.” That just seems right un-American to me. But maybe your local elected officials will be more open to discussion.
Build your situational awareness. What is going on in your community? If a rally is held, do you know who’s behind it? Do you know when and where it’s going to be held? Are appropriate safety measures being taken? Watching TV and surfing the web gets you information, but what will you do with that information? Think back to the 1930’s. Adolph Hitler and the Nazis did not just pop out of thin air during Kristallnacht in 1938, the “Night of the broken glass”. There were signs and portents before that. We’re seeing some of the same signs. We’ll just go ahead and put religion and ethnicity back in things.
forward.com
We better figure out what we’re going to do about it. Complacency is not a solution.
Three weeks ago, some monsters broke through a wall near GazaCity and started doing monstrous things, not only to unsuspecting Israelis, but to God-fearing people all over the world. Our mostly peaceful lives were shattered by less-than men, hopped up on Captagon, who thought imposing their hate-filled death cult on defenseless people made them heroes in the eyes of other death cult members.
nationworldnews.com
All one has to do to see who is in the right is look at the behavior of those involved. On the side of Hamas, we’ve got people going door to door killing defenseless men, women and children. They did wicked, horrible things that over shadows anything the Vikings ever did on a raid. Here in the US, backers of Hamas and Palestine are bullying any Jews they can find. Hamas supporters were recorded tearing down pictures of missing Israeli Jews. Other death cult supporters banged on the locked doors of a college library, while a college administrator fled out the back, leaving a huddled group of terrified Jewish students in the library.
Set aside, for a moment, the historical lead up to the current war. Who is acting the part of evil? Hamas has, in its official charter, that they seek the eradication of the state of Israel, and all the Jews therein. That cute little chant you may have heard? “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free!” The West Bank is on the Jordan River. Gaza is on the sea. What’s in between? Israel. That chant is calling for the eradication of Israel. Who’s on the side of evil? Hamas supporters chant about genocide. There are more Palestinians now than there ever have been. That is the worst genocide ever. “Submit to genocide, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” I missed THAT Bible verse.
The First Dance
After a week of that, it was good that we loaded up our dogs and headed to Evansville for a wedding. One of Robin’s nephews was getting hitched. Nothing like a good-ole wedding to help one forget the cares of the world. I watched the happy couple smile, and all the happy people eating, drinking, dancing, and the dichotomy struck me. The people at the wedding just wanted to live their lives. They were there to see two young, happy people join together to start a family. Life goes on. The Circle of Life, yada, yada, yada…It was a celebration of life.
Not a single person in attendance had any plans to brutalize anyone, terrorize anyone, or make anyone feel unsafe. They had some excellent fried chicken, pulled pork, mashed potatoes, green beans and corn. They had free beer and wine and a cash bar. They had a S’mores bar and gourmet donuts. They had a dollar dance, to raise some money for the young couple. We gave some cash to the Devilish Duo, and they impishly ran over to the dance floor. As I told Christian, their father, “A boy’s never too young to learn that he can get a person for a little cash…”
Roman dances with the groom, my daughter Jessica dances with Stevie.
Neither of those boys have been taught to kill Jews, which is what Hamas teaches Palestinian students. No chants about genocide, no one banging on locked doors while terrified people huddled inside. All around us were young adults Robin and I have seen grow up. They want nothing more than to find someone to love, have their own wedding, and make a life for themselves. Not a single person was looking to kill anyone.
We Americans in Middle America don’t wish ill on the Palestinian people. We’re not impressed with Hamas, ISIS or any other death cult. We want to leave others alone, and be left alone. You know, live life. There is zero interest in death cults.
Best wishes, Noah and Katrina. Peace, and long life. Celebrate it!
Unfortunately, I’ll be going dark with this one, right after I own up to a major error.
First, this is about the horrors of October 7. Hamas, a terrorist group that runs Gaza City, a Palestinian city on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, launched a complex attack on several towns around the borders to Gaza. 1,400 dead and over 3,000 injured later, Israel stands on the brink of a major regional war, with Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iran. The US has two carrier groups in the Mediterranean. That’s the big, geopolitical picture.
Let’s zoom in a bit, to a kibbutzim called Kfar Aza. This kibbutzim is directly east of Gaza City. A kibbutzim is a communal village, a manner of living that date back to Israel’s founding. For those raised in a kibbutzim, their home represented comfort, security. That changed in Kfar Aza on October 7.
Hamas militants stormed into the kibbutzim, and forever changed the hearts of Israelis.
People who know me might describe me as nice, easy-going, friendly, able to get along with everyone. For that, I blame my wife, Robin. This angel has certainly appealed to my better nature. I’ve overcome a terrible temper, one that has seen me put a person in the hospital, and she helped me become the award-winning educator I became. She has definitely smoothed my rough edges.
If you are a disciple of Carl Jung, my archetype is Guardian. Much of what I have done as an adult was to protect others. The Army Reserves, coaching, teaching, administration, school safety. I’m always looking out for the safety of others. So while my temper is buried, I still travel some sometimes dark roads in my mind, trying to get tender-hearted educators to take safety seriously.
In 2013, ISIS became a thing on the world stage. I watched the videos of the hideous things they did to other human beings, and they touched the dark in my heart. All I felt for them was utter contempt. In all my days I never, truly wished for the death of others. Until those turds. Nothing like watching a man burned to death in a cage to get you to understand the depths of evil in men’s hearts.
This led to me violating one of my own personal and professional rules. 48 hours. When something happens, wait 48 hours before you start opining on it. The initial news that comes out of an event is not always correct, and 48 hours lets the actual information develop. This is important in the field of school safety, as decisions made emotionally can cost a lot of money initially, and later in litigation. A story made the rounds after Sandy Hook of a teacher who faced the shooter and saved her kids. Nope. Parkland, FL. The shooter pulled the fire alarm and got all the students out into the hallways. Nope. Wait for information to develop. Safe Havens International prides itself on an even, risk-based approach to school safety that requires study, study and more study.
The reports coming in from Kfar Aza were horrific, and I felt myself getting incensed. Then came the report of beheaded babies. I was over it. I won’t recount the profanities I uttered throughout the house, but it turned both of my grandsons into teenagers on the spot, it was that salty. I texted Robin that 40 babies were beheaded. I was ready to kit up and go slag some animals. In my mind.
What I actually saw was a CBS report, “Weiss told CBS News that more than one of the Israeli soldiers who first reached Kfar Aza reported finding “beheaded children of varying ages, ranging from babies to slightly older children,” along with adults who had also been dismembered.
Yossi Landau, the head of operations for the southern region of Zaka, Israel’s volunteer civilian emergency response organization, told CBS News he saw with his own eyes children and babies who had been beheaded.”
Now, to be sure, a single beheading is horrible, and I hate having to think that one beheading is better than 40 babies, but wisdom wins out. We need to operate on what we know. A person who wants to quibble over the number has definitely lost sight of the bigger picture. Demons on earth were torturing and killing innocents. The manner which they did it was disgusting, and I am past caring whether it was 1 or 40. Anything above zero is not acceptable.
I watched various news agencies, CNN, Fox News, Al Jazeera. They all mentioned the beheadings, then the story…went away. The counter-push was on. Despite the number of people I saw recounting what they saw, it soon became “apparent” that the beheadings story was a hoax. Except for all the survivors who said otherwise, including some footage from Hamas fighters themselves. Hamas kidnapped men, women and children, they raped women and children, often in front of their friends and family. It was truly ISIS-like. The video of the Hamas thug dragging a woman out of the back of his vehicle into the back seat, with a mass of blood between her legs, and Hamas cemented themselves on my shit list.
My shit list is metaphorical, of course. I’m 59-years old, and Crohn’s Disease and years of drug therapies have given me the body of a 70-year old. I will sit on my front porch and yell at Hamas to get off my lawn, but I ain’t doing much else. But it does put me in the mood to see all the worst happen to them. That I won’t lose any sleep over. Those jerks use human shields. They take materials meant for the Palestinian people and turn them into weapons of war. Their official charter has spelled out, in black and white, that their primary goal is the eradication of the Jewish people. Not a Palestinian state for the people they were elected to lead, but genocide.
What’s bothered me more than that? The number of US citizens who are supporting Hamas. Nothing makes my heart hurt as much as free people who are publicly supporting a terrorist organization that rapes women and children, has gone door-to-door murdering peaceful, innocent people, and beheaded children.
War sucks. It sucks what it does to people. But it doesn’t suck as bad as Hamas. Screw those guys. My hope is that one day soon, Hamas’ lifeless bodies will join those of ISIS on the dung heap of history. Hamas says they celebrate death. So did ISIS.
I am back up in Milwaukee, assessing some public schools in the Greater Milwaukee Area. Now, anytime I am doing assessments, I put some miles on my feet. This time was no different. By the time I reached Friday of my first week, I had walked over 20 miles that week. My neuropathy keeps me from feeling my legs from my knees down, but I was feeling my feet. As we said in the Infantry, “My dawgs were barkin’!“
So when I got a text from my boss asking me if I would be able to assess a stadium that evening, I didn’t want to. My feet and knees hurt, I was tired and I was hungry. Then there was an incident last week involving Milwaukee Lutheran High School, less than a mile from where I’ve been conducting assessments. Sore, tired, hungry and not wanting to get shot at, I gathered up my courage and told my boss, “Sure!” That’s how I roll. I was like Pyle in Full Metal Jacket, “I am. In a world. Of shit!”
I asked if I would be provided a ballistic vest, and was told, “No.” I asked if I was being provided with life insurance and was told, “Aren’t you just precious?” Of course, it was a rivalry game during Homecoming, and it was the night of the Harvest Moon. Things just kept getting better and better.
I finished assessing my last elementary school around 4:00pm, and drove home to grab a quick dinner. I headed out to the stadium around 5:30pm. I had put the stadium assessment form on my iPad, so it got that, and my camera, out and got down to some serious assessing. By 6:00pm, the teams arrived. The home team arrived first, then the visitors. Most of the people I met were busy, but friendly and helpful.
The district made the decision after COVID to only allow students of the participating schools to get into the games. They did not accept cash at the ticket gate. You had to purchase the tickets online, then have a student ID to get in. Younger students could only get in with an adult, and they kept the home team supporters separated from the visiting team supporters. I was rather surprised, because the school was taking a very significant financial hit by their ticket policies, but they were more interested in the safety of everyone. Adults could get in, of course. We’re adults, and we don’t make bad judgements and do stupid things. Bah-ha-ha-ha! But seriously…
The crowd was pretty good. It was a beautiful night, it was Homecoming and a rivalry game. Through the first three quarters, the four School Resource Officers (SROs), the four security guards, and the numerous Event Staff didn’t have any issues. Then the fourth quarter shenanigans began.
The home team was getting spanked by the visitors, and I kept overhearing radio calls of near fights at the visitor stands. The staff were quick to respond and we were able to get through the game with no teen angsty stuff overflowing. I stepped out into the parking lot to see how they would manage the traffic flow away from the stadium.
Years of being a middle school assistant principal have helped me develop some finely tuned antenna for trouble. I heard a burst of noise from the east side of the stadium, and thought, “Here we go!” I then saw a crowd around my parked RAV4 and my barking dawgs were forgotten as I was about to go bust some heads. I’ll be damned if I’m letting some teenage hotheads damage my baby.
I was diverted by a minor scuffle that was being handled by school staff. Some teens in black had been throwing punches at a single, smaller boy who was so frustrated he was crying. He was in the clutches of a female staff member who was protecting him from himself. Other staff members were herding the black-clad teens away. I’m sure they were fine, upstanding young men who were just trying to wish the young man a good evening…
I turned back toward my RAV4 and saw two of the SROs taking a young man away in handcuffs. I saw two other SROs in a scuffle with a black-clad teen, right in front of my car. A person reached in and tried to pull him away from the officers, but they weren’t having any of that. As I watched, something fell off of the teen, and a younger teen swooped in and scooped it up. It looked like a black bandana. I thought, “Nah, you don’t get to come in and scoop up evidence.” Something else fell to the ground, one of the body cams off of one of the officers. The younger teen started to swoop in again and I stepped in front of him. He jumped up and bristled, and I nearly burst out laughing at how quickly he turned docile. I’m 6’1″, 325lbs, and at that point the irritation of having to deal with this foolishness at the end of a long day was clearly on my face, which ain’t that pretty to begin with. He took off, and he wasn’t slow about it at all.
I turned and tried to pick the body cam off the ground, but decided that having two cops and a suspect land on top of me was not a dignified way to end my day, so I stepped back and just kept an eye out for any other jackals. They were trying hard not to overly man-handle the suspect, which made for a longer struggle, but the finally got the cuffs on him, to which he plaintively asked, “Why you cuffin’ me?”
By the time it was done, there were 5 police cars and a couple of Sheriff’s Deputies on hand to make sure everyone else got out incident-free. Turns out the guys in black were from another high school. They couldn’t get into the game, so they waited on their target to come out of the stadium. I learned that night that, apparently, no one uses the term “gang” anymore, as it’s too negative.
Well, Karen, the word “gang” is supposed to be negative, as it’s a group of people involved in criminal behavior. Now I’m supposed to care that I’m using a negative word to describe a negative group of guys who lied in wait to jump an unsuspecting person leaving a high school football game? Nope. A whole lotta nope. This had “gang” all over it. Colors, criminal conduct. Gangs. There, I said it, and I’m-a not takin’ it back, ya hear?
A young man had the right idea. He was wearing a sweatshirt that read, “Anti-Social Social Club.” A gang by any other name…
At least I got back to my house, un-shot, and got to put my dawgs up. Their barkin’ was irritating me.
I have come the conclusion that I am a recovering sociopath. Bear with me for a bit, as I will explain. I’ve been watching the series Signs of a Psychopath on Max. They have actual police interrogations of people after being arrested for something heinous. It is definitely NOT for the faint-of-heart! The show includes interviews with forensic psychologists, and other experts, that break down what is being seen in the interviews.
I can, without reservation, state that I am not a psychopath. I don’t have a history of bed-wetting, past the normal age, and I don’t have a history of harming animals or setting fires. Thus, I am not in danger of becoming a serial killer. But the probability is never zero. (Just kidding, but seriously…)
That being said, the introspective side of me started thinking about the various descriptions given, in light of my personal history. To start, lets take a look at the differences between a sociopath and a psychopath, and how I rate myself.
Sociopaths
Make it clear they do not care how others feel – Often
Behave in hot-headed and impulsive ways – Often
Prone to fits of anger and rage – Sometimes
Recognize what they are doing but rationalize their behavior – Often
Cannot maintain a regular work and family life – Nope
Can form emotional attachments, but it is difficult – Sometimes
Psychopaths
Pretend to care – Sometimes
Display cold-hearted behavior – Sometimes
Fail to recognize other people’s distress – Sometimes
Have relationships that are shallow and fake – Nope
Maintain a normal life as a cover for criminal activity – Nope
A grandiose sense of self-importance (i.e., exaggerates their achievements and abilities) – Sometimes
A preoccupation with the idea of gaining success, power, love, and physical attractiveness – Sometimes
A belief that they are special or high status and can only be understood by similar people or should only associate with those people (or institutions) – Sometimes
A need for excessive admiration – Sometimes
A sense of entitlement and expectation that others will comply or give them favorable treatment – Sometimes
Exploits other people for personal gain – Sometimes
After reading this, I wonder how I’ve made friends, and have stayed married for 34 years. I do have a few friends, and Robin has a lot to do with the longevity of our marriage. There was a time in my life that these traits were so strong that Robin stated, “If I had met you when you were acting like that, we would have never gotten married.” All I can do is hang my head in shame and say, “That’s fair.” I wouldn’t have married me either, even if I loved myself. I was, to put it bluntly, a bit of a prat.
It can be fair to say we all start that way. Look at children. They are raging, narcissistic sociopaths that have to be trained out of it by their parents. This is why the optimal family unit is a mother and father raising the children. The mother brings nurturing into the child’s life, and the father brings Dad Jokes, pranks, and harassment, all in the guise of ‘toughening up’ the child. It takes two adults to beat, cajole, and harangue the child out of its natural narcissistic, sociopathic state, into a somewhat less narcissistic, sociopathic state that has a chance to mellow into a productive member of society. Sure, other types of families can make this happen, but it’s often harder.
Look at my two grandsons, Roman and Stevie. I call them the Devilish Duo for a reason. Watching them scream at the top of their lungs over who sits on what side of the one office chair they use to watch videos and play Minecraft (Don’t get me started on their screen time!), and I feel like I’ve been transported into a new episode of Signs of a Psychopath. All that’s missing is the blood-spray analysis, the frantic call to 911, and the scenes where the body(ies) were dumped. Both of my grandsons are good kids. I love them both and would give my life to protect them, but, c’mon.
Brain development doesn’t conclude until the mid-twenties, so it’s not surprising that the behavior of young adults continues to exhibit sociopathic, narcissistic traits. I present to you as evidence frat parties, drunk driving and diversion programs. As one gets older, experience, the exhaustion of advancing age and hard-won experience serves to beat these tendencies down. These behaviors are why religion is so important. Isn’t that special?
An external system of right and wrong serves to guide the formation of the internal system of right and wrong. My parents saw to it that I was raised a Lutheran, and certainly reinforced a sense of right and wrong. It didn’t stop me from doing wrong, but it did provide a compass to find my way back. After a plethora of whippings and an eon of groundings, that is.
Perhaps that’s the lesson for today. We need that concrete, moral compass. When children see their parents follow something greater than themselves, it’s easier for them to do the same. When parents fail, and as humans they will, we need that ultimate, supernatural source of right and wrong to fall back upon. Religions are a ready source of educational material. Parables, historical information, and usually centuries of written thought on various aspects of the religious beliefs and practices help shape, and strengthen, our moral compass.
My parents made sure that I knew right from wrong, and what needed to be done after I had done wrong. I did the same for my children, and my daughter and son-in-law are trying to do the same for their two Hell-spawns.
We certainly don’t want them as an episode in Signs of a Psychopath.
Robin and I got up early this morning, had our Donut Friar breakfast with coffee, and set out for Clingman’s Dome. The Dome is an hour’s drive away, with the route taking us through the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The Mission? Spread more of my parent’s ashes. All it was going to take was a half-mile up the summit of Clingman’s Dome, the highest mountain in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The view from the room that morning.
As we drove through the park, we passed through banks of fog, a few turkeys, and a lot of beautiful scenery. In some spaces, the sun came through the fog in sun beams, creating scenes of ethereal beauty. Robin got to enjoy the scenery, as I was driving and didn’t want to kill us.
We got to the parking lot around 9:15am. The area was swathed in mist, and we had beaten the crowds, so there was muffled silence all around. Robin decided she was going to stay in the car. She has MS, and she didn’t want to walk up that path. She went up there two years ago, so she knew what it looked like. I made sure I had the tube of Maw and Paw’s ashes, and headed north, up the trail. It’s paved, so I didn’t have to worry about my footing. What I worry about is my aortic aneurysm. It’s stable, but I clearly don’t need to tax it too much.
The Clingman’s Dome parking lot, looking north. I think.
I walked up the trail, occasionally checking my Apple Watch to see what my heart rate was. When it went over 120, I stopped until it got back down below 110. There were benches spaced out along the way. Otherwise, I just stopped walking and learning on my staff. Yes, I had a staff. I could say I was a hot Gandalf, but since I have a face made for radio, that would be a lie. The fog wreathed the trees, and the trail, with a silky essence that shortened the world to mere yards. The fog also muffled sound. It was silent, except for the occasional talking as other hikers passed by. Even the talking was hushed. Clingman’s Dome was a cathedral that morning. Given why I was there, it seemed appropriate.
Where the Appalachian Trail intersects the Clingman’s Dome Trail near the summit.
Approximately 150ft from the summit, the Appalachian Trail crosses over Clingman’s Dome. Paw, before he died, had made plans to hike the Appalachian Trail from start to finish. He had made purchases over the years, procuring what gear he would need for the endeavor. He planned out how it would work, even going so far as to plot out the first few legs of the hike. Unfortunately life, as it often does, reared its ugly head and he was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. He had hiked sections of the trail before, but he never fulfilled his quest. Thus I thought it fitting that he and Maw became a permanent part of the Appalachian Trail. All that was needed was to find the right spot.
Where Robin poured the ashes in Hawaii.
Thus far, Robin and I picked locations to spread their ashes. She took some of their ashes to Hawaii when she went with her mother and sisters to visit family on Oahu. I spread some of their ashes in the Fairy Glen in Betws-y-Coed, Wales. Once we find a location, we just looked for a place that jumped out at us. Robin found a beautiful waterfall that had some lovely flowers. She poured the ashes near a rock, away from the path. In the Fairy Glen, I climbed down into a river gorge, and stupidly climbed over a bunch of rocks in the river, and found a suitable spot on a boulder to pour their ashes.
The Fairy Glen
This just looked…kinda creepy.
I took a left onto the trail, and took it down the trail a bit. As I went in, there was a place that looked like someone else had poured some ashes. It didn’t look like they had spent any time doing it. In fact, it looked like a crime scene. It was too close to the Clingman’s Dome Trail for my liking, so I went further down the trail. 350ft from the summit, I found a place where the trail widened out, overlooking a wide valley to the west.
The cairn over Maw & Paw’s ashes.
It felt right, so I looked for a likely spot. There was a small gulley coming down from the summit. It flowed over the trail, then continued down the mountain. Perfect. The rains would wash the ashes down the mountain, overlooking the valley. I knelt down and poured the ashes onto the rocks. Then, to keep it from looking like the crime scene I saw earlier, I built up a small cairn over the ashes. I stepped back, and took in the bigger picture. The cairn blended in with the scene. It was just the way Maw and Paw would want it. Unobtrusive, but situated in a beautiful scene with a view. Yes, I think they would have approved.
The view of the valley to the west of the Clingman’s Dome summit.
The view to the north, what little I could see.
After laying the ashes, I went up to the observation tower at the summit. The top was shrouded in clouds and mist, so the view was limited. I walked around the observation deckThe past time I was up here, there was hoarfrost all over the trees. It was a bit warmer this time. There were quite a few Black-Capped Chickadees flitting through the trees. They were too active for me to get a picture, crafty little buggers. I had a chat with a few people at the top, and made my way back down the trail. Gravity helped, and the trip down was uneventful.
The bear sign on the side of the path.
There was no need to stop along the way, but I did, here and there, to enjoy the views. The clouds were beginning to peel away, giving me glimpses of the surrounding valleys. Along the way, I noticed bear sign on the side of the path. Some were fresh, most likely from earlier that morning. As the people got more numerous, they moved away. Just as well. I had encountered a black bear decades ago in Wisconsin, while on a map course in Fort McCoy. We left each other alone. I did not want to re-create the experience. I think I could take one, if I had to have a Revenant moment, but I didn’t want to find out. Thankfully, I didn’t.
I made my way down to the start of the trail to the Visitor’s Center. Robin woke up from her nap and met me there. We moseyed around, looking at the shirts, mugs and curios. I ended up buying a bluegrass CD. There was a book on the Trail of Tears I was interested in, but I was sure I could find it cheaper on Amazon. Turns out I was right. $5 cheaper. We made the purchase of the CD and got back into the car for the trip back.
The Cherokee call Clingman’s Dome “Kuwahi“, which means ‘Mulberry Place’. They believe the bears gather there in the fall. The bears dance before going to their dens for the winter. Kuwahi is near the mythical lake called Atagahi. Hunters could not find it. Wounded bears could submerge themselves in the water, and come out healed. The lake teemed with fish and fowl. Cherokee legend has it that the lake could only be found by following the sound of wings of the birds as they flew by heading to the lake. Those that found the lake without following the sound only found a dry mudflat. Robin didn’t care. She wanted to get back to civilization.
I had made it this far in the trip without triggering a climate-altering, vanilla-smelling vortex of death, so I dutifully took her back to civilization.
Somewhere up the mountain, I could hear laughter that sounded suspiciously like Maw and Paw. Rest well, you two.
Maw, Paw and Babe on the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania.
Robin and I are in Gatlinburg, TN. Her sister and brother-in-law were using a time share with some friends. The friends had to leave early, and her sister asked if we wanted to finish out the week. We said, “Yes!” so last night we drove the six hours down from Indianapolis, and here we are!
Our view from our suite.
This morning, Robin and I got up, and went to breakfast at Pancake Pantry, an institution in Gatlinburg. Robin got the wild berry crêpes, and I had the Swiss chocolate chip pancakes. It did not disappoint!
Robin and Ranger waiting in line. Bacon!
After breakfast we did a little shopping. Robin wanted to get some custom salt from this shop she remembered from our trip here a couple of years ago. I served as the mule, carrying our hard-won booty from shop to shop. I was able to get a few cigars for myself. (Don’t tell my doctor!)
Some sketchy bear was putting the moves on my gal! We’re going home with some new bearskin rugs…Ranger is guarding the booty.
We naturally started looking for some things for our grandsons, Roman and Stevie. We found an honest-to-goodness magic shop, Doc’s Magic Shop. When we entered, a nice, elderly gentleman, Doc Waddell himself, greeted us. He showed us a couple of tricks on the counter, and he was pretty good. He did a trick with a pen sticking through a dollar bill. Robin was staring right at it, knew it was a trick, and still couldn’t figure it out. He gave her the pen and let her look it over. It was an actual pen that could write, but she couldn’t see how he was doing it. He did it three times before I saw it. There was a magnet on the back of the pen, and he held a false pen head in the crook of his little finger. Even knowing how he did it, I was still impressed.
We bought a couple of tricks for Roman, and a few Lego characters for Stevie. We picked up some doughnuts from the Donut Friar, another Gatlinburg institution, for breakfast on Friday morning.
Just some of the delicious offerings in the Donut Friar.
Robin and I went back to the resort. Robin spent the rest of the day chatting with her sister Janet. I talked some with Eddie, Janet’s husband. We cooked up some teriyaki pork chops with green beans and Brussels sprouts, and had a nice dinner. Four adults with no children. Heaven on Earth! After dinner, Robin and Janet talked some more. Eddie and I went out onto the balcony and had a cigar. I had mine with Salted Caramel bourbon from Ole Smoky Tennessee Distillery. It was a good way to end the day.
Tomorrow we are going to Clingman’s Dome. The Appalachian Trail crosses near the summit, and I will spread some of my parent’s ashes near there.
I woke up today and thought to myself, “Man! 22 years!” The common refrain is, “Never Forget,” but the further we get from September 11, 2001, the greater the number of people who were not alive when this happened. My fear is that there are people who are in the process of not only forgetting what happened that day, but the impact that event had on our society as well.
I was driving, on my way to work, when the DJ’s of the Bob & Tom Show (The top morning radio show in Indianapolis), broke in and announced that there was an explosion in one of the Twin Towers in New York City. By the time I arrived at my school on the south side of Indy, the reports were coming in that an airplane had flown into the tower. I parked and went inside.
They had a TV turned on in the Media Center, and a crowd of teachers were around the TV. I got there just as the second plane crashed into the second tower. I looked at the staff and said, “This is an attack.” We stood around the TV, stunned as we watched the horror unfold. Then, it was time to greet the students. so we left the TV on, and went to our respective duty stations.
Normally, I supervised students being dropped off by the school buses. Judy Livingston, the school Principal, asked me to post at the main entrance. There was a circular drive there, and parents would come down a long drive, enter the circle, drop their students off at the main entrance, then leave.
At the time, I wore a black cowboy hat. I stand 6’1″, and at the time I was around 230lbs. That hat made me appear bigger, and Judy thought I would project calmness and security when parents arrived. She was right, as she usually was. Parents would stop and ask if classes were still in session, and I would tell them they were. They would ask if their children would be safe, and I told them there was no safer place to be. They would nod, drop their children off, and leave. Schools were canceled the rest of the week, but on that day of chaos and fear, we removed one source of anxiety for those parents.
After the children had gone for the day, Judy dismissed the staff, and we all went home to watch the horror on the TV. New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, PA. All were crime scenes of the largest terror attack in our history. Watching the towers come down was horrifying. Hearing about the people who jumped was terrifying. The thing that really hit home for me was when I went out to my car and was struck by the silence. Indianapolis International Airport was located on the southwest side of Indy, right off of I-465. The school was generally under the flight path of departures, and the roar of jet engines became background noise. Until that day. That day I looked up. No planes, no contrails, no engine noise. Fittingly, it seemed that America had gone silent to mourn its losses.
Air flight changed that day, due to 9/11. The TSA andDepartment of Homeland Security were formed due to 9/11. We invaded Afghanistan to punish that country, governed by the Taliban, for sheltering the terrorists, due to 9/11. Passengers get involved in issues on flights, due to 9/11. Our intelligence agencies grew more powerful, due to 9/11. Our government grew larger, due to 9/11. We started the War on Terror, a conflict that has gone on since, due to 9/11. We invaded Iraq, due to 9/11.
The movie 12 Strong, starring Chris Hemsworth, told the fascinating story of the first U.S. Special Forces operators to enter Afghanistan after 9/11. In World Trade Center, starring Nicholas Cage, we saw the inspiring story of the last living survivors pulled from Ground Zero. In Flight 93, we saw the heroic story of the passengers who fought back against the terrorists, causing the plane to crash into a field in Shanksville, PA, instead of it’s intended target in Washington, D.C.
We lost a significant number of patriots on 9/11. We started the War on Terror. We invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. We created new governmental agenies. We passed the sweeping Patriot Act. And we made today Patriot’s Day. It’s our day to reflect on what happened, remember the 2,977 lives lost in the four attacks including 470 first responders and military personnel, the estimated 7,052 US military combatants, over 8,100 US military contractors and more than 14,800 US-allied coalition troops killed in the wars as of 2023. As a country, we still remember Pearl Harbor, both the event and the actions afterwards. We will do the same with 9/11.
We must never forget.
I hear people saying we don’t need this war I say there’s some things worth fighting for What about our freedom and this piece of ground We didn’t get to keep ’em by backing down They say we don’t realize the mess we’re getting in Before you start your preaching Let me ask you this my friend
Have you forgotten how it felt that day To see your homeland under fire And her people blown away Have you forgotten when those towers fell We had neighbors still inside Going through a living hell And you say we shouldn’t worry ’bout Bin Laden Have you forgotten
They took all the footage off my TV Said it’s too disturbing for you and me It’ll just breed anger that’s what the experts say If it was up to me I’d show it everyday Some say this country’s just out looking for a fight After 9/11 man I’d have to say that’s right
Have you forgotten how it felt that day To see your homeland under fire And her people blown away Have you forgotten when those towers fell We had neighbors still inside Going through a living hell And you say we shouldn’t worry ’bout Bin Laden Have you forgotten
I’ve been there with the soldiers Who’ve gone away to war And you can bet that they remember Just what they’re fighting for
Have you forgotten all the people killed Some went down like heros in that Pennsylvania field Have you forgotten about our Pentagon All the loved ones that we lost And those left to carry on Don’t you tell me not to worry about Bin Laden Have you forgotten
My Labor Day weekend was rather relaxed. This is adult-speak for “I didn’t do anything productive.” Part of that was due to some type of issue I had on Saturday.
I had received numerous mosquito bites on both knees, my left elbow, and my hands, as well as assorted bites elsewhere. The area of multiple bites became very itchy, swollen and painful, while the single bites just itched. I was also out of it. I felt light-headed and zoned-out, almost like I had been drinking. Robin mentioned that I appeared to be “out of it.” Sunday was a little better, although I still felt a bit light-headed. Monday was better, with the itching down to a manageable level.
I’ve never had a reaction to mosquito bites like that before. Many, many moons ago, I had a similar reaction to numerouschigger bites I received during an ROTCFTX (Field Training Exercise). I had numerous chigger bites in the groin area, and the subsequent itching and reaction led to a trip to the ER for sedation. What can I say? I am one of those genetically gifted buffets for biting insects. And I chose the Infantry, and camping and hiking…nowadays I just like sitting on my back patio, watching the hummingbirds, the flocks of compsognathus sparrows that eat everything in my bird feeders, and the numerous flowers in my care. And I get eaten alive.
We have a company called Mosquito Joescome out every three weeks to treat for mosquitos. They normally work out well. Lately, however… I imagine that the SkyriziI take for myCrohn’s Disease has something to do with it, but I don’t know that for sure. They treated this morning. Hopefully, by the time the heat breaks I’ll be able to get back outside. The mosquitos will be waiting, I’m sure.
I went out last night to lay some spare ribs on the grill for dinner, then came back inside. In that short period of time, I got bitten on my right wrist. It’s slightly swollen and sore, as well as itchy. I’m, guessing I’ve developed an allergy to mosquito venom? We have Asian Tiger Mosquitos, and these little turds are nasty, if somewhat easy to identify. They bite during the day, too. You would think that the chemical concoction in my bloodstream would cause these blood-suckers to explode upon ingestion, but no. Apparently it makes my blood equivalent to Nectar of the Gods.
One thing I did do was to harvest my sunflowers. We had about a dozen this year, and they grew to impressive heights. The tallest being over 8 feet. This was a variety with small seeds. What I ended up doing was harvesting the flowers with seeds and piling them up under the bird feeders for the birds and squirrels. At one point I looked out back. My oldest grandson, Roman, and his friend Oliver were sitting at a patio table, with a pile of the flowers in front of them. They were using rocks to beat the seeds out of the flowers, and were harvest what seeds they could to snack on. I thought about saying something, but, a) They weren’t doing anything dangerous or costly and, b) I remember, sort of, being that young. I was impressed at their industriousness, and that they could do all that without getting the snot bit out of them by the mosquitos.
I am getting ready to head back up to the Milwaukee area, to do some safety and security assessments for a school district north of Milwaukee. This one will only be a couple of weeks. I’ll also be doing an assessment for a local private school. There’s also a possibility that I will be doing some training for the State of Louisiana in December, but that has not been finalized yet.
Maybe I’ll make enough money to buy a mosquito-proof suit.
In Identifying Child Molesters Chapter 9 Setting Boundaries to Help Prevent Child Abuse, Dr. Van Dam follows up her excellent profile with some advice on what to do when a concerning person has been identified. This is her last substantive chapter. Chapter 10 is a summary, and I won’t go over that.
So you’ve used the profile provided in Chapter 8, and have identified a person you suspect is a narcissistic sociopath who might be preying on children. Now what? Fret not. Dr. Van Dam provides ideas for each part of the profile, so you can put a strategy for the area of the profile specified by the observed behavior.
A person utilizing grooming behaviors: – Is exceptionally charming and/or helpful with – Engages in peerlike play – Prefers the company of children – Roughhouses with and tickles children – Obtains immediate insider status and – Fails to honor clear boundaries – Goes on the offensive
In response, Dr. Van Dam wants us to remember the following: Overview of Intervening with a Potential Child Molester 1. Listen to the content. Do not be mesmerized by the delivery. 2. If something looks too good to be true, the price tag is hidden. 3. Children need adult involvement, guidance, direction—not a big playmate. 4. Look out for adults who primarily interact with children, not peers. 5. Do not tolerate wrestling, tickling, massaging, and touching games. 6. Worry when someone is instantly accorded family/insider status. 7. Run when “NO” is ignored. 8. Stand firm. Do not be intimidated.
Gavin de Becker is one of the world’s foremost experts in personal protection. His book The Gift of Fear is a must-read, and Dr. Van Dam uses his advice extensively in this chapter.
Listen to the content. Do not be mesmerized by the delivery. Overcoming someone’s charm can be difficult, especially when it is being used as a tool to get what the user wants. To counter this, Gavin de Becker tells us, “Think of charm as a verb, not as a trait. It has a motive—to control by attraction. If you tell yourself ‘This person is trying to charm me,’ as opposed to ‘This person is charming,’ you can see around it. Most often you’ll see nothing sinister, but other times you’ll be glad you looked” (de Becker, 1999, p. 67). (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (pp. 162-163). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.)
That’s a simple one. When you catch yourself thinking of a person being charming, change that to, “I am being charmed,” and you’ll be able to take a more objective view of the person’s behavior. It’s akin to dealing with a car salesman. Good salespeople treat you the way you wish people would treat you. The one issue is that they don’t really mean it. Their behavior is goal-oriented, just like child molester’s. Molesters appear attractive, interesting, and exciting, which can distract from noticing discrepancies.
I used the phrase narcissistic sociopath earlier. Groomers were described by one psychologist as “closet narcissists”. These personality types have little empathy, are interpersonally exploitative, have a sense of entitlement and believe others adore and worship them. (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 168). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) Sound like anyone you know? They are hyper-vigilant, and use their personal intensity, smiles and an invasive inquisitiveness to ensnare others.
Dr. Van Dam recommends listening to such a person without looking at them. This removes the use of body language, often used to confound their mark, and can reveal the shallow nature of their interaction. This reduces the groomer’s charm, and they will determine quickly that you are not open to being swayed, and they will move on.
If something looks too good to be true, the price tag is hidden. DO NOT ACCEPT HELP FROM THOSE WHO SEEMINGLY DO NOT WANT ANYTHING IN RETURN! Our relationships are, normally, transactional in nature. We appreciate thoughtfulness and helpfulness, but true friendships are reciprocal. Thus a relationship in which a person seemingly does not get anything in return for their helpfulness should be thoughtfully considered.
A person who repeatedly offers favor without accepting anything in return is blurring boundaries. It creates an unspoken debt that creates pressure later. Pressure to overlook small discrepancies and signs that invariably pop up in a dishonest relationship. It is hard to establish clear boundaries and expectations after someone has been helpful. This is a type of foot-in-the-door technique used by door-to-door salesmen.
Adults should interact with children as an adult. They’ll correct misbehavior, not participate in it. This interaction should be enriching, not exploitative. If this behavior is noticed, curtail the person’s interactions with children.
Children need adult involvement, guidance, direction—not a big playmate. All the child groomers described themselves as “being on the child’s wavelength.” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 174). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) Most of them agreed that this behavior should be concerning to adults. For many pedophiles, childhood represents the best off the world, while the adult world represents the worst. Pedophilia isn’t just about sex. It’s about a world where the person was loved, wanted and the world was simpler.
Look out for adults who primarily interact with children, not peers. In conjunction with the above, groomers prefer the company of their target age over adults. As Dr. Van Dam writes, “Molesters deliberately spend their time in places that provide them with access to their targets.” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 180). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) That means it is up to us to pay attention to the adults that spend time with our children. Do those adults spend time with other adults? What is the nature of their relationships? Do they maintain an adult-child relationship? Do they maintain their professionalism?
Do not tolerate wrestling, tickling, massaging, and touching games. This was an emphasis of Dr. Van Dam’s. All of the child molesters interviewed by her roughhoused or tickled their victims. Every one. No non-family member, or employee,should roughhouse or tickle children. It opens an employer to liability should the child be injured, and it serves no pedogogical purpose. Look for children sitting on an adult’s lap, especially if it’s numerous children. If a child is sitting on an adult’s lap, even Santa’s, it’s OK to keep an eye on the hands.
Dr. Van Dam writes, “Much of this touching, aimed at blurring the boundaries, was clearly visible to adults and has been reported again and again by molesters, their victims, and the adults who blindly observed this behavior.” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 182). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) All of the child molesters interviewed said it only takes one touch to desensitize a child. Doing this, often in the presence of the adults, serves to show the child that the touching is approved by the adults.
Worry when someone is instantly accorded family/insider status. Child groomers are so accomplished with lying that others think their behaviors must be acceptable. Their charm and friendliness allows them rapid access to family situations. Gavin de Becker wrote, “Every type of con relies upon distracting us from the obvious. That’s how a conversation evolves into a crime without the victim knowing until it’s too late” (de Becker, 1999, p. 69). (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 183). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) Groomers are very adept at making themselves seen as old friends. De Becker warns us to maintain a bigger picture. The groomer is a stranger who approached you.
Another technique used by groomers is to do things for the adults in charge of their prey. They may buy things, or provide things the parent cannot. This creates a feeling of obligation that the groomer exploits. The parent will have to either accept their error in allowing the groomer access to the child, or they’ll accept the new relationship as is. De Becker describes this technique as “forced teaming”. The groomers will us “we” to get the adults to feel as if they were all in the same boat. De Becker writes, “This forced teaming, one of the most sophisticated manipulations, is the projection of a shared purpose or experience where none exists” (p. 53).” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 184). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.)
The bottom line is, when you find someone who has miraculously gained insider status, the relationship should be more closely scrutinized.
Run when “NO” is ignored. Groomers are good at blurring boundaries. One of the ways you can see this sociopathic behavior is when they ignore attempts to establish boundaries. We set boundaries by using the word ‘NO’. They blur the boundaries by ignoring ‘NO’.
Groomers invade personal space, violate personal rights, and fail to respect other people. This behavior should not be tolerated. Dr. Van Dam writes, “Setting clear boundaries and expecting them to be honored is the very foundation for creating a safe environment for children.” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 186). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) Even if there is a feeling of obligation, or an acceptance of blurred boundaries, it is never too late to go back to normally adhered to boundaries.
If a person does not, or cannot, abide by the rules, then a large red flag has been raised. As de Becker writes, “Declining to hear “no” is a signal that someone is either seeking control or refusing to relinquish it…. The worst response when someone fails to accept “no” is to give ever weakening refusals and then give in. Never relent on “no”… even [with] someone who seems to have the best intentions. And never let him think you’re open to negotiation. (de Becker, 1997, p. 54)” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 186). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) Many of the child molesters interviewed for the book told Dr. Van Dam they purposely violated boundaries to see what the adults would do. If the adults were not tolerant of this, they moved on to another adult.
Stand firm. Do not be intimidated. Most, if not all, groomers are narcissists. Therefore it can be predicted that when they are thwarted in their efforts, they will go on the offensive. They are master manipulators, and this can become even more pronounced when they are opposed. Sometimes this may involve others. The groomer’s charm can lead others to oppose you, and even blame the victim.
In the case where you are attempting to report the behavior to an authority, it may become necessary to use a “broken record” approach to get them to take your reports seriously. Respectfully, but firmly, reiterate your required principles. Do not be confused by minimization, intimidation, or justification.
What Dr. Van Dam has done with her book is to provide clarity to child molestation, and the efforts of groomers who seek to prey on children. This clarity should be used to build the confidence needed to set and maintain appropriate boundaries. This prevents others from setting agendas, controlling the situation, and ignoring established norms. Your ability to do this models a valuable life skill for your children.
So there it is. Dr. Van Dam has written an excellent work, with usable information for those who seek to protect children from those who, increasingly, seek to prey on our children. Children look to adults to protect and guide them, not see them as sexual objects. Children need wholesome hugs and touches, not sexual caresses. Child sex abuse should not be tolerated. Supporting, minimizing or ignoring grooming behavior that harms the innocent hurts everyone. Stand firm, stay strong, and keep an eye out for groomers!
In Chapter 8 Visible Grooming, Dr. Van Dam provides, in the words of Criminal Minds, the profile. Before we get into that profile, there are some things to consider. A profile is not predictive. That means that a person who fits the profile is not necessarily a child molester. As you go through the parts of the profile you might think, “Wow, that describes me!” One of the descriptors is a child-like mentality. Most wives would use that to describe their husbands, but that doesn’t mean their husbands are child molesters. The profile provides a way for us to know if there is something to pay attention to.
A profile is a list of behavioral and/or demographic descriptors held in common by perpetrators. In Dr. Van Dam’s case, she focuses on behavioral traits. She interviewed numerous child molesters to identify these traits. The more traits a person exhibits, the more concern there should be. Keep in mind, the goal here is to NOT establish legal criteria. We’re not looking to provide evidence for trial. The goal is to protect children. A person who meets the profile should have their contact with children curtailed, and certainly be given more consideration. Groomers are manipulative sociopaths. We want to identify manipulative, sociopathic behavior and thereby protect children. We want to keep the wolves away from the lambs, not just teach the lambs to bleat when the wolf is around.
The profile was developed by child molesters, using their own words to describe the behaviors in which they engaged. Relying on children to report abuse is problematic. The onus of protecting children should be on the adults who care for them, so while it may be worthwhile to teach children what to do if an adult touches them, we as adults need to focus on identifying the molester before they get to that point. This process should not be used to label anyone as a molester, or even a suspected molester. A person meeting these criteria should be watched more closely, and their interactions with children should be viewed with a more critical eye.
So, as Hotch would say, “let’s present the profile.” A child molester/adult groomer is: – Exceptionally charming and/or helpful with – Engages in child-like play – Prefers the company of children – Roughhouses with and tickles children – Obtains immediate insider status and – Fails to honor clear boundaries – Goes on the offensive
Exceptionally charming and/or helpful Being exceptionally charming and/or helpful is how the groomer grooms the adult, and thereby access to the children. Here we’re are looking at the “if it’s too good to be true, it is” adage. A groomer will appear out of nowhere, offering help without asking for anything in return. This is a specific strategy employed by child molesters. You have what they want. Access to the children is their reward for the good deeds they do. As Dr. Van Dam warns, “The helpfulness is not part of an obviously reciprocal relationship.” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 151). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) People don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, so they’ll accept the help.
Engages in child-like play Child molesters engage in child-like play. This allows the groomer to begin grooming the intended victim, and has a two-fold purpose. It gets the child used to the attentions of the groomer, and continues to strengthen the bond between the groomer and the adults. Groomers get increasingly personal with their touches, gauge the reactions of the victim, as well as those around them, and then continue the process.
The difference between a child molester and a normal adult playing with children is that an adult will maintain an adult orientation. Adults will stop or redirect hurtful behavior, and they won’t initiate hurtful taunting or possibly dangerous behavior. Child molesters play like children, often because they are emotionally arrested at the level of a child. If you see adults playing with children, look for these cues.
This applies to educational relationships as well. Teachers will not necessarily be playing with children, but consider their interpersonal relationships. Do they maintain an adult orientation? Do they maintain a professional decorum? The key is the setting of boundaries.
Prefers the company of children Child molesters prefer the company of children over other adults. They actually have less interaction with adult peers than they do with children. Older teens who prefer babysitting to social activities of other teens may be of concern. Adults who prefer being around children more than their peers are an even greater concern. If there are parties with adults and children, adults who would rather be with the children than the adults should be a warning sign.
Roughhouses with and tickles children One of the major identifiers of grooming is roughhousing and tickling, especially when this happens with children that are not your own, or in inappropriate places, like at school. Each of the molesters interviewed by Dr. Van Dam engaged in this physical interaction. This behavior has a dual purpose. It desensitizes the children to the groomer’s touch, and helps confer adult approval on subsequent interactions. Many of the molesters interviewed by Dr. Van Dam molested the children during these interactions, often in full view of the parents.
Obtains immediate insider status Normal social interactions require time for a person to go though the stages of familiarity to be accepted in a group. A groomer, due to their charm and helpfulness, will gain almost immediate status. This is a warning sign. If you are having a social function with children and a strange person shows up being helpful with the children. Treat them like a stranger, no matter how helpful they are being with the children.
Fails to honor clear boundaries A clear sign something is not right is a person who fails to honor clear boundaries. If a person is engaging in a behavior with someone else’s child, is asked to stop and doesn’t, that’s a clear sign that something is amiss. A normal person would readily acknowledge the authority of the parent, and would not want to overstep their bounds. Yet, if the over-stepper was providing a useful service like baby-sitting, and ignores the reasonable request, most would want to continue to receive the service, and so would not make an issue of the non-compliance. This is the trap.
Goes on the offensive Frequently, those who bring to light questionable behaviors find themselves on the defensive. Remember that the groomer is charming and helpful. A parent that wants to call out a groomer’s questionable behavior may find themselves on the short end of the stick when it comes to people having their benefit threatened. Dr. Van Dam lists numerous examples of people who have supported groomers even after the behavior has been adjudicated. This seems puzzling until you consider that the person who supports the groomer does not want to face their own failings. There is tremendous power in denial.
So there it is. Dr. Van Dam has given you a working profile of a child molester. Remember, you’re not a member of the BAU. You don’t need to worry about evidence, civil rights or anything other than the safety of your children. A person who fits the profile may not necessarily be a child molester, but there is no harm done in heightening your perceptions of the situation. It’s about your kids, not about them!
In Chapter 7 The Social Climate That Fosters It: Turning a Blind Eye, Dr. Van Dam explains why people can see what is going on, yet not see what is going on. In this chapter, she looks into: Attitudes toward children, attitudes toward women, societal denial and molester denial.
Attitudes toward Children Our society does not prioritize children. Pipher, in 1994, stated in their study: Time is a problem. Studies show the average couple talks to each other twenty-nine minutes per week; the average mother talks seven minutes a day to her teenager, while the average father talks only five minutes. Supervision is a problem. The small, tight-knit communities that helped families rear children are increasingly extinct. Instead television is the babysitter in many homes. (Pipher, 1994, p. 80) (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 115). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) A society that prioritized children would create ways for parents to spend more meaningful time with their children. Instead we get caught up in work, sports, or anything else.
Schools have before- and after-school care that allows parents to drop their children off around 7:00am, and pick them up by 6:00pm. Parents then spend the bulk of their time dealing with home and family issues, and not spending time with their children. It is into this high-stress environment that child predators enter, and offer their babysitting services. Pipher notes, “In this last half of the twentieth century, families are under siege. Parents are more likely to be overworked, overcommitted, tired and poor. They are less likely to have outside support” (Pipher, 1994, p. 80). (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 116). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.)
How prevalent is this? A 1995 study found that 48% of molesters interviewed obtained access by offering their assistance with babysitting. Single-parent families are especially vulnerable to this. The child predator will befriend the family, working their way into the family dynamic, wait until the parents are frazzled, then offer themselves as a babysitter, to give the parent(s) a much-needed break. One molester described spending six months befriending a family before being given the opportunity to molest.
Attitudes Toward Women Dr. Van Dam writes that our society created subservient roles for women, and objectifies women. These make it difficult to clearly identify predators and intervene in the grooming process. There are those that would use these societal norms to put the blame for male sexual behavior on women. “If they would make themselves available, I wouldn’t have to find other outlets.”
Ophelia
Women are typically taught that they have to cater to the man’s needs. This is known as the Ophelia Syndrome. Ophelia was a woman in Shakespeare‘s play Hamlet. Polonius reduces Ophelia to the status of a baby. In Hamlet, Ophelia is worse than naive. She is ignorant, dependent and submissive. She submits to Polonius, and ends up devolving into madness, and suicide.
Young girls in our society are told to not be assertive, to be demure, lest they be labeled as ‘bitchy’. They are taught to make themselves look attractive. They focus on makeup, hair styles, and clothing, all designed to make them beautiful, not for their own sake, but to attract a boy. This societal concept hits during the middle school, years. Girls, who are learning to socialize at that age, want to fit in. Older women shave their legs, use facial cremes to reduce wrinkles, and hair products to hide their grey hair, all to look younger. Dr. Van Dam describes this as “infantilizing women”.
This infantilization helps blur the lines between women and children. Older women dress to look younger, younger women dress to look older. Take a look at young girls’ fashion trends. One predator, who abused 6-8 year old girls, was quoted as saying, “I was buying pornography… there was a league of pornography with pictures of women with shaved pubic hairs, hair in braids, young slim bodies, which is basically an approximation of a child.” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 120). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) He didn’t buy child pornography, as adult pornography was a good facsimile. There is a whole type of pornography called “Lolita“, based on women dressing like little girls.
Pornography dehumanizes women and children. There are those who think that pornography provides an outlet for men. Dr. Van Dam thinks pornography is actually a training opportunity, training men to link their arousal to fantasized material. Many of the molesters interviewed by Dr. Van Dam told her that masturbating to pornography developed their appetites, lowered their resistance, and they ultimately acted on their continuously rehearsed fantasies.
Societal Denial Researchers have delved into child sexual abuse at various times in the past. After each period of ‘enlightenment’, a veil of silence would return. In the late 1800s, Sigmund Freud theorized the hysteria and neurosis he observed in women was the direct result of their sexual abuse. Due to peer pressure, he altered his theory to state that children fantasized sex with their opposite sex parent, the Oedipal and Electra complexes. This placed the blame for child sex abuse on the victim. Subsequently, patients describing their sexual abuse were told they could not differentiate fact from fantasy, while this who denied being abused were told they weren’t acknowledging their fantasies.
Rates of sexual abuse in the 1920’s and 1930’s were similar to those of today, as were the rates in the 1960’s. Each of these time periods showed a sex abuse rate of around 25%. In the 1960’s the social researchers were more focused on relaxing societal sexual mores, so these numbers were not disseminated. The researchers felt that the numbers would have alarmed the public, and impeded their social agenda.
Dr. Albert Kinsey
The famous researcher Dr. Albert Kinsey concluded that sexual abuse was more in the imagination of therapists than in the lives of the patient. He further concluded that, even though his research showed that 80% of sexual abuse victims reported being upset or troubled by the experience, there was no logical reason for children to disturbed by the experience.
A researcher in 1989 used a new term, nescience, in his research. This researcher wrote,“The word for deliberate, beatific ignorance is nescience. In our historic failure to grasp the importance of sexual abuse and our reluctance to embrace it now, we might acknowledge that we are not naively innocent. We seem to be willfully ignorant, nescient” (p. 418). (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 123). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.). This willful ignorance is not special to the field of research. The recent issues in the Roman Catholic Church are a prime example of nescience, and it also explains the complacency in the field of education.
School districts around the country know there is marked evidence of child predators in education, yet how many districts provide training for their staff in identification of grooming procedures? Most states have mandatory reporting laws in place, but the results of scenario assessments across the country show that many staff members will not list reporting as one of the major first steps to take in a suspected grooming scenario. Nescience.
Two other terms used in the research are lacunas and discounting. Lacunas refers to how widely held societal beliefs can interfere with recognition and/or acknowledgment of events. Another term for this, used by psychologists, is denial. Parenting experts refer to this process as discounting. However it is described, this behavior leads to evidence being ignored at best, or even trivialized.
These societal tendencies lead to victim blaming. Rape and abuse victims are often told that it was because of their manner of dress, or their behavior. Pipher documented a case where a group of high school boys raped a ten-year old girl. Some parents used the “boys will be boys” approach, and a parent was quoted as saying, “there wouldn’t be enough jails in America if boys were imprisoned for doing what he has done” (Pipher, 1994, p. 70). (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 125). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) Pipher noted the ten-year old was called a “slut”, which led the boys to feel that she deserved the rape.
Hollywood often reinforces this, with allegedly romantic scenes where the hero forcefully grabs the love interest and kisses her, and she willingly submits. Think Gone with the Wind. This conveys the message that “No” means “Yes”, which Gavin De Becker says leads to further victimization.
Our legal systems don’t always help. A Canadian judge said “no may mean maybe” when acquitting a man of sexual assault. (Halliday, 1995, p. 5) (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 125). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) The Chicago Board of Education held a nine-year old responsible for the sexual assault by a twelve-year old, in the presence of a teacher. (Associated Press, 1995). (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 125). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.). Another judge acquitted a charged molester because “any man entering a room full of 14-year-old girls is like putting your hand in a bag full of weasels” (Halliday, 1995, p. 6). (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 125). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.)
In the music industry, songs, lyrics and videos reinforce the objectification of women and children, and the aggressive approaches of sexual interest. The Police had a #1 hit in the 1980’s called Don’t Stand So Close to Me, detailing the affair between a teacher and his student. That song referenced a book by Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, written in 1955. This novel made Time’s List of the 100 Best Novels, and was adapted to film by Stanley Kubrick in 1962, with another version in 1997 by Adrian Lyne. Rap and Hip Hop music abounds with misogyny and sexually assaultive behavior.
Roberts Noyes, a teacher in British Columbia, was convicted of sexually abusing hundreds of boys. Yes, hundreds. He taught at numerous school districts throughout out the province. Throughout a 20-year period, he was transferred from district to district. His activities would be discovered, he would seek treatment, then he would go to a new district. A young victim who went to the police rather than the school, ended his illegal behavior. British Columbia had mandatory reporting laws in place.
Officials and colleagues were quoted as saying, “His wife failed to be available to him,” “He was under a great deal of stress,” “He didn’t mean anything by it,” and, “it would be a shame to damage such a fine man’s reputation.” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (pp. 126-127). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.)
Molester Denial LTC Dave Grossman, in his landmark book On Killing, describes the universal inhibition human beings have to killing other human beings. Dr. Van Dam describes a similar inhibition against committing crimes against children. She writes that the molester overcomes this inhibition using Orwellian Newspeak, used in 1984. Newspeak is used to reinterpret activities into a different and more acceptable context. It can be used to deny the event, call the event different things like ‘social work’, blaming the victim, calling their event an ‘accident’, or blaming the rest of society. Some molesters consider this process as “grooming themselves.”
Denial in the molester is similar to denial by society. Molesters will often admit to the behavior, but blame the victim. Some comments include that the victim “was only getting what she deserved for walking on the street without a man at night”, or “this behavior isn’t immoral you know, it’s just illegal”, or the common “if she’s old enough to bleed, she’s old enough to breed.” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 127). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) The rationales used by molesters can make people shake their heads, yet they are sincerely held beliefs by the molesters.
One molester told a judge, “I just rolled over and tried to make love to the wrong girl,” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 128). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) Fantastically enough, the molester was acquitted. Dr. Van Dam writes that this line was used, verbatim, by many of the molesters she interviewed for the book.
A study in 1983 described the molester’s behavior as “addictive”. Their molester starts with a flawed belief system based on faulty assumptions, myths and beliefs, which lead to impaired thinking. They are described was passive-aggressive personalities whose dominant-dependent wives are not sexually available in the relationship. This ties back in to societal denial, as this places the blame on someone other than the perpetrator. In reality, molesters are often sexually involved with their spouses and children at the same time.
Ultimately, the molester’s denial leads to the belief that their deviance is a sexual orientation, and that their behavior provides benefits to their victims. They formed groups like NAMBLA, the Rene Guyon Society, the Childhood Sexuality Circle. These organizations provide normalization, and leads to political activities like the Pedophile Information Exchange (PIE), the Norwegian Pedophile Group, Amnesty for Child Sexuality, Wergrupp Pedophilie, and Studiegroep Pedofilie. (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 135). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) These groups classify their behaviors as “consenting” sex between adults and children, and lobby to abolish laws against pedophilia.
Dr. Van Dam ends the chapter with a discussion about consent. She wrote about a Canadian judge who acquitted a 37-year old of sex abuse charges against a 13-year old boy based on age discrimination. She opined that the adult should be treated as any other peer playing doctor. The perpetrator said the child gave consent, and the defense attorney stated that “young children have full knowledge and capacity to consent to sexual activities”, and the judge agreed. (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 135). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.)
Here I’ll end with a bit of my own commentary. Consent is not as convoluted as the predators want it to be. It requires a voluntary and willful agreement to another person’s proposition. It requires that the person consenting be fully able to understand to what they are consenting. Children lack the mental capabilities for that understanding. The age of consent exists for that reason. We don’t let children drive, purchase weapons or drink alcohol, but they can consent to sex? No, they can’t. They convoluted reasoning used by predators shows they know this.
What this reasoning does is give us a means of identifying when child predation is taking place. This reasoning leads to visible signs of grooming, and that will be the focus in Chapter 8.
Dr. Van Dam takes the reader into the heart of her book in Chapter 6 The Grooming Process: How Do They Do It? By describing the grooming process, she seeks to cut through the minimization, excuses, justifications and assumptions people use to protect themselves from the reality of the idea that an adult sees a child as a sexual object. This concept is so abhorrent, so vile, that normal people protect themselves from in in various ways.
I was an assistant principal at a middle school. There was a P.E. teacher who sexually molested one of my students in the boy’s locker room. He had similarly molested a student in a nearby town years ago. That victim came forward and filed a complaint, then my student came forward. Everything I read from Dr. Van Dam explained how he was able to be a prominent figure in the school community, and used that status to hide his predation.
I think back over my time there, to try to think of where I messed up. What did I miss? I certainly didn’t know then what I know now. I was without the benefit of experience and what little wisdom I’ve been able to accrue. Yet I was a guardian, a protector. I was naturally predisposed to notice something amiss. What did I miss?
I was missing knowledge. Without that knowledge, I was missing the signs of grooming. It is easy to be caught up in the everyday relationships and miss those signs, especially when you are not expecting it. Dr. Van Dam explains that there are concrete things that all groomers do to gain access to children. A process of grooming the predator uses to gain the trust of those around them, and then to molest.
Dr. Van Dam describes the four elements of this grooming process: Sexual attraction to children, justification of interest, grooming of adults and grooming of children. (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 89). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) Each of these elements are present in any of these situations. We’ll take a look at the mechanics of each, and how they come together to create the process predators use to groom their prey, and the adults around them.
The previous chapter covered the various research into the sexual attraction to children. Some research indicates that incest occurs because the father or step-father is sexually unsatisfied in their other relationships. “With almost no exceptions the patient, shortly before the incestuous relationship begins, finds himself barred from sexual intercourse with his own wife.” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 90). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) So the hapless father or step-father turns to their defenseless child to alleviate this frustration.
A different study found that all men are aroused by children, but most are in too much denial to act on those urges. There are studies that point to the historical existence of such relationships, which were encouraged and even lauded, in parts of Ancient Greece, for example. The conclusion, of course, “…sexual attraction to youthful individuals of his own sex is present to a greater or lesser degree in every human male, and this makes it possible for every man to have sex with a handsome boy.” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 90). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.)
A third of child molesters were victims themselves. A study in 1980 suggested that an adverse incident could be reversed, and lead to addictive behavior. The emotions associated with the adverse event caused a release of endorphins, and the person became addicted to the endorphin release. A study in 1990 suggested that the trauma of sexual abuse as a child could be expressed in deviant sexual behavior as an adult. Regardless of the theory, a predator finds a child sexually attractive, and seeks to find a way to satisfy the urges that go with the attraction.
The second phase in the grooming process is justifying their interest. To do this, a person engages in a process of neutralization. Neutralization involves denial of injury, denial of victimization, condemnation of dissension and a more enlightened viewpoint. In the denial of injury, a person will seek to replace the empirical evidence of the harm done to a child with anecdotal evidence, and often even fantasy. The Rene Guyon Society assert that children who are denied sex with adults suffer drug abuse, suicide and obesity. The North America Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) had published materials with supposed letters from children talking about the benefits they’ve received from their sexual relationships with adults.
Denial of victimization refers to the concept that the victim deserved the abuse, or brought on the offending behavior. This puts the child as a willing partner. This is an elaborate way to blame the victim. This usually revolves around consent. Groups like NAMBLA and the Rene Guyon Society assert that children are capable of consenting to sex.
Condemnation of dissension is what it sounds like. The predator condemns the protectors. The protectors are the ones who are damaging the children by making a big deal out of the adult-child sexual relationship. Thus the protectors are the real abusers by inserting their morality, guilt and shame into the situation.
A more enlightened viewpoint is what the predator has. They are providing sexual liberalization of children, to free them from the oppression of a sexually repressed society. This has come with the increased accessibility to pornography, and an accompanying decline of social norms and standards. People with sexual deviancies are able to normalize their deviance by interacting with others who think, and act, as they do. Add in the sexualization of children in movies, television and streaming services (Cuties, anyone?), and it’s small wonder that child predators feel normalized.
Prior to preying on children, the child molester will groom the adult community. The predator actively engages in “image management”, whereby they create an image of themselves they want to project, and then work to establish that image in the community. This aspect of the process is consistent among groomers. As one child molester noted, I would obviously have met his family several times…. I would have been invited to supper at his home and would have charmed the hell out of his parent(s) and they would be pleased the way their son responded to me and so obviously liked me. I am clean cut, very intelligent and personable and the parent(s) would feel that I was a “good” influence on their boy. (Cook, 1989, p. 7) (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (pp. 96-97). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.)
Child molesters gain two things from this practice; victims, and protection. Once they have gained the trust of the adults, the predator is given unfettered access to children, and the time to molest. An established predator is shielded from innuendos and accusations due to their standing in the community. Who are you going to believe, a twelve-year old victim, or a well-respected youth minister?
One example Dr. Van Dam used really stuck out in my mind. She wrote about a woman whose boyfriend admitted to her that he was a sexual predator, but he “seemed safe”. In her own words, I’d been sexually molested when I was a kid, and what my boyfriend did, is he told me right up front “We can’t see each other anymore unless you go to this group therapy thing because I’m a sex offender.” I thought, “How safe can you get?” If he was going to molest my kids, he wouldn’t have told me he was a sex offender. Right? I mean, this has got to be the safest guy on the block. (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 99). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) It’s easy to read this and render justice for her thinking, but this is similar to the thinking most people used when a child predator begins the grooming process. Groomers are teachers, babysitters, youth ministers, anyplace where they can have access to their victims.
Child predators participate in the development of name recognition, just like artists, politicians, comedians and other public figures. This is an advertising technique, and can be quite effective. They use a technique called ‘foot-in-the-door’. Her example was of a man who showed up, uninvited, at a birthday party, and began passing out candy. Asking the person, who the children are enthusiastically crowding around, to leave is socially difficult. Once that small concession is made, it is the basis for larger concessions.
The self-perception theory is a psychological theory that asserts that people infer their attitudes by their behavior. The parents at the party, seeing themselves accepting the stranger at their party, helps them establish the idea that he is acceptable. This is followed by cognitive dissonance (the discomfort a person feels when their behavior does not align with their values or beliefs), leads the parents to accept the stranger’s behaviors. This acceptance by the parents also sends a powerful message to the child. They seed that their parents accepted the stranger, who is now no longer a stranger.
Human beings tend to conform. They often “go along to get along”, and find it difficult to go against public opinion by speaking out. A predator uses this to their advantage. The grooming of adults creates a public opinion, that will quell the minor complaints parents might have about the predator’s behaviors. Once an attitude has been formed, human beings find it difficult to change. They engage in confirmation bias, only seeing information that confirms their existing view. We can see this being played out in real time in our politic discussions today.
The last part of the process is grooming the child. There are five stages of the grooming process: Identifying a vulnerable child, engage with the child in peer-like involvement, desensitizing the child to touching, isolating the child and making the child feel responsible. It is here where the matter is critical. Failure to recognize this process results in the victimization of the child. It is crunch-time.
Predators usually go after the easiest prey. Wolves, lion, cheetahs, etc. will go after the young or sick. Child predators are no different. Not only is it easier to manipulate and prey on vulnerable children, they are less likely to report the abuse, or to be believed if they report. A child predator testified to the U.S. Senate in 1985, I showed them affection and the attention they thought they were not getting anywhere else. Almost without exception, every child I have molested was lonely and longing for attention…. Their desire to be loved, their trust of adults, their normal sexual playfulness and their inquisitive minds made them perfect victims. (West Vancouver Policemen’s Association [WVPA], 1986, p. 131) (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 104). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.)
Children who are pre-verbal, are unable to speak, are especially susceptible, as are children in single-parent families. Children have a desire to be noticed, valued, loved and cherished. Predators use this to manipulate the child. This leads to peer-like involvement.
Sexual predators will be observed engaging with children as a peer, not as an adult. This can take the form of wrestling, tickling, having sleepovers and playing video games. Here observant adults can see adults acting child-like or preferring to be around children rather than other adults. It is not normal for an adult to prefer children over other adults.
Once the prey has been identified, and the predator has engaged in peer-like involvement, then the predator can begin desensitizing the victim to touching. The predator seeks to blur the line between appropriate and inappropriate touching. This is a gradual process that often has very visible signs. These can include tickling, wrestling and rough-housing.
With the victim, they will often begin with an apparent accidental touch. They gauge the child’s reaction to the touch, and may often accompany the touch with increasingly sexual talk and/or sexual imagery. Some predators will even see if they can do this in view of other adults.
Isolating the child helps to ensure secrecy for the predator. This can be done with a simple, “This is our little secret,” or it can be as complex as having the child lie about the incident. Having told the first lie, the child is now under pressure to tell other lies to support the first one. This helps create a sense of isolation, where the only contact in which the child can be open and themselves is with the predator.
Making the child feel responsible is the culmination of this cruel process. Victims will often blame themselves for the abuse, and the predator certainly uses this to their advantage. The predator plays up the feelings of shame and guilt felt by the victim.
This has been a fairly long blog post, but it is an important one. We’ve gone over the four elements of the grooming process; Sexual attraction to children, justification of interest, grooming of adults and grooming of children. In justification of interest, we went over neutralization, which involves denial of injury, denial of victimization, condemnation of dissension and a more enlightened viewpoint. There are five steps to the grooming process: Identifying a vulnerable child, Engage with the child in peer-like involvement, desensitizing the child to touching, isolating the child and making the child feel responsible.
As I think back on the situation I personally faced, there were things I heard about the teacher, that should have given me pause. If I had access to this information then, the outcome might have been different. Sometimes, even people who think behavior is wrong may not say anything. In the next chapter, Dr. Van Dam will describe how people can turn a blind eye to the behaviors they are noticing.
In Chapter 5 Characteristics of the Child Molester: Who Does It?, Dr. Van Dam describes the characteristics of child predators. To put it bluntly, you can’t tell by looking. Dr. Van Dam starts by writing about “stranger danger“, and how people assumed the child molester looked the part. They would be unkempt, unwashed, and would be easy to spot. Oh, and they would always be male.
Thus parents thought that teaching their children about “stranger danger” would protect them. Child molesters were like lions. Teach the children to look for lions, and warn them about where the lions hang out, and the children would be OK. That assumption has led to us being unprepared to address child molestation, and if we are unprepared, how can we expect our child to be prepared? As described in one study, “Realistically, the sex offender may be a close relative, a friend, or acquaintance, rather than a stranger; an older person or a youth; wealthy or poor; a Caucasian or a person of color; gay or straight; literate or illiterate; able or disabled; religious or non-religious; a professional, white or blue collar, or unemployed worker; a person with an extensive criminal record or one with no offense history at all” (Lloyd, 1987, p. 56). (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 82). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.)
In one study, the average age of a molester was around 31 years old, they were predominately Christian, male, and Caucasian. They were of high economic status, and well-educated. One-fourth were married, In another study they looked at the intelligence levels of child molesters. they found that, “…over one-third had an IQ in the average range, one-third in the bright average and superior range, and 10 percent in the very superior range of intellectual functioning.” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 82). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.). The one thing they found in various studies was that the methods they used to charm adults and then groom children did not vary much.
Another consideration is victimology, specifically the relationship between the offender and the victim. In one study mentioned by Dr. Van Dam, 13% of the cases involved strangers, 57% were committed by family members, and 28% were committed by friends. 21% of molestations were committed by natural fathers, whereas step-fathers committed 12%. Brothers and uncles each committed 10% of the molestations. Children in step-families were more likely to be molested, mainly because the two (or more) families added more people in the child’s lives. The studies examined up to this point were done on victims.
There were studies done looking on the offender side. This study found that, “Of the 38,671 victims of child molestation involving touching, 99.1% of all victims were victims of non-incest, whereas 0.9% of the total victims were family members who were molested numerous times.” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 84). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.). The molestations by family members often were longer-lasting, and thus created more psychological and emotional issues for the victim.
Dr. Van Dam found a study that showed only 2% of molestations within the family were reported, with 6% of molestations outside of the family being reported. She distilled the studies down to two main findings. One: “stranger danger” is not as big of an issue for children, and the molester is much more likely to live in their home, or be within their social network. Two: the number of molestations are greatly under-reported.
The type of molestation various greatly. In one study, 23% of convicted molesters committed rape, 24% committed statutory rape, 33% committed indecent liberties, 3% committed indecent exposure, 6% committed incest, and 11% committed other type offenses. In another study, 59% of offenders committed indecent liberties, followed by rape at 23%, indecent exposure at 11%, and other “hands off” offenses at 7%.
It is important to know that Dr. Van Dam indicated that many offenders begin committing offenses as children themselves. She also had a lot to say about “Peeping Toms“. There are those who think this is a passive type of incident, and thus relatively harmless. The data, however, says otherwise. One study showed “evidence of progression from nonviolent sex crimes during adolescence to more serious sexual assaults as adults”(Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 86). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) Dr. Van Dam notes that child molesters often “revert” back to these types of crimes. She notes that, “Excusing, denying, or interfering with the reporting of seemingly less invasive sexual abuse provides for those committing the non-contact offenses with opportunities to also commit direct contact molestations. (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 86). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) So passive or not, sexual deviancy needs to be noted and addressed.
Women have also been convicted as child molesters. Dr. Van Dam lists many reasons why women may not be reported for their abuses. Women tend to be assigned to child care and child hygiene, abuse can be more easily hidden by their caretaker role. Societal attitudes can also affect reporting. Juvenile males who are victimized by an adult woman are often considered “lucky”. Younger children who report women are often not believed, or evidence gets ignored. In one strange case in Washington, a woman was convicted of molesting her two children, and the judge returned the boys to her custody saying that “she didn’t really mean anything by it”. (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 87). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) The fact that this is not an isolated incident should concern you. Mary Kay Letourneau was married with four children before she sexually abused a 6th grade male student, whom she eventually married. The mother of the male student became one of Mrs. Letourneau’s most ardent defenders.
Most child molesters do not meet the criteria for psychopathy. Child predators meet the criteria of psychopathy, in that they lack empathy, impulsive behavior, and poor behavioral control. Psychopaths, however, commit multiple criminal offenses. Child molesters, apart from their sexual deviancy, are otherwise law-abiding people. Their behavior, however, is very similar to the behaviors of psychopaths. They can con people into giving their support and cooperation. The methods they use are deliberately disorienting, such as staring at a person with a blank stare.
The author of one study into psychopaths provides advice for dealing with them that would also apply to dealing with a child molester. This author wrote, The next time you find yourself dealing with an individual with nonverbal mannerisms or gimmicks whose riveting eye contact, dramatic hand movements, “stage scenery” and so on, tend to overwhelm you, close your eyes or look away and carefully listen to what the person is saying. (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 88). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.” This will be a factor in future chapters. An adage used to help people avoid scams applies her as well. If it’s seems too good to be true, then it probably isn’t.
It is clear that one cannot identify child molesters by their looks, their gender, or their occupation. What helps us identify child molesters are their behaviors. We need to be able to identify these behaviors, and then have a solid game plan.
Chapter Four Prevalence: How often does it happen? was a relatively short chapter. Dr. Van Dam cites numerous studies that essentially say, we’re not sure how prevalent it is. One thing we know for sure, based on the number of victims we know, it’s a lot, and the dark figure is high.
In criminology, the dark figure is the difference between the reported figures, and the actual figures. Child molestation is clearly under-reported, for many reasons. This is troubling when one of the major themes of the book is clarity. Policy decisions should be based on the numbers. If the dark figure is high, the impact of a policy on the problem would be unknown.
Dr. Van Dam starts Chapter Four by saying that twenty years ago, most psychology programs made no mention of child molestation. This book was published in 2001, so that makes it that 43 years ago, no mention of child molestation was found in psychology programs.
In 1955, a study found the incident of incest to be one per million in English-speaking countries. By 1984, studies were showing that approximately one in four women and one out of six to ten men had been sexually abused during their childhood. So, by 1985, one-third of women, and anywhere from 11% to 47% of men were molested doing childhood.
Dr. Van Dam briefly addressed a controversy in the field, false memories. This is where victims regain access to repressed memories through therapy. Sometimes confessions are obtained through questionable means. All of this causes confusion with the numbers, leading to the afore-mentioned dark figures.
For most victims, the child sexual abuse begins before the age of sixteen, with 48% of the victims being younger than age twelve. Some studies show 50% of the victims were under the age of six.
The number of child sex offenders looks to have a larger dark figure than the number of victims. Many victims are abused by more than one person, further confusing the numbers. In 1999, the U.S. Department of Justice estimated one child molester per square mile, although it is unsure how they arrived at this figure. Offenders do not readily admit what they’ve done, victims don’t always disclose what has happened, and some allegations may be false.
When child sex offenders are guaranteed confidentiality, we might get better numbers. In one such study of 232 child molesters reported “55,250 attempted molestations and 38,727 completed molestations” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 77). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) That’s 106 completed molestations, and 111 attempted molestations per offender. A study in 1986 reported even higher numbers, averaging 470 molestations each.
Studies of college age males indicate that 21-35% of the male population did not think that some sex with children is a problem, and can even imagine, in some circumstances, of making it happen. In another study, “21 percent of male undergraduates reported sexual attraction to children, 9 percent fantasized sex with a child, 5 percent masturbated to fantasies of sex with children, and 7 percent indicated the likelihood of actual sexual involvement with a child if there were no deleterious consequences.” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 79). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.)
Looking at some modern numbers, data was compiled by 52 child sex abuse hotlines in 48 countries in a study conducted published by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in 2015. In this study, “80 percent of responding hotlines remarked that they were seeing an increase in the use of social networking for child exploitation – either as a forum for grooming or as a source of self-generated, sexually explicit images of children.”
In the UK, social media was the most-used means of grooming children, at 49%, followed by instant messaging and chat. The largest group of victims were 13 – 14 year olds at 35 percent; 11-12 year olds made up the next largest group at 22 percent. One-fourth of social networking users age 8-11, and one third of users age 12-15, communicate with someone only known to them through the Internet.
The majority of reported child victims were girls (78%) while 13% were boys. The largest category of reported victims were older girls, at 48%. Of the 5,917 offenders named in the reports; the majority were male (82%) while only 9% were female. Of the total reported offenders, 98% were individuals seemingly unknown to the children in real life while only 2% were likely known.
The results showed that offenders seemed to want “sexually explicit images of children (60%); to meet and have sexual contact with children (32%); to engage in sexual conversation/role-play with children online (8%) and; to acquire some type of financial goal (2%).”
NCMEC reports that, in 2020, over 21.7 million reports were made to the Cyber Tipline.
Dr. Van Dam‘s concerns over the dark figures should be kept in mind as we go through the rest of her book. However, it is clear that child sexual predators are a very real problem.
Paw came to my mind today. Truth be told, he’s on my mind a lot since he passed at the end of 2018. But today something happened that really brought him back to me.
Paw was a guy who really liked to let people think he wasn’t as smart as he was. He was a big fan of Louis L’Amour, and other western authors. He reveled in homespun wisdom, so much so that, when I was an Assistant Principal, I sent out a daily email to my staff that ended with a “Satterlyism”, one of his one-line, homespun wisdom. The staff loved them. They frequently asked, “Did he really say all those things?” Yup, he did. That doesn’t mean he created them all, but he sure did say them. “No matter where you go, there you are,” was one of his all-time favorites. He was a big fan of Lewis Grizzard(Shoot Low, Boys! They’re Riding Shetland Ponies!) and Will Rogers(“Politicians can do more funny things naturally, than I can think of to do purposely.”), so he had that going for him.
The one that pertained to an incident that happened today was, “Don’t go making a mountain for yourself ta climb. Life has got enough mountains fer ya.” The incident not only involved my grandsons, those Scions of Chaos, but the subject matter I’ve been writing about the past few days.
It started when a friend of the Devilish Duo came over. Pretty soon they were doing a Number 6 , all a-whappin’ an a-whompin’ around the house. Mebbe they all thought they was in the town of Rock Ridge. Peepaw was only on his first cup of coffee, so the boys were politely asked to take their play outside, by which I mean I growled, “Git out!” at the top of my lungs.
A bit later, I went into the kitchen to get my second cup of coffee, and happened to look out the window to check on the hellions. I was just in time to see the young friend pull his pants down and wave his little Cigar Store Indian (What is up with those, anyway?) at my grandsons. Well, that right there was something you don’t see everyday.
A guy in my line of work, school safety, will often go straight to worst case scenarios, so I made sure to take breath, and remember what Paw had said. I opened the door and told the young man, “Yeah, we don’t do that here. Let’s not do it again.” I went back in and started on my second cup. I seriously considered adding a lot more bite to the coffee, but even though it was five o’clock somewhere, I needed to stay sober.
When their friend went back home, I called the boys over to me. I thought back on all those episodes of Criminal Minds, and in my best David Rossi imitation I asked, “Has he ever pulled his pants down like that before?” Roman, looked away, “No.” Hmmm. I didn’t have to develop a rapport with Roman. I knew from his response that he was not telling me the truth. “Roman, I need you to be honest with me. Have you boys ever touched each other?” He looked right at me, “Well, when we play Ring around the Rosie, we hit each other down there.” Again, I know Roman, so I asked a clarifying question, “What do you mean, down there.” He pointed to his crotch. Right. I’ll get worried when he starts burying kill kits…
Even seven year olds engage in minimization. I guess it comes naturally. Peepaw had a chat with the boys about not touching other people down there, and not letting other people touch them down there. I shared what happened, and what I said to the boys, with their mother. Next chance she gets, she’ll share with the other mom what happened.
See? No muss, no fuss. Such behavior can be natural, and absent any clues otherwise, this was a naturally occurring thing that children do was they grow up. I am not a big fan of using this phrase as an excuse for bad behavior, but boys will be boys. Even when I was a middle school administrator, I dealt with boys “bag-tagging” each other, purple nurples, and other aspects of stupid boyish behavior.
As Dr. Van Dam wrote, there was no power imbalance, all the boys were operating with the same level of knowledge, so no harm, no foul. That doesn’t mean you don’t address it, but as Paw said, “Don’t go making a mountain for yourself ta climb. Life has got enough mountains fer ya.”
Dr. Van Dam’s theme of clarity applied to this situation as well. Over-reacting to a situation like this can cause some trauma. Children are concrete thinkers, so you need to keep your interactions concrete. Address it, keep all the adults in the loop, and keep an eye out for the next time.
It’s like Paw always said, sometimes, “Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.” Now, you might think that Will Rogers done said that, but I know for a fact Paw done said it, so I’ve spoken my piece, and counted to three.
“There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.” Will Rogers
“I was raised to think women had babies, stayed at home, and men worked. By the time I got ready to do it, I thought I had all the answers. Only somebody had changed the questions.” Lewis Grizzard
“When I die, remember that what you knew of me is with you always. What is buried is only the shell of what was. Do not regret the shell, but remember the man. Remember the father.” Louis L ‘Amour
In Chapter 3 Why it is a problem: What is the harm?, Dr. Van Dam takes a look at the harm that child molestation can cause. This was actually a tough chapter for me to read. My mother was a victim of incest, and my youngest daughter was a victim of a molestation as well. I saw, first-hand, the short-term and long-term harm caused. This chapter has helped me understand some of what I’ve seen.
In keeping with one of her main themes, Dr. Van Dam stressed clarity. Clarity will help us see the impact that child molestation has on the victims, and the “direct and indirect consequences society incurs by tolerating, ignoring or failing to prevent the sexual victimization of children.” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 57). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.)
Child molesters would have us think that sexual victimization is harmless or benign. There are organizations like the North American Man-Boy Association (NAMBLA) and the Rene Guyon Society that provide means for child molesters to normalize their behaviors. Groups like these promote the idea that their urges and desires make them a sexual minority, and thus they should be afforded civil rights. The amount of Internet traffic of child pornography would seem to indicate there are a lot of people who might agree with them.
There are those at the opposite end of the spectrum who think that any sexual incident will permanently scar the victim. Dr. Van Dam provides the example of the child who was the recipient of random frottage. In many cases the incident happened so fast that the child may not have noticed, or, if not followed up by any other threatening behavior, would be quickly forgotten.
Still others believe that the harm from child molestations comes from societal attitudes and cultural norms. “One molester pointed out that the taboo against sex with children is Victorian-age hysteria whipped up by feminists who don’t understand male sexuality.” He states “all the harm is done by the taboo. If nobody is getting hurt there is nothing to worry about.” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 58). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) We needed clarity on what child molestation is, as poor understanding may stifle appropriate responses and interventions. We also need clarity on the harm it causes, to properly manage the events preceding the molest.
Dr. Van Dam used as an example Mary Kay Letourneau. She was a sixth-grade teacher who was convicted of second-degree child rape on one of her students. The police found her and the student in her car. The boy was undressed and under a blanket. The police allowed her to call the boys mother and talk to her. The mother told the police to release her son back to Mrs. Letourneau, which they did. This shows how a perpetrator’s charm and competency can lull adults into not protecting children. The police in this situation needed more clarity on the impact child molestation can have, as we all do.
The psychological issues are difficult to define. Many psychological issues are taken in isolation, so underlying causes related to child molestation have been difficult to make. Dr. Van Dam identified some psychological concerns associated with child molestation: Post-traumatic stress disorder, Increased drug and alcohol abuse, Obsessive-compulsive disorder, Panic attacks and anxiety disorders, Depression, Personality disorders, Increased utilization of health services, Increased utilization of social services, Sexual dysfunctions, Suicidal ideation, Greater risk for relationship and parenting problems. (Van Dam, Carla.
Child molestation deprives children of innocent peer exploration, which research shows may interfere with normal development of adult sexual behavior and relationships. The need for secrecy creates severe stress in the child’s as the secrecy may be enforced with direct threats, or more subtle coercion. This secrecy can interfere with the child developing proper intimacy, as the secrecy prevents the closeness needed in healthy personal relationships. The secrecy isolates the child, and maintaining th4 secret takes up more of the child’s time, interfering with the many daily things children do to grow and develop.
Children who are victims of child molestation behave differently, due to the stresses, secrecy, same and pain. This can lead to acting out, which can cause peers to pull away, further isolating the child. When the child molestation comes to light, people can react in negative ways. Sometimes they blame the child, saying “they asked for it”, or other things that place the responsibility on the child.
Just as there are different types of sexual abuse, there are even more types of damage done. Much of what we know of the damage comes from comparing adults who were molested, with adults who were not. What is clear is that the true extent of child molestation may never be known as it is most certainly under-reported.
People who have been sexually abused as children are more likely to enter into, and remain in, abusive relationships. Dr. Van Dam explains this by using studies into “learned helplessness” studies. Laboratory animals were subject to random, electric shocks, from which they could not escape. The researchers would then leave the doors to the cage open, but the animals wouldn’t leave, even when they saw healthy animals leaving. Abused humans exhibit similar behaviors. Learned helplessness explains why abuse victims remain in abusive relationships.
Child sexual abuse victims experience depression at higher rates than the general population. Guilt and shame destroys a person’s self-esteem, as does the constant secrecy. Many adults who suffer from clinical depression were victims of child sexual abuse. As Dr. Van Dam writes, Looking specifically at clinical samples of adults who were sexually abused, 92 percent reported mood disturbances, such as depression, guilt, and low self-esteem. In addition, these adults were more self-destructive and suicidal than their nonabused counterparts, or than depressed adults who did not have a history of child sexual abuse (Ratican, 1992). (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 63). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.)
Self-injury and suicidal ideation is frequently linked to child sexual abuse. A student at one of my schools, who was sexually abused by her youth minister, suffered from anorexia, to the point where the was on a feeding tube. My daughter engaged in cutting, and numerous trips to the hospital for suicidal ideation. Self-injurious behavior is linked with histories of childhood sexual abuse.
Victims of child sexual abuse had sexual delusions, were pre-occupied with sex, were depressed, were more likely to engage in substance abuse, and major medical issues. They sought social contact more than their peers, but this contacts were characterized by hyperarousal, disorganized thinking, agitation and delusions. They were more likely to threaten others, and engage in substance and alcohol abuse.
Many victims, especially victims of incest, feel isolated and rejected. They may think it’s their fault, that they brought it on themselves. Victims of incest have higher rates of running away from home, and this, in turn, leads to higher rates of prostitution.
Child sexual abuse leads to issues in child rearing. One study found 24 percent of abusive mothers had been victims of incest. Another study found that a high percentage of child sexual abuse victims had mothers who were sexually abused. One third of those who sexually abuse children were sexually abused as children.
Child sexual abuse, by definition, violates personal boundaries. Concepts such as differentiation and individuation, in Western culture are equated with mental health. Child sexual abuse blurs those boundaries. It can lead to a cycle of abuse.
Aside from psychological damage, child sexual abuse can cause physical damage. Children can contract sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy and physiological damage like anal fissures. In some cases, internal damage has caused the death of the child.
The moral damage has to be considered as well. We can see the dangers of a person in authority having sex with with a subordinate. The person in authority is in a position of trust. Having sex with a subordinate violates that trust, even when it is between two adults. As Dr. Van Dam writes, “When adults consider sexual interactions with a child, they automatically enter into an exploitative relationship with the child, meeting their personal needs and agendas, rather than attending to the child’s best interests. By definition, at that point, they are no longer able to advocate for the child. (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 69). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.).
Despite what some child molesters may say or think, a child cannot consent to a sexual relationship. The relationship between any adult, who is more powerful, and a child, who is powerless, ensures the child cannot act independently. A child also lacks the experience and understanding to provide informed consent. Children are concrete thinkers. They are incapable of abstract thinking necessary for informed consent. We don’t allow children to participate in government, own weapons, or vote. Yet child molesters argue children can give consent to sex. Strange.
Child molesters will often point to Ancient Greek practices as justification for their predations. Numerous Greek poems were written where the adult men extolled the virtues of the young boys they preyed upon. Distinctly missing from the histories are the poems of the boys praising the adults who preyed upon them.
For a person to ensnare another, to have them engage in behaviors that are against their wishes, and against their benefit, is akin to slavery. It is inconceivable that anyone could make a rational, moral argument for slavery. We should not accept such arguments for child predation.
The other day I was mowing the grass. We own a quarter acre of land. Too small for a riding mower, so I make do with a push mower. My typical pattern is I mow outside the perimeter fence around back yard, then the front, saving the back yard for the last. As I came around to the west side gate to the back yard, I hear Roman yell out something. Roman is my 7 1/2 year-old grandson. Stevie, who was named after me, will be five in September.
I was a bit irritated with the interruption as I let go of the safety bar on the mower. It shut off. “What?” I snapped.
Roman pointed at the play set. “Stevie is stuck!”
I turned to look and, sure enough, Stevie was in a pickle. He had climbed up under the canopy, I’m assuming to get onto the swing crossbar, like he’s seen his big brother repeatedly do. He got one leg outside, and froze. He wasn’t stuck, he had just lost his nerve. He sat there, one leg out, one leg in, whimpering.
What he wanted, more than anything, was for Peepaw to grab him, bring him down, hug him, and tell him everything was OK. He don’t know Peepaw too well. Peepaw is Old School. Stevie got himself into this mess, Stevie was going to get himself out. Peepaw would provide assistance and moral support, but he’s too old to be climbing up into children’s play sets. It was bad enough when he had to do it to paint it this past spring.
Now, just in case I have any readers who doubt otherwise, if Stevie had been in any danger, I’d have been up there, back pain be damned, to get that boy to safety. As a matter of fact, part of my back issues resulted from my oldest daughter Jessica, who got near the top of some stairs, and started to fall. I leapt forward, scooped her up, twisted so she was on top and slid down the stairs on my back. When I crashed into the bottom, she popped out, giggling, and wedged herself between two balusters. Lying on my back in pain, with my feet up the stairs, I saw her predicament and jackknifed up, grabbed her, and ended up on the floor. She giggled the whole way, and was undoubtedly learning her first curse words. I ended up in the emergency room.
I’ll sacrifice my body for my family. I know, I’ve seen me do it.
So there I was, standing under Stevie. He’s above me whimpering. I try the simple approach first. “Stevie, Pull your leg in, buddy.”
“I can’t! I’m scared!”
Time for some Peepaw wisdom. “Just because you’re scared, doesn’t mean you can’t.” I felt proud of that one. Thought it up all be myself, right on the spot. And as usual when my head gets a little big, the Good Lord arranges the cure.
Roman, with all the wisdom 7 1/2 years of life experience can bring, says, “I don’t think that’s true.”
“Shut up, Roman.”
I proceeded to coach Stevie on what he needed to do. After a few moments of Stevie whimpering, without responding to my verbal prompts, I began having visions of tipping the play set over. Then I would have to explain that to his mother and father, Meemaw, and Child Protective Services, so I took a deep breath, reached up and tapped the foot that was outside. “Stevie, you’ll need to raise this foot over the bar you’re sitting on. Do you understand?”
Whimpering. No movement. “Buddy? You’re gonna have move this foot over the bar.”
More whimpering. I move his foot up toward the board he was sitting on. The whimpering intensified, getting louder the higher I listed his foot. I suppressed a brief image of me roaring like a monster as I pulled him down, as my daughter and son-in-law did not currently have the means to pay for Stevie’s subsequent therapy.
I placed his foot on top of the board he was sitting on. “Now buddy, all you have to do is bring that foot down, and you’ll be OK.”
More whimpering. He had his arms clamped so tight around the board that it was a wonder hadn’t splintered it yet. “Come on, buddy! Just bring your foot down.”
“I can’t, I’m scared!”
I still had the back yard to mow. It was hot, and my patience had worn thin. I reached up and pushed his knee over the board. His foot followed the knee. The minute his foot hit the floor, he stood up and smiled. I smiled back. “Look at you, buddy! You did it!”
He beamed back at me. “I did it!” Roman echoed his brother, “You did it!”
Stevie climbed down, and he and Roman ran into the house to play Minecraft. I finished mowing the back yard and went into the house. Jessica was in the kitchen, making the boys some lunch. I walked over to her.
“So Stevie got himself stuck on the play set. I’m going to explain what really happened, then I’m going to give you the official story.
Jessica laughed and said, “Alright.”
I explained everything to her, just as described above.
She shook her head. “Typical. So what’s the official story?”
I deadpanned, “Stevie got himself stuck. Peepaw came over to make sure he was ok, and watched as Stevie got his foot back over the board. Stevie was a big boy, overcame his fear and got himself down!”
Jessica laughed, sarcastically. “OK. We’ll go with that.” She went over to Stevie and said, “I heard you got yourself out of trouble! That’s my big boy!”
Honesty is a wonderful thing, but it isn’t always the best thing. Stevie was traumatized. Nothing that would create PTS, but the fear was real. If I had just lifted him up off of the play set, the problem would have been solved, and Stevie’s lesson would be; if he got in trouble, someone would come and help him out. A retooling of the story planted a seed in his head that he could get himself out of trouble, and his family was nearby if he needed them.
A small incident, but hopefully in his future, in a dark moment, he’ll remember that his Peepaw and his mother were impressed that he got himself out of trouble.
Just because you’re scared, doesn’t mean you can’t.
My last blog covered the case studies found in Chapter 1 The Problem. Before beginning Chapter 2 Knowing It Is a Problem: The Need for Clarity, I want to make a point I missed from Chapter 1. Think about some of our current efforts to prevent child molestation. We teach children about safe touching (Good touch, bad touch), saying “no”, and telling a trusted adult when something happens, and to continue telling until an adult listens. Who is primarily responsible for this process? The child. The process implicitly tells children that they are responsible for their own safety. Are there any other areas of criminal justice in which society places the responsibility of protecting themselves on children?
We tell children to tell a trusted adult, and to keep telling them until they are believed. That gives the message to children that their stories will seem unbelievable. We want children to be more persistant than most adults would be in less emotionally-charged situations. In the situations Dr. Van Dam covers in her book, it’s the adults who are groomed by the perpetrator to gain access to the victims. When the adults welcome the molesters with open arms, public praise and increased social standing, how will children respond when they have to make serious charges against such an outstanding citizen?
Let’s keep that in mind as we learn the tools we need to be the protectors. Our children do not need that burden. That’s on us.
In Chapter 2 Dr. Van Dam writes about how many of the problems that society has in addressing this issue are because of the numerous definitions people have for child molestation. When people don’t feel sure about what they are seeing, they are hesitant to act. Predators thrive in the resulting uncertainty. Parents who get told things by their children will often choose erroneous avenues to address the situation. For example, a student that tells their parents that a teacher put their hands down the back of their pants, may address the issue with the school principal rather than the police.
As an educator for 29 years, and as a school safety expert for nearly 15 years, I know educators struggle with this, even after laws that make it clear. For example, under Indiana CodeIC 31-33-5 and IC 12-17.2-3.5, child care staff and volunteers are mandated to report suspected child abuse and neglect. Failure to do so is a class B misdemeanor. Most states have similar mandatory reporting laws. Yet in my travels around the country, educators and school administrators struggle with that.
In my work with Safe Havens International, the world’s largest non-profit school safety center, we conduct scenario assessments, in which various school staff are given video or audio scenarios, and asked what they would do to respond to the incidents. We record their responses for the first 30 seconds. One of the scenarios involves a staff member acting inappropriately with a student by saying sexually explicit things, and stroking the student’s hair. This scenario, while disturbing, is not explicit in nature, but I often see the staff member struggle with what to do, and more often than not, reporting the incident to the authorities is not mentioned, even in those states in which doing so would be mandated by law. I think, more often than not, this is due to uncertainty.
This uncertainty exists even among experts in the field. As Dr. Van Dam writes, There is no consensus among researchers and practitioners about what sex acts constitute sexual abuse, what age defines children, nor even when the concept of child sexual abuse is preferable to others such as sexual victimization, sexual exploitation, sexual assault, sexual misuse, child molestation, sexual maltreatment, or child rape…. Cases in which children are raped or otherwise sexually abused by their peers, younger children, or children less than five years older than themselves, are often discounted as instances of child sexual abuse. (p. 133) (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 42). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) Perhaps this is a case of the experts getting lost in the weeds. They get caught up in research, of trying to prove a particular point, and they forget why they are doing the research. People who are experiencing the situation first-hand can’t decide what is going on, because the experts can’t agree on what to call it.
The problem we face is that clarity is needed. The lack of clarity assists the molester, and does nothing to help us protect children. Lack of clarity interferes with appropriate treatment. If you don’t know what to call a particular behavior, then a proper treatment cannot be determined. A lack of clarity can interfere with proper educational practices. For example, children require proper physical contact for regular emotional and psychological development, thus going with a “no touch” policy would not be in the child’s best interests.
Dr. Van Dam used a term, nescience, a lack of knowledge or awareness, to explain how some people can see something happen, but not see it. I witnessed this as a school administrator. We had two students in a field after school, conducting field research on the procreative process. They were in an advanced state of undress, when the school’s cross country team, along with their coach, ran by. The two young researchers sprang up, in fragrante delicti (red-handed, so to speak), instantly creating a team full of eye witnesses. Except for the coach, who apparently went situationally blind. In the case of child molesters, they can brazenly fondle a victim, and the sheer cheekiness of the act, along with the confidence of the molester, will prevent witnesses from making a report. They will not believe what they just saw, in what researchers call “shared negative hallucination”. No belief, no report, and a child becomes a victim.
So what’s to be done? Gavin de Becker is one of the world’s foremost experts on personal protection. His book, The Gift of Fear, is a must read for anyone. He commented on those who deny seeing sexual abuse, “During the beginning of sexual abuse, deniers are unconscious co-conspirators” (de Becker, 1999, p. 15). (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 49). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.). So when it comes to the safety of our children, would we think that ignorance of violence was an acceptable approach? No. We need to overcome denial, overcome nescience, and see the problem with clarity.
Clarity comes from knowing what outcome you want. We want to keep our children from getting into a situation in which a child predator can victimize a child. That means we don’t need to worry about what definitions researchers, politicians or lawyers use. We want to terminate the problem behavior before harm is done to the child. Thus, Dr. Van Dam uses a psychological definition. According to Dr. Van Dam, sexual abuse has three conditions: 1) It is a violation of a trust relationship with unequal power and/or advanced knowledge, 2) There is a need for secrecy, and 3) Sexual activity. The activity could be talking, to voyeurism to intercourse.
So if the perpetrator uses power and/or coercion, if the perpetrator has advanced knowledge, or if threats are used, then abuse has occurred. Dr. Van Dam used an example of a high school coach who had created a peephole into a locker room. He watched students through the peephole and masturbated while doing so. The coach was in a position of power, the coach attempted to keep the peephole secret, and the voyeurism was a sexual act, even without the masturbation.
Most of the rest of the chapter was Dr. Van Dam explaining the differences between pedophiles (Pre-pubescent children) and ephebophiles (Post-pubescent children), incest offenders and various orientations of sex offenders. She points out that the research shows that one-third of child molesters are women.
So child sexual abuse is a violation of a trust relationship with unequal power and/or advanced knowledge, in which there is a need for secrecy, and sexual activity. A child molester is anyone, male or female, whose sexual behaviors meets this definition.
Having provided clarity on what child sexual abuse is, Dr. Van Dam will next write about why it’s a problem in Chapter 3.
If you’ve read my past few blogs, you had got know I was going to see the movie, Sound of Freedom. The movie is based on the real-life exploits of Tim Ballard, a former Homeland Security agent, who goes from arresting pedophiles to saving the young victims.
Jim Caviezel plays Tim Ballard, and he puts in a very good performance. I wondered how the movie would depict the situations involving the children, given the production company makes faith-based films. They did an awesome job depicting the scenes and letting the viewer know what was happening, without putting the child actors in uncompromising situations.
I figured I would be emotionally invested in this movies and I was right. There were times I was seething with anger, there were some light-hearted moments, and a somewhat satisfactory ending. I say somewhat, because you learn at the end that the number one destination for child sex trafficking is the United States. Yay us.
It’s easy, when confronted with the sheer volume of what is going on, to get overwhelmed. Where do we start? What can we do? The first step is to know there IS something we can do. It doesn’t involve crawling into the dark, putrid world of of the molester. It involves being able to identify the behaviors they use to gain access to children, and then preventing their access to children. There’s no need to confront anyone, you won’t need to view disturbing pictures, or subject yourself to anything that will give you nightmares.
So let’s do this; over the next few days, I will conduct a book study of Carla Van Dam’s book, Identifying Child Molesters: Preventing child sexual abuse by recognizing the patterns of the offenders. As I go through the book, I will share with you what I have learned. Our objectives are two-fold: 1) Identify those who might molest and 2) Know what to do when encountering potential molesters. Dr. Van Dam will provide concrete things to look for, and a clear plan for what to do if we suspect a person may be a molester. The key here is there is something we can do, prevent the molester from gaining access to children.
The secret is, protecting children cannot be something that is done for us. We have to take steps to protect the children. I don’t want to see one or two empty beds where my grandsons used to sleep, and I don’t know a parent or grandparents that would. So let’s take the steps we can to protect our children.
Do me a favor? As we go though this, share this with everyone you know. The more people who are forewarned, the better. The book costs $55 on Amazon. Her other book costs $34. I would recommend getting a copy, but it won’t be needed as we go forward.
Here’s a phrase to remember from the movie Sound of Freedom, “God’s children are not for sale.”
In the Matrix, Neo was presented with a choice by Morpheus. He had his view of reality challenged, and the choice was clear; take the red pill, and deal with the reality, or take the blue pill and go back to the safe, mundane existence he had before. Of course, the hero took the red pill. The rest, as they say, was history.
I provided the challenge to our current reality. People are actively stalking our children. So now you have the choice; red pill, or blue pill?
22 stories about children being preyed upon. It can be a bit overwhelming, if you let it. The real question is, “Let’s say I take the red pill. Then what?” That’s a good question. Not everyone can be a front-line soldier. But as a citizen, you can be alert, be aware. Child predators give themselves away by their behaviors. So that is what you can do. Learn to identify these behaviors.
According to her, a person who takes the red pill has four objectives: 1. Be willing to consider the possibility that known and trusted adults sexually molest children 2. Be able to identify the behavior patterns used by socially skilled sex molesters 3. Be increasingly competent at recognizing potentially abusive behavior 4. Be inoculated from the spell offenders use to access children
So there are concrete things you can do. You can protect your children, and other children, by learning how to identify the predators. At the least, we can keep children away from the predators. We can alert our friends and family. If you have actionable information, you can alert law enforcement. It all starts with the first decision.
A friend of mine left a comment on a prior blog. Michele Jent is her name. She brought to mind her father, a fellow I want you to know. His name was Mike Schill, and he was my best friend.
Mike and I were teachers together at St. Gabriel the Archangel School in Indianapolis. He taught Science, I taught Math and Social Studies. He was a bit acerbic, a bit wacky, and very intelligent, so of course we hit it off. Opposites attract, don’t you know. He was a good chess player. He got me interested in chess, then helped me develop into a decent chess player, so much so that we started a Chess Club, and I was able to take a team to the National Chess Tournament in Kissimmee, Florida. He was like a big brother to me, and trust me, at that time of my life, I was the world’s crappiest little brother.
A blog or so back, I mentioned the issues Robin and I had. Well, truth be told, the issues were all mine. For a brief, dull, black moment in my life, I was a narcissistic sociopath. OK, you got me. I’ve been a narcissistic sociopath most of my life. I thought I had a handle on it before I married Robin, but it came roaring back, in spades.
I learned a lot during that dark time of my life. One lesson-People typically don’t like narcissistic sociopaths. They’re dicks. Another lesson-People in an affair aren’t as good at hiding what they’re doing as they think. People know. Another lesson-your behavior changes, which affects all sorts of other people who notice.
Mike noticed, probably before anyone else. He was that way. He was very observant. He gathered data, and watched as my teaching performance took a nose dive. I was distracted, I was irritable. I thought I was playing it cool. I was not. My wife and I were separated, and Mike bided his time. That time came one day after school. I heard a knock on the door of my apartment. When I opened the door, Mike stood there.
I invited him in and we sat down in the the living room. In true Mike fashion, he got right to it. “What are you doing?”
Mike was a big fan of the Socratic Method. I watched him use it in the classroom. With it he could get any student to where they needed to be any his questions. What followed was a master class in the Socratic Method. I would try to answer a question with some bullshit that Mike would cut right through. I would flare in anger, and he wouldn’t react. I felt like I was Captain Kirk getting cross examined like Spock. Except I wasn’t as cool as Captain Kirk, and it wasn’t a cross examination, it was a vivisection.
Mike opened me up like a hot knife through butter. At the end, I looked at him and said, “Christ, Mike! What do I do?”
He replied, “It’s not up to me to tell you what to do. But what do we tell the kids all time when they make a mistake?”
I mumbled, “It’s not the mistake that defines you, it’s what you do afterwards that defines you.”
He got up and said, “That’s right. So how will you be defined?”
He left me to my thoughts. And I had a lot of them.
That night saved my marriage. No one in my family ever called me out, None of my other friends stood up to me and called me on my BS. Mike did. He cut through all the lies I had created, laid out the depth of the pain I had caused, and then challenged me to do the right thing. All by asking questions.
Mike passed away from mesothelioma. He was diagnosed in November, if I recall correctly, and passed in June. He was torn from his family, his friends, he was torn from my life. Yet his legacy lives on.
Robin and I got back together and worked at our marriage, the way it was supposed to be. My oldest daughter got married, and has two sons. My youngest was a state champion figure skater and was on a volleyball team that played for the state championship. If he had not had that conversation with me, none of that would have happened.
Michele is also his legacy. She is a good person. Sharp-witted, like her father, and just as capable of cutting through BS to get to the truth. I see a lot of Mike in her. I hope that I’ve defined myself better after my mistake. I’ve tried to take Mike’s lessons and pass them along to my daughters, to my friends. When it’s needed, be dispassionate, be concise, ask questions, call out BS. Be a true friend.
Thank you, Michele, for getting me to let people know what a good man he was.
There was some disturbing video this week, of a New York City Pride march, in which marchers were heard chanting, “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children.” Hmmm. Maybe I should go to an airport, and make a joke about bombs. Or maybe make a joke about perpetrating violence against a President. Yeah, not so much. At this point, trying to say, “We were just being sarcastic,” doesn’t fly. Look around, they have been coming for our children.
One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that people treat child predation like Fight Club. What’s the number one rule of Fight Club? Don’t talk about Fight Club. My late mother was sexually abused by her father. When we were going through Maw’s things after she passed, we came across a diary in which she detailed, in part, what he did to her. You can’t un-see that. In talking to Paw one time, he mentioned that he had been molested. That was fairly close to when he passed in 2018. He was over 75 when I learned that nugget. Don’t talk about child predation.
Years ago, I signed up to receive email digests from the FBI. These digests are press releases of cases the FBI investigated and are either announcements of indictments, or sentencing. Let’s take a look at what I’ve received in the past week:
These were just from the past week, and don’t take into account the local crimes, and certainly not the crimes that go unreported. From the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), “According to the FBI, in 2022 there were 359,094 NCIC entries for missing children.* In 2021, the total number of missing child entries into NCIC was 337,195.” In 2022, NCMEC’s CyberTipline received 32,059,029 reports. Of those reports; 31,901,234 were for apparent child sexual abuse material, 80,524 were for online enticement, including “sextortion”, 18,336 were for child sex trafficking, 12,906 were for child sexual molestation, and 46,029 were for Other, including child sex tourism, misleading domain name, misleading words or images and unsolicited obscene material sent to a child.
WAKE UP!
Folks, we have a problem. While we have been living our lives, perverts have been stalking our children. The depraved things that these pedophiles (Prepubescent children) and hebophiles (pubescent children) do would make you vomit. Thus far their depravity has existed in darkness. We might see the occasional, sad news story and think to ourselves, “Oh, that’s terrible!” Then we go back to our lives, and the cockroaches go back to their scurrying in the dark.
We have started to see parents across the US wake up. The Daily Wire broke the story of the case in Louden, VA where the School Board covered up a sexual assault of a young girl in a school restroom caused the Virginia governorship to flip from Democratic to Republican. That caused some people to take notice. The phrase “transing the kids” has entered our cultural lexicon. People who didn’t care about Drag Queen Story Hour are now seeing drag queens twerking to children, who were taken to the drag shows by their parents. More and more states have passed legislation prohibiting gender surgeries and hormone therapies. Bud Light, Disney and Target have all suffered for their stances on transing the children. Now they’re joking about “coming for your children”. So people have been taking notice. Have you?
We are seeing our children subjected to hyper-sexual advances from adults. Why? Certainly NOT for the child’s benefit! A more important question is, what can you do about it?
So what can you do? That’s easy. Turn on the lights. Learn about the scope of the problem. visit the NCMEC website for starters. Remember John Walsh? He and his wife founded that organization. Do your own research. This …stuff… seriously needs the light of day. Turn on the lights, and start stomping.
You are not alone, and there’s plenty for all of us. Let’s talk about Fight Club.
Saturday, June 24, 2023, my wife and I will celebrate 34 years of wedded bliss. What does wedded bliss mean? I get the ‘wedded’ part, I even get the ‘bliss’ part, but when put together, the meaning gets a little fuzzy.
Was it bliss when I felt like I was going to throw up getting up the courage to ask Robin out on out first date? Maybe it was when my two best friends looked me dead in the eyes and said, “Don’t screw this up,” knowing that I had a two-year track record of “screwing things up”. Maybe it was when I realized the enormity of what I had done when I asked Robin to marry me. Wedded bliss was declaring bankruptcy before we got married, so her name wouldn’t be associated with my failure. It was supporting the two of us on a teacher’s salary while she finished school.
Wedded bliss was being diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. It destroyed a highly decorated military career, and guaranteed that my wife would have damaged goods for the rest of our lives. It was getting her pregnant during the honeymoon, ruining her 5-year plan. Morning sickness, an auto accident while Robin was pregnant, trying to wrap my mind around being a father, being a teacher and coach, and learning how to be a husband. So blissful.
We raised Jessica, and I felt like everything I did was wrong. I was on a LOT of prednisone. Roid rages were common. Thankfully I never took it out on either girl in my life. Assorted furniture, dry wall, sometimes I would just scream in my car. Robin and I worked on having baby #2. It didn’t happen right away. Then it did. Then Robin had some abdominal pain. I took Robin to get an ultrasound, and I watched in horror as the ultrasound tech took the reading, then went into the next room to weep. Robin didn’t cry until she passed our baby in the toilet. I got the baby out, and wrapped it in a paper towel to take it to the doctor. The bliss was coming down like rain.
I could go on, but I really can’t. One can focus on the horrible things that happen in life, and have that color their life. That has never been me. I was always an “Always look on the bright side of life,” kind of guy. Like Eric Idle singing from the cross in The Life of Brian.
I remember seeing my beautiful wife coming down the aisle at our wedding. I knew then that, whatever happened, we would be facing life together. And we did. Through it all, Robin kept us together. She persevered through my bouts of Crohn’s, the numerous surgeries and various side effects. She was the rock that our family leaned on. We added Carole to the family right as we separated for nine months. Robin brought me back into the family, and helped me work to make it a family again.
Jessica, who was 10 years old at the time, was furious with me. Couldn’t blame her, I had been a world-class dick. I remember that fall, she was in the front yard with me, raking leaves. Suddenly, she ran over to me and hugged me, crying. I will have to admit that onion-cutting ninjas were in the area. My little girl had forgiven me, and we were a family again. It was right then that I vowed that never again would I allow my narcissism to destroy my family. I grew up. Jessica and Carole grew up with Robin and I. A family.
So here we are, 34 years later. Jessica is married, with 2 children of her own. She and Christian, her husband, live with Robin and I. That means I get daily doses of my grandsons Roman and Stevie. These two Agents of Chaos bring laughter and joy into my life. So does Robin. She and I have certainly been through the wars together. Carole is 23. She might just make it.
Marriage isn’t easy. It was never meant to be. Two distinct people living as one requires more than a feeling. It is hard work, with sweat, blood, tears and most likely other bodily fluids. It involves compromise and sacrifice. It hurts, it heals, it destroys and it creates. It is the embodiment of the human experience. Two flawed humans coming together to try to create new life. What could be easy about that?
I will tell you this with all honesty. I wouldn’t change a thing.
Not. A. Damn. Thing.
All of our shared experiences, good and bad, the scars, the nightmares, the exultations, the quiet moments, the sadness, the wonder, the laughs. Always the laughs.
When you make a vow, you have to first say the words.
“I, Stephen Cline Satterly, Jr. take you, Robin Lynne Reuter, to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part.“
Then comes the fun part. Learning the depth and nuances of what that vow means. That vow means so much more now than it did 34 years ago. I look at Robin now, and she still takes my breath away. I still feel that ache in my heart that I felt when she said, “Yes.” I am so glad she did. She helped me fulfill my potential, helped me create something together that I could never had done alone. A family. So on our anniversary, my Queen, I will just say thank you. Being your husband has been the honor of my life.
How does the human brain store memories? How do the sensory inputs, and our thoughts, get stored? I am of the age that I struggle, at times, to remember why I went into the kitchen. Alzheimer’s can dominate the news at times. How does the disease work? How realistic was 50 First Dates?
The human brain is a fascinating organ. A bio-chemical network that is used to communicate, form abstract thoughts, store memories, and helps us interact with the physical world, and the bio-chemical networks of others.
Sometimes my memories of my childhood are fuzzy. I couldn’t tell you who my first grade teacher was, or what I did for my 10th birthday. Sometimes the memories can be quite clear. My previous story of my grandfather, fishing with Paw, the bullying I was subjected to, my first girlfriend, and so on.
So what goes into a memory? Certainly our sensory inputs; sights, smells, tastes, touches, emotions. Mine are weaker in that I don’t have a sense of smell, and that affects my taste as well. For awhile as a child, my sense of hearing was so awful I was labeled as “retarded” in school. It was bad enough to affect my speech, and I still have a bit of a lisp today. I vividly remember waking ups from the surgery to put tubes in my ears, and hearing the cacophony of sounds all around me that I had been missing. I will say that, while I am sure Robin may think differently at times, I am far from “retarded”.
There are certainly other considerations. My sister, brother and I will often remember the same event differently. My brother describes a situation in his book All Secure in which I, his big brother, intervened when he and his friends were being bullied. He remembers me being a bad hombre who strolled in, took charge of the situation, and protected his little brother. I barely remember the incident at all. What I recall from my childhood was frequently getting my ass kicked. I do remember standing up for my little brother, but I was often writing checks my tiny, scrawny body couldn’t cash. What I can say is that if that incident was able to, in some small way, make my little brother into the God-honest badass who earned a Silver Star in some shithole named Somalia as dramatized in Blackhawk Down, then I will take the win. We can’t know everything he did to make America safer, but you can bet your bottom dollar we’re safer, and he is still playing the price for that.
But how did two people in the same incident have different memories? Surely the sensory inputs were similar? Of course, the points of view were different. Perhaps we’re back to the bio-chemical network. Somehow, in the midst of the chaos of that moment, Tom’s brain formed thoughts out of thin air, applied them to the sensory inputs he received in that moments and his brain assigned a priority to the incident that got seared into his brain. Maybe it is like the Disney movie Inside/Out. Tom’s Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness applied themselves to generate the memory, and then deposited it into his long-term memory. That, in turn, motivated him to join the Army, then Delta Squadron, then unleash Hell upon himself and the enemy for 20 years.
I don’t know. I’m not a neuroscientist, nor did I sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night. I just know that I have good memories, and bad memories. They all make me who I am today. I also know that I do often go into a room then stop, searching my brain for why I went there. I know that sometimes I tell Robin I will do something, then forget to do it. Or maybe I just didn’t want to do it. Or maybe…
My last post was a bit heavy, but life is like that. One day things are light and airy, the next they are dark and stormy. Each of us has dark parts, things we struggle with, flaws we work on. My goal here is to hopefully provide insights for others, based on my insights. I certainly don’t come from a place where I think I am better than others. Well, except for ISIS. I am better than those turds.
What I’d like to do today is provide some insights of my life for my posterity. There will be a day I won’t be here, and I want my children and grandchildren to know what kind of a person I was, in all my humanizer.-ness. I’m sure most of the times their heads will be cocked to the side like Nipper, the RCA dog.
My grandfather, Rudy, was a World War II vet. He was Paw’s father. Most of my memories of him were of him on oxygen. He had emphysema, and he still smoked. He and Lucille, my grandmother, lived in a mobile home. My grandmother made the best egg noodles from scratch.
Grandpaw would tell us stories. The only thing I ever heard about his war experiences was that he had his dog tags blown off of him. I remember, once, he started to tell us about a place his unit liberated, then he stopped. What followed was a lesson I’ll never forget. He said that if a black child and a white child were put together, they would find a way to play with each other. He said they might notice the differences, but it wouldn’t matter, until adults taught them otherwise. I couldn’t be sure, but I think there was a tear in his eye. When you’re young, it’s impossible to fully understand what adults feel, or are thinking. All I know is that talk made a definite impression on me.
Later on I pieced together that his unit either liberated a concentration camp, or was at one soon after it was liberated. Even as an adult, I can’t imagine what that was like. I’ve been to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. I once refereed youth soccer with Mike Vogel, who was featured on a documentary, Auschwitz, If You Cried, You Died. I remember seeing the tattooed number on his forearm. He was great with kids, always had a smile on his face, and I struggled with the knowledge of his past, and how he was able to live life. I decided he struggled enough for the both of us, and I enjoyed our short time together. He taught me that you chose how to react to life. If he can chose laughter and happiness after the horrors he faced, my lesser issues can’t compete. Neither should yours.
Another time, I decided I would stick a butter knife in a wall outlet at Grandmaw and Grandpaw’s trailer. Grandpaw saw me and didn’t say anything. Grandma saw and started to say something. Grandpaw said, “No wait, he’ll figure it out.”
The butterknife went into the outlet, there was a snap, the trailer went dark, and I let out out a yelp. I did, indeed, figure it out. I learned that I should not stick metal things into wall sockets, and that electricity hurts.
But at least I got some egg noodles out of it. See? Getting the best out of life is a choice!
I was listening to my brother and sister-in-law’s podcast All Secure. The guest they had on, Bryce Mahoney, spoke at length on being able to forgive oneself, as well as others. This really hit home for me, because I have been the recipient of some major league forgiveness, and I still struggle with the concept.
I read a very short Essay on Forgiveness, by C.S. Lewis. As usual, he wrote with clarity and brevity. He points out the difference between forgiveness of sins, and being excused for what we’ve done. “I find that when I think I am asking God to forgive me I am often in reality (unless I watch myself very carefully) asking Him to do something quite different. I am asking him not to forgive me but to excuse me. But there is all the difference in the world between forgiving and excusing. Forgiveness says, “Yes, you have done this thing, but I accept your apology; I will never hold it against you and everything between us two will be exactly as it was before.” If one was not really to blame then there is nothing to forgive.”
Later on in that paragraph he wrote, “…what we call “asking God’s forgiveness” very often really consists in asking God to accept our excuses.” I thought on that for quite a bit. It rang true, like the clear, sweet sound of crystal. We are really good at making excuses for ourselves. So much so that we can convince ourselves that we have asked God to accept our excuses, and that equals forgiveness.
C.S. Lewis says there are two remedies. “One is to remember that God knows all the real excuses very much better than we do. If there are real “extenuating circumstances” there is no fear that He will overlook them. Often He must know many excuses that we have never even thought of, and therefore humble souls will, after death, have the delightful surprise of discovering that on certain occasions they sinned much less than they thought. All the real excusing He will do. What we have got to take to Him is the inexcusable bit, the sin. We are only wasting our time talking about all the parts which can (we think) be excused.” Knowing that God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, there is nothing He doesn’t know. We can deceive ourselves, but we can’t deceive Him. So as Lewis wrote, we have to focus on the the inexcusable part. The actual sin.
Lewis writes that the second remedy is to fully believe in the forgiveness of sins. We make excuses because we don’t fully believe that. We do that with our friends, we do that with our spouses, we do that with ourselves. We need to set aside our excuses and see the sin in all of its aspects. We need to face the all the pain we’ve caused, without excuse. Our actions are like ripples in a pond. they extend out from ourselves and affect others. The further out they get, the more intertwined they become, making things appear more complicated than they really are. Go back to the action that caused the ripple. Acknowledge the horror, the pain, the dirty, mean nasty things that happened due to our choice.
When we do that, you would think that we would decide that we cannot forgive ourselves. But if we fully believe in the forgiveness of sins, then we have to forgive ourselves. If we don’t we do not fully believe in the forgiveness of sins. We then believe in an imperfect God. This is a logical fallacy that we adopt because of our insecurity. If you have a child, then you understand this.
As a parent, you love your child, no matter what they do. They will do stupid, hurtful, and sometimes insanely evil things. Yet you will still love them. You don’t like their actions, you may be hurt by their actions, but you still love them. God is the perfect embodiment of love. There fore there is nothing you could do to damage that love.
If you acknowledge what you have done, in all of its aspects, all of its horror, malice and dirtiness, and believe that God is Perfect Love, then you can ask for forgiveness and receive it. Once you have asked for it, then you need to work to prevent a re-occurrence. You may fail, as human beings are wont to do, but through that process of acknowledgment, asking for forgiveness, and working to do better, we grow.
I will mention my own experience in this. Twenty plus years ago, I made the decision to be unfaithful to my wife. I definitely made excuses. Robin and I had gone through a miscarriage and had both grown apart, she was distant, the woman I was involved with was rumored to be a serial adulteress, and on and on. The bottom line was that I had committed a mortal sin. I had forsaken a vow I had made in front of a large group of people, one I made to God, her and myself. My infidelity hurt her, it hurt my daughters, one who was a newborn infant, my family, her family, it hurt my school community, and my faith community. This ripples had spread much farther than I could ever have thought.
My self-realization was actually activated by a close friend, Mike Schill, who has since passed. He asked me, “What are you doing?” That simple question began my forgiveness process. That question was the start of a conversation in which he guided me to look at all that I was doing. The next month or so was appalling. Talking to family members and friends, I saw the pain I had caused. The lies and other behaviors were not as good as I thought (They never are!). People knew what I was doing. I was well-known in the church and school. They knew when my wife and I separated. They knew why I was at a new address. They knew why I was distracted, moody, and angry all the time.
My path back was to let Robin know I realized what I had done, and that I was sorry. I then began the long, laborious path of trying to save our marriage. If that vow meant anything, then I had to make the decisions in which I would validate that vow. It was not easy, by any means. Like people in Alcoholics Anonymous, I had to go to everyone I hurt to apologize, and make amends where I could.
My wife had to borrow money from her parents for the first time in her life. She had both girls and the house, but she had gone from two paychecks to one. I paid her father Bob back for that loan, and apologized for hurting his daughter and granddaughters. At our wedding, Bob told me as he handed her to me that he would snap my neck if I ever hurt her. That was definitely in the back of my mind as I apologized.
I was the recipient of Amazing Grace. Robin, despite all I had put her, Jessica and Carole through, forgave me, and decided our vows were important enough to make it true. She accepted me back and we have worked for twenty-plus years to not just repair our relationship, but make it grow and thrive. C.S. Lewis wrote, “This(forgiveness) doesn’t mean that you must necessarily believe his next promise. It does mean that you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in your own heart – every wish to humiliate or hurt him or to pay him out.” Robin has never done this, ever.
I have struggled doing the same for myself, but it is something I try to do every day. If she can forgive me, if God can forgive me, then I have to be able to forgive myself. If I don’t, I am spitting on God’s Love, on Robin’s love. In the Lord’s Prayer we say, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” If God means what He says, then this is pretty straight forward.
The mystery of God’s love is one I think about every day. I want to believe in a God whose Love is so great that He can forgive a serial killer, if that serial killer acknowledges his sins and asks for forgiveness. That Perfect Love is for everyone, even me, even if I don’t think I deserve it.
Thanks you Robin, for, in this instance, being the perfect example of God’s Love on earth. Thank You, Lord, for your Perfect Love, and I pray every day for the Grace to continue to be worthy of Your Love.
Today is a Sunday. Traditionally, Sunday is a day of rest. So of course I’ve prepped and am cooking a 15-pound brisket, I’ve watered the garden and the flowers on the patio, I’ve picked up the dog poop in the back yard, always a fun time, and started on the laundry. All very restful. Friday I had tweaked my knee pretty good, so I’ve been trying to protect it while I’m working.
At least now I can spend some time writing. I’m enjoying my new gazebo, watching Alchemy of Souls on Netflix, and listening to birdsong. I’ve got a fan going, so it’s nice and cool, even though it’s 80 degrees out. Thank God for technology!
I have determined, after much observation, that sparrows are assholes. They remind me of the Compsognathus, the tiny dinosaurs from Jurassic Park and Jurassic World. They operate in a pack. I fill two bird feeders, and the little bastards will empty the feeders out in one day. They are aggressive little jerks that chase off other birds.
I have been visited by Indigo Buntings, Cardinals, Goldfinches, Flickers, Red-Headed Woodpeckers, Red-Wing Blackbirds, Robins, even an Eastern Bluebird, all chased off by the frickin sparrows. At least they don’t chase off the hummingbirds, which have finally reappeared. Damn compies.
The other thing I get to do is watch my grandsons play. Have you ever read the book Lord of the Flies? Roman and Stevie are Jack and Roger. I love these boys, but they are definitely Chaos incarnate. It’s like they are human versions of the sparrows. At least at times. At one moment, they’re running around the back yard, screaming like banshees and brandishing sticks like they were extras in Pirates in the Caribbean. The next, Roman is teaching Stevie how to ride a bicycle, or Stevie is concerned about Roman getting the same treats he got when I took Stevie to Lowes on Friday. It’s like the Sour Patch candies. First they’re sour, then they’re sweet. I’ll let them live, for now.
Then there are my dogs, Yuki and Rowdy. Mutt and Jeff. Either running around the yard like a couple of furry idiots, or napping. No in-between for those two. Full-speed, or no-speed. We adopted Rowdy when Maw passed in 2020. We’ve had Yuki since 2015. They actually get sad when we take one to the groomer’s or to the vet without the other one. Big (and little!) dorks. When I worked from home, they would be hard at work with me in the office, sleeping. When I got off work, they would go into the living room with me and lay down and sleep some more. When I went to bed, they would get up, go to the bedroom with me, and go to sleep. At least now they’re running around a bit.
But not me, I’m resting. And I’m about to go rest myself some of that brisket I’ve been slow cooking all day.
Today is my fifty-ninth birthday. Next year I will be the big 6-0. As I’ve gotten older, birthdays have definitely become less of a thing than when I was younger. It’s been nice. We grilled brats, had some pasta salad, some baked beans, some chips, and my Queen made a butterscotch cake from scratch. My Robin can throw down some serious baking! I think I’ve had, like, three slices today. So delicious!
But then, to top it all off, my beautiful bride got me an awesome birthday present. I have been working on creating a garden plot, and we have a deck full of flowers, herbs and plants. I was on Facebook awhile back and got a chuckle at an ad the algorithm put into my timeline. She actually found the item and got it for me for my birthday. The Great Garden Gnome Massacre.
Yes. That is a T-rex attacking and devouring some garden gnomes! T-rex has one ready to go down his gullet, he has the next two in his tiny little arms, he has one pinned under his foot, and one poor schlub is clinging to the back spines that the T-rex most probably didn’t really have. For anyone that has a problem with that, he’s destroying frickin’ gnomes, so…
So yeah, my 59th birthday ended up being awesome! Robin can alter the climate, she can shatter the world with a thought, but MAN, can she pick presents! She is sitting next to me as I write this, shaking her head at my excitement. All that’s left is to find the right place for this. And maybe finish out my collection with the the other pieces.
But I’ll have to keep my eyes on the local raccoons. They are definitely up to something…
My last couple of posts have been kinda serious. These are serious times, but that doesn’t mean I have to always be serious. Besides, it’s not in my nature. I have been known to crack jokes at funerals. Something I learned from my Paw, I guess. He loved to crack jokes. Up until the day he passed.
There are those who think that my humor is a defense mechanism. I mask pain with humor, I mask stress with humor, I mask bad humor with more bad humor. What can I say? I have very strong defenses!
The way I see my humor is as an extension of God. Humor is a gift. It lifts people up in dark times, it strengthens hope in times of strife, it can provide strength when all else fails. It can be anything you need it to be; defiant, rude, helpful, playful, uplighting, downgrading. I find it useful.
I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease in my late 20’s. I had been in the U.S. Army Reserves for 12 years. Crohn’s was an automatic disqualified from military service. I had hoped to make it a career of serving my country. Nope. I went from being a well-respected, highly decorated Drill Sergeant to just a school teacher. Half of what defined me as an adult was gone.
Aww, he’s getting a Drill Sergeant hug…
I enjoyed being a school teacher, but I really enjoyed being a soldier. Humor helped me cope. I threw myself into teaching, then into school administration. I faced situations involving students that would break your heart. Student suicides, molestations, drugs, and just plain teenagers dealing with being teenagers. I used humor to defuse tense situations, I used humor to motivate, to inspire. I used humor alter perceptions.
A superintendent without honor attempted to hide a situation on a school bus. I followed state law. She put in a written reprimand that I should have not followed state law. I disagreed. After 15 years with the school district, my contract was not renewed. I was paid not to work for eight months. For whatever reason, I couldn’t find work in the field of education. Humor helped me deal.
Life is not fair. It’s not cruel, it’s just life. We choose how we deal with it. I choose humor. Gallows humor, puns, memes, dad jokes, they are all part of my arsenal. They make Robin’s eyes roll, they make any daughter Jessica groan, they make my grandsons giggle.
All of this hides my secret, my humor is for me. Anyone else who enjoys it is icing on the cake. Enjoy your icing!
Jordan Neely, a homeless man, was on a subway train reportedly threatening other passengers. In response, a Marine veteran, Daniel Penny, assisted by two others, was able to get Neely in a submission hold. Neely ended up dead, and Penny turned himself in to face criminal charges. New York Times
The case should be interesting. For sure, part of Penny’s defense will be that he was acting in self-defense. Anytime an incident like this occurs, it is a solid bet that some talking head will discuss the right to self-defense. What is this right, and how can a person apply it correctly? I can certainly address the first question. The second question is much more difficult.
Most people find the idea of self-defense to be self-evident, even instinctive. Throw a punch at someone, and they will duck, move to avoid or try to block it. They don’t want to be hit. So for most, the question isn’t whether a person can defend themselves, it’s to what extent a person can defend themselves. The death of the assailant is the penultimate price of self-defense. So when is this morally acceptable?
According to the Catholic Catechism, The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. “The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor. . . . The one is intended, the other is not.” Love toward oneself remains a fundamental principle of morality. Therefore it is legitimate to insist on respect for one’s own right to life. Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow… (par 2263-64)
Of course not everyone is Catholic, but I am, and this can certainly be used as a basis for a discussion of the concept. Self-love is a basis for the defense of one’s self. Based on what we read above, the intent of the defender is of great importance. If I am defending myself from an attack, is my intent to kill? Only I would know, and it’s certain that, in the moment, I may not know. Or I might think I know, then later think I didn’t know. People involved in a traumatic incident often experience one thought during an incident, only to have questions about it afterwards. This confusion is a natural occurrence, but doesn’t help us here.
So clearly Penny thought he needed to defend himself. I would argue that he did not intend to kill Neely. For this I call upon my own knowledge, having taught basic hand-to-hand combat skills in the U.S. Army. A person who intends to kill has several, more direct, methods of subduing a threat. Penny could use punches and kicks to help nullify the threat, which has the benefit of keeping Neely outside of the reach of the attacker. Penny could have used a weapon. New York City has stringent gun laws, so it would be unlikely that Penny would have had a gun, but he may have had a knife, or he could have grabbed any number of items from someone on the train to use as a weapon. A briefcase, a belt, a travel mug, any of these could be used as what the military calls a “field-expedient weapon”.
Instead, Penny closed with Neely, got behind him, and was using a submission hold. Many reports have called it a “choke hold” but this may be a misnomer. A choke hold in MMA impedes breathing, often causing damage to the trachea. In the video the point of Penny’s elbow is at Neely’s chin, which tells me that Penny’s goal was to clamp down on the carotid artery, causing Neely to temporarily black out, ending the struggle. That Penny put Neely in a recovery position on his side afterwards is another data point in favor of Penny. A person who is attempting to kill someone doesn’t worry about putting them in a recovery position. If I want them dead I don’t want them to recover. Closing with a person and submitting them to a submission hold is a difficult task. Most people shy away from close combat of any kind.
Worse case scenario, if Penny was in fear for his life, he could be justified in killing in self-defense. So was Penny in fear for his life? Penny is 24 and a Marine combat veteran. The easy trap to fall into is to think that such a man shouldn’t be afraid in such situations. The term ‘fear’ as used here doesn’t just mean the emotion of fear, but also fear as as an intellectual concept. Penny could conceivably have no fear during the confrontation, yet have a concern that Neely could take his life. A witness reported that Neely, “went on an explosive tirade just before his caught-on-camera death, telling people he was willing to “kill a motherf—-er” and “[take] a bullet” and go to jail.” NY Post This witness also stated, “Mr. Neely, he gave people cause to feel that their life was being threatened. He didn’t care. He said he didn’t care.” The witness was a 66-year old woman who thinks Penny is a hero.
Was Penny to wait until Neely actually attacked someone? Neely was reportedly throwing trash at people, and threatening to kill them. When is a reasonable time to intervene? After the attack? Before the attack? The trial, if indeed there is one, will address this question, to be settled by a jury of Penny’s peers.
My take is this. Penny acted to prevent a man from acting out on his threats. He attempted a submission hold, and Neely died. While the coroner has ruled the death a homicide, the actual reasons for Neely’s death have not been released as of the date of this blog. I think that Penny was justified in doing what he did. I am certain he did not go into this thinking he was going to kill Neely. Penny was defending himself and others from a man who was reportedly acting in an aggressive manner, and had made threats to kill.
A court of law will hopefully address the legal aspects of Penny’s actions, but I can’t help but think I would act in a similar manner should I, heaven forbid, be in a similar situation, especially if any of my family are present.
Freedom is the ability to do what one ought to do. Freedom does not mean that there are not limits. Imagine a person acting with no limits. They get angry with another person and kill them. Are they free to do that? What about the freedom of the victim?
Thus freedom is limited by what is right and true. True freedom, then is the ability to act within what is right and true, to allow a person to do what they ought to do. That freedom has no negative consequences to anyone else. The existence of that freedom, however, benefits others.
True freedom allows us to create. As long as that creativity is based on what is right and true, it benefits others, either actively by providing goods or services to others, or passively by representing a view of what is right and true to others, which can inspire them in their own creativity.
True freedom does not come at the expense of others.
It’s Friday, May 12. It’s been two weeks since returning from our London/Wales trip. I’ve been thinking about that trip every day since, and thought I should write down some thoughts. First of all, do you know how it feels when a vacation doesn’t go the way you had planned, and isn’t as exciting as you had hoped? This wasn’t like our trip.
This trip met or exceeded every expectation I had of it. I found the trip exciting, restful, awe-inspiring and downright fun. Somehow, despite everything I ate and drank, I lost five pounds, so that was definitely a plus! And yet, despite everything I did and said, I came back married to the same woman I left with, despited numerous instances of climate-change and being introduced to the smell of vanilla, even though I have no sense of smell!
As we sat on our twin beds in the Radisson Blu Heathrow, we talked about the trip. I asked Robin what her favorite part was. I thought she would have said the High Tea in Kensington, but she said her favorite part was The Play That Goes Wrong in The Duchess Theatre in London’s West End. I figured it would have been something in London. Opposites attract, apparently, and I married a big-city girl. She likes everything about big cities; they’re hustle, the big-city lights, the things you can do. She likes plays and fancy to-dos like high teas. She grew up on a farm, but farming is definitely NOT for her. Me? All country, baby! Give me open skies, mountains, rivers and streams. I could definitely see myself being a sheep herder. I’m small town, everybody-knows-everybody-else kind of guy. Big cities exhaust me. My threat radar is always on, and hyper-vigilance is very tiring.
In line with that, my favorite part of our vacation was the Fairy Glen. It was there that I felt the most connection with the land, and certainly laying a part of my parents to rest there had a large part of my feeling. I loved Conwy. I loved the pubs, the people we met. I loved the mountains, the valleys, the sea. I loved being around things that oozed history. Being around human artifacts that were 12,000 years old was an amazing experience. Attending a church service in an 800+ year old church was amazing. Visiting different castles was an awesome experience. Looking from a mountain at the wonders God has wrought on a small part of the land He formed with His hand was a humbling, and awe-inspiring, experience. I would go back to Wales in a Conwy minute!
We are all humans beings, and as such we have regrets. I regret that our change in the soccer schedule shorted Robin’s time in London. I know there were things she would have loved to see. Buckingham Palace, London Bridge, Westminster Abbey, I know she wanted to ride the London Eye. Maybe another play. We visited the St. Paul’s Cathedral gift shop, I’m sure she would have wanted to visit the cathedral itself.
I regret not being able to hear live music in a Welsh pub. I didn’t get a chance to have a conversation in Welsh, which I have been studying for a year. I regret not eating the cost of our Hotel Football reservation to go see Wrexham win promotion to the English Football League. I regret taking Robin on the walk on Conwy’s Castle Wall. I regret we couldn’t stay longer.
Back in October, I posted a blog on hireath, a blend of homesickness, nostalgia and longing. It’s a pull on the heart that conveys a distinct feeling of missing something irretrievably lost. I thought I had it before. But having been where we’ve been, I sit here now and feel it in spades. Wales captured my heart and my soul. It is my hope that one of my children will do me the honor I did for my parents, and spread my ashes at the Fairy Glen. I can then be part of the land I have come to love.
That’s what this trip did to me.
Mae gwlad Cymru wedi cyffwrdd fy nghalon yn ddwfn.
Meditations of a Bald, Fat Guy 