In Which I Ask, “How Is Beating Someone With A Tire Iron Not A Criminal and Arrest-Worthy Act?” – More on the Henry Granju Case

So I woke up today to find this flood of online stuff just everywhere – so much I couldn’t really keep up with it fast enough, and I haven’t even made my way over to Facebook today yet – mostly stuff resulting from the KCSO’s most recent announcement regarding their stance on the investigation of teenager Henry Granju’s death and the preliminary autopsy results, which set off  another firestorm pretty much around the globe, and rightfully so.

Also this morning, which I didn’t read until after I woke up today, Henry’s mama – who has tried extremely hard throughout this entire ordeal to be as patient, polite and respectful towards law enforcement as possible – expressed her disappointment with KCSO’s most recent statement on the case:

I am disappointed that… the Knox County Sheriff’s Office chose to release a statement in response to media coverage of Henry’s death in which they stated that the “preliminary investigation shows no evidence of homicide as a result of an assault.”

As a mother who has lost a child, it is certainly tempting to get into a point by point refutation of KCSO’s statement; I won’t do this however, because I do not wish to sully or interfere with their ongoing investigation. Suffice it to say, however, that the “preliminary investigation” to which they refer has been extremely disappointing at this point despite my own active efforts in following leads, talking extensively with witnesses, and BEGGING authorities to follow leads I’ve provided. Let me also say that as I sit here next to my dead son’s medical records that refer to “assault,” “skull fracture,” closed head injury,” etc it’s hard for me to understand reasoning that assumes at this point that the assault he DID experience in the 24 hours preceding his ER admission has no relevance to their investigation.

I have been trying pretty hard as well, though not always wholly succeeding, to hold my temper in deference to the family – especially in dealing with the species of troll that is an entire species unto itself and tends to feed mainly off newspaper and TV station websites. Trolls are trolls and always have been, but that particular breed of troll is always astounding in their sheer fortitude and need to expound on every single thing and towards everybody no matter what the subject, and almost always negatively or insulting. It’s absolutely amazing sometimes what people will say from behind the protection of their anonymous usernames and their keyboard. (I can assure you there is nothing on this blog nor anything I’ve ever written anywhere else on the Internet that I have any qualms about saying to whoever’s face, and nickname aside, I’m pretty non-anonymous after 15+ years of relatively high-profile activity in online music sects as well as elsewhere.)

In any case, yeah, all that happened today, and frankly – and especially since Katie publicly expressed her disappointment with KCSO’s statement – I’m not going to bother trying much to hold my tongue in check about it anymore.

People (mostly trolls) are coming to Katie’s blog and asking does everybody expect law enforcement to just “drop everything” to investigate this?

Drop everything? How does waiting almost five weeks to make any major moves on this investigation constitute “dropping everything”?

Can someone explain to me how five weeks (going now on six weeks) constitutes expectations of “dropping everything” or asking for “immediate answers”?

And the only other thing I really have to say today is pretty much what I said this morning before I went to sleep, in a discussion in response to a mutual friend’s similar statement.

Granted, I’m no expert. But I don’t get where you get to just walk around free for over a month when you beat someone nearly to death with a tire iron – AND there are witnesses.

Henry’s drug overdose is totally a moot point. How is that tire iron beating NOT a criminal act?

How in the world is beating someone brutally and violently and nearly to death, and to the point where it causes a jaw fracture, a skull fracture, a closed head injury and other damage NOT a criminal act? And how is it not reason enough to pick someone(s) up off the street, when you already have their names?

The fact that Henry eventually did die notwithstanding – I am really, really having trouble wrapping my brain around why his three assailants weren’t picked up WEEKS ago and charged with attempted murder, assault, WHATEVER. At the very least. Something.

They’ve had their names for weeks. They’ve had witnesses’ names for weeks. The people who beat Henry with a tire iron are still walking around. Why is what they did not criminal enough to pick them up on reason of beating someone with a tire iron alone?

For that matter, it’s been going on six weeks since the assault. They could be in Timbuktu by now, this much later.

I’ve seen people picked up and hauled in for far, far lesser offenses – if not almost immediately, within days - and I just don’t understand.

If there were NO witnesses it might be a little different.

But this makes no sense to me. Henry’s drug overdose is totally beside the point. Violent criminal activity took place and there were witnesses, yet these people are still walking around going on five, almost six weeks later. And weeks after their names, and the names of witnesses, were given to KCSO.

By the family, no less. Perhaps KCSO needs to budget some of their 2010 salary budget to pay Henry’s family for doing an important part of the investigation for them.

Bottom line – a kid was beaten savagely with a tire iron.

The fact that he also overdosed on drugs is a moot point.

How is that savage beating NOT a criminal act?

And how is it not worthy of arresting someone(s) for committing it – whether someone’s dead or not?

All along, the family has been unbelievably patient. They never expected “immediate” answers or for KCSO to “drop everything” to investigate.

But five weeks later – going on six weeks – that is NOT “immediate”. Nor is it “dropping everything”.

Whatever the autopsy results show – and even if the medical examiner declares Henry’s death is not a result of the beating – as long as those people walk free for that brutal, savage and violent beating – the world is being told that it’s okay to come to Knox County and beat someone bloody until they’re nearly dead.

The young man’s drug overdose is beside the point here.

Until and unless someone(s) is/are held responsible and accountable for this beating, it must be okay to beat someone with a tire iron in Knox County. Or hey, if you do it – you’ll have several weeks to get away somewhere else, and therefore maybe get away with it.

That is the point. And it’s sickening.

I never really worried too much about my family, future in-laws, in Knoxville’s overall safety much, to be honest. Having lived down here in Crime Central as long as I have, Nashville and especially Knoxville always have seemed so much better in this regard. But this situation really, really gives me pause to be a whole lot more concerned about my people up there than I ever have. My family, my people, my many friends who are Knoxville and Knox County residents and tax-paying citizens.

In any case, that’s all I’ve got for right now. My head feels like it’s going to explode from all this stuff.

I just do NOT understand how and why that beating with a tire iron is not a criminal act.

Or not criminal act enough for someone to actually DO something about it.

I just don’t understand.

Aunt B. says some of my same and similar thoughts today much more eloquently than I ever do right here.

The inimitable Les Jones blogged about Henry’s case today here.

Michael Silence of the Knoxville News-Sentinel and Katie’s associate Shane Ryne have compiled fine lists of all the other blogs writing about Henry’s story and his case here. At last count I saw, Shane had compiled the list from 87 blogs, many with multiple entries.

Michael Silence also announced today that he will be writing about the avalanche and outpouring of support worldwide in blogs and social media networks regarding Henry’s story in his Sunday column for the KNS.

On another note, I know I mentioned the other day that I thought it was pretty downright not smart of KCSO sitting on this case for over a month as they did when they had a distraught mother on their hands who was not only well-known in Knoxville media overall, but a former employee/online producer (and not all that long ago for either) of the Knoxville News Sentinel and TV news station WBIR. I failed to mention at the time that Henry’s father is the director of a Knox County agency.

To their credit and as far as I’m aware, I don’t think either of them tried to use any of that to any advantage, and they have certainly been more patient with law enforcement through this ordeal than I probably would have been. But I do know a little bit about how violent crime investigations go and that information about the “alleged victim’s” (yes, I’m using that term loosely) parentage should have been turned up in any decent preliminary investigation almost right from the start – as well as the fact that it’s just plain common sense that someone down at KCSO most likely knew that info anyway, or someone who did know would likely have made someone aware of such a thing at some point. Come on, Knoxville is NOT that big of a town.

I guess that just goes to show you that obviously no preferential treatment is afforded anyone no matter who they are – nor am I saying there should be. But it does seem pretty ridiculous when you look at it (an acquaintance was not quite as kind, calling it “downright stupid”). If I’m Knox County law enforcement and I have a kid beaten nearly to death on my hands in the hospital with a severe head injury, and I find out not only is the kid’s mother a former KNS employee and WBIR producer, but that the kid’s dad is director of a county agency? Uh, yeah, I think I’m not going to be too lazy with that case, if it were me.

I’m sorry. I have dear, dear friends – especially two who are like little brothers to me, even though they are far from little anymore – who are police officers. I worked down at the record store many years ago with one of the finest Memphis PD officers I have ever known, who worked down there to make some part-time money. I know of other law enforcement officials who have been kind to people I know when their colleagues weren’t. I am not anti-law enforcement.

But much as Aunt B. said – things have become very strange in the case of Henry Granju. Something is obviously terribly wrong.

If I go beat somebody nearly to death with a tire iron tomorrow, and someone sees me do it and knows my name? I don’t expect to have more than a day or two – if even a whole day – to be free and out walking on the streets.

That makes sense.

What’s happened with Henry’s case doesn’t. Not at all.

I can’t do much. I am very sad that I can’t get to Knoxville for the memorial service on Saturday, but I’ll be there in spirit.

I can’t be there for hands-on support and can’t help cook meals and carry the other Granju and Hickman kids around to where they need to go, and get pianos tuned and arrange for musicians for Saturday, and all the other absolutely wonderful things so many others I know have been doing all along throughout this ordeal and doing now this week. All of these people are just absolute angels.

I can’t donate much money in Henry’s memory for the memorial scholarship fund, but I’ve sent what I could. And probably will continue to for a long time to come, and send much more when I am able to. I frankly cannot think of a more appropriate fund for PC and I to set aside any philanthropic funds we are able to for, for the rest of our lives – and the fact that it is in honor and in memory of Henry, even better. “There but for the grace of God” for us and all that, as PC was Henry at that age – we were just fortunate that he lived through it, and that his parents were able to afford treatment – which is what the Henry Louis Granju Memorial Scholarship Fund is for, for families that can’t afford to put their teenagers through drug and alcohol treatment. We also have another family member who’s been through the same terrible struggles. For us personally, it’s an entirely appropriate charity and we will support it indefinitely.

So I can’t do much. But I can blog, and use various other social media to keep Henry’s story out there, so hopefully other families won’t have to suffer this same tragedy. And to keep it out there until this case is fully, thoroughly, and finally brought to justice.

So that’s what I’ll do, because it’s all I can do.

It’s been five weeks. Going on six weeks. No one’s ever asked for anything “immediately” or to “drop everything”.

And even if they had, “immediately” and “now” has long since passed, these five – almost six – weeks later.

When the people responsible for savagely beating this young man with a tire iron until he was nearly dead – and who now has died – are off the streets, then maybe I’ll really sleep again instead of waking up every five or ten minutes.

How that brutal and violent beating was not a criminal act worthy of hauling someone’s butt into jail – as soon as their names and the names of witnesses were known – is something I am just not ever going to understand.

OMG WTF, I’m Old

As I’ve mentioned before, since I have now been without cable a few years, instead of watching TV I usually watch original comedy stuff on YouTube – guys like this one and this one and this one, gals like this one, this piece of citrusy goodness, and, of course – these guys, as they’re the home team.

A month or so ago, I was voting in a Survivor-type contest among YouTubers, and I kept seeing this one three-letter acronym used over and over again in comments on people’s videos. It was confusing me terribly as to why people were repeatedly writing this acronym in regards to YouTubers they apparently liked.

Because when I was in college and thereabouts in the Eighties – and into the Nineties, for that matter – all those bad boys with their Black Flag and Minor Threat and Bad Brains records (i.e., the ones I always wound up with – go figure) used to stencil this three-letter acronym on guitar cases and skateboards and stuff. Or my ex’s slightly nerdy, acid-dropping, D&D-playing friends would fake tattoo it on themselves. It was spray painted on the walls (always either in black or red) of at least three apartments I remember in Murfreesboro and two in Nashville, and on the outside of one garage.

You’d have been hard pressed to walk into Cantrell’s, the Exit/In, or Elliston Square in the Eighties and not seen this acronym scrawled on a t-shirt, an Army jacket, or a pair of torn jeans in black magic marker. After all, it was all, everybody’s an anarchist, yada yada and all that… way back then in the ol’ Dark Ages. After all. (I just wanted to fit “all” into this paragraph somehow, just one more time.)

And it – said three-letter acronym – it wasn’t very, well… nice. (And understandably so, since everybody was an anarchist and all that.)

So a month or so ago, I was really having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around why in the world people kept leaving in comments things like:

“(insert YouTube comedian’s name here)… FTW!”

I guess it’s one of the disadvantages to not having kids/teenagers to set me straight – and next time, maybe I’ll have enough sense to just go straight to Urban Dictionary instead of straining my brain over something like “For The Win!” for days. Or a week and a half exactly.

But I guess at least not having teenagers meant I got to spare myself the inevitable ridicule when Mom asked why all these people on YouTube were telling all these other people to f*ck the world, right?

Confessions of an Aging Beach Bunny

When most people think of the beach, they think of sunny Southern California, or Florida or other Gulf Coast beaches, and the like. When I say I grew up on the beach, people sometimes raise an eyebrow in response (whether literally or through the monitor).

This is not unlike the time Prince Charming made the mistake of calling me a “country girl”. I’ve never lived more than a half a mile outside of any city limits in my life, but my insistence at the time that I was a town girl elicited guffaws and floor-rolling paroxysms of laughter, and still to this day there will be the occasional side remark - “Oh, that’s right, you’re a town girl“ – followed by the kind of barely muffled snickers and chuckles that just make you want to kick the living daylights out of someone sometimes, just because they grew up in Knoxville (oh please, Knoxville is a small town disguised as a big city) and Columbus, Ohio and think that makes one ohhhh so worldly and metropolitan, hmpfh.

But truly I did spend most of my teenage years on the beach, and it maybe wasn’t as beach-y as the beaches of Southern California and Florida and the Gulf Coast, but it was a beach, no less. I spent a fair amount of my earlier childhood just a few miles up the river, where the occasional catfish would graze my ankles (Newscoma just died reading that) while I waded around searching for shells. I spent the teenage years as a beach bum at all hours of the day and night and in all four seasons (please don’t ask me what we did down there on dark winter nights, heh) – especially summers, of course, when I spent a good bit of that time perpetually failing to ever learn how to water ski despite about a hundred people’s attempts to successfully see that I did. I blame this on the same reasons I never successfully learned to roller skate or ice skate. My ankles couldn’t deal.

But ah, the beach.

And now that I’ve been out of high school 25 years, I can own up to the fact that yes indeed, Michelle and I absolutely did skip out of school almost every day of sixth period in the 11th grade to go to the beach – because we were teacher’s aides that period anyway, which basically that was the whole plan of snagging the teacher’s aide gig that year, of course. Senior year it didn’t matter ‘cos I got out of school at 1:00 anyway – presumably for work, but I didn’t have to go to work until 5:00.

Sweet? You bet.

Stuff You Just Wish You Could Take Back Sometimes

I’m sure there’s lots (LOTS) more than just this one, but I was thinking the other day about an unfortunate and awkward incident that’s been bugging me for a few years now, among the many other things I wish I could just hit a “restart” button on sometimes.

Prince Charming (the boyfriend) and I have this acquaintance who is a musician in a VERY famous band. In all actuality, I am only acquainted with this person via e-mail (as in the unfortunate and awkward incident mentioned above), but these two used to be very good friends. They grew up in the same neighborhood, went to school together, hung out in the same bunch as teenagers – etc. As time went on and as people do, they fell out of touch, though PC would sometimes hear stuff about his friend through the grapevine, as it were. Well, that and the fact you can pick up pretty much any music magazine or website and there’s this person – the band’s been around a long time at this point, but still hugely, hugely popular.

About, oh, I don’t know, six or so years ago when PC was going through a tough spell, I took it upon myself to get in touch with this person, with no other intention other than hoping maybe this person would be willing to send along a surprise postcard or something like that to PC – at that point, anything that might be a cheerer-upper of sorts. Things were pretty bleak and grim and I was just really grasping at straws for anything that might help and pull PC out of that depression a little.

The personal e-mail address for this person had just kinda landed in my lap, so I just thought I’d give it a shot. Since I’ve been acquainted over my years bumming around the music scene with various folks both famous and semi-famous, I knew how probably most contact from unknown people often comes across and didn’t really want to, you know, come across like some crazed fan – which I’m not really of this band anyway, I like ‘em just fine but they’re not one of my big favorites – I think I might have told this person that to begin with (heh), just for the sake of not appearing like some lunatic.

And the response was perfectly pleasant in the beginning. This person was, like, “hey, good to hear from you, what’s going on with (PC), if there’s something I can do to help, just let me know”.  So I did. Even though PC’s folks had moved out of the neighborhood where they all grew up and down the road a little ways, this person’s mom had remained friendly with PC’s mom, they’d run into each other at the grocery and such lots of times over the years, yada yada yada, so I knew this person wasn’t completely oblivious to some of the struggles there’d been over the years for PC, so I was pretty upfront about it all and was just like, you know, “any little thing, even just a postcard or something would be a big pick-me-up here”, and thanked this person, and left it at that.

Then nothing. I know people get busy, I know people mean to do something or other and then time just passes and passes and they never get around to doing whatever it is – I’m one of the world’s worst when it comes to things like that – but it was something small that would have meant so much at the time, and it just bugged me, still does. I didn’t tell PC what I’d done for about three years, and when I finally did, he wasn’t really bothered about the fact that this person had never responded past the first time, said I was sweet to have done what I did but to not let it bother me that there’d been no further response.

But it still does – bug me, that is. And maybe dude just got busy and forgot about it, or maybe I did come off looking like some crazed lunatic after all. I dunno.

Thing is I know one of these days, we’ll run into this person somewhere or another, and I’m sure it will be fine and all that. And PC will introduce us and I just hope dude doesn’t say something like, “Oh… YOU’RE the one who…”, ‘cos then I’ll have to bite my tongue to keep from saying “Yeah, and YOU never…”

Or maybe I’ll just say, “Yeah. Yep, I did,” and leave it at that. I just wish I had never done or said anything in the first place. How awkward.

And in truth, he probably had good intentions at the time and just forgot, but that one stupid moment really just broke my heart a little and shook up my faith in humanity a bit.

Yeah, THAT’S a Big Surprise

Edge-boy probably won’t marry me now, you think?

8 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

Courtesy KathyT (don’t worry, I’m a much bigger failure than you), who got it from LeBlanc.

Elvis is Everywhere

There are some things about living in Memphis that you just don’t usually see anywhere else on the planet (well, except maybe Vegas or something). Newscoma reminded me of one of those occasions when she wrote about singing for Elvis the other night. I wrote about this particular day back in 1997 the week it happened, but I really only made a minor mention in passing at the time, and the tale is worth a little more telling than that and worthy of its own post.

First of all, I don’t really blink an eye at seeing Elvis impersonators – also known as Elvis Tribute Artists – around Memphis. It’s not like it’s something that happens every day, or even every week or every month; but yeah, I see them around sometimes. Whether they’re dressed in full regalia, or just out somewhere like at Rite-Aid or something, dressed in regular clothes – they have that look and you just think, “Oh, Elvis impersonator.” Usually I’ll be in or close to downtown at the time, and I figure they’re probably mostly from out of town, visiting and touring the usual places.

I’m sure I’ve been wrong sometimes and a few guys I’ve pegged as being Elvis impersonators have just been regular guys who are into that look, be it the Young Elvis or Old Elvis look. But I’m pretty sure the one little Asian guy, shorter than me (and I’m short) and probably weighing all of 110 lbs., with the giant black hair and big muttonchop sideburns, Sun Studio t-shirt, and big gold chain around his neck with the TCB pendant, buying Tums and aspirin and a Coke at Walgreen’s downtown on Union was an Elvis impersonator, yup.

Elvis impersonators get indigestion and headaches and gotta have something to wash the aspirin down with too, just like me and you. He was also buying condoms, but let’s not talk about that.

It could be the reason I don’t really bat an eye at all upon an Elvis impersonator sighting is because I used to work with one – probably one of Memphis’ most famous, in fact. Joe Kent and I worked together for a little while way back in the late Eighties at a local record store. I remember being somewhat fascinated about his other career when we first met – and I hadn’t been living in Memphis all that long then anyway, about a year and a half by then. But then after a while, it was just like – oh yeah, that’s Joe, Elvis, okay. I’d forget about it, and then someone would come in the store who was a big Elvis fan, or a fan of Joe’s, and then you’d remember – oh yeah, he IS an Elvis impersonator, that’s right, forgot about that. Though really, Joe kind of is (or at least was then) all Elvis, all the time; but he was also just, “Joe, will you get me a Pepsi when you walk down to Wendy’s?” Joe at work. Very nice and funny guy, in any case.

Every year in August comes the week many locals refer to as Death Week, when folks from all over the globe descend upon Memphis to honor the anniversary of The King’s death. A true Elvis fan – which I am really not, though both my parents were very much so – wouldn’t call it that; and even though I’m not really a fan, I have an appreciation of his importance in not only this city but in modern music, yes. Still and all, fans and non-fans alike – you mention the words “Death Week” around here, few people whose native language is English are gonna go, “Huh?”

One fine gorgeous August day during Death Week in 1997 – a day that was for once not unbearably hot and humid and was shockingly pleasant for August in Memphis – I needed to run downtown to Beale Street on my lunch hour to pick something up; what exactly that was now, I don’t recall. It was probably something I had seen in a gift shop down there the weekend before that I wanted to send to friends in Australia, or maybe I was picking up tickets for a show at the Daisy. Don’t remember.

Since it was Death Week, thousands of fans, media, and others – and Elvis impersonators, naturally – had descended upon Memphis and were everywhere, but especially downtown and the touristy places like Beale Street. But not only that which was usual and common every year – since it was the 20th anniversary of his death that year, there were many, many more people in town than usual that year. I wasn’t really looking forward to the trek down to Beale, but for whatever reason, I needed to go that week and figured going down during the day would be a lot smarter than at night.

And there on Beale Street that day, I witnessed a scene so surreal, I am still kind of jaw-droppingly in awe right now just thinking about it.

Elvis really WAS everywhere. There must have been dozens – maybe even a couple of hundred – Elvises just concentrated within a couple of city blocks at that moment. Almost all in street clothes, ranging from jeans and t-shirts, to jogging suits, to shorts and Hawaiian shirts, to – well, you name it – which just made it all the more surreal. Walking around, alone or in groups or with wives or girlfriends, many carrying shopping bags from various stores in the general area. Just regular guys doing regular, touristy stuff. And they ALL looked like Elvis.

And an Elvis of every kind imaginable. Every Elvis look from Young Elvis to Old Elvis, Skinny Elvis to Fat Elvis, and everything in between. Elvises in all shapes, colors, and sizes, and speaking who knows how many languages as they passed on the street. There were short Elvises, tall Elvises, dwarf Elvises, really tall NBA player-style Elvises. Black Elvises, Asian Elvises, Middle Eastern Elvises, Hispanic Elvises, bunches of White Elvises, and one blonde Elvis that had to have been Scandivanian or something but other than the hair color and whatever European tongue he was speaking in kind of a high, Mickey Mouse voice – yeah, he was Elvis, all right. Dozens of male Elvises, and even a couple of female Elvises.

The sheer number of Elvii of all varieties, concentrated in that one very small area, at that one moment – it just kind of blew my mind. I was in complete and utter, dumbstruck awe.

If I never leave Memphis, it’ll probably never happen like that again. Ever.

But for that one moment, just like Mojo Nixon (who once called my boyfriend a “crazy SOB” almost 20 years ago, but that’s another story for another time) once sang about – Elvis really WAS everywhere, indeed.

An Unwilling & Involuntary MySpace Monitor, Ugh

As I have mentioned before, I am pretty active in the music aspect of MySpace nowadays. That said, something MySpace related has come up that I wasn’t quite counting on when I made my profile and started getting active over there in the music side of things.

A couple of weeks ago KathyT and I got in a brief and small discussion in my blog’s comments about MySpace, where she mentioned she had a profile there too, but mainly to keep an eye on what her kids are up to. I’ve had a similar online conversation in the past with one of the legends of L.A.’s punk rock scene in the ’70s, who is now stepmother to a couple of teenage girls; as well as more similar conversations both online and off with others in their thirties and forties and fifties who have MySpace profiles for basically the same reason. Granted, there’s quite a large (less than the younger set, but still quite large) population of the over-30 crowd who are childless or didn’t make profiles on MySpace for such reasons, yep. But probably the majority of those are – like me – there because of the music resources available on MySpace.

Most of my friends from high school and college days, and later, have kids that are teenagers or in college now. Naturally, most of them have MySpace profiles. So when I have spare time for goofing off, sometimes I’ll just click around looking to see what they’re up to. Since I don’t really get home very often and most of my college and later-life friends are spread out all over, some of these kids I haven’t seen since they were babies; some I’ve never seen in person at all. There’s a few I’ve seen at regular intervals over the years, but for the most part, most of them I haven’t seen much if at all. So it’s been really neat to be able to not only see what these kids look like as young adults and teenagers, but being able to get to see what kind of people they’ve become (and in some cases, I’m sure, learning stuff about them via their profiles that some of their parents likely haven’t a clue about, though in other cases I’m sure their parents are monitoring at least somewhat).

Since I have no children of my own, I’ve kind of gotten to enjoy that godmother/cool aunt kind of role with a lot of the kids I’ve seen most of their lives, including my younger relatives. Now, that part’s great, because especially with the teenage girls, no matter how much of a bitch their mom’s being and how much they hate her at the moment, I’m still cool. One of my oldest and dearest friends totally flipped me the bird behind her teenage daughter’s head one time because the child hadn’t spoken to her in full sentences in weeks; yet the second I walked in the door, the kid went from surly to happy motormouth in seconds.

(Of course, this is the same kid who has this oh-so-serious, Sylvia Plath-worshiping, emo MySpace profile, and declared mine and her mom’s MySpace profiles immature and obnoxious and rolled her eyes, but, well, what can I say? She’s right!!)

Anyway, the few I have been around most of their lives or have known mostly as they got older, the kids will sometimes talk to me about stuff that they wouldn’t necessarily be so open about with their parents. Or my significant other’s younger siblings in their twenties now, who have sometimes confided in me about something with the stipulation “DON’T tell (their brother)”. I reckon I’m pretty easy to talk to and most of them are pretty comfortable with me; and depending on what it’s about, you know, generally, I’m not going to rat ‘em out. If it’s some dire emergency that’s one thing, but it’s usually not. And info that comes my way that way, I just kind of weigh whatever as an individual case and go from there.

So far I’ve never had to rat out any of those who’ve trusted me with something like that. In fact, quite the opposite – I got ratted on one time instead by one of them, who’d come to me with a strict “you can’t tell my mom or my brother”, but then that one proceeded to spill all himself to both, including the fact that I knew about whatever it was. In the end, we all just laughed and decided keeping secrets was just impossible in the family, but for about five minutes I wanted to wring that one’s neck, heh.

But back to the MySpace thing. As I said, the majority of my friends’ kids who are on MySpace, I haven’t seen since they were babies, if at all. And, to be fair, the majority of them seem like really good kids who aren’t up to anything worrisome at all. Some of them, maybe up to a little more teenage shenanigans than others, yes; but so far I haven’t run across anything to be concerned about, or at least nothing any worse than their parent/parents and I did at their age.

Except for one, and her MySpace profile is a little worrisome and concerning. And somewhat unfortunately, not only does she happen to be the teenage daughter of one of my very best and most longtime friends… but her mom and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms at present.

That’s a whole other story I’m not going to go into, other than to say we’ve both kinda got valid reasons to be pissed at each other; nothing emergently terrible happened, we just both got our feelings hurt over a couple of things and haven’t quite gotten around to making amends yet. Which is, on both our parts, probably not really on purpose. We’ve been the closest of friends since we were teenagers ourselves; but as adults, even when things were fine and there were no issues between us, we’ve always had a habit of playing extended rounds of telephone tag with each other, sometimes for months on end.

And this is a kid I’ve seen regularly over the years, but not in a very long time.

This also is a kid who I laughed for years when she was a small child, joking to her mom that she wasn’t gonna know what hit her when that one became a teenager, and her mother pooh-poohed that notion over and over. After all, her mom was like the QUEEN of sneaking out of the house, circumventing being grounded, and all manner of other kinds of teenage trouble in her day. She was just SURE that when her own daughter got to be that age, she wasn’t going to be able to get away with anything because Mom would already have her number on stuff before daughter even thought about it.

Then she called me one night when her daughter was about 13 or 14 and admitted I’d been right all along, now at her wit’s end. I laughed and tried not say “I told you so,” but I did anyway, and we had a good laugh about it while she began outlining all her woes of being the mother of a teenage girl.

Anyway, well, now thanks to the “magic” of MySpace, I’m kinda now in this awkward position. What I’ve witnessed of this child’s activities is not really “dire emergency” stuff, but it’s stuff that is a bit concerning and worrisome. On the one hand, I have to look at it all and then remember some of mine and her mother’s “finer” moments back in the day, and then I think to myself, “OK, this kind of bothers me but is it really any worse than anything we ever did?”

And having to remember that times have kind of changed since back then too. One friend’s 13-year-old daughter and my longtime co-worker’s now-college-age daughter have kind of schooled me on a lot of that stuff, which is probably a lot of the problem I’m wrestling with right now. I know TOO MUCH “modern kidspeak”. I can read some of that stuff and break the code, as it were, and figure out exactly what they’re up to in a lot of cases.

But here’s the other thing about this whole thing – I’m also not sure that the kid in question is not just making a lot of the stuff she puts out there up, that it’s not just some bullshit she’s adopted on MySpace for the sake of coolness among her peers. And another thing? She’s almost 18 anyway.

Obviously I’m not going to outline the specifics here, but that’s a big reason right there why I haven’t already picked up the phone to her mother yet (who I know without a doubt probably doesn’t even touch the computer, much less check out stuff on MySpace). There’s enough doubt and enough evidence that it’s mostly BS that I’m hesitant to blow what may well be just a cover there. Sure I’m struggling with not wanting to rat the kid out unless absolutely necessary. And sure, the other side of the coin is better safe than sorry…? But it’s going to be a real embarrassment for the girl if she’s just been all talk and all BS and no action, really it is, not to mention she’ll hate me for getting her mom pissed at her. It’s not some dire, major emergency, and nobody’s going to likely wind up hurt or dead. It’s just stupid teenage stuff, and stuff she shouldn’t be into… but there’s a real good chance she’s just pretending and it’s all an act anyway.

So for now, I’m still wrestling with this issue. And don’t worry, I’m not just sticking with my own judgment – I’ve even consulted my OWN mother on it to see what she thinks I should or shouldn’t do, and she pretty much agreed with me that it may be just pretending and pretentious and not worth stirring up.

So there ya go. I hate being in this position, no doubt. And nothing like getting stuck in a position like this to make one finally maybe feel like a real grown-up. And yuck, you know what? I don’t like it. Ugh.

Stars Fell (or Lynnster Falls) on Alabama

Have to make an unscheduled and previously unplanned trip to Birmingham tonight,which kind of sucks because I had a fun post planned this evening that is likely going to become a weekly thing. So that’ll have to wait until I get back tomorrow afternoon/evening.

In other news, more of my family is apparently now reading my blog. Can anything good come of this? (I’m kidding, I don’t really care, heh.)

An Anniversary of Sorts

Boy, I’m just barely getting this in under the wire as the day’s almost over, but today is an anniversary of sorts for me and Mr. Edge. We first met in the wee hours of the morning on New Year’s Day 1989, eighteen years ago. Of course, we were both in relationships with other people then and it took about thirteen years to end up together, but anyway, whew, that’s a freakin’ long time. Nearly half my life ago.

So Happy Anniversary, babe, even though you never read my blog. One of these days we’ll never spend another New Year’s apart again.

River Deep, Mountain High

While catching up on all the commentary and tons of great photos following the Nashville blogging community’s Holiday Blogger Meat-Up at the Mothership last weekend, it quickly became obvious to this reader that one young man had definitely made a big impression on the ladies. So much so, in fact, that his mom was later seen apologizing him getting, shall we say, a little handy in the boob department with some of those smitten females, heh. He really is one of the most adorable little round headed babies ever.

Anyhow, all that hangin’ out with precious little babies stirred up a little motherly instinct and baby lust in some who attended, discussed earlier this week (I’ll not repeat where since she was having second thoughts about posting such stuff as it was :) – which I should probably be having second thoughts about right about now myself). But I can’t really say that I didn’t get a little of that myself just looking at pictures of all the cuteness. Babies and children are adorable, no doubt.

And in recent weeks elsewhere at another spot I hang out a lot, there had been some questions posed about one’s reasons to have kids or not, which I didn’t really get involved in at the time. But I’d been thinking about that stuff anyway – and listening to the biological clock I used to be pretty sure was broken ticking – for a while now.

ne important thing about all this is that originally, kids were never NOT supposed to be in the picture. I grew up fully expecting I’d have kids someday and never thinking anything different. Arguing with my mom on dozens of occasions when there was resistance to whatever teenage scheme I was trying to push and get permission for, I got told time and time again that I’d understand when I had kids of my own.

But that day never came, even though at one time, it was most definitely supposed to.

Though I have not lived in a small town in over 20 years, somewhere deep down in this jaded city dweller’s heart, I am still a small town girl. There was a small number of us that left for college elsewhere after high school, though several of those that left did eventually return. Most of my friends and acquaintances, however, are still there and never left.

Consequently, when I find myself back home, two things always happen: one, I’m reminded that they all think I’m crazy to have stayed in Memphis. I think this is just me, rather than others who left town years ago – if I’d remained in Murfreesboro/Nashville instead or gone permanently to Knoxville/Maryville, I don’t think the issue would be quite the same. Memphis, however, is like the big bad awful city of crime and other negative things to most of them, and I just won’t even go further into that right now or this post would be 50 miles longer and go off on a whole other secondary subject. Let’s just say Memphis is bad and scary to them, OK to visit but they wouldn’t wanna live here, and leave it at that. So therefore, I’m crazy for staying here, especially for 20 years.

The other thing that inevitably happens – and I don’t even have to be there in town, if there’s someone here in Memphis or anywhere else that I went to high school with, it always comes up – is that my high school sweetheart’s name comes up in conversation. Sometimes it’s directly asking where he is and what he’s doing these days (I do know, although there’s no logical reason anyone should expect that I would know that). Sometimes it’s just brought up as an offhand comment or remembrance that has nothing to do with me; sometimes it’s a little more involved with me, like, “Remember when y’all went to (wherever) with us?” That kind of thing.

It’s like this parallel universe there, where my name and his will always be inextricably linked. They see me, they think of him too. I wonder if they do the same thing when they see him (which is much less than they see me, in general – he’s been several states away for many years now). I am guessing that most of them do, if not all. I think they probably don’t ask him about me nor mention me at all though. Probably mainly because so many of them wanted to string him up and tar and feather him when we split up, and after all these years, they’ll be pleasant to him, no doubt, but they’re still holding a grudge. They’ve got my back, even though I never asked for it nor expected it, nor have felt it even necessary for a couple of decades.

It’s a little bit odd that this word/name-association continues after all these years if you look at those still in my hometown, mainly because many of them are on their second and third, and even a few on their fourth, marriages. And some of them have married folks that I never in a million years would have guessed they’d have wound up together. Those people have become mentally disassociated with their past lives and past relationships, in the minds of others around them. This type thing doesn’t generally happen with them. At least I think so. But all of them see each other all the time; I think that’s the difference.

The difference with me is they don’t see me but maybe once, twice a year if even that much. And actually, admittedly, I’m kind of guilty of the same thing – even if I don’t say anything about that person from the past, I see so-and-so and I immediately think of whoever it was they were with way back when.

I don’t know, maybe we ALL do it, and I just don’t know this. Maybe everyone, in the back of everyone else’s mind, is inextricably linked with whoever from their past, in some weird small town way. I just know I’m the one, and seemingly about the only one, who always gets asked about him, or he’s mentioned when I’m around. At least I never hear anyone else get asked some of the things I do, or hear their high school sweetheart’s name dropped every single time like always happens to me.

But that might be, I’m going to guess again, because I am just about the only one left who has never gotten married or had kids. There might be one or two others left, but I’m probably the only one who actually is seen at some hometown functions from time to time.

And that’s the other thing about this whole dynamic. Besides thinking I’m crazy (maybe the better word here is “eccentric”, heh) for never leaving Memphis in all these years, it’s that it really, really kinda bugs them that I’ve never gotten married and/or had kids. In fact, I’d go so far to say that it has often been thought, and also probably verbalized, that I “ain’t been right” since aforementioned HS sweetheart and I split up – solely because I have never gotten married and had kids, and exacerbated by the fact that I have chosen to remain in, god forbid, Memphis for so very long.

Has this ever actually been verbalized to me? Nope. But I know it’s true, and furthermore, the bottom line here really is the fact that they blame HIM for me having never gotten married, not having children, and not living happily ever after.

I suppose there is some logic there because, at one time, that was exactly what was SUPPOSED to happen. It was not only all practically planned down to some of the smallest details, but we came dangerously close to blowing off all the traditional and formal plans and running off to elope, get married a few years before planned. Somewhat fortunately in retrospect, we were both too drunk to drive – the discussion taking place at a college football game between his school and my school – and upon sobering up the next morning, the immediate urgency of the nuptials from the night before was all but forgotten. And can I just add – whew.

Because while I appreciate the friends I have who would not only fight to the death for me but hold that grudge for me for all these many years, I know that marriage would have been a mistake. Granted, it took me a few years to come to terms with that conclusion, but I know that relationship would not have survived intact to today. We’d have been divorced before either of us turned 30, no doubt. In fact, the person he did end up marrying, he divorced, though they later remarried (and are married still, far as I know).

Like I said, though, when we were still planning to get married eventually, we had everything planned out right down to various wedding details, the cars we would drive (he was a car nut, so that was muy important to him), and had picked out names of at least firstborn male and female children. (I know, it’s sickeningly sweet, ugh.)

He has a son. It just so happened that his wife’s maiden name is the same as the name we had picked out for the firstborn male child. It threw me for a moment when I’d first heard, yeah, but I had to get over it pretty quick. Under the circumstances, it’s not like I could be really angry about THAT.

For many years after, I kind of took some pride in the fact that I had gone on to have a life that had a few adventures and such, and certainly doing and seeing things and going places that someone in his position couldn’t really do. He was one of those people so bright he could have gone to college anywhere, and ended up giving up the college education he was in the middle of, and a doubtless promising career after graduation, in order to work full-time to support the family he had within barely a year of our split. I can’t say I fared much better with college seeing as how I kept dropping out, but for a long time I was still in and out of school, and certainly doing things and going places that I couldn’t have if I’d been a working mom with a baby to raise and a husband at home in my twenties.

For a long time, I thought, well, I wound up having a life, and he didn’t have one. That was, of course, coming from a still pretty bitter and resentful, and still fairly young girl in her twenties who maybe needed to feel that way for a while to be able to move on to something else where things like that didn’t matter. I’m not particularly proud of all that residual bitterness and resentment, but things between us ended on a pretty ugly note, and that’s probably really kind of an understatement. All of my friends wanted to kill him at the time; some of our mutual friends were pretty angry with him at the time, though maybe not quite as homicidal. The last time we were both in the same room 20 years ago, he himself admitted to one of my friends he was scared to death to try and talk to me – which, if you know me, that’s pretty laughable, I’m the easiest person in the world to talk to.

In any case, yes, it was ugly when it ended, and may be the only ended relationship of my life that I ever truly walked away with this huge upper hand, even though my failure to marry and have children later has rendered me “irreparably damaged” by well-meaning friends who I love very dearly. So for a long time I was happy I’d had this “big life” while he’d had “no life”. And then I got over myself after a while, and grew up, and none of that mattered anymore and was all but forgotten.

Well, obviously – my allegedly grown up self can now recognize – he probably had the life he wanted. And he certainly has something I’ve never had, like a family of his own. A child of his own.

In that regard, I’ve got to wonder – sometimes – who really missed out.

When pondering such issues (which I really don’t do often – nay, I mostly try to avoid this direction of philosophy!)… well, it probably doesn’t help matters, in my mind anyway, to have to remember that I pretty much wasted my twenties, and most of my thirties. It was sort of an accident, almost as if one day I was 21 or 22 with alllllllllllll this time ahead of me to do whatever, and then all of a sudden, I’m pushing 40. And where did all that time go?

Well, a good nearly seven years of it was spent with the Freeloader Ex, who I moved down here to Memphis with in the first place. Well, seven years if you count the four years we were actually a real couple, plus the next three years we spent as roommates with occasional delusions that everything might be all right and we’d be okay as a couple again. His extreme drug and alcohol problems kind of kept taking care of those delusions time and time again, which was certainly all for best, all things considered.

But the first couple of years we were together, it wasn’t like that yet. His problems had not evolved to what they eventually became. I don’t know that at the time I was really active thinking marriage and children at that point, with him anyway, but I still always figured that eventually I would, indeed, one day have kids.

Before I ever even got to the point where I was thinking in that direction, though, something came up that forced the issue. We had been together probably less than six months at that point, when we learned that he might indeed already be a father. The child was already born and the mother was requesting a paternity test. Stress, stress, stress.

In the course of a conversation about it all one afternoon, that’s when I learned that it was his intention to never bring any children into this world – or at least not any more children, if this child turned out to be his. He didn’t want to be a father, didn’t want to have children. Not with me; not with anyone.

Well, okay. I spent the next several days being bothered about that, as well as being kind of puzzled that it was bugging me so much since it hadn’t really been an issue or even a thought at that point. And it wasn’t so much that I desperately wanted to have children and soon. And at that point in time in my early twenties, I didn’t really feel like I was ready to make that jump yet anyway. But it had never ever occurred to me that I wouldn’t ever have children of my own, someday. And at the time, having just started a new life in a new city with someone I was really in love with at the time, I certainly hadn’t been looking to leave that relationship anytime soon.

I struggled with it for a while until it got to the point where I knew the decision was going to have to be made. Should I stay or should I go? If I stayed, then I was settling for never having children. Should I stay, or should I walk and possibly have children and a family of my own someday?

You know how that turned out – I stayed. And eventually, I actually convinced myself that I really didn’t want kids anyway.

And I love kids, I enjoy them. I spent years being “favorite aunt” and godmother type to dozens of my friends’ kids, some of whom are almost grownups themselves now, and that’s always been really cool.

And yes, at that point of my life it probably would have been a bad idea. We had a few really good years, and then a few years that were a complete and utter nightmare as his substance abuse problems escalated. When we finally made the mutual decision that he was moving out (albeit before I was going to have to just kick him out) – once he was gone, I felt like I’d been run over by a few dozen trains. Putting my life back together again wasn’t easy, but god, it was such a relief to be rid of all that craziness and negativity.

But you just don’t expect that what starts out as a fairly normal relationship and a pretty good thing is going to turn into something as horrific as that did. I get angry with myself sometimes for not having been able to predict what would happen. But in reality, I couldn’t have.

I dated a while, even ended up in another long-term relationship that wasn’t bad at all; we just never really belonged together in the first place. Some more shorter relationships after that, none of which ever really stuck, save for one; and in that one, had things gone in that direction, I would have ended up being a stepmom, which I would have been pretty cool with had that worked out.

In any case, for that entire time I was still pretty certain I really didn’t want to have kids of my own anyway. And as a family member or two or three made a point of pointing out, I was getting a little bit old for that kind of thing anyway (oh, yes, thanks for reminding me).

Then around my mid-thirties – 34, 35, 36 – three things happened. First, I had a routine test turn up bad, and spent the next eight months under a cancer scare and dealing with the possibility that I might well be having a hysterectomy before it was all over with. Fortunately, at the end of those eight months, all was well and I got a clean bill of health.

But it’s one thing to think you probably don’t want to or are not going to have kids. It’s a whole other thing to deal with when that choice is potentially about to get taken away from you without you having any say in the matter.

Second, I fell in love with my best friend, someone who had been pretty much right under my nose for well over a decade anyway. In the old days, I had been with Freeloader Ex, and his significant other at the time was one of my best, longtime girlfriends – and, in turn, he and the Ex had been close pals. NOW, it’s as obvious as the nose on my face that the wrong two couples were together at the time, and it’s obvious that there were already some pretty deep feelings there on both sides. But the timing would have been bad; and chances are, had a relationship evolved at the time, it never would have lasted. When the time was right, the time was just right. Four years later, we’ve had ups and downs like everyone else – some of them maybe a little more extreme than a lot of people – but we’re solid.

So there was that, and I guess anybody out there who did find the right and perfect person for them knows that when that happens, strange things happen. Like, even though you may have just felt absolutely certain for the last 15 years that you just really didn’t want to have kids, have a family – that hmm, maybe it would kind of be nice to have those things after all, maybe.

Though in our case, it really is starting to get kind of late. His mom had his youngest brother when she was in her forties, and older than I am now. And he loves kids, is great with them, would be a terrific dad. It’s still a possibility, certainly, and not only that but there’s the adoption and foster options too, especially older kids that they have such a hard time finding adoptive or foster homes for. But we’ll be okay, too, if it winds up just being us.

The third thing that happened around the same time as the other two, though, was undeniably the most bittersweet and the hardest to swallow.

I wrote (joked) about the detox effort with my ex a few weeks ago, in a short post That was close to seven years ago, and the next chapter of that little story is that we came very close, once he started getting clean and sober again, to getting back together again. Prior to his going into rehab, we talked about it some, and basically mutually agreed to talk about it again later on down the line, once he had gotten through rehab and gotten his shit together again. It was not the time to be discussing such things when he needed to focus on getting straight. I had made the arrangements for him to get into residential treatment, with some financial help from a family member, and drove him down there, a few hundred miles away, and let go, for the time being.

That future planned talk never happened. In the end, when it came down to it – when the answer was going to have to be either yes or no – I’m 99% certain my final answer would have had to have been no. The water that was under that bridge seemed way too deep, and I guess the feeling was mutual. It just wasn’t supposed to happen.

I wasn’t prepared at all for what did, though. He went back to college while still in rehab. Eventually, he graduated, and even went on to get his master’s. Which was great, fabulous, of course.

He also got married, and had a child.

Yeah, well, it took Mr. Edge (Not of U2) about a month to talk me down from the cloud of anger and venom and bitterness and resentment and all manner of rather violent wanting to go kick his ass to Timbuktu and back, or worse, over that little bit of news. I was so mad for weeks I was practically spitting not only proverbial nails but proverbial poison darts, dammit. My outrage got crazy and twisted enough that Edge – who dislikes him intensely and for reasons that mostly have little to do with me and are more about leftover garbage from what was their friendship of the past – was almost taking up for the ex, in the face of all my venom-spewing. I was picking apart every little incident and occurrence from that past relationship and tossing all kinds of evil theories out there, and poor Edge would be saying things like, “Look, I know you’re angry, and you have a good reason to be, but I was there, remember, and I really don’t think it was that way,” or “I really don’t think he meant it like that.”

And eventually he said, “You’ve just got to let this go.” And he was right. No matter how angry I was at this person who’d insisted he was never having children, we were never having children – and no matter how much a part of me really wanted to just pick up the phone and scream that he’d “robbed” me of my twenties and any dream I’d ever had of a family and children, and how dare he have a child of his own after that – no matter all that.

He might have been the catalyst, but it was ultimately MY decision. I made the choice to stay, knowing what I knew, and I stayed for years. It was on me, totally.

That’s not to say it doesn’t have the potential to still sting a little. If my mind goes wandering in that direction, which it doesn’t often, I very quickly remind myself it was my choice. End of story, fini.

I regret some things I didn’t used to, I guess. One thing I DON’T regret is having helped him get clean and get his life back together and back on track when I did. He hit bottom a bunch of times in many years, some of which I witnessed and some of which I wasn’t around to, but that last time – which was the first I had heard from him in over five years – I knew if I didn’t do something, he probably wasn’t going to make it. So I did what I felt I had to do. Presumably, he’s still alive, safe, well, and these days pretty successful. No regrets.

And me, the whole kid thing’s not much in the forefront of my mind, if at all. Something, like some of the discussions and questions posed in recent weeks, I’ll get to thinking things like, “Well, you know, I don’t know.” Deeper than that I suppose, in truth, but that’s the Cliffs Notes version.

Or I’ll be talking to or hanging out with my mom, who is, like, the coolest. With the exception of the teenage years, which were kinda tough on both of us, we’ve had this really great relationship, and especially so since I’ve been an adult. We don’t see each other in person as often as we once did, but whenever we do get to hang out, we have a great time. And we’re really, really close.

And I guess that’s when it occurs to me most, to think – well, maybe I HAVE missed out on something here after all. What my mom has with me is something I’m quite probably not going to have the opportunity to have.

Not going to lose a whole lot of sleep over it, no. But yeah, it’s there. At least a little.

So, obviously the latter part of this week has been kind of uncharacteristically deep in thought and serious, ugh. But like I said, sometimes I write just to get it out of my head and be somewhere else. And now it is. At least, until and unless writer’s remorse gets the best of me. Then again, I’ve always been pretty much an open book and could care less.

So I’m done with the deep and serious this week, everyone will doubtless be glad of that. Blondes shouldn’t ever, ever think this much, it makes our head hurt, heh heh.

Deep thought moratorium officially begins. Now, pardon me while I go see what Britney Spears has been up to for the last 24 hours.