The walls on both floors of an old Camden row house were given a fresh coat of white paint, so Anna Hicks, the mother of a large family that wasn’t done growing, issued a warning to her little ones.
This was circa 1962, a time when Anna had three children in grade school, one in diapers and a truck-driver husband who kept moving in and out.
It also was a time when common punishment for an “or else” was a spanking, and Anna, who had a tough father growing up on a farm near Montgomery, Ala., believed in using a switch to teach right from wrong.
Well, kids will be kids, and Anna wasn’t happy the day she noticed a star had been scribbled onto a second-floor hallway wall near the stairs. The guilty party used a pencil, then traced over the star again and again to make it distinct.
With switch in hand and her three children out of diapers in front of her, Anna demanded a confession. When no one spoke up, she started with the oldest. Albert cried and pleaded that he was innocent during his licking. Then Jackie, the only girl, did the same.
Thinking back all those years, Anna Hicks, 75, and still living in Pennsauken, let out a laugh. Her son, Dwight, who moved from Camden to Pennsauken in the fourth grade, lived up to his prediction.
Dwight Hicks, 56, did it as a young man by becoming a four-time Pro Bowl defensive back and two-time Super Bowl champion for the Joe Montana-era San Francisco 49ers, and now, post-football, he’s doing it again as an actor.
Ironically, the football star-turned-movie star played FBI Agent Star in one of first pictures, 1996 action movie “The Rock.”
Hicks isn’t stealing parts from the likes of Bruce Willis, Sean Connery or Ben Affleck, but he’s landed small roles in movies with all three while appearing in many other show-business projects — independent films, plays, television series, commercials.
“I have a passion for the arts I never knew I had,” said Hicks, a 1974 Pennsauken High School graduate. “That was very important to me to find another passion in my life, football being the first.”
Because he’d never become filthy rich playing defensive back — “I was grossly underpaid,” he says — Hicks needed a second career after retiring from football in 1986 following seven NFL seasons in San Francisco and one in Indianapolis.
Single with two daughters at the time, Hicks remained in the Bay Area hoping to use his ties to the 49ers for opportunities. He landed a good job in sales, but hated it and quit. For almost a decade, he did a lot of motivational speaking to pay bills, and for two football seasons, held his first job in television co-anchoring a 49ers’ post-game show for San Francisco’s FOX affiliate.
All the while, Hicks thought back to one of his Pro Bowl trips to Hawaii when he did a Public Service Announcement. He never forgot finishing his lines and hearing an impressed director say: “Have you done this before? Man, you can make a lot of money reading a script.”
Years later, Hicks decided in 1995 to seek out a San Francisco-based talent agent who maybe could get him work doing television commercials. He ended up being taken in by Stars, the Agency, founded and run by a woman named Lynn Claxon.
“I told my agent I’d like to do commercials, then I opened my big mouth and said, ‘If any films come up, I’d like to audition,'” Hicks said. “She says, ‘Oh, you’re an actor.’ I said, ‘No, I just feel like I have the confidence to do it.”’
Claxon normally would have laughed off Hicks’ ambitious thoughts, but she noticed right away that he appeared different from other former professional athletes she’d encountered. She liked that he was soft-spoken, well-spoken and professional. And even though he had no acting experience, she guessed Hicks might be able to charm his way into small television or movie roles, then over time, possibly work his way into earning better parts.
“A lot of people say, ‘I want to be an actor,’” Hicks said. “They want to go to Hollywood or New York and be discovered, but there hardly is any overnight success. It takes years to hone that skill.”
Incredibly, just a week after finding an agent, Hicks was on his way to his first audition, trying out for a role in a film loaded with Hollywood megastars. “Jack” was directed by Francis Ford Coppola, starred Robin Williams and co-starred Bill Cosby, Fran Drescher and Diane Lane.
The part Hicks went for was one line in one scene — a bartender correcting the way Williams’ character, Jack, pronounced “maraschino” cherry. It was just one line, but Hicks made an impression.
Coppola gave Hicks the part, then during filming switched him to a bigger one in which he played a high school principal.
Excited to see himself in his first movie, Hicks went to a theater alone on opening night ... then was crushed after discovering the editing process left his character seen but not heard.
No matter, the entire process was a learning experience because Hicks hung around the set for hours closely watching how a bunch of seasoned pros worked.
“I didn’t go back to my trailer,” Hicks said. “I just stayed and watched. Everything fascinated me and I was learning.”
Following “Jack,” Hicks was sent to more auditions and he kept getting parts. He played an FBI agent in “Armageddon” and a bouncer “In the Mix.” He made television appearances on “How I Met Your Mother,” “Nash Bridges,” “The Practice,” “The X-Files” and “ER,” among others.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
The Gongs
He was a home recordist with hereditary heart issues. He often felt that pursuing a career in housebound music-making would be beneficial to his health – though not completely stress-free, it was a career that encouraged contemplation, solitude and plenty of reclining. His wife was an understanding woman. She was currently the sole breadwinner of the household, keeping their suburban stack well-stocked with food and flowing electricity thanks to her skill with numbers. She worked an accountancy job towards the centre of town and, not only did the job pay handsomely, her eagerness for overtime granted her man more time Monday to Friday to work on what she endearingly called ‘his symphonies’.
He had originally been a metal spinner specialising in kitchenware, until finally accepting he could not compete with the superstores pedalling dirt cheap, dentable alternatives. His pans were perhaps so well-made that his customers never had to return to have them replaced. And so, unable to find a suitable buyer, he sold his lathe off for scrap and terminated the lease of his workshop.
Thrust into the static rat race of a fresh economic slump, his endeavours for reemployment felt like seeking work as a clown in a town of coulrophobes. He would not succumb to menial work in the gently blossoming service industries. He didn’t feel he had the appropriate people skills – his sales in the workshop were clinched by a young, loose-tongued nephew. He felt his shyness made him unemployable and yet he had a bold – perhaps even blind – ambition to reinvent himself as a master music-maker, albeit one who would release records reclusively rather than rambunctiously, without touring and press and the like.
His cardiac issues stemmed from an optic abnormality. His eyesight never bothered him while metal spinning – his work was a goggled, close-quartered manipulation of high-speed aluminium. However, now he had more time for window-shopping – from the inside looking out, searching for inspiration in the sky, or in his neighbours’ dwellings – he realised he might be myopic. His optician disagreed – perhaps he just needed binoculars. Nevertheless, his visit to the opticians was not completely in vain as the kindly, insistent eye doctor noted he had unusually wavy blood vessels in the back of one of his eyeballs – a possible indication of high blood pressure.
The mere insinuation that he had dirty arteries gave him palpitations. He was an anxious man, even at rest, though he wasn’t sure what he had to worry about – he was enjoying his time off, despite the financial strains. Nevertheless, his GP confirmed the optician’s suspicions – he gave a blood pressure reading of 150/85mmHg (though it could have been white coat hypertension), and he was referred to a phlebotomist for further, bloodcurdling analysis. He hated injections, but was buoyed slightly by the invitation to place his upturned fist on a stranger’s knee as she listlessly slid the needle into his vein. After surrendering three vials of crimson cocktail, he returned home with a strange feeling in his soul, strung halfway between enlightenment and foreboding. The fact of his own mortality hung heavily around his shoulders, like a lead apron. He didn’t feel his waist was plump enough to suggest diabetes, or that cholesterol could be a contributing factor. His wife often compared him to a bird at mealtimes, the way he picked at portions which had been gradually shrinking over the years. He could exercise more, though he did love long walks – or at least accepted them, seeing as his wife always had the car.
He woke the morning after his blood test with an overwhelming desire to choose a song for his funeral. Even for a music lover, it was a decision he felt no urgency in making before. He had always imagined a time much further from now – a time of will-writing and medication and perhaps even a death bed – when he would impart to whoever was nearest or dearest the choice of song for his closing credits.
He remained in his pyjamas as he waddled to the box room he called his music library. He span cumbersome and compact discs for more than two hours, weighing up each song in terms of its tunefulness, its dolefulness, its lyrical significance to his own life, its certainty of tear manufacture, its potential for popularity amongst a possibly philistine audience, and so on. The songs sounded different that morning, soundtracking an imaginary cremation in which he was the starring stiff. Ultimately though, none of the songs seemed to fit the occasion. Lyrics involving angels or new beginnings or departed loved ones seemed too twee, and the instrumentals felt almost like elevator music, no matter how upbeat or elegiac, as if chosen only to drown out awkward silence in a carpet showroom.
He decided to get dressed and have some breakfast. For all he knew, his blood test might come back clean. He choked down some bran cereal in front of the TV and thumbed the newspaper until he felt guilty enough to head upstairs to work.
Setting up his musical equipment was like a modern form of snake-charming: he uncoiled countless cables, made daisy chains of power adaptors and extension leads, raised faders and lowered the blinds. Once settled, he rubbed the cold from his hands across his trousers, and rested his fingers on the plastic ebony and ivory of his CASIO keyboard. His fingers naturally landed on A7: a chord that usually reminded him of the pop songs of his childhood, only today he was far too preoccupied with his ill health to indulge in any nostalgia. He played the chord, but it was an electric jeer that trilled around the former guest room. In that instant, he felt as though his whole musical output (admittedly, only half an album’s worth of half-finished songs) was an embarrassment. He wondered if he focused too much on the major keys rather than the more elegant minors. He thought to himself: if he was to die today and his wife picked one of his existing compositions for his farewell party, he would be laughed out of the crematorium. He played a glissando on the keyboard with his fist, then his forehead, and unplugged all the wires again.
Though he had never been further afield than western Europe, he had travelled the globe in his armchair. Documentaries were his access-all-areas pass to places he would never visit due to monetary strains, fear of injections and/or disease, and his struggle to communicate even in his mother tongue. It was the traditional music of these territories which interested him more than the landscape, the cuisine or the religious curiosities: he had a fondness for the crisp hum of a Tibetan singing prayer bowl, the gulping rhythm of the tabla, the dawn chorus of a Chinese guzheng – but there was nothing that bewildered and gladdened him more than the gamelan ensembles of Java and Bali.
Creating a sound akin to a celestial foundry, a gamelan ensemble is made up of various gongs, drums, metallophones and chimes, often beaten to accompany a dance or shadow puppet show, but also found at Indonesian births, marriages and funerals. While not recommended listening material to ease a hangover, the repetitive atonal God-clang gamelan has the power to catapult the listener to the higher realms, like witnessing the Gates of Heaven being broken down by soft-headed beaters as opposed to sledgehammers.
He remembered watching a Javanese gamelan years back on the BBC, and being as close to rapture as is possible on a weeknight with his wife in the other room bleating and searching for some stray item of stationery. And now, as he turned the aluminium saucepan over in his hands and struck it again, this time on the back with more gusto, he realised he might be able to create his own gamelan ensemble using just his kitchenware and analogue four-track.
After referring to Gamelan: Traditional Sounds of Indonesia and experimenting for an hour or so with microphone positioning and reverb levels, he put down the first layer of gongs on TRACK I of his four-track. Since a gamelan traditionally consists of no less than ten players (and he had only two hands and four tracks available to record each instrument), he would need to combine (‘bounce’) many tracks together to create enough space to fit the full ensemble. For instance, he could record the gongs onto TRACK I, the drums onto TRACK II, and the chimes onto TRACK III, and then bounce these together over to TRACK IV, thus freeing up TRACKS I, II and III again. This process can continue ad infinitum, so technically a hundred-piece orchestra could be recorded by one musician, bit by bit, using just a four-track. However, the major downside of this process is with each bounce, the sound quality deteriorates, but he felt this was a necessary sacrifice to achieve the perfect pot-and-pan pandemonium.
After laying down the gongs, he recorded a simple rhythm onto TRACK II using upturned Tupperware in place of the traditional kendhong drums of the gamelan: tak tak dhung dah, tok tok dhung dah. Then, he recorded a layer of beaten saucepan lids onto TRACK III, mimicking the deadened cymbal sounds of the kenong, kethuk and kempyang. Finally, he set the faders to mix these layers together and bounced them over to TRACK IV, remembering to increase the treble in anticipation of the high frequency squeeze.
There was still an hour or so before his wife was due home, so he headed back to the kitchen to gather more crockery. However, as he dismounted the stairs, he was rapidly overcome by an abominable headache. The pain seared through his cranium as if someone had poured molten metal through his earholes. He ignored the door to the kitchen and instead went through to the living room, to bury his head in the cushions in the foetal position. And this was how his wife found him an hour and a half later, seemingly asleep but in fact wide-eyed and petrified. Perhaps he had had enough gongs for one day, he reasoned.
After painkillers, pasta in a destrung saucepan, and ample sleep, he awoke the next morning in a sprightly mood, ready to continue his composition. He and his wife had three matching sets of drinking vessels – some egg-shaped tumblers, four Boddingtons pint glasses, and six crystal champagne flutes, for best – which, when filled with differing levels of water and struck, faithfully recreated the peking, saron and demung metallophones. Once these tinkling treasures had been added to the mix, each playback lubricated his eyelashes with tears. He bounced the champagne flutes and Boddingtons glasses along with the pans, lids and Tupperware over to TRACK III, then added egg-shaped tumblers to the free TRACK I. Loaded with information, the magnetic tape hummed and groaned with wow and flutter, but he was pleased with his efforts. In fact, he was convinced he was shaking Chopin’s pedestal. He lost himself in reverie, imagining his composition soundtracking funerals of the future, perhaps even the homecoming of broken soldiers, the television coverage of the death of an icon, the…
His heart lurched in his chest as he was overcome again by searing cranium pain. This time the pain was accompanied by a nausea that flooded his cheeks with saliva – he had to grasp the edge of his reclining chair to stop himself from keeling over. The first vaguely rational thought that came to him was to not throw up over his musical equipment, so he crawled out of his studio and laid prostate across the unhoovered carpet, breathing heavily. He held this position for almost an hour, at which point the letterbox roused him, flapping and clattering downstairs. This was the fourth morning since his blood test. He made his way to the staircase and descended it gingerly, with both hands on the banister, only to find a few lurid circulars awaiting him on the meat-coloured doormat. He perched on the bottom step with his chin in his hands, trying to compose himself but his heart continued to race, unable to keep time with the gently progressing suburban scenes behind the frosted glass. He could not fathom what was wrong with him.
He had originally been a metal spinner specialising in kitchenware, until finally accepting he could not compete with the superstores pedalling dirt cheap, dentable alternatives. His pans were perhaps so well-made that his customers never had to return to have them replaced. And so, unable to find a suitable buyer, he sold his lathe off for scrap and terminated the lease of his workshop.
Thrust into the static rat race of a fresh economic slump, his endeavours for reemployment felt like seeking work as a clown in a town of coulrophobes. He would not succumb to menial work in the gently blossoming service industries. He didn’t feel he had the appropriate people skills – his sales in the workshop were clinched by a young, loose-tongued nephew. He felt his shyness made him unemployable and yet he had a bold – perhaps even blind – ambition to reinvent himself as a master music-maker, albeit one who would release records reclusively rather than rambunctiously, without touring and press and the like.
His cardiac issues stemmed from an optic abnormality. His eyesight never bothered him while metal spinning – his work was a goggled, close-quartered manipulation of high-speed aluminium. However, now he had more time for window-shopping – from the inside looking out, searching for inspiration in the sky, or in his neighbours’ dwellings – he realised he might be myopic. His optician disagreed – perhaps he just needed binoculars. Nevertheless, his visit to the opticians was not completely in vain as the kindly, insistent eye doctor noted he had unusually wavy blood vessels in the back of one of his eyeballs – a possible indication of high blood pressure.
The mere insinuation that he had dirty arteries gave him palpitations. He was an anxious man, even at rest, though he wasn’t sure what he had to worry about – he was enjoying his time off, despite the financial strains. Nevertheless, his GP confirmed the optician’s suspicions – he gave a blood pressure reading of 150/85mmHg (though it could have been white coat hypertension), and he was referred to a phlebotomist for further, bloodcurdling analysis. He hated injections, but was buoyed slightly by the invitation to place his upturned fist on a stranger’s knee as she listlessly slid the needle into his vein. After surrendering three vials of crimson cocktail, he returned home with a strange feeling in his soul, strung halfway between enlightenment and foreboding. The fact of his own mortality hung heavily around his shoulders, like a lead apron. He didn’t feel his waist was plump enough to suggest diabetes, or that cholesterol could be a contributing factor. His wife often compared him to a bird at mealtimes, the way he picked at portions which had been gradually shrinking over the years. He could exercise more, though he did love long walks – or at least accepted them, seeing as his wife always had the car.
He woke the morning after his blood test with an overwhelming desire to choose a song for his funeral. Even for a music lover, it was a decision he felt no urgency in making before. He had always imagined a time much further from now – a time of will-writing and medication and perhaps even a death bed – when he would impart to whoever was nearest or dearest the choice of song for his closing credits.
He remained in his pyjamas as he waddled to the box room he called his music library. He span cumbersome and compact discs for more than two hours, weighing up each song in terms of its tunefulness, its dolefulness, its lyrical significance to his own life, its certainty of tear manufacture, its potential for popularity amongst a possibly philistine audience, and so on. The songs sounded different that morning, soundtracking an imaginary cremation in which he was the starring stiff. Ultimately though, none of the songs seemed to fit the occasion. Lyrics involving angels or new beginnings or departed loved ones seemed too twee, and the instrumentals felt almost like elevator music, no matter how upbeat or elegiac, as if chosen only to drown out awkward silence in a carpet showroom.
He decided to get dressed and have some breakfast. For all he knew, his blood test might come back clean. He choked down some bran cereal in front of the TV and thumbed the newspaper until he felt guilty enough to head upstairs to work.
Setting up his musical equipment was like a modern form of snake-charming: he uncoiled countless cables, made daisy chains of power adaptors and extension leads, raised faders and lowered the blinds. Once settled, he rubbed the cold from his hands across his trousers, and rested his fingers on the plastic ebony and ivory of his CASIO keyboard. His fingers naturally landed on A7: a chord that usually reminded him of the pop songs of his childhood, only today he was far too preoccupied with his ill health to indulge in any nostalgia. He played the chord, but it was an electric jeer that trilled around the former guest room. In that instant, he felt as though his whole musical output (admittedly, only half an album’s worth of half-finished songs) was an embarrassment. He wondered if he focused too much on the major keys rather than the more elegant minors. He thought to himself: if he was to die today and his wife picked one of his existing compositions for his farewell party, he would be laughed out of the crematorium. He played a glissando on the keyboard with his fist, then his forehead, and unplugged all the wires again.
Though he had never been further afield than western Europe, he had travelled the globe in his armchair. Documentaries were his access-all-areas pass to places he would never visit due to monetary strains, fear of injections and/or disease, and his struggle to communicate even in his mother tongue. It was the traditional music of these territories which interested him more than the landscape, the cuisine or the religious curiosities: he had a fondness for the crisp hum of a Tibetan singing prayer bowl, the gulping rhythm of the tabla, the dawn chorus of a Chinese guzheng – but there was nothing that bewildered and gladdened him more than the gamelan ensembles of Java and Bali.
Creating a sound akin to a celestial foundry, a gamelan ensemble is made up of various gongs, drums, metallophones and chimes, often beaten to accompany a dance or shadow puppet show, but also found at Indonesian births, marriages and funerals. While not recommended listening material to ease a hangover, the repetitive atonal God-clang gamelan has the power to catapult the listener to the higher realms, like witnessing the Gates of Heaven being broken down by soft-headed beaters as opposed to sledgehammers.
He remembered watching a Javanese gamelan years back on the BBC, and being as close to rapture as is possible on a weeknight with his wife in the other room bleating and searching for some stray item of stationery. And now, as he turned the aluminium saucepan over in his hands and struck it again, this time on the back with more gusto, he realised he might be able to create his own gamelan ensemble using just his kitchenware and analogue four-track.
After referring to Gamelan: Traditional Sounds of Indonesia and experimenting for an hour or so with microphone positioning and reverb levels, he put down the first layer of gongs on TRACK I of his four-track. Since a gamelan traditionally consists of no less than ten players (and he had only two hands and four tracks available to record each instrument), he would need to combine (‘bounce’) many tracks together to create enough space to fit the full ensemble. For instance, he could record the gongs onto TRACK I, the drums onto TRACK II, and the chimes onto TRACK III, and then bounce these together over to TRACK IV, thus freeing up TRACKS I, II and III again. This process can continue ad infinitum, so technically a hundred-piece orchestra could be recorded by one musician, bit by bit, using just a four-track. However, the major downside of this process is with each bounce, the sound quality deteriorates, but he felt this was a necessary sacrifice to achieve the perfect pot-and-pan pandemonium.
After laying down the gongs, he recorded a simple rhythm onto TRACK II using upturned Tupperware in place of the traditional kendhong drums of the gamelan: tak tak dhung dah, tok tok dhung dah. Then, he recorded a layer of beaten saucepan lids onto TRACK III, mimicking the deadened cymbal sounds of the kenong, kethuk and kempyang. Finally, he set the faders to mix these layers together and bounced them over to TRACK IV, remembering to increase the treble in anticipation of the high frequency squeeze.
There was still an hour or so before his wife was due home, so he headed back to the kitchen to gather more crockery. However, as he dismounted the stairs, he was rapidly overcome by an abominable headache. The pain seared through his cranium as if someone had poured molten metal through his earholes. He ignored the door to the kitchen and instead went through to the living room, to bury his head in the cushions in the foetal position. And this was how his wife found him an hour and a half later, seemingly asleep but in fact wide-eyed and petrified. Perhaps he had had enough gongs for one day, he reasoned.
After painkillers, pasta in a destrung saucepan, and ample sleep, he awoke the next morning in a sprightly mood, ready to continue his composition. He and his wife had three matching sets of drinking vessels – some egg-shaped tumblers, four Boddingtons pint glasses, and six crystal champagne flutes, for best – which, when filled with differing levels of water and struck, faithfully recreated the peking, saron and demung metallophones. Once these tinkling treasures had been added to the mix, each playback lubricated his eyelashes with tears. He bounced the champagne flutes and Boddingtons glasses along with the pans, lids and Tupperware over to TRACK III, then added egg-shaped tumblers to the free TRACK I. Loaded with information, the magnetic tape hummed and groaned with wow and flutter, but he was pleased with his efforts. In fact, he was convinced he was shaking Chopin’s pedestal. He lost himself in reverie, imagining his composition soundtracking funerals of the future, perhaps even the homecoming of broken soldiers, the television coverage of the death of an icon, the…
His heart lurched in his chest as he was overcome again by searing cranium pain. This time the pain was accompanied by a nausea that flooded his cheeks with saliva – he had to grasp the edge of his reclining chair to stop himself from keeling over. The first vaguely rational thought that came to him was to not throw up over his musical equipment, so he crawled out of his studio and laid prostate across the unhoovered carpet, breathing heavily. He held this position for almost an hour, at which point the letterbox roused him, flapping and clattering downstairs. This was the fourth morning since his blood test. He made his way to the staircase and descended it gingerly, with both hands on the banister, only to find a few lurid circulars awaiting him on the meat-coloured doormat. He perched on the bottom step with his chin in his hands, trying to compose himself but his heart continued to race, unable to keep time with the gently progressing suburban scenes behind the frosted glass. He could not fathom what was wrong with him.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Sixty percent of British Columbians oppose Enbridge pipeline
A Forum Research poll released today shows that 60 per cent of British Columbians are opposed to the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. The poll, the third by Forum Research conducted in 2012, shows that opposition to the pipeline has increased eight per cent since April’s poll and 14 per cent since January. Thirty one per cent of those polled were in favour and nine per cent were unsure. The poll was conducted on December 10 and surveyed 1051 British Columbians 18 years of age and older
The council of the Gitga’at First Nation commissioned the poll in response to Enbridge’s 'disappearing islands' ads depicting a map of the tanker route through the Douglas Channel that was missing many of the waterway’s islands.
Gitga’at councillor Marven Robinson said the results indicate to him that people throughout the province are starting to better understand the risks involved in the project, adding that Enbridge should have known better than to try to mislead the public.
“Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline cut its own throat,” he said. “It didn’t do (Enbridge) any good for sure, because anybody that knows the coast knows it’s not a clear path to the outer coast from Kitimat. They did that to themselves.”
The poll shows 40 per cent of British Columbians were previously aware of the Douglas Channel ad campaign, and of that group, 64 per cent thought the map was misleading. Fifty-eight per cent said the ad lowered their opinion of the project, while nine per cent said it improved their opinion and 32 per cent said it had no effect.
The Douglas Channel is part of the Gitga’at First Nation’s territorial waters. The ocean supplies roughly 40 per cent of the traditional diet, including salmon, crab, clams, seaweed and oysters.
Robinson said the more information that comes to light about the project, the more frightening it becomes, adding that one of his greatest concerns about having tankers in the channel has yet to be adequately addressed. After hearing a rumour last year that boats would have to keep a set speed to maintain steerage of the tankers, he questioned Enbridge officials about it at a meeting in Prince Rupert last year. He said he was told that not only was the rumour true, but that boats would be required to pick up speed around turns, instead of slowing down.
“Just right in front of us, I could look at a chart and say ok, there are three turns right in front of own community that are more than 90 degrees,” he said. “If you have to maintain a certain speed how are you going to do that if you have turns of more than 90 degrees?” Like with any vehicle, he said, the first thing to do in risky situations such as sharp turns or low visibility is to slow down.
“With the Gitga’at First Nation, there’s no benefit with the project running through our territory. It’s all risk to us.”
Gitga’at medias spokesperson Andrew Frank, meanwhile, said he thinks the BC government will have no choice but to pay attention to these numbers.
“BC Liberals are notorious for following polls closely, as are all political parties, and public opinion is pretty clear here.”
The poll also asked participants whom they voted for in the last provincial election, and answers were spread across the board, with 32 per cent voting Liberal, 29 per cent voting NDP and 12 per cent voting Conservative.
Frank credits First Nations groups and environmental organizations with raising public consciousness about the dangers of the pipeline, particularly with regard to the Douglas Channel ads.
“I think people see those sunny, water colour ads and go, something doesn’t quite add up, and that has certainly rubbed people the wrong way.”
He said incidents like this undoubtedly take a toll on public confidence, and that this poll shows public opinion is fairly settled on the opposition side, in spite of Enbridge’s $5M ad campaign.
“[Enbridge] has been trying to hone their message, but it looks like none of them have been sticking yet, at least as far as British Columbians are concerned.”
He also said that the company's oil spill record and the US Transportation Safety report" following their 2010 oil spill in Michigan may have had an impact on public opinion.
After months of closed sessions and exclusive negotiations with a single developer, the city is set to reveal a plan for the razed 0.78-acre property. The city and the Jeffrey A. Morris Group entered into a 120-day Exclusive Right to Negotiate Agreement Feb. 23, extended it by 60 days June 22 and by another 30 days Aug. 24. As reported at the time by the Town Crier, several residents, business owners and community groups disapprove of the seemingly secretive manner in which negotiations have been conducted. The city's decision to engage with a single developer behind closed doors for the property does not align with its intention to solicit citizen input, residents said.
Cranston files a lawsuit against the city of Los Altos seeking the release of city staff communication records regarding discussions over the sale of city-owned land at First and Main streets to Jeffrey A. Morris. The lawsuit alleges that the city violated the California Public Records Act when it denied Cranston's public records request to view a February 2010 memorandum from former Los Altos Economic Development Coordinator Anne Stedler to former City Manager Doug Schmitz and current Assistant City Manager James Walgren.
The council of the Gitga’at First Nation commissioned the poll in response to Enbridge’s 'disappearing islands' ads depicting a map of the tanker route through the Douglas Channel that was missing many of the waterway’s islands.
Gitga’at councillor Marven Robinson said the results indicate to him that people throughout the province are starting to better understand the risks involved in the project, adding that Enbridge should have known better than to try to mislead the public.
“Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline cut its own throat,” he said. “It didn’t do (Enbridge) any good for sure, because anybody that knows the coast knows it’s not a clear path to the outer coast from Kitimat. They did that to themselves.”
The poll shows 40 per cent of British Columbians were previously aware of the Douglas Channel ad campaign, and of that group, 64 per cent thought the map was misleading. Fifty-eight per cent said the ad lowered their opinion of the project, while nine per cent said it improved their opinion and 32 per cent said it had no effect.
The Douglas Channel is part of the Gitga’at First Nation’s territorial waters. The ocean supplies roughly 40 per cent of the traditional diet, including salmon, crab, clams, seaweed and oysters.
Robinson said the more information that comes to light about the project, the more frightening it becomes, adding that one of his greatest concerns about having tankers in the channel has yet to be adequately addressed. After hearing a rumour last year that boats would have to keep a set speed to maintain steerage of the tankers, he questioned Enbridge officials about it at a meeting in Prince Rupert last year. He said he was told that not only was the rumour true, but that boats would be required to pick up speed around turns, instead of slowing down.
“Just right in front of us, I could look at a chart and say ok, there are three turns right in front of own community that are more than 90 degrees,” he said. “If you have to maintain a certain speed how are you going to do that if you have turns of more than 90 degrees?” Like with any vehicle, he said, the first thing to do in risky situations such as sharp turns or low visibility is to slow down.
“With the Gitga’at First Nation, there’s no benefit with the project running through our territory. It’s all risk to us.”
Gitga’at medias spokesperson Andrew Frank, meanwhile, said he thinks the BC government will have no choice but to pay attention to these numbers.
“BC Liberals are notorious for following polls closely, as are all political parties, and public opinion is pretty clear here.”
The poll also asked participants whom they voted for in the last provincial election, and answers were spread across the board, with 32 per cent voting Liberal, 29 per cent voting NDP and 12 per cent voting Conservative.
Frank credits First Nations groups and environmental organizations with raising public consciousness about the dangers of the pipeline, particularly with regard to the Douglas Channel ads.
“I think people see those sunny, water colour ads and go, something doesn’t quite add up, and that has certainly rubbed people the wrong way.”
He said incidents like this undoubtedly take a toll on public confidence, and that this poll shows public opinion is fairly settled on the opposition side, in spite of Enbridge’s $5M ad campaign.
“[Enbridge] has been trying to hone their message, but it looks like none of them have been sticking yet, at least as far as British Columbians are concerned.”
He also said that the company's oil spill record and the US Transportation Safety report" following their 2010 oil spill in Michigan may have had an impact on public opinion.
After months of closed sessions and exclusive negotiations with a single developer, the city is set to reveal a plan for the razed 0.78-acre property. The city and the Jeffrey A. Morris Group entered into a 120-day Exclusive Right to Negotiate Agreement Feb. 23, extended it by 60 days June 22 and by another 30 days Aug. 24. As reported at the time by the Town Crier, several residents, business owners and community groups disapprove of the seemingly secretive manner in which negotiations have been conducted. The city's decision to engage with a single developer behind closed doors for the property does not align with its intention to solicit citizen input, residents said.
Cranston files a lawsuit against the city of Los Altos seeking the release of city staff communication records regarding discussions over the sale of city-owned land at First and Main streets to Jeffrey A. Morris. The lawsuit alleges that the city violated the California Public Records Act when it denied Cranston's public records request to view a February 2010 memorandum from former Los Altos Economic Development Coordinator Anne Stedler to former City Manager Doug Schmitz and current Assistant City Manager James Walgren.
Union Violence in the Age of Obama
Not so many moons ago, President Obama urged us all to "make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds." He Who Heals advocated "a more civil and honest public discourse" in the wake of the January 2011 Tucson massacre. As usual, though, the White House has granted Big Labor bullies a permanent waiver from the lofty edicts it issues to everyone else.
This week, menacing union goons unleashed threats, profanity and punches in Michigan, which is now poised to become a "right-to-work" state. Obama met the initial outbreak of violence with the same response he's given to every other union outbreak of violence under his reign: dead silence.
On the floor of the Michigan legislature on Tuesday, Democratic state Rep. Douglas Geiss thundered: "We're going to pass something that will undo 100 years of labor relations, and there will be blood. There will be repercussions!" Geiss referenced the Battle of the Overpass, a violent 1937 incident between the United Auto Workers and corporate security officers for the Ford Motor Company. Dozens of union activists were beaten.
But Geiss wasn't crying victim. This was clearly a signal to the brass-knuckled Big Labor bosses, whom Obama egged on during his Monday visit to the state. Obama inveighed against right to work with his usual class warfare dog-whistle. The thugs heard it loud and clear.
As the Michigan House voted inside to approve right-to-work legislation allowing workers to choose whether or not to join/fund unions as a condition of employment, protesters outside the state Capitol ambushed a tented information booth sponsored by the pro-right-to-work state chapter of Americans for Prosperity. Angry union mobsters were filmed cursing and screaming just before the attack.
One hurled an unidentified object at police officers. Another screamed at a citizen journalist filming the chaos: "Freedom of speech this, you f'n fascist a**hole!" Several peaceful AFP members and supporters were stomped on and punched while trapped under the tent as the labor operatives chanted: "This is what democracy looks like." Young Michigan conservative activist and YouTube entrepreneur Steven Crowder was beaten by at least two union assailants while trying to protect the tent and those inside.
Of course, this is just more of the same twisted "civil and honest public discourse" of the administration's union protection squad:
May 2010: The Service Employees International Union buses in 700 workers from 20 states to storm Bank of America deputy general counsel Gregory Baer's neighborhood and terrorize his youngest son while at home alone in Chevy Chase, Md. The tactic is straight from an SEIU intimidation manual on using community groups to "damage an employer's public image and ties with community leaders and organizations."
September 2010: AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka praises Nancy Pelosi for taking Obamacare and driving "it down the Republicans' throats and out their backsides."
August 2011: Striking Communications Workers of America declare "open season" on Verizon. Dozens of cases of sabotaged cable lines are reported.
September 2011: ILWU bosses lead a "Days of Rage" protest at Port of Longview, Wash., taking a half-dozen guards hostage, sabotaging railroad cars, dumping grain, smashing windows, cutting brake lines, threatening a local TV station and blocking trains in violation of a judicial restraining order.
February 2011: A Communications Workers of America union thug is caught on tape striking a young female FreedomWorks activist in Washington, D.C.
February 2011: A Providence, R.I., union supporter says to a cameraman: "I'll f**k you in the ass, you faggot."
February 2011: Democratic Rep. Michael Capuano of Massachusetts revs up Big Labor goons by urging them to "get a little bloody."
March 2011: Racist SEIU supporters in Denver, Colo., taunt gay black tea party activist and entrepreneur Leland Robinson, who criticized teachers unions at a Capitol rally, by calling him "son," telling him to "get behind that fence where you belong," and jeering, "Do you have any children? That you claim?"
March 2011: In Madison, Wis., an unhinged crowd of AFSCME, UFCW and SEIU union protesters corner a Wisconsin GOP senator shouting, "F**k you!" and "Shame!"
August 2011: In Boston, local IBEW 827 storms Verizon Senior Vice President Bill Foshay's neighborhood. Union members scream, "We're here to fight" in front of his private residence on a weekend afternoon.
September 2011: Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa screams: "President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let's take these son of bitches out..."
December 2011: Union-endorsed port protests in Oakland, Calif., Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego and Houston cause massive commerce disruptions, lost wages, property destruction and untold injuries. A year later, ports are shut down on the West Coast during the busy holiday season, and another set of union port strikes spearheaded by the violence-prone ILWU and ILA threaten the East and Gulf coasts at the end of the month.
We should "do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations," Obama lectured just over a year ago from his politeness pulpit. In the age of Obama, it's Opposite Day 365 days a year.
This week, menacing union goons unleashed threats, profanity and punches in Michigan, which is now poised to become a "right-to-work" state. Obama met the initial outbreak of violence with the same response he's given to every other union outbreak of violence under his reign: dead silence.
On the floor of the Michigan legislature on Tuesday, Democratic state Rep. Douglas Geiss thundered: "We're going to pass something that will undo 100 years of labor relations, and there will be blood. There will be repercussions!" Geiss referenced the Battle of the Overpass, a violent 1937 incident between the United Auto Workers and corporate security officers for the Ford Motor Company. Dozens of union activists were beaten.
But Geiss wasn't crying victim. This was clearly a signal to the brass-knuckled Big Labor bosses, whom Obama egged on during his Monday visit to the state. Obama inveighed against right to work with his usual class warfare dog-whistle. The thugs heard it loud and clear.
As the Michigan House voted inside to approve right-to-work legislation allowing workers to choose whether or not to join/fund unions as a condition of employment, protesters outside the state Capitol ambushed a tented information booth sponsored by the pro-right-to-work state chapter of Americans for Prosperity. Angry union mobsters were filmed cursing and screaming just before the attack.
One hurled an unidentified object at police officers. Another screamed at a citizen journalist filming the chaos: "Freedom of speech this, you f'n fascist a**hole!" Several peaceful AFP members and supporters were stomped on and punched while trapped under the tent as the labor operatives chanted: "This is what democracy looks like." Young Michigan conservative activist and YouTube entrepreneur Steven Crowder was beaten by at least two union assailants while trying to protect the tent and those inside.
Of course, this is just more of the same twisted "civil and honest public discourse" of the administration's union protection squad:
May 2010: The Service Employees International Union buses in 700 workers from 20 states to storm Bank of America deputy general counsel Gregory Baer's neighborhood and terrorize his youngest son while at home alone in Chevy Chase, Md. The tactic is straight from an SEIU intimidation manual on using community groups to "damage an employer's public image and ties with community leaders and organizations."
September 2010: AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka praises Nancy Pelosi for taking Obamacare and driving "it down the Republicans' throats and out their backsides."
August 2011: Striking Communications Workers of America declare "open season" on Verizon. Dozens of cases of sabotaged cable lines are reported.
September 2011: ILWU bosses lead a "Days of Rage" protest at Port of Longview, Wash., taking a half-dozen guards hostage, sabotaging railroad cars, dumping grain, smashing windows, cutting brake lines, threatening a local TV station and blocking trains in violation of a judicial restraining order.
February 2011: A Communications Workers of America union thug is caught on tape striking a young female FreedomWorks activist in Washington, D.C.
February 2011: A Providence, R.I., union supporter says to a cameraman: "I'll f**k you in the ass, you faggot."
February 2011: Democratic Rep. Michael Capuano of Massachusetts revs up Big Labor goons by urging them to "get a little bloody."
March 2011: Racist SEIU supporters in Denver, Colo., taunt gay black tea party activist and entrepreneur Leland Robinson, who criticized teachers unions at a Capitol rally, by calling him "son," telling him to "get behind that fence where you belong," and jeering, "Do you have any children? That you claim?"
March 2011: In Madison, Wis., an unhinged crowd of AFSCME, UFCW and SEIU union protesters corner a Wisconsin GOP senator shouting, "F**k you!" and "Shame!"
August 2011: In Boston, local IBEW 827 storms Verizon Senior Vice President Bill Foshay's neighborhood. Union members scream, "We're here to fight" in front of his private residence on a weekend afternoon.
September 2011: Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa screams: "President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let's take these son of bitches out..."
December 2011: Union-endorsed port protests in Oakland, Calif., Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego and Houston cause massive commerce disruptions, lost wages, property destruction and untold injuries. A year later, ports are shut down on the West Coast during the busy holiday season, and another set of union port strikes spearheaded by the violence-prone ILWU and ILA threaten the East and Gulf coasts at the end of the month.
We should "do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations," Obama lectured just over a year ago from his politeness pulpit. In the age of Obama, it's Opposite Day 365 days a year.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Poet laureate paid to spread the good word
NOT that it's of earthshaking importance in these parlous days, but . . . wait. All days are parlous. All days - by which is meant all eras - are rough and tumble, and they are also fancy free. We think a little economic uncertainty is nightmarish, compared to what? World War? Cold War? The world immediately before this one, that 99.99percent of human history without lights, plentiful food, warmth, that cellphone savant with all human knowledge sitting in your pocket?
So what I was going to say was that the naming by a city of its poet laureate is not a matter of life and death - except you will recall what William Carlos Williams said: "It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there." Williams was a revered physician in Paterson, N.J., the kind who made housecalls in the middle of the night, that most practical man, a man of life and death. And yet what is he remembered for? Writing great poems. If you haven't read them, turn from this now and do so. They might save your life.
As I was saying: When I heard last week that Eloise Klein Healy was named the first poet laureate of the city of Los Angeles, I breathed two sighs of relief.
The first was that a poet was named poet laureate. When city muckamucks announced that they would search for one, all kinds of non-poets came out of the Encino woods and announced that they should be the laureate of the City of Angels, even if they weren't,well, exactly poets themselves. But they were the bard of something-or-another, or they write really swell prose, or they spin a fine ghost story, or they make excellent movies or video games.
That they weren't actually poets was small beer so far as they were concerned.
This is the kind of thing that happens to poets all the time, and I am mystified as to why. No one who is, I don't know, a newspaper columnist would, when the time comes to name that year's Nobel Prize in physics, claim that it is he instead of those fellows writing the equations who should be feted by the king at the banquet in Stockholm. So why should poetry - which I assure you is precisely as complex an art as physics - be considered a craft in which every Jasper with a mildly creative streak is a candidate for the post the same as those who have actually written, and published, poems?
Second sigh of relief: Eloise is a wonderful choice. Man alive, is she a real poet. You can look her up - she is an ardent practitioner of the craft, which is a life's work. The non-poet could no more write her poems than I could paint a Picasso. But here's a fun one, a stanza from "Entries: LA Log": I never owned a map / to the stars' homes / but I sent to JPL / for 8x10 glossies of Mars / to stick up around my mirror.
Of course there's a Pasadena connection. There always is. While Healy lives in Sherman Oaks, her publisher is Kate Gale and Mark Cull's Red Hen Press, headquartered right here in town, the biggest small press on the West Coast. Red Hen has published a number of her books; she even runs a special imprint of poetry books by others through the press; and it will publish her next, which is not only a volume, but comes with what poetry started out as, sound. "A Wild Surmise: New & Selected Poems & Recordings" will be released in March.
So congratulations to Eloise, and to Los Angeles, for picking a real poet as its laureate. Every town should have one - Altadena does, for instance, and she is dynamite: Linda Dove, who we at LitFest Pasadena got to hear reading at that finest versifying location, the Altadena Ale House. What's more, every town should pay its laureate, as Los Angeles will: $10,000 a year. There will not be any money from the municipal treasury better spent next year than the bucks engaged in spreading the good word.
The person responsible for Harry Delmolino’s ghost bike is reportedly a close friend who protects his identity. Those who work nearby often see the man bringing fresh flowers.
Susan Delmolino, Harry’s mother, has seen the ghost bike but finds it too painful to return there.
“It gives me some comfort,” she said. “It’s so respectful and, in some ways, so tender.”
John Delmolino, Harry’s father, says he is pleasantly surprised the city has allowed the memorial to remain in place so long.
Susan Delmolino, 60, and John Delmolino, 64, live in Hadley, close to the Sunderland town line. The location of their home made it a long ride for Harry to go anywhere on his bike. Still, it was his transportation of choice, and he bicycled back and forth to his information technology job at Smith College and his day job at an Amherst bike shop called Laughing Dog and often rode the bike paths of Northampton and Easthampton just for the fun of it.
“He’d do 40 miles a day as a lark,” his mother recalled recently.
Harry and his sister, Grace, were home-schooled from an early age and were in and out of college by the time their peers were graduating from high school, but their parents are reluctant to talk about this. The Delmolinos haven't viewed their kids as prodigies but as their children, as people, breathtakingly normal, though endlessly fascinating and burdened by the usual growing pains which young people have.
Susan Delmolino worked as a child-abuse investigator for the state, but left that job years ago to be home with her children. Because Harry and Grace were so self-directed, her biggest task as their mother, she said, was to get out of their way. It was time she would otherwise not have spent with them, and she treasures it.
Harry Delmolino started taking classes at Greenfield Community College when he was just 13. Grace, now 20, is working on a doctorate in medieval Italian literature at Columbia University. That might sound impressive, but being precocious is not the highest priority in the Delmolino household.
“It’s not how smart you are,” said Susan Delmolino. “It’s what you do.”
John Delmolino, a retired state trooper who is in his second career as an interior house painter, has a more concise way of putting it.
“The jails are full of smart people,” he said.
Fortunately, the Delmolinos didn’t have to worry about their kids on that count.
Harry Delmolino joined the Boy Scouts and worked his way up to Eagle Scout. He went on an 11-day hiking trip to New Mexico with Boy Scout Troop 504 of Amherst. He climbed Mount Monadnock in the snow. He had a girlfriend. He fell in love with bicycling.
John Delmolino says he was taken aback by his son’s need to take things apart and amazed by his ability to put them back together.
Harry’s bike, for instance, his father explained, was in a hundred pieces soon after he bought it. Then, like magic, it was a bike again. He disassembled many household appliances. At 12 he asked for a welder for Christmas. He had barely learned to walk when he threw a hissy-fit over some kind of digging contraption he wanted. His parents gave in. Harry spent hours with it in the dirt pile.
As he got older, Harry Delmolino was drawn more and more to computer science. He won a temporary job at Smith by essentially convincing the college he could fix anything, his parents said. He was planning to take classes at the University of Massachusetts to get a degree in computer science.
The young man bought a $1,000 bike, took it apart, put it together and then got a job at Laughing Dog where he worked on repairing other people’s bikes.
Parker Ramspott, who owns the Amherst bike shop, said it was not uncommon for Harry Delmolino to work on $6,000 bicycles. “He loved bikes,” Ramspott said. “It got him real fit.”
On the morning of his accident, Harry and his mother made a couple of trips to the house next door with Harry’s belongings. The family had bought the house as a place for him to spend the summer before he went to UMass.
For the Delmolinos, it was the best of both worlds. Harry would be close by, but he would have the privacy a young man craves.
“You’re spreading your wings,” said Susan Delmolino. “You want to have the freedom.”
Then, Harry rode off to work at Laughing Dog and later biked to Northampton.
The office of Northwestern district attorney David Sullivan announced this week that its investigation found no basis upon to bring criminal charges against the driver of the car that struck Harry Delmolino, Cesar Avelar. The investigation determined the incident was an accident. Delmolino was not wearing a helmet.
The city of Northampton will use some of the state funds it receives for road and bridge repair to study the intersection of Main and Pleasant streets with an eye towards installing a dedicated left-turn signal for motorists entering from the east along Main from Hadley and Amherst, as Avelar was. It is the only one of the four entry points to the major downtown intersection where Route 9 meets Route 5 that lacks such a signal.
So what I was going to say was that the naming by a city of its poet laureate is not a matter of life and death - except you will recall what William Carlos Williams said: "It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there." Williams was a revered physician in Paterson, N.J., the kind who made housecalls in the middle of the night, that most practical man, a man of life and death. And yet what is he remembered for? Writing great poems. If you haven't read them, turn from this now and do so. They might save your life.
As I was saying: When I heard last week that Eloise Klein Healy was named the first poet laureate of the city of Los Angeles, I breathed two sighs of relief.
The first was that a poet was named poet laureate. When city muckamucks announced that they would search for one, all kinds of non-poets came out of the Encino woods and announced that they should be the laureate of the City of Angels, even if they weren't,well, exactly poets themselves. But they were the bard of something-or-another, or they write really swell prose, or they spin a fine ghost story, or they make excellent movies or video games.
That they weren't actually poets was small beer so far as they were concerned.
This is the kind of thing that happens to poets all the time, and I am mystified as to why. No one who is, I don't know, a newspaper columnist would, when the time comes to name that year's Nobel Prize in physics, claim that it is he instead of those fellows writing the equations who should be feted by the king at the banquet in Stockholm. So why should poetry - which I assure you is precisely as complex an art as physics - be considered a craft in which every Jasper with a mildly creative streak is a candidate for the post the same as those who have actually written, and published, poems?
Second sigh of relief: Eloise is a wonderful choice. Man alive, is she a real poet. You can look her up - she is an ardent practitioner of the craft, which is a life's work. The non-poet could no more write her poems than I could paint a Picasso. But here's a fun one, a stanza from "Entries: LA Log": I never owned a map / to the stars' homes / but I sent to JPL / for 8x10 glossies of Mars / to stick up around my mirror.
Of course there's a Pasadena connection. There always is. While Healy lives in Sherman Oaks, her publisher is Kate Gale and Mark Cull's Red Hen Press, headquartered right here in town, the biggest small press on the West Coast. Red Hen has published a number of her books; she even runs a special imprint of poetry books by others through the press; and it will publish her next, which is not only a volume, but comes with what poetry started out as, sound. "A Wild Surmise: New & Selected Poems & Recordings" will be released in March.
So congratulations to Eloise, and to Los Angeles, for picking a real poet as its laureate. Every town should have one - Altadena does, for instance, and she is dynamite: Linda Dove, who we at LitFest Pasadena got to hear reading at that finest versifying location, the Altadena Ale House. What's more, every town should pay its laureate, as Los Angeles will: $10,000 a year. There will not be any money from the municipal treasury better spent next year than the bucks engaged in spreading the good word.
The person responsible for Harry Delmolino’s ghost bike is reportedly a close friend who protects his identity. Those who work nearby often see the man bringing fresh flowers.
Susan Delmolino, Harry’s mother, has seen the ghost bike but finds it too painful to return there.
“It gives me some comfort,” she said. “It’s so respectful and, in some ways, so tender.”
John Delmolino, Harry’s father, says he is pleasantly surprised the city has allowed the memorial to remain in place so long.
Susan Delmolino, 60, and John Delmolino, 64, live in Hadley, close to the Sunderland town line. The location of their home made it a long ride for Harry to go anywhere on his bike. Still, it was his transportation of choice, and he bicycled back and forth to his information technology job at Smith College and his day job at an Amherst bike shop called Laughing Dog and often rode the bike paths of Northampton and Easthampton just for the fun of it.
“He’d do 40 miles a day as a lark,” his mother recalled recently.
Harry and his sister, Grace, were home-schooled from an early age and were in and out of college by the time their peers were graduating from high school, but their parents are reluctant to talk about this. The Delmolinos haven't viewed their kids as prodigies but as their children, as people, breathtakingly normal, though endlessly fascinating and burdened by the usual growing pains which young people have.
Susan Delmolino worked as a child-abuse investigator for the state, but left that job years ago to be home with her children. Because Harry and Grace were so self-directed, her biggest task as their mother, she said, was to get out of their way. It was time she would otherwise not have spent with them, and she treasures it.
Harry Delmolino started taking classes at Greenfield Community College when he was just 13. Grace, now 20, is working on a doctorate in medieval Italian literature at Columbia University. That might sound impressive, but being precocious is not the highest priority in the Delmolino household.
“It’s not how smart you are,” said Susan Delmolino. “It’s what you do.”
John Delmolino, a retired state trooper who is in his second career as an interior house painter, has a more concise way of putting it.
“The jails are full of smart people,” he said.
Fortunately, the Delmolinos didn’t have to worry about their kids on that count.
Harry Delmolino joined the Boy Scouts and worked his way up to Eagle Scout. He went on an 11-day hiking trip to New Mexico with Boy Scout Troop 504 of Amherst. He climbed Mount Monadnock in the snow. He had a girlfriend. He fell in love with bicycling.
John Delmolino says he was taken aback by his son’s need to take things apart and amazed by his ability to put them back together.
Harry’s bike, for instance, his father explained, was in a hundred pieces soon after he bought it. Then, like magic, it was a bike again. He disassembled many household appliances. At 12 he asked for a welder for Christmas. He had barely learned to walk when he threw a hissy-fit over some kind of digging contraption he wanted. His parents gave in. Harry spent hours with it in the dirt pile.
As he got older, Harry Delmolino was drawn more and more to computer science. He won a temporary job at Smith by essentially convincing the college he could fix anything, his parents said. He was planning to take classes at the University of Massachusetts to get a degree in computer science.
The young man bought a $1,000 bike, took it apart, put it together and then got a job at Laughing Dog where he worked on repairing other people’s bikes.
Parker Ramspott, who owns the Amherst bike shop, said it was not uncommon for Harry Delmolino to work on $6,000 bicycles. “He loved bikes,” Ramspott said. “It got him real fit.”
On the morning of his accident, Harry and his mother made a couple of trips to the house next door with Harry’s belongings. The family had bought the house as a place for him to spend the summer before he went to UMass.
For the Delmolinos, it was the best of both worlds. Harry would be close by, but he would have the privacy a young man craves.
“You’re spreading your wings,” said Susan Delmolino. “You want to have the freedom.”
Then, Harry rode off to work at Laughing Dog and later biked to Northampton.
The office of Northwestern district attorney David Sullivan announced this week that its investigation found no basis upon to bring criminal charges against the driver of the car that struck Harry Delmolino, Cesar Avelar. The investigation determined the incident was an accident. Delmolino was not wearing a helmet.
The city of Northampton will use some of the state funds it receives for road and bridge repair to study the intersection of Main and Pleasant streets with an eye towards installing a dedicated left-turn signal for motorists entering from the east along Main from Hadley and Amherst, as Avelar was. It is the only one of the four entry points to the major downtown intersection where Route 9 meets Route 5 that lacks such a signal.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
A missed opportunity to get tough on substandard drugs
All but seven members of the Conservative caucus voted last Wednesday night against Bill C-398 — Quebec NDP MP Hélène Laverdière’s private member’s bill that aimed to correct Canada’s flawed Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR) — sending it to defeat.
Astute observers recognize that, while CAMR 2.0 was an improvement over its predecessor (a similar draft, Bill C-393, passed the House in March 2011 but died on the Senate’s order paper before Parliament was dissolved for the 2011 federal election), it was far from perfect. Yet activists have cried foul, accusing the government of obstreperous cruelty. The reality is more complex.
Canadian generic drug manufacturers face a considerable competitive disadvantage when it comes to the cost of manufacturing medicines. A highly-competitive international market exists for the supply of cheap, generic drugs from developing countries like India, China, Bangladesh and Sudan.
Incentives, like the proposed “one-license solution,” might have invited greater economies of scale and lower production costs, but this wouldn’t necessarily have made Canadian companies more competitive than their rivals — a legitimate concern when contemplating adjustments to the patent protections enjoyed by our brand-name pharmaceutical companies.
Putting these qualifiers aside, let’s say that Bill C-398 would have provided developing countries with more high-quality, lifesaving, Canadian-manufactured generic drugs. Most parties will agree this is good.
But one argument has been absent from this debate: By blocking the legislation, the Conservatives missed an opportunity to promote their “tough on crime” agenda.
Let me explain: I spent much of the past several months tracking down fake and substandard medicines in East Africa and Southeast Asia. Some of the drugs that infiltrate porous borders in these institutionally-weak and poorly-regulated markets are bad by most objective standards; others may only have become bad due to poor environmental storage conditions and practices. Where the former are being produced by unsophisticated, opportunistic hacks, transnational organized criminals increasingly are entering this dangerous space.
In South Sudan, for example, where health systems are extraordinarily fragile, a quick jaunt through any market where drugs are sold reveals the ubiquitous presence of Coartem, the artemisinin-based combination treatment for the uncomplicated strains of malaria found throughout large swathes of the African and Asian sub-continents. Coartem is supplied without profit by Novartis, the Swiss-based pharmaceutical giant — a similar move, one presumes, to the generous donations our own brand-name pharmaceutical companies are in the habit of making.
There’s just one problem: These medicines, intended for public health facilities where drugs and services should be free, are almost always stolen from their intended recipients and diverted to private stores, where they are then sold at marked-up rates most South Sudanese struggle to afford. Companies like Novartis owe no obligation to guarantee their donations are distributed into the hands of their presumed beneficiaries once the goods are transferred to relevant authorities. Yet the benevolent impact of their largesse is being lost.
Of course, there was no suggestion that Bill C-398’s purpose was to obviate this particular concern. But even where access to medicines is a lesser problem, there is a notable absence of high-quality generic drugs, something that Canadian manufacturers may have been able to rectify with improved incentives and less red tape.
Yes, despite the undeserved bad rap that all developing country-manufactured generics are fake, falsified, or substandard, it certainly is possible to purchase high-quality generic medicines. But the often-higher manufacturing standards Canadian pharmaceuticals are held to means there should be substantial appetite for our drugs, and more confidence in the authenticity of our products. Furthermore, the availability and supply of these superior medicines could actually help crowd out the market for poorer-quality substitutes.
Having established a net-benefit through the promotion of increased medicines-access and pharmacovigilance, it becomes difficult to rationalize the Conservative opposition to Bill C-398’s proposed legislation.
This bill wasn’t the fix-all promised. But, in fighting it, the Conservatives have unequivocally said “no” to reforms that wouldn’t have cost taxpayers a dime; may have improved the international competitiveness of our generic manufacturers; could have increased poor countries’ access to our quality, lifesaving medicines; and might have put a dent in the market for dangerous alternatives. Despite the “ifs,” this still was bad politics.
Enayut, 23 at the time of the shooting, joined the Afghan army in 2006. An expert in disarming bombs, he had a history of going AWOL and receiving no punishment for it. U.S. investigators found that he had slipped away for an unauthorized visit to Pakistan just weeks before the attack.
Investigators were unable to pin down identifying information about the other shooter, although it appeared he also was a soldier and was probably a member of Enayut’s unit, the 4th Battalion, 1st Brigade, 205th Corps. LeVan said both wore Afghan army uniforms in the attack.
In a two-sentence statement the next day, the U.S.-led military command in Kabul said two service members had been killed in an “insurgent attack.” A day later, in identifying Lawrence and Russell as the casualties, the Pentagon reported that “enemy forces” killed them.
The Army’s investigation records show that U.S. officials in Afghanistan were told immediately after the assault that it was perpetrated by one or more Afghan soldiers — not insurgents.
“Yes, we know the shooter,” the Afghan army liaison officer told Lt. Col. John Cook, the commander of Lawrence’s and Russell’s unit, after being summoned back to the compound just moments after the killings. The Afghan officer named Enayut without hesitation.
Asked why its Oct. 9 report was never corrected, the international military command in Kabul said it knew that at least one of the shooters was wearing an Afghan army uniform, “but as that information was unconfirmed, a correction to the original (press) release was not appropriate.”
In April the AP was alerted to the attack’s true circumstances by an American soldier who knew the real story. The U.S. military in Kabul acknowledged to the AP in May that it had added the incident to its 2011 list of insider attacks. But it refused to provide any details of what happened.
Astute observers recognize that, while CAMR 2.0 was an improvement over its predecessor (a similar draft, Bill C-393, passed the House in March 2011 but died on the Senate’s order paper before Parliament was dissolved for the 2011 federal election), it was far from perfect. Yet activists have cried foul, accusing the government of obstreperous cruelty. The reality is more complex.
Canadian generic drug manufacturers face a considerable competitive disadvantage when it comes to the cost of manufacturing medicines. A highly-competitive international market exists for the supply of cheap, generic drugs from developing countries like India, China, Bangladesh and Sudan.
Incentives, like the proposed “one-license solution,” might have invited greater economies of scale and lower production costs, but this wouldn’t necessarily have made Canadian companies more competitive than their rivals — a legitimate concern when contemplating adjustments to the patent protections enjoyed by our brand-name pharmaceutical companies.
Putting these qualifiers aside, let’s say that Bill C-398 would have provided developing countries with more high-quality, lifesaving, Canadian-manufactured generic drugs. Most parties will agree this is good.
But one argument has been absent from this debate: By blocking the legislation, the Conservatives missed an opportunity to promote their “tough on crime” agenda.
Let me explain: I spent much of the past several months tracking down fake and substandard medicines in East Africa and Southeast Asia. Some of the drugs that infiltrate porous borders in these institutionally-weak and poorly-regulated markets are bad by most objective standards; others may only have become bad due to poor environmental storage conditions and practices. Where the former are being produced by unsophisticated, opportunistic hacks, transnational organized criminals increasingly are entering this dangerous space.
In South Sudan, for example, where health systems are extraordinarily fragile, a quick jaunt through any market where drugs are sold reveals the ubiquitous presence of Coartem, the artemisinin-based combination treatment for the uncomplicated strains of malaria found throughout large swathes of the African and Asian sub-continents. Coartem is supplied without profit by Novartis, the Swiss-based pharmaceutical giant — a similar move, one presumes, to the generous donations our own brand-name pharmaceutical companies are in the habit of making.
There’s just one problem: These medicines, intended for public health facilities where drugs and services should be free, are almost always stolen from their intended recipients and diverted to private stores, where they are then sold at marked-up rates most South Sudanese struggle to afford. Companies like Novartis owe no obligation to guarantee their donations are distributed into the hands of their presumed beneficiaries once the goods are transferred to relevant authorities. Yet the benevolent impact of their largesse is being lost.
Of course, there was no suggestion that Bill C-398’s purpose was to obviate this particular concern. But even where access to medicines is a lesser problem, there is a notable absence of high-quality generic drugs, something that Canadian manufacturers may have been able to rectify with improved incentives and less red tape.
Yes, despite the undeserved bad rap that all developing country-manufactured generics are fake, falsified, or substandard, it certainly is possible to purchase high-quality generic medicines. But the often-higher manufacturing standards Canadian pharmaceuticals are held to means there should be substantial appetite for our drugs, and more confidence in the authenticity of our products. Furthermore, the availability and supply of these superior medicines could actually help crowd out the market for poorer-quality substitutes.
Having established a net-benefit through the promotion of increased medicines-access and pharmacovigilance, it becomes difficult to rationalize the Conservative opposition to Bill C-398’s proposed legislation.
This bill wasn’t the fix-all promised. But, in fighting it, the Conservatives have unequivocally said “no” to reforms that wouldn’t have cost taxpayers a dime; may have improved the international competitiveness of our generic manufacturers; could have increased poor countries’ access to our quality, lifesaving medicines; and might have put a dent in the market for dangerous alternatives. Despite the “ifs,” this still was bad politics.
Enayut, 23 at the time of the shooting, joined the Afghan army in 2006. An expert in disarming bombs, he had a history of going AWOL and receiving no punishment for it. U.S. investigators found that he had slipped away for an unauthorized visit to Pakistan just weeks before the attack.
Investigators were unable to pin down identifying information about the other shooter, although it appeared he also was a soldier and was probably a member of Enayut’s unit, the 4th Battalion, 1st Brigade, 205th Corps. LeVan said both wore Afghan army uniforms in the attack.
In a two-sentence statement the next day, the U.S.-led military command in Kabul said two service members had been killed in an “insurgent attack.” A day later, in identifying Lawrence and Russell as the casualties, the Pentagon reported that “enemy forces” killed them.
The Army’s investigation records show that U.S. officials in Afghanistan were told immediately after the assault that it was perpetrated by one or more Afghan soldiers — not insurgents.
“Yes, we know the shooter,” the Afghan army liaison officer told Lt. Col. John Cook, the commander of Lawrence’s and Russell’s unit, after being summoned back to the compound just moments after the killings. The Afghan officer named Enayut without hesitation.
Asked why its Oct. 9 report was never corrected, the international military command in Kabul said it knew that at least one of the shooters was wearing an Afghan army uniform, “but as that information was unconfirmed, a correction to the original (press) release was not appropriate.”
In April the AP was alerted to the attack’s true circumstances by an American soldier who knew the real story. The U.S. military in Kabul acknowledged to the AP in May that it had added the incident to its 2011 list of insider attacks. But it refused to provide any details of what happened.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Red Springs legends
In the early hours of Dec. 16, 1943, doctors from Red Springs, N.C., raced to an overpass near Rennert, where North Carolina’s deadliest train wreck had just occurred. They were joined by medical personnel from across the region attempting to rescue and treat as many as possible.
Working alongside the doctors was 15-year-old Charles Johnson Jr., son of Dr. Charles Johnson Sr., one of Red Springs’ four resident physicians. Had there been time to notice a teenager in their midst, nobody would have been concerned. They knew young Charles from earliest childhood to be at his father’s side in the office, on house calls and around town.
“It was a terrible night,” he recalls. “It was so cold the syringes froze.” Many of the 72 dead were servicemen traveling home for the holidays.
For Charles Jr., the memory of that horrific emergency blends with countless other calls his father took at all hours. “Dad worked seven days a week. It was taken for granted that he would come when called,” and often the son went too. This is a prevailing memory and one of several stories Charles and his wife Dare shared of their lives in the small town of Red Springs.
Born in 1928 in the family home on Red Springs’ South Main Street, Johnson took his place in the community naturally, attending public schools, pitching in with chores and helping Dad on the job. “There was nothing unusual about it,” he recalled. “It was just taken for granted.”
“Dad was raised on a farm and for many years we kept two cows, chickens and a garden.” It fell to Charles, the oldest son and second oldest of four children, to milk the cows and clean the chicken house every Saturday morning. “We used the manure in mother’s prize rose garden,” he said. “We used everything. It’s true that kids used dried cow paddies to mark bases for ball games.”
As he grew older, he passed some household chores to his siblings and took “real” jobs at Garret-McNeill Grocery, Graham’s department store and Red Springs Drugs.
During those years, Red Springs’ four doctors — Henry H. Hodgen, Sr., John Bender, Roscoe McMillian and Charles Johnson Sr. — stayed busy in a town that flourished with mills, a strong agricultural base and Flora Macdonald College.
World War II demanded that Johnson rethink his education. He left Red Springs High School in grade 10 and entered Wake Forest University having first passed required exams. After a semester, he transferred to Duke, earning his bacholor’s degree in 1948.
At Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, where his father had studied, he earned his doctorate in 1953. A one-year internship at Raleigh’s Rex Hospital in 1954 was followed by two years as a captain in the Air Force, serving as medical officer and base surgeon at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where he received the Commendation Ribbon for Meritorious Service and then on to a one-year residency at the Medical College of Virginia.
In Richmond, friends Becky and Dave Hill introduced him to Virginia Dare Peace. The relationship began with Johnson asking three important questions: Did she have a car, an apartment, and a blender? The answers were yes, yes, and yes, although she later admitted to running out to buy a blender.
Dare Peace grew up in rural New Kent, a small community east of Richmond, the only child of a farmer father and schoolteacher mother. Valedictorian in 1952, she attended Randolph-Macon Women’s College in Lynchburg, Va., for two years before transferring to UNC Chapel Hill to study the new field of medical technology, graduating in 1956. By the second half of that year, she too was at the Medical College of Virginia, earning a second bachelor’s degree in 1957.
The romance flourished despite heavy work and study schedules. In July 1957, Johnson returned to Red Springs to join his father in practice, but only a few months later returned to Richmond to propose. With little time for wedding preparations, the senior Johnsons gave the young couple a house on East Third Avenue and Johnson headed for Conway, S.C. with his friend Glenn Overton, who had a friend who owned a furniture store. Johnson drove home with a truck full of furniture, none of which Dare saw until after it was in the house.
Meanwhile, with help from family, Dare planned a Dec. 27 wedding at Broad Street Methodist Church in Richmond and a reception at the Jefferson Hotel. Because Duke was playing in the Orange Bowl in Miami that year, the newlyweds honeymooned in Florida.
The pace at which Charles and Dare managed their busy pre-marriage lives set the tempo for the life that followed.
Red Springs in 1958 was the quintessential southern small town. For the doctor’s new bride, life meant establishing membership in virtually every community organization, most of which promoted activities that contributed to the town’s well-being.
Dare’s mother-in-law, Myrtis Elise Dukes Johnson, daughter of a Methodist minister and an active participant in the town’s life, introduced her daughter-in-law at each meeting and to neighbors Isabelle Buie, Nan Bullock and Helen Buie, “who knew everyone and everything” in Red Springs.
“Mrs. Johnson hosted a reception for me,” says Dare, who remembers Red Springs as a very social town with frequent parties and dinners. “Everyone was very welcoming. I felt like I belonged here,” she said. “I wasn’t here any time at all before I was busy with projects and met many people.”
Most of the organizations and clubs that Dare joined in 1958 she continues in today, and typically she has held their various offices several times over. A few are the Robeson County Medical Auxiliary, Red Springs Garden Club, Dilettante Book Club, Robeson County Cotillion and the circles of Red Springs Presbyterian Church.
She also kept house and helped a husband who worked seven days a week, including Sunday afternoons. After church and Sunday lunch at the senior Johnsons’ home, the two doctors went to the office for whatever length of time was required.
Johnson had fallen into step with his father, accepting patients with varied needs and a wide range of payment plans, including hams, possum stews and freshly harvested vegetables. The practice served everyone, regardless of race or age, although the separation of waiting rooms for white and non-white patients continued when Charles joined his father. But, he emphasized, “We made house calls to all patients.”
With two Dr. Charles Johnsons on staff, some differentiation was called for. “Patients usually referred to us as Old Dr. Johnson and Young Dr. Johnson,” he explained, adding that nurse Emma Breeden settled on calling his father “the real Dr. Johnson.”
In April 1959 the young family welcomed daughter Elise (now Virginia Elise Johnson McMillan). Busy as usual, Johnson took Dare to the Lumberton hospital, dropped her off and raced to Scotland County to deliver a baby before returning to Lumberton to meet his new daughter. Her birth strengthened his commitment to the town, and he registered to run for the Red Springs Board of Education that very day.
Working alongside the doctors was 15-year-old Charles Johnson Jr., son of Dr. Charles Johnson Sr., one of Red Springs’ four resident physicians. Had there been time to notice a teenager in their midst, nobody would have been concerned. They knew young Charles from earliest childhood to be at his father’s side in the office, on house calls and around town.
“It was a terrible night,” he recalls. “It was so cold the syringes froze.” Many of the 72 dead were servicemen traveling home for the holidays.
For Charles Jr., the memory of that horrific emergency blends with countless other calls his father took at all hours. “Dad worked seven days a week. It was taken for granted that he would come when called,” and often the son went too. This is a prevailing memory and one of several stories Charles and his wife Dare shared of their lives in the small town of Red Springs.
Born in 1928 in the family home on Red Springs’ South Main Street, Johnson took his place in the community naturally, attending public schools, pitching in with chores and helping Dad on the job. “There was nothing unusual about it,” he recalled. “It was just taken for granted.”
“Dad was raised on a farm and for many years we kept two cows, chickens and a garden.” It fell to Charles, the oldest son and second oldest of four children, to milk the cows and clean the chicken house every Saturday morning. “We used the manure in mother’s prize rose garden,” he said. “We used everything. It’s true that kids used dried cow paddies to mark bases for ball games.”
As he grew older, he passed some household chores to his siblings and took “real” jobs at Garret-McNeill Grocery, Graham’s department store and Red Springs Drugs.
During those years, Red Springs’ four doctors — Henry H. Hodgen, Sr., John Bender, Roscoe McMillian and Charles Johnson Sr. — stayed busy in a town that flourished with mills, a strong agricultural base and Flora Macdonald College.
World War II demanded that Johnson rethink his education. He left Red Springs High School in grade 10 and entered Wake Forest University having first passed required exams. After a semester, he transferred to Duke, earning his bacholor’s degree in 1948.
At Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, where his father had studied, he earned his doctorate in 1953. A one-year internship at Raleigh’s Rex Hospital in 1954 was followed by two years as a captain in the Air Force, serving as medical officer and base surgeon at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where he received the Commendation Ribbon for Meritorious Service and then on to a one-year residency at the Medical College of Virginia.
In Richmond, friends Becky and Dave Hill introduced him to Virginia Dare Peace. The relationship began with Johnson asking three important questions: Did she have a car, an apartment, and a blender? The answers were yes, yes, and yes, although she later admitted to running out to buy a blender.
Dare Peace grew up in rural New Kent, a small community east of Richmond, the only child of a farmer father and schoolteacher mother. Valedictorian in 1952, she attended Randolph-Macon Women’s College in Lynchburg, Va., for two years before transferring to UNC Chapel Hill to study the new field of medical technology, graduating in 1956. By the second half of that year, she too was at the Medical College of Virginia, earning a second bachelor’s degree in 1957.
The romance flourished despite heavy work and study schedules. In July 1957, Johnson returned to Red Springs to join his father in practice, but only a few months later returned to Richmond to propose. With little time for wedding preparations, the senior Johnsons gave the young couple a house on East Third Avenue and Johnson headed for Conway, S.C. with his friend Glenn Overton, who had a friend who owned a furniture store. Johnson drove home with a truck full of furniture, none of which Dare saw until after it was in the house.
Meanwhile, with help from family, Dare planned a Dec. 27 wedding at Broad Street Methodist Church in Richmond and a reception at the Jefferson Hotel. Because Duke was playing in the Orange Bowl in Miami that year, the newlyweds honeymooned in Florida.
The pace at which Charles and Dare managed their busy pre-marriage lives set the tempo for the life that followed.
Red Springs in 1958 was the quintessential southern small town. For the doctor’s new bride, life meant establishing membership in virtually every community organization, most of which promoted activities that contributed to the town’s well-being.
Dare’s mother-in-law, Myrtis Elise Dukes Johnson, daughter of a Methodist minister and an active participant in the town’s life, introduced her daughter-in-law at each meeting and to neighbors Isabelle Buie, Nan Bullock and Helen Buie, “who knew everyone and everything” in Red Springs.
“Mrs. Johnson hosted a reception for me,” says Dare, who remembers Red Springs as a very social town with frequent parties and dinners. “Everyone was very welcoming. I felt like I belonged here,” she said. “I wasn’t here any time at all before I was busy with projects and met many people.”
Most of the organizations and clubs that Dare joined in 1958 she continues in today, and typically she has held their various offices several times over. A few are the Robeson County Medical Auxiliary, Red Springs Garden Club, Dilettante Book Club, Robeson County Cotillion and the circles of Red Springs Presbyterian Church.
She also kept house and helped a husband who worked seven days a week, including Sunday afternoons. After church and Sunday lunch at the senior Johnsons’ home, the two doctors went to the office for whatever length of time was required.
Johnson had fallen into step with his father, accepting patients with varied needs and a wide range of payment plans, including hams, possum stews and freshly harvested vegetables. The practice served everyone, regardless of race or age, although the separation of waiting rooms for white and non-white patients continued when Charles joined his father. But, he emphasized, “We made house calls to all patients.”
With two Dr. Charles Johnsons on staff, some differentiation was called for. “Patients usually referred to us as Old Dr. Johnson and Young Dr. Johnson,” he explained, adding that nurse Emma Breeden settled on calling his father “the real Dr. Johnson.”
In April 1959 the young family welcomed daughter Elise (now Virginia Elise Johnson McMillan). Busy as usual, Johnson took Dare to the Lumberton hospital, dropped her off and raced to Scotland County to deliver a baby before returning to Lumberton to meet his new daughter. Her birth strengthened his commitment to the town, and he registered to run for the Red Springs Board of Education that very day.
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