Revival at the river

Two years ago this month, I was driving to Trenton. I was going to the N.J. Department of Transportation to pick up some stuff for a story. My stomach was roiling. I could feel my headache through my left eye.

"What the hell am I doing?" I kept asking myself.

Here I was, 40 years old, with a daily schedule of teaching classes at Rutgers University, a full-time job at The Record, coaching my son's Little League team and - the big one - going to classes part-time at Columbia University.

Oh, yeah, and I am a father of three.

I was trying to make up for all those years of "plateauing," of working long hours at The Press of Atlantic City and The Delaware State News and never really accomplishing much. I felt like I was trying to make up for it all in just one day.

That day, I taught a class at Rutgers. I answered concerns about the Little League team via email. I had to uncover a potential scandal involving school bus safety. And, that night, I had to go class - the second session of my first class - at Columbia.

I got to the Trenton Thunder ballpark and pulled the car over. I stared at the Delaware River. "What the hell am I doing? What the hell am I doing" I kept asking myself, over and over.

I called my wife. She got me a doctor's appointment. I wouldn't go to class that night. But I would finally get help for this panicking, this recoiling I always did in the face of pressure. It was the kind of thing that prevented me from reaching my potential.

At first, I rejected the idea. I was my mother's child, and I rejected all forms of help that would help my brain as much as they would help my body. My mother's fear of medicine helped bring about her slow, but steady physical deterioration that led to her death, in 2003. I didn't want to head down that same path.

I got help, and I did my two years at Columbia. They were probably the best two years of life. I found clarity. I found things out about me that I never knew. I learned how to build websites from scratch. I learned how to shoot and cut video. I started a book on my family's history of mental illness as part of a bookwriting course, and I got honors for the class. I learned not only how to write a book, but READ a book.

But it wasn't medicine or doctors or teaching that really brought about the change. I think of that line from scripture that was quoted in an important scene in "The Shawshank Redemption." It was the line that guided me as I endured taking classes, teaching classes, parenting and everything else.

Salvation lies within.

The Chicken Zoo, part I: The murder (a non-fiction novel)

[This story is based on my experiences as a reporter for The Delaware State News from 1990-93. Some names and dates have been changed. This was part of my unpublished novel, "The Chicken Zoo," that I wrote five years ago.]

I was never a big fan of covering cop stories.

I know, I know. If you’re a reporter, you should love death and destruction, right? Isn’t that every reporter’s dream, to be crack some big murder case, stand in the middle of the room and shout, “Aha! After weeks of great investigation, I have determined the identity of the killer!” I always feel like I’m sort of a buzzard that preys on people when they’re at their most vulnerable. It’s like this O.J. mentality where everybody obsesses over who-killed-who-and-left-blood-where [I barely watched that whole Simpson thing when it unfolded on television]. Then throw some sex and drugs into the whole thing, and watch the ratings go up even more, and the advertisement dollars reach six-figures. And then some opportunistic editor or television producer wants you to go victim’s parents’ house and chronicle their gut-wrenching grief. If they say nothing, that’s bad. Try again. If they express their grief without emotion, that’s OK. But keep going. If they cry, bullseye!

Screw that. I’d much rather meet up with Earl Jones at the farm and talk to him all afternoon about how the drought turned his corn stalks into brittle sticks. Or how about mayor who skims $100,000 from the town treasury and uses it to build a new porch on his house? That excites me.

Yeah, I know. Zzzzzz. That shit happens all the time. Believe me, I know what America likes and dislikes. I’ve lived my whole life like a human car wreck, and I see how people react when I tell them about all the stupid, reckless things I’ve done. I see their eyes bulge. I see them laugh. Then they tell 40 friends and I look like a universal idiot. But, hey, that shit excites people. That shit gets the blood flowing.

But it doesn’t mean that I have to like it.

So you could imagine my frustration when I got my first newspaper job out of college, and one of my first assignments was to cover a murder. Ugh. I mean, c’mon guys, the first day? I was half-awake for this, too – I had just moved into my apartment the night before. I didn’t have a lot to pack, but it took a while anyway – all day Saturday and then half the day Sunday. I didn’t leave until 7 p.m. I was told it would take two-and-half hours to drive from the Jersey Shore to Dover, Del. It took me four, largely because my mattress flew off my roof and landed in a puddle on the New Jersey Turnpike. The problem? I didn’t tie it tight enough. What can I say? Old habits die hard.

Monday morning, I threw on a set of clothes – a shirt with holes wearing through the elbows, and a pair of polyester pants that was so snug around the thighs, I had a hard time zipping my zippers. Hey, it was cheap shit. I had no job, no money. There was a recession going on. Reagan left office and left Bush and the rest of us to hold the bag. Besides, I was moving to Dover, Del., the trailer-park capital of the world, so I was told. Was there any need for Ralph Lauren? What, to impress women? Shit. I hadn’t gotten a real date since my girlfriend dumped me almost two years before.

At that point, I had no use for them, anyway. The last one I had left on some junior-year-abroad thing when I was a senior at Rutgers. She told me a thousand times, “I love you! I love you!” And then the minute she got off the plane in Israel, she met an Israeli soldier and I was history. Yeah, she loved me all right. Me? I was laying in bed all day, sick as a dog. Every couple of hours or so, I’d bend over the toilet, stick two fingers down my throat and puke my guts up. What can I say? It made me feel better. But then I lost 50 pounds in a month, and friends started calling me “Karen Carpenter.” The peer pressure and the ensuing embarrassment worked. So I stopped.
So I had no one to dress for, really. Not even for myself. Those polyester pants were wrapped so tightly, I sweated right through them. But, fuck it. I wore them anyway. I didn’t even really car that I was practically drenched as I drove in to the parking lot around 9 a.m. that Monday, ready to work.

I docked my car just beneath a small platform that carried a big, 10-by-11 sign. “The Delaware State News” it said. The sign was really too big. It’s not like people couldn’t figure out what this place is. It certainly wasn’t Times Square. Nothing surrounded it, except for a cornfield. There was no place to get a cup of coffee, no place to pick up a newspaper or even a corn muffin. No downtown, no Greenwich Village. Nothing. Just a cornfield. All my dreams I had of becoming a big-time journalist, and this was what I got. Thanks, God.

Whatever. I didn’t have time to think about it. Besides, as I walked toward the front door, a small, dark-haired woman with an unlit cigarette dangling in her lips came running, waving a cell phone at me. It was Jenny Cunningham, the editor. She wasn’t ready to give me a moment to breathe.

“Stop right there!” Jenny yelled.

“What?”

“I need to cover something,” she said. “There was a murder in Driftwood Beach. Here – I wrote out some directions for you. And take this cell phone – it doesn’t work too well, but it’ll do.”
“Who was involved?” I asked.

“I don’t know. You’ll have to figure that out,” she said. “I heard it over the scanner – some big dude was shot on the beach…”

“Shouldn’t I call first?”

“No time for that – just go!”

I grabbed the directions – they were written on a tiny stick note – and the telephone, hopped in my car and zipped out. Jenny stood at the curb, lit her cigarette and watched me – watched me good – until I slipped out of sight.

The directions were fabulous, even if they were hard to read. Maybe they were fabulous because the roads weren’t too hard to navigate. These roads were very flat, and very straight. No twists, no turns, no trees. They just ran through old dried up farmland that seemed endless. There was a lot of water – a lot of it that seemed to be running off the irrigation lines that cut through the green landscape, forming puddles on the roads and digging potholes in the asphalt. Occasionally, my car would hit one – BAM! – and shocked the frame so much that it vibrated.

But I didn’t slow up – I was too afraid to. Jenny called me every five minutes, giving me more and more questions to ask the cops. I tried to write them down as I was driving, but that didn’t work. So I had to stop, and I wrote them out on two pieces of paper I ripped out of my notebook:

“Who killed him?”

“What was he wearing?”

“Does he know the mayor of Dover?”

“Does he know the governor?”

“What was his favorite newspaper?”

“Was he black?”

“Was he gay?”

“Did he have any scars?”

When I got there, a bunch of kids saw me, and heard my tires make a crunching noise as they rolled on the gravel streets. They ran toward my car and surrounded it as I parked. Then they looked up at me as I threw open the car door and stood among them, carrying a new reporter’s pad in one hand, and a ballpoint pen in the other.

“Yeah?” I said to them.

They paused, before one of them yelled out: “A dead body’s out there!”
He was about 9, but pretty small for his age. He wore a Dale Earnhardt T-shirt and a pair of red shorts that ran past his knees.

"Hey," I said. "What's your name?"

"Evan," the boy said. “What’s yours?”

“Tom Davis,” I said. “I’m from The Delaware State News.”

“Wanna go see the body?”

Before I could answer, I looked down at the boy’s red hands. There was blood – sort of a darkish red color, like it was a few hours old. It was already crusting underneath his nails.

"My God, what is that?" I asked.

Evan laughed, and held up his hands in my face. "Got it from Mr. Cramner out on the beach. He's laying out there, all stiff and shit."

Christ, I thought. Where the hell am I? And why were all these kids all over the place? Wasn’t anybody supervising these children?

“Wanna go?” Evan asked.

“Where’s your parents?”

“Aw fuck ‘em,” he said.

“What?”

“Mom’s cooking dinner,” he said. “Besides, if she knew we wanted to go out there, she wouldn’t let us.”

I looked around. It was true. There wasn’t an adult anywhere. Not even a cop. But wait, why would the cops dispatch the call and not be here? I couldn’t make sense of any of this. But maybe I shouldn’t have tried.

“So you’re all I’ve got?”

“Yip.”
“Christ,” I said, “what the fuck should I do?”

“You could follow us, and get to see it,” Evan said. “Or you could wait for the cop, who’ll make you wait.”

“That’s wise,” I said. So I did.

We went, deflecting tree branches as we cut through a wooded area. There were a few trailers there, with clotheslines attached to the trees. We ran through quickly, but ducked occasionally to avoid the shirts, towels and underwear that dangled from the lines. Some 30 feet away, there were dogs – so big, they looked like pit bulls on steroids – who barked at the slightest crinkle of leaves.

“It’s okay baby!” Evan called out to the dogs. “It’s okay, baby! I know, big, nasty, mean people here.” But they just kept barking, loudly.

We made it to a clearing, and immediately spotted the body. Cramner was lying on his back, passed out on a layer of rocks and seaweed, turning green – it would appear – as the day grew old. He was covered with chest hair, sand, and blood, and his sideburns were bushy and dirty. What looked like burn marks covered his legs, and his smell was strong.

Evan laughed. "He's one hairy load, ain't he?" he said, grinning.

We walked closer, and the smell got worse. He smelled like old, stale cheese. I was sickened by it, and I had to take a few steps back. Evan? He started laughing again.

Evan then quickly turned around, and ran back toward town, laughing the whole time.

“Hey wait,” I yelled. “I’m not done here.”

But the boy kept running, and I followed. We ran toward a trailer, where Evan pulled up a cinder block to the window, stood on it and yelled through the sound of dishes clanking that came from the inside.

A woman came out, coughing, and carrying a cigarette that she was getting ready to light. Evan introduced her. “Ma, this guy’s from the newspaper,” he said.

She grabbed my hand and shook it, while I studied her face. I couldn’t believe it, but she so fit the stereotype. Her eyes were far apart, and a buck-toothed grin stretched across her face. Her cough and her voice gurgled in her throat.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m from The Delaware State News, and I’d like to ask you about this murder.”

“What about it?” she said. “What do you need to know?”

I had a list of questions, and I looked down to read them. But I got distracted by somebody who was pulling on my shirt. It was Evan.

“Where’s the T.V. camera?” Evan asked.

“I’m not from T.V,” I said.

“But I got somethin’ to say,” Evan said.

“What’s that?” I said.

"I think we should stick him on a pole,” Evan said. “We can call it the Driftwood Beach flag!"

I didn’t write down what he said. I just looked at him, and he smiled again and broke into laughter.

“OK, I’m trying to talk to your mother here,” I demanded.

Evan was distracted again, turning his head toward the beach. His smile grew wider as he spotted his friends. They saw us and were running over.

“It’s OK,” said Evan’s mother. She apparently detected the worried look on my face. “They won’t hurt you.”

They all had tiny stains of blood – mixed in with large patches of sweat – on their shirts. They were laughing and having the time of their lives, so it would appear. They joined us and stood behind me, giggling.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m trying to do my job here!”

“Kids, back off, please,” Evan’s mom said. “I’m sorry, Mr. Reporter man. But you know kids.”

“Actually,” I said. “I don’t.”

“See this is a big day,” she said. “Looks like they got one of Jones’ Boys again.”

“Jones’ boys?”

“Yeah, some guys who used to work at Dover Air Force Base. See, they got this morgue over there. A lot of guys got messed up working over there.”

“Morgue?”

“Yeah, they got this big morgue where all the Vietnam guys went through. I don’t know why – the Air Force picked us for some reason.”

I wrote that down. Until that point, my notebook was completely blank.

“Christ, that must be a bit unsettling, don’t you think?” I told her. “I mean, how many people died in Vietnam? They probably had planes in and out of here every day.”

“Yeah, but the big thing happened in ’78,” she said.

“What happened in ’78?”

“That was the Jim Jones thing, you know what I’m saying?” she said. She paused to light up her cigarette.

“I remember that,” I said. “I was pretty young at the time.”

“Yeah, well, this freak named Jim Jones had a cult. They were down in Central America – you know, one of those spick countries,” she said, sucking on her cigarette. “They went down to arrest him, and he was like, ‘Hell, no, I won’t go.’ So he and everybody Kool Aid with poison in it and killed themselves.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s what I heard.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what somebody told me, too,” she said. “Then the Army brought 900 men, women and children through there. They were all just a bunch of blue bodies and toe tags. A lot of guys got messed up, working on that shit.”

“Who worked there?”

“Well, Cramner was one of ’em,” she said.

“That guy out there?” I asked. “The one laying out on the beach? He works there.”

“Yeah, but he worked there, see what I mean. Like he doesn’t do it any more.”

“You mean, like, past tense?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” the mother said. “He was like a bunch of guys – once they got done out there, they came running to the woods. Then they never come out or anything.”

“That’s pretty crazy,” I said.

“I’ll tell you what’s crazy,” she said, sucking more on her cigarette. “One guy got so fucked up, he shot himself in the head. And guess what?…He lived?”

“Wow.”

“Yeah,” she said. “That was the last time something exciting happened out here.”
Generally, she said, this was a quiet place, far away from shopping centers, post offices and gas stations. And she liked that.

“See that out there?” she said, pointing toward a faded skyline to the north.

“Is that Wilmington?”

It was Delaware’s largest city, she said, the home of DuPont and its refineries that fill the air with smoke. It’s the state’ big employer, and as she called, “it’s intellectually center.” “But it might as well be China,” she added.

“It doesn’t seem so far away,” I noted.

“Yeah, well it is,” she said. “Here, the people are either unemployed or they tried to make some living out of fishing along the Delaware Bay …We don’t shop at the Gap ’round here.”

“What about farming?” I said. “I saw a lot of that on the way here.”

“Yeah, but they’re pretty useless now,” she said. “The crops are brittle and the grass is yellow.”
She talked about the long nights by the bay, listening to the water wash up and the sounds of boats and barges that pass by, some 10 or 20 miles out. She talked of hearing a piercing hiss of the boats almost nightly – usually around midnight that wakes people from their sleep.

When rain falls here, it falls hard, she said, usually causing the bay to swallow the beach, and forcing water to wash out the roads.

"It’s just too bad you people only come out there when something bad happens,” she said, smoking the last of her cigarette. “We're real people. We got real problems.”

She pulled out another smoke, and lit it up, exhaling into the foggy air. Her neighbors, she said, dread the strong smell of dead fish and rotting clams that comes from the bay. They hate the mischief that goes on at night – “all that drug dealing that goes on at the beach,” she said – and how the people wake up sometimes and finding toilet paper strung up in the branches, and on the clotheslines. They’re miles from the nearest police station, she said. But they’ve grown accustomed to it.

“I want no help from anybody, really,” she said. “I’ve taught my own children. I don’t send them to no Dover schools.”

“That can’t be good,” I said. I jotting some of this shit down, but I was doing more listening than anything. “You should send them to school.”

“You know what I like best about Driftwood Beach?" she said, ignoring me.

I picked up my pen. “What’s that?” I asked.

"No black people."

Ugh, I thought. I grimaced. But, dammit, wouldn’t you know that she read my face again.

"Now let me tell you something,'' the woman said, noticing my disgust. "I'm from Kentucky, and in Kentucky, they's everywhere. I know they here, but here they stay out of the way.”

It went on and one like for what seemed like hours. (it was only a half-hour). Yeah. A half-hour into this job, and I was already hating it. There’s nothing worse than having to give loathsome people a soapbox. But this was my job. Let’s give mediocre people a platform, and make them stars. Give them their fucking 15 seconds of fame. Christ. Is this what my life had come to?

Whatever happened to all that talk about me going to The New York Times? That’s what people said. I believed it. Did I earn a fucking diploma for this? I heard this mental midget go on and on, and my mind drifted. I wanted to know – who would really flatline the CAT scan? Would it be the dead guy on the beach. Or would it be the blithering idiot was living and breathing just inches from my nose?

I saw a cop car roll up, and I couldn’t help but laugh to myself. I’ve been here a half of a fucking hour, and I don’t see a cop? Weren’t they the ones who called over the dispatch? Christ. Talk about a disconnect. Jenny hears the dispatch call at 9 a.m. (or so I was told later). She tells me about it 9:30 a.m. It’s 10 a.m. Where were you?

“That’s unbelievable,” I said.

“What’s that?” Evan’s mother said.

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen the police arrive at a crime scene after the reporters,” I said.

“Well,” she said. “Maybe that’s why they call this ‘Lower Slower Delaware.’ ”

Two police officers got out of their cars – both uniformed, wearing those big trooper hats – and walked up, flashing their badges. Now Evan and his friends think I’m boring. They ditch me, see them, run up and jumped up and down, and wave their hands in front of cops’ faces. They gloated about their discovery. “We caught a whale!” they yelled.

Evan spoke up first, saying that right after they found some “big fat guy” they rolled him around in the sand like “cookie dough.” I listen to this, and cringe. Not out of disgust. I pity this kid. Can’t he think of a better adjective? I gotta write this shit, and I’ve got people using food metaphors for dead bodies. Is that all we are when we die? We’re just puffy, fatty, butterly cookie dough?

But it got worse. They said they put out their cigarettes in his chest hair, and “turned his blubber into an ash tray.” Ugh. OK, I can’t pity them anymore, I thought. Now it’s just deep-down, deep-seeded disgust I’ve got. They are just utterly repulsive. They just defy any sense of dignity. I didn’t grow up like this. No. Fuck it, I think to myself. I’m not writing this down. I’m not writing about IT. If the editors don’t like it, they can screw themselves. I’m trying to write a story here. Not a script for “Geraldo.”

The police didn’t have my luxury. They had to listen. Dammit, when you’re an hour late, you’d better. They pulled out notepads and jotted down some notes. Then, without showing a crack of a smile, or even a flinch of the eyebrows, they asked where the body was.

Evan back the way we came. Shit. We have to do this all over again? “I’ll take you there,” he said. “Let’s go.”

The police went. So did his friends. I waited. Fuck this. Why should I have do that again? Yeah, I know. Great color. Cops go to beach, and find a decaying man on the street. Perfect photograph, too. Only the photographer wasn’t there yet, so it was just me and my notebook..
“C’mon, Mr. Reporter man, let’s go!” Evan shouted.

I’d better go, I thought. So I did. And here we go again. The clothesline. The trees. The dog barking. I caught up. And there it was, still in the clearing. The body.

I caught up to everybody. But by the time I did, the cops shut us down. “OK, we’re good from here,” the cops said. “Back off now.”

We went back to the trees, and watched. The cops studied the naked carcass and jotted more notes. They were quiet, virtually emotionless. But I could tell this was affecting them. They’d show one little twitch of their mouth, their eye, their eyebrow. That said it all.

One cop finally stopped writing. He shoved his notebook in his back pocket, twitched his mustache and grabbed Cramner by the neck. He pulled his body up into a sit-up position, and placed his hands on his lap. He was like a big, ugly, rotting doll. The other cop just continued jotting.

We watched for about 20 minutes when the State News photographer arrived. He pulled up on a motorcycle, wearing a leather jacket and a big bushy mustache. He didn’t wear a helmet or anything. He looked like he was ready for danger.

“What do we got?” the photographer said.

“Well, you know what happened, right?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, looking over at the cops. “But what are they doing?”

“I guess it’s part of the investigation,” I said.

The photographer pulled out his camera from his bag and stuck his lens through the bushes. Evan and the kids saw this, and rose out of their perched positions. They stood in front of his lens, jumped up and down and stuck their middle fingers up to the lens.

“C’mon, take my picture!” Evan yelled. “Take my picture!”

“What the fuck is with these idiots?” the photographer said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “They’ve been harassing me ever since I got here. I’ve learned how to shut them out.”

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t work for me,” the photographer said. “Please do something about them.”

Yeah, this camera guy was pretty bossy. I hate photographers who throw their weight around. They show up at these assignments, and they pretend that they’re your editor. Why? Because you’re intruding on their work, their art. They treat this like they’re painting the fucking Mona Lisa, when all they’re really doing is fitting a bunch of rednecks into a small frame. I’ve learned, however, that the best way to deal with them is to give into them. Otherwise, they can make big trouble for you.

“No problem,” I said to his request (or order). So I hushed them up.

“Shhhh!” I said. “You want the cops to throw us out of here?”

“Good thinking, Mr. Reporter man!”

After all this commotion, however, the cops were already through, sticking their notepads in their pockets and heading back to their cars. One got on a walkie-talker and dispatched an ambulance. The others just started walking back toward their cars. I rushed up to them to get a comment.

“Excuse me sir…” I said.

“If you want any information on this, you’re going to have to call Wilmington,” a cop told me.

“Wilmington?” I said. “Why not right here, right now?”

But they kept walking. They remained expressionless, except for the occasional eyebrow twitch. I persisted.

“Look, if you don’t talk, I’m going to have to say in my story that the Delaware State Police had no comment,” I said.

One cop kept walking. The other stopped, and turned to look at me. His eyebrow twitch went into a full spasm. His mouth was in a frown, and his eyes were burning.

“Get the fuck away from me!” he said.

Now what? There are times when I hate this job. And then there are times when I REALLY hate this job. I was hours into this new one, and inside, I was already crying for mommy. At least in New Jersey, the cops have enough of a vocabulary to politely tell you to get lost. Only now I was really lost. I looked around, and saw nobody who could help me. God, I hate that empty feeling. You’re out there in some God-forsaken place where there are no friendly people. You know no one. You like no one. And they don’t like you. They wouldn’t give you a penny if you asked them for a quarter.

I did see the photographer, and felt some comfort in that. At least there was somebody. But he was very busy, doing his job. And he was trying to do it by taming these little freaks that swarmed us like gnats from the moment we got there. He was lining up Evan’s family for pictures as a way to illustrate the scene.

“OK, act natural,” the photographer said.

I, his mother and the others then burst into a chuckle. Then they just started laughing.

“OK, ha, ha,” the photographer said. “Now let’s be serious.”

But they were still laughing. I glanced at my watch and saw that we had been there for more than an hour. Too long, I thought. So I rushed them along.

"Think about the death, the tragedy," he said, desperate to draw a tear or even a droopy mouth. Actually, even a stoic expression would have been enough. But the more I talked, the more they laughed.

The photographer tried, too. He urged them to cooperate. His words were so desperate that he sounded like he was begging. “Please?” he said. Please? Christ, they thought that was hilarious.

"How about a relative?" I asked. "Any relatives die lately?” Grandmothers? Uncles? Anybody you're sad about? C'mon guys!"

The photographer finally gave up, and so did I . He snapped the picture. “I’ll just airbrush it out of there,” he said.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I said.

Freedom. Finally. I went to my car, ready to drive back. But, ah ah. Not so fast, I boy. The gnats followed me, followed my the 50 yards to my car. They followed me close, too, running right up to my heals and keeping up with my stride. They said nothing, too. All I heard were their footsteps as their feet hit the sandy soil.

I ignored them and got in the car. I was done with these freaks. I got what I needed. I was done. Get lost. But nooo. They waited as I turned the key and started the car. Then they smiled – each one of them, as if it was staged – and started giggling as they stared at me through my front windshield.

I stuck my head out the window, and yelled at them. “Get out of the way!”

They were carrying rocks in their hands. Where did they come from? I guess I should have paid better attention to them when they were pestering me. They moved so quick, though. How did I know that 8-year-old rednecks could multi-task?

"I'd think twice before you throw those," I said.

God, was I naïve. When was the last time a kid ever listened to a grown-up? Besides, if I was 8-years-old and holding a rock, I’d throw it, too. So I knew my threat would go nowhere. In fact, that logic compelled me to stick my head back inside the car, shut the window, hit the gas and go.

As I pulled away, the stones started to rain on the front and back windshields.

I then heard a voice. It was Evan. "What do you think of that, Mr. Reporter Man?" he yelled as he picked up some more rocks with his buddies, and pelted my car. Amazing, I thought. Here I was, ripping out of there and roaring the engine. How did I still hear him through the glass?

"Let's do a story about Mr. Reporter Man bleeding from the head. Maybe if we get 'em unconscious, then that would be a front-page story. Do you think so, Mr. Reporter Man? Can you interview me?"

Keeping postpartum depression in the public eye

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, former New Jersey First Lady Mary Jo Codey, other advocates and health professionals are joining forces to push for the passage of Menendez’s legislation that would increase the federal commitment to combating postpartum depression.

The MOTHERS Act has wide support in Congress, but has been blocked primarily because of the opposition of a singular senator, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK. Codey has been public about her battle with postpartum depress and in support of the legislation.

Menendez said Mother’s Day "was not only a day to celebrate our mothers, but also to reflect on the burdens and challenges many of them face because of their enormous responsibility."

"Millions of mothers know all too well that postpartum depression is not only a real and debilitating condition, but that the education and support system is lacking. A federal commitment to educating and supporting new and expectant mothers can go a long way toward protecting women’s health and maintaining strong families.”

Postpartum depression is a serious and disabling condition affecting hundreds of thousands of new mothers each year. The new legislation would increase federal efforts to combat postpartum depression by:

- Encouraging the Department of Health and Human Services to coordinate and continue research to expand the understanding of the causes of, and find treatments for, postpartum conditions;

- Encouraging a National Public Awareness Campaign, to be administered by HHS, to increase awareness and knowledge of postpartum depression and psychosis;

- Requiring the Secretary of HHS to conduct a study on the benefits of screening for postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis;

- Creating a grant program to public or nonprofit private entities to deliver or enhance outpatient, inpatient and home-based health and support services, including case management and comprehensive treatment services for individuals with or at risk for postpartum conditions.

Activities may also include providing education about postpartum conditions to new mothers and their families, including symptoms, methods of coping with the illness, and treatment resources, in order to promote earlier diagnosis and treatment.

It is estimated that postpartum depression (PPD) affects from 10 to 20 percent of new mothers. In the United States, there may be as many as 800,000 new cases of postpartum conditions each year. The cause of PPD isn’t known but changes in hormone levels, a difficult pregnancy or birth, and a family history of depression are considered possible factors.

A Mother's Day gift for those in need

By SUSAN DOWD STONE
Featured Blogger
Happy Mother’s Day for the lives you have nurtured and sustained that have immortalized your own existence, converging past, present and future in the face of your daughter or son. On this Mothers Day, I wish you joyful peace, as holders of the profound maternal wisdom that connects you to eternity.

While this is indeed my hope for all who read this letter, for some, the reality may be different. It may be that life after baby’s birth has not yet fulfilled your dreams, that the joy and totality of the complete maternal experience has eluded you. You may feel separate instead of bonded to your child, a panicked indifference to the experience and a deep sadness that robs your baby’s smile of its ability to move you.

If this is where you find yourself, please do not stand alone, but reach out to your loved ones and receive their willing support. Allow the universality of the birth experience to unite you with those who understand and lift you and your sweet babe safely to your path again.

I speak not only to mothers whose living babies are at the breast, but to those mothers who stand with empty arms whose eyes may be fixed on a distant horizon where too brief a life has wandered, a mother nonetheless. This mother may not find a kinship in her isolated mourning; we must reach out to her and lead her to her rightful place among us for babies seen and unseen never leave us.

I speak to mothers whose infants babble, whose infants cannot yet come home, whose children are grown, disabled or gone. I speak to my own mother and her mother before her and God’s entire kingdom of mothers be they two or four footed, yet swimming or flying among us. This purpose of procreation is a serious business it is the industry of life ever lasting yet we cast a smile as we carry these ancient secrets within us.

We are all of us, mothers of earth who claim this day as ours and say to all that we are the hope and the future that sustains and nurtures, who facilitate renewal; ours is a passage through heaven and hell for the sake of life. But in each instance we meet such challenge with joy, depth of purpose and fervor that makes us accessible and mysterious, formidable and gentle, raging and loving. I am thankful to stand among you, thankful to say to my mother and to hear from my child Happy Mother’s Day.

Thank you to those of you, who, through your organizations or individual requests, have added your name to support The Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act. The best gift you can give present and future mothers on this day is to support the legislation that will help end the suffering of mothers and infants in the next year and your daughters and granddaughters to come.

If you have not yet done so please click on this link and join our efforts to end the misery endured by up to 800,000 women in America. The petition will be presented to U.S. Senate HELP committee members next week and currently represents over a million Americans who support this overdue bill. U.S. Senator Robert Menendez leads the senate sponsorship of this life-saving legislation and we are grateful for his determined advocacy.

If you’ve already sent an email to susanstonelcsw@aol.com with your name and state asking to be added to the constituent petition, please ask TWO MORE PEOPLE to join you!

In another fantastic step forward, Gerald F. Joseph Jr, MD from Louisiana, the 60th president of the The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists indicated that postpartum depression will be the major theme of his presidential initiative. Another wonderful gift to America’s mothers and healthcare providers. Read his entire statement here.

The good life, in Florida (the story of my grandfather, part III)

At 63, Dick Winans finally got the fraternity party he always wanted.

Away from the office at Greystone Psychiatric Hospital, free from a troubled marriage just months after his wife's 1975 death, he let it go.

Instead of wearing his ever-present necktie and suit, the same he kind his father made him wear when he attended an exclusive private high school in Hightstown, N.J., Dick spent much of the Florida trip he took with us wearing black swimming trunks and showing his hairy chest.

Normally lean, he started to show a belly that hung over the waist band of the trunks.

He dated, and the more he dated, the more he drank. He missed Dorothy, his wife, and he cried at the mention of her name.

But in another breath, he'd call her "bitch" and moan that she left him nothing in inheritance.

We took him on this April 1976 as an act of mercy. We were afraid that, if we left him home, he'd get smashed, hop in the car again, drive the hour drive from Morristown to Asbury Park, N.J. and drink some more.

Just a few years before, he disappeared for a whole day, until he was found in his car in Ocean Grove, plastered.

Another time, he drank all morning before he and Dorothy went out for a drive. They ended up in Asbury Park, where Dick pulled out his camera, and snapped beautiful women.

My sister and I fretted. "What if he goes blind?" we thought. What we should have worried about was Dick pitching back Budweisers and getting behind the wheel.

On a warm day in April, Dick arrived at our house, in Point Pleasant, N.J., wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a bag packed with a storefull of underwear, socks and Vick's VapoRub that he rubbed on the lining of his nose to clear his aching sinuses.

I talked to him at night as he slept on a mattress on the floor of our living room. He tickled me and laughed, and traded knock-knock jokes with me.

I remember feeling surprised. I had heard about him, and always saw him as a straight arrows. I saw him in the photos with the thick eyebrows, and thin grin.

But then I also saw him in photos with my mother, pulling on her pigtails, and smiling. He was devoting the kind of attention that my mother used to give me. In Point Pleasant, I saw that man that I had heard about, but thought was a legend.

We borrowed a station wagon from one of my father’s friends, just so we could fit him. My brother and I switched sitting in the wagon, while my grandfather and Carolyn sat in the back seat.

The man who tickled me at home fell silent. He struggled to engage in even simple chit-chat. When he did try to join in on conversations between my parents, he often got a stare, if not a leer from my mother.

One time she got so upset by his interjection that she pulled off her sunglasses and slammed them in between the seats. Dick leaned back, and returned to saying nothing.

Much like the California trips, the ride was too long. Interstate 95 wasn’t fully built yet, so we found ourselves taking alternate routes in North Carolina and Georgia. Signs for steakhouses would get my mother going. “Please, dear, can we go out to eat?” “Please?”

At every stop, my grandfather drank, sucking down beer after beer. By the end of the meal, he’d be sloshed, and his breath would smell like rubbing alcohol.

Then he would want dessert, so he’d take his knife and bang an empty glass like a bell. “Waitress!” he’d shout. We all wanted to slump in our seats and disappear.

At first, he was like a walking comedy act, quite the reverse of what we once thought about him. By the time we reached Miami Beach, however, he was draining us.

We also knew all the words to the song. Arriving at the LaGorce hotel, finally, we had the same thoughts we had in Los Angeles the previous year. Should we turn back?

Once there, Dick put on a display, unleashing and revealing himself in a way that even surprised his daughter. He traded in his well-pressed-suit look for that of a 63-year-old man trying to reliving his frat-boy years.

He drank all day, and into the night, and by the time we ate with him at dinner, he was sloshed, banging glasses and angrily demanding waitress service.

At night, he’d disappear again; one time, he was supposed to babysit me in his room. He didn’t show up until 2 a.m., slumping into his room where he confront my mother, who was sitting on the bed next to me, waiting, “Where have you been?” she said. “I was out on a date,” he said.

Another night, he recaptured the Greystone look, wearing a jacket and tie. Only he decided to go for a jog – with the suit on.

I remember my brother and I going to a neighboring park to look for him, looking behind the trees that were spread out in a grassy field near the beach. He was found, but I’m not sure how.

Several days later, we went to pick him up for dinner and, again, couldn’t find him. We sat in the car while my mother went in to investigate. She walked out of the lobby, looking steamed. “He was passed out on the couch!” she said. “He woke up and he said, ‘Where am I?’”

When he walked out to the parking lot, he looked like he could barely stand, and his shirt was pulled out of his pants.

The afternoon before we left, he drank nearly a case of beer while babysitting my brother and me. He gave us a watch to look at while he made repeated trips into the kitchen. Every 15 minutes or so, he reached into the refrigerator and pulled out cans of “Ale.” With each can, he chugged the contents down his throat and then slammed the empties into the trash can.

By the end of the trip, my parents had had it with him. My mother confronted him one day about his behavior. “I’m 62 and you’re 38 but that doesn’t give you the right to talk to me that way,” he said.

My mother stormed away from him, cursing and yelling out loud to my father. She never looked so angry.

The next day, we went home, and the car was largely silent the whole way. Occasionally, Dick would launch into his “Off we go” song, but his look was pained as we hustled back to New Jersey, only stopping once along the way.

I said a few things to him, but he mumbled back. The boyish enthusiasm was gone. I wanted to reignite the spark we had at the beginning of the trip, but Dick seemed to be intimidated by my mother, and too embarrassed about his behavior to respond.

Dick never went on another trip with the whole family again.

In search of John Clear

About a year ago, I got a call from a man with a deep, husky voice.

"Tom!" he said. "This is John Clear!"

I thought it was a joke, but not a fake joke. I thought it was John just being funny again.

"Everything's different for me now," he said. "I'm turning things around."

I remembered this small kid with beach-blonde hair whose speech didn't match this trucker voice. I remembered this kid who couldn't utter a sentence without telling a joke - and every time, he was funny.

I remembered a kid whose voice was like his name - clear, not the throaty kind you get when spend a lot of time gaining street cred in a state prison cell block.

I remembered him as the funniest person I knew. I think everything I learned about being funny, I learned from John Clear. At dinner with the family, I'd repeat things he said or did, and even my straight-as-an-arrow father would laugh. "I think John Clear is my kind of guy," he'd say.

It wasn't always what he said that was funny. It was the goofy context. "Hey Tom, did you ever shave your face with a lawnmower?"

I would laugh; he wouldn't. He said it as a straight, serious statement, even if it was utterly ridiculous. If he laughed at it, he'd cheapen it, as if he was trying too sell it, and beg for affirmation. He was too smart to ruin it.

John never had to beg for affection. It came naturally. But life has ironies: Of all the people from my 1985 graduating class at Point Pleasant Borough High School in New Jersey, few have had it harder.

He fell into a world of drugs and hardship that can destroy a life, and destroy the soul. In that world, the person you knew long ago often disappears. The person who was always funny was now a straight man on the street talking about recovery but showing his pain.

The man who called me last year was, in a way, begging. He was as desperate as he was hopeful. He wanted me to write about him, and tell his story about how he was trying to win custody of his kids. He wanted me to write about people who spent time in state prison with him, and how they were getting screwed and mistreated by the state.

I wanted to do what he wanted. But I got busy, and I let it go. I'm sorry, John.

I'm finally writing about him now, but not because of what happened to him. He just seems to have disappeared, at least from my life. I called his cell; it was disconnected. I called his dad - no answer, no reply. I emailed; it bounced back.

Hopefully, somebody who knows where he is can see this, and can let me know how he's doing.

I want to write about John because he could have been any one of us. And, because of hardships in my own family, I could have been him. If possible, I want to help him find the person he was. He doesn't have to be funny. I'd just like to see him return to being the kind of guy who made everybody who knew him better.

John had fallen into heroin addiction. He was nailed for impersonating a police officer, or something like that. He was in state prison, and he was photographed. His mug was on the Internet; the big white smile with the small fangs was gone. The blonde hair was reduced to a receding hairline and stubble. His look was dark, and his frown was deep.

John had married right out of school, and had kids. Family strife, drugs and God knows what else brought the marriage down, and him with it.

A support system, one rooted in family, didn't exist: His mother died; his father long was estranged from him.

After graduation, he called me a few times, and actually wanted to hang out. But his drug-addled life was too hardcore for me.

I roomed with him and another buddy, Ken Winne, on the senior trip. That's when I first noticed the funny guy I knew slipping away. John was more interested in scoring something than he was entertaining others.

I used to hang out with these guys, and do stupid but small stuff for kicks. There was no Wii, not even Atari at the time, so you had to make your own fun.

I was with John the day the Jamesway department store opened in Point Pleasant in the spring of 1980 (it closed in 1995). John was pulling Hot Wheels cars out of their packages and running them under the clothing racks. I was his nerdy alter-ego, so my nervous reaction was probably funnier than his.

I kept trying to stop them with my feet, but John had me beat. He unwrapped nearly ever car that was hanging in the racks, each packaged neatly. Then he turned the floor into LeMans, and turned me into a dancing monkey.

One car made it all the way to the cash register. I leaned down, picked up the car and looked up. My Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Gilbert, was standing there, glaring at me and shaking her head. "Oh, shit!" I said, right in front of her. Then I took off and hid in the clothing racks, peeping through a rack of blouses until she walked away.

At school, we drove Miss Mason crazy, the Point Pleasant Boro employee posing as a music teacher. We always had some quick answer for her erratic behavior. It was a coming-out moment for me, compelled by John's humor and his daring to make you go over the edge.

Once, he and I pretended to be John Travolta when we were supposed to be square-dancing. "Stay-in alive! Stay-in alive!" we sang while Miss Mason played country-western. She got so fed up, she grabbed my hair and threw me out in the hallway. I turned quickly toward John, who flashed his white-as-nails smile.

That was back when John was good at getting out of trouble. After he left high school, his support system was gone, and so was John.

On that day, in January 2008, hearing him was the surprise. Hearing from him was not. John had been trying to reach me for years. He heard I was visiting prisons, and writing about people who do drugs to self-medicate from mental illness. I was trying to explore the history of my family, and how mental illness was pervasive with every generation.

He knew my mother, because my mother sold Avon to his mother. He knew my mother died after she was overwhelmed by the effects of obsessive compulsive disorder.

In 2005, he was in state prison. At the time, I was writing stories on the prison system, and I knew my way around. I sent him a picture of our 20-year class reunion in 1985, as well as a story I wrote on my mother. "That made my year," John told me over the telephone.

When he returned to life after his prison stint more than a year ago, he called me to reminisce about the Mets, about being a Republican (my card-carrying membership for that party expired about 1992). He then sent me court documents related to custody cases with his children.

John was taking responsibility for himself. I felt good. Maybe what I sent him in prison helped bring him back. If you give a man rope, 10 times out of 10, he's going to grab it.

Now I'm trying again.

The desperate village

By LAUREN HALE
Featured blogger

A sobbing woman walks into her obstetrician's office with a newborn baby. Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, right? Well, for some unfortunate women, the joke is on them and it's a dangerous joke indeed. The women I am referring to are new mothers who have been courageous enough to seek treatment for a Postpartum Mood Disorder yet find themselves either denied assessment, dismissed, or inappropriately medicated and sent on their way with no additional therapy prescription, left wading fearfully and silently through dark waters.

In the spring of 2004, I found myself joining the ranks of women turned away by the very people they trusted the most – their physicians. For three months after the birth of my first daughter, I often struggled with sleep, snapped at my husband for no reason, yelled at the dogs for glancing my way , and constantly battled horrific fleeting thoughts filling my head. I finally garnered enough courage to call my doctor's office. I hesitantly admitted things weren't the way they were supposed to be. I was promised glow. Where was my glow? Where was this mythic calm? Where was my Vaseline lens of cheer, my soap opera happy mama moment? Why couldn't I enjoy my daughter instead of thinking she judged me every step of the way?

Armed with a 72-count questionnaire, answering yes to thoughts of harming myself or my infant, my doctor sat grinning across from me and told me I didn't have Postpartum Depression. What was his reasoning? At six weeks, a woman's hormones magically realign and all is right within the new mom psyche, according to him. (Never mind that Postpartum Mood Disorders can occur at anytime within the first year and most common onset is between two and four months, two weeks beyond his six week limit1) He then asked how important I considered breastfeeding my child, apparently ignoring my screaming infant in her car seat, the mini-elephant in the room. Medication refused, my diagnosis thrown out the window due to his belief in a very outdated time frame for onset and my apparent ability to dress myself and put on bare minimum make-up, I wanted to scream. He did offer an appointment with the in-house therapist. I never went. They kept calling to reschedule. Enough games waltzed through my own head on an hourly basis. I didn't need any of theirs added to the mix. I smiled and grinned my way out of the appointment and went home to weep.

When our daughter was five months old, we moved back to Georgia. I began to heal slowly. Or I thought I did. My depression never lifted and continued through my second pregnancy only to blow up a month after our second daughter came home after twenty-eight days in the NICU. I awoke that morning with one thought on my mind – how bad would it get if I let go? I didn't have the strength to hold on anymore. My tenacity flew the coop. Insecurity and Insanity soon took its place, landing me in a psychiatric ward before midnight. Never had I felt so alone, abandoned and scared.

My new doctor had prescribed one drug which worked until we increased the dosage. I believe this is what landed me in the hospital. Once there, my medication was changed. Slowly, I found myself able to function again. Smiles became more frequent, the fighting and accusations of deceit less so. I began to find other women to speak with about my journey, including Jane Honikman, the founder of Postpartum Support International. As I continued on my road, I founded a local peer support organization for moms and volunteered with Postpartum Support International. Not all new moms are as fortunate as I have been. This is why the Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHER'S Act is an absolute necessity for American families.

Based on New Jersey's legislation spearheaded by New Jersey's former First Lady Mary Jo Codey. and including legislation put forth by Representative Bobby Rush, D-Ill., with tireless advocacy by Carole Blocker, mother of Melanie Blocker Stokes, the MOTHER'S Act or Melanie Blocker-Stokes MOTHER'S Act (H.R. 20) in the House and S 324 in the Senate, provides for essential research into the mental health of women resolving a pregnancy and encourages education of medical professionals as well as new and expecting parents. And contrary to belief passionately held by critics of the bill, the current version does not mandate screening of all new mothers. Instead a proposed two-year study of effective screening is to be completed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The MSB MOTHER'S Act also does not encourage increased medicating of America's mothers. Through it's provisions to encourage increased community support, development of community-based support programs, and education of medical professionals already working with this population. In my opinion, the increased education measures provisioned by the MSB MOTHER'S Act may reduce the amount of Mothers who are medicated or at the very least assure they are medicated properly, thereby avoiding unnecessary negative side-effects some people experience with anti-depressant usage.

Increased education including the public awareness campaign should also aid in removing the stigma and fear that has so long surrounded Postpartum Mood Disorders. This stigma has allowed Mothers to be ignored or mistreated when they admit their unexpected feelings of failure, guilty, and sometimes even insanity after giving birth for too long. In addition, many new alternative methods and correlations are being discovered and if funding were to be provided, more research into the alternative treatment field could be performed, encouraging doctors to allow more Mothers to use natural and holistic treatments to battle mild cases of Postpartum Mood Disorders instead of turning to the almighty anti-depressant, a treatment that is more often than not misused and misunderstood by general doctors. Up to 90 percent of new moms struggling with Postpartum Mood Disorders may be nutritionally deficient. For instance, some Mothers finding themselves struggling with a Postpartum Mood Disorder may find relief in supplementing with Magnesium or Calcium as deficiencies of both have been shown to manifest as depression or other mood disorder symptoms. Research has also shown Omega 3 to be effective in managing mood.

Mothers and children are the beating hearts of our future. We owe them all the support we can give them, especially now. With the net worth of families declining nine percent in the last quarter, more mothers are finding themselves having to join the workforce earlier than planned. Why is this significant? It's significant because working mothers are more likely to experience depression. A recent survey by Working Mother found that 91 percent of respondents had signs of depression. Take into consideration that one in five working women will experience depression in their lifetime, add a healthy dose of the Postpartum statistic of one in 10 new moms experience a Postpartum Mood Disorder, and you have quite a depressed population on your hands. Then add in a decrease in growth of the Psychiatric profession and you've almost got a pandemic on your hands inadequately handled by physicians not well-trained to handle the primary complaint. Would you trust your cancer care to a General Practitioner? No. You'd see an oncologist. Why should it be any different for a mental health illness?

According to an article in the St. Cloud Times, there is a five month wait to see a psychiatrist at a local clinic, even with the three staffed doctors seeing patients every twenty minutes. Angela Broska-Smith of St. Cloud did not receive the best support from her Primary Care Physician and ended up addicted to her medication. Why didn't she see a Psychiatrist? It's possible the five month wait played a major role in her decision. She hopes more primary care physicians are able to receive training in Depression & Anxiety conditions so others won't face a similar situation.

Carole Blocker, insatiable crusader, has led the charge in getting legislation introduced to prevent the tragedy of her daughter, Melanie Stokes, from happening again. Again, at the heart of the situation lies physician ignorance of Postpartum Mood Disorders. In her search for recovery, Melanie found herself hospitalized three times in seven weeks, given several different medications and still ended up jumping to her death from the 12th floor of a Chicago building. What if her physicians understood the disorders that occur so often to new mothers? Would Melanie still be here today?

So many studies have already been done regarding medical professionals and screening. One such study in 2005 by Seehusen, Baldwin, Runkle, and Clarke asked “Are Family Physicians Appropriately Screening for Postpartum Depression?” The respondents had some formal training in Postpartum Mood Disorders and recognized it as a real, serious, and treatable illness. Nearly one third of them always screened for PPD, with thirty percent of them using a validated screening tool. Only six percent of the respondents never screened. In contrast, a recent UK study revealed medical professionals worded questions to prevent a diagnosis or admission of Postpartum Mood Disorder from being given. The reason? No referral network and no knowledge of how to treat a woman with a PMD. It was not noted if the respondents in the UK study had received formal training regarding Postpartum Mood Disorders. Yet another recent study states that professionals in an academic setting feel comfortable and responsible for screening yet aren't charting their screens, counseling, or results. A precedence needs to be set to ensure all Mothers receive the same information and care during the postpartum period.

The MSB MOTHER'S Act will save lives. It will increase knowledge of Mood Disorders, enabling mothers and families to seek help sooner, encourage increased education of both medical professionals and parents alike. The world around the Mother has changed. She no longer has her extended family nearby to help with daily mothering tasks. No one to mentor her through pregnancy, labor, breastfeeding, spiraling moods after birth, diaper changes, diaper rashes, solid foods, sleep problems, ear infections, potty training, or handling more than one child. It truly does take a village to raise a Mother and the Mother's Act will help to create a solid village around America's Mothers, a village we all deserve and so desperately need.