Appreciation: George Harrison (1943-2001)

The moment I logged onto America Online Nov. 30 I saw the unexpected news that Beatles’ lead guitarist and singer George Harrison had passed away at a still too young age of 58.

I, like so many others, am and always will be a Beatles fan and the sudden news of his death still hasn’t sunk in as I write this column.

Then again, I don’t think his death was so sudden after all. I was more shocked in 1999 when I heard that Chicago film critic Gene Siskel lost his battle with cancer.

It’s no secret to Beatles’ fans and those who enjoyed his solo albums after the Fab Four broke up in 1970 that Harrison had been battling cancer since 1997 when he was first treated for throat cancer, which he attributed to his smoking.

"I gave up cigarettes many years ago but had started again for a while and then stopped in 1997," Harrison said.

"I'm not going to die on you, folks, just yet," music icon told the Independent in 1998. "I am very lucky. Sometimes, if you say the word 'cancer' everybody automatically thinks it will end in misery, but it's not always the case. I was very lucky because it (cancer) didn't go anywhere - all it was was a little red mark on my neck."

There is a part of me that was hoping he would actually beat the disease especially after the singer spoke out against reports in the press earlier this year that said he was dying.

According to the Associated Press, that was enough for the singer to come out with a new song called "A Horse to the Water" with an additional name for it called "RIP Ltd. 2001" as kind of a joke.

I am not at all surprised, however, to read how the press is calling Harrison as “the quiet Beatle.” I got that impression about him just by watching the 1964 black and white classic film, "A Hard Day’s Night" (1964).

He exhibited a dry wit throughout the film sometimes giving one-word answers. When a reporter asked Harrison to describe his hairstyle, the singer replied back, “Arthur.” When John Lennon jokingly called the group’s manager a swine, George agreed.

Unlike John Lennon’s and Paul McCartney’s solo albums I got into listening not long after the band’s breakup, I didn’t get into Harrison’s music until 1987 when I was a senior in high school. The only single from Harrison I had heard up until then besides such songs that he sang solo with The Beatles that included "Here Comes the Sun," "Something," and "While my Guitar Gently Weeps" was "My Sweet Lord." That all changed when came out with a bestselling album/CD in 1987 called "Cloud Nine." 

"I couldn't really think of, I racked my brain for weeks and months to try and think of a title (for what would be called "Cloud Nine") because I was trying not to have a song title. We had various titles, had hundreds of them, you know, but the next day none of them seemed to work, you know. It was called "Fab" for a bit, but a lot of people loved "Fab" because they get the joke. It was called so many things in the end I just had to have a title, otherwise the title would never have come out. As there were clouds on the cover, we called it "Cloud Nine." I mean, when you look at the cover it could have been called "Spot the Loony!" But I thought, they know, they (the fans) may not go for that."

One of the singles, "I Got My Mind Set on You", was heard often on the radio that year.

"It was an old song from about 1959, I think," Harrison said. "The writer's name was Rudy Clark. I don't know who he is, but it was an excellent song, but the old version I heard of it was a bit antique and doesn't sound like my version of it, but the song itself had stuck in my head for 20 odd years and just came out on "Cloud Nine." But it rocks along. It is quite a good choice."

He also shot a music video for another one of the songs he did on the same CD called "When We Was Fab" with former bandmate/drummer Ringo Starr that aired on MTV. The song was yet another tribute to the band’s stardom. (Harrison, McCartney and Starr recorded an earlier tribute to Lennon after he was assassinated in 1980 called "All Those Years Ago.")

The years 1987 to 1990 were probably the most productive years for Harrison who, not only recorded the song, "Cheer Down" for the film, "Lethal Weapon 2" (1989), but also formed up a band called "Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1" which featured rock legends Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison. The five of them, however, all went by different names on the CD.

"What I'd really like to do next is to do an album with me and some of my mates...it's this new group I got in mind called the Travelling Wilburys," Harrison said during a radio interview with Bob Coburn on the show, Rockline." "I'd like to do an album with them and then later we can all do our own albums again."

 To my surprise the remaining four produced a second album after Orbison died in 1988 called "Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3."

I had hoped since '87 that Harrison, who was described as the most reclusive of the Fab Four, would come out with another CD with a group of possible new hit singles. I am glad he got together with McCartney, Starr, and Lennon (whose ghostly voice was heard on a cassette tape singing an unfinished lyric) to complete two new Beatles songs in 1995 called “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love.”

I have often found myself treasuring the works of famous artists after they’ve passed on. That wasn’t the case with George Harrison.

When "the quiet Beatle" passed, Harrison's wife, Olivia, told fans in a statement "He left this world as he lived it, conscious of God, fearless of death, and at peace, surrounded by family and friends. He often said, "Everything else can wait but the search for God cannot wait and love one another."

This weekend, as I make my annoyingly, dull, hour-long three-day drives from home and to work in McKinney, I’m going to have Harrison’s "Cloud Nine," those Traveling Wilburys CDs and probably a good number of Beatles selections playing loud and clear on my car stereo.

©12/5/01

Entertainment in a 9/11 world

Last week at the AMC 30 in Mesquite, I noticed the movie poster for "Sidewalks of New York" (2001), a romantic comedy starring Ed Burns and Heather Graham. I have seen this advertisement before but there was something different about this new one, which for the most part looked the same.

Then I logged onto www.moviegoods.com, a company that sells movie posters and figured out the difference. The studio had removed the image of the World Trade Center from the background on this revised one sheet.

The change is just one of several cases where Hollywood is trying not to upset people directly affected by the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

Movies are not the only ones being affected but syndicated television shows as well. The "Seinfeld" (1989-1998) episode, for example, where George’s fiancée dies after licking too many envelopes was pulled because of the anthrax scare. As for the episode of "The Simpsons" (1989-Present) where Homer drives to New York City to get his car which just happens to be sitting in between the twin towers, perhaps the only time you’ll see it now is when Fox releases it on DVD.

Then there is the 20th anniversary re-release of "E.T. The Extra Terrestrial" (1982) due out next March. According to an article on Entertainment Weekly’s website, the line where Elliot’s mother, played by Dee Wallace, tells her son that she won’t have him going out on Halloween dressed up as a terrorist will be deleted.

When two students went on a shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado in April 1999, the entertainment industry that includes rock stars, video game giants, network television and Hollywood studios came under fire.

Concerned parents and congress pointlessly blamed the industry saying the stuff they produce causes kids to commit murder when the real fingers should have been pointed at the student’s parents.

About the only thing that came out of the tragedy was Miramax Films pulled the Shakespeare inspired movie, "O" (2001) from theatrical release that year because the film ends with a shooting at a private school. (Lionsgate released the film this year in August).

Then Sept. 11, 2001 comes along and suddenly Hollywood is trying to be sensitive to people’s feelings.

The fact is movies about terrorism and disasters aren’t going to go away. You would think after seeing all the carnage shown live on the big four television networks and CNN that week would be enough to make one want to rent a comedy.

Ironically though, in the days following the terrorist attacks the top movies rented at Blockbuster Video and other movie rental chains were movies about terrorism. They included "Die Hard" (1988), "True Lies" (1994), "Executive Decision" (1996) and "The Siege" (1998).

Why? Because people wanted to see Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger kick the living you know what out of the villains.

As a society, we were shocked by what we witnessed live on network television, but we’ve become so accustomed to seeing death and destruction in movies and TV shows that what we see in real life only phases us for a moment.

I didn’t want to see "Apocalypse Now Redux" (1979) in the days after the attacks but that didn’t stop me from going to see it a few weeks later.

Despite the changes Hollywood is making, there are signs the studios are returning to a certain sense of normalcy. NBC’s "Third Watch" (1999-2005) did a three-part story dealing with the before and aftereffects of the World Trade Center disaster.

Cheers were heard in the audience during the box office dud, "Glitter" (2001). The reason they applauded was because of a scene that featured the World Trade Center not because the film marked the debut of singer Mariah Carey.

DVD owners can rejoice now that Universal Pictures announced they would release both the original 1982 version and next year’s director’s cut edition of E.T. when they debut on digital video disc at the end of 2002. People like me will be able to watch the original version as we remember seeing it.

The real test of the box office though will come next February when Warner Brothers releases "Collateral Damage" (2002). The film, which was pulled in the wake of 9-11, features Arnold Schwarzenegger as a fireman whose family is killed in a terrorist attack.

©11/21/01

After 9/11: "Paranoia self destroya"

It is now going on five weeks since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 as I write this column.

How many of you out there continue to go about living your daily lives without fear? Do you go to work and school not worrying a truck bomb explodes in front of your place of business or that a bomb threat by an anonymous caller will force an evacuation of the entire campus whether real or not?

Do you still go out shopping not worrying about the slowing economy, the rise in unemployment or if the company you work for will lay off people?

What about opening your mail? Are you worried the next envelope you receive will contain some mysterious white powder that could be anthrax?

Have you canceled your travel plans for fear the jet you board might get hijacked and be the next plane slamming into a local mall or the capitol? And if you do fly, do you glance at all the other passengers looking to see if any of them fit the profile of the nineteen hijackers who took over the jets on Sept. 11?

Do you worry just because curbside baggage check-ins are eliminated at major airports does not mean someone could still sneak a bomb onboard?

Do you wonder as you drive down the interstate near farmland if the crop-dusting plane flying above you is unleashing some deadly biochemical weapon that could wipe out everyone in a matter of days or months?

Have you or any member of your family gone out and purchased gas masks or bought boxwoods of bottled water, peanut butter, canned foods, and dozens of batteries for flashlights in anticipation of the next possible terrorist attack?

If so, then congratulations! The terrorists have won. You are doing exactly what Osama bin Laden wants to see; Americans here and abroad running around in fear of their lives.

There is quote or a saying that fits the overall general attitude of how most Americans feel today since Sept. 11. The saying came from a heavy metal rock band. I heard a comment from a classmate back when I was in grade school.

The saying was “Paranoia self destroya” or in plain clear English, “paranoia self-destroy you.”

We have always faced with the possibility of death every day before the events of Sept. 11. There is always a chance we may not come home either because we met the Grim Reaper through a case of road rage or a car accident. People meet death in a variety of ways. None of them are pretty. Yet we rarely ever give it a second thought.

That is until five weeks ago at 8:47 a.m. when our way of life was irreversibly changed forever, and we no longer feel safe. Now we are worried about when the next attack will come and in what form.

The sad fact is terrorism came home in February 1993 when terrorists tried to bring down the World Trade Center the first time. Other than bringing the conspirators to justice, nothing much was done to keep the incident from happening again. Such is the reason America is being called “the Sleeping Giant.” It must take an even larger unthinkable catastrophe for us to start thinking about safety precautions at home.

The result is we are not as free as we used to. America is well on its way to becoming a police state. Now we are like every other country in the world that has armed guards at airports. Now we must show up two hours before kickoff time to see a Dallas Cowboys football game just so we can be cleared by security.

Movie theaters like the AMC Glenlakes in Dallas post warning notices on the front doors saying you will be searched if you bring in carry-on items.

And do not be surprised with the holidays coming up to find more police officers or security guards at local malls.

It may be a whole new world we are living in now but that does not mean I am going to personally adjust my life and worry much less prepare for a possible biochemical attack. I do not even have a game plan set up on what to do if a tornado ever comes roaring through the Mesquite area and I am not about to start now.

I see no point in attempting to prevent something that will be beyond my control. The only thing I can do is worry about my health, eating right and exercising and making sure I have enough money saved just in case, God forbid, I do not have a job one day and need cash to fall back on until I get something else.

I have no doubt there are people out there though (I suppose some of them could actually be reading this column) who have no doubt spent thousands of dollars on gas masks and environmental protective suits for their entire family (there is probably even one out there for their dog or cat) and have a year’s supply of the drug Cipro, should anyone come down with anthrax.

Those people are all laughing at me saying how stupid I am and how sorry I will be for not jumping on the paranoid preventative bandwagon.

I am not going to alter my lifestyle just because a large band of murderous, bloodthirsty thugs who hate freedom want to instill fear in everyone.

What is the point of living if you are going to go around fearing what might happen to you the minute you walk out that door?

©10/24/01

September 11, 2001: Day of Infamy

This past April, God blessed me with a little nephew.

Perhaps when that beautiful baby boy gets a little older, he may ask me “Where was I...” or “What was I doing” when terrorists attacked America the morning of September 11, 2001.

Should that topic ever come up, I will tell him the question is not so much “Where was I?” or “What was I doing?”

It will be what did I witness, how did I feel and what I did later.

The horrific images of people falling to their deaths from the top floors as both towers of World Trade Center in New York sat enveloped in a cloud of black smoke looked like a scene out of the 1974 disaster film, “The Towering Inferno.”

This was not, however, the work of Hollywood, nor the gripping first chapter of a Tom Clancy bestseller.

This was all frighteningly real. It was terrorism. A war we had been fighting for years abroad had come home.

People were dead, dying, or injured; all the result of madmen who had commandeered two jetliners, turned them into bombs, and plowed them into the twin towers.

I knew this was once again another despicable act conducted by groups of disgraceful cowards whose hatred and contempt not just for America but for human life alone, equaled the hostility and vengeance displayed by the two young mass murderers at Columbine High School and Oklahoma bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh.

My stomach went into knots the moment I saw a skyscraper collapse. I did not even want to dwell on the number of innocent lives who were either lost, trapped or dead underneath all that twisted heap of metal, glass, dust, and rubble.

This was followed by more tragic news of two more jetliners going down taken over by terrorists; one crashed into the Pentagon in Washington D.C.

The other went down in a field in Pennsylvania missing its intended target thanks to a few brave passengers who tried to stop the attackers.

Then to the unexpected shock and dismay of everyone who watched, the second tower in Manhattan collapsed. The symbol that was once part of the New York skyline was gone.

The anger and rage I felt was equivalent to the emotions I had watching Japanese pilots cheer victoriously as they dropped bombs on American warships at Pearl Harbor in the 1970 war movie, “Tora, Tora, Tora!”

God only knows just how many times I uttered the words, “You G------ mother f------ bastards!!!”, throughout the day as I watched the news.

I was so furious that for all I know, the chest pains and shortness in breath I experienced for a couple minutes driving home from school and listening to talk shows was either an anxiety or a heart attack.

To even think these psychotic demons had a shred of human decency in their souls allowing doomed passengers to phone their loved ones shortly before they crashed made me ill.

I had to force myself to eat breakfast. I canceled my plans that day to see Francis Ford Coppola’s director’s cut of his Vietnam war epic, “Apocalypse Now” (1979), on the big screen. I could not bring myself to stomach the carnage. I had seen enough of it already on network television over the course of one hour.

I felt frustrated and helpless because the perpetrators I wanted to take all my rage out on were not here. The enemy is a faceless, invisible religious fanatic who does not have the guts to conduct his twisted acts of destruction himself. This monster, who would rather use all his wealth for evil instead of good, sits in a cave somewhere in the Middle East giving orders to his henchmen who look up to him like a cult leader. Then he goes off into hiding while the innocent suffers, and his men die for nothing.

As I watched worried loved ones on tv tell their heartbreaking stories to the press asking people if anyone had seen their wives, husbands, sons, daughters, relatives, friends or co-workers whom they hadn’t heard from since that dreadful September morning, my anger just welled up into tears for all the souls senselessly lost in New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania.

They were the same tears I shed for the families and victims at Columbine and Oklahoma City.

If there was any consolation to come out of these unspeakable acts of violence, it was for me personally, some comfort, strength and solace in the Lord and perhaps a renewed sense of faith; something that was missing from my life for a substantial number of years.

That happened around noon, three days after the attacks, when President Bush declared Sept. 14, 2001, a National Day of Mourning.

It was on that day I did something I rarely ever do except on Christmas and Easter.

I went to church, lit a candle, and prayed.

©9/26/01

Muslim Americans were as shocked as the rest of us on 9/11

A week after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C., I heard a radio talk show host on WBAP talk about a call he received the day before.

A woman called in to ask how she could get over the pure hatred she currently has for all Americans who are of Middle Eastern descent.

The talk show host asked her if she hated all African Americans after the Los Angeles riots occurred. The woman said yes.

She obviously has not learned how to have a good relationship with people of other cultures and races. Neither have the ones who have gone out and wrongly committed crimes against Muslim, Islamic and now Indian Americans considering the terrorist attacks.

Most recent incidents, according to news reports, include mosques in Irving and Denton being riddled with bullets and Molotov cocktails.

Other incidents have been posted on www.cair-net.org/, a website hosted by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). The most unsettling comment was the one made by a 19-year-old from Chicago’s Oak Lawn area during a demonstration.

“I’m proud to be American and I hate Arabs and always have,” the kid said.

Some Muslims, unfortunately, have paid innocently with their lives.

According to a Sept. 17 story on www.cnn.com, Dallas police are investigating whether the murder of a Pakistani grocer was racially motivated.

Then there is an Indian immigrant who practiced the Sikh faith and ran a gas station in Mesa, Arizona who was also gunned down.

While touring a Washington mosque on Sept. 17, President Bush said those committing crimes against Muslims in the wake of the terrorist attacks should be “ashamed” according to the same article on CNN’s website.

"Muslim Americans make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country," he said. "They need to be treated with respect."

I want to personally congratulate each one of those racists who stupidly think what happened to America the morning of Sept. 11 is the fault of every single Middle Eastern American living in the United States.

They have just stooped to the same level as the terrorists. This is exactly what they want. Americans fighting other Americans.

These assholes need to wake up! These people are not their enemy.

If any of the perpetrators bothered to read various articles written by Muslim/Islamic columnists, they would find they are feeling just as much pain and shock as the rest of us. In fact, Muslim Americans do not even subscribe to the same beliefs as suspected terrorist, Osama bin Laden.

"We denounce the terrorist attacks,” said Nahid Awad, executive director of CAIR. “They do not reflect the behavior and thoughts of most Muslims. And ... we are Americans, too. There is no place in Islam for acts of terrorism and violence against innocent people."

“Bigots aren’t brain surgeons,” Awad added. “When they do these things, it’s based on ignorance.”

Many remarkable things came out of the tragic events of Sept. 11. There was a sudden resurgence in patriotism that has not seen since World War II. Many Americans made donations, more than what various organizations could manage. People lined up to give blood and many individuals attended church services.

What a shame to know all those good things are overshadowed by the racism some people still hold in their hearts.

Seems the saying, “We’re all in this together,” is not as true as it sounds.

©9/26/01

Oklahoma City memorial visitors share common bonds

The phone call from a friend came minutes after a truck bomb ripped apart the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building the spring morning of April 19, 1995.

“My God, I can’t believe this happened in Oklahoma City,” said Craig Jablonsky, a former Oklahoma native.

Jablonsky, now fifty, a former IT supervisor for Blockbuster Entertainment in McKinney, attended Mount Saint Mary High School in Oklahoma City before moving to Dallas.

The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was where Jablonsky received his driver’s license when he turned sixteen.

“When it happened, I hoped I didn’t know anyone there who was hurt or died in the explosion,” he said. “I heard supposedly someone who was injured in the bombing took off walking in a daze and showed up at my high school.”

A month after the bombing, Jablonsky learned reading Mount Saint Mary’s quarterly newsletter that someone he went to high school with had perished.

Jamie Genzer

Her name was Jamie Genzer, 32, of Wellston, who worked as a loan officer in the Murrah Building at the Federal Employees Credit Union. She was married and had two children.

Although Jablonsky admits he did not know Genzer that well, he did recall her being “friendly and outgoing” whenever the two said hellos to each other in the hallways and at lunch in high school.

Jablonsky visited the memorial site where the Murrah Federal Building once stood months ago, shortly before the new museum had opened. There, he saw the bronze gold chairs, 168 of them lined up in rows; nineteen of those chairs were slightly smaller in honor of the children who died in the daycare center.

He added that the memorial in Oklahoma City is not like The Sixth Floor Museum in downtown Dallas’ Dealey Plaza; the site that was once the Texas Schoolbook Depository where it is believed alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald shot President John F. Kennedy Nov. 22, 1963.

Dealey Plaza attracts hundreds of visitors daily to reflect, grieve, for a president they never met but felt a certain kind of attachment watching him on television.

“You’re sharing a common bond with most of the people who visit the memorial in Oklahoma City because most everyone there knew someone,” Jablonsky said. “It is kind of depressing and overwhelming to see all those chairs. It really puts in your mind the effect of what happened.”

It is the children I think about most whenever I dwell on what was the worst terrorist attack on American soil six years ago.

The picture that stuck in my mind most was firefighter Chris Fields cradling the body of one-year-old Baylee Almon, whose birthday had been the day before.

There is another hauntingly sad image of that fateful day that no pictures captured. It was an image prosecutors put in most, if not everyone’s mind April 24, 1997, when bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh went to trial.

They are words you can find on the website, www.kwtv.com/news/bombing/bombing-page.htm that feature all the trial transcripts.

I must admit a lump got stuck in my throat as I read Joseph Hartzler’s opening statement to the jury.

It is that same lump that is creeping up now as I write this column.

Hartzler spoke of how parents can see into the daycare center, which sits on the second floor, as they walk out of the building on the first floor.

“Children would run up to those windows and press their hands and faces to those windows to say goodbye to their parents,” he said. “And standing on the sidewalk, it was as though you can reach up and touch the children there on the second floor. But none of the parents…ever touched those children again while they were still alive.”

It sickens me to think the last possible image any of those kids had looking outside those dark-tinted windows was of the Ryder truck sitting below them that carried the bomb.

Shortly after my very brief phone interview with Jablonsky, I logged onto that bombing website again to get quotes from prosecutors and came across a section where you can see pictures of all 168 victims.

The first person I looked at was Genzer’s. I could tell from the picture, though I never met her, how young, vibrant, and beautiful she was. Then again, so were many others.

The next picture I looked at was Almon’s. I could not bring myself to look at all the other happy, smiling faces. Lives that were senselessly snuffed out by a deranged lunatic who now not only admits he blew up the Murrah Federal Building but expresses no remorse for what he has done as his execution date draws nearer.

Many people have different images of what happened in Oklahoma City. For me, it is the image of the children that will forever be etched in my mind.

For Jablonsky, it is something else. When he visited the memorial that day, he took note of one bronze gold chair.

It was the one for Jamie Genzer's Sitting on top her chair was a teddy bear left there by one of her two children.

©4/25/01

Santana high school shooting opens old Columbine wounds

Since the Columbine School massacre in April 1999, I stupidly believed the safest place to send one’s kids to is not a public but a private school.

That logic comes from how no one’s gone on a killing spree much less been arrested for carrying a gun to a private school that I know of.

All that’s changed now. The sad truth of the matter is a repeat of Columbine can happen at any school, and it doesn’t matter if it is public or private anymore.

A couple of days after 15-year-old Charles Andrew Williams shot 15 classmates and adults, killing two, at Santana High School in Santee, California on March 5th; an eighth grader walked into her school cafeteria armed with a 22.cal. pistol and shot a fellow classmate in the shoulder.

Her name was Elizabeth Catherine Bush. The school she attended was a private one, Bishop Neumann in Williamsport, Pa. Her intended target was Kimberly Marchese.

Bush’s reason for the shooting, according to the March 19, 2001 issue of Time, was she wanted to be accepted by Marchese who was the school’s cheerleading captain and known for hanging out with "the cool crowd."

The events that preceded the tragic events at Columbine and Santana High School are no more different than the one that occurred at Bishop Neumann.

Students in private school are just as privy to being made fun of and bullied as those in public school.

It seems Bush is no more different than the Charles Williams', the Eric Harris’, and the Dylan Klebold’s of the world. According to Time, Bush studied martial arts and once practiced shooting a gun at a firing range with her father.

"She has a kind heart," said her mother, Catherine, in the Time article. "In school she made friends with a girl in a wheelchair and helped her out. She would always put herself between those who were being picked on."

Like Williams, however, Bush was reportedly the subject of ridicule at the public junior high school she attended before going to Bishop Neumann. On one occasion, the column said, students pelted her with stones.

And just like many school shootings of year’s past, parents and friends once again asked "Why?" "What made he or she do it?"

"She seemed really happy," said Jenn Oglesby, a friend who spent most of her weekends watching movies and going out shopping with Bush. "We talked about school, but she didn’t mention any problems."

It amazes me at how things have changed since the 1970s and 80s when I attended both junior high in Chicago and high school here in Dallas.

The only drills we prepared for back then were for a fire or tornado drill. Now schools across the country prepare for the unthinkable; practicing what to when an armed intruder is on campus.

Santana High School was prepared for such an incident. According to Time, when Williams told friends of his plans to "pull a Columbine", the students there took the boy’s threat so seriously that one frisked him shortly before the shootings occurred. They checked everything but the backpack Williams had on.

I doubt any of the people I went to school with, much less their parents, teachers, and administrators, ever considered the thought that someone amongst them was a ticking bomb waiting to explode. God forbid the day I send my kids off to school that I must give he or she a cell phone so they can call me at work letting me know they are ok in case one of their own decides to go on a killing spree.

Every time a school shooting occurs, society plays the blame game. The list is endless. They blame violent movies, rock bands, the internet, the press, the National Rifleman’s Association (NRA), the politicians, the school, the teachers, administrators and the classmates when the real finger needs to not just be pointed at the ones who pulled the trigger, but the parents.

I am sick and tired of these endless debates that will no doubt come up again when the next depressed kid somewhere in the country decides to mete out her/her own brand of twisted justice.

Unbelievably, there is something people can do to stop the blood of the innocent from spilling in our nation’s schools.

"When America teaches our children right from wrong and teaches values that respect life in our country, we’ll be better off," said President Bush in response to the Santee shootings.

The only way as President Bush calls these "disgraceful acts of cowardice" will be avoided is when parents take an interest in what their kids do under the roofs of their own homes and outside.

How hard is it for a parent to tell their kid they love them or ask, "How’s it going?"

©3/28/2001

Some people need to be scared straight on the dangers of drunk driving

The last time I took a defensive driving class was in 1995.

I remember the instructor telling us how they used to show very graphic videos of what happens when you drink and drive. The reason they had to stop was because the scenes upset too many people. My answer to that is some people need to be scared straight. What better way to get through to people today than to show exactly what happens when you drink and drive.

Instead, the video we watched was a sanitized watered-down version of what happens when you drink and drive. I have seen it before in previous defensive driving courses I took. A story about an employee celebrating his promotion by having too many drinks. He is pulled over by a police officer and given a sobriety test. The test determines he is driving illegally intoxicated and arrested and must go through the shame of being bailed out by his wife.

The closest I have seen of the end results of drinking and driving was in August 1997 when Princess Diana was killed in a car accident. I was amazed watching the hotel video shortly before the crash at how well driver Henri Paul conducted himself as though he had not had a drink that night. The fact is you become a completely different person when you are drunk and get behind the wheel.

I figured this out last month as I was driving home from work at 3:30 a.m. Saturday morning. I did something I would never, ever do. I pulled my car over and got out to help someone who was stranded in the middle of the road. I was going down Rowlett Road towards Mesquite and if you have driven down that area, you know that part of the road is hilly, and it is sometimes hard to see what is in front of you until you come to the top. There I was going about 40-45 miles an hour when at the top of a hill, I almost rammed a woman’s red Chevrolet that was stranded in the middle of the road. It had no emergency lights on.

If these people had been guys, I would have gotten upset, looked at them like they were complete idiots, utter something insulting they could not hear and then be on my way. They were not guys though. They were two women, probably in their late 20s. The one on the passenger side had her head down like she was sleeping and the woman in the driver’s seat looked frantic and was not sure what to do.

Upon closer inspection of their vehicle, it took less than five seconds for me to regret having gotten out and offered to help at all because there was not anything I could do. The front wheel on the driver’s side was flat and pushed inward. The back tire on the same side was also flat. I asked the young woman whose name was Michelle what happened, and she said she went over the curb and now the car will not even move.

I have hit curbs before but never to the point where the car was now immobile. There was no way I could physically push her car onto a residential street judging by the condition of the front wheel alone. Besides that, the transmission was also damaged. Even in neutral, the vehicle made a loud clicking noise and would not move. Luckily, a guy in a truck came along and pushed the car out of the way of oncoming traffic and then drove off.

That was not the end though. Who am I going to call at 3:30 a.m. other than the Rowlett Police Department? But she flat out told me no and it did not take me long to figure out why.

Because of the chilly weather, it took me 10 minutes to smell alcohol on her breath. Then there was that half empty box of beer sitting in the back seat of her car. It would not take a police officer five minutes to realize this was a drunk driving case. Obviously, she sobered up after realizing how much trouble she might be in. Her friend was ok and was just sleeping.

Since Michelle wanted no police officers, I gave her my triple AAA card to call a tow truck on her cellular phone. (The AAA card is yet another thing I pay for yearly other than having a cellular phone in case of emergencies).

The wrecking service got there by 5 a.m. It should, however, be noted here that I always see a lot of police officers patrolling this area in Rowlett all the time and for that entire 90 minutes, not a single police car came by. How come when someone is out driving drunk, there is never a police officer around when you need one? But when I am on the road, I got cops just waiting for me to coast past a stop sign or run a red light just so they can pull me over and search my car?

I left once service arrived. I could tell she was still inebriated though as she wrote her phone number on her checking account slip that had a balance of $1100.00 in it, account number and all. She insisted I call her later that day so she could send me a check for helping her out. I really was not concerned about compensation. All I cared about was that she got the car taken care of and had a ride home.

I thought about the incident shortly thereafter. Several things could have happened had I not stopped. Someone else probably would have stopped and helped, I assume. An oncoming car could have hit them head-on. A member of Rowlett’s finest would have finally driven by, seen the car stuck in the middle of the road and gone out to investigate. As a result, she most likely would have been arrested.

When I called Michelle later that day, she told me the Chevrolet dealer gave her a new car and that everything was ok now. I have no idea how she pulled that off.

I also got a $50 check from her that week that did not bounce. I would not have cared if it did. This entire incident did not cost me anything other than an hour of sleep.

I hope Michelle learned her lesson this time.

She obviously did not learn it the first time.

When she was living in Colorado last year, Michelle told me her driver’s license was taken away by the courts after she was caught driving under the influence of alcohol.

©2/21/2001

My extreme hatred of drivers on cellphones!

I hate cellular phones and despise people who talk on their cellular phones while driving.

Let me say this again so you understand.

I HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE CELLULAR PHONES AND DESPISE PEOPLE WHO TALK ON THEM WHILE DRIVING!!!

Don’t misunderstand. I have nothing against new technology. I, for the most part, embrace it. I was one of the few people who paid $700 for a DVD player a few years ago that now costs $300.

There will no doubt come a time when I will buy a High-Density Television set (HDTV) or have my home hooked up to satellite instead of cable. There may even come a day when I’ll be forced to be like everyone else and buy a personal computer. That is when Apple goes out of business or Hell freezes over. Whichever comes first.

I will not, however, embrace the world of cellular phones. They are nothing but a nuisance. They are like credit cards. You can’t leave home without one. The only reason why I have a credit card, and a cellular phone is in case the car breaks down. If there was ever an assurance in life that my vehicle would never, ever break down I’d never own a mobile phone.

I am so far behind on cellular phone technology that a coworker laughed when he saw the giant mobile phone I was recharging on my desk.

It is the kind of phone that if I had it in my back pants pocket, my jeans would either rip or I’d wind up walking funny the rest of my life.

Yes, I know there are phones out there now that fold up into a nice neat little box that is almost the size of a wallet. I also know that some of them can even tell you when you have email.

I pay, or should I say, waste $37 a month to Southwestern Bell Wireless for a phone I will probably use only once. I know there are better deals out there that allow me to pay less and buy a better phone, but I despise the technology so much that I don’t have the patience to talk to the phone center at Best Buy.

Nor do I believe that a donation to some worthy cause will bring me face-to-face with an admiringly tall, good looking blond or brunette standing on the other side of the Verizon wireless phone desk as seen in those TV commercials.

The fact I have to listen to them ring whether I am in class, at the mall, bookstore or even in a movie theater is enough to make my blood pressure go up. When I saw the movie, “Cast Away” (2000), some inconsiderate jerk’s cellphone went off at least five times the entire time Tom Hanks’ character was stranded on the island (this was practically through almost the whole film). I thought at first the Hanks’ character had a cellphone on him and he was too delirious to realize it was ringing.

I don’t hate cellphones because they supposedly pose a health hazard where one’s brain will resemble a giant sponge soaked up with radiation after years of phone usage. If I was that concerned about getting a brain tumor, I would have moved away from the house I now live in years ago. It sits underneath an electrical tower that makes buzzing noises whenever there is a dense fog or heavy drizzle and according to environmentalists gives off radiation. (If such is true, it could explain the reason for my hair loss).

I do, however, firmly believe they pose a health risk for fellow drivers on the road, and I don’t need to research articles on the Internet to prove my theory. If they don’t cause car accidents, they sure as hell cause aggravation for those people who don’t use them.

Consider a friend of mine. When his vehicle broke down on the interstate and was barely off on the side of the road praying no one would hit him as he waited for the tow truck to arrive, he said 85 percent of the drivers he noticed go by were yapping on their cellphones.

Then there is the ticked off driver of an 18-wheeler whom I saw in the left turning lane a few weeks ago honking at the idiot in front of him in the SUV telling him it was time to turn.

And what was the driver in the SUV doing as I saw him turn? He had his head cocked near the window on the driver’s side like he was going to sleep. Nicely tucked in between his head and shoulders was that damn cellphone as he was slowly making a left turn with barely two hands on the wheel.

It was yet another demonstration out of hundreds where people are too busy talking on the phone and paying little if any attention to the road.

If I were a Texas congressman, the first thing on my agenda would be to pass a law keeping people from using cellular phones while driving and to make sure anyone caught driving with one in their hands is fined just as much for speeding or for not wearing a seatbelt.

It would, however, be a losing battle. I would probably aggravate all the cellular phone companies who’d leave threatening messages on my answering machine saying I’m interfering with their business. My law would lose out to a bunch of whining babies who say it’s their God given right to talk on a cellphone when they drive and if I take away their right to use one in the car, I am taking away their personal freedom.

Then I’d have to explain to such people whose intelligence is lower than the ones in Florida who don’t know how to fill out a presidential ballot, that all my law is saying is people can use their cellphones anytime they want to so long as they’re not in the car while driving.

I’d love to see a law like this passed in Texas. I doubt it ever will. I do know one thing is certain.

Remember the little white dog who became the symbol for road rage when he got thrown out in the middle of a busy street by a guy who was rear-ended by a woman last year?

If I ever get into an accident and it is caused by some idiot driver talking on a cellular phone while driving, there is one thing that’s going to go flying through the air and I assure you, it won’t be the family dog.

©1/24/2001