WEEKLY SOUTHERN ARTS
"Sometime the boogaloo 
  • Home
  • Guns, Faith and Murder
  • The Million Dollar Store
  • Artistic Con-cepts
  • Judy Garland - "Soul Singer"
  • Robert & Jimi and the Twenty Seven Blues
  • The Great Pretenders
  • Imagine
  • Me and Junior Parker
  • The Republican
  • Sweet Home Chicago (The Obama Shakedown)
  • The Ballad of Hunter & Joe
  • The 22-yr-old Bottle Blonde
  • Is It Alright...To Be White?
  • Resist the Devil and He Will Flea
  • Music & Reminiscence
  • Lowell George searching for authenticity
  • A Telling Lie
  • Part One: The Monster Is Summoned
  • Like Billy Eckstein Singing to an Empty Club at 1:00 AM on a Saturday Night in 1975.
  • Bent
  • Kelly Joe Phelps
  • Why The Devil Don't Come Around No More
  • Hearing Junior Wells “On Tap'' one more Time
  • Muddy and Me
  • Unwitting Hypocrisy is The Best Kind of Hypocrisy
  • Excess Baggage
  • Excess Baggage pt. 2
  • Fake News Is The New Real News
  • The Death of Billy Graham and Manufacturing Consent
  • American Youth: The Rise of The New Media
  • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Talk About Slavery and Shit
  • Just Smoke
  • Monkey in a Box
  • How The Children of Sal and Dean Destroyed The World
  • On This Cold Winter's Morn
  • The Crime of the Century
  • Evidence: What The Hell Is It?
  • They Were Pissed: America, Jack Kerouac, and the Beats
  • Negotiating The Maze Of Life and a Blues Shuffle.
  • Everyone Is Hitler (In their own Way)
  • The Mystery of The Giant Balloon Shark
  • Subterfuge and Its Discontents
  • God Debunks Global Warming
  • Day Two: God Continues To Debunk Global Warming
  • Strzoking Russia
  • The Al Franken Effect. Or, How to Destroy America and Lose Elections
  • The Big Maybe
  • The News Apocalypse
  • The Guitarticle (Guitar article)
  • The Nation of Lucifer
  • Slurring Pocahontas
  • Why Everything Good Said About Net Neutrality is a Lie
  • .....and behold, The Cause of Your Demise Is Upon You
  • The Trans-boy That Cried Wolf
  • Believe Nothing
  • Donald Trump Blasts The Heads Off Of Tiny Woodland Creatures
  • The Problem of Hypocrites
  • Roy Moore: Serial Pervert
  • I'm So Frustrated
  • The Devil's Whisper
  • Science Can't Dance
  • You're Gonna Have To Serve Somebody
  • Louie C. K.
  • Common Sense
  • Hunting For Witches
  • Living in The Age of "tRump"
  • The Devil is a Hustler
  • The Skinny
  • Eric Dolphy
  • ISIS Rode in On a Donkey
  • "The Manafort Indictment"
  • The Truth About the Middle East
  • Dennis Budimer's "Alone Together" Revisited
  • The Halloween Edition
  • The 20th Century Was Groovy
  • The Salesman
  • The Dossier
  • Elmore James
  • Isle of The Poor
  • The Patriarchy is Alive and Well
  • Moving Napoleon
  • Guns and Guerrillas
  • Playing Four
  • Hollywood and Scumbags
  • Why Everything You Think, Is Wrong
  • Killing Yourself With Terrorism
  • Being Liberal
  • Laced With Hate
  • A Message From Occupy Democrats
  • A Taxing Dilemma
  • What Really Happened with Aid in Puerto Rico
  • Colin Kaepernick and Beyoncé are geniuses. Part 1
  • When the Levee Breaks
  • The Second Coming of Anthony Weiner
  • How to Never Lose a Fight
  • Creating Chaos out of Meaning
  • Crime and Punishment
  • The Man in the Mirror
  • Guitar Gods of the Sixties
  • Entopy: A Play in One Act
  • The Ragged Tale of a Poverty Stricken Economic Genius
  • The Dreamers
  • Hey There Georgy Girl
  • This Is Not a Defense of Joel Osteen. Or is it?
  • The Ballad of Poindexter Glockenspiel
  • The Big Dummy
  • More Florida in Pictures and Text
  • How Do I Hate Thee
  • Florida in Images and More Images
  • "How To Solve The Healthcare Crisis and Why It's So Damned Hard To Fix"
  • The Big Lie
  • The Demise of the West
  • “Good Times! Good Times! You know, we talkin’ bout Good Times!”
  • "Justice My Ass!"
  • Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
  • The Coming Apocalypse and How to Avoid it: a Historical/Biblical Perspective.
  • "Muthafuckin' Chains!"
  • Lies Our Father's Told Us
  • Poetry and Politics - a few mixed verses
  • The Inner Man
  • The Vampire and The Carpet Salesman
  • Comey Speaks!
  • A Word From Nostradamus about the Comey Hearings
  • The Towering Babble
  • Chain of Fools
  • I Got Ramblin' on My Mind
  • Telling Ourselves Stories
  • Shit! Make Me Wanna Holler!
  • Even More Reasons Why The Paris Accords are Total Horseshit.
  • When Life Imitates Satire
  • Jethro and Becky Sue Come To America
  • Random Apocrypha
  • Why The Paris Climate Accords Are Total Horseshit
  • Urban Stories
  • The Kingdom of God: a personal rant
  • Urban Week @ South Beach
  • Serpico Revisited
  • The Road To Surf-dumb. Or, is it The Road To Serfdom?
  • This is Not a Political Article
  • My Hometown
  • What Does This Mean?
  • We're All Fools Sometime
  • One Pill Makes You Larger
  • "What a Maroon!"
  • Secrets and Lies
  • A Tale of Wine and Murder
  • "White House Under Siege!"
  • The Amateur Narcissist
  • Like a Rock
  • The Greatest of Ally of a True Idiot is.....
  • How To Prove someone's a Witch
  • Jesus Was a Sly Dog
  • An Open Letter From The Democratic National Committee
  • The Power of Language
  • The Existential Croûton
  • Random Facebook Thoughts
  • A Play "The Poverty Racket"
  • The Demise of the 4th Estate
  • Love To Hate My Enemies
  • Feelings, Oh, Oh, Oh, Feelings
  • Art or Reality
  • The Prison Yard Blues
  • Who is Richard Spencer and Why Does He Matter?
  • __an excerpt from "The Power of Voltron "
  • A Plea From a Progressive
  • ANTIFA - The Anti Fascists, Fascists
  • Conspiracy Theory
  • 4 More Poems, 4 More Pictures
  • "Are You Freaking People Insane?"
  • 4 Pictures 4 Poems
  • The Ballad of Carlos Slim
  • Pretending What's in Your Head is True
  • The Cognitive Dissonance of a Faithful Democrat
  • The Human Snakepit
  • George Freeman - Unsung Master of the Jazz Guitar
  • The Price of Milk
  • Suspicious Minds
  • Bill O'Reilly Sexual Predator?
  • The New Soldier
  • Orwell Revisited
  • Larry Coryell - The Godfather is Dead
  • A Tiger Beat
  • South Florida - HOT & COOL
  • Jean Paul Sartre & the Existentialist Mojo
  • Culture Matters, Immigration Matters, Sharks Matter
  • Thomas Sowell
  • A Tree Falls In Central Park on a Gay Banker
  • Black Codes From The Underground
  • Does an Idiot know they're an Idiot?
  • A Poem for Pooh
  • It's All or Nothing Baby!
  • Racism is Alive and Well
  • "Shut the Hell Up!"
  • Jerry Seinfeld - Social Pariah
  • A Man Must Nurture His Pet Peeves
  • Not the Usual Immigration Article
  • Man Talk, with Donald Trump pt. 1
  • Man Talk, with Donald Trump pt. 2
  • The Bad Seed
  • Dogma Never Sleeps
  • Trump and Clinton Debate
  • Was Jesus a True Pacifist?
  • Brexit Was the Shot Heard Around the World
  • Obama, How Great Thou Art
  • War is Good
  • The Willful Ignorance of Intellectual Children
  • What about All Those Peacful Muslims?
  • Terror! What Terror?
  • Biff and Shorty Play The Blues
  • Forty Miles of Bad Road
  • How Obamacare Became the law of the land: And Other Fairytales for Adults
  • Genteel Republicans vs The Alt-Right
  • Should Drugs be Legal?
  • The Prophet Speaks
  • The Dream Sequence
  • Voting 3rd Party and the Moral Low-Ground
  • Sayonara America
  • What does Never Trump Mean?
  • Barack Obama is the Most Brilliant Man Ever to be President?
  • If God Created War, Does That Mean That War is Good?
  • Never Let Your Enemies Define You
  • Facebook, Science & Religion
  • Bullshit by the Numbers
  • Bullshit by the Numbers - part II
  • The Heated Quest for the "No Information Voter"
  • I Love The Dead
  • Those Who Lurk
  • Battered, Bruised and Beaten
  • Trump and Hitler
  • America in Black and White
  • Trans-Athletics
  • Playing a Rigged Game
  • Who was that Mass Murderer?
  • The Kidnappers
  • The Game
  • Terror in Nice: A Variation on a Theme
  • The Idiots Guide on How to Destory the World
  • Terror in France
  • A Fictional Conversation Between a Pastor and a Historian About the Bible
  • The Immoral Necessity for Scapegoats
  • Who Really Shot Those Eleven Cops? Was It Donald Trump?
  • Killer Cops and Cop Killers
  • Happy 4th of July
  • How Do You Cast Your Vote When You've Only Got a Few Bullets Left?
  • "Yes, She's a Lying Sack of Shit....but She's our Lying Sack of Shit."
  • All Apologies
  • Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up
  • Goodbye Scotty Moore
  • If a Bluebird Plays the Blues Why Can't it Play Free Jazz
  • Terror in Turkey
  • When David Slew Goliath
  • The Life & Death of a Global Fat Cat
  • Intentionally Censoring the News
  • The Brits Leave the EU
  • Chick, Christian, Roy & Kenny G
  • Who Really Committed Mass Murder in Orlando
  • The Tale of the Prince and the Shrew
  • A Dying Father's Last Father's Day
  • Mass Murdering, Terrorist's Father is Obama and Hillary's Best Friend
  • Why Cream still Matters 50 Years Later
  • Misguided Anger and Partisan Politics
  • The Deep Guilt of the Religious Left
  • Radical Islam! What Radical Islam?
  • Denial is a River in Egypt
  • A Response to all the Haters
  • Why Muhammad Ali was my Hero (in spite of being a Racist)
  • Why Trump Matters
  • The New Progressive Racism
  • A Tragedy in Cincinnati
  • The Evil that Men do (Women too.)
  • Differences? What Differences?
  • Racism Revisited
  • Battling Immigration Straw Men
  • Blood Quantum
  • Fighting Transgender Straw Men
  • Logical Fallacies about God and Money
  • Progressive Straw Men
  • Everybody is Robbing You Blind
  • On The Road To El Donaldo
  • Dear Mark: About Donald Trump
  • Identifying the Enemy
  • Why I Will Vote For Trump
  • I Totally Agree With Myself
  • Teaching Americans Where to Pee
  • Goodbye Lonnie Mack
  • Bernie Wants You To Pay His Fair Share
  • Bruce Springsteen vs. North Carolina
  • Mr. Smiley Is an Idiot
  • Why Does College Cost So Much?
  • Black Power and Bad Vibes At Whiteness History Month
  • How Facebook Showed Me That We're Doomed
  • Muslims kill Muslims by means of White People
  • The Slap
  • America Wants a 3rd Party Candidate
  • Jesus Loved Everybody
  • Call it what it is.
  • Belgium vs. Turkey. Which One is Worse?
  • Barack, Fidel and Che
  • How He Gonna Get His Money pt. 2
  • How He Gonna Get His Money
  • The Turn of The Screw
  • Dear America: Now, about Trump....
  • The Attack of the Anti Trumpers
  • Did You Know that America is Socialism....and boy, ain't it Swell
  • Trump - Prophet or Blowhard?
  • Black Lies Matter, All Lies Matter
  • The Donald and the Debate
  • Leonardo and The Bear
  • The Thunder Rolled and the "Trump" Blows em all to Hell
  • Fragmented Fairytails
  • Cars That Never Were but Should've Been, Part 6
  • Building The Perfect Beast
  • America: A Tale of Two Cities, Part 1
  • Uncle Bernie in New Hampshire
  • The Big L
  • The Diary of a Former Leftist
  • Free Speech not Hate Speech?
  • State of the Union
  • Losing My Religion
  • Don't Take Our Guns Away Until We Kill Those Honky Bastards
  • Bye Bye Europe
  • "Trump is a Racist!"
  • "Hell Yeah! I've Got Obama Care!
  • Trumponomics
  • Woman of the Year
  • Malicious Intent and the Art of the Microaggression
  • Muslim No-Go Zones - Myth or Reality?
  • Donald J. Trump and the Muslim Migration to America
  • There Is No God But Allah?
  • Roadhouse - The Reboot
  • Sometimes You Just Can't Win
  • A Few Thoughts Regarding Trump
  • Cars That Never Were But Should've Been, Part 5
  • You Can Have My Steering Wheel When You Pry It From Cold, Daed Hands
  • The Great Debate
  • Al, Thomas and Paul - Malthusians Then and Now
  • A Prophet Debates Global Warming and other retated Dogma
  • Memes, Scapegoats, Propaganda
  • Little Hillary and Her Monsters
  • A Prophecy for America
  • The Basketball Metaphor
  • Vladimir Putin: An American Hero
  • Little Things
  • The Democrats Debate
  • It's All Ablout da Benjamins
  • Remember When?
  • Mass Shooter
  • Cars That Never Were But Should've Been: Part 4
  • Should A Muslim Be President in America?
  • The Strange Case of Ahmed Mohamed
  • Debt and Other Devious Angels
  • Bernie Sanders is Caesar not Jesus
  • An inconvenient Truth
  • Who's really a Native American?
  • The Rebirth of the Silent Majority
  • Money That's What I Want!
  • The Syrian Crisis and the Memeing of America
  • Why Societies Have Generally Valued Men More than Women
  • The Problem of Evil
  • A few Thoughts on a Few Things
  • The Authentic pose of a Black White Man
  • Sweden: Socialist Utopia or Progressive Madhouse?
  • Why Dogs Matter
  • Guilty Until Proven Innocent
  • Was Jesus a Socialist?
  • "The Donald" A Man for the Ages
  • Harvesting the Wheat - or - Karma's a Real Bitch
  • Cecil The Lion
  • Cars That Never Were but Should’ve Been, Part 3
  • Secrets and Lies
  • Can Minorities Be Racist?
  • I Was Just Thinking....Hmm?
  • Iran Deal - Good or Bad?
  • Jihad or Not Jihad? That is the Question.
  • "Let's Do Lunch" with Planned Parenthood
  • America The Contemptible
  • Marriage, Bigotry and Cooties
  • The Things We Care About
  • The Simplicity of it All
  • A Dissenting Opinion
  • Cars That Should've Been, But Never Were: part II
  • Live Now, Pay Later
  • I Am, Whatever I Say I Am!
  • Bernie Sanders is the Dumbest Bastard on Earth
  • Cars That Never Were But Should've Been
  • Bruce Jenner
  • The Good Society
  • A Personal Jesus For My Own
  • Take a Ride on a Hell Bound Train
  • Requiem For a Car Show
  • Obama Channels Neville Chamberlain in Dealing with Iran
  • The Short Life of a Political Lemming
  • The Strongman
  • The Broken Window
  • The Selective Outrage of The Anti Israel Left
  • When the Blind Lead the Blind
  • Top Brass With Class
  • Living In A world On Fire
  • Lying Liars and the Lies They Tell
  • What The Hell Is Esotericism?
  • Unicorns, Free Healthcare and other Mythological Creatures
  • Heroes and Dunces
  • A Few Thoughts On a Few Things
  • The Return Of Super Fly
  • Should You Ever Bet On A dead Horse?
  • Money For Nothing
  • Across The Great Divide
  • Tom, Jerry, Eddie & Sydney
  • The Folly of Foibles
  • Who really killed Eric Garner?
  • The Art of The Sale
  • Political Bullshit and All That Jazz
  • Oh, The Horror of It All
  • To Torture or Not To Torture, That is The Question
  • Selective Justice
  • Executive Action
  • Give Us Your Tired, Poor and Ambitious
  • Johnny Winter, Ahhh-Yeahh!
  • Homeless and Transgender "Let My People Pee!"
  • Are We Insane? You Betcha!
  • Ebola and Racism
  • You're a Racist, Just Admit It!
  • To Discriminate or Not to Discriminate, That is the Question
  • The Life of an Imaginary Historian
  • Why Most Debates About The Minimum Wage are Bullshit
  • The Return of the Infinite Monkeys
  • Politically Correct Genocide
  • Language and the illusion of Meaning
  • Obama vs. Reagan
  • Is Barack Obama our Most Successful President Ever?
  • White Racism Black Racism
  • The Race
  • Should People Be Free to Discriminate?
  • Science, Religion and Brother Neil
  • Welcome To America
  • The Reincarnation of Jimmy Carter and the Return of Scarface
  • SCOTUS, Condoms and Collateral Damage
  • The American Dream
  • Attack of the Bloated Leeches or "Why Does the Economy Suck pt. II"
  • Why Does the Economy Suck?
  • Jaco Pastorius - A Passage in Time
  • How can we save the world, from people who want to save the world?
  • A Short Political rant: pt I
  • Jerry Reed, Tom Jones and the Original Guitar Heroes
  • Part Two: The Politics of the Eloi and the Morlock
  • Angel: part 7
  • Wayne Cochran "Going Back to Miami"
  • Matt Damon & the Teachers Union vs. the Capitalist Pigs
  • The Last Damned Healthcare Article You'll Ever Need
  • The Gospel According to Mark
  • Angel: part VI
  • Ted Bundy & The Hunt For The Devil
  • Charlie & Clint: Dead & Deader
  • Trayvon & George : An American Hate Story
  • Jury Duty
  • Little Tommy & The Blues Kings
  • Kayaking "The Big Cypress" with Crocodlies
  • The Birth of The Jazz Guitarist
  • Gay Marriage
  • Garage Band - The 1960's
  • King Arthur, Pelagius and Original Sin
  • The Story of Ricky
  • In the News and on the Web
  • When is a Horse not a Horse
  • Hidden Miami
  • I Hate the 60's: A Personal Rock Odyssey
  • Crocodiles and Alligators in Florida: Monsters in our Backyard
  • The Legend of Robert Pete Williams
  • Saturday Night At Big Tinys
  • The Mad Hatter and the Tea Party
  • The Case Of The Infinite Monkeys
  • The American Heritage Series
  • Here Comes the Sun
  • The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
  • Blue And Green
  • Mundi's, a Love Story

              The Box of Teeth

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Death is a friend to few, an unwelcome stranger to most.   There are times, often when we are young, that we tempt fate willingly, less as the result of bravery and more the result of ignorance.  If we’re fortunate we survive our youthful indiscretions and live a long life.  Others are not so lucky.  They come face to face with death in one of its many disguises as a matter of circumstance, finding themselves at the wrong place and the wrong time—hell’s lottery played out with all the right numbers, only there are no winners. 
 
Once, when I was nineteen and eager for a vacation from reality, I went out to the local cow pasture with my best friend to pick some “Magic Mushrooms”.  Our intent was to boil them down for the psilocybin, a naturally occurring psychedelic compound, mix it with some Kool-Aid to make it less bitter and get a free high.  Being inexperienced we drank more than we should have, and within minutes we began our procession down the rabbit’s-hole with little or no idea of what was waiting at the other end. It was the journey we were after—new life experiences—and within a few hours, after the melting clocks and the clouds had subsided, we found ourselves in my truck, sitting in the middle of the highway with the traffic coming directly at us.  We were frozen in place, a few short moments from an untimely and very unnecessary end.  Thankfully, my friend mustered the necessary cognitive facility to push me over and take the wheel.  


But Death inevitably comes for everyone, although it's seldom ever as thoughtlessly invited as that night on the highway.  Most of us work diligently to keep it a distance, hoping that it passes by in pursuit of a better candidate.  

Just how many times its brushed past with me unaware would be anyone’s guess. We've all had those moments as a kid when we ran in front of a car and just barely avoided contact.  The time we slipped and began the descent down from some high place we should have never been to begin with.  Frequently it’s our own obsessions that draw us to the ledge. But sometimes, we find ourselves at the intersection of someone, or something’s obsession, like a man stranded at sea with a fin coming into view—and then, what we want, matters a good deal less. 


Some forty years ago in South Florida there was a male hitchhiker that would jump into woman’s cars and rape and strangle them.  He would stand by the road at night, thumbing a ride, on the hunt for his type—young women with long straight hair who were driving alone with their doors unlocked, making them an easy target for a killer.  My girlfriend fit the description almost perfectly and tended to drive home on the strip that had become his preferred hunting grounds.  I would tell her “Lock your door”!  She would laugh and drive off, indifferent to the possibility that she could be a victim, others maybe, but not her.  That night as she drove home she saw a man thumbing a ride.  Just as she was about to pass by he lunged at her door and attempted to jump in—but not before she hit the gas pedal and got the hell out of there.  Unlike those unfortunate others, she survived her encounter, and four years later become my wife.  The killer, whoever he may have been, was never caught.

These are the obvious moments when we can see the enemy close enough to make out a face, its amorphous features more clearly defined.  But there are almost certainly moments when death is downwind, and we never know just how close it came. 

In the summer of 1966 I found myself on a train with my mother and sister, on route to visit family in Mississippi.  We had a two hour layover in Chicago, the biggest city I’d ever seen.  It was the archetype of the great metropolis with giant skyscrapers, massive billboards advertising
every kind of product.  And, at the other end were rows of multi-story, wood frame tenement houses that could be viewed as our train made its way to the station.  These were urban slums the likes of which I had seen only in the movies.  Separated by an  invisible demarcation line that isolated the public squalor from the gleaming city

We had made this trip before and Chicago was always the high point of the journey.  This time, however, it was different.  The previous night a man had murdered eight nurses in Chicago, in one of the worse spree killings of the 20th century.  We were only passing through, stuck on a two hour layover, but just the thought that this monster could be waiting for a train like we were created a sense of dread that never left until we were safely back on the train and almost in Mississippi.
 Even when the monster was caught and given a name “Richard Speck” the face was unrecognizable as human.  Not because he looked so different.  His face was just another image peering out of a photograph, eyes and features like other men, but, apparently, not at all like other men.

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In the 1960’s and 70’s serial murder was rare, in fact I’m not sure that the term was even in use then.  The thought of a homicidal maniac living anywhere in the vicinity, even in the same state was enough to install panic in people.  Television and films were, for the most part free of graphic violence.  There was violence sure enough, but most of it was of the bloodless variety.   

On television you could kill a dozen people with a machine gun and never see a drop of blood.  Filmmakers like Sam Peckinpah changed that, but like all revolutions, good and bad, the change comes slowly, first at the fringes and only later does it filter into the mainstream. 

There was, however, plenty of violence in the streets, the result of political unrest and protest.  There were multiple major political assassinations, President Kennedy in 1963, his brother Robert Kennedy, the former Senator and Attorney General in 1967, Malcolm X in 1965--and Martin Luther King in 1968, to say nothing of The Vietnam War.  


Television, however, offered an antidote to the harsh external reality of American life with millionaire hillbillies, magical witches, beautiful Genies, made for TV rock-bands like The Monkees and talking horses.  America in the 1960's was, in many ways, a schizophrenic teenager with a deep seeded authority problem.  One that could effortlessly turn a buck, with an undeniable gift for creativity.

In the summer of 1966 I found myself on a train with my mother and sister, on route to visit family in Mississippi.  We had a two hour layover in Chicago, which was the biggest city I’d ever seen.  It was the archetype of the great metropolis with giant skyscrapers, massive billboards advertising every kind of product.  And, at the other end of the city were rows of multi-story, wood frame tenement houses that could be viewed as our train made its way to the station.  These were urban slums the likes of which I had seen only in the movies.  Separate from the gleaming city by an invisible demarcation line that isolated the public squalor.

We had made this trip before and Chicago was always the high point of the journey.  This time, however, it was different.  The previous night a man had murdered eight nurses in Chicago, in one of the worse spree killings of the 20th century.  We were only passing through, stuck on a two hour layover, but just the thought that the monster could be waiting for a train like we were created a sense of dread that never left until we were safely back on the train and almost in Mississippi.  Even when the monster was caught and given a name “Richard Speck” the face was unrecognizable as human.  Not because he looked so different.  It was just another image peering out of a photograph, eyes and features like other men, but, apparently, not at all like other men.  

Some six summers later, on hot day in July Officer Schaefer, the cop from the neighborhood picked up a couple of attractive young female hitchhikers, Nancy Ellen Trotter and Pamela Sue Wells.  He lectured them about the dangers of hitchhiking and told them, “You never knew who might be driving the car that you get into”.  As a favor he offered to pick them up the next day and drive them to their destination, just a friendly cop trying to keep a couple of girls safe from potential predators.  Camouflage is one nature’s great achievements.  It allows a predator to move, virtually unseen, within inches of its target.  Stealth enables a crocodile to remain submerged in only a few inches of water, with only its eyes exposed—its massive jaws and bulk hidden just beneath the surface.  A six hundred pound Lion is essentially invisible in the high amber grass of the African Savannah as it waits for its prey.  For officer Schaefer it was a badge, a friendly smile and a few words spoken with the illusion of concern.  
Both girls agreed to meet him the next day and take him up on his offer. 

Nearly twenty four hour later they staggered into the local police station, frightened and exhausted and told their story about how office Schaffer had offered to give them a ride, but instead, drove them deep into the everglades and tied them to a tree.  Their legs and hands bound, with a hangman's noose carefully tied around their necks, threatening to strangle them if they slipped and fell.  Fortunately, they managed to escape and made their way to the local police station, which turned out the same one that Officer Schaefer worked at.  
 

In 1972 there was a man named Gerard John Shaffer that lived directly behind my wife’s grandmother’s house, which was only a few blocks from my own house.  In every way he was essentially nondescript. With one exception, he was a police officer.  I have no idea of how often I saw him, probably often enough.  He was slightly chubby, with medium brown hair worn in the fashion typical of men in the early 1970’s.  Although he was in his thirties he still lived with his mother.  He was tall and pleasant enough. But he was a cop, and that was reason enough to keep him at arm’s length, especially for a bunch of teenagers who occasionally pushed the boundaries of
the law.  We weren’t the “James Gang” or even street thugs.  It was more a case of smoking pot and playing our music too loud.  That’s what you’re supposed to do in a rock and roll band, which is what we were, and if some adult gave us crap, we gave it back.  Thankfully, we never had to deal
with officer Shaffer   Not that he was intimidating, he wasn't  but, there were plenty of reasons to be afraid.  Far more than any of us knew.