Mission D Update I

It's Sunday afternoon. I am waiting on a call from D. He is working today, and every day he continues on his job is good news. He has his days off this week on Wednesday and Thursday.

On Tuesday afternoon, as I picked D up from work about 4:00 pm, I learned that we were to pick up DD from his mother, again! But we had planned to go to the bank to get some cash. Ds debit card had arrived yesterday, and we need to put it to use... immediately! We needed to get there before 5:00, in case the bank would be closed and we needed help. This would take about 25 minutes, given rush hour traffic. It would take us another 30 minutes to get to T's apartment. Of course, we couldn't get there soon enough. T texted D every five minutes from the time he left work until we did arrive about 5:00 pm. This was even after she left DD with a neighbor while she left to attend a job orientation. Apparently she was able to get her old job back, and she wasn't leaving town as D was told about two weeks earlier.

When we do arrive, the neighbor is sitting outside with D, and three loose diapers. Again, the child had only the clothes on his back. The good news is that D now has him in possession. It is not yet legal custody. We are working on those papers and hope to get the case filed in the next week or so. We head back to the house. I make arrangements to meet with him on Wednesday to bring DD a box of toys and books our daughter Kim has assembled for DD.

Each day I am with D, I ask him to give me a list of groceries he needs, and I will shop for them while waiting for him at the Kroger store across the street, or after I drop him at his 'house'. Regardless of where D is staying at the moment, his term for where he is staying is 'house'.

Currently, D is staying at In-Town Suites. He was staying with Joe and his girlfriend in Mt. Airy Towers apartments. What a dive. They had a basement apartment, and both inside and outside was filthy. They all had to move one day when Duke Energy cut off the electricity. That was the 7th of September. As an emergency stop gap measure, I arranged to have him move to In-Town Suites...$159/week. One room, bath, kitchen-ette, refrigerator and microwave. Not much, but cleaner than the apartment in Mt. Airy Towers. This was also where Joe and his girlfriend moved. I have continued to cover the cost of his room to this week, while we look for a more permanent location.

On Wednesday I arrive around 1:00 pm, deliver the box of toys and books, and make arrangements to spend time with D on Thursday. We will work on filing the papers for custody of DD and we will look for better housing. D is appreciative, and grateful for the toys. Reports are that DD loves them as well. He actually played with them until 4 in the morning!

On Thursday, we meet about noon. I had been able to contact D's attorney to discuss the pending (Oct. 3) court appearance, and just before leaving the house, received the documentation needed to confirm the date of the hearing. This documentation was needed for D to request time off for that specific date. Also, I had arranged to meet with Barbara to look at an apartment in College Hill. We also wanted to look at places near his work location. But first things first. It was off to IHOP for lunch! D had arranged for baby sitting, so DD was not along to slow us down.

Our first task after lunch was to get the court paper to D's boss. We had just enough time to get there and to the apartment in College Hill. The apartment was in a great location for living, but not so good for working. We would keep it as an option. Next, it was time for a haircut. D's barber is on Cedar Ave. Then to the vicinity of D's job to look at two additional apartment options.

Both were satisfactory, in fact, quite nice. Prices for a single bedroom are between $640 and $720. The first option had a strict policy. No felonies in the last 7 years. The second option seems a bit more flexible. We are still waiting to hear, but if D has a guarantor, it might be feasible. We could hear about this opportunity on Monday next week. A prayer point, for sure!

The issue with all of these locations will be child care for DD. D has made enough friends at the motel that he has managed to line up others who are out of work and homeless to help with child care. Hopefully, this will be temporary. But, for now, it works. When he moves to another location, it will become quite difficult.

I am understanding the difficulty of decent housing for a person with a felony in his/her background. Seven years is a long time to wait to have your past cleared enough to be able to live where you want to.

Well, back to the house on Thursday... some progress on the papers, but not done.

I will continue this in my next post...

Her Name is T

I have not met T. I am not sure this is how you spell her name. What I can tell you about T is the results of her dysfunctional relationship with D.

From what I am told, it started when D and T were in highschool, about 16 years old. It was a budding sweethart relationship, that became intimate enough to result in her pregency with their first child together when D was 17. This daughter is now 6, and is attending kindnergarten somewhere outside of Cincinnati in the care of an aunt. The events surrounding the birth of this child led to Ds dropping out of school as he was about to enter the 11th grade. T and D never married. They had a second child, DD, who is now 2 1/2. He is a wonderful child, mild mannered, playful and always happy.

I first met DD a week ago Thursday. (September 13). I had been working with D to get him enrolled in the Northside Community School to begin work on his GED. And as he was attending school that day, I had arranged to pick him up to take him back to the motel where he was staying. (This is another story for a later post!)

To my surprise, D had DD with him! D had been wondering about his children in the last two or three weeks, as T had disappeared, and left the children with a sister. Appearently, the sister had arranged for the daughter to stay with the aunt, but was not able to continue to care for the son, DD, so that morning had dropped him off with D as he was heading for school. No clothes, no diapers, no belongings of any sort... just DD and what he had on!

This turn of events has its pluses and minuses. On the plus side, it gives D a reason to strive to solve his problems. On the minus side, it places a serious barrier in the road to his being able to maintain a job. Now comes all the repsonsibilty of finding suitable child care, as well as the hassles of being a single parent. And this happend just as he was getting started in school, and a new job.

The new job was the previous day's good news. D had received a call from Tere at the Express Personnel Services, a temp agency where D had been working off and on since early July. Tere was ready to give D a shot at working at Zennith Logistics. The Express Personnel arrangement with Zennith is that they hire as temp's for 90 days, and if they are successful at meeting the requirements of the job for this period, they can be chosen to become permanent employees. The conditions of emplyeement are stringent. No tardiness, no absense. Must work all Saturdays and Sundays, and must perform to a measured standard for the work. D was to start on the following Monday. While this is an entry level position, it is one could develop into a longer term career, and reasonably good pay. What an opportunity. But now, the complications of being a parent were also pressing.

Oh, and by the way, there is no regular bus service to the location of the employeement. In order to take the job I needed to commit to being his transportation. For D, I was willing to do this.

The challenge would be to do this and still meet my family commitments. Several friends that attend my church were recruited to share in this load when I was going to be unavailable. And, this last weekend we put the scheme to test! It worked, mostly.

The issue was Sunday, when my wife and I were enjoying a brunch with daughter and grandchildren in South Carolina. D called from work. He was sick, and could not finish the day. I needed to find a ride home for him. After several calls... all of my friends were in church, I called M, his mother, to see if she could pick up D and get him home. Fortunately, she agreed.

As we were driving back, and about 20 miles from home, we received another call from D. It was about 9:00 pm. I had earlier said I would bring him some medicine when we got back. D was holding me to that commitment. In this conversation, though, D wanted me to understand that he wasn't at the motel where he was staying. Rather he was at T's apartment. I discovered that his mom had taken DD and him there after she had been caring for DD. T wanted to see him. I was to pick D up for work at T's in the morning, and oh, by the way, could I take care of DD on Monday. Of all the days, I had to say no, as I had to have surgery on my back on Monday, and my wife had to visit her mother 100 miles away. DD would have to stay with T, his legal mother.

We got the medicine to D at T's later on Sunday evening. Still, I did not meet T. She was upstairs cleaning, D said.

On Monday, about 11:00 am, just as I was arriving home from the doctors' office (surgery was successful), D called and asked if I could go pick up T and DD and take her to get her check. Given my need to chill out for a bit after the surgery, I suggested I could get there at 3:00 pm. This would give me a chance to combine some other errands. I had promised M I would help her with a tank of gas, and I needed to do some shopping. This should get me to D's workplace about 5:00 pm, when he was expecting to get off from work.

I arrived at T' apartment at 3:00 pm... right on time. I went to the back door, rang the bell, no answer, then the front door, and again, rang. Then back to the back door. With the wait time, this process took about 10 minutes. I gave up, and headed for the Fresh Market for shopping. Then to M's, and on to pick up D from work. I spent some time in Kroeger getting some things I thought D might need, and then went to the employee parking area and waited. D got off at 6:00 pm! Long day. He was beat!

Next, to the bank to check out his just received debit card. It worked! Then to T' to pick up DD. Surprise, she wasn't there as she had promised. D was able to talk with T by phone, and she would be there soon... we waited. She didn't come. Then, she was on Waycross, a street near by. We went looking for her. Then additional attempts to reach her failed. She had 'evaporated'! We went back to her apartment and waited. And waited. Finally, at 7:30 we said enough. She didn't show, and D didn't get DD as promised.

I still have not met T.

His Name Is D

As I recall, the date was June 29, 2007. I found myself in a Hamilton County courtroom, having agreed to provide transportation and support to a young 23 year old man who was to appear before the judge to explain his actions associated with violating his community control. His name is D.

Going into the courtroom that day had been traumatic for D. He was certain that because of his actions he would be sentenced to go to prison. This story probably has roots early in his childhood. D's mother was just 15 when he was born. She was probably not expecting a child, nor it is unlikely she was equipped to be a mother. At some point, D was placed on foster homes. How many was not clear, but by the time his mother was able to parent him again, she was single, the mother of two additional children, when D was 9 and 11. As psychologists are now telling us, the age of transition from childhood to adolescence for young men is a critical time where positive male role models are essential to the formation of character of the individual. From D's behavior, it is pretty clear that the positive role models were missing from his life. While this part of the story has not yet emerged, this assertion on my part could be presumptive. Well, I digress.

D was living with his girlfriend of nearly 6 years, and had been reluctant to go to the courthouse for the fated appearance before the judge. His girlfriend had refused to drive him to the courthouse. He had no driver's license, and the bus ride to town would take well over an hour for at trip that in a regular automobile would take less than 30 minutes. As he earlier had indicated to his mother, with whom my wife and I are friends, that he wanted to turn the corner to face up to the issues he had created for himself, I had agreed to provide him transportation. As I arrived at his apartment, I was struck with the observation of the neighborhood. The apartment was one of number of project row houses. What was surprising to me was this housing project was near the freeway that circles the Cincinnati area, I-275, and far away from the usual location of the project houses in our city. And their condition seemed marginally inhabitable.

And of course, there are children from this relationship. This is another story that I will get to later.

In the courtroom D and I met the public defender attorney that had been assigned to his case. He called us out into the hall to discuss the approach that they needed to take with the judge. In summary, D needed to plead guilty or no contest to the charge that he violated his community control agreement by leaving the Talbert drug rehab house. D countered with the reason he left was that it wasn't helping him where he needed help, and he was away from his children. As a result he felt that he wasn't doing anything wrong. The attorney, Mr. Noe, indicated that because he had walked away from the house, and did not complete the program, there was no choice but to bring him back to court and the judge's decision regarding his violation of community control. D demonstrated a high level of 'attitude', and I confronted his on this behavior. My advice was to take a strong pill of humility in front of the judge. And knowing that he had turned to address his issues with integrity, I asked the attorney if I could speak on D's behalf when the judge called him forward... We'll see, Mr. Noe responded.

Well, this impromptu request has set in motion a full court press as D's mentor. You see, the judge, in the face of recommendations from the parole officer and the public prosecutor in charge of the case to send D to prison, let me speak on D's behalf. Now, nearly 90 days later, I don't remember exactly what I said, but I know it was sufficiently impactful to cause the judge to give D a continuance of 90 days to get employment and begin to payout his court costs. I, in that moment, committed to support D in achieving this goal.

Thus, this is the beginning of the story that started to be written and that I will attempt to tell that day, June 29, 2007. I have learned a lot, and the learning deserves to be recorded and shared.

And so it began.

It's An Amazing Time In Which We Live

I am watching the Oscars tonight.

It was a perilous thought... a former Vice President pretending to spontaneously announce something big, perhaps just running for President again?

Speaking of Al Gore, he brings to mind the guy who has smartly hooked up with a fad and capitalized on it. I didn't see his movie, but in glancing at the book that accompanied it at the Discovery store the other day, it is pretty clear that it is taking a position that is at the far end of the bell curve. His communications are full of inaccuracies.

Not to say that we shouldn't be concerned. However, as time has moved on, it is apparent that Kyoto isn't working and it isn't because the US didn't participate. It is because its fundamental premise is flawed. We need to have change driven by free market incentives, not legislative regulations.

This morning I attended my old church to be at the annual congregational meeting. It was probably the highest attendance of any annual meeting ever at the church. There has been two dissident factions as a result of staff members resigning when challenged with truth and integrity. The bad guy was the senior pastor, who staying strong in his principles, confronted one about the apparent misrepresentation of her background on her resume...

All was conducted decently and in order, and the motion from the floor to call for a vote about the senior pastors call was ruled out of order. This is the way of the PC(USA) church. The congregation is informed. The session is the body in the church that is responsible for governing and has the authority to set the agenda for annual meetings.... the congregation is to be informed. The church is republican, not a true democracy...

Yet, the people want and need to be heard. This is the expectation of the post modern culture we live in. The church has not kept up. The church will continue to have this in it's history unless it is acknowledged as a pressure from the culture.

Well, This Inconvenient Truth won the Oscar for the best full feature documentary. The risk is that a lot of folks will be energized to 'go do' with out understanding the consequences of their actions. This is the challenge... to know the consequences of our actions.

Well, enough for today....

Beginnings

Goodness!
I don't know for sure why I am doing this.
Perhaps it is based on a need to have a forum to say what is on my mind..... and have the world be appraised of these thoughts.....if the world would notice at all!
Or perhaps it is to have a place to record these thoughts, sometimes conflicting, sometimes profound, at least so I think, so that as my time matures, there will be some record in a place other than the chaos of my files and my desk where I can find things.
Yes, in spite of the complexity of technology, there is order in it.... search engines provide an easy vehicle to relocate the isolated musing....
So, welcome to this person's world.
God bless!
Ron