Tom and Frontier Justice (Copy of original)

12/01/2023 by Pat Shiplett 2 Comments

You be the judge about what the boys did when Tom pushed them beyond the breaking point.

There were seven and a half guys in the group.

One of them had been diagnosed with a hole in his heart. He used it as an excuse never to climb the fence and retrieve the basketball. He counted as only half a guy.

They lived in a neighborhood that straddled several school districts. The boys were too far from their schools to hang out with classmates so they formed a local group strictly out on convenience.

As a matter of survival, they worked tirelessly on the your-dick is-so-small style of humor they’d need in high school. They had heard that a tag-team of bullies would be sizing them up.

It was in the spring when the thin, blond kid named Tom got strange.

Suddenly and for no apparent reason, Tom couldn’t control his mouth. He’d taken to ridiculing one guy’s acne. He made slutty-divorced-mother-with-peroxide-hair jibes that drew blood. His cruelty could have been forgiven if he hadn’t become so annoying.

The guys gave Tom more than his share of second chances.

None of them expected it and they hadn’t planned it, but one afternoon they proceeded to indict him. They invoked a jury and held a trial. After finding him guilty they imposed the maximum sentence — they banished him from the face of the earth.

A movie about a lynching “The Oxbow Incident” often appeared on TV. Civics teachers across the country assigned it for discussion in class. The boys came to question whether their frontier justice had been just, if they should have entertained appeals.

A decade later one of the group ran into Tom at a singles’ bar — both were back in town for Thanksgiving. They shared several rounds of drinks without bringing up the past.

Tom had tried various lines of work in California and as much as he loved the ocean he was thinking about moving home to finish night school.

He was as thin and blond as always and, now in his twenties, he was as pleasant and sincere a man as you could ever hope to meet.

Lost In The Woods (Copy of original)

11/10/2023 by Pat Shiplett Leave a Comment

Wolves happen to be especially dangerous because they dress like grandmothers and say things to throw you off guard.

Hungry grizzlies are just as bad. They see you coming and they start polishing up the silverware.

A few Octobers ago a Cub Scout troop descended on a campground just over the state line. The small wooded acreage brought in a little cash for a farmer who had worked at the GM plant until it closed.

Tents were pitched. A lady named Peggy grilled burgers and dogs. A bonfire was lit. The night had turned cold and various critters rustled around the tents causing some kids to climb into their parents’ sleeping bags — the older scouts wouldn’t have to know.

The air was pure oxygen the next morning and after a warm breakfast a party set out to explore the environs.

The troop leaders wanted to strike camp quickly because of the NFL game that afternoon so when the hikers got back, no one noticed one boy wasn’t with them. His father was policing the campground and didn’t realize his son was missing until everyone had driven off.

He squared his shoulders, squinted into the sun and ventured out alone.

He followed the trail that rolled to the right. Nothing. A child shorter than the undergrowth would be difficult to spot. He came to the loop where the paths intersected. Again, nothing.

He was well-aware that a nine-year-old carried away by the Chippewa would be initiated as a brave and end up on the warpath against the Great Chief in Washington, meaning that he would never be eligible for Federal Student Financial Assistance.

He tried to think what Liam Neeson would do.Tick, tick, tick.

Then on a rise worn bare by the wind, something yellow darted between the trees. The man ran to a clearing where he finally got a visual lock on his boy.

Hiding any trace of panic he approached and asked his son how he was doing.

“Can we get shakes on the way home?” the kid answered. Then he mentioned how much he liked being alone in the woods. He said it was awesome.

The dangers were imagined that Sunday morning, but the man’s fears were real. This was just the latest installment on the price of being a father. The man drove home knowing his account was current, its balance paid in full.

Lonnie Wilson

10/06/2023 by Pat Shiplett Leave a Comment

Who better to coach young men on male responsibility than an imperfect man who raised five daughters?

One of the rewards of sitting outside at our coffee shop is that Lonnie can roll up in his wheelchair and join the conversations.

His life has been more interesting than most.

In no way is Lonnie making excuses for himself when he explains that narcotics became an economic driver in the neighborhood where he grew up; and how they were systemically marketed and distributed.

And he never tried to hide from the young men he was employed to coach on responsibility that he had been “strung out” during a stretch of his life. “They knew,” Lonnie says. And maybe he was better equipped to reach them about the dangers they faced because of his scars and his time on the street.

“Things are difficult for men these days,” he explains. We’re not teaching our sons the things young men need to succeed in a culture wary of them.

The expectations of fathers and breadwinners has changed, he says. Male adolescents don’t have fathers in their homes when they need encouragement most. In many families a man is considered optional.

“I’m a lucky man,” Lonnie Wilson will tell you.

He was raised by an involved father, a stepfather and two grandfathers. Their embrace of “orderliness” as an encompassing virtue stays with him to this day.

Between Tasha, Tiffany, Jasmine, Jordan and Latoya, someone is always coming by to fuss over their father. They dutifully nag about his smoking – “…really, Dad?” – so he’s laid in a ready supply of air fresheners.

Lonnie’s been wheelchair-bound for some years (heart, stroke, brain surgery, etc.) so the doorway to the coffee shop makes it all but impossible to join the winter discussions inside. But he reports making progress with a walker and he’s promised himself to be walking freely next year.

There’s a chair at the big table inside waiting for him.

Trinity Collins

09/23/2023 by Pat Shiplett 2 Comments

People At A Coffee ShopFour years of free tuition to attend an elite, top-ranked institution doesn’t come without a certain price.

At the university where Trinity (they, them) graduated, an incoming freshman is four times more likely to be from the top one percent than from the bottom twenty.

The challenge for students like Trinity is to find community and keep pace with others who can elect not to work and are able to focus solely on their course load, who enjoy coaches and connections and can consider unpaid internships that open doors.

They, Trinity Collins, are more than grateful for the package that included free tuition. But as an undergrad, while maintaining a 3.8 GPA, they worked full time to pay for housing, fees, textbooks and living expenses. All of this while being the primary caregiver for a family member.

In hindsight the migraines, chronic pain and a missed semester were all but inevitable. And in retrospect those remote classes during the pandemic were a godsend for the overextended undergrad. Trinity became close to the members of an online “pod,” coming to share an identical tattoo with one of them.

Trinity notes the disconnect that a university business model which enjoys an endowment of $14 billion, and was so generous to them individually, exploits the labor of students, athletes, TAs and adjuncts alike.

They, Trinity, may continue their pursuit of history through a joint Masters and PhD Program. Understanding the past, they believe, is key to dealing with developments that today’s powers-that-be didn’t see coming, or chose to ignore.

At this particular moment, after graduating, Trinity looks forward to building a bit of savings and to enjoying the freedom and the luxury to simply “do things.”

Looking for a priest (Copy of original)

08/31/2023 by Pat Shiplett Leave a Comment

A North American walked the streets and the plazas here with no companion but the sins on his soul. Barroom legend has it that the simple man was searching for a priest to hear his confession.

But the man had a problem.

His sins were devoid of drama and imagination. He didn’t rob from the rich to give to the poor, or lie to save the lives of children. If he wrote a memoir, trivial sins of omission would fill its pages.

The inconsequential man feared wasting the time of a confessor and being dismissed like a schoolboy with three Our Fathers and Hail Marys. So he goes from parish to parish hoping to find just the right priest.

One day on the Gran Via a man of the cloth, completely deaf in old age, steps out in front of a speeding bus. The man grabs the priest’s arm and saves his life.

They retire to a cafe. Two bottles later the man asks the priest if he would hear his confession.

The deaf curate, who doesn’t understand a word of English and is now three sheets to the wind, is shocked at the pattern of bestiality, murder and larceny he imagines the man has confessed.

He instructs the foreigner to sell his possessions and give everything to the poor, a penance usually reserved for sadistic monsters facing the firing squad – no penance is more difficult to satisfy. But the man complies.

He had once overpaid a credit card by a large margin and enjoyed a balance that allowed him to spend with abandon for a months to come.

The Almighty Creator, he reasoned, must be at least as munificent as Capital One. With the spiritual credit he earned by performing such a disproportionate penance for his childish sins, the foreigner can be spotted wandering the streets of Barcelona, free to sample the Seven Sins at will.

He is said to leave exceptionally generous tips.