| "Personal
journalism" by Tom Kelly It would be nice if something made sense for a
change. "Personal journalism" is hard to define, but perhaps we know it when we see it. It is difficult to maintain a Journalism 101 facade of cold objectivity when writing about the problems of people who are friends and neighbors. So, grant me this bit of Personal Journalism to supplement the piece in this edition (Louisiana Hill Country; Page 20) about crime and punishment in the Village of Dodson where I live, with overtones in the City of Winnfield, Parish of Winn, where I work. It's personal, because I have known most of the principals in this drama for many years. I have sipped coffee and swapped yarns with Andy Anderson at his Corner Quick Stop at U.S. Highway 167 and LA 126 in Dodson over the past 15 years when my office was located in the old Dodson Town Hall catty-cornered across the road from his store--often just the two of us, both early risers, old men sitting alone at his store counter waiting for sunrise, telling each other things that no one else, hardly even our wives, really knows about us. Margaret--Mrs. Anderson--and I both attended church together at Dodson until I changed my affiliation, as unconventional Baptists are often known to do over doctrinal differences. Not personal, just "business," as the saying goes. She seldom spoke up, sitting quietly toward the back half of the auditorium at the Dodson Baptist Church, making it difficult to picture her in the middle of the night firing a pistol and, well, cussing at a fleeing burglar. "Lost my temper, and all my religion," is how she put it. I've known the Dodson Police Chief, Ryan Baker, since he ran maintenance patrol for Mayor Loyd Vines, doing patchwork and other chores including occasional grass cutting around the old Town Hall that we rented as office space for The Piney Woods Journal for the better part of twelve or thirteen years. Ryan is young, personable, small but wiry, and determined to do well, as he continues his legal training at the State Police Academy in Alexandria for another six or eight weeks. The age, more or less, of my younger grandchildren, he has been accommodating more than once to me personally, even helping me dig a grave in my back-yard garden plot (which still remains unplanted) to put down our old sick dog, Nena, when her time came. He was a candidate for Police Chief at the time, but I think he would have helped me anyway. Another player in the drama is District Judge Jacque Derr, whom I have known almost since he was in rompers, if one could picture such a thing at this stage in his life without compromising his judicial dignity. His father, Chester Derr, and I worked in tandem, I as news writer, he in advertising sales, and we both in printing as time and need required, at the weekly Winn Parish Enterprise when it was a lead type shop with an old chug-chug-chug eight page Goss flatbed newspaper press, Chandler and Price hand-feed, and Heidelberg and Kluge job presses, in the old Woodmen of the World building on Court Street across from the beautiful Court House which only exists now in the Akashic records, and represented in a lovely 20x24 inch color photograph hanging in a conference room at the Sabine State Bank on Highway 167 in Winnfield. Walking the halls of that old building were the likes of Sheriff Calvin Robinson, Judge Harwell Allen, Mr. P.K. Abel, Coonhide Ferguson, Kenneth Watts, Sr., Sam Wells, Robert Lee Dunn. And, of all the other coincidences, the present acting Sheriff of Winn Parish is Brenda Usrey, who used to call me "Uncle Tom," when up to nearly thirty years ago I was married to her father, Jack Smith's sister, Nellene who is now Mrs. Nellene Fisher of Monroe and still a reliably Southern Baptist. The world is truly small, especially in North Louisiana. Back to Andy. He related how his truck was burglarized at his home in the spring of this year. Nothing was found. Then it happened again. Still nothing, as the local police and investigators from the Winn Sheriff's office did their work. Then there was the burglary of the house, resulting in a purse snatching. No clues. Nothing actionable. And then another truck burglary, and the final house break-in just last month. All told, cash and damages, eight or nine thousand dollars lost, according to Andy, who has been trying to sell his store off and on for a couple of years and who says he just might have to shut it down soon, because of failing eyesight, health, and the losses to unsolved crimes. It was this final home entry that brought Mrs. Margaret Anderson out of her bed, with her 22 caliber pistol, into the yard, yelling and taking a couple of wild shots into the dark. And finally, still carrying the gun, she ran to a neighbor's residence nearby, in high rage, wanting answers--to which the combined law enforcement departments of Dodson Police and Winn Sheriff continue to report none available. One might reasonably surmise that the area law enforcement community is working under stress, with the present elected Sheriff Bodie Little currently in prison in Shreveport awaiting trial on charges of abetting drug sales and other violations, and the Winnfield Police Chief Johnny Ray Carpenter, serving a six-month sentence in Federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia for conviction of interfering with a federal drug investigation in his jurisdiction. Chief Carpenter was able to run and serve as police chief after being pardoned by then Governor Edwin Edwards after being convicted of first offense distribution of marijuana. One could suggest that the recent wave of property crimes in the several jurisdictions is both a cause and an effect of the stress in the law enforcement agencies. In any event, law enforcement has failed, first, to prevent multiple burglaries of the Anderson property in Dodson, and second, to apprehend any perpetrator to date, after up to six months of investigations. Justifiable Outrage is not a legal defense, very likely. And the lieu, as Inspector Clouseau might say in the police comedy "The Pink Panther" of a few years back, is iron-clad. Justice, represented by the blindfolded lady with the balanced scales in hand in front of major court palaces in America, is said to be blind. Well, just maybe the old girl ought to take off the blindfold and look around. When the victim is the criminal, something seems cockeyed. Free Margaret. Catch the crook! |