Once again I woke up too early this morning this time a little stiff and achy from a lumpy pillow. As I lay hoping to fall back to sleep the first sentence of a fund raising letter for Art Johnston’s legal defense fund popped into my head. I was soon up typing a five-page request with lots of details that I have yet to spill across my blog. That’s because once raised there will be no turning back. We are close to that now as the folks intent on playing tyrant continue to push Art and me toward an incivil war. Its not one I expect to lose but I can’t say the same for our schools.
I have yet to sit down to work on a good editing of those five pages. That will require a lot more than simply proof reading to correct mistakes. Its why I didn’t go back and edit this recent post. Its just too taxing when my head is moving on to other things.
I got a funny reminder of just how long winded I can be this morning. After three hours of typing I looked up at the time and remembered I was supposed to be the moderator for our men’s church group this morning. Fortunately, I had time to shower and shave first and look for today’s newspaper. It hadn’t been delivered yet but after cleaning myself up I checked my email and found my old buddy had forwarded George Hovland’s letter-to-the-editor to me. He commented that George writes well. No kidding! George must have a good editor himself.
Our guest at the Men’s Club was recently retired Public Defender Fred Friedman. He’s been in the defender’s office for over forty years and had been in charge of it since 1986. I knew he was a good speaker because in my earlier stint on the School Board I heard him give a Law Day speech at Denfeld. I’m sure I’ve written about it before but a quick search didn’t turn up my recollection.
Fred was already at the church when I arrived and although we’d been in the same city for four decades it was my first hand shake with Fred. Fred recognized me and smiled and told me that he and his offices secretaries had a private joke about my having left a 22 minute long phone message at his office. He told me it was the record phone message of his 40 years on the job. We both found that very funny. I obviously have as hard a time editing my mouth as I do my fingers. I have no idea what I called the public defender about. Possibly, it was about the Red Plan but that seems an unlikely place for me to have been making inquiries about Johnson Controls or the school district.
Once I smooth out a rough draft of my fund raising letter I plan on handing it to the Superintendent to ask for an armistice. I’d rather not make my complaints public. But at this point I’ll only accept a truce if I can be assured that in addition to calling off the inquisition and restoring Art’s significant other to her duties the two of us, Art and I, will be allowed to ask reasonable questions concerning the Red Plan and its financing without being stonewalled.
