Ten Years After

I'd love to change the world - but I don't know what do

So I leave it up to you...

***

It's a rainy but not unpleasant day here in Southwest Michigan. The soggy corn stumps in the muddy fields await the turning of the tiller, as do we all, the face of Springtime America badly in need of a shave.

This is exactly what it was like on the day that a stranger approached me in the cemetery almost 10 years ago. I was only there for a moment, having pulled in on my way home. Just to visit the kid.

The stranger asked, "Are you the Uncle?"

"Yeah."

***

The stranger was actually a neighbor. He lived a couple of blocks away. One of his boys was friends with Charlie. He told me he had read the blog (this one), which had barely a dozen posts on it at that time, having been launched only a few weeks before. 

He told me that he thought the finding of Suicide was wrong, that the County coroner had misclassified my nephew's cause of death. (Everybody who knew Charlie agrees.) Then he told me his horror story.

He had a daughter, he said... Anytime anyone uses the past tense to describe one of their children, you know they have felt pain that they should not have had to feel. He pointed off to a different part of the cemetery, and said she was buried over there. 

He said he believed she was killed, but no one was arrested, no one went to jail. No one did anything about it. She was just a teenager. He said nobody listened, he said nobody cared. I said, I know.

And he gave me some words of encouragement, in a soft and sad way, that I've never forgotten. They weren't really wind in my sails so much as they were oars in the cold water.

Others have since expressed similar sentiments to me: I wish I could do what you are doing. I wish I had a way with words. And I always tell them, I'm not doing this for myself.

10 years have passed since Chapter One - Never Trust a Normal Day was posted. As noted here previously, all of the principals involved lost their careers over this. None of them are doing now what they were doing then. 

That's not perfect...

But it sure is something.

pH 4.18.26

***

He Doesn't Do Town Halls, So...

 The United States is in the midst of another government shutdown, and this one seems more intractable than the ones that came before it. Part of the calamity involves the non-payment of SNAP benefits (aka "Food Stamps").

A couple of quick facts about that: About one in eight Americans relies on those benefits to some extent. And the majority of those folks are in households that also bring in income, just not enough, according to our own legal standards. (Remember those?)

A third fact about that is that my sister was receiving said benefits when she was raising her son, Charlie. She also completed, in that time span, her Bachelor's and Master's degrees.

It was a struggle, a worthwhile one, although the tragedy of Charlie's passing and the incredible carnival of officially malicious stupidity that followed it made it seem less so, for quite a long time. 

It is through representative government that our voices are supposed to be heard. But, living in Michigan's District 3, we were not heard where Charlie's false Death Certificate was concerned. And we are not being heard now. So, if you happen to be my House Rep, Republican Bill Huizenga of Holland, Michigan, this is an open letter to you.

In all fairness, this wasn't even District 3 during that time. Your office, sir, is a New Creation, borne by the cynical forces of Gerrymandering. You barely live within an hour of me, and you have done me no favors since landing your plush job.

The people who have less to eat because of your inaction today, Bill, are children. Children. Not conservative children, not liberal children, not minority children... They're little kids, man. You have represented our District so poorly that our Governor, thank God, has offered to step in with State assistance in lieu of federal cruelty (bearing your signature).

I can somewhat understand government not being interested in helping a deceased child, like Charlie. But in no way can I reconcile the withholding of food from citizens who still like to watch Saturday morning cartoons. And eat cereal.

Since one cannot be Pro-Life and Anti-Food at the same time, won't you please break with your doctrine of obstinate anger and do the right thing? But know this anyhow: No matter what course the GOP takes in the future, your Party has lost my vote, forever, because of this. The Democrats are not perfect; I have proven that on this blog. But at least most of them have a conscience. 

I pray that you somehow find yours, whenever you get back to work, somewhere in all that darkness. A darkness in which only certain types of people tend to exist. 

pH 11.o4.25

***

Through the Grapevine

Few places in the United States have the allure of the northern part of Michigan's lower peninsula in the summerti - stop. Stop that. Stop laughing; I'm being serious right now.

History has been indifferent to the travails of the Grand Traverse region over the years. First there was the fur boom. Then there was the fishing boom. And the logging boom... All of these booms went bust, of course, for one reason or another. Or several. 

In the process, the people of Michigan lost their white pine forests, and their abundant schools of whitefish... But, in this most recent boom, they have come up with white wine. Or is it "white whine"? Let's see.

In a very small place (Village? Hamlet?) called Old Mission Peninsula, Michigan, there exist six thousand souls, and eleven wineries. Also in place is the obligatory miniature system of government, to keep all those wild Northerners in line.

After all, appearances must be kept up, by God. Otherwise, the only source of income - tourism - might be frightened off. To be sure, it is a much more popular destination than it ever was before, and the powers that be are understandably nervous about screwing it up.

(It's not just Old Mission Peninsula. Winery tours have become a literal segment of the Mitten Economy. Charlie's mom, in particular, has sought refuge "Up North" over these past ten years.)

As co-beneficiaries of the Booze Boom, wineries and breweries have combined their endeavors with those of the local farmers. Now, farmers are in this for the money. If they can make more money growing grapes and hops than they can growing corn and soybeans, they're happy to do that. 

And with 11 wineries in one small geographical area... Win-win. (Oui, oui.)

That is, until the tourists showed up. Buses teeming with garishly dressed people who want to eat and drink, use the bathrooms, and spill some money across the counter. They do not come to look at the barns, or marvel at the vineyards, or smell the soil. They come to get drunk, okay?

Some people might get very subdued and quiet and whispery after they've had a few. Most do not. Especially when they are on vacation. They want to kick up their heels. Cavort and frolic. And, without even playing cards, some of them want to dance. 

This offended the farmers, and the locals, many of whom are related to the farmers. Those folks probably don't tour the wineries, or take too much interest in the vintners at all. I mean, you know, a lot of them came from elsewhere, and are just looking to make money off the tourist explosion. Ride the boom, like before, until the last tree has been cut down. 

The local government, drunk on power as much as anything else, listened to their constituents - knowing that it only takes a handful of votes to flush them out of office. They passed all manner of rules, ordinances, set lists, menus... Okay, maybe not the menus, but they're basically not letting tourists enjoy themselves at the wineries. They wanted their gaggle of golden geese to be seen, not heard. Weddings? Parties? DEEJAYS?

So, being what they are, they did what they did. And the vintners did what they were probably taught to do when they were growing up. They got a lawyer. The lawyer sued Old Mission Peninsula, and a federal judge down here in the big city of Kalamazoo ruled in favor of the rich and powerful. (No surprise there!)

The monetary judgment was staggering. $49 million to the plaintiffs. A merciless sentence imposed upon a cleared-out spot in the fields with a tax base of 6,000 people.

The local government, not at all accustomed to losing, threw a hissy fit and said they would have to sell off beaches, parks, even the Town Hall itself (!) in order to satisfy that judgment. The attorney for the wineries said that's all just bluster, meant only to vilify his clients. And he's probably right.

So, from my vantage point, I see no good guys here. I can't stand with the wealthy landowners; that goes against my Irish heritage. There should be no sympathy for the townies, for they are the ones who voted in their own worst interest (a common occurrence in that part of the state). I absolutely can't side with small government - they're horrible. And the wineries, well they made out like bandits, didn't they.

As for the tourists, the raw oxygen that is feeding this conflagration, you can't blame them because they don't care. They just go where everybody else goes.

Plus, they'll be back for the Fall colors, the annual bubble that never bursts. After that, the trees will be bare, and Northern Michigan can go back to being what it was when the first explorers found it:

A frozen wasteland.

And all will be quiet again.

pH 8.18.2o25

***

But Not Forgotten (Or: "Leftovers")

"There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech." - Idi Amin

That line always makes me chuckle, but it was not intended as a joke. Dictator, cannibal, soldier, amateur heavyweight boxer - Ugandan President Idi Amin was many things.

He was not a comedian.

But he did leave his ruthless power behind, living out his days in Saudi Arabia, never feeling any repercussions for his bad acts. And that's probably more typical than the well-publicized demises that were dealt out to others, like Saddam Hussein, or Moamar Gaddafi.

Here in the civilized world, we have only rarely brushed up against such malignancy in government. In most cases, it is the local officials who abuse the citizens, with impunity (if not immunity). That's why this blog exists.

When I shone the light on what my county government did to my sister - falsely besmirching her young son's death as a suicide - they went full Idi Amin on my ass. I was sued by a party who colluded with the dishonest Coroner, who did not like what I was writing about her. One of the attorneys with the county even referred me to the undersheriff for prosecution. All of that amounted to a hill of beans. 

In response, I made my feelings known about the judge in the case, so the world would not mistake him for being something other than a piece of shit. Like all the other public offenders who harmed my family, he's gone now, too.

So where are we now? We're right here. When the then-County Compliance Officer first brought up the idea of taking legal action against me, this blog was only a few posts old. It had about 1,300 page views... Today, it's approaching 100,000. Power comes in many forms.

But not everywhere. I know that.

This little book of Charlie's has gone 'round the world and back, bouncing off of satellites orbiting our beautiful blue jewel of a planet, landing in the palm of your hand. I can't express to you, Dear Reader, what it means to be elevated by you - like being carried by 100,000 helium balloons, ascending. I cannot thank you more than this, cannot thank you enough.

You found Charlie from every corner of our world, including Russia, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh... And of course from the Western countries... That was just in the past month.

In many of those places, obviously, doing what I do could get you into some real trouble - freedom after speech. Imprisonment, torture and worse are not unheard of in cases where concerned citizens (like me) go out of their way to criticize and excoriate their government.

If this terribly sad story of freedom has inspired anyone, the pleasure is mine, on behalf of a boy who only got to see the first 12 years of his life. You will always have our gratitude, eternal, undying.

pH 9.25.24

***

The End of an Error

Long was the road. We lost many along the way. But, at last, for the first time in more than eight years, those of us who are left can wake up each day to the smell of something other than burning dirt.

Here's the news, a few days old, perfect for wrapping up fish:

"Joyce deJong has been recommended to serve as the new dean of the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine. If approved by the MSU Board of Trustees, her appointment will be effective Feb. 5, 2024."

I utterly urge the Board to approve this. Please. Hurry. I mean, what's another monster on the roster, right?

(I actually know a guy who is an MSU alum, and he is disturbed by this. He considers Joyce deJong to be a controversial figure and doesn't think the school needs any more of those right now. But that is neither here nor there.)

Where my nephew Charlie's case (No. W15-470) is concerned, if this news is to be taken as a victory, it would still be a Pyrrhic one. The Cause of Death on his public Death Certificate will never be corrected. It was never going to be, because in matters of County government, truth is the first casualty. With or without the expensive autopsy.

But it appears that Joyce the Mendacious M.E. is indeed on the way out. Going back to her roots in East Lansing, where it all began. Good for her. Good for us. The most important aspect of this career change is that she will no longer have the ability to harm people the way she harmed my family. She'll be out of the business of forensic pathology. Living her best life.

To Charlie, my nephew, I would say: We made it. Kalamazoo County refused to correct its mistake, so I did it for them, right here on the Internet. The last of the weasels is finally packing up and leaving town... Cool, huh?

To Charlie, my Dad, I would say: I told you so! No, seriously, I know it troubled you that I would not let go of it. I know you wanted peace in your time. You only missed it by a few months. I still have to read that other Book of Charlie that you gave me, ha-ha. I suppose now I'll have more quiet time to do so, because this is it - there shall be peace, just like you wanted.

To my sister, Charlie's Mom, I can say: Holy Shit, what a rabbit hole THAT was... Your son is lost treasure. You raised a good kid, who was very much in the process of becoming a great man. We may never know for absolute certain what happened, but we know what didn't.

And to the outward bound Dr. Joyce deJong... 

Take the train. It's faster.

pH 12.o2.23

***

Parks and Uncreation

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

***

If those words seem familiar, they should. That is The Preamble to the United States Constitution. That is the written statement of intent that the Founding Fathers left to us when this whole grand experiment began. It's too bad they were focused on the macro (federal) levels of government and not the micro (County).

Here in Kalamazoo County, they use things like the Preamble to wipe with, and then they flush it down. Our lives, our liberty and our pursuit of happiness have supposedly been preserved. Property? That's another story.

The story in question, at present, started in the American postwar glow of 1948, when a couple of families pooled their resources and acquired a cottage on the South end of scenic Gourdneck Lake, located outside of Portage, Michigan. Just as the world progressed from Black 'n White to Color TV, the once-rural area would soon become suburbanized.

Dusty gravel roads were paved. Homes were built. The sod and stubble of farm fields yielded to grassy lawns. And, in 1963, Prairie View Park was established by Kalamazoo County. The only problem with that: The Johnson and Talanda families were there first.

The County generously agreed to allow them to own their property. But they made them sign an agreement to turn over their cottage and lakefront land to the public once the original property owners in both families had all died off. If any of that seems weird, Dear Reader, that's due to the fact that... it is.

Fast-forward to 2019. The last of the original purchasers had finally faded into the sunset, and Kalamazoo County was done waiting. Through the odious practices of condemnation and eminent domain, they sought to take possession of the property, even though the heirs to the families still wished to keep it. The County's offer of compensation came in at about $350,000.

For a cottage on a lakefront property outside of town. That's what real estate brokers and bank robbers, from coast to coast, would call "a steal".

The families probably felt like they had enough clout and money to fend off these County cut-purses. But when a plaintiff goes before a County judge, and the plaintiff is in fact the County... I can empathize with their plight. And even though it took several years to play out in our little puppet theater we have here, the outcome was as predetermined as a professional wrestling match.

A couple of months ago, the courts gave the families their final answer: "Get Out." Did the taxpayers mind spending almost half a million dollars in order to cut a $350,000 check, after four years of litigation at our expense? Uh... We were never asked.

Gourdneck is a big lake, with many homes on it now. Big party-barge pontoon boats cruise around on it every day in the summer time. It connects to the smaller, less-developed Hogsett Lake, which I access though the State Game Area. It's peaceful back there. The fishing is good.

Prairie View Park itself is also an idyllic setting. I went there when I was a kid. My nephew Charlie went there was he was alive. It is a good thing to have public spaces like that, where nature still exists, where the objective is enjoyment.

It is a bad thing, though, for the government to take property away from the citizens. That's something that all Americans were against, quite vehemently, back in the 1770's. If that's something the government would rather we not know about, then they should stop teaching it in schools... If they already haven't.

It's safe to say that not all Counties are like this one - Kalamazoo does seem rather freakish sometimes - and that not all people here will be treated in such Dillinger-esque fashion. But it's no guarantee. In my family's experience, deaf ears are the norm, and cruel indifference is the Gold Standard of care.

The locals understand (although they can't do anything about it): In short, if you think your family cottage can't be taken away from you by Kalamazoo County's bureaucrats, shredding forever your memories thereof, you are dead wrong. And your innocent child's eternal legacy, at least where public records are concerned... 

Same.

pH 1o.o8.23

***

Long Distance

I dial the number. Busy signal. I dial again. Busy signal. (sigh.) I open a beer: Modelo. Why not?

I dial again. It rings. It rings again. Then...

Arnie's Mortuary. You stab 'em, we slab 'em.

I hang up. Signal sent. I sip on my cold Modelo. It needs the lime. I find one and take care of that. I taste it. It tastes like Modelo. The phone rings.

It rings again.

I pick it up, touch the screen, and say, "Arnie's Gynecology. You pork 'em, we stork 'em."

Click.

I hang up. (Signal received.) I sip on my Modelo and lime. It takes time. The phone rings again. I answer after the first one.

I say, "Arnie's... G'day, Mick."

What's going on, man.

It used to freak me out a little, talking to my dead friend, but we get along now just as well as we did when he was alive - incredibly alive.

I tell him that I reckon he knows what's going on. Let's not waste this precious time we have together playing Gnip Gnop or whatever. He knows what's on my mind, of course, and assures me. My Dad made it to the other side, and is currently perusing the Library of All Libraries.

I pour it out to him, my old friend who has been dead for seven and a half years now. My Dad had the fairy tale life with the storybook ending. (He knows.) My Dad never emitted the slightest of whimpers. (He knows.) My Dad slipped out the door on his own terms, into the good company of those who went before him.

(He knows.)

Don't worry so much, Mick says. You worried all this time for nothing.

It occurs to me that Mick and I don't have much to talk about anymore, and might not, for a while... It depends. I look at the lime resting at the bottom of my empty Modelo bottle.

"You got this?" I ask, semi-necessarily.

Mick says, Run with the ball, Paul, which is something that my friend said to me quite often when he was alive.

Run with the ball.

So, knowing we will talk again later, I hang up the phone...

And I run.

pH 7.27.23

***

A Matter of Years

There are times and seasons for change. Stuck in the middle of Summer, now is not the season. While that hot, sticky fact will remain in evidence for the near future, it is time in Michigan for something to change, and it has.

Our rock star Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, has signed a bill into law that would raise the minimum age to legally marry to 18 years (up from 16). No more matrimony for minors!

This would certainly make sense. I mean, you can't even buy a ticket to a rated 'R' movie without a parent or guardian present before the age of 17. You can't even legally buy the apple of your eye a hard cider unless you're both 21. And nobody should have a spouse who is too young to serve in the military.

Why, some might be dumb enough to ask, was it not this way before now? Whose big idea was it that too-young brides (or, I guess, grooms) could be carried over the threshold before their bodies and brains were fully developed?

The short answer is, the people who were in charge up until now... Meaning, not Democrats. Since taking power of the state legislature last November, the Blue Team has been trying to bring Michigan up to modern speed.

They do this because they understand that children are not just little versions of grownups. They don't have the accumulated knowledge that comes with years of experience in the settings in which they live. And some things don't belong on their plates.

This is a point we tried to hammer home to the Medical Examiner in Charlie's case. The conclusions that were jumped to in Kalamazoo County were such obviously crafted works of fiction that were disavowed rather quickly, but the Cause of Death remains the same, because Joyce deJong does what she wants. And there is no mechanism for oversight that we can reach.

They very much tried to make it out like Charlie (who had turned 12 years old just a few weeks before his passing) was a depressed teenager, but that wasn't the case. Or even close. This is indicated in every single police report, where he was referred to as "the child", again and again. The child.

He was a little kid who still played with Hot Wheels cars, Legos and Army Men. If only there was a Governor Whitmer among our quaint collection of county peons today, this dream of ours might be realized. This nightmare of ours might end.

Until that day, we can only celebrate with our fellow citizens, the fact that there will be no more Sweet Sixteen weddings here in Michigan. Unfortunately, it comes alongside a decision to reduce spending on our Pure Michigan ad campaign, so... We'll work on it.

Call it evolution if you want. But do so with the caveat, and the understanding, that such things can take millions upon millions of years. And that Rome wasn't burned in a day.

pH 7.13.23

***

Lesson Learned

When I was a kid, I got a really neat present from a family friend, a fellow named Vince Antonelli. The Antonellis lived in Pittsburgh, and we would go visit them now and then. The patriarch of the family, meaning Vince, was a great guy. He even let me drive his riding mower around, all over his yard.

He had played football at the University of Pittsburgh in his day, and remained connected to the team somehow, I'm not sure if he was a coach or a manager or what... But I know that he acquired for me a genuine NCAA football. Real leather. Even the laces.

It was the envy of the neighborhood, so nice that I felt compelled to write my name on it with a Magic Marker. But it was no trophy-case pigskin, no, we made sure of that. Before long, the scuffs and grass stains on the ball were more pronounced than my block printing.

One afternoon, somewhere in between Halloween and Thanksgiving, misfortune struck. On a punt, the football became lodged in the naked branches of the big walnut tree at the end of our field (read: Mr. and Mrs. Johnson's yard), waaay up there.

The sun was getting low. My teammates and opponents dissipated. I threw a stick at my beloved football a few times, to no avail, before trudging home. I wasn't a shy kid when it came to complaining, and when my Dad got wind of this, he marched me right out of the house and up the street.

I told him how hopeless and pointless it was, how I had tried to get the ball out of the tree, that it would be there forever, that the wood would grow around it... He would have none of it.

My Dad, Dr. Heller, is a university professor. He taught Geography, not Physics. But he selected a chunk of firewood from the neighbor's wood pile, and calmly began throwing it up into the tree. He wasn't even aiming for the ball, really, just making sure that his chosen projectile went in the right direction each time. Again and again. And again. And again.

I became a little bit concerned that he would get bonked by the piece of wood as it returned to Earth each time, especially as it began to get dark. My father explained to me, with the same purposeful and methodical patience that he applied to his task, that the idea was to just keep trying. Eventually, he advised, we'll succeed.

By that time I was nearly vehement in my disagreeability about the situation. "It's just a friggin' football," I whined in the chilly air. "Let's go already."

And go we did. About three tosses later. When the chucked wood startlingly knocked the football out of the offending limbs that had cradled it for so long. I ran over to recover my prized possession. Dad walked over, picked up the trusty piece of firewood, and put it back where he had gotten it.

Then we went home.

Dad likes to tell that story to this day. He does not refer to it as The Story of the Football, or The Football Incident... He calls it The Lesson of the Football. Because he's a teacher. And he taught me something important that evening, something I've never let go.

I'm lucky. I have had role models in my life like him. And Vince Antonelli. Two guys who were quite different and yet quite the same. They'd consider me to be remiss in my duties if I did not keep throwing this piece of wood at that football.

Real leather. Even the laces.

pH 4.o1.23

***

Editor's Note: My father, Dr. Charles F. Heller, passed away peacefully at his home on July 25th, 2023. Charlie's Granddad was 91 years old.

National Freedom Day

The Sun came out today. In some parts of the country, that's no big deal; expected, even. In southwest Michigan, it's something we haven't seen in a while.

Never mind our warm yellow star itself. After the dreary January we just had, I could go blind just staring at the snow in the bright light, as if it were a stranger. Always remarkable, it's like this every year, every winter.

For a lot of people, seeing the blue sky for the first time since the holidays is enough to warm the heart - for others, only the skin. Their insides never thaw.

It is February 1st. In some years, that's a day marked by tragedy, as in 2003, when the space shuttle Challenger burned up in the atmosphere. Or by events that would turn out to be massive in their eventual scale, like in 1865, when Abraham Lincoln signed the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery.

In other years, history has recorded that, really, nothing happened on 2/1. In 1980, when I was 12 years old, the only thing that happened on this day was the debut of Blondie's "Call Me"... Which, in all fairness, would go on to become Billboard's Song of the Year.

Twelve is an awfully young age to have your existence stopped. To live on only in memories and images and documents. If this had been my last day at that age, Charlie's age when he died, I would have missed out on more things than I can list here. Mount St. Helens had not yet erupted. Jimmy Carter was president. The Pittsburgh Steelers had just won their fourth Super Bowl.

All of these things we dutifully record.

There will come a day, whenever and however it comes about, when our species no longer exists. This would become true for the dinosaurs who came before us. They could not have fathomed it at all. We humans barely can even with all our accumulated knowledge.

Just as mammals took over in prominence after the big lizards were gone, something else will follow us here. But we are unique in our words and our pictures and our stories and our rolls of plans. Squirrels, birds, fish, frogs, insects - they don't do those kinds of things. Not even primates, our closest cousins in the animal world, do.

It's not unfair to ask: If it ends up that nothing knows about us, are we even here at all? And if nobody is here to examine all of this, to sift through the data, to sort through the volumes, to learn about us whether they care or don't... Does it even exist?

In sheer quantum terms, the answer is, no. No, it doesn't. The trophies, the selfies, the videos, the blogs... The servers, the libraries, the archives, the museums... The names on the headstones in the cemeteries... None of it will matter any more than the crumbling concrete and rusting rebar will.

Then why do we try?

Because, at the end of each day, eventful or not, it's all about one thing: How do you feel about yourself? Although not tangible, such feelings are just as temporary (like a pen or a pencil), something none of us will have to worry about for too terribly long.

And the Sun will rise again, regardless of whether or not anyone is here to somehow capture the moment, whatever it may bring.

pH 2.o1.23

***

Down Stairs

Can the Year 2023 get a Disney Genie FastPass to the front of the line already? Or the end of it, whatever? Just skip the holidays - we're all broke anyhow - and move this thing along. Because 2022 is exhausted.

We already know 2024 is going to be a doozy (if we even make it that far as a civilization). So next year may be that last big gulp of fresh air for the nation to collectively hold until the next election.

Exhausted.

Even sports isn't sufficient to rub the sleep out of my eyes. Michigan's football team is on the brink of a championship (just like last year) after beating Ohio State (just like last year) but will likely face undefeated Georgia (just like last year).

Let's face it; reruns suck. They're almost as bad as watching movies wherein you already know the ending, like Titanic, or Passion of the Christ. When an entire year seems like a rerun, you just want to turn it off... When six, seven, eight years in a row seem like reruns, then you realize that your misery is, in fact, syndicated.

And what a syndicate we have here in Kalamazoo. So many things go wrong in this place, yet, no one ever admits having done any.

Sometimes this can have staggering implications, like in the case of my young nephew Charlie, whose Cause of Death was misclassified (deliberately) by Medical Examiner Joyce deJong in 2015.

She's still here. He's still gone. That will be the story next year. And beyond. The emotional damage this has done to my sister is not measurable by a yardstick, or a beaker, or a scale. But it is immense.

Exhausting.

When such things get swept under the rug, the person holding the broom is seldom held to account. In cases like ours, where an appointed bureaucrat is standing in your way, it's not cool. But in other cases, the wealthy benefactors of such bureaucrats are the ones doing wrong, with barely any consequences. This leads to a feeling of impunity among the Top One Percent, which is the kind of thing that gets handed down to their coddled offspring.

It's pretty obvious why. There is almost an American tradition of citizens being trapped in company-owned towns, where everyone is dependent on The Man in the White Hat. This is not fresh ink being spilled here.

It's exhaust.

Even so, for us, the legacy they left to Charlie - and the way it was done - conjures up some of the worst images of human history. Of times when rulers went unchallenged, and they threw casual yet raucous parties, like so many heads from atop the Templo Mayor.

pH 12.o6.22

***

Of Laws, Mice and Men

It has been said, as many times as anything else has ever been said, that ours is a nation of laws and not men (or women). This can lead to spaghetti-thinking, with saucy strands winding around cheesy meatballs from California to the Capitol, such as:

- But weren't all of the laws actually made by men?

- Did those men want to to do things that were clearly wrong (like own slaves) so legalizing wrong things was the easiest route to doing them openly?

- Did those men listen to other men around them, ones who were not elected to make laws, when deciding who could do what with whom and where?

- Were any of those men drunk at the time?

We may not have all the answers today, but we do know that once the ink is dry on the lawbook, that's pretty much it. Unless the Supreme Court were to become hopelessly ideological in nature, and begin issuing baseless edicts rooted in their own moral preferences, laws have sticky tendencies.

Unless, that is, they're brushed aside by those in power who don't feel like being obedient. People like Joyce deJong, who is the de facto Medical Examiner for almost all the counties in western Michigan. Of course there are laws on the books that control the appointed official that holds that title. But only if the local Commissioners will vigorously enforce them. Which they don't.

What is a citizen to do? File a lawsuit? Take one's petition of grievance to the other branch of government, the courts, who are tasked with playing referee to the arguments? Good luck with that - judges are free to be capricious and arbitrary if that's what they want to do.

In bigger cities, the business of civic duty can be vast and overwhelming, so a lot of pettiness gets put aside out of sheer necessity. That's not always the case in smaller places, like Kalamazoo, where all our public servants could easily fit under one preacher's tent.

If our M.E., the vindictive and dishonest deJong, had to be an obedient public servant, my nephew's Death Certificate would reflect the truth. (She guesses he died by suicide; we know better.) This seemingly clerical-in-nature error doesn't make much difference to her, or to the rest of our community, but it is hurtful to my family and it skews vital statistics that the County compiles and provides to the federal government. [Shrug.]

In the mean time, Kalamazoo has evolved, or at least morphed in the seven-plus years that have dripped away since Charlie died. The city has officially changed its wide stance on other subjects... Like urinating and defecating in public.

Yeah. That's now legal in this town - well, "decriminalized". Why? Because hey, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go. As with everything in The Book of Charlie, you can't make this up.

Ergo, if you should find yourself in Kalamazoo, be advised to keep your head down, lest ye step right into a pile of human waste. Which we Hellers have been doing here for quite some time now.

pH 8.16.22

***

Student Body, Right

Can intelligence be measured? Does it have a weight, a volume, a quantity consisting of units? Is it bespoken of materially, manifesting itself in property, propriety or prosperity?

Is it even an objective thing? Is it verifiable through achievement? Through notoriety? Personality? What tells the rest of the world that you're smart?

A baseline of some kind is in order to even have such a high-minded discussion. Although some blue-collar snobs may reject it, most of society would agree, graduating from college is a pretty decent sign of a workable IQ. I can accept that - and I don't have a college degree.

I know a little bit about graduate-level academia, though, because my Dad was a professor at Western Michigan University. I grew up knowing about the inner workings of the place - the politics and the little rubs that maybe caught Dr. Heller in a slightly wrong way.

But that was back in WMU's heyday, when the student body accounted for almost half of the City of Kalamazoo's population. That glory faded a long time ago. The latest numbers - metrics we can all get our hands on and our heads around - bear this out.

Enrollment is down dramatically at Western, again, this time plunging by 8.6 percent. That follows an almost-as-calamitous 2021, when it dropped by 7.1 percent. In simpler terms, for every seven freshmen that arrived on WMU's leafy campus in 2020, six are showing up today.

Some eggheads out there might point to the pandemic as probable cause. But I don't know about that. Kalamazoo County wasn't exactly a Covid-19 hot spot like Kent County or Oakland County, plus, we generally stay away from each other here anyway.

Besides, isn't one person's pandemic another person's opportunity, creating healthcare demand on an unparalleled scale? Western Michigan University is home to Homer Stryker School of Medicine (WMed), after all.

Rather than more medical students being attracted, WMed has actually seen the number of applications it receives go down year after year, just like WMU. And they have yet to crack the Top 100 list for medical schools in nearly a decade of existence. (But they are also the contracted coroner for many counties in Michigan so the uptick in autopsies was, I suppose, greatly appreciated.)

Now let's stop playing dumb and look at some of the real reasons young people rely on when deciding where to take their scholastic talents. Start with tuition. Spending one semester at Western Michigan University will cost a student a little over $6,000... WMed, a lot more than that. Since everybody borrows the money anyway, you can throw a heaping helping of interest on top of that amount.

Indeed, just last year, the university decided it was prudent to hike tuition by 3.1% and room and board by 3%. This took place under the guidance of the university's new president, whoever that is.

Now throw in some sociology. Kalamazoo has horrible weather, high crime, broken infrastructure, boring architecture, frightening pollution and really bad roads. It's also chock full of mean people. And there are no solutions, because our city and county governments are stocked with self-interested C-average types who like to pick and choose which rules to follow, when to follow them.

This place has about as much sense of purpose and charm as a mouse trap. Not attending WMU, then, would be a sign of intelligence. This is a good place - to avoid. Do the smart thing. Pass on it.

And pass it on.

pH 4.o8.22

***

Some Sunny Day

 The Gods of War are walking the Earth.

The bravery of the Ukrainian people, juxtaposed against the cruelty of the Russian would-be Empire, is historic in its scope and depth, resonant with emotion, dynamically awful.

I may have beefs with my local government, we have our differences, but I would never call it tyranny. Not compared to what we see happening in older parts of the civilized world right now.

I'm a Gen-Xer. We were raised on all of the things that existed before everything we have today. We didn't have e-mail; we had paper and pens and envelopes and stamps. Our parents drove us around in station wagons, not "crossovers" or SUVs. We didn't have a remote control... We WERE the remote control.

The telephone was attached to the wall. Reading material was generally printed. We weren't allowed to use calculators in school because that was considered cheating. There was no Google - some families had an encyclopaedia at home, and beyond that, we had to deal with the Dewey Decimal System and the stupid Index Card Catalog at the library. 

We adapted to all these changes, just as our forebears adapted from the slide rule to the computer. But one thing remained the same:

The threat of global thermonuclear war.

Having lost her young son in 2015, my sister has infrequently suggested that Charlie must have died in order to be spared some other horrific event... It's kind of hard to argue with that right now, with Russia's nuclear forces on high alert, their ICBMs aimed principally at us.

My dad, also a Charlie, is a retired geography professor, and he served in the Air Force way back when, as an officer. He has a pretty good understanding of which cities in America will be important targets to the enemy in the event of a nuclear exchange.

Kalamazoo is an unassuming rail and freeway hub connecting millions of people between major cities like Chicago, Detroit and Grand Rapids. Strike One.

We have an airport, a university (with a medical school no less) and two hospitals that serve the whole region. Strike Two.

And we have Pfizer, where the Covid-19 vaccine is produced, along with other drugs that enhance the quality of American life, such as Rogaine and Viagra. Strike Three.

In short: Kalamazoo's not gonna make it. The Russians probably have six, eight nukes with our general ZIP code on them (49oo1), maybe more. If the Gods of War decree it, none of us stand a chance.

Historically speaking, with the sand potentially running out of the hourglass, many bad people have sought to atone for their wrongs. They tried to get it off their consciences before the bitter end.

Not here. It's easier for them (and now, for us all) to stick our heads in the sand... As if that would save any of us from being flash-fried like toner on a piece of paper stuck in a copy machine.

pH 2.28.22

***

On Potholes and Autopsies

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is running for re-election this year in a contest that may as well be called "Snow White vs. The Seven Dwarfs". Her victory is as predictable as the potholes that reveal themselves each year when the winter ice sheet recedes.

While Whitmer's first term was considerably derailed by the Covid-19 pandemic, she ran in 2018 on a rather simple message, meant to appeal to everyone: "Fix the Damn Roads." She might as well run on that platform again, since the roads have most certainly not been fixed, at least not where I live.

While Kalamazoo itself is a joke, as cities go, poor road conditions in general are not. In India, for example, potholes are responsible for the deaths of 10 people per day. Michigan's motorists are more likely to pay with their savings accounts than with their lives, as their car suspension parts snap and buckle under the strain of unnecessary roughness.

So we don't invest in the roads here. Call it the Other Kalamazoo Promise: You will be replacing your tires, rims, shocks, struts, springs, ball joints, tie rod ends, wheel bearings and other parts on your vehicle on a regular basis if you choose to live or work here.

Is it somehow super-expensive to patch potholes? No... About $40 or $50 for the patching material, plus a couple of guys and a truck. Repaving the roads would be a much better solution, of course, and that costs anywhere between $300,000 and $900,000 per mile, depending on width and other physical factors.

So why wouldn't the city and the county want to invest in our infrastructure, even if the State government won't keep its word to do so? I guess we have other things to spend our money on around here. Lord knows we don't raise enough in taxes - if we did, we wouldn't have a bunch of billionaire patrons stocking the larder like we do (something very few, if any, other cities have ever done).

One of the projects that the wealthy have brought to our town is called WMed. If you have read this blog even a few times, you know that WMed has contracts with nearly all the counties in Southwest Michigan and beyond to perform coroner services. They perform about 1,000 autopsies each year here, at a cost of about $3,300 per corpse.

If you cheated and used a calculator, you know that comes up to about $3.3 million per year. That's enough money to patch hundreds of thousands of potholes, or to pave between 3 and 10 miles of road each year. So why are our roads so much worse than our neighboring city of Portage?

Perhaps we have other priorities here. Perhaps the county is too busy fending off lawsuits - from citizens and former employees alike - to budget its resources sensibly.

Or maybe they just don't care.

It's kind of easy for me to believe the latter, seeing the way WMed's Chief Pathologist, Joyce deJong, lied her ass off on my nephew Charlie's death certificate. Even after she changed her story, she still refused to change the document!

If I lie to my boss, I get fired. If you lie to your boss, you get fired. But the Medical Examiner in Kalamazoo gets paid whether she chooses to be honest or not and her salary alone could pave, what, another quarter- to half-mile of road. Depending on width. And other physical factors.

Nothing changes here. No matter what promises are made or who is supposed to keep them, nothing gets put right. Not the coroner, not the roads, not the parasitic clowns who live off our consent to be governed. You can think about this stuff the next time you're waiting for your car to be repaired... I tend to think about it a little more often than that.

pH 2.23.22

***

Kalte Nacht

Nazi madman Josef Mengele enjoyed experimenting on innocent children. Among other horrific things, the bad doctor liked to stick them in freezers. History and God alike have damned him for it.

Mengele got away with his sadistic insanity in real time because, hey, he was a government official when he did it. That's the sort of rotted nonsense most any evildoer will deploy until it crumbles in the face of actual justice.

Fast-forward to Kalamazoo in the year 2022. And swallow hard.

Somewhere out there, on this sub-zero night, is an evicted citizen named Issa Smith and her small children. Maybe indoors, maybe not. This time of year, when it gets this cold in Michigan, an industrial freezer would likely be warmer than any local park bench.

Homelessness, in this environment, is akin to a death sentence. So who bears responsibility? Who would turn a single mom and her vulnerable youngsters out in these circumstances? Not the murderer Mengele; he's dead.

It was, in fact, Kalamazoo County's 9th Circuit Court Judge Alexander C. Lipsey. That's who decided it was in the public interest that children should shiver. Over a landlord-tenant dispute. Like most judges in this morally frostbitten town, he sided with the powerful, against the powerless.

He's a judge. He has the discretion to do just about anything he wants, within or without the law (I've seen him do it firsthand), and this is the decision he made.

Look, I'm not going to further excoriate the guy, since it's obvious to any decent person just how fucked up that is. But I will point out that he has made rulings in the past that also negatively impacted the lives of single mothers and their little ones - rulings that veer into outright cruelty.

An objective glance at his history proves that he's practically made a living doing it, which may cause you to wonder, why? Why would he harbor resentment for the most helpless members of our society?

The bargain-bin judge isn't the only public servant to blame around here, though, as dishonorable as he is. Ms. Smith contacted the members of the City and County Commissions in Kalamazoo - her representatives - asking for help. They opted to ignore her.

It all sounds pretty familiar to us Hellers.

As a woman and her children may be freezing to death out there tonight, the rest of us at least get the faint comfort of knowing that Lipsey's reign of (t)error is coming to an end. He won't be allowed to run for office after his current term expires because of his advanced age. That's the law...

Because here in Michigan, we know, throwbacks aren't necessarily a good thing. We know that as surely as we know that the temperatures will plummet in late January.

pH 1.26.22

***

Season of the Witch

Despite all that happens here on Her scorching surface, Mother Earth just keeps rolling along, unimpeded by our mental ideas about time and space, unbothered by the billionaire gnats flitting about her watery, verdant, rocky celestial body. Whatever "it" may be, "it" matters not to Terra Mater.

For the inhabitants of our solar system's shining blue jewel, frantically flipping the pages on our calendars, it means that we have again reached the end of October. Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, the crops have been picked, the leaves are turning colors, the frost is on the grass. Finally...

Halloween.

It is the anti-Holiday, the subject of horror movies, a moonlit celebration of pagan trickery and artful deceit. Disguises. A night of calculated movement in the darkness. Some people would prefer that to be every night, with or without the candy.

Of course, it has been duded up for daylight nowadays. "Trunk or Treat" has largely supplanted the traditional way of doing things, conducted under the hovering gaze of parenthood in school and/or church parking lots - what good is that?

The shepherds of utopia have wrung the fun out of Halloween, compared to the way it used to be, there is no doubt about that. And progress only goes in one direction, so we're not about to go trudging back to the wicked old days.

Amidst the tragedy of the loss of my nephew Charlie, there is still a black light shining on some of the things we shared during his short lifetime. Halloween was one of Charlie's favorite holidays (right up there with his birthday and Christmas). I've written about it here before.

He was not a Treat-Trunker or whatever the hell you'd call that. He was old school, donning a damn good costume each year, coming home with enough sugar to feed the Army. The kid loved it. And I at least get to live with the knowledge that he got to experience Halloween in much the same way that I did.

Part of the thrill involved in such stealthy - almost professional - skulking was the fact that there really was danger out there. Some children, being bigger and lazier and less creative than their peers, opted for criminality instead of ingenuity. Going door-to-door in a methodical accumulation of goodies was simply not for them.

They'd let the others, their victims, do that hard work for them. At the right moment, they'd jump someone, ripping the heavy pillowcase from their frantic little hands, then go thudding off into the gloom.

Bullies. The very reason that clowns are scary.

Dedicated Trick-or-Treaters were mindful of that, and would either wear running shoes, or travel in packs. Or both. Bullies can travel in packs, too, after all.

One of the problems facing society today, another thing that our planet does not much notice, is that bullies run rampant among us, even as belabored adults. In response, the same people who come up with things like Trunk-or-Treat have tried to eliminate bullying from schools by decree. They tried to teach it out of humanity. But that won't work and should not be attempted.

Our parents taught us how to handle bullies. Ignore them at first, but if they escalate the confrontation, you had to know how to fight. And fight we did. Because bullies don't want to fight; they want to bully. And when you fight them, they generally go find somebody else to pick on.

We were not shielded from this harsh reality of the world because our elders knew that bullying does not end when childhood does, as if slated to do so on the calendar. They are all around us, among our bosses and co-workers and neighbors and fellow congregants.

They're on the Internet. They're in our government. They're on the other side of oceans that, like the trees on the street I grew up on, don't seem so big as they used to.

They are the real-life monsters and demons that we live with for all 365 days of the year. I believe in ghosts.

And I've known a few witches... Haven't I, Joyce?

pH 1o.28.21

***

Class of Twenty-One

I'd rather not try to impress you with my linguistic skills this time, if that's cool. I'd rather not worry about Oxford commas or dangling participles just now. It's best if I just deliver the information without the butter, the syrup... Mostly syrup.

This is the year that my nephew Charlie would have graduated from high school. He would have attended the same fine learning institution that all of us Heller kids attended: Kalamazoo's Loy Norrix High School.

Even though Charlie did not get to experience Norrix in the academic sense, he was familiar enough with the place. We took him to a basketball game or two there, where I fulfilled any Uncle's solemn duty where his school-age nephew is concerned. I taught him how to properly heckle.

The kid missed out on so much. That happens around here. You can take my word for it as a Loy Norrix Knight.

But before I was a Knight, I was a Lancer, at Milwood Junior High. A boy we all knew back then, Billy Fleming, drowned in his own swimming pool in the summer between 7th and 8th grades (we heard). He was a mischievous kid, bright and funny, blonde hair, very much like Charlie was.

It's quite a shock, having mortality thrown in your face at such a young age. 8th grade is kind of weird, anyway, and when you're that age, you don't yet know how to process things or even how the hell they get processed. And it seems like we kind of collectively forgot about Billy after moving on to high school... Big changes, you know?

But on the day of Loy Norrix High School's Graduating Class of 1986, we all got a colorful and jolting reminder. There was a huge balloon bouquet in one of the front row seats at the ceremony. For William Fleming.

Class of Eighty-Six.

I told my sister about this a while ago - she remembers; she was friends with Billy's older sister - and she arranged for Loy Norrix High School to have a seat available for Charlie, with a similar gesture, when his class takes that sweet stroll across the stage.

Congratulations, kids...

Go KNIGHTS.

pH 6.o9.21

***

Behind the Mask

The CDC has issued its decree that America can finally take off its collective mask. So we can all see each other's faces. Notice we are not smiling.

What is there to be happy about? We are all standing at the bottom of a hole looking up. The future holds for us not some utopian better thing, but rather, the same thing we had before.

Not good enough.

They want us to return to work, but at the same wages. They want us to go back to the stores, but with higher prices. They want us to all get along, but they won't end the constant gridlock.

Who are "They"? The government, of course, and its obligatory corporate paymasters. This is not a rant about Big Government, however; at least Big Government thought to throw some money at us. No, upon further review, the problem is (and always has been) small government.

Unless you really stick your head out and bother them, the federal government doesn't have time to take stuff personally. Large cities excluded, your local government likely doesn't have anything else to do, and that can be detrimental to every citizen.

Sometimes the results can be as devastating as the horrific fate that befell George Floyd and others. That's classic small government abuse (or, y'know, murder). Yet the use of soft power against the people can be almost as harmful.

That's the deal here in Kalamazoo. We've got an uppity Medical Examiner (Joyce deJong) who made a sickening mistake in classifying my nephew Charlie's death as a suicide. This was devastating to my sister, and to my whole family, and it doesn't seem unreasonable to ask for that official public record to be changed.

But change it they won't. They defended their decision - which they admit was erroneous - all the way to the State Supreme Court. And as residential taxpayers in this County, we even provided the funding for them to do it.

That's unacceptable. What is also unacceptable is the fact that the same Medical Examiner surreptitiously shared information with the wannabe-plaintiffs who sued me, attempting to take this blog down, because she didn't like it. That idiotic endeavor failed, and amidst that failure, mistakes were made. Perjury was committed.

Then they did what? What? They took out their big brooms, and swept it all under the rug. No dirt here in Kalamazoo! See? Nothing that's bad for you. No reason to wear a mask.

Since the people who run my County are so fond of those brooms, I have a suggestion, another way they might consider using them:

Climb on. And fly away.

pH 5.15.21

***

Odds and Ends (Justify the Means)

As life goes on without my nephew Charlie, I often find myself at some juncture or other thinking, "The kid would have loved this." Other times, obviously, I find myself taking the opposite point of view.

The coronavirus pandemic has staying power here in Michigan, even if the governor does not. She has been reduced (by our legi$lature and our ©ourts) to public pleading: Stay at home, wear your masks, wash your hands.

I don't know how many of us are buying in anymore in certain parts of the state. Our urban centers are hit the hardest. I would not call Kalamazoo a real city - no chance of that ever happening - but it could provide a haven for those who want to get away from the spread.

Nationally, 10 percent of the population has tested positive for Covid-19. While Grand Rapids is in the Top Ten cities where cases are concerned, our polluted little river valley is not. Here, only 1 in 16 County residents have experienced the virus.

Why, you're just as likely to be the victim of a crime in our city limits, no greater statistical likelihood than that. And most of those are just property crimes.

The violent crime rate here is about three times higher than the state average, sure, but it's still lower than it is in, like, Detroit. (Assaults, mostly; barely over a hundred rapes each year and only a double-handful of murders.) And, least heralded of all, we've made a lot of progress on our feral cat problem.

Only 580 residents in Kalamazoo County have been hospitalized by the virus, about 1 in 500... 287 deaths, which is less than 1 in 1,000. That's the same fatality rate associated with motorbike racing, and who does that? Maybe that's why fewer than 1 in 4 of us have been vaccinated here...

Anyway, even though Charlie can't be here to see all of this, you can be! Save yourself from the pandemic. Leave your disease-stricken metropolises and come to Kalamazoo.

Just don't look at the Townies the wrong way.

pH 4.11.21

***