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July 2006
Unwritten rule sends ex-cop on search for missing biker
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He didn’t know her.
All Richard Lauter knew was that a woman who enjoyed riding her bike on the Silver Comet Trail like he did was missing.
So on Wednesday, the Norcross cyclist woke up at 4 a.m., an hour earlier than usual. He loaded up his 18-pound bike — a $2,400 Cannondale — and drove to Mableton. The south Cobb County town is his entry point onto the popular exercise trail.
Lauter bikes it three times a week. On a good day, he rides 30 to 50 miles. On great days, it’s 60 to 80.
“I ride for health and enjoyment,” said Lauter, who with his wife, Maryann, runs Love Story Photography, a wedding photography business. “And I enjoy it immensely.”
His custom-fitted bike allows him to do it in comfort. It’s handmade. American-made, too. Lauter takes pride in that. You can’t compare his bike to the store-bought variety.
In his words, that’s like lining a tricycle up next to a Ferrari.
“There’s so much difference,” said Lauter, 59. “You get what you pay for. If your readers know bikes, they’ll know this is a good one.”
Joining last weeks’ search for Jennifer Ewing put Lauter on familiar ground. It got him to thinking like a cop, a job he once held in Miami, his native city.
He concocted a theory that carried a better ending as to what happened to the 54-year-old mother than the eventual, bitter truth. Terrain along parts of the 70-mile Comet Trail turns remote and wild. Thick tree and bush cover take over. Cliffs and ravines have drops of 50 to 100 feet.
“My theory was that she had a medical issue, became disoriented and ran off one of those cliffs,” he said. “I thought she was in a ravine somewhere, but obviously that turned out not to be the case.”
On Wednesday, hope turned to despair. Ewing’s body was found about 40 feet off the trail, near mile marker 17, between Hiram and Dallas. Investigators have charged Michael William Ledford, a convicted rapist, with murder in the death of the Sandy Springs resident.
Lauter cannot imagine the pain of the Ewing family. Fortunately for him, life is good.
In 1969, he met his future wife. They got engaged at his high school prom and married four years later. They’ve been together 37 years, have three children and two grandchildren.
“God blessed me with an angel and the wisdom to know it,” he said. “I am a happy, blessed man. I’m fortunate.”
That’s why Lauter helped look for the trail victim.
His wife doesn’t cycle. She gardens.
But if she were missing on that trail, or anywhere else, he’d want folks to search for her, to do what he did.
As a fellow cyclist, he felt a kinship to a complete stranger. He knew the Comet Trail well. He rode the same route as Ewing. They favored the same bike brand, too.
How could he sit back, not assist?
“I don’t feel like I did anything special,” he said. “Out on the Silver Comet Trail, there’s an unwritten rule: Everybody looks out for everybody else. Cyclists will stop to see if they can be of help. As a father, husband and former police officer, I can’t imagine the pain this family is feeling right now.
“It’s beyond comprehension.”
Sure is.
• Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. He can be reached at 770-263-3875. Or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
Let’s get the trash out of our county
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Let’s talk some trash.
Trash as in litter, garbage, waste.
You got eyes. You see it.
Campaign signs. Debris that’s fallen off transfer trucks. Bags of garbage that’s dumped on dead-end streets. Fast-food bags and wrappers that are tossed out car windows.
We got plenty of it.
But it may not be as egregious as you think.
Gwinnett Clean & Beautiful just conducted a litter survey. The Keep America Beautiful organization has designed a scientific way to assess and rate the amount of litter in a community. It’s called a “litter index,” and it goes from 1 to 4.
An index of 1 means there’s no litter; 2 acknowledges the presence of some litter; 3 means a community is slightly littered; and 4 means it’s awash in trash.
On July 10, four trained scorers from Gwinnett Clean & Beautiful took to the highways, parks, parking lots, the backside of strip malls and sundry other places. They took copious notes.
Guess what?
When it comes to trash statistics, the county isn’t in that bad of shape.
It has an overall litter index of 1.6.
The most litter-strewn roads are Ronald Reagan Parkway, Arc Way, Peachtree Industrial Boulevard and Williams and Rockbridge roads. What a surprise. No Buford Highway, Lawrenceville Highway or even Jimmy Carter Boulevard, which seems to always have an animal carcass or something on it.
Connie Wiggins, the Clean & Beautiful director, thought the county fared well overall. She’s not satisfied, though.
She estimates that curbing litter taxes local coffers to the tune of $250,000. That’s too much money to throw in the trash. It could be put to better use.
“We’d like to get the litter index down to a 1,” she said.
And it can be done.
But don’t expect government or some nonprofit to carry the load. Or pick up the trash. That’s where you can help. Step up. Pick up. Dial up, too.
“We need more people to report it, to let us know where they are seeing garbage, and if they see people doing it,” Wiggins told me. “When they see people doing it, they need to take down the tag number and deal with it through the police department.”
There’s something else you can do, too. It’s real simple.
Don’t litter. Don’t flick that cigarette butt into the grass. Whatever you tend to toss to the ground, find a waste basket instead.
And if you truly want to get involved, join Paul Allen and his compatriots in communities across the county. Pick up garbage. Paint over graffiti. And when an election’s been held, remove those candidate signs that campaigns leave posted.
It’s what Allen’s been doing since last week’s state primary. Within a 4-mile radius of his Norcross-area home, he estimates he and others have removed about 300 signs. When it comes to curbing litter, graffiti and such, Allen believes the people have the power.
“We rely way too much upon government to do things for us, but it simply does not have enough resources,” he told me via e-mail. “I would estimate that, in my area, at least 90 percent of the trash-type problems are resolved by us, with no assistance required.”
A piece of litter is a piece of litter. We should want all of it gone.
To report litter trouble spots, contact Gwinnett Clean & Beautiful at 770-822-5187.
Ex-Marine has a good idea: Give away the franchise
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The idea clicked while he was watching CNN. It was a story about war in the Middle East.
Joe Lindenmayer knows what it’s like to be in the U.S. military. He was a corporal in the Marines from 1989 to 1996. He saw duty in Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf War.
“My oldest brother and I were both over there,” said Lindenmayer, president and co-owner of TSS Photography, a youth sports photography firm based in Duluth.
So Lindenmayer has lived the soldier’s life. They leave jobs, careers, and loved ones behind. Then, when they step back into the civilian world, they need jobs. What they trained for and did in the military may not transfer into the marketplace. Skills may not match opportunities. Some may need a hand re-establishing themselves.
Lindenmayer came up with a way to give at least one retired or honorably discharged soldier a leg up. He wanted his firm, a 225-outlet chain, to sponsor a franchise giveaway. Only this contest would be confined to military veterans.
He pitched the idea to other TSS execs.
They embraced it. The rest, as they say, is history.
Early this month, Andrew Stockglausner, a Southern Californian and ex-Marine, claimed the prize: A franchise package valued at $30,000. It includes equipment, training and promotional support.
And it’s gratis.
To understand the roots of Lindenmayer’s philanthropy, you have to know a little about the family and something about his company pillars.
He grew up on a farm in upstate New York, one of seven kids. Military ties run deep.
Dad served in the Army during the Korean War. Joe and an older brother are ex-Marines. Two other brothers were in the Army and another sibling is in the Navy.
TSS Photography, also known as The Sports Section, embraces community. The company mission statement stresses the importance of making communities better. And it recently donated nearly $70,000 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Military veterans who entered the franchise giveaway contest had to talk about community in their essays. They had to explain their dedication, involvement and outline charitable causes.
“There’s about 20 million veterans in the U.S. right now,” Lindenmayer told me. “That’s a huge population. A lot of them come out of the military with the leadership, courage and discipline to mold into a career. They aren’t looking for something free. They just want a start.
“And these men and women have earned it.”
TSS doesn’t plan to host a franchise giveaway every year. Lindenmayer doesn’t want the contest to become trite or for it to be marginalized into a publicity stunt.
“I would love to do it in another five to 10 years,” he said.
But this ex-Marine would love for a dozen or so of the corporations located in Gwinnett to assist a vet. One example: Give a newly hired veteran vacation based on his years of military service.
You don’t have to give away a franchise to recognize their sacrifices for us.
Something’s vaguely familiar about this shade-tree banter
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I had a chat with Dad the other day.
It wasn’t really the late Frank Badie, though.
But the man sounded like him, talked like him and enjoyed the kinds of things he enjoyed. It was Winfred Dutton, 75, a lifelong Gwinnettian. He’s lived with the same woman in the same house in Lilburn for more than 50 years.
He’s got a serious green thumb. He has two nice-sized vegetable gardens where he grows tomatoes, okra, peas, butter beans and peppers. Patty, his wife of 56 years, cans or freezes some of the produce.
You may have eaten some his tomatoes. When they’re in season, he posts a “for sale” sign near Five Forks Trickum Road.
Last week I stopped, intrigued by the old-timer. He sat under a big, shady oak. He wore khakis, suspenders, brogue boots and a hat to shield the sun.
Just like Dad.
Despite the weather, his gardens aren’t a complete loss. He may have tomatoes through mid-August.
“The drought got it this time,” he said, taking a seat after watering some of the healthier tomato stalks.
“It got hot quick.”
That sounded like something my dad would say. He knew a thing or two about vegetable gardens, too. He tended to two plots until his death in February 2004. Some neighbors called him the “Turnip Man.” He either gave veggies away or sold them at a pittance.
Just like Dutton.
Dad tried to pass on his gardening skills. It didn’t stick. I balked. This was country living, and it didn’t fit into big-city dreams.
How ignorant.
Dutton laughed when he heard the story.
“When I was 18 or 19, my daddy didn’t know anything, either,” he told me. “But the older I got, the smarter he became. I was born in 1930. If you didn’t grow it, you didn’t eat it.”
He grew up in the area where Brookwood High sits. He left Gwinnett one time, and that was when he was drafted into the Army. It was during the tail end of the Korean War. He was stationed in Europe and spent two years in the military.
Upon his return home, he took a job with Atlanta’s Parks and Recreation Department. Then he did what men of his era always do. He stuck with it. Thirty-three years. He retired in 1984 with the title of maintenance supervisor.
The Duttons have lived on their two-acre spread for 51 years. Five Forks Trickum Road was a dirt road when they built their house there in 1954. They raised three daughters and watched a community sprout around them.
A nearby subdivision advertises houses that start at $400,000. The Duttons sit on prime real estate. Developers covet it. They send letters and occasionally pull in to buy a batch of home-grown tomatoes. The truth eventually seeps out.
“Before it’s over, they’ll talk about wanting to buy,” Dutton told me. “It would take a million dollars for me to set up somewhere else. You need money to relocate. You put 50 years in a place — that’s a long time.”
That sounds familiar, just like something my father would say.
Liberty Heights inventor’s vision on blinds paying off
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He always knew he’d invented something special. Something consumer-minded, marketable, different.
Now, Richard D. Hall has validation.
He was one of the first people I profiled when I started writing a column nearly two years ago. Back then, the all-around handyman and painter was perfecting Blind-Shine, his window-blind cleaning system. It lets you clean blinds in a snap, thanks to the Hall-designed “slip-on, slip-off” brackets. They take the hassle out of detaching and reattaching the cumbersome window dressing.
“I got them on my blinds,” said Hall, 45. “They come in the standard sizes and will last a lifetime. You can’t wear them out.”
The Blind-Shine kit ($19.99) includes a set of brackets, hardware (four screws), a 6-ounce bottle of concentrate and a brush with special bristles to fit between the louvers. A local store or two stocked the product, but it never took fire.
In the interim, Hall joined the Inventors Association of Georgia, hired a patent attorney and unsuccessfully sought ways to manufacture and market his $15,000 investment. He hit dead ends, but he didn’t relent.
One November night while watching TV, Hall saw an advertisement for the 2006 “Modern Marvels” Invent Now Challenge. That’s a national competition to find the next great inventor among everyday folk. It’s named in part for “Modern Marvels,” the History Channel series on inventions and ingenuity.
Hall entered his patented Blind-Shine brackets. He wasn’t the grand prize winner. He wasn’t one of the top four finalists announced in May. He didn’t make the list of 25 semifinalists, either.
Still, he has nothing to hang his head about.
Out of more than 4,000 submissions, Blind-Shine garnered honorable mention. It was one of 100 inventions tapped for the honor. Hall recently received a certificate of recognition from the event organizers.
Not a bad breakthrough for a creation born in a workshop behind Hall’s home in Liberty Heights.
“It was great,” he told me Wednesday. “What’s even greater is that the judges for the contest were actual inventors. I was elated.”
He should be.
“We had more than 4,000 submissions. Just imagine having to take a look at all those and narrow them down,” said Rini Paiva, spokeswoman for the National Inventors Hall of Fame, an event co-sponsor. “To be one of the 100 honorable mentions is an honor, even if you’re not a grand prize winner or semifinalist.”
Since his recognition, courters have come calling. One company wanted to market Blind-Shine at an expo in Las Vegas. Hall was leery.
“They wanted too much of the pie,” he said.
Hall wants to capitalize on his accolade but plans to be smart about it; not get taken. He’s heard horror stories about overzealous inventors. They lose their shirts.
“Eighty percent of them get taken,” he said. “My wife and I have agreed that we won’t put our house in jeopardy or anything like that. We want this to stand on its own merit.”
For more information about Blind-Shine, visit www.blind-shine.net.
Help children; it’s what Erica would have wanted
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
She knew that her great aunt had donated her hair to help others.
And Erica Paige Whitney also knew there were kids who’d gone bald due to health-related reasons.
She wanted to help, so she and her mom, Wendy Stoner, did some research. They hooked up with Locks of Love, a Florida-based nonprofit that provides free hairpieces for kids 18 and younger.
Erica, who was 7 or 8 at the time, decided to donate. She bundled her hair in a ponytail.
Snip. Snip.
They put her hair in a plastic bag, packaged it and mailed it to Locks of Love in Lake Worth, Fla. Somewhere in some community, a child’s self-esteem was boosted because of a prosthetic hairpiece.
What’s sweet about it is Erica’s selflessness played a role.
“She was so proud,” Stoner told me Friday, the day of the 10-year-old’s funeral.
On July 9, the rising fifth-grader at Mountain Park Elementary was killed in a car wreck just south of Augusta. She and her family were returning home to Lilburn from Myrtle Beach, S.C.
My Sunday column about Erica resonated with readers. They embraced her brief but active life in her send-off at Grace Fellowship Church in Snellville. Many pledged to pray for the family, which includes Erica’s sisters, Emma, 2, and Gracie, 7.
There may be something else you can do to honor a child who lived a spirited life and got joy in helping others. Maybe, in some form or fashion, you can help Erica’s favorite charity — Locks of Love.
Donate your hair. Give money. Hold a local fund-raiser. Something.
If you do, you’ll be supporting a nonprofit that’s put hair on the heads of nearly 2,000 financially strapped kids.
I did a little research.
It takes six to 10 ponytail pieces (10 inches each in length) to make one hairpiece. Hair donations are accepted from men, women and children. Race and hair color don’t matter. The hairpieces are custom-fitted prosthetics with a retail value of $3,500 to $6,000. They last about 18 months. The nonprofit sees to repairs for free or on a sliding-fee scale.
In this organization, kids help kids. Lauren Kukkamaa, spokeswoman for the 9-year-old nonprofit, said young folk account for 80 percent of the hair donations.
“We’re contacted all the time by parents whose children saw someone who didn’t have any hair, and the children are wanting to know what they can do,” she said.
“They get so compassionate about it. It’s pretty amazing.”
Erica’s family had asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to Locks of Love. Stoner, her mother, told me she might donate the child’s college savings to the cause. They may even host a yearly community “hair cut-off” to memorialize Erica.
Before her death, Erica was getting ready to donate some more of her long, black locks. This time, Mom and her three daughters were going to do it as a family.
For more information, visit the Web site of Locks of Love or call 1-888-896-1588.
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Daughter may be gone, but memory lives on
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Erica Paige Whitney, 10, died last Sunday in a car accident. Erica and her family were returning from Myrtle Beach.
She enjoyed being the center of attention. Loved to entertain.
At home, her stage was beneath the fireplace mantel. Erica Paige Whitney amused the family with a little song, dance, something.
It’s what you’d expect from someone who had a flair for drama, who aspired to be an actress.
Or a scientist.
“She couldn’t decide,” said her mom, Wendy Stoner.
Understandable. She was only 10.
She earned As and Bs at Mountain Park Elementary School. She read voraciously, sang robustly in the school choir, and stayed active — soccer, softball, basketball, gymnastics, cheerleading, horseback riding and the Girl Scouts.
She had a soft spot for animals, notably horses. You’ve seen the billboards around town that say “We Buy Ugly Houses,” right? Erica initially wondered how someone could say such a cruel thing. She thought it said “horses.”
I learned this and more at Erica’s funeral on Friday. She died a week ago today in a car wreck just south of Augusta. She and her family were returning to Lilburn from Myrtle Beach. Erica had to be airlifted by helicopter to a hospital. She died in flight.
Other family members were injured in the accident, but her sisters Gracie, 7, and Emma, 2, survived.
In my profession, we occasionally try to craft stories so significant details or events are alluded to early on, but not conveyed in great depth until later. It’s called foreshadowing. It creates suspense, intrigue, hope.
The day before Erica died, she, her mom and sister Gracie were standing in line at an amusement park in Myrtle Beach. Erica asked about her ailing grandmother, who recently had been released from the hospital. Talk turned to death. Erica asked her mother why people tend to be sad at funerals when they ought to be happy because the loved one has gone to heaven.
“The next day, she was there,” Stoner said. “That conversation was something God gave me and Gracie to help us through this.”
Classmates and friends attended the celebration of Erica’s life at Grace Fellowship Church in Snellville. The Girl Scouts joined their leader, Annette Miranda, at the podium to sing one of Erica’s favorite songs: “Make New Friends.”
In her eulogy, Miranda raised an issue that’s always stuck in my craw. She questioned the often-quoted explanation some mourners fall back on when a young person dies. It’s God’s will, they reason.
“I don’t believe it,” Miranda said. “Sometimes tragic things just happen to beautiful people.”
How true.
John Baker, the assistant pastor, must have read my mind. He talked about the joyous lives of children — their innocence, honesty, uniqueness and uncluttered way of viewing things. He also questioned the heart and soul of people who dislike kids.
“Something is wrong with you,” he said. “You need to go see somebody.”
Well put.
Baker closed by addressing the grieving. How does one cope with the loss of a little girl whose world was a stage?
“We can be angry that she’s not here or grateful that she was here at all,” he said. “We can say, ‘God, thank you for Erica. That was not very long, but it was unbelievable. … She will be missed, but she will never be forgotten.’”
Aspiring writer gets her wish
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
She sported designer handbags. She drove an SUV.
Nanette D. Massey lived well. Her forte was selling stuff, and she hawked goods for various companies for many years until she lost that closer’s edge.
Other jobs came and went. None lasted — buyouts, layoffs and in some cases, Massey’s own doings led to their demise. Unemployment benefits dried up. She ran out of options.
She became homeless.
And that may have been the best thing that’s ever happened to the Norcross woman.
You may have read about her. Two years ago, she wrote a first-person opinion essay about becoming homeless for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s @issue section. Response was overwhelming. She even landed a job as a data entry clerk with a firm in Duluth.
“All I did was share myself,” she told me Wednesday. “The article left people free to have their own individual reactions to homelessness and for many, it was very meaningful to them.”
For Massey, the essay helped her realize something friends had suggested for years: Pursue a career in writing, they’ve told her. You have something to say. The New York native has always kept a journal. Now approaching 40, she still has in her possession entries that date back to her high school days.
After the AJC article ran, Massey began freelancing for the Sunday Paper. She’s also submitted prose to Essence magazine and other publications.
Last April, though, she hit a bump in the road, one of her own making. She got canned from her data entry job due to excessive lateness. Massey admits she took advantage of friendships she’d formed with the company brass. Timeliness stopped being an issue.
So after bunking with friends, Massey has moved in temporarily with a relative in Columbus. She’s working day jobs through a temp agency till she lands something more to her liking.
Losing the data entry job may have been the second-best thing that’s ever happened to Massey. Now she’s trying to arrange her life so that writing, her first love, is a top priority.
A few weeks ago, she contacted the Tom Joyner Morning Show, a nationally syndicated program that airs locally on Atlanta’s Kiss 104.1 FM. She described herself as an aspiring writer. She sent copies of her work and told them she needed a computer.
“I sit and write long-hand on a [note] pad during the day and use the library computer at night to research and edit my work,” she wrote. “Please help me … give voice to those who would normally go unheard.”
On the July 5 broadcast of the Joyner show, Massey was crowned the weekly “Christmas wish winner.” Her Dell laptop computer and printer should arrive any day now.
“She wrote us a beautiful, touching letter,” said Sherée Zeisler, a producer on the Joyner show. “There is a passion there and she has an obvious talent.” Massey doesn’t think she’s suited for a 9-to-5 gig. She’d like to work as a nanny or live-in assistant in exchange for free room and board. That way, she can concentrate on her first love.
“The bottom line is that I am a writer,” she said by phone. “I don’t even tell people I am unemployed now. I say that I am a writer because that’s what I am. “I didn’t go through the homeless experience for nothing.”
You can contact Nanette Massey via e-mail: n6785790880@yahoo.com.
County’s bus riders still waiting for promised shelters
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It started to rain.
John Baker was waiting to catch a bus, and in Gwinnett County, bus stops don’t have shelters. Baker took refuge under a tree that afternoon three weeks ago. Little good that did. The man still got drenched.
“I was soaked and shaking,” said Baker, who works for a food processing plant in Duluth. “It was cold. I got sick.”
It wasn’t raining Monday. I came across Baker and Jeffrey Faulk, another rider, waiting for the northbound 12:45 p.m. bus off Buford Highway in Norcross. It was steamy hot, and the two men were roasting in the mid-day sun.
“John’s story covered the rain, but on days like this when it’s hot, it would be nice to have some shelter, too” said Faulk, a College Park resident who works for a temp agency in Norcross. “We’re just out here in the elements.”
Last July, I wrote a column about Gwinnett transit and how it was slowly but surely taking root in this car-crazy county. I suggested one thing the transit system could do to boost ridership and that was to install shelters over the green metal benches that serve as designated bus stops. They might also consider adding benches at some stops.
Back then, Tim Collins, the transit director, said the county had chosen to hold off on shelters until they got a better feel for ridership and whatnot. He said a contract had been awarded to a private company, and that shelters would be installed by next year. That’s “next year” as in 2006. Now.
It hasn’t happened. The county’s 7,000 or so daily riders are still enduring heat, rain and cold while waiting to climb aboard. They deserve better. This county can do better by them, too, and it should if transit officials expect to increase the number of riders.
Patrons like Baker and Faulk aren’t picky. They don’t want a fancy shelter, just something utilitarian.
“Just make it big enough for eight to 10 people to stand or sit in without getting wet,” Faulk said. “Just a little cover. No big deal.” “The bus service is good,” Baker noted. “Once in a blue moon, a bus is late. But in Georgia, we need shelters. You know how it is. It might rain today. Tomorrow, it might be sunny.”
After I left Baker and Faulk, I cruised up Buford Highway and other parts of the county looking for bus stops, looking for shelters. I saw plenty of bus stops. No shelters.
I didn’t have to tell Mr. Collins that. He already knew.
“Our contractor had a problem with the original shelter design,” he said in a phone message. “It became unavailable, so they had to have a new shelter designed, and find a local manufacturer to make them.”
“[The contractor] has done that, and they are in the process of finalizing the drawing and paperwork that will be necessary for them to obtain permits to construct the shelters. We have about 15 shelters that should be put up fairly soon.”
Too bad it won’t be sooner.
This week’s forecast calls for highs in the 80s. Expect scattered thunderstorms, too.
Bus riders better be prepared to take shelter.
Race shouldn’t stop adoption
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We brought her home when she was 5 days old.
The birth mom delivered her on a Monday and asked to meet us the next day. We each got to hold her, swaddled and warm, in the hospital room. Miles grinned like a Cheshire cat.
On Day Three of the infant’s life, the birth mom relinquished her rights. The birth dad followed suit a few days later. We brought the little girl home. Olivia Melodie Badie. She’s ours.
Our private agency adoption went as smooth as butter. Practically flawless. There is no lack of biracial babies for willing adoptive parents. In fact, we had to turn down another biracial child before Livvy’s birth because Joann was recovering from surgery. Our experience was proof positive that there’s a big demand for adoptive parents to care for black and biracial children.
Oddly enough, though, I heard a story this week that got me steamed. It’s about a hard-working couple who likes pets and values education and family. They want to adopt a baby. They’re white, but color doesn’t matter. And they’d welcome a minority child into their home and give it as much love as they would a Caucasian one.
They aren’t paranoid, but they’ve felt a definite racial vibe while trying to work through the state adoption services. They suspect it’s because they’re white.
In a perfect world, there’d be enough black adoptive parents for black babies and white adoptive parents for white infants. Culture would be a nonissue.
But reality shows us that more black babies need homes, and from the online articles and stories I read, there’s not enough adoptive black couples to fill the need. White couples have to wait some time for a white child to become available. So some stand ready and willing to take a black infant in.
Of course race matters. A white couple would have to work harder to provide authentic cultural exposure. It’s not impossible. Especially in metro Atlanta.
The National Association of Black Social Workers has said that every effort should be made to place children with families of the same race and culture. Very noble. What’s more important, though?
Should a boy or a girl be denied a happy, stable home because of a concern for race and identity matters?
No, says Ari Young, a spokesman for the state Department of Family and Children Services.
“We don’t have a racial litmus test,” he told me. “Our goal is to try to find loving permanent homes for the children who are slated for adoption.”
I want to believe him.
Fortunately, private adoption agencies usually encourage cross-racial adoption. Private agencies suggest that couples be open to kids of other races.
There’s hope for all potential adoptive parents. We know. We got Livvy.
She turns four in a few days. On Saturday, we celebrated her birthday.
Being kept alive comes down to personal choice
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“I don’t want to be another Terri Schiavo.”
A reader left no room forinterpretation when he ended his posting in the Badie blog with that declaration. It was part of his response to Tuesday’s column about Kathy Smith’s devotion and care for her invalid husband.
Chris Smith, a veteran Secret Service agent who had been in perfect health, suffered a heart attack March 25, 2005. It, for the most part, debilitated him, though he can hear and breathe on his own. He’s at home with his family in Lawrenceville.
Kathy chose love and honor over advice from doctors who suggested she end his life. She’s praying for a miracle to restore Smith to his old self. Readers of the column praised Smith for her selflessness. They pledged to pray for the family, which includes Caitlin, the 14-year-old daughter who ran the Peachtree Road Race in her father’s honor.
The reader who said he didn’t want to live like Schiavo wasn’t comparing Smith to the late Florida woman. He wanted to raise the issue of living wills, noting that his legal documents state that he doesn’t want to be kept alive in an extended vegetative state.
Please don’t take my stance as a slight against Mrs. Smith. She’s courageous, and I applaud her.
I’m like this reader.
I’d prefer that my wife, or whoever’s responsible for my well-being, let me go. Call it pride, but I simply wouldn’t want people I love, and who I have forged meaningful relationships with, to see me unable to walk, talk, eat or shower on my own.
Let’s say you have a solid family and a spouse as devoted as Smith. Would you want to keep living in a vegetative state? Would you want to live life in need of constant care, requiring help with any and all tasks?
After Tuesday’s column ran, Mrs. Smith posted her own comment in the Badie blog. ” … My husband had expressed a desire in the past to be ‘kept alive,’ ” she wrote. “He breathes entirely on his own without any added oxygen and has not been on a respirator since day 17 of his illness. We give him liquid nourishment and water through a stomach tube and he’s on limited medications. He also takes no medicines for his heart as there is no residual damage there.
“He still has the heart of a 30-year-old man. He’s bathed and exercised daily, listens to books and music on tape, and will hopefully have a handicapped van someday so that we can take him outside of the home for recreational outings and to church.
” … He is no less of a man than he was 15 months ago, therefore he deserves no less. In fact, he deserves a lot more than Caitlin and I will ever be able to give him because he is truly the best husband and father in the world; always has been and always will be. It’s our belief that God holds life and death in his hands and when Chris’s purpose here on Earth is complete, then God will take him to his true home.”
Mrs. Smith ended her posting with the same request she asked of me when I visited Monday: “We sincerely hope that everyone who reads this will pray for us and for Chris’s healing,” she continued. “God’s wonderful grace and tender mercies has seen us through 15 months. He assures us that it is everlasting, so we will stay the course until he says the time is up.”
Daughter will run road race to honor Dad
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Doctors say Chris Smith had the heart of a 30-year-old.
He ran three miles a day, six days a week. He lifted weights several times a week.
He’d been a miracle child. Two brothers died at the age of 21, victims of muscular dystrophy. It’s a genetic disorder that birth mothers can pass on to their sons.
Somehow Smith, 43, didn’t contract it.
So it’s hard for Kathy Smith to make sense of what happened to her husband on May 25, 2005. Chris had just finished a three-mile run. The Secret Service agent hopped on an office elevator and headed up to the 30th floor to shower. He apologized to riders for being sweaty and rank, then eased to the rear. He squatted. Riders thought he was stretching.
When the elevator reached Smith’s floor and he didn’t exit, a rider tapped him on the shoulder. Smith fell over.
He’d suffered a massive heart attack.
In a span of minutes, Smith became another Terri Schiavo. Doctors and experts told his wife as much. Let him go, they told her. Pull his feeding tubes. She told them to go to hell. She didn’t give him his first breath of life. She didn’t intend to take away his last. She saw only one option, and that was to bring her man home, where he belonged.
Smith has remained comatose, with little awareness of his surroundings. He’s sensitive to touch and startles easily. It’s unclear whether he can see. Kathy says he can hear, though, because he perks up at the sound of her voice or when Caitlin, their 14-year-old daughter, plays the violin.
Kathy had to remodel part of their Lawrenceville home to accommodate Chris. Hardwood floors replaced carpet. An overhead lift was installed in the first-floor master bedroom. He has a shower trolley to bathe in and a tilt table to stand him upright two hours a day. An LPN is on hand 24/7.
Chris spent 17 years with the Secret Service. The family draws a majority of his salary, as well as workers compensation. Don’t think it was handed over on a silver platter, though.
“You don’t want to go there, honey,” Kathy told me. “That’s another story in itself.”
Kathy could have removed Chris’ feeding tubes. She refused. More understandably, she could have placed him in a hospice equipped and staffed to provide care for invalids like him. Neither option suited her. She chose love, honor and dignity over self. His is a life that matters.
“If you had the most wonderful man in the world, would you put him in a nursing home?” she told me. “I love him, and I will never stop loving him. I will honor him until he draws his last breath. My love for him has not changed.”
Had life not changed for Chris, he’d be running in today’s Peachtree Road Race. He had plans to participate last year before the heart attack. Instead, Caitlin used his number and ran the race in his honor. She was accompanied by three law enforcement officers.
“Last year, I ran more than walked,” said Caitlin, a rising sophomore at Brookwood High.
This year, she plans to run more. She even has her own race number — 42625.
But like last year, she’s still running with a purpose — to honor Dad.
Dance teaches life lessons — with an Irish kick
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Langsett family photo
Weatherly Langsett, 11, recently competed in the regional Irish dance competition, called "Feiseanna."
It wasn’t “Riverdance” or “Lord of the Dance” that attracted her to Irish step dancing.
It was a Disney TV movie — “Luck of the Irish” — that piqued Weatherly Langsett’s interest. In it, Kyle Johnson dances to Irish music at a heritage festival.
Weatherly was smitten.
“I saw the movie when I was really little,” she said. “The dance looked really cool. I really liked it.”
She liked it so much she told her parents she wanted to learn it. Kevin and Melanie Langsett thought her interest would wane.
It didn’t.
Weatherly, a rising sixth-grader at Greater Atlanta Christian School in Lilburn, has been step dancing for four years. She trains and competes. She told me about one of her early performances.
“One year, I did a performance for my class at school,” she said. “It was for St. Patrick’s Day.”
She trains at the Drake School of Irish Dance in Norcross. Karl Drake, the studio namesake, is a native of Ireland and former circuit dancer. He told me he couldn’t have picked a better location than the South to launch a business. Drake has studios across the Southeast.
“Most of my students have no Irish background,” he said. “If I had to compare this to any form of music, I’d compare it to ballet. It’s got rhythm. It’s highly competitive, and the kids like to win.”
Winning takes practice.
During the week, Weatherly takes two group classes that last about two-and-a-half hours each. At home, she practices up to five hours a week. To help build strength, stamina and agility — core elements of step dancing — she works out twice a week with a sports trainer.
Throw in workshops and private lessons, and the training tab climbs to $2,000 a year.
Mom says it’s worth every penny.
“Weatherly, by nature, is a fairly quiet and reserved child,” Langsett said. “She does not like to draw attention to herself. Through dance, she has performed both by herself and in groups in front of audiences as large as 1,000 and is very comfortable on stage.
“The discipline of training, memorizing complex steps and routines, learning Celtic traditions and music [and dealing with] the physical demands [and] time management have all been great life lessons for her.”
We want our kids involved in healthy hobbies and interests. So we expose them to as much as we can, as much as our wallets allow. It’s a hit-or-miss proposition. When they latch onto something that sticks, though, it’s a beautiful thing.
Last week, the Langsetts traveled to San Diego for the North American Irish Dance Championships. Weatherly competed individually in the under-11 age group. Days before her performance, she’d admitted to being nervous.
“I will try to do my best,” she said. “The bad thing that I do sometimes is lean over. It’s hard to keep from leaning over.”
On Friday afternoon, I called Melanie Langsett to see how Weatherly had done. Unfortunately, she didn’t earn a place.
But I bet she still danced beautifully.
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