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June 2007
A day in the life of Fire Station No. 11
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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The proverbial cat didn’t get rescued from a tree, but the firefighters of Station No. 11 did respond to a fuel spill, suicide attempt and bogus medical call.
On Wednesday, I got to experience something many kids, and probably adults, wish they could do. Hang out with firefighters. Ride in a firetruck with sirens and horns blazing.
It’s easy to take firefighters for granted, and in the case of the Gwinnett County Department of Fire and Emergency Services, that would be a squad of 725 men and women. You don’t think about the profession’s dangers until something horrific happens, like the recent deaths of nine firefighters in Charleston, S.C.
“What it does is heighten your awareness that it can happen anywhere,” said Capt. Wayne Mooney, a 20-year veteran who took his dad’s advice and entered a career that makes him happy.
In its 36-year history, the county department has experienced three losses, two in the line of duty.
• James D. Cox died in 1981 after a heart attack while jogging around Station No. 8 in Grayson during physical training.
• Lt. Bobby Patrick of Station No. 3 in Mountain Park collapsed and died from a heart attack in 2003 while battling a blaze in a motorcycle repair shop in Lilburn.
• Brant Chesney, a Gwinnett firefighter who also served as a volunteer firefighter and training instructor in Forsyth County, died in 1996 fighting an apartment fire in that county. He worked at Station No. 9 in Lawrenceville.
Station No. 11 in Norcross responded to no fires during Wednesday’s Badie Tour. The first call was for a gas spill on the southbound entry ramp of I-85, near Indian Trail Lilburn Road. Firefighters Jordan Keough, Ty Suber and Marino Favre helped the hazardous materials response team — also part of the fire and emergency services department — spread absorbent material.
Then, we were on our way. To Kroger.
The men, who work a 24-hour-on-48-hour-off shift, needed chow for dinner. Each man typically chips in $7 for the day’s lunch and dinner. There are usually six firefighters, two paramedics and a battalion chief on duty at all times. Because some of the staff was off Wednesday, dinner is the only concern. Last night, they were to have a chicken-and-cheese dish that firefighter and paramedic Phil Merck jokingly calls “Norcross cheesy chicken.”
After Kroger, we stopped by Chick-fil-A for lunch. I assume we’ll sit and dine. No dice. Calls from dispatch are imminent, they explain, so the men eat at the station off Live Oak Parkway.
After lunch, Merck gave me a tour of the station — the bunks, kitchen, common area, offices and exercise room. His radio cackled, something about a suicide attempt at a residence near the corner of Steve Reynolds Boulevard and Hillcrest Court.
We’re off. Sirens singing. Horns honking. The patient gets hauled away by ambulance.
We returned to the station. Keough apologized for the day’s lack of excitement. He’s dead serious, but before I can reply, we’re back in the truck. This time, dispatch said it was a medical call for a residence off Silver Lake Drive. See firefighters, EMTs, and paramedics handle a little bit of everything. Station No. 11 expects to field about 40,000 calls this year.
No one answered the door of the well-kept home. Keough, Suber and Favre looked for ways to get inside. They busted open a drop box that had a key. No one was home. A neighbor spotted us and called the owner of the abode. He gave the cellphone to Favre, who explained what had transpired. The owner isn’t upset.
Obviously, he understands.
Had this been a real emergency, the crew of Station No. 11 would have been just as determined to get in, to reach him or his pets, to protect and serve.
— Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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Cable barriers on I-85 could reduce deaths
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thomas Edward Brown died in a crash near the Hamilton Mill exit on I-85 recently.
In May, recently installed cable barriers in the median of I-85 stopped four cross-over crashes in Franklin and Hart counties.
Three of the collisions occurred during heavy rain on May 5; the fourth crash happened the next day.
Not one of the vehicles crossed over the median.
Not one went into the interstate in the other direction, into traffic.
The cable barriers may not stop all cross-over crashes, notably if a car is airborne, said Teri N. Pope, spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Transportation northeast district that includes Gwinnett.
But they definitely help.
Just last Wednesday, Thomas Edward Brown, 17, of Hoschton was killed near the Hamilton Mill exit on I-85.
According to police, his 1999 Dodge Dakota was traveling southbound when it left the road, crossed an unprotected, grassy median, and collided with a northbound tractor-trailer truck.
He’d been en route to the Lawrenceville Methodist Campground to take part in a community service project in which teens repair homes for the needy. He died at the scene.
Authorities don’t know what caused Brown to leave his side of the road. Drugs and alcohol don’t appear to be factors. The investigation continues.
After I wrote about Brown, Laura Dillon of Dacula, a concerned reader, sent me an e-mail with a link to a year-old USA Today article: “Lives saved as highways get cable.”
“If the AJC could run with this and help make our roads safer, it would be invaluable,” she wrote.
Well, the DOT is already making the investment.
In January, the agency began installing cable barriers along a stretch of I-85 that runs from the southern Franklin County line to the South Carolina state line.
The $5.3 million, 23.65-mile project was completed in early May.
Now it’s Gwinnett’s turn.
The state will install the same type barriers along grassy medians from Ga. 20, near the Mall of Georgia, to Franklin County (about 40 miles).
Construction on the $9 million project, as well as a separate $7 million installation that takes in I-985 up to Exit 24 (about 24 miles), is scheduled to begin next year, Pope told me.
The barriers are 4 feet tall with woven horizontal cables that are supported with vertical steel posts and concrete foundations. The posts, which absorb the impact of the vehicle, are designed to be replaced.
In the USA Today article, transportation experts touted the low cost and high success rate of cable barriers.
Cable costs about 30 percent less than steel and 50 percent less than concrete. The Utah Department of Transportation installed the barriers in a nine-mile test area susceptible to median crossovers, according to the article.
The number of fatalities related to crossovers dropped from 12 to zilch over a two-year period.
David Studstill, the Georgia DOT’s chief engineer, praised their effectiveness.
“It’s like running into a barrier on an aircraft carrier,” he told me.
“It basically catches you before you go over the median.”
And, it is hoped, saves lives.
— Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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The Badie Tour
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
To save lives. Protect families. That’s the mission of Gwinnett County’s firefighters. Last week, Charleston, S.C., lost nine men who shared that purpose. On Wednesday, Rick Badie, your AJC Gwinnett News columnist, will spend the day with Station No. 11 in Norcross. He’ll even accompany them on calls. Read about the Badie Tour, online and in print, in Thursday’s newspaper.
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Should Lorraine Green run for the county chairman’s post or not?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The last time I saw Lorraine Green in an official capacity was at the County Commissioners’ retreat five months ago.
I say “official” because we talk now and again on the phone. It’s when I’m trying to contact her son, Austin. He’s in my book club, and I must tell you, his rich vocabulary puts some adults to shame.
Last week, Green contacted me and said she wanted to chat over coffee. My antennae went up. She’s in, I thought. The District 1 commissioner wants to announce her campaign for the county chairman’s post, and she wants me to break the news.
Boy, was I wrong.
Green wanted to talk about what she’d talked about passionately at that three-day retreat — at least the session I sat in on.
Quality of life issues. Property management. Preserving neighborhoods.
Apparently, the Quality of Life unit that enforces property maintenance issues is being inundated with complaints that appear nit-picky, spiteful even. Neighbors want to put neighbors in the gulag who leave their garbage cans sitting near the curb for days, still have Christmas lights up, or go too long twixt mowings.
Not exactly the kind of issues the Quality of Life officers need to concern themselves with. And when they make them part of the beat, more egregious infractions — overcrowding, for one —get short shrift.
And that’s a problem.
“Half the time, when the cops go out [to investigate], the grass has been cut,” Green told me.
Three months ago in this space, I jokingly referred to Green as the Cleanup Woman. She’d just launched www.cleanupgwinnett.com, a Web site that, among other features, allows residents to file complaints anonymously.
Some apparently abuse it. The site receives an average of 10 complaints a day. Of that number, a third are legit, Green told me.
“We have to get the focus back,” she said.
And that’s where you come in. Solve your own problems.
Politely ask that homeowner to retrieve his or her trash can on the curb. Suggest they lose the lights. Fear confrontation? Attach a kind, explanatory note to the mailbox. I do. And if that trash can bothers you that much, move it yourself!
“If we don’t get the community involved in solving some of their own problems, this isn’t going to work and we are not going to make long-term changes,” Green said.
Speaking of change, I asked Green about any plans to try and make a political one, say for the county chairman’s post in 2008. To me, her non-answer was more of an answer.
“I know it sounds corny, but all I want to do is do what’s best for the county, and I will do that whether I am a commissioner, chairman or constituent,” she said.
I expect the Cleanup Woman to announce her candidacy this fall.
What do you think? Should Lorraine Green run for the county chairman’s post or not?
• Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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Young campers need time to grieve, heal
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Where was he?
Registration was done, over with.
Devotion service had wrapped up. The teens were in their cabins, relaxing, getting ready for bed. The lights would go out at 10:45 p.m.
And Edward Thomas Brown still hadn’t shown up.
He lived in Hoschton, about 30 minutes from the Lawrenceville Methodist Campground off Braselton Highway. He was always responsible and prompt, yet he didn’t pick up when friends called his cellphone, wondering about his whereabouts.
He was supposed to be at camp, one of the 60 kids and 30 adults who’d gathered to spend a week doing handy work for the shut-in, the elderly — anybody, actually, who needed something painted, patched or pruned.
For six days, the campers rise at 7 a.m., eat, prepare for their assignments, and go out in the community to perform eight hours of physical labor. Then they return to camp for food, rest, devotion.
Wednesday marked the start of the Lawrenceville Assistance Project, sponsored by First United Methodist Church of Lawrenceville since 1994. Love in action. That’s how Brent Bohanan, a former FUMC youth director, describes the project.
Late Wednesday, I drove up to the campground to meet a few of the folks behind the project, the subject of Thursday’s column. Northbound traffic had been a bear. It wasn’t clear if a fatal accident that took place in the Hamilton Mill area of I-85 had played a part.
At camp, though, calm prevailed.
The teens sat around picnic tables or benches on the front porch of their cabins, chatting. Amy Keller, an FUMC intern and veteran volunteer of the project, jotted down notes for a devotion that she would deliver that evening.
Around 10 p.m. Wednesday, the adult chaperones roused the teens from their cabins and gathered them under the arbor. The young people figured something was awry — the Rev. Davis Chappell, the senior minister at FUMC — had arrived.
Then, he told them the news. That Edward Thomas Brown, 17, had been killed in a car accident while en route to camp. That Brown had died at the scene.
“It was tough to watch,” said Keller, 22, who didn’t know Brown well because of their age difference.
“A lot of the older kids were upset. They had done Bible study with him and had gotten really close to him. Their hearts are breaking.”
The camp, which was to conclude Tuesday, has been canceled, but just for the summer. It may be held in the fall to honor Brown, whose funeral arrangements had not been released Thursday.
“A lot of these kids have grown up together,” Bohanan told me. “It’s like part of their family is now missing. Their world has been turned upside down. How can they think about next week or going to school in the fall when something like this has happened?
“The kids need a little time to grieve.”
And possibly heal.
• Rick Badie’s column usually appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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A roof over the heads of those who need it
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
JASON GETZ / AJC
Kristyn Nock (left) of Lawrenceville and Nicole Desmarais of Loganville talk Wednesday outside a cabin at the Methodist campgrounds.
EDITOR’S NOTE: On Thursday, the organizers of the Lawrenceville Assistance Project had to cancel the program at the Lawrenceville Methodist Campground because of the death of a camp crew leader. • Story
The crew leader climbed atop the roof. He told Amy Keller to follow. They were about to reroof the entire house.
“I didn’t know what to do or what to expect,” Keller said. “I just got up there and did it. It was a lot of sweating and getting dirty. And it was so hot.”
It’s a story Keller can share with teens working this summer with the Lawrenceville Assistance Project. She has volunteered for the community service project since she was in high school.
She continued to do so during summer breaks from Clemson University.
Now she’s 22, a recent graduate with a bachelor’s degree in graphic communications. And she’s back, this time as an intern at First United Methodist Church of Lawrenceville, assisting Lisa Johnson, the coordinator for LAP 2007.
On Wednesday, about 60 kids and 30 adult volunteers registered for LAP at the Lawrenceville Methodist Campground off Braselton Highway in Lawrenceville. The Badie Tour stopped by to learn more about the project, which starts today and concludes Tuesday.
The campground cabins will be the volunteers’ home — the place they eat, sleep and worship after eight-hour days of physical labor. Work sites are spread throughout Lawrenceville and include jobs such as laying floors and painting.
Back in 1994, the youth group at FUMC had been helping the elderly and shut-ins sporadically, but wanted to do more. LAP was born, modeled after the Gainesville Assistance Project of Antioch United Methodist Church.
“The youth decided to do a camp-style project because they thought they could help more people that way,” said Brent Bohanan, who served as youth director in the mid-1990s. “For me, that’s what this is all about — kids putting their love in action.”
Clients are referred by the Lawrenceville Senior Center and through word-of-mouth. The elderly, along with the disabled, are prime candidates because scam artists prey on them. LAP assists all ages if there’s a need, though.
“The work is backed by the church, it’s insured, and you get a job that’s done well for free,” Bohanan said.
For the next six days, Keller will fill in wherever needed. She’ll visit job sites, run errands and pick up supplies. Heck, she might even grab a paintbrush.
“I’ve definitely done a lot of roofs, yard work and painting,” she told me. “Meeting people who were different than me, and being able to help them out when they were unable to help themselves has really been great. You learn a lot about life.”
She reports for her first post-graduate job on July 30. At Catawba College, a private liberal arts school in Salisbury, N.C., she’ll help student organizations plan and organize community service projects.
She definitely has the experience.
To learn more about the Lawrenceville Assistance Project, please contact Lisa Johnson at First United Methodist Church of Lawrenceville at 770-963-0386.
— Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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Advocate enjoys giving gift of hope to students
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
She got accepted to three colleges: Wellesley, Spelman and Keuka.
Wellesley was a no-go — too close to her Roxbury, Mass., home.
Spelman College, unfortunately, didn’t offer enough financial aid.
So Arlene Wesley Cash went with Keuka College, a former women’s college in New York state that offered her a full ride. There, she double-majored in philosophy and English. Later, she studied philosophy at Kent State University.
Cash of Snellville was the first in her family to attend college. She took education seriously. Still does.
While a high school student, she took part in Upward Bound, a federal college preparation program. When her college offers started rolling in, she was asked to speak to younger students. That presentation solidified her vocation.
“On that afternoon, I was convinced that, to at least one or two students, I had given them the greatest gift of all — hope,” she told me in an e-mail.
Nearly three decades later, Cash continues to inspire. She’s now at one of the colleges she’d wanted to attend. She’s Spelman’s vice president for enrollment management, and apparently does a stellar job.
She’s featured in an April 27 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education titled, “10 Admissions Deans Who Are Shaping Their Field.” The authors crowned Cash “one of academe’s most passionate advocates for women’s colleges.”
For this married mother of three boys, interest in helping students pursue college extends beyond Spelman.
Last year, she started getting e-mails from some young ladies at her son’s high school. They were overwhelmed by the college selection process. In the students, Cash saw herself.
So she and Jennifer Owens, a Spelman colleague, started Project Jump Start. It’s a program for Gwinnett students, many of whom might be the first in their families to attend college. A workshop is to be held this summer that tackles several topics and includes a “been there, done that” session with current college students.
I know Cash because her son, David, is in my book club. You may be aware of her efforts to help start Ivy Preparatory Academy, a Gwinnett all-girls school. It would serve kids from the Meadowcreek cluster, and, if approved by the Gwinnett school board and state DOE, would open in 2008 as a middle school. It eventually will add a high school.
“This would be innovative and a new approach to education,” Cash said, “and that’s what Gwinnett is about.”
It’s always rewarding to enjoy your profession. But when your avocation becomes your vocation, that’s ideal.
Just ask Cash.
“This is why I live and write with such passion about what I do,” she said. “I truly love it.”
Students still can register for the Project Jump Start workshop, tentatively set for Aug. 4 at the Centerville Community Center. Organizers need a workshop lunch sponsor. For information, call Arlene Cash: 404-270-5186.
— Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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Smiths finding joy in each small step
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
RICK BADIE / AJC
Chris Smith has made tremendous strides since suffering a massive heart attack in March 2005, according to his wife, Kathy (right). Daughter Caitlin, 15, says she's also in a better place, mentally.
Last year, when I first saw Chris Smith, he was sensitive to sound and touch only.
Now he can smile, hold his head up and lift his arms and legs.
He’s still in a persistent vegetative state, but the occasional signs of mobility are giant steps.
Kathy Smith, his wife, sure thinks so.
“He’s come a long way since the Peachtree Road Race last year,” she wrote in an e-mail. “I’d love for you to see the progress Chris has made, or at least the progress the nurses and I believe he’s made.”
So I did.
On Friday, I visited the Lawrenceville family to see what nearly a year’s passing had done for a man who suffered a major heart attack on March 25, 2005.
On that day, the Secret Service agent was in the office elevator at work, headed to the 30th floor to shower after a 3-mile run.
Witnesses told Kathy Smith that he moved to the rear of the elevator, then squatted. He didn’t move when the elevator reached his floor. A colleague tapped him on the shoulder. He fell over.
Even though his chances for survival were slim, Smith chose to bring her man home. Their bedroom and other portions of the house had to be retrofitted. Special equipment, like a table that helps stand and stretch, had to be installed.
Before benefits kicked in, Smith had to foot the bill for some necessities — nursing assistants, for one. Sometimes they showed as scheduled. Other times, they didn’t.
“In the beginning, it was horrible,” Smith told me, noting that she now has dependable 24-hour nursing care. “But Chris’ condition is so much better now that he’s easy to take care of. His trach is out, and the hole has been surgically closed. He’s [back] up to 173 pounds. He looks awesome.”
I first met the family in July 2006, days before the Peachtree. Caitlin had chosen to honor her father by running in the race, as she’d done the previous year.
These days, she’s focused on ice hockey. Last school year, she played goalie for a team culled together from schools in Middle Georgia that had been unable to field enough kids. She’s currently on the house team of the Atlanta Ice Forum in Duluth. Her father even got the chance to see her play a game since his heart attack.
When I visited Friday, Caitlin told me she was in a better place, mentally, than a year ago.
“I’ve gotten used to [the situation],” she said. “Hockey, my family and friends have helped me deal with it.
“He’s still Dad.”
Last month, the family celebrated his 44th birthday with ice cream and cake. And this Father’s Day, the family plans to attend services at St. Lawrence Catholic Church.
“God is good every day,” Smith said. “Chris is so much more alert. He smiles. He doesn’t laugh, but he feels the tickle. All those things tell me that God is good every day.”
Smith asks that readers pray for Chris. She also told me to not let a day go by that I don’t kiss my wife and kids.
“When you love somebody,” she said, “you love them until they die.”
— Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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Coffeehouse is a perfect place to get grounded
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Patrons dash in and out. Most stay to read and chat or to fire up their laptops.
Soothing music plays. You can’t escape the aroma of coffee.
I’m in the Northern Star Coffee House, a cozy cafe on South Peachtree Street in downtown Norcross. I don’t know what it is about coffeehouses, but I always feel doubly smart whenever I visit one.
Maybe it’s because you’re seemingly surrounded by the best of society, thinkers and doers who gather soberly to converse, commune and network, to talk about making life, theirs and in many cases the community’s, better.
In a way, the people who occupy the tables, couches and chairs are hosting town hall meetings, allowing ideas to percolate.
And because I am jaded with celebrity news, the war, our government, the people in charge of it and many of those jockeying to be president, the Badie Tour spent a few hours Wednesday in search of inspiration, fresh ideas, real people, a respite.
What better place to look than the Northern Star, a 3-year-old shop whose owner, William C. Leubben, sought from the onset to turn it into a town square of sorts.
I’d just walked inside the cafe when Keith Shewbert, the rookie Norcross city councilman, beckoned me to a table he shared with three others. He invited me to attend a town hall meeting set for next Thursday to talk about local schools —- their quality, perception, reality, parental input and economic impact.
“Education is the linchpin to everything,” Shewbert told me. “If we have good schools, we capture a broad, diverse middle class.”
On the patio, a dozen or so kids and their moms wrap up story time, held 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. every Wednesday. Maureen McNamara and her children —- Sean, 3, and Cate, 1 —- don’t miss it.
“They love the stories and the crafts,” the Norcross mom told me. “You get regular moms attending.”
Soon, McNamara will jockey four babies. Twins arrive this November.
“Having three was a surprise,” she said. “But four was a shock. It will be fun, though.”
In the cafe, two teens sit hunched over a laptop. It’s Mary Crippen and Nami Patel, a recent AJC Gwinnett News intern.
Patel, 18, wants to get into politics some day, and is considering a major in international relations. Crippen, 17, is leaning toward linguistics. Both 2007 Norcross High grads, they’ll attend NYU this fall but not room together.
“We’d kill each other,” Patel said, laughing. “It’s better for our sanity.”
Before I leave, I strike up a conversation with Norm Cranford, a Duluth resident who, a few years back, ran unsuccessfully for a local school board seat.
The retired engineer for Primerica is studying to become a certified financial planner. I suppose his is an altogether different purpose than most who enter the profession.
“I want to teach the kids how to handle their money,” he said.
Who knows?
Maybe he can hold free classes at the Northern Star.
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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With aid from ministry, Uncle Sam, life is better
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If Paris Hilton thinks she’s in peril, she needs to experience life through the eyes of Craig A. Molnar.
He lived in the woods until the Lawrenceville Cooperative Ministry got him a room in an extended-stay motel. Molnar, 46, sings its praises.
“I’m fine,” he told me Monday as we chatted in Room 106 of the Villa Inn Lodge & Suites in Lawrenceville.
Actually, he’s just better.
He excuses himself to whiff an inhalant that sits next to an oxygen mask.
He shows me a satchel that’s filled with prescriptions — 14 “maintenance medications” to aid his diseased lungs.
Three Mondays ago, he had a breathing attack. Paramedics rushed him to Gwinnett Medical Center, where he stayed eight days. Doctors released him on the condition that he either get a medical alert alarm or cellphone. The cooperative ministry got him a phone and bought his medicine, so Molnar went home.
I first met Molnar in February when I wrote about the county’s homeless population. It’s not so invisible anymore, and I’d imagine boosters wish those who sleep in the woods and beg for money near interstate ramps would hop a GTS bus to the ATL.
Advocates say that people like Molnar show up routinely at cooperative ministries across Gwinnett. It’s a population that’s hard to count, but consider this: Last year local schools served about 3,000 homeless kids.
Before Monday, I’d last seen Molnar at the Lawrenceville Cooperative Ministry’s annual luncheon, where supporters stressed the growing need for such services. He told me the Lawrenceville ministry, namely director Linda Freund, had helped him get a replacement Social Security card, and was working on securing benefits pay.
Molnar, a Michigan native, had worked since 1971. He left home when he was a kid and eventually became a carny, a gig that brought him to metro Atlanta in the late 1990s.
He had grown tired of the carnival life, so he stayed in the region to work construction. He’d always suffered from bronchitis and asthma, but one flare-up led to a diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
The repeat attacks caused him to lose weeks of work, and as a result, several jobs. By late 2003, he had become homeless, and he made the woods in and around Lawrenceville home. He courted day jobs and became a regular at the Lawrenceville ministry.
On Saturday, Molnar left a voice mail. He had received his first disability check with back pay. He opened a checking account Monday and put down advance rent money for his room.
While we talked Monday, he pulled out a stack of letters — unpaid bills, mostly medical. He had spent the morning trying to contact creditors to let them know he would pay what he could.
His monthly check will be about $650, and he may be eligible for government help with medicines that will run about $2,000 a month.
The long-term plan is to move into an assisted-living facility where Molnar, unfit for employment, wants to run errands and do odd jobs.
Last week, he and a friend went to Rhodes Jordan Park in Lawrenceville. Looking at some of the people in the park was like peering in the mirror, back when he was homeless, in peril.
“I can see the look in their eyes,” he said.
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Call him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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Civility the main thing missing in the online world
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Before I dive into today’s topic, I’d like to explain the origins of the Amity Ruth Kozak story.
Her obit appeared in last Sunday’s AJC Gwinnett News. The family’s request that donations be made to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (www.ncadv.org) caught my attention.
On Monday, Tim Stewart Funeral Home contacted the Lawrenceville family for me. Minutes later, Pat Kozak called and talked about her daughter’s adventurous life and the cruddy details of her death.
That Kozak, a sun and beach lover, had moved to Florida with a friend at 19.
That she’d recently been in town to attend her brother’s birthday party.
That on May 30, she was found beaten to death in the West Palm Beach apartment of her ex-boyfriend, Helder “Sonny” Peixoto, and that on the same day, he committed suicide.
Police on Wednesday said that Peixoto, 34, beat Kozak, 29, with a hammer. He took his own life by jumping from the 11th floor of a condo in downtown West Palm. Horrific.
But the comments some readers posted to the May 5 Kozak column were equally callous, cold and cruel.
“… This Peixoto man probably couldn’t get a DECENT woman to go out with him,” wrote Marita, who used caps for effect. “I wonder if there would have been such a hue & outcry if the ex-stripper was fat/ugly.”
“Anonymous” was brazen enough to address the family, calling the young woman a “gold-digger.”
When the comments rolled in, Anisha Frizzell, an AJC Gwinnett News online producer, correctly “unpublished” them. She eventually discontinued reader input, out of respect for Kozak’s family and friends.
To the family, I apologize for the vileness.
The mean-spirited responses to the column, though, exemplify what I detest about the inescapable world of electronic communication. Some people use online forums for crass dialog, to say things they’d never say face to face.
Punctuation and grammar have long been casualties of cyberspace. (The use of “your” instead of “you’re,” for example). Lack of civility, though, takes the virtual cake.
It’s become the medium to denigrate, attack, name-call, opine about people, events, and occurrences based on flimsy facts, asinine assumptions, flat-out lies.
Granted, online dabblers are no more twisted than people in the “real” world. They’re just empowered by anonymity, fake e-mail addresses and pseudo-nyms. Unfortunately, newspapers don’t filter them.
Because Kozak once worked at a strip club, some readers trashed her character. Because she left the burbs for the city, she was unwholesome, money hungry. Forget the sick suitor, domestic violence.
Last week, I tried to contact some of the people who posted so much tripe about Kozak. Only “Anonymous,” Midtown resident, called late Friday to sing an apologetic tune.
As for the others, I’m still waiting.
• Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
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Tradition of service spans generations
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After a year in Iraq, he could hardly wait to see his kids, sit in the backyard and sip sweet tea.
David Williams returned to Lawrenceville in April after a tour in the Middle East with the 1st Battalion, 214th Field Artillery of the Georgia National Guard. He’d been assigned to a fuel depot.
Call him a “soldier’s soldier.”
He spent four years in the Marines in the mid-1980s and, spurred in part by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, joined the Guard in July 2005.
Today, his military memorabilia graces a display at the Gwinnett Veterans Memorial Museum in the Historic Courthouse in downtown Lawrenceville.
“Every soldier who sees it says, ‘That’s the guy I want to go into battle with,’ ” said Gene Bivings, a museum volunteer.
I couldn’t think of a better place to visit on the Badie Tour Wednesday than the museum, a tribute to locals who took part in wars that date from the Revolutionary War to present. It was, after all, the 63rd anniversary of D-Day, the day Allied forces invaded France during World War II.
Williams, 42, was among the half-dozen or so veterans who viewed the museum treasures. He’s a single parent who has custody of Austin, 9, and Cierra, 5. His mother, Vickie Williams, lives with the family and took care of the brood while he was in southern Iraq.
“I couldn’t do this without her,” he told me. “She gets the home-front medal.”
It’s obvious that service, honor, duty make up the man. His stepfather and both grandfathers were military men. As a kid, he played with G.I. Joes and military toys.
He plans to make a career out of the military. In October he reports to Camp Shelby, Miss., where he’ll serve as a “warrior trainer” — a soldier who schools others in combat.
Then by January 2009, he could be deployed again. If it’s Iraq, cool.
“It’s my job,” he told me.
“The majority of people I served with do not agree with withdrawing the troops. They want to go ahead and finish the job. You don’t give the enemy a timeline. That’s not how it works.”
Before Williams left the museum, he posed for photos.
Then he and the other veterans gathered in the hallway to recognize the special day.
David Wray, chaplain of American Legion Post 232 in Snellville, prayed for World War II soldiers who didn’t return home, as well as their relatives.
“Never forget them,” he said.
Bivings, the museum volunteer, asked the veterans on Wednesday to recount what they were doing the day the Allies’ armada landed on the beaches of Normandy.
Gertrude Breslin served as a medic at Hallorn General Hospital, then an Army facility on Staten Island, N.Y.; Elwood Hart a Canadian army enlistee, awaited deployment.
Richard King, commander of Snellville Post 232, replied with an answer that had everybody in stitches.
“I was being born,” he said. “Sixty-three years ago today.”
Admission to the Gwinnett Veterans Memorial Museum, 185 Crogan St., Room 118, is free. Hours: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. http://vetmemorialmuseum. tripod.com
• Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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Mother had bad feeling about daughter’s suitor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Family photo
Amity Ruth Kozak, 29, formerly of Lawrenceville, was found dead on May 30 in her boyfriend's apartment in West Palm Beach, Fla. • Story
The family met the new boyfriend at a birthday party.
Two weeks ago, Amity Ruth Kozak and her mate drove to Lawrenceville from West Palm Beach, Fla., to attend a surprise celebration for her younger brother. John turned 26 on May 30.
Call it instinct, intuition, whatever — but relatives weren’t sold on Helder “Sonny” Peixoto. They didn’t think he was right for their Amity, 29.
At the party, he drank like a fish, said little to nothing, and when he did speak, looked right through you, recalled Pat Kozak, Amity’s mom.
“He looked like a mobster,” she told me.
Kozak, a 1996 Central Gwinnett High grad, was drop-dead gorgeous. Model material.
All her life she’d been an adventurer. She fed it by traveling, snorkeling, scuba diving. One time she caught an 80-pound tuna on a deep-sea fishing trip. She’d been to Belize and Mexico.
But Florida was the place she loved.
Growing up in Lawrenceville, the family often took trips to Daytona Beach to visit Pat Kozak’s parents. The sun, beach and glitz intrigued Kozak.
When she was 19, she and a friend moved to South Florida. Her parents didn’t dissuade her. It wouldn’t have made a difference, anyway.
“Like a butterfly, you have to let them go,” Pat Kozak told me. “We supported her in whatever she chose to do.”
Kozak settled into South Florida. She worked various jobs like modeling and, according to the Palm Beach Post, stripped about four years ago at Rachel’s on 45th Street. She earned her real estate license and recently worked as a marketing representative for Flagler Title Co. in Palm Beach County.
Lawza Glover recalled working with Kozak several years ago as a Century 21 agent.
“You could be intimidated by her because she was so beautiful,” said Glover of West Palm Beach. “But she was really sweet and very happy. People always took care of her.”
Ever lived in Florida? If you have, then you know how people can move there and reinvent themselves, sometimes with lies and half-truths.
Peixoto made the move from Boston to South Florida about four years ago.
According to the Palm Beach Post, he associated with the region’s high-society folk, bragged about his money, crashed parties and charities, and lived a con man’s life.
He revealed little about his past in Cambridge, where he’d been a cop with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. He left that job after pleading guilty to vehicular manslaughter in connection with a January 2003 traffic accident that killed a 79-year-old man, according to the Post.
He was investigated several times for excessive use of force and making false arrests, though the charges were dropped. He ran unsuccessfully — twice — for Cambridge City Council.
In mid-April, the 34-year-old ex-cop met Kozak in South Florida. He told her he was in the real estate business. The couple spent Memorial Day weekend visiting Peixoto’s family in Cambridge. After that trip, things changed.
Kozak wanted out. Peixoto apparently wouldn’t have it. The harassment began.
On May 30, the day Kozak’s brother turned 26, she called him and sang “Happy Birthday.”
That same day, Peixoto apparently leapt to his death from the 11th floor of a condo in downtown West Palm Beach. Hours later, Kozak’s bloody body was found inside his apartment by friends of Peixoto who were searching for a suicide note, according to the Post.
Authorities haven’t said if they have a murder-suicide on their hands. Autopsy results are pending.
Kozak’s funeral is set for 2 p.m. today in the Lawrenceville chapel of Tim Stewart Funeral Home. A memorial service will be held in Florida at a later date.
Instead of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (www.ncadv.org).
Pat Kozak says it’s a good thing the suspected killer took his life. “There literally would have been an army after him,” she told me.
“It’s the smartest thing he ever did.”
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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