1963 - CHAPTER FOURTEEN - HEADING FOR THE FINISH LINE

  In September 2007 the bottom dropped out of the economy. A financial bubble had been created in the housing market and the bubble burst. Within four months I lost half of my 401K and the financial crisis was worldwide. To make matters worse, the decision was made to shut down the PSR or Passenger Steel Radial side of our tire plant. There were around 2000 employees at the Bridgestone-Firestone plant in Lavergne. By 2009 there were only about 500 of us left. They transferred me to the TBR, or Truck-Bus Radial side of the plant. I had been building passenger tires and now I would have to learn how to build tractor trailer and bus tires. Those tires of course are much larger and heavier than most passenger tires. I had been building tires on machines that were designed and built in the 1980's with robot arms that placed the tires on metal racks. Now I was building tires on machines that were designed and built in the 1960's.

 After removing the tire from the 0 Ring I had to manhandle it over to a large conveyor belt. My back and body hurt constantly but it was something one learns to live with. I didn't want to build truck tires but they would not allow me to transfer out of the department. There was a daily quota of tires that we had to build which was totally unrealistic. Most of the time in PSR I built my quota but I was rarely able to build it in TBR. I was 59 years old and nearing retirement. Because of the recession we dropped from 25.00 dollars an hour to 22.50 an hour and lost benefits. Under the new contract the company could hire people and start them out at 13.00 dollars per hour. Because of this they began doing everything they could to drive the older and higher paid employees, like myself, away. During my last year with the company I was written up 8 times. In the previous 21 years with the company I had been written up maybe 3 times, and they were all production related. Most of the write ups I received during my last year were for production, but I was even written up once for getting my arm caught in a tire machine.

 About a month before my retirement I was moved to a machine that I rarely worked on because my regular machine was down for maintenance. I was having a problem with the belt server on this different machine not retracting the material like it was supposed to. The rubber was very tacky, and would stick to the material on the drum, which caused bad jams. I had already called set-up several times to fix the problem. It was difficult trying to keep the material from sticking and at the same time moving my arm out the way before the tread server came down. My last tire for the day was nearly finished. After cutting the steel belts with my hot knife, the material as usual did not retract properly. This time I was too late getting my arm out of the way and the tread server came down and crushed my left arm between the server and the belt drum. I felt like I was caught in a vice and totally unable to move my arm. The pain was nearly unbearable. Luckily my right arm was free and I was able to pull the emergency rope. 

 A very loud buzzer alerted everyone around me to the fact that I was in trouble. Tire builders were running to my machine from all directions. They were also in a panic and didn't know what to do. Gritting my teeth in pain I told them to get this damn thing off of me, and I usually don't talk that way. It occurred to me after I was freed from the machine that all I had to do was reach down and collapse the belt drum and my arm would have slid right out. In my panic I wasn't thinking clearly, however. Suddenly, I saw one of the men who had trained me, run up with a steel bar and he lifted the tread server just enough that I was able to get my arm out. My forearm and wrist was flat as a pancake.

 Someone drove up with an electric cart and I was rushed up to the company clinic. Miraculously, nothing was broken, and no blood vessels were seriously damaged. The worst I got out of it was a bad bruise. About five years ago a man was killed while working on a machine that I was assigned to. He died when the upper part of his body was crushed in the tire machine. I had worked 22 years without getting caught in a machine at Bridgestone-Firestone and just a few weeks before retirement I managed to get caught in one. A few days after the accident I was written up for committing an unsafe act. The unsafe act I committed was the result of the company not fixing the machine so I could build tires safely. I saw many unsafe acts committed while working at Bridgestone-Firestone and they were routinely ignored. We worked on machinery that could kill a person very quickly and they were not forgiving when you made a mistake.

Similar to the tire machines I worked on

  We had a supervisor named Bobby who was a total jerk. He was not only a jerk to me but pretty much everybody else. We had dealt with his abuse for years in PSR and because that side of the plant closed down Bobby was transferred over to torment us in TBR. He had always made a point of telling me to call him immediately whenever my machine went down for maintenance, or for any other reason. One day I went down for maintenance and I paged him to call me. When he called I told him I was down. His response was "so" and he hung up on me. About a week later my machine went down again. For the second time he said "so" and hung up again. I was mad and I called the shop steward to set up a meeting with the department supervisor. The department supervisor kept blowing me off so I thought of another idea. Once a week we were having a shift meeting with the department and shift supervisors. I would have my day in court one way or the other.

  During the meeting the department supervisor spoke for about 10 or 15 minutes about various production issues and other problems within the department. I waited patiently until he asked if anyone had any questions. Since I was the only one to raise my hand he called on me. I asked if he thought it was acceptable for Bobby to ignore me when I told him that my machine was down on two separate occasions. Bobby was standing behind me and people told me later that he turned white as a sheet when I said that. I got my meeting with Bobby, the department supervisor and the shop steward. Bobby humbly apologized to me which was a first. I had never seen him apologize to anyone. People came up to me later and and shook my hand for calling him out in public. This was shortly before I retired and the timing was perfect.

 I absolutely came to loathe my job at Bridgestone. When I was off it was hard to get that place out of my mind. All I did was dread the thought of going back to work. Everyday when I walked into the plant it would put me in a bad mood and I was always angry. My chance to leave came in 2010 when employees were offered a 25,000 dollar bonus for retiring early. I turned 60 on February 28th and this meant that I would qualify for my military retirement check along with my Tri-Care health insurance. Combined with my Bridgestone pension this would not be enough to sustain us. Hopefully, with a part time job we would be able to make it. If I had still been building passenger tires I feel certain that I would not have retired at 60. I would have at least waited until I turned 62 or even older. At 62 I would then be eligible for my social security. Working in TBR, however; I felt like I would die if I didn't get out of there. My retirement was scheduled for April 2010. On my last day I proudly wore a shirt that read " Take This Job And Shove It". I hated that job so much that to this day I avoid driving by there if I can help it. Occasionally I still have nightmares about that place.

  Sometime after January 2010 I woke up in the middle of the night very short of breath. I thought at first I was having a severe panic attack. My heart was beating wildly and thinking it was a panic attack I jumped on to my exercise bike. Exercise was one of the ways that I had beat back panic attacks for years. I would put on my running shoes and run until the feeling of panic went away. In this case the exercise seemed to make things worse. I stayed up the rest of the night and drove in to work that morning My heart was still beating extremely fast and was out of rhythm. 

 I am hard headed and should have gone to the emergency room instead of to work. Most of the morning I was as weak as a kitten but  around 11:00 AM I suddenly felt much better. It happened so quickly it was like someone flipped a switch in my body. I felt my pulse and my heart was in a normal rhythm. Thinking that this episode was some kind of a fluke I was hopeful that it would not happen again. About a month later I woke up feeling the same way. Again, I went to work hoping that it would eventually go away. Our office was upstairs and I could barely make it to our shift meeting that morning. By noon my heart was beating normally again and I felt much better. I didn't know it at the time but my heart was converting on it's own.

 One morning after retirement I was reaching over to turn off the alarm clock when I noticed that my heart was out of rhythm again. This time I told Debbie that I was going to the ER. She couldn't take me because she was babysitting. Something was definitely wrong and it wasn't anxiety. I drove myself to the ER and they whisked me right in after I told them I was having problems with my heart. The doctor wasn't pleased that I drove myself to the ER. After a few tests he came in and told me that I had Atrial Fibrillation. This is a condition that affects the upper chamber of the heart. I had some sensors there that were misfiring at times causing me to go into an irregular heart beat. 

 If you are going to have heart trouble this is probably the best one to have. My risk of stroke is higher but they put me on blood thinners to prevent that. The doctor told me that 60 was young for having this problem but with medication it could be treated. I was also placed on blood pressure medication and medication to slow down my heart. You would think after all of those years of running I wouldn't be having this problem. I had untreated high blood pressure and sleep apnea which was later confirmed by a sleep study. For years afterward I only had these episodes when I was sleeping. I believe that the things that I was eating, and how late that I was eating affected whether or not I had an episode. On average I was having about 2 or 3 episodes a year after I got on the medication.

  After retiring I knew that I would have to find a job. I had worked hard all my life and I wanted a job that was not physically demanding. Something like a security job or a courier job. I thought about working security at one of our local National Guard bases such as the Air National Guard base in Nashville or preferably the Army National Guard base in Smyrna near my house. Because I was in such a mental funk after working at Bridgestone I couldn't motivate myself to apply anywhere for about three months after I retired. From the beginning of April until mid June 2010 we lived off of the 25,000 dollar retirement bonus that I received from Bridgestone. Which was only 15,000 after the government took their part. The retirement experience has been like one long vacation for me. 

 Dynamic Security had the contracts for the military bases and I walked into their home office in Nashville one day. When I talked to the human resources officer his face brightened when I told him how much experience that I had in security and he seemed very eager to hire me. He asked me if I would like to work in a mall. From the start I thought that I was going to be posted on an entry control post somewhere and be bored to death but I was excited at the prospect of working directly with the public in a mall setting. This could be interesting. Naturally I jumped at the chance. Making it even better for me I would be working at Stones River Mall in Murfreesboro, which is only about 10 minutes from my house. Our uniforms were black pants, white shirts and a service hat. My shirts were for the most part ill fitting and I was constantly fighting to keep my shirt tail in. The hat they gave me was the old five point taxi driver style hat and I hated it. Being ex military I always tried to look sharp and I hated this uniform. I would eventually buy my own hat which was more like the military style service hats. These hats were extremely hot in the summer but they kept your head warm in the winter.

 For the first years that I worked there I averaged between 32 and 40 hours a week. After age 62 I was limited to no more than 32 hours a week, on a regular basis, because of the yearly cap on social security. I fell in love with the job from the start. There was always something happening. Primarily shoplifting but we had a variety of other issues. Fighting, armed robberies, assaults, sexual predators, drug overdoses, medical emergencies and any other situation that you can name. In July 2010, right after I started working at the mall, I had to handle an armed robbery. A young Hispanic male walked up to me and calmly said that he was just robbed at gunpoint in the food court restroom. He then pointed at two Black males walking toward the exit doors and told me that they were the ones that did it. When I spotted them they were halfway to the doors from the restroom. 

 I had just bought dinner from a restaurant called Pyramids and I turned to put my food down. The Styrofoam plate broke in half and my food spilled all over the floor. I took one step and my right knee slammed straight down into the floor as I slipped on the food. While grimacing in pain on the floor, the man who had been robbed told me to hurry up because they were getting away. I managed to stand up and run after them. As I was running I radioed my female partner to call 911. Within minutes police cruisers were everywhere. Somehow the men had gotten away. My knee did okay for about a year but I would end up having to have knee surgery.

My grandchildren Gabe and Russell Qualls visit me at the mall

  

 

 One day I had a caller that said that a woman was standing in our fountain taking her clothes off. It was a hot summer day around noon. Upon arrival I found a homeless woman, about 35 years old standing in the middle of the fountain. She was soaked to the skin and wearing only a bra and jogging pants. When I asked her what she was doing she said it was so hot she was just cooling off. Being homeless she was probably trying to steal the coins out of the fountain. We had an officer who at the time he was working the midnight shift and he was very good at catching people stealing money out of the fountain. Many days I would come into the security office and there would be cups of coins that he had confiscated from people trying to steal money. One night he was lurking in the shadows watching two heavy set black ladies who were stealing coins. They had removed their pants and panties so they could wade around in the fountain. He jumped from his hiding place and scared them so badly that they ran buck naked through the parking lot toward Home Depot.

 This officer was not scared of anything. One weekend I asked him to work for me while I drove to Tampa Florida for an America's Got Talent audition. On Saturday night things got out of hand at one of our restaurants. White patrons in one group got into a fight with black patrons in another. The police were called and several of the trouble makers were hauled off to jail. For much of the time that they were in the restaurant he had to keep the peace. After the mall closed that night he moved over to center court in order to finish up his paperwork. Suddenly he heard someone banging on the glass doors near the south parking lot. When he got to the doors a lady told him that four men were about to fight in the parking lot. There were two Black men about to fight two White men. 

 The white men appeared to be white supremacists because they had Nazi swastika's tattooed on their neck. It appeared that the altercation was the result of the earlier disturbance in the restaurant. Our officer told them that he was calling the police and they needed to leave. The two black men complied and left with no problem. The white men on the other hand began cursing him and calling him a nigger lover. One of the men took a swing at our officer, which was a big mistake, and with one blow he knocked the man out cold in the parking lot, along with three of his teeth. His buddy didn't want any part of our officer after that and commenced to load the unconscious man into his car. About that time a police officer arrived on scene. He had seen our officer punch the man's lights out. As the men were driving away the police officer pushed the mans teeth into a pile with his foot and shouted "Don't forget these".

The fountain lady

  

 On Saturday December 15, 2012 I was walking near the Food Court when I heard a commotion. Two women were in a violent argument. They were in each others faces shouting as they walked toward the food court. I quickly walked in their direction hoping to find out why they were arguing with each other. There was a man standing by the kiddie rides who motioned for me to come over to him. In a low voice the man told me that the women weren't the problem as he was pointing toward the massage chairs where a man was sitting with his back to me. All I could see was his head sticking up over the back of the chair. The man told me to look at his tee shirt. I walked over to him and he was wearing a shirt that read " Did Your Gun Killed A Kindergartner"? This was just one day after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting. At that time we had a kiosk that made tee shirts to order. You could get pretty much anything printed on a tee shirt that you wanted. He had put on the first tee shirt as soon as it was ready and was sitting there waiting for two more to be made.

 Mall policy is that clothing with profanity or obscenity written on them are not allowed. Controversial messages on the other hand were a horse of a different color. Something like a I hate Jesus, or I hate Mohammad shirts, for example. Or a Confederate flag shirt, or a Black Lives Matter shirt, might cause problems. Although this was before the Black Lives Matter movement was very well known, it would still be a good example of a controversial shirt. Our policy was that you could wear clothing with controversial messages on them as long as nobody complained. Or the clothing did not cause a disturbance, as in this situation. 

 Politely I told him that his shirt was causing a disturbance and he had several options. He could go into the closest restroom and turn the shirt inside out or wear a jacket over it. If these two options were not acceptable to him he would have to leave. He replied that it was his 1st Amendment right to wear it and he would not cover it up, and nor would he leave mall property. I responded that the mall was private property and I would have to ask him to leave. Again, he refused to leave. I then called my supervisor and explained to him what was going on. He told the man everything I had already told him and he still refused to comply. Finally, my supervisor told him if he didn't leave he was going to call the police. The man said that he wouldn't leave until his other shirts were finished. My supervisor then called the police.

 When he realized that we weren't playing around with him, he slowly began walking toward the west side of the mall. He was arguing with us the whole way out. As we exited the door the police were driving by and didn't see us. My supervisor flagged them down while I stayed with the man. The man and I walked clear across the parking lot next to a restaurant when the police finally caught up with us. They asked the man how he got to the mall and he said that a friend dropped him off. This turned out to be a lie because he had driven his car to the mall on a suspended drivers license. The police charged him with several crimes. Lying to the police, driving on a suspended drivers licence and criminal trespassing. The man later represented himself in court. My supervisor and myself had to appear in court several times but in the end he was not successful. Private property rights always prevail.

  One morning I got a call from a shoe store that a gun had dropped out of a man's waist band and fell to the floor. He was with another man at the time and they were last seen walking toward the food court. I was by myself that morning and on the far end of the mall when I got the call. As I walked toward the shoe store I figured that the men were long gone and had already left the mall. To my surprise I saw them walking back toward the shoe store from the direction of the food court. They fit the description given to me over the phone. I called 911 and remained on the phone with the operator as I followed them from a safe distance. 

 They walked into store after store throughout the mall heading toward the west end where they eventually turned around and headed back toward the food court. As they walked near to the exit doors I was afraid that they were going to get away. There was no sign of the police. Then, in a flash, the police burst in through the food court entrance and from the entrance doors to a nearby book store. After questioning the men they discovered that the men were casing stores in order to rob one of them. A third man was the getaway driver sitting in the parking lot and he was now in possession of the gun. These guys could have made an episode of America's Dumbest Criminals". If I had dropped a gun where everyone could see it I would have left the property as quick as I could get out of there. Why they hung around I will never know.

  The most bizarre and funniest incident that I have experienced since I have worked at the mall happened in April 2013. I received a call from one of the tenants that a man was trying to fight customers in the mall. My partner and I began looking for the man. We searched for about twenty minutes but couldn't find him. After a while I called off the search and we returned to normal duty. A few minutes later my other officer notified me over the radio that he had spotted the man in center court. I told him to keep a visual on him until I could get there. On my way over to their location I called the police. The man left center court and headed over to a nearby Sports Bar. 

 I told the police his location as I was walking to the restaurant. The man was standing in the sports bar watching television when I spotted him. I quietly asked the man if he could come outside and talk to me. He said yes and we walked out to a spot on the west side of the restaurant where I could speak to him in private. I was trying to buy some time until the police arrived. As I was talking to him I smelled alcohol on his breath and he was swaying back and forth. He suddenly reached down toward his foot, which startled me because I thought that he might be reaching for a knife or a gun in an ankle holster. I quickly realized that he was reaching down to take off his flip flops. Suddenly, he spun around and took off running toward the fountain.

 I am not supposed to chase anybody but I was afraid that he might get into a car and drive off. He could hurt himself or others. I took off running, hoping to get his license number in the event he drove off before the police arrived. Despite his state of inebriation he was running pretty fast. As he neared the fountain he fell hard on his face. Anyone else would have knocked themselves out but he immediately jumped up. I told him that if he hadn't been running he wouldn't have hurt himself. He told me not to worry because I couldn't catch him. For an old guy with heart trouble I did pretty well, however. 

 He ran toward our beauty school and disappeared out of sight as he ran around the corner of the building. When I came out on the backside of the building a lady in an SUV asked me if I needed any help. I asked if she saw where the man went and she pointed toward a nearby Department store where I spotted him standing on a sidewalk trying to catch his breath. As I started running toward him several police cruisers arrived and boxed him in on the sidewalk.

 When I arrived on the scene I told one of the officers that he might need medical assistance since he fell so hard on his face. An officer asked him if he needed an ambulance. Slurring his words and swaying back and forth he pointed his finger at me and said, " Your damn right I do. You see that guy over there. He stuck his finger up my ass !!!" I said "Whoa, I never touched him." The cops were cracking up at this point and it was obvious that they weren't taking him seriously. As we stood there waiting for the ambulance to arrive he kept pointing at me, repeating over and over, " Stinky fingers, sticky fingers". When the ambulance arrived a female EMT was pulling on her rubber gloves as she asked a police officer what the problem was. With an evil grin the officer pointed at me and said " You see that security officer over there he stuck his finger up his ass". The look on her face was priceless. She said "Excuse me". The Murfreesboro Post ran the following article in their newspaper.

BIZARRE: Drunken man attempts to fight others.

By: THE MURFREESBORO POST

Posted: Sunday, April 28, 2013  12:00 am

A 31 year old Murfreesboro man was arrested for public intoxication and disorderly conduct.Sunday April 21 after a security guard at Stones River Mall called police.

The suspect was accused of "attempting to fight strangers in the parking lot" outside Sam's All American Sports Grill, according to an arrest report filed by Murfreesboro Police Officer Zachary Ferrell.

When Ferrell arrived the suspect fled from the security guard, but the officer quickly caught up to the man who allegedly smelled strongly of alcohol and was unsteady on his feet.

He had injuries to his feet and elbows which resulted from running from security, according to witnesses.

According to the suspect, the injuries came when "someone knocked him out and that a finger went inside his rectum" Ferrell reported. But witnesses said no one assaulted the suspect.

He was then transported to MTMC where he "was belligerent and begun cursing at the ER staff. (He) became hostile... to the point that ER doctors refused to treat him," Ferrell said.

He was booked into the Adult Detention Center where he was held on a 750.00 bond.

So far this incident is by far the funniest thing that has ever happened to me since I have been working at the mall. For several days afterward I would break out in laughter just thinking about it.

  To this date I have only had to make physical contact with two people in my 11 years at the mall. In both cases I was assisting a police officer in making an arrest. One night in September 2013 I received a call from the manager of one of our clothing stores that a lady carrying a large number of shopping bags had stolen several children's jackets. I called our on site police officer and we both arrived on scene at the same time. The manager was standing in front of his store when we arrived. He pointed the lady out to us who was in the store next to his. She was looking at something on the far wall with her back to us. 

 I asked the manager if he wanted to confront her and he said that he did. I told him that we would be there to back him up if things went south. As we walked through the door she spotted us and immediately became defensive. She was loudly saying that she hadn't done anything and to leave her alone before we even got close to her. The manager told her that she had three of his jackets and he wanted them back. She denied that she had anything that belonged to him. The woman  set her bags on the floor and every time the manager tried to look into the one that had the jackets in it she would quickly open and shut the bag.

 This gave the police officer probable cause to check her bags. He asked to see them and she quickly walked toward the front door skirting past us. Out on the sidewalk the officer asked to check her bags again. She set them down and before she could react the store manager reached into one of her bags and grabbed the stolen jackets. The police officer then tried to place her under arrest and she immediately began to fight him. It was at night and during the struggle, both the officer, who was very large, and the woman ended up between two parked cars. It was a tight space and she was kicking him in the groin and everywhere else she could reach. The officer sounded very winded as he called for back-up on his radio. When she turned her back to me I grabbed her in a bear hug which trapped her arms against her sides. The officer was then able to get the his handcuffs on her as his back-up arrived. A booster bag was also confiscated which are made out of duct tape. The thief places a booster bag down into a regular shopping bag so the sensors wont sound when they leave the store with stolen merchandise. I later received a letter from Allied-Barton security services commending my actions in assisting the officer that night.

A booster bag 

Booster bag and bags and goods confiscated from the thief

  On Saturday November 9, 2013 I got a call that a man was trying to start a fight with a customer at a calendar kiosk near center court. It was just after 4:00 PM. I was working with a male and female officer that afternoon. We had been looking for the man for about 15 minutes when I got a call from the female officer that she had spotted him on the east side of the mall while patrolling in the security vehicle. The mans name was Ryan Armstrong. He was a strapping six foot three inch muscular white male, who weighed 220 lbs. She told me to meet her near the Food Court and I jumped into the passenger side of the truck with her. As we neared the east entrance of Sears I saw people running out of the store. They were pointing to a man running toward the north end of the building telling us to cut him off. Our female officer identified him as the man she saw earlier and I told her to swing around behind him with the truck. Before we could get to him several large male Sears employees had him cornered. The man was very belligerent and getting up in their faces. I learned later that Armstrong had started a fight with a customer in Sears.

 The security camera footage shows two elderly men and a woman walk into the foyer. The largest of the two men opens the door and holds it as the woman walks in. He continues to hold the door open for customers who are entering the store. A man, who appears to in his fifties or sixties, along with a woman, who I assume was his wife, walks into the foyer from the street. The man appears to be looking angrily behind him as if he is talking to someone just out of sight. He and the woman disappear inside of the store. Soon after this Armstrong enters the foyer and gets up in the face of the man holding the door. The smaller man may have said something to Armstrong because he then gets up in his face. About this time the man who had entered with his wife, and disappeared out of the view of the camera, reappears just inside the door. He is holding his cell phone out in front of him as if he is calling the police. Armstrong slaps the phone out of his hand and the man knocks Armstrong backwards with a vicious blow to the chin. The man then jumps on top of Armstrong and they grapple in the corner of the foyer. For the most part the man seems to be getting the best of Armstrong until he knocks the man down and runs out of the door heading north.. This was the point that we spotted people running out of the store as we drove by in the security vehicle looking for Armstrong.

 When we caught up with him he appeared to be high on something. After exiting the truck I pulled out the security phone and called 911. While I was talking to the operator he was getting up in my face telling me that he was going to kill me and my family. " Then, he walked walk over to everyone there telling them the same thing. To that point he had done nothing physical to any of us. It was all verbal and everyone was showing great restraint. Our female officer was an attractive lady and she was trying to talk him down. Every time he talked to her his whole demeanor would change and he would tell her how pretty she was and that he liked her. The operator asked me to describe him and I told her that he was young, muscular and about 6'3". As I began describing his shirt and pants he ripped off his shirt and took off running toward the Food Court. By this time our other male officer had joined us. I told him to come with me and I told the female officer to get back into the truck. We ran toward the Food Court while she parked the truck and headed back into the mall. On the way in she ran into our off duty police officer who was just coming on duty and told him what was going on.

 When she and the police officer entered the Food Court someone told them that the man had ran into a corridor just behind the Food Court restaurants. The police officer, with the female officer trailing cautiously behind, entered the corridor with his gun drawn. She called us on the radio and let us know what was happening. The male officer and I headed for the opposite end of the corridor. In the meantime the police officer was easing through the corridor when the man jumped out of hiding. He ran toward the MPD officer screaming "shoot me bitch, shoot me". The female officer called 911 and let the dispatcher know where the man was and what was going on. The police back-up was having trouble finding our location. At first they responded to the restaurants across the parking lot from us. About this time, the male officer and myself entered the corridor entrance behind the man which diverted his attention from the police officer to us. He took off running toward me and I went into a defensive posture telling him that he had better back-off. 

 At the last moment he turned from me and pushed the male officer standing beside me. This was the first actual physical contact that the man had made with any of us to that point.  They began fighting and the police officer grabbed the man from behind. My partner and the police officer fell over against the wall and I saw an opportunity to trip the man up by placing my leg in front of his leg and at the same moment pushing hard on the back of his neck causing him to lose his balance. All four of us tumbled to the ground. The female officer ran outside and flagged the police down. When I looked up I saw several police officers running towards us. I jumped up so they could cuff him and it took about four police officers to get that accomplished. Everyone worked as a team and handled this situation very well under pressure. I was very proud of all involved. It took me about 3 hours to come down off of my adrenaline high. The man was taken to jail and would have to be placed in a restraint chair when he was first arrested. Sadly, our off duty police officer who was working with us that day, would later be forced to retire from the police department, for selling police body armor out of his trunk while on duty that he had stolen from the police department.  He was a nice guy and performed very well for us during this incident. 

Ryan Armstrong confronts the man holding the door

Armstrong confronts the smaller man

The third man using his cell phone to call the police

Armstrong knocks the phone out of his hand

The man lands the first punch

The man and Armstrong grappling on the floor

Armstrong breaks free and runs out the door

Sears employees following after Armstrong

The man who gave us so much trouble

  Occasionally we run into someone having sex in and around the mall. Or an occasion we have sexual perverts and predators causing problems. One Christmas holiday season I got a call from a tenant that he noticed a nearby photo booth rocking back and forth. He thought something weird was going on inside the photo booth. When I arrived it was obvious that something was happening. I stealthily approached the booth and threw back the curtain which revealed a 14 year old boy being serviced orally by a 14 year old girl. The photo booth was out of order and I guess they thought this would give them some privacy. On another occasion I got a call that something was going on in the east parking lot over by Sears. When I arrived on scene there was a car and all the windows were fogged up. I tapped on the window and it was obvious that a teenage girl was orally servicing a teenage boy in the front seat while a girl was filming it on her cell phone in the backseat.

 One day I got a call that a woman was complaining about a man exposing himself in front of her, and her children, near Versona. Upon arrival I spotted him sitting in a pick-up truck getting ready to back out of a parking space. We are not supposed to block people but I parked right behind him so he couldn't leave until the police arrived. The woman was so mad I thought that she was going to attack him before they arrived. It turned out that he had been arrested at Wal-Mart the previous month for the same thing. The sad thing was that he was only 18 years old. 

 One morning I got a call from our maintenance man on the radio that a man was being belligerent near the west end restrooms. I asked him if I needed to call 911 but he didn't respond verbally. He keyed his mike and I could hear a man shouting a stream of profanity and it sounded like he was threatening to kill our maintenance man. I called 911 and hurried to his location as I was on the phone with the dispatcher. Upon arrival I found out that the man wasn't talking to our maintenance man but someone on the other end of his cell phone. I remained on the phone with the 911 operator while I followed him through the mall. The man eventually got into the passenger side of a car and rode off with another man. I found out later that the police stopped him near Red Lobster across the road from the mall. He was in possession of an illegal firearm, along with a bag of dope. In addition to this he had several felony warrants. I also found out that he was the same man that we had had arrested, and permanently banned from the mall, for exposing himself to girls at our cosmetology school a year earlier.

 Early on the morning of June 9, 2015 I got a call from Hancock Fabrics. A teenage male had approached two female employees as they were walking through the parking lot. They said that the kid made them feel very uncomfortable. When they walked into the store and locked the door behind them he began beating on the glass demanding to be let him in. I set out to find him and called a police officer friend of mine who was patrolling the area nearby. He was one of our off duty police officers that worked at the mall. Someone spotted the teenager behind Olive Garden and I relayed this information to the police officer. The officer caught up with him and was questioning him when I arrived on scene. He told the boy to lean over on his patrol car while he checked in with dispatch. The boy kept standing up and the officer asked if he was getting ready to run No sooner than he got the words out of his mouth the kid took off running. This kid was 14 and the officer was pushing fifty but he kept up with him and with the help of back-up was able to cuff him at the edge of mall property. He turned out to be a convicted sex offender from Memphis who had escaped from a special school in our area.  My police officer friend once told me that he had been in more foot chases at our mall than anywhere he had ever worked.

Our 14 year old sex offender just seconds before he bolted

  Nothing angers me more than when I see children being abused or neglected by adults who should know better. I see plenty of this at the mall. Young children are frequently left by themselves in the play area while the parents go off to shop. Sometimes for hours. We will find them roaming the mall by themselves looking for their parents. This is scary because I know that sexual predators are frequently in the mall just looking for such an opportunity. The more responsible parents will report these children to us. 

 One afternoon I got a call to Chuckee Cheese in the mall where there were several birthday party's going on. The restaurant manager told me that it appeared that an older child had used her younger sister to steal a customers cell phone while he had his back turned. When I looked at the restaurant video footage I realized that it wasn't an older sister but the child's mother that had put her up to stealing the phone. Just then an employee walked in and told me that if I wanted to do something, I had better hurry because she is leaving.  I hurried outside where she was standing with a little girl that couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 years old. I said something like  "Ma'am, I was told that your child may have a cell phone that doesn't belong to her". She turned to the little girl and said "Honey, did you take somebody's cell phone"? The little girl began to cry and said "Mommy, you told me to." With all the restraint I could muster I calmly told her that I considered this not only theft but child abuse.

 The phone cost about 750 dollars and at that time a theft of 500 or more was a felony. I called 911, and also called for back-up because many in her party seemed to be angry because I called the police. There was way more of them and only two of us. I was sweating it out until the police arrived. Upon arrival they arrested the woman but discreetly removed the child so she wouldn't have to see her mother being handcuffed. One of the officers that was handling the situation was not only one of the prettiest female officers on the police force but she was also one of the toughest and most professional. 

 I heard a man, who happened to be Black, giving the man who owned the cell phone hell because he reported his phone missing. I wasn't going to let this man take the heat when I was the one who called the police. I said "excuse me sir". He arrogantly turned to me and said "I'm not talking to you I'm talking to him". I got in his face and said "oh, but I am talking to you". Again, he rudely told me to go away because he wasn't talking to me. I then told him to leave mall property.  He told me that he wasn't leaving because this was public property and he had a 1st Amendment right to say anything that he wanted to. I told him no, that this was private property and I told him to leave again. I then heard a female voice behind me firmly tell the man that he had to go. The female police officer heard our exchange, while filling out a report in her patrol car. The man asked her if I was being racist. She told him no, that I wasn't being racist, and he needed to leave. He angrily left without further argument. 

 For some reason many people think that a mall is public property. A security officer's primary job is to observe, report, deter and to detect. We are not police officers and virtually have no more authority than the average citizen. As security officers, however; we represent the mall's interests and if we tell someone to leave, and they refuse to go, they are guilty of criminal trespass at that point. This is where our real power lies as a security officer. We can't physically make a person leave mall property but the police can, and will, when we call them. On very rare occasions the police have not backed us up. If that happens, it is usually a new police officer who is not well versed in the concept of property rights. When I complain to MPD leadership they will always back us up and the offending officer is called on the carpet about it. 

  One Spring day, in early May, the temperatures were topping 90 degrees. One of the clerks at Books-A-Million called and told me that a customer noticed two small children locked up in a van with the windows rolled up and no adults were in the vehicle. When I arrived on scene there was a crowd forming. The windows were barely cracked and the car was not running. A baby boy was sweating profusely and screaming his head off in a baby seat on the rear passenger side. A male toddler, about the age of 3, was either passed out, or asleep in another baby seat on the rear drivers side. I called 911 and was seriously considering breaking out the windows when the fire department and EMT's arrived. Just about then the father showed  up. To my surprise he was a Mennonite and was dressed in the garb. He and his wife were reading books in the bookstore while his kids roasted in his van. 

 In July 2015 I got a call that an SUV was running with two small children strapped in the backseat and there were no adults around. This time the car was unlocked and running but at least the parent thought to leave the AC on. I called our on site police officer who then called dispatch. When police back-up arrived the father showed up. He was eating in a nearby restaurant and noticed the police activity. The father was just a kid himself. As I understand Tennessee law it is only a misdemeanor to leave your children unattended in a hot car, or in a car that is running, as long as the children are not injured. It only becomes a felony if the children are harmed by your negligence. On at least two other occasions I have answered calls where the moms left their babies strapped in a running car with the doors unlocked while they shopped for well over an hour.

Mennonite Van

Child left in a hot car

Kid who left his children in a running car unattended

  We have had our share of drug overdoses which have happened primarily in the parking lot. I didn't see this happen but we had a woman run naked through the mall high on drugs one morning. On another occasion I got a call that a man was acting crazy and when I got there he was dancing in the middle of the road having himself a good ole time. Another time a man pointed out a woman that was slumped over her steering wheel. Upon further investigation I realized she was the mother of my niece which was an awkward situation for me. She was so drunk that she didn't recognize me. 

 One night I got a call that two men were slumped over in a car near Shoe Carnival. I called our on site police officer and he arrived on scene a little before I did. When he first arrived he thought they were dead. After I arrived he was talking to a man on the passenger side that was just starting to gain consciousness. We spotted syringes right out in the open and the officer told me to call 911 in order to ask for back-up and an ambulance. When they arrived the paramedics were able to rouse both men. 

 While they were checked out the police began a thorough search of the car. They found not only syringes but crack and a big bag of pills. There was also a flare gun and some flares in the back seat. By the end of the search the men were alert and the paramedics decided not to transport them to the hospital. The men were brothers and the one in the drivers seat was out on parole from prison. The brother in the passenger seat had no record. His brother who was in violation of his parole took the rap in order to keep his brother out of prison. Besides being in possession of illegal drugs and paraphernalia he was also charged with being in possession of an illegal firearm. Our police officer said that he would not taste freedom for a long while.

Recently I was called to a department store where 2 women were suspected of stealing. I asked if store personnel wanted call police and they would not commit, so I left the store. About an hour later one of our mall walkers told me that a woman was passed out in her car near the bowling alley. Upon arrival I discovered several people standing near a car that was running and with a woman slumped over the steering wheel. I asked if anyone had called 911 and a man answered that he had and was on the phone with them. All the doors were locked and I couldn't open the doors. I then recognized the woman as one of the suspected shoplifters on my earlier call. Her sister, who was the other alleged thief, arrived on scene and became hysterical. She was telling me that her sister was dying and that I needed to break the glass with my stick. I told her that I had nothing to break the glass with and to calm down because I could hear emergency vehicles very close by. Upon arrival a paramedic broke the drivers side window  and luckily the woman was still breathing. We have have numerous drug overdoses in my 11 years at the mall and at least one death I believe. 

Overdose victim slumped over the wheel of her car

 

  Besides the man who accused me of giving him a prostrate exam we have had numerous funny moments. Like the time that I encountered a man in a dinosaur costume and my daughter who is an officer encountering two boys fishing inside the mall. They were wearing waders and using fishing rods to cast cucumbers into center court. One day I got a call from one of our off duty police officers who was eating at a mall restaurant. He told me "You wont believe what I just saw. I was leaving and noticed an elderly man squatting in a handicap space next to his car. When he stood up his pants were down below his knees. Thinking that something might be wrong I asked him if he needed help. The man replied, "if you mean did I just take a shit in the parking lot your damn right I did." The man wasn't lying. He had just deposited a pile of crap right there in the parking lot. It turns out that he was a 93 year old WW2 veteran and his wife was shopping in a nearby book store. Apparently he felt like he couldn't make it inside on his own. I told the police officer that if you are 93, and survived WW2, you have earned the right to take a crap anywhere you want to I guess. 

 One day a man walked up to me in the Food Court and said that there was a man outside with a boom box on his head. Thinking that he meant the guy was carrying a boom box radio on his shoulder I just figured that he was playing it too loud. I walked out of the Food Court and almost ran into a man who was literally wearing a boom box on his head. Apparently he had removed the guts of the radio and was using it as a hat of some kind. Since people are not allowed to cover their face on mall property I explained our policy and asked him to take it off. He refused and I asked him to leave, which he did. Of course he had to remove the boom box in order to drive his car.

Boom Box Man

 

Wearing my hearing aids

  I have always resisted the temptation to profile and stereotype people. This job, however; has made me realize just how quickly many black people are willing to stereotype me. To many, I am just a racist old white guy in a uniform. In my opinion, most black people do not hold that opinion but far too many do. One of my favorite lines from the movie, Remember The Titans, is when Denzel Washington says "I don't dance unless I hear music". In other words my suspicions are not aroused until you give me a reason to be suspicious. If I see anyone acting suspicious, or I have been told that a person is trying to steal, I will respond and follow the people involved at a safe distance. Again, my job is to detect, deter, observe and report. When a person violates mall rules I will say something to them, or follow them,  and I could care less if you are black, white, hispanic, asian, homosexual, transsexual, straight or have tentacles growing out of your head. I have been called a racist more times than I care to count and many of my white officers have been called racist. I even had a white officer that was called a racist by a white woman for following her. In my opinion, it is a ploy to distract us, and they do it in the hope that we will back off. It is kind of like arguing with a leftist. When you have them backed into a corner they resort to name calling.

 On one occasion I got a call that three Black females and one Male were possibly stealing. After locating them, my supervisor, who happened to be Black, and myself, began following them at a safe distance. They walked into numerous stores and I would call the store number warning the manager to keep an eye on them. After one such call a manager, who also happened to be Black, told the thieves what I was doing. It is disheartening when you are trying to help someone and this is how they repay you. They walked out and confronted my supervisor, calling him a sellout and an Uncle Tom. They also called me a racist. My supervisor was livid and they even called the police on us for following them. The police had a good laugh when they arrived and after advising us not to follow them, they left. These thieves then stole from 3 or 4 stores after the police left. I learned later that they stole from about 7 or 8 stores altogether that night.

 One Saturday afternoon I was on mobile patrol when I saw a black male walking with a woman into the Food Court. He had a shirt on that read I F_ _ king Hate Everybody. We have a dress code and I quickly parked and walked over to him just as he about to walk through the door. "Sir" I said, "I'm sorry but you can't wear that shirt into the mall". The woman he was with had already entered the mall but he turned to me and said "Your kidding, right?". I said no sir and I explained our policy to him. He said "your a racist". I ignored this, and repeated that he couldn't wear the shirt into the mall. About this time the woman he was with, stuck her head out of the door and asked what was going on. He told her and she said to me "You mother f_ _cking racist. This is like Trayvon Martin." She then said  "I bet if someone came in here wearing a Confederate flag tee shirt you wouldn't say anything." I said, you are right but neither would I say anything if they were wearing a black power tee shirt." She said "Yeah right." and both left saying that they would never come back to the mall. As I have stated earlier controversial shirts like a Confederate flag tee shirt or a Black Lives Matters tee shirt are okay as long as they are not causing a disturbance. Profanity on a tee shirt, or other clothing, is never allowed. Nor is sagging.

One of our many shoplifters

Another shoplifter about to take a ride to jail

And we get the occasional paranoid schizophrenic. This guy thought that the CIA and FBI were after him

 
 On New Years Eve 2015 I got a call to one of our jewelry stores. They were smelling a strong electrical burning smell. It was around 3:00 PM and the mall was scheduled to close at 6:00 PM. After investigating the situation, I could not detect smoke or fire but the smell was pretty strong. Maintenance and mall management were gone for the day and they weren't answering their phones because it was New Years Eve. You never want to make an unnecessary fire call and it not be anything because I have done that a couple of times and it can be embarrassing. My philosophy is, however; better safe than sorry so I called 911. At first the Fire Department couldn't find anything, but after an hour of searching, they found a hot circuit breaker getting ready to burst into flames. If it had flamed after the mall closed there might have been a fire and it could have caused some pretty serious damage. I don't think that I did anything that extraordinary, but my supervisor and operations manager put me in for the Officer of the Month Award for January 2016 and I won.

 In April 2016 my daughter Misty came to work for us and within a few weeks of being hired she was doing her checks behind one of our outside restaurants. While there she smelled rotten eggs, which was the smell of a natural gas leak. She called our on duty police officer, and our site supervisor at the time. She also talked to the restaurant manager, who wanted to ignore the problem. He wasn't going to evacuate the restaurant and have to throw food away. She said that he was very angry at her for wanting to evacuate the restaurant. On her own judgement, Misty called the gas company and they found two major breaks in the line behind the restaurant. The gas had even traveled down into the sewer line, which was very close to the restaurant. The restaurant was full of people and a gas explosion might have killed and injured numerous people. For her action I encouraged our operations manager to give her the Officer of the Month Award, which she won for the month of May 2016

Misty being presented the Officer of the Month Award for May 2016

  

 I am working for my fifth security company since I came to work at the mall in June 2010. Management had asked me numerous times to become the site supervisor since then but I declined for two reasons. The first reason is that I considered this job to be my retirement job and I did not want the stress of management. Second, I couldn't even if I wanted the job because from the age of 62 when I began drawing my social security, until the age of 66, I was only able to work 32 hours or less each week. I had a yearly wage cap that averaged 15,000 a year. 

 When Allied-Barton took over the contract I was asked to be a site supervisor but instead I agreed to be a Lieutenant, or the assistant site supervisor. During this time I had several supervisors that I was able to get along with okay, and was happy not to have that responsibility. Two of my supervisors were no more than 19 or twenty 20 years old but I actually enjoyed working for them. My daughter Misty, to my delight, became site supervisor. I loved working with her because it was a perfect working relationship and we got to see a lot of each other. It was far too short, however; because she moved to Clarksville and the daily long drive became too much for her. Like me, she loved the job but had to give it up. I still used her, however; as a fill in from time to time and everyone loved her at the mall. 

 After Misty we had a site supervisor named Cindy but she was only at the mall for about a month because she got a better job offer. Cindy was also great to work for but I was now faced with the dilemma that I had dreaded all along. At the age of 66, and heart trouble, I did not want the extra stress and the responsibility. This primarily comes from having to keep posts manned 24/7. If someone doesn't report to work, which can happen frequently, I have to scrape and claw sometimes to keep the posts manned. If I can't find someone many times I am the one who has to work. This is the one aspect of being a supervisor that I hate. I also hate writing people up, but I do what I have to do to get the job done. Everything else is a piece of cake.

  The play area in our mall has been a thorn in our side since the first day I started working this job. It is a no win situation. We are tasked to enforce play area rules but many parents seem to have a sense of entitlement when it comes to their children. In their mind the rules don't apply to them. They can become very defensive and very rude. We always approach the customers in a tactful and professional manner but we are not afforded the same respect by the customer many times. At one time the friction built to where parents were complaining on security. They were accusing us of being rude to them which was a total lie. 

 Mall management was on us hot and heavy about enforcing the rules. Some of the rules listed were that children had to use inside voices. They couldn't play if they were over 42 inches tall, and no strollers or food was allowed in the area. These were just a few of the rules that we had to enforce all of them. In addition, no one was allowed to enter the play area before 11:00 AM, and they had to leave by 8:00 PM. I didn't understand the 11:00 AM opening time because the mall opened at 10:00 AM so it stood to reason that kids should be allowed in the play area at that time, but I didn't make the rules. We had to block the entrance, and maintenance even put a chain across the opening at one point but parents were taking the chain down and going in anyway, or setting their kids down in the play area from the outside of the wall, When they did this we had to make them leave until the play area opened. This was not a popular rule to say the least.

 On one particular morning I received a call that parents had taken down the barrier and their children were playing in the play area. It was 10:30 AM and the play area was supposed to open at 1100. Because of all the friction caused by our enforcement of the play area rules, I decided that I better videotape this in case I had problems. When I arrived there were several children and parents in the play area. A man and a woman were seated to my left and a lone woman was seated to my right. Loud enough to be heard by all I told the parents that the play area would not be open for another thirty minutes and they could come back at that time. 

 The man to my left and the woman to my right were very understanding and began calling their children over so they could leave. The woman sitting next to the man, however; was stony faced and acting as if she hadn't heard me. I said "ma'am, you heard what I said, right?" She looked at me and said "I am not leaving". I said "ma'am, I am sorry but you will have to leave". She said, " I am not leaving. Are you going to arrest me?" I responded, "no ma'am, but here is what I am going to do. If you don't do what I am asking you to do I am going to call the police. They will ask you to leave, and if you don't leave they will arrest you for criminal trespass". At that, she angrily began collecting her things, along with her children. She told me, it is obvious that you don't have any children. I told her "ma'am I have raised 5 children and have 12 grandchildren". She only had two and she was preaching to me.

 After she left I walked to the mall office and told the secretary that if anyone complained on me about what happened in the play area I had videotaped the encounter. Sure enough, about an hour and a half later I was called to the mall office. When I arrived the woman's husband was in an intense argument with the mall manager. Apparently his wife had lied and told him that I was rude to her. The mall manager saw me and told me to show him the videotape. She hadn't seen it herself at that point. After only a few moments of watching the encounter on film the mans whole demeanor changed. It was obvious that his wife had made a fool out of him and he humbly apologized to me and everyone in the room before leaving. I decided to invest in a body camera after this. I love my body camera and it has come in very handy over the years since I bought it. The good thing about my body camera is that I can get good screen shots of people we have banned and sometimes if I forget to get a license plate I can get it off of the body camera later. It also helps me give a better description of people in my incident reports and to the police. I also use it as a training tool.

During the time that Cindy was still site supervisor and a short while after my encounter with the aforementioned lady you could cut the tension growing over our enforcement of the play area rules with a knife. At this time we had a mall manager who insisted that we strictly enforce the rules. We were starting to see Facebook posts where parents were complaining about the way security was enforcing the. One post suggested on a certain day parents should bring their children to the mall after feeding them plenty of sugar and have a children's riot. I brought this post to the attention of the mall manager and she told me to have extra security on duty that day as well as an off duty police officer. I did as I was told but nothing materialized on the day that the children's riot was supposed to occur. 

  One day I was working a dayshift and I got a call from one of our tenants complaining about the noise coming from the play area. I was on mobile patrol so I dispatched the security officer patrolling the inside of the mall to respond to the play area. We received numerous calls every day about the play area so I didn't sense that there was anything out of the ordinary about this call. In retrospect I have regretted that I didn't take the call myself. Not because the responding officer did anything wrong, but because I could have witnessed what happened firsthand. When my officer arrived on scene he was met by the mall manager who had also heard the noise coming from the play area. I was told that there was a child jumping off of one of the toy fixtures in the play area and the mall manager was afraid he was going to get hurt. She told him not to jump like that because he could get hurt. The child's mom was sitting close by and she told her not to tell her child what to do. The mall manager identified herself and told the mom that he could break his arm. The mom responded that he could also break his arm at home, which prompted the mall manager to respond that if he broke it at home the mall wouldn't have to pay for it. 

That night our mall Facebook page erupted with complaints about how rude the mall manager was and how security bullied them. We have never bullied anybody and our officers were always professional. We had a young officer working for us who was extremely nice and a perfect gentleman. If anything, he was almost too nice to be an effective security officer and I tried to toughen him up. He was working one day when the play area was crazy. I was told by nearby tenants that they had never seen as many kids in the play area and the children were screaming to the top of their lungs. On 4 different occasions he was forced to respond to the play area that day because he was either hearing them from center court or he was getting calls from tenants. On the 3rd call he was responding from center court when he ran into the mall manager and she told him to follow her. When they arrived on scene the mall manager did the talking to the parents. In a stern but not in an unprofessional way, she asked them to help hold down the noise. After walking out of their hearing she told my officer that if he got one more call about the noise he was to ask everyone to leave and call housekeeping over to clean the play area. 

  Well, as fate would have it, he got a noise complaint from a tenant and he proceeded to do exactly what he was told to do. When he announced to the parents that he was closing down the play area a woman sarcastically asked him if he was closing it down because of the noise or because the play area really needed to be cleaned. The officer was only 18 years old, and being the good kid that he was, he didn't want to lie to her. He responded that we were closing it down for both reasons. I try to be truthful but in this case the proper response would have been for housekeeping. She then turned to the parents who gathering up their kids to leave and screamed out at the top of her voice that they all had to leave because of the mean security officer. From this point on my officer did not respond properly to the situation and his meek response to her only allowed the situation to escalate to the point that it did. When the woman screamed out the way she did the officer should have told her to leave mall property and if she refused he should have called the police. I was later told by a police officer that she could have been charged with disorderly conduct. 

 The woman then demanded to talk to the mall manager. My officer told her that he would escort her to the mall office. On the way there, and without provocation, she called him a smart ass and told him that she worked in marketing. She then threatened the officer by saying that she would fix him. This is the second time that she should have been told to leave the mall. Upon arrival at the office she got into a heated exchange with the mall manager. This was the third time that she should have been told to leave the mall. After this she walked around to the tenants in the immediate area of the play area wanting to know who snitched on the children. This was a fourth reason to make her leave.

I can't prove it but I believe this woman was the same woman who had the earlier confrontation with the mall manager in the play area. There was a mother's group that met at the play area on a regular basis and I believe she was a member. It is my belief that this whole incident was a setup. This was the children's riot that had been promised earlier on social media. This woman went to our local newspaper, the Daily News Journal, and complained to a reporter. The reporter did not bother to investigate, or check into our side of what happened. She printed the womans perspective in a front page article. We were accused of bullying this woman. The mall upper management folded like a cheap suit. Our mall manager was fired and they wanted to fire the entire security staff except for Cindy and myself. I was present the day Cindy received the call from the mall CEO and could hear him telling her to fire all of our officers. Mall management  never asked to hear our side of what happened. We only had one officer involved in this incident and they wanted to fire security officers that weren't even working that day.

  I took over security a few days later and I had a good security team at the time. If they pressed me to fire them I was determined that I would resign before I would allow them to be fired. I definitely was not going to fire the officer involved just for doing what he was told to do. Fortunately the subject of firing my officers never came up again. If I had been working that night I know that they would have wanted to fire me because I would have followed security protocol. The woman would have been forced to leave the mall after the first incident or she would have been arrested and permanently banned from the mall. I would have given her a real story to print in the DNJ. When the next mall manager was hired we were told that if anybody tried to enforce play area rules in the future we would be fired. I relate this story at some risk because I still work at the mall but I feel compelled because the way we were treated was probably the greatest personal injustice that I have ever witnessed. At the time it happened I felt helpless because I could not respond to the woman's lies on social media or the lies told by the DNJ. My blog, and this book is the only public venue that I have to set the record straight and I am determined to set the record straight before I die.

 This incident gave me an up close and personal look at media bias and fake news. We had another incident that illustrates the difference between the leftist media and conservative media. I got a call from an officer one night that he had asked a woman that was wearing a shirt with profanity written on it to turn her shirt inside out or to cover it up with something. He said that she was very cooperative and agreed to do it. About 30 minutes later he saw the same woman and she was still wearing the shirt. She was with a man and this time my officer told her to leave the mall because she had not complied. The man spoke up and said that she wasn't leaving the mall because she had a 1st Amendment right to wear it. I told my officer to  call the police and have her removed. 

 This couple,  who were man and wife, bombarded Twitter with posts saying that they were forced to leave the mall because they were wearing Trump MAGA hats. Until these Twitter posts I never even knew that they were wearing MAGA hats. My officer never mentioned MAGA hats to me. We made her leave because of profanity on her shirt. The irony is that I am a Trump supporter and I definitely would not ban them for a Trump hat, Biden hat, or any other hat as long as it doesn't have profanity on it. I was in the mall managers office when a reporter called from WTN 99.7 radio news asking about the incident. The mall manager explained what really happened and the whole issue was dropped. This is the difference from fake news reporting and real news reporting.

 These are only a fraction of the stories that I could tell about the mall. I have had numerous jobs in my life, but other than my time at NORAD this job has been the most challenging but it has also been the most rewarding. I hope that this will be the last job that I ever have.

  

 In the early months of 2017 I had a couple of episodes with my heart. I was averaging about 2 or three a year and I got to where I hated the routine of going to the ER and having to wait in an exam room for hours at a time. Usually, my heart would convert on it's own. My heart has only been shocked once to get it back in rhythm. So after a while, when it would go out of rhythm, I started hanging out at the house instead of running to the ER. After a few hours my heart would convert on it's own. Most of my episodes happened after I went to sleep at night. Then, a few occurred while I was awake and it seemed to be related to how late I ate supper and the kind of food that I ate. Foods high in sodium or spicy foods seemed to be the worst for me. 

 The doctor told me that my heart was showing some signs of enlargement. Nothing to really worry about in the short term but in the long term it could lead to heart failure. My heart rhythm specialist told me a few years ago about a heart procedure known as an heart ablation. Doctors go up through your crotch and into the heart. To the best of my knowledge they cauterize sensors in the heart that cause an irregular heartbeat. At first I didn't like the odds. I was told that there was about a 60% success rate. If it worked I could be cured, if not I might have to have a 2nd or third procedure. Or, I might be forced to wear a pacemaker. I reached the point that I was willing to take the risk and surgery was set for June 2, 2017 at Vanderbilt. The doctor went into three areas of my heart and I was disappointed when he told me to stay on my heart medicine after the procedure.

 Almost immediately after the procedure I began to show symptoms of a urinary tract infection. I must have gotten it from the catheter that they put in me during the surgery. A couple of days after the surgery I developed a severe pain in my left side that came on very suddenly. It became more and more intense to the point that I asked my grandson Connor to ride with me to Stonecrest hospital in Smyrna. I checked in at the desk and the pain was worse than anything I had ever experienced in my life. Nothing I did eased the pain and I felt like a caged animal. It was around 11:00 PM and the waiting room was packed. The medical staff was walking around like they had dead lice falling off of them and finally I just couldn't wait any longer. I told Connor to come on because we were going to Vanderbilt. 

 At Vanderbilt it was the same situation. The ER was packed and I had to wait. The pain became so intense that I closed my eyes and prayed that God would take the pain away. It was really weird because almost as soon as I said that prayer the pain went away. After that I sat in the ER waiting room for a pretty good while until they finally took me back. They put me on a gurney and rolled me into the hallway. I figured that maybe I had passed a kidney stone because I began peeing blood when I gave them a urine sample. When the doctor finally appeared he confirmed that I had a bladder infection and he agreed that I had probably passed a kidney stone. He sent me to get a ct scan on my kidney without using the contrast dye. The doctor told me that he wanted to see if I had anything else going on beside having a kidney stone. When the doctor returned he told me that I had passed a kidney stone but the ct scan revealed that I had a mass in my left kidney. He said that if it was cancer it hadn't metastasized yet but I should have it checked out. It was about 5:00 AM and I was so tired that his words didn't quite sink in at that moment.

 I made an appointment with a urologist and he did another ct scan, this time using the contrast. A few days later Debbie and I went back for the verdict. He said that I had a four centimeter tumor in my kidney, which had a 60 to 80 percent chance of being cancer. He told me that my only options were to remove the kidney or I could wait a few months to see if it had grown any. Removing the tumor, without removing the kidney, was too dangerous for two reasons. It was in a bad place and I could bleed to death on the table. In addition, if it was cancer, there was a chance that he couldn't get it all and the cancer could spread. Waiting was not an option for me. I gave him the green light to remove my kidney and surgery was scheduled for August 10th. 

 This was in early June and I couldn't figure out why they didn't schedule the surgery earlier. I took this to mean that they weren't all that concerned about it spreading that fast, or at least I was hoping that is what they were thinking. This was the first major surgery that I have ever had and it was a success. The doctor told me that tests showed that the tumor was cancer but it was the least likely to reappear and was not aggressive. I have since had ct scans and ultrasounds on a yearly basis and I am cancer free. Recently, My heart doctor even took me off of my heart medication because he said that the medicine could kill me since I only have one kidney. I have not missed it at all and I am actually doing much better since I have been off of it. That kidney stone saved my life. Until that point I had never had a kidney stone. The doctor told me that kidney cancer is a bad cancer to have because there are usually no symptoms until the cancer is very advanced and he said that there is no cure. Apparently God is not finished with me yet.

  We have been fortunate by having had the opportunity to travel so much over the course of our lives. In 2008 we took a vacation in Corpus Christi Texas and I finally got to see not only the Alamo, but where Sam Houston won Texas independence at the battle of San Jacinto. I can confirm here that the Alamo does not have a basement. There was, however; a restaurant across the street named The Basement. We also got to meet the father and sister of Salena in Corpus Christi. Her father gave us a tour of his recording studio and he was a really nice guy. There was also a Salena museum there at the recording studio. The recording studio and museum was in a bad part of town and about the only way that you could tell there was anything there was a painting of Salena on the side of the building that looked more like graffiti than anything. 

 In 2012 we were able to go back to Colorado Springs after 40 years. It was a dream come true for us because we enjoyed it so much when I was stationed there. It was the happiest time of our life. My sons Jon and Rob brought their families along with Mark and his wife Paulette. Sadly Carrie broke her foot very badly after only being there for a couple of days. She and Jon had to fly back home for surgery and at least their kids were able to stay with us for the rest of the week. We were able to see our old apartment on North Arcadia in Colorado Springs. The building appeared to be abandoned and it looked like the homeless had been living there because someone had taken a dump in the living room and everything was in disarray. Otherwise everything was recognizable and the visit was sad but nostalgic. The fine view that we had of Pikes Peak was blocked by buildings that had been built around the duplex since we lived there. The Pizza Hut was still there but the neighborhood had deteriorated greatly over the years. We also drove by our old church and Wasson high school where Mark attended while we were living there. My biggest disappointment was not being able to tour NORAD in Cheyenne Mountain. Tours are not allowed since September 11, 2001. 

 In 2014 we were able to take a trip back to Gettysburg with my son Rob & his family. From there we went to the Amish community of Intercourse. Virginia is for lovers but Pennsylvania has intercourse. I saw that on a tee shirt. We also visited Hershey, and Philadelphia Pennsylvania. In Philadelphia we visited Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. The last few days of the trip were spent in Salem, Lexington, Concord and Boston Massachusetts. I wish that we had gone to Massachusetts first and Pennsylvania last. We needed more time in Massachusetts. 

 In 2016 we drove out to San Diego along with my daughter-in-law Lisa and my grandsons Robbie and Blaine. Upon arrival we were joined by my sons Rob, Jon and my daughter-in-law Carrie. On the way we were able to visit the Oklahoma City bombing memorial and we stayed at a beautiful resort named after Lawrence Welk in San Diego. Besides San Diego we were able to see Hollywood and the famous Walk of Fame. On the way home we stopped at Dodge City Kansas, and the Eisenhower home in Abilene. I didn't care for the fact that I was able to carry my gun all the way out to California but in California my gun had to be placed in a lock box and my ammo in another lock box. It boggles my mind that the people of California allow such tyranny to exist.

Pikes Peak 2012

Our old apartment in Colorado Springs 2012

Checking out our old apartment 2012

Our kitchen in Colorado Springs 2012

The view from our kitchen window in 2012

The church that we attended

Wasson High school in 2012

The Air Force Academy Hospital where Misty was born in 2012

Rob & I at Garden of the Gods 2012

A group photo at the Cliff Dwellings 2012

Jon, Me & Rob at the San Diego Zoo in 2016 

  I had the honor to walk my granddaughter Courtney down the aisle for her wedding in early May 2012. She made a beautiful bride and I was very proud of her. I have been very proud of her for a lot of reasons. Sometime in 2010, or 11, her leg started hurting and she developed a limp. We sent her to our orthopedic doctor but he took one look at her and told her that she might have Multiple Sclerosis. In a very short time she could only walk with assistance because the symptoms came on very quickly. Courtney was sent to one of the best MS specialists at Vanderbilt. After treatment, and a shot regimen, she has been able to live a fairly normal life but suffers a lot from pain. Courtney has even given us two beautiful great grandchildren. A girl named Baylee and a boy named Maddox. 

 In 2012 we lost my Aunt Didi. She was one of those people that you could never visualize dying because she was such an integral part of our lives. Her health had deteriorated in the few years before she died. Didi had some kind of episode with her heart while my cousin Alton was driving her around in Nashville. Doctors implanted a pacemaker in her but she continued to have dizzy spells from time to time and she was constantly complaining about how bad she felt. Her doctor could never find anything wrong with her. I begged her to get a second opinion but she never would. Didi went to my granddaughter Courtney's wedding and seemed to be so happy. A few days later, however; I got a call from my cousin Roy that she had been rushed to the hospital after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. She lay in a coma for days and would never regain consciousness. Didi died on May 27, 2012. She was 84 years old but I felt like she should have lived a longer life. I am not a doctor but I have always felt that a second opinion might have saved her life.

 From the time I was married until almost the day she died I called her on the phone at least once a week or more. This was something that she always appreciated about me. It was tough sometimes because Didi could get her feelings hurt very easily and she could feel sorry for herself. She loved everyone, however; and was taken advantage of by some of her closest loved ones. She would never admit it but she was too much of an enabler. I felt a sense of obligation because she sacrificed so much for me when she didn't have to and that is why I tried to stay in contact with her. I would always call her when something happened in my life or on the national and local scene. Or when someone was pregnant, sick or had died. 

 Didi would crack me up because she always sounded upset anytime I told her that Debbie, or someone else, was pregnant in the family. She was that way with all of my children. She would say something like, "Gregory, don't you realize what causes that?" After the children were born, however; she was crazy about them. One of her favorite sayings was "Well of all the things." She could be very colorful. Once, when she was mad about something, she said "That makes my butt want to dip snuff." Like many of her generation she was bigoted but I can't remember her using the N word. Her favorite word, when it came to black people, was Nigra. It was alway's those nigra's this and those nigra's that. There was a black man, who Didi apparently liked very well, came to hang wall paper in our house. I cringed when she told him that he was a credit to his race. She was flawed, and could embarrass me at times, but a very special woman and a big part of my life. For several years after she died I would start to call her about something and suddenly remember that she was gone.

A young aunt Didi

  I am proud of all of our children, our grandchildren, and we love them very much. All of them are good moral people and talented in some way or the other. My oldest boy Rob not only looks like my father, but like him is a great father himself. At least before my father succumbed to mental illness. Rob, and his wife Lisa, have spent much time and money allowing their boys Robbie and Blaine to pursue their sports interests over the years. Just like Rob they are great athletes. Rob is very laid back and nothing seems to bother him. He has always seemed to have his head screwed on right, very smart, and has a great sense of humor. I hate that he lives in Vero Beach and I only get to see him a couple of times a year but he seems to be very happy. He is also a U.S. Navy veteran.

Rob, Lisa, Robbie, and Blaine

   Our daughter Misty is a survivor because she has been through a lot. I have worried much about her over the years. She has always been a stunningly beautiful girl but it has been hard to convince her of that. Misty could have had any man she wanted but the men that she has chosen over the years have always been out of her league. She has finally found a man, however; worthy of her. He is a good man and a hard worker. Misty is funny and a lot of fun to be around because she is Miss personality. She is very talented and has a creative gift for designing and making things with her hands. We love to pick on her in a good natured way. Like the time she and a friend were driving to Ft. Campbell and they ended up in Metropolis Illinois before they realized they were lost. Misty has four great children. Courtney, Tyler, Connor and Lydea. Now, she has 4 beautiful grandchildren named Baylee, Maddox, Avery and Aaron.

Tyler, Misty, Lydea, me and Connor

Lydea with her Pa

My favorite picture of Misty

Misty and Ronnie's wedding day

Taking a selfie

  Jon is my most creative child when it comes to music, song writing, and art. He is probably our most sensitive child. We have butted heads a lot over the years because he is so much like me in many ways. As a child I had to whip him more than any of my kids. He is a good Christian man, however; and he and his wife Carrie has raised three great boys. Zachary, Zane and Zander. Like me, he suffers from anxiety but has been able to overcome it. Recently he and Carrie moved to Vero Beach Florida and live close to Rob.

August 29-2021

 My son Jon passed away at 12:15 PM Eastern Standard Time on August 24, 2021 of Covid in Vero Beach Florida where he had been living for about a month. He turned 47 on June 24, 2021. His wife Carrie also has the disease and we are praying for her complete recovery. As of today she appears to be recovering but with this disease we can only keep our trust in God to heal her. I always said that losing my parents was the worst day of my life but losing a child is worse. My wife and I have holes in our hearts that can never be repaired. 

 I think it was around Tuesday 8-17-21 that I learned that Jon had Covid. Around Thursday or Friday I called to check on him and he sounded like he had a stuffy nose but he told me that he was feeling better. He said that the previous days had been rough because he had been super tired, achy and running a fever. I told him to keep a close eye on things and if he started getting short of breath to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. I told him that I loved him as we said goodbye. This, as it turned out, was the last time that I would get to talk to him. I called on Sunday to check on him again. His wife Carrie answered the phone and she said that he was not doing well. He had a headache and he had a weird pain in his eyes. She also told me that she had tested positive for Covid. 

 On Monday morning 8-23, very early, I got a call from Carrie saying that she was taking Jon to the ER because he was very short of breath. I told her to keep us posted because my wife Debbie was having a colonoscopy that morning. Later that afternoon Carrie called back crying and she said that Jon wasn't doing any good and that they were putting him on a ventilator. Although some people have survived after being put on a ventilator, I have been told that your prospects for survival diminish. Oh God, I said, when she told me the news. I told Debbie that we needed to get packed because we were leaving for Florida in the morning bright and early. 

 After we arrived home I received a call from my oldest son Rob that Carrie had called our daughter-in- law Lisa and told her that they were doing CPR on Jon. I called Carrie and she said that they were able to get his heart started again but he would probably go into cardiac arrest again and did she want to revive him. I told her that yes we wanted him resuscitated. Debbie and I were not ready to give up on him and Carrie wasn't either. The doctor told her that Jon would not last through the night. I told Deb, that we needed to leave that night. After calling my daughter Misty she said that she wanted to go with us. At that point we didn't know if we would even get there before he died. 

As I rushed around the house collecting clothes and items for the trip my mind was in a whirl. I was numb throughout the process and for most of the way to Florida. Everything was moving so quickly that it bothered me because I wasn't feeling grief, or anything else at that moment. I just didn't have time to mentally and emotionally process what was happening to my son. 

 We arrived at Yee Haw Junction just off the Florida Turnpike at about 8:00 AM in the morning on Tuesday August 24th after driving all night. My daughter Misty helped with the driving. As we were riding down State Route 60 Carrie called and said that he didn't have long. We asked her to put the phone on speaker and put it up to his ear so we could talk to him. It was soon after that call that the reality of the whole thing hit me like a ton of bricks and I had to pull over to the side of the road because I was having an emotional meltdown. 

  Upon arrival we were led by hospital staff up to the ICU unit. The head nurse there got us up to speed on what was happening with Jon at that moment. She said that Covid was the least of his problems. When he entered the ER his vital signs were showing that he was having a heart attack. She said that he was in two different kinds of coronary shock and his vital organs, such as the heart, liver and kidneys were all shutting down. The virus had attacked his heart and she believed that Jon had an underlying heart condition that he was not aware of. As far as I knew all Jon had wrong with him was high blood pressure and he was on medication for that. Without an autopsy we will never know what actually happened. All I know is that Jon's condition from the time that he entered the ER until he died was a very short time. 

The terrible thing is that less than an hour before Jon died his wife Carrie was forced to leave the hospital. She had been with him for most of the night but apparently no one thought to ask Carrie if she had Covid. She was wearing a mask and had even been in the room with him. Carrie had gone home to rest and early in the morning, around 3:00 AM a nurse called to tell her that she had better return because Jon's condition had grown worse. When the head nurse that was briefing us found out she had Covid she became agitated and made Carrie leave, which I thought at that point was ridiculous. She was trying to maintain her distance from everyone and they should have allowed her to be with John at least until he passed. 

 The nurse told us that we would not be allowed to be with him when he died but we could watch through the glass doors. She said that they would make sure he wouldn't die alone. We all gathered outside his room. My wife Debbie and myself were there, along with my son Rob, his wife Lisa, my daughter Misty, my brother Mark and his wife Kay. We could see the head nurse, and one other nurse, each holding a hand while they began taking him off of the medications that were keeping him alive. A Catholic priest suited up to bestow final blessings on him. We are not Catholic but the protestant chaplain was out with Covid. We were secure in the knowledge that Jon was a Christian so it didn't matter to us whether he was Catholic or Protestant. 

They finally withdrew all life support medication but Jon was still holding on. I saw his eyes open for a brief moment but they were lifeless. Someone told me that this was not unusual. The head nurse walked out and told us that sometime a persons loved ones need to tell them that it is okay to leave. This is what happened when Debbie's brother Ronnie died in 1995 at almost the same age as Jon. Ronnie was only a year older than Jon. Debbie, Misty and myself suited up to do this unpleasant task. 

 I held Jon's left hand and I will never forget how cold it was. Debbie and Misty were holding his right hand while we leaned in close to talk to him. I can't remember anything that anyone else said but I told him that my mother and Debbie's mother would meet him in heaven and that they couldn't wait to see him. Overcome with emotion I had to leave the room and had another emotional breakdown outside. After composing myself somewhat I watched as he finally passed and I saw Debbie and Misty lose it at that moment. I looked at the clock and it was 12:15 PM Florida time. 

I always thought that I might one day lose a child to cancer, heart disease, or in a car wreck or some other kind of accident but never to a virus. When these dark thoughts entered my head I tried to quickly push them out. We almost lost Misty in 2007 but she survived by the grace of God. The thought of losing a child is just too horrible to contemplate. After losing my parents the way I did, I always hoped that I wouldn't have to deal with grief again on that scale. Grief is no fun and I will never get that image out of my brain of my seemingly healthy child lying dead on that hospital gurney and the way he looked and felt to the touch. 

 I was not the greatest father in the world. If I had to give myself a rating I was a good one but not a great one. Not like my dad or my oldest son Rob. I will always regret not spending more time with my children when they were small. I have good memories of the quality time that we did spend together but those times were far too few in my view. I spent a lot of time with Jon taking him back and forth to the doctor when he was being treated for a rare bladder condition. We went to a Godzilla movie together, and he went with me to hunt Civil War relics.I went with him on a church trip to Cumberland Caverns for a weekend but beyond that I can't remember spending that much quality time with him. Like my father, I taught him the fundamentals of baseball. When Jon was a toddler he would crack me up when I would tell him to choke up on the bat and he would start coughing because he didn't understand what I meant.

 Yet Jon always acted like he was crazy about me in spite of my shortcomings and I know that I was crazy about him. I will never forget how happy I was when he was born. The song Having My Baby was playing on the radio as I was driving to the hospital the day after he was born. That song has always had a special place in my heart. As with all of my children we have become a lot closer in their adult years. Probably even closer than when they were children. Jon and I had deep theological discussions together and he also asked my opinion on current affairs and wanted  me to decipher certain issues or events that were in the news. When he was suffering with anxiety I feel like I was a great help to him because he leaned on my own experience with anxiety. Until the NFL players began disrespecting our country by kneeling during the National Anthem, we shared a love for the Tennessee Titans. He could never give up on them like I did. I will never forget how he jumped in my lap and hugged my neck with joy after the Titans scored the winning touchdown during the Music City Miracle. Jon, I love you and miss you.  We will be reunited in heaven.

My sister-in-law Judy Helms with Jon

Baby Jon

 

Jon

Jon playing Tee Ball in Smyrna

 

Jon in 1988 at Hurlburt Field Florida

 

Jon when he worked for me at Stones River Town Centre

 I love all of my children the same but every child has their own personality. Melanie reminds me so much of my mother. She is never critical of others and is loved by everyone. Her children are all just like her. When Rob, Misty, and Jon were little I was younger, working, and going to school almost continuously. I never got to spend the quality time with them when they were small that I should have. Melanie came along when I was 27 and college was behind me. I was able to be a better father to her than I had been to the rest of my children. At least I had more quality time to spend with her. I am so proud of her for going back to school in her thirties while raising three children. The youngest is a special needs child with spinabifida. She received an Education degree from Middle Tennessee State University and is now an Educational Assistant in Murfreesboro Tennessee. She is working toward becoming a fulltime teacher.

Many people suffer from low self esteem and I am one of them. It was the reason that I was always painfully shy growing up. I thought that I was ugly and I wasn't smart enough. My shyness made me socially awkward and I am still that way until I get to know someone. Deb has also suffered from low esteem and to a point we passed that on to our children. The knowledge and wisdom that I have acquired over the years from work experience, life experience, formal education and from the many books that I have read from an early age have helped me to overcome my inferiority complex to a certain degree. Yet I still deal with it at times. 

One way that my inferiority complex has manifested itself is that whenever something good happens to me I have this feeling of unworthiness. For example on my wedding day and when my children were born. I was so fortunate but I always felt like it was happening to someone else. My children were so beautiful when they were growing up. I found it hard to believe that I could have something to do with producing children that were so perfect. Sometimes when they weren't aware I would just stare at them in awe. Debbie always dressed them well and I was always proud that people knew that they belonged to me when we went anywhere. I will never forget on one particular occasion when we were at Phillips-Robinson funeral home and they were all sitting together on a bench. They were so beautiful sitting there. I am sure that most parents feel this way about their children but I want my children to know how I felt about them and still feel to this day. Whenever we all get together as a family with our children and grandchildren I still feel this sense of unworthiness and awe. How could I have anything to do with something so good and so beautiful. 

Melanie in Charleston South Carolina 1979

Debbie & Melanie

A drawing of Melanie done by a Belgian Airman in 1985. Koksijde Belgium

I loved Melanie's hair

Ms. Photogenic

Melanie's MTSU graduation

A proud father

Donie, Kenneth, Melanie, Russell, and Gabriel at Murphy Center

Gabe, Russell and Donie 

   

 Although Courtney is my granddaughter I consider her my daughter because Debbie and I raised her from birth. I was honored to be given the opportunity to be a father to her. Our children have produced 12 grandchildren. Rob has two boys. Robbie and Blaine. Misty has two girls and two boys. Courtney, Tyler, Connor and Lydea. Jon has three boys. Zachary, Zane and Zander. Melanie has two boys and one girl. Gabriel, Donie and Russell. Two of my grandchildren have produced 4 great grandchildren. Courtney has a girl and boy named Baylee and Maddox. Tyler has a girl and boy named Avery and Aaron. Like our children, all of our grandchildren are fantastic people. Most are grown now and have either graduated from high school or are close to graduating. 

 They are very talented also. Connor is an amazing songwriter of Christian songs and a musician. Zane is a very talented musician and Zachary is a very talented drummer. Tyler is a hard worker and a great father. Gabe is a very hard worker who is a welder by trade. Donie is the sweetest girl that you will ever meet and Lydea is not only sweet but a talented clothes designer. Lydia recently married a very fine fellow by the name of John Bell. Which enables us to refer to Lydia now as Lydia Belle Bell. I like the sound of that. Zander is hilarious and the comedian of the family. Blaine and Robbie are talented athletes in just about every sport. Robbie has almost a 4 point average in high school and will attend Florida Central University in Orlando studying engineering.

 Then there is Russell. Again I love all of my grandchildren but Russell has a special heart. He was born with spinabifida and luckily he didn't need to have a shunt placed into his skull to drain fluid off of his brain. Ninety percent of people born with spinabifida have to have a shunt placed in their skull. He can walk pretty well with braces but he has very little feeling in his lower legs and feet. He plays baseball, hockey, wheelchair basketball, and even track and field. Russell is a inspiration to everyone. He started out playing baseball at the age of three and Russell is now 10. At first he was having to use a walker in order to bat and play the field. Now he can bat and play the field without it and has become a pretty good ball player in spite of his limitations. But no matter how hard it is for him to run the bases or regardless of the challenges that he faces the smile never leaves his face. I can't help but tear up when I watch him bat and run the bases. My vision is that one day he will learn to walk pretty naturally on his own and live a fairly normal life. In June 2021 he had an 8 hour operation where a rod was placed in his back that has straightened his hips, shoulders and his spine is about 40% straighter than it was before the surgery. Everybody loves him and are inspired by him. 

 Recently Debbie and I celebrated our fifty third wedding anniversary. Although my life has been flawed and far from perfect the thing that I am very proud of is that by remaining married all of these years Debbie and I have provided the example of stability to our family. For at least the last 5 years Debbie has had a persistent cough that would come and go. We thought that she had allergies but when she would cough it sounded like she was coughing her lungs up. I kept encouraging her to go to the doctor and finally one day I mentioned it to our family doctor. He arranged for her to see a pulmonary specialist but over the years they were unable to provide a remedy for her cough. In April 2021 she was tired and short of breath on a fairly regular basis. Doctors discovered that she had congestive heart failure which probably explains why she was coughing. In early May 2021 she received a pacemaker. Unknown to us the doctor who installed the pacemaker accidentally punched a hole in her heart valve while installing a lead wire. This caused a leak and not realizing what had gone wrong doctors put her on blood thinners. The combination of the leak in her heart and blood thinners nearly killed her. Blood and fluid was building up around her heart. 

 Debbie seemed to get weaker and short of breath over the next few days after the pacemaker was installed. I can credit my granddaughter Courtney and her husband Daniel for probably saving her life. I didn't recognize her deteriorating condition because I thought that she was just having her usual problems. Courtney came over to the house for something unrelated and didn't like Debbie's color. She and Daniel brought over a blood pressure cup and we discovered that Debbie's blood pressure was dangerously low. Debbie would spend several days in the hospital while they did numerous tests and drained the blood from her chest cavity through a tube that had been inserted into her chest. This is how the doctors discovered the leak in her heart valve. She underwent a procedure that moved the heart lead to a different location in her heart and took the slack out of the pacemaker lead. This procedure, along with medication has helped her tremendously. Doctors are hoping that the leak will heal on it's own. She is still not able to function as she did prior to the procedure, however; but we are hoping that this condition is only temporary. Almost losing her has made me realize just how much I love my wife. While she was in the hospital it was strange coming home to an empty house. I can't imagine living without her.

Our fiftieth anniversary party

A family picture for our fiftieth wedding anniversary

The mighty Russe

Russell with the mayor of Smyrna after being awarded the Academy Sports Smyrna Player of the Year for 2016

In June 2021 Russell had corrective surgery to his back

 Toward the end of January 2019, it was time for my colonoscopy. I usually try to get them every three years but this time I waited almost four years. Big mistake. They ended up taking out eleven polyps which increased my chances of bleeding. Sure enough, that night I began bleeding profusely from my rectum and spent two days in the emergency room at Vanderbilt. Because of crowding caused by the flu, they could not give me a room. I came very close to passing out from loss of blood. This was my 2nd bout with bleeding after a colonoscopy. In 2004 I lost two pints of blood and needed to have a transfusion. This time I lost only one pint but it seemed to have affected me a lot worse. I came back to work too soon and ended up going into afib because I was very anemic and my blood pressure was way too low.. After my kidney surgery I applied for our final resting place to be in the veterans cemetery in Pegram. It is a beautiful cemetery and I hope that the time of our passing is still far into the future but God has blessed me so much. I have had a full life and I am the luckiest man in the world. There is no greater pleasure than to have children and grandchildren that love you. This is something that my parents did not live long enough to experience. God blessed me with the greatest family and the greatest country in the world to raise them in.

  Since I finished my book in 2018 I wanted to add a few things. I have also updated it since 2018. When you are writing an autobiography and you are still alive there has been a lot going on since 2018. Unfortunately, the Democrats won back the House of Representatives in 2018 and as promised they impeached president Trump for nothing. They have been trying to pull off a coup over the last three years and so far they have been unsuccessful. The Democrats are the most evil enemy this country has ever had to deal with and they have never tired in trying to remove a legitimately elected president. President Trump was rightfully acquitted of all charges on February 5, 2020 and again on February 13, 2021. The 2nd impeachment trial wasn't even legal, beginning just a few days before he left office and ending almost a month after he left office. The whole purpose of impeachment is to remove a Federal office holder from power. Since he was no longer in office the whole purpose of impeachment was mute. It was simply a political show trial designed to mar Trump's legacy and to marginalize his political future. 

 On the morning of Super Tuesday March 3, 2020 Debbie woke me up about 4 AM and told me that a strong tornado had hit East Nashville and many people were dead. Ultimately the death toll would reach 25, with most of the deaths in Putnam county near Cookeville. The storm hit around 1 AM, which is why the death toll was so high. People were in bed for the most part. Debbie has a lot of family and friends up that way but everyone was safe after the storm. Debbie's sister Sylvia lives in East Nashville but luckily the storm missed her. This storm took a little different path than the April 1998 storm took. Like the 1998 storm it originated in West Nashville but instead of going through downtown and crossing the Cumberland river where the Titans play football it tore up the old state prison where the movie, The Green Mile was filmed. It then tore up the Tennessee State University campus and damaged historic Germantown. Then it plowed through East Nashville, tearing up Main street and Woodland street. From there it continued through the Five Corners area near our old alma mater East High and continued out through Holly and Russell street.

 During the early phases of the storm in West Nashville and Germantown it was an F-2. By the time it reached East Nashville it was an F-3. From East Nashville it hit Donelson, Mt. Juliet, Lebanon, and Putnam county. By the time it hit Putnam county it was an F-4 and this is also why so many people died there. It would have probably killed more people but storm dissipated just before hitting the city limits of Cookeville. This monster was on the ground for almost an hour and traveled at least 80 miles. The 1933 and 1998 storms may have been more destructive over a wider area of East Nashville than this storm but overall this storm had to have been the worst due to loss of life, the amount of destruction, it's longevity, the distance it traveled, and the strength of the storm. Both the 1933 and 1998 storms were F-3's and they both ended shortly after leaving East Nashville. Before 1998 there had never been a storm stronger than an F-3 recorded in Tennessee. That year an F-5 was recorded in west Tennessee and several F-4's have been recorded since then. Two have hit Murfreesboro.

As far back as December 2019 we were hearing about the Covid-19 virus in China. By January of 2020 the reports were more numerous but there didn't seem to be any cause for concern. I started a journal relating to the disease on Monday 3-23-20 and here are a few excerpts.

Monday 3-23-20

When I first heard about the Wuhan flu, or COVID-19, I was very skeptical because the news media began to hype this thing. I was skeptical mainly because of the Trump derangement syndrome that we have witnessed over the last three years in the Democrat party and the their mainstream media. I thought that this was just another of their lame attempts to take down Donald Trump. This flu appears to be the pandemic that we have been warned about for many years now. People in Italy are dying like flies and the illness is spreading rapidly in this country. How severe this thing will get remains to be seen. The Democrats are exploiting this crisis for all that it is worth. They just can't help themselves. The forces of evil are just too strong with them.

Over my seventy years on earth I have never seen anything like this. Except for the few days in 1968, when a 6:00 P.M. curfew was imposed in Nashville for a few days after Martin Luther King was murdered in Memphis. Over the last week or so virtually every business in our mall has shut down. As of today only GNC, Books A Million, and Dillards are open here. The City of Murfreesboro declared a state of emergency shutting down restaurants and bars until further notice. Restaurants can only do take out orders.

I am trying very hard to keep my hands washed, wiping surfaces down with Lysol and keeping social distance but there is only so much I can do to remain safe. I am trying to live my life in the process. As a natural hypochondriac I must admit that I am trying not to freak out about this. Every time my throat feels a little weird or I get a slight headache I have to fight off my fears that I am coming down with this thing. In my view President Trump is handling the crisis well although there are the natural armchair quarterbacks out there who are always wanting to second guess him.

Tuesday 3-24-20

Thanking the Lord that as far as I know I don't have the Wuhan whooping cough yet. Democrats are up to their usual tricks. They are delaying the economic stimulus bill by trying to pack it with identity politics and throwing money at Unions. I found out that Debbie is on the anti-malarial drug that is being tested now on people with the virus.

Wednesday 3-25-20

Cases of the Wuhan flu are increasing along with deaths across the country. Certain locations such as New York, California,  Washington state are being hit hard. If people are not allowed to go back to work soon I am afraid we are going to see a rise in suicides and crime, which could lead to violence and an even greater death rate than would be the result of this virus. Even good people can be driven to desperation when it comes to their families doing without food and other essentials. I would not want to be in president Trumps shoes right now. He has some hard choices to make over the next few days and weeks. Nothing he does will be popular with everyone but I believe that he is the right man at the right time to act. I also believe that he will do what is right for the country. America has been blessed to have the right people in charge during our moments of maximum danger. I do not believe that this time in our history is any different. President Trump and our country need the prayers of every believer right now.

Thursday 3-26-20

Well, they finally passed the relief bill in Congress. The Democrats tried to put a lot of junk in it, dealing with Unions and identity politics. Reveals again how evil they are to try something like that when people are hurting. Knock on wood, but so far so good. Not showings symptoms yet.

Friday 3-27-20

The Wuhan flu continues and numbers are rising. I am trying not to watch the news much. It is hard for a hypochondriac like myself to watch. So many rumors going around. I am trying to sift through it all. I heard this morning that some doctors are hoping that it is seasonal. As Spring and warmer weather approaches it could diminish but return again in the Fall.

Saturday 3-28-20

I cut the grass today. The Wuhan whooping cough is pretty far from my mind. I have pretty much quit watching the news.

Sunday 3-29-20

I was reminded today that there is a lot more things in this world that can take you out of it than just the Wuhan Whooping Cough. The day was so beautiful we took a ride down to East Nashville to see my sister-in-law. We also took our Boxer Bonnie Blue along for the ride. Don't worry, we kept our social distance. Sylvia sat on her front porch while we sat in the yard on lawn chairs. On the way we checked out some of the tornado damage. After we left East Nashville I decided to check out the damage in Germantown. We waited for the light to change at 3rd Avenue and Jefferson Street. Luckily I am a defensive driver because I saw a car flying toward the intersection as we started across. I slammed on the brakes throwing Bonnie Blue into the floorboard. The man ran right through the red light smiling and waving as he flew by us. We would have been t-boned on my side and it would have been lights out for me.

Monday 3-30-20

Governor Lee made the announcement at 1500 hrs that all non essential businesses are ordered to shut down beginning tomorrow night at midnight. Looks like the mall will close down and we may have to go to a skeleton crew. It is getting scary now. I am seriously thinking about staying home until things get better. If the mall closes I wont be in close contact with that many people so I might just keep on working. Haven't made my mind up yet.

Monday 3-31-20

Things are heating up. As of closing tonight the mall is on lock down at least until 4-14-20 but I believe that it will last longer. Jimmy Cutrone called me at 2156 hrs. He has decided not to work until things calm down some. I am pondering whether I want to do the same. I emailed my district manager Alicia, and copied mall manager Steve that I am considering staying at home until the crisis is past, due to the fact that Debbie and I are older and we are both cancer survivors. These are scary times. I was a little freaked out seeing bodies stacking up in New York and ICU tents being set up in Central Park. 

Wednesday 4-1-20

 Today is April Fools day. I wish the government would come on TV and declare all of this an April Fools joke. I have decided to stay away from work for at least until 4-20, if not longer. The governments projections this morning is that as many as 240,000 American's can die from this disease. Too high I believe but this is nothing to play with. I was going to tell Steve, our mall manager, of my intentions but almost as soon as he arrived at work this morning, and saw my email, he called me into his office. He told me that he had to have a security supervisor and I told him that he would still have one but I would control things from home. He said that is okay but you are going to be paid for it and we need to work something out. I told him that I had planned on cutting my hours back to three days a week anyway, and he could pay me for those three days. He readily agreed but told me that my district managers response to my email was unacceptable. This is what my district manager, Alicia, wrote as a response in my email. Greg, Will you have someone fill in for you and Jum while you are out? We cannot allow people to just stay home we are essential employees. If you fill the need to stay home you can resign and reapply when you feel better. She misspelled Jim and apparently didn't read the email that well because I didn't say I was sick.

 These people crack me up. After the loyalty and good service I have given this company over the years they were willing to just dump me without even trying to accommodate me in any way. This is typical of Alicia. Steve was not happy with her response. He has his flaws but he is a decent human being and great to work for. He even agreed to let Jimmy C work one hour every 21 days so he could hold on to his job. Allied-Universal has a policy that if you don't work at least once every 21 days you can be taken off the payroll. Jimmy C. will come down to the mall and be on standby in his car while the on duty officer gets gas for the security vehicle. I called Called Alicia and told her what Steve said and she had sugar dripping from her lips after that. These people are so superficial it is hilarious. I fixed the Win Team schedule at least through 4-16 and shouldn't need to make changes at least until then.

Thursday 4-2-20

My first day at home. I have a lot to do here at the house but no motivation or energy to do it. Officer Alex Jones called me about four or five times already. He is a good guy but when I am talking to him on the phone he wont shut up long enough to hear my instructions. Officer Henry called me about 3 times. Seems I didn't print off a memo like I thought on our opening and closing procedure for Lenscrafters. Eye glasses are considered essential so they are open from 1100 to 1800 for appointments only. We are only unlocking the south entrance during those hours.

Friday 4-3-20

Lazy again today. We are having a problem at the mall about people coming into the mall thinking it is open. Signs are up everywhere saying we are closed but I guess they can't read. We went over to to Jon's house for a steak cookout and fellowship. We had a great time. Low risk since they have been in quarantine for 14 days.

Monday 4-6-20

Boring weekend. I don't know how long I can take staying at home like this. At least it is not as bad as being at home after a hurricane or tornado and not having power. Projections are that many people will die over the next couple of weeks. It is sobering to see body bags being stacked up in New York and they are talking about burying people in temporary graves. Other than going out for take out orders I don't go out in public. Debbie went to Publix this morning for groceries. I told her to wear one of the homemade masks that she made but she wouldn't do it. She is regularly taking hydroxychloroquine for her RA, the drug being touted as a possible remedy for this disease. I hope that it protects her.

Friday 4-10-20

I had my hair cut by a personal friend yesterday and was a little nervous about that. Supposedly he hasn't been in contact with anyone and he wears a mask when he goes to the store. This week and next is supposedly going to have the highest death tolls. We still haven't topped the number of flu deaths already this year. As of today in the U.S. there are 502,876 cases, 18,746 deaths, and 27,314 recovered. Deaths from the flu in the US during the 2019-20 season could be between as low as 24,000 and as high as 62,000. These are CDC statistics from 10-1-2019 through 4-4-2020.  One thing that is different about flu deaths is that they seem to be more widespread throughout the country where there have been hot spots such as New Orleans, New York, Detroit, and other large American cities with Covid 19. Excluding suicides there were 15,292 deaths by firearms in the US during 2019 and 37,461 were killed in auto accidents during 2016. Just to put things into perspective. There is no doubt that social distancing and quarantine is saving lives but I believe the models that have been touted by doctors are flawed. As far as the economy I am hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. All day long I have been listening to documentaries about the great depression and the real estate bubble of 2008 as I paint my dining room.

Thursday 12-31-20

As I write these lines on the last day of this godforsaken year 2020 my perspective on the election infection, or Wuhan flu has drastically evolved. There is no doubt that Covid 1984 is something to be concerned about. If these statistics can be believed our death rate has reached 343,000 nationwide. Personally I think these numbers are padded. There are people dying of Covid and then there are people dying with Covid. For example it is my understanding that in some states people who die from suicides, car accidents, heart attacks and cancer are being counted as a Covid death if that person tested positive for Covid. Many are getting Covid but most survive the disease. It is my understanding that from the age of 0 to 20 your chances of surviving Covid are 99.9%. From ages 20 to 54 you have a 99.7% chance of survival. And from the age of 54 on your chances are around 99.5%. I am rounding these numbers off a little. 

 For months I never met anyone who even had the disease. In the last several months, however; there have been friends and relatives who have come down with it and several have even died.  It is ravaging Tennessee lately. There is no doubt that the elderly with underlying health problems have been the most vulnerable to this disease. I may have gotten it in early December because I was exposed to it and I felt like crap for a week or so after I was exposed. The symptoms are a low grade fever, dry cough, shortness of breath, the loss of appetite, the sense of smell is lost and you have flu like symptoms such as body aches. I did not have the classic symptoms but as soon as I started feeling sick I began taking hydroxychloroquine. I don't know if that mitigated my symptoms or not.

When the Covid scare started gaining traction in late February and early March of 2020 I gave the so-called medical experts the benefit of the doubt. President Trump and Dr. Anthony Fauci were asking everyone to quarantine for two weeks in order to, in their words, flatten the curve. Well, here we are almost a year later and many states are still in lockdown. Even in my state of Tennessee restaurants and bars are operating at decreased capacity. I felt sorry for president Trump having to purposely shut down an economy that was smoking hot for this disease that has become so politicized. Just weeks before this happened Democrats were lamenting the fact that the only chance they had of defeating Trump was if the economy nosedived. In the blue states such as New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, California, New Jersey and others governors and mayors have destroyed local small to medium businesses by shutting them down or putting unrealistic restrictions on them. Thereby causing the failure of these businesses. 

 Even in blue cities, that are in red states, such as Nashville, mayor John ( Chicken Coop) Cooper has destroyed the local economy. Before Covid, lower Broad & 2nd Avenue was thriving bringing in millions in revenue annually. Now these bar and business owners are fighting to stay in business. All of this financial hardship is man made and unnecessary. It is funny how there are no crowd restrictions on the large stores such as Wal Mart, Sam's, Cosco, Loews, Home Depot, Krogers or Publix but there are restrictions on the mom & pop restaurants, bars, gyms etc. Somehow you are safe at Wal Mart but not at church. They aren't fooling me. This is an all out Marxist assault on the bourgeoisie, or middle class. 

When Covid first appeared I gave the government the benefit of the doubt. That this disease was unleashed on the world by accident. At first we believed that a so-called wet market in Wuhan China was the source of the disease. Now we know that this is not true. The disease came out of the bio lab in Wuhan. There are only two ways that it could have left that lab. Either by accident, or on purpose. Because of the timing of it I choose to believe that it was done on purpose. I believe that it was a biological attack by the Chinese Communist Party on the world, primarily directed at the United States with the knowledge and blessing of certain high ranking Democrats and billionaires. Although I can't prove this I believe that time will prove me right. The truth might be suppressed but it always manages to become known at some point.

 Barack Obama, who in my opinion is a Communist, spent 8 years subverting the U.S. government. He weaponized the I.R.S., the C.I.A., the N.S.A., the F.B.I. the military and other government departments with his Communist operatives. He has been in the process of fundamentally changing America as he promised from the start. Hillary Clinton, another Communist, was poised to finish the job. Their hubris got the best of them, however. They totally underestimated Donald Trump and the level of discontent in America. They thought Hillary would win handily. The Communists were caught flat footed on election night. The only reason they allowed Trump to become president is because they were caught so unprepared. Trump should have been declared president by the media as early as 8 or 9 PM on election night 2016 but as they did on election night 2020 they stopped vote counting. They did this hoping to harvest enough illegal votes to overturn Trump's election but they weren't prepared for that. So Hillary was forced to concede to Donald Trump. 

It was decided then and there that the left would do everything in their power to remove Trump from office. The Russian collusion lie was invented by Hillary and Obama. They illegally spied on Trump and they harassed his family, friends and supporters by various means, both legal and illegal. For four years they tried every means at their disposal to remove a legally elected president from office. By any means necessary they were bound and determined to pull off a coup d'état. A coup d'état is defined as the removal of an existing government from power. This is exactly what they tried to do with Donald Trump. They failed in their attempts after spending 42 million in tax payer dollars trying to remove an innocent man from power. As a result we find that Donald Trump is one of the least corrupt people that has ever held a public office. We know this because nothing of consequence has ever been found that could justify removing him from office. Here is a great idea. Lets spend 42 million investigating the corruption of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Susan Rice, or Joe Biden and see what we come up with. 

The second part of the coup d'état appears to have been successful. The purpose of unleashing Covid was not only to ruin the Trump economy, but for added insurance, to justify the use of paper ballots in the presidential election as an emergency measure due to Covid. The governors and other state officials in the blue swing states sidestepped the state legislatures, who are the only constitutionally designated authority to set election laws, and went straight to the state supreme courts that were controlled by Democrats. These courts, such as in Pennsylvania, ruled that the signature on a ballot didn't have to match the original voter registration, and they had up to three days after the election to count the vote. 

 In Georgia the Republican Secretary of State made a similar deal with the Democrats which gave them an easier path to voter fraud. In Georgia alone it was discovered that 2,056 felons voted, 55,248 voted under the age of 18, 2,423 weren't registered at all, 1043 used a P.O. Box, 4,926 voted past the registration date, 10,315 dead people voted, 395 voted in two states, 15,700 moved out of state, 40,279 changed counties and did not reregister. Biden supposedly won Georgia by less than 12,000 votes. Here is another idea. Lets spend 42 million dollars investigating how the Democrats stole this election. We don't need four years. Just give us four months. On January 5th they will probably steal the two senate seats up for grab in Georgia because they will be using the same flawed voting system. Then America is screwed for sure. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result. The following quote from Joseph Stalin is so true. "I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how: but what is extraordinarily important is this----who will count the votes, and how."

 It is my belief that Donald Trump has to be the greatest president since Lincoln when you consider all the positive things that he accomplished in just four years in spite of unprecedented opposition. We had the best economy of my lifetime. This, after 8 years of Obama's very anemic recovery where he never attained more than 2% growth over 8 years in office. The economy took off like a rocket, even before Trump took office, because the business world knew that Trump represented stability and certainty. All we had with Obama was uncertainty. It has been an inclusive economy that has benefitted everyone, including Blacks and Hispanics. The Trump tax cuts boosted the economy even further along with deregulation and his emphasis on growing our fossil fuel industries such as coal, oil, and natural gas. 

 I am not a person who believes in tariffs but Trump used tariffs as a way to work out better trade policies and trade deals with other nations, especially our neighbors such as Canada, Mexico, and Central America. We were being flooded by illegal immigrant caravans financed by people like George Soros and he not only used walls and border enforcement as a deterrent but the threat of higher tariffs as a deterrent. Now Mexico and Central America are helping to stop these people even before they get to our borders. If the Democrats control everything again, all of Trump's good work will be in vain. The Democrats will open our borders again, which will also be a drain on our economy and will overwhelm our social welfare system and in the midst of a pandemic mind you. This is Cloward-Piven 101.

Trump utterly destroyed ISIS within a few short months while Obama allowed them to prosper. Obama trifled with them while Trump took decisive action. Trump has masterfully kept us out of war while at the same time sending our enemies the message that we will not be pushed around. He has employed a masterful foreign policy that has marginalized Iran by working out peace deals with surrounding Muslim countries that have established diplomatic relations with Israel. On top of that he boldly took out Iran's top general Qasem Soleimani who was responsible for more terrorism in the Middle East than probably anyone. He had the gonads to do something no other president until that time has had the courage to do. These past four years under Trump has decreased terrorism in the world. Trump moved our embassy to Jerusalem. Something many presidents have promised but never delivered on. Because of Trump tensions have eased between America and North Korea. Trump was roundly criticized for pulling out of Syria but his policy has proven to be right. His foreign policy is designed to support our friends while at the same time isolating our enemies. Trump's foreign policy has been masterful.

January 20, 2021

As I write this just a few hours before America is fundamentally changed forever with the inauguration of Joe Biden, I am very fearful for the future of my children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. I am also both fearful and sad for this great nation. On January 6, 2021 some idiots stormed the U.S. Capital. The crowd of Trump supporters was massive in Washington on that day and they were mostly peaceful. A fraction of the crowd stormed the capital. Although the narrative of the Stalinist news media points to Trump supporters as the culprits, I am still not convinced that it was engineered by the Democrats. The F.B.I. and others knew that this had been planned for weeks but the powers that be did nothing to bring in extra security. The request for extra security from the head of the Capital Hill police was ignored. He had also requested that the National Guard be deployed. It was almost like they wanted it to happen. I am still not convinced that Antifa & BLM wasn't involved in this. It fits their MO. 

Postscript: July 22, 2021 - We now know that dozens of FBI undercover operatives were in the crowd that stormed the capitol on January 6th. What was their role? Were they spurring the mob on? We also know that there were some Antifa and BLM activists present. What was their role? The House Sergeant At Arms denied the Capital Hill police the use of National Guard troops to bolster security forces knowing that thousands of Trump supporters were coming to Washington. A woman who was an Air Force veteran was shot dead by someone in the security forces that day and all these months later we still don't know who killed her but he was proclaimed a hero by some in congress. There has been no investigation. As far as we can tell the woman posed no threat to him. If a rioter had been killed this way or a black person killed in this matter heads would roll. Of course if the black person killed were a conservative or Trump supporter I doubt anyone would care. At least in the Communist media. 

 For the sake of argument lets assume that the ones who raided the capital were all Trump supporters. Should we paint all Trump supporters as criminals because of the actions of a few? I realize I am using logic, something unfamiliar to leftists. We were told after every Muslim terrorist atrocity not to prejudge the Muslim people based on the actions of a few. Yet we are not given the same benefit of the doubt when it comes to Trump supporters or conservatives. When BLM and Antifa were burning down cities this year, destroying millions of dollars of property and looting businesses the Stalinist media was calling this violence peaceful protests. We now know that only one death on January 6th can can be attributed to that action and a Capital Hill policeman shot an unarmed woman that was no danger to him. while 24 people died nationwide and multiple people were injured in so-called peaceful protests. Under the media definition of a riot we should be able to call January 6th a peaceful protest.

  Prior to election day November 3, 2020 whenever the subject of the election came up with my friends and relatives who I knew to be suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome I tried to reason with them by appealing to their love of country and love the of their family. I would tell them I know that you hate Trump but this election is not about whether Donald Trump tweets something that offends you and it is not about our traditional view of the Democrat and Republican party. This election is about the very survival of our country and even the survival of your children and grandchildren. It is about our most fundamental freedoms. I would tell them that they don't realize how much danger they are in. No matter what I said I just couldn't get through to them. Postscript, as I add this today, 12-10-21, my predictions have all come true. Biden has ruled just as I predicted. His poll numbers are at historic lows. I don't think America has been in more danger than it is right now and everything bad that is happening was preventable. Elections have consequences.

 Many of these Democrats are operating under the illusion that the Democrat party is still the party of the working man, the disadvantaged, and it is still the mythical party of Kennedy. The Democrat party has given up on the working man and is now after those people that are into identity politics. The working class voted for Trump. I say mythical party of Kennedy because the Democrat party has been off the tracks going all the way back to Woodrow Wilson in regard to Marxist ideology. The goals of Franklin Roosevelt were no different than the goals of Bernie Sanders and that is verifiable. My friends and relatives do not realize that the Democrat Party is now the Communist Party U.S.A. 

 This is what I know to be true. The Democrats want to make Trump radioactive and a pariah for all time. Now their anger is not only directed at him but at everyone who supported him. We will be turned into domestic terrorists because January 6th is their September 11th and they are wanting a September 11th style Patriot Act directed against Trump supporters. Or anyone who disagrees with them. Their goal is to silence us. I believe that Fox News, One America News and Newsmax days are numbered. Conservative talk radio days are numbered, conservative podcasts and any Conservative venue that disagrees with them. After our 1st Amendment rights are removed of course we must be disarmed. Domestic terrorists can't own guns. 

 They want a secret police organization, or a Gestapo. In addition they want Communist style reeducation camps. I realize that I am placing myself in danger by being so outspoken and saying these things but freedom of speech is an inalienable right that cannot be taken away by mortal man as well as my right to defend myself and my family. So at some point if I disappear and nobody knows where I am it is probably safe to assume that I am in a reeducation camp or I am dead. These things that I am saying are not farfetched or conspiratorial. These are actual ideas being put forward in the Democrat party right now. Even our generals are talking like this. General McChrystal is saying these things. He is comparing us to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. The good thing about being in my seventies is that maybe I wont live to see these things come to full fruition but the Biden administration is moving at a fast pace and have already made great strides toward the eventual destruction of America. By going after Trump so hard they are sending this message to us. If Trump, a former president of the United States and multi billionaire isn't safe then neither are we, the average Joe citizen. The message is to shut our mouths and comply with the Fascist regime or else.

I want to talk now about certain terms that have been popularized in the media and  over the years and my take on them. 

RACISM: A belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

This definition that comes from Merriam - Websters dictionary is how I have always defined racism. It is the most logical definition. The Communists have redefined the term racism in American society today, however. Contrary to their view of things in my view all races and ethnicities can be racist. The white race does not have a monopoly on racism. Jesse Jackson also clouded the definition of racism by saying that it is impossible for a black person to be racist because whites hold the power positions in society. Karl Marx was a Jew but he was anti-semitic. He was a self hating Jew. The Communists are very anti-semitic. They hate Jews and they hate Israel. In the tradition of Karl Marx there are many self hating Jews in the American Communist party aka the Democrat party. Marx was also a racial bigot who did not like black people. He regularly used the term nigger in reference to them and it is believed that his use of this term toward his son-in-law, who was dark skinned, was one of the factors that led to his eventual suicide, along with his wife, who was Marx's daughter. Marx lost two daughters to suicide. A good source for this is a book called the Devil And Karl Marx by Paul Kengor. It is ironic that the group Black Lives Matters brags about the fact that they are trained Marxists when Marx hated black people. Go figure. Contrary to popular belief, just because I disagreed with the Communist community organizer Barack Obama, who wanted to fundamentally change this country, which he did, and is still doing today through his proxy Joe Biden, does not mean that I am a racist. A friend of mine at Bridgestone - Firestone, who happened to be black, asked me who I intended to vote for for president that year. John McCain was running as the Republican candidate but I didn't like him and I was still undecided about whether I was even going to vote that year. Since the Democrat party had virtually been taken over by Communists by 1972 I had decided in the early 1980's that I would never vote for the Communist party again. The Republicans, or some third party candidate, were my only viable options. They were the lesser evils. 

 I always do my homework and I knew before Barack Hussein Obama ever ran that he was a Communist, just like I had done my homework on the white guy Bill Clinton, who claimed to be the first black president. I told my friend that I couldn't vote for Obama because he was a proponent of Black Liberation theology. Liberation theology was a Communist ideology that had swept through the Catholic church in Central and South America. Black Liberation theology was a spinoff of that. It was just another version of Critical Race theory. Obama sat in a church for 20 years pastored by the radical Jeremiah Wright who spewed forth this poison from the pulpit. My friend responded that I was a racist because I didn't like Obama. I told him that no I am not a racist and I would not allow him to define me that day. This is how you stand up to race bullies. You are not a racist because you disagree with a person of color's political opinions, or if you wear a MAGA hat, or if you are a Trump supporter, a conservative, a Republican, or if you support having a photo ID to vote. The Communists have so watered down the real definition of racism that white people simply roll their eyes when the term is thrown around because they have heard the charge thrown around so freely about things that are not racist. Because of this when there is true racism we are likely to overlook it because people have cried wolf so many times. Which is an insult to those people who have truly suffered from racism in the past.

The Communists have always exploited the issue of race in America. They never cared about black people but the issue of race is a raw issue in America because of the racist past of the Democrat party. Yet their sins are falsely projected onto the Republican party and the conservative movement. The group Black Lives Matters does not care a flip about black lives. It is a Communist front group. If they really cared about black people they would work to stop the carnage of black on black shootings in Communist controlled cities like Chicago, Washington D.C., Detroit and Los Angeles just to name a very few. Instead, they exploit any shooting of a black person by a white cop regardless of whether the shooting was justified or not. In the vast majority of cases the shootings are justified. A black person has a greater chance of being struck by lightning than being killed by a white cop. Studies show that whites and Hispanics are more likely to be shot by a white cop than black people are. Because of all the pressure cops receive from the minority community police officers are reluctant to use the same force that they might use against a white offender. I see this reluctance in our local police department dealing with black offenders at the mall. Black Lives Matters should be renamed Black Lies Matter because their lies carry way too much weight in society. If BLM cared about black lives they would work to end abortions. Planned Parenthood was created by a white racist eugenicist by the name of Margaret Sanger. It is no accident that most abortion clinics are in black urban areas. She compared black people to weeds. If BLM cared about black people they would work to train black people to comply with police officers. If you comply you will not die. America is no longer a systemically racist or sexist society contrary to to the lies of BLM and the American Communist party. It was when I was a child but not anymore. We are the most progressive, and I don't mean that the way the Communists use the word, country in the world. If the Commies just disappeared America could heal any lingering racial issues that we might have. You can't get it behind you when the issue is used to divide and conquer America. If systemic racism exists it is in the Democrat urban plantation system that keeps blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians poor and living in violent, hopeless living conditions in the inner cities, barrios and on Indian reservations subsisting on Federal entitlements.

GAY RIGHTS: The Bible is very clear in regard to homosexuality. It is a sin. For the sake of space and time I wont quote a bunch of scripture here on homosexuality. If the reader doubts what I am saying just look up the scriptures for yourself. Like any sin, if you do not repent of that sin you will suffer spiritual death and an eternal separation from God. The same punishment that you would receive for not repenting of any other sin. Romans 6:23 says For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Ephesians 2:8-9 says For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. So Gods position on homosexuality is clear. As a Christian I don't have any wiggle room. I am allowed to tolerate homosexuality without accepting homosexuality. I have friends and relatives that are homosexuals and like God I love all of them. As a Christian I would never mistreat them or be judgmental toward them. If a homosexual asked me for my opinion on the subject I would tell them in the most loving way why I am opposed to it. I invited a homosexual to live in my home for 6 months because he had nowhere else to go. He respects me enough that he would never flaunt his homosexuality in front of me, or in my home, and we got along great together while he lived with me. My position is that you can live the homosexual lifestyle however you want. I just don't want to know about it and don't flaunt it in front of me. I have had many homosexual friends and we have always gotten along fine. Everything that we do is a choice, right or wrong. If we choose to reject Jesus he is unhappy with our choice but he loves us enough to respects our choice. Why should we be any different than Jesus? The homosexual rights movement, or the LGBTQ plus whatever movement was started by a Communist named Harry Hay. He was converted to Communism by Will Geer, the actor that played grandpa on the Waltons and they were lovers. Like blacks, homosexuality and homosexuals have also been exploited by the Communists. I despise the "Pride" movement. What does a homosexual have to be proud about? Should we have a thieves pride month, a liars pride month, an adulterer's pride month, or a murderer's pride month? Why should we be proud of sin? I am ashamed of my sins. This is what I call flaunting. I don't have a problem with what two consenting adults do in privacy but respect me in the process. Most people are like me contrary to leftist propaganda. We are being compelled to openly accept the homosexual lifestyle as normal. I resent going to my doctor and having to look at the receptionists pride pins and flags that are right in my face as I sign in. Our government is trying to legislate my acceptance of this sin and I refuse to comply. 

As each year passes it seems that the homosexual movement becomes more radical and in your face.  I make a conscious effort to avoid using the word gay when referring to homosexuals. They have usurped the word gay from the American lexicon. When I was a child the word gay was defined as happy. It was okay for a straight person to be referred to as gay. The word has now been so perverted that I can't refer to myself as gay or another straight person as gay without being totally misunderstood. I also don't like homosexuals using the rainbow in reference to their movement. The rainbow was a symbol of Gods promise to mankind that he would never destroy the earth again by water. He will destroy the earth again and all unrepentant sinners as well as homosexuals will be destroyed in the Lake of Fire along with their father satan. Homosexuals, like all sinners, can repent and be saved. I personally know several male homosexuals who lived that lifestyle for years. They have repented and are living as straight men married to women and raising families. The transsexual movement is a fairly recent phenomenon. It is a top down movement driven by the cultural communists intended to further undermine the family. The movement is satanic and driven by social media, the medical industrial complex and big pharma. The doctors and big pharma like it because it represents and ongoing revenue stream that has the potential to pad their bank accounts. Genesis 1:27 ends the debate for me. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Science backs up Gods word. There are only two sexes, male and female. People who believe that they are something that it is biological impossible to be are suffering from mental illness. To me it is no different than a person suffering from anorexia. In their mind they are too fat when the reality is they look like a concentration camp inmate. If we feed their delusion and they die we might go to jail. Yet our government and society is trying to compel those of us who are sane to feed the delusion of the insane by calling a boy a girl and a girl a boy. 

CANCELLED- On May 30, 2023 I lost my job at the mall. I was totally caught off guard. The regional manager of my security company came in from Knoxville for what I thought was another matter and asked to talk with me in private. His next words were like a bolt out of the blue. He said something like I was terminated from working at the mall and that mall management wanted a change. I had an hour to gather my things and be out of my office. In total shock I asked why. He said the reasons were that I couldn't recruit police officers because they didn't want to work with me and that I had bullied a transexual officer that worked with us. I was incredulous. Both charges were totally bogus. I had always had a great relationship with police officers working at the mall and I never bullied anyone while working there. When I told a police officer friend this he laughed and told me the reason I had trouble recruiting police officers was because most police officers don't want an off duty job that demands police work. At a mall they are going to have to do the things that they have to do on their regular jobs. Chase down criminals and doing paperwork. He said that they want jobs like construction jobs where they just sit in their car for 8 hours. As far as the bullying they claimed that I had bullied a transsexual officer by giving him an oral warning for poor quality work and they were afraid of a lawsuit. He later signed an affidavit claiming that he never felt bullied in any way by me. These charges were so ludicrous that it makes me suspect that they are just a cover for something else. The transexual officer never complained on me but I found out our property manager was eavesdropping on our meeting. I can't prove it but it might be that he didn't like my politics. I was pretty open about my support of Trump and the bumper stickers on my car are pretty provocative. Oh well God is still on the throne and everything happens for a reason. I will be okay.