My youngest nephew has the brains of my brother. Learning is not difficult. He has the wit and sarcasm of his Aunt. Since meeting him at fourteen, I discovered he is quick witted and sarcastic just like me. I never practiced my wit and sarcasm, it just comes naturally, but as a young teen, he would want to have conversations just to practice his responses. I missed so much not being a part of my brother's children lives.
He was only fourteen when he met our side of the family and he had just lost his father rather suddenly. He doesn't remember his dad being healthy, he remembers his dad as always having health issues. He was every thing my brother wanted to be, smart, athletic and not challenged with social issues that weigh heavily on the heart of my mother and her only son.
He was unable to comprehend why his grandparents did not want to be a part of his life. He kind of understood it when his father was a live and chose not to have contact with his family and refused his own family to have contact with us, but with him gone, none of his children understood the difficulty of their grandparents establishing a relationship with them.
I tried to explain best as I could to each of them the whys, but at times, I have difficulty understanding them myself. I know it is my mother and my father just goes a long to make things run smoothly, but for years, my mother blamed my Dad for not wanting to attend events or to excuse them from social interactions.
I had to be brutally honest with them and tell them just what my parents confided in me. There was no other way to sugar coat a difficult conversation. I understood their side of the story, they had just lost their father and perhaps were not themselves. It is an awful lot to pile on a child, the death of a parent and the introduction of his family that they had never met. Complete strangers that they knew so very little about.
My nephew had a strong argument. He was fourteen at the time and now at nineteen, he was more mature and not the child he was when they first met him. I made a deal with him. He could come visit when my parents came to Indiana. He had to understand that I would not tell my mother of his visit until he was close to arriving as she would be angry that I was meddling in her business. She chose to not see them and I was forcing it upon her.
We agreed that he could come for three days and if things were tense, he'd leave early and if they were going well, he was welcomed to stay. I told my dad a few hours before his arrival and we both agreed to not say a word to Mom. Robert pulled up and my Dad greeted him just like he would anyone. The issue is not with my father. We were all outside talking when I suggested we go in and face the music. As we stepped in to the house, my mother sat on the love seat doing a crossword puzzle, her back to the door, "Hello Robert."
"Hello Grandma." He proceeded to sit down next to her and together they worked crossword puzzles. You can not tell me she wasn't in heaven, but she will never admit it. We sat and chatted a while about his graduation and recent break up with his girlfriend of seven years. He was funny when he explained the situation. His girlfriend had started dating his best friend and as he said more than once, "I didn't see that one coming." He and his best friend had spoken of this situation and his friend assured him he had no interest in dating her, but never say never, they did date and it broke my nephew's heart. He was preparing to attend college in the fall so he had that to look forward to.
The next three days were heaven sent. He was not the fourteen year old my parents remembered. He has my brother's temper but he tries to control it. He and my father went out to play golf. I know my Dad was just over the moon golfing with his grandson. I had a list of projects for dad and I to do, but he and Robert knocked them out and dad was impressed that his grandson had "common sense." Some thing he preached all too often to his own children.
At night we would watch movies and talk. After three days, we decided he should spend the week and at the end of the week, no one wanted him to go home. My mom had to admit he had matured, but that lasted all of five minutes as he wrote to me shortly after that visit to tell me he had reunited with his girlfriend and she was pregnant. My mom, you never know whether what she says is how she really feels or if it is a reaction to hurt. I don't dwell on it as she wouldn't be honest with me if I asked.
I had been dreaming of an idea for a portable table for years. It came to me when Michael and I were boating on the weekends. I drew the schematics and applied for a patent. I am still working on the logistics of bringing it to fruition. It takes time to develop the idea and find the resource to produce it in mass as well as market it, but I am hopeful it will happen soon.
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| Patent Pending |
In September, I needed to have more drywall work done in the garage. It was not some thing that I wanted to do as the lower wall behind the water pressure tank and water softener needed to be replaced. There had been years of water damage from multiple sources and I had put it off long enough.
Shortly after I purchased my house, the neighborhood had a meeting to update us on the potential of our neighborhood being purchased to expand the highway. I had not been made aware of this when I bought the house and was disappointed as I had dropped a lot of money in renovations. I was in the process of building the shed at the time so I have refrained from doing much more to the home until more information was available, but some repairs just need to be done.
I hired a man who was starting his own remodeling company. After he completed the job, I asked if he would be interested in repairing the master bath shower. He said it would take four days to do, but I knew from previous experience, he was underestimating his time.
He was able to work within my schedule as I wanted to be home when he was there to work. He had other obligations to family, so I understood that he could only work certain hours, but I have yet to understand how people who want to work are never available to work.
He started the tear out and left. I finished it and the next day when he showed up to finish, he was surprised to see that I had torn the entire shower out. I let him know that I knew what I was doing and demanded he step up his game if he wanted the job.
I spent a considerable amount of time with this young man and treated him with respect and dignity. He shared his story with me that his father taught him how to do this type of work. He was proud of his website and brochures. He was just trying to get his foot in a door and hoped for referrals. He was a member of Angie's List, although that is not where I found him.
I gave him fifty dollars one night as it was his anniversary. I knew he didn't have money to do any thing special as they had two children to support and she was bar tending twice a week. He was so grateful for my kindness. The next day he told me they went to dinner and two movies and how much his girl enjoyed herself. This is just who I am. I am probably too kind for my own good as, no good deed goes unpunished.
Six weeks later, he was still working on the bathroom. I wanted a new vanity but the one in my bathroom would have required a custom made one, so I bought the materials and drew up the plans, teaching him how I wanted it constructed. He was so proud of himself when he finished it and said that he could now add that to his resume.
It was late October 2010, I had reached a point where I trusted him in my home and he'd been working there during the day when I was at work. He had finished most of the work that needed to be done and I was going to finish up some of the work before he came back to put the final details on the project.
It was October 24, 2010 when he sent a text to inform me the high winds we had that day blew his car off the road and he had a flat tire. The next evening I noticed my diamond earrings were missing.
I had worn them on the bus trip to Chicago and had taken them off, placing them on the vanity in the main bath when a few days later, I decided I best place them where they belonged, but I was lazy, I just placed them on top of my jewelry box, not inside of it. Two days later, they were missing from the top of the box.
I was beside myself as I was not sure if they had fallen off the box and I had swept them up or if they snagged on a piece of clothing and ended up in the washer. I took the sweeper bag out in to the garage and went through it, dust particle by dust particle, finding nothing.
I was sick to my stomach when I opened the door on my jewelry box to discover the diamond bracelet I had bought on the "divorce" cruise in 2001 was missing. I pulled the appraisals from the safe and discovered more pieces were missing. My gut told me where the jewelry was, but I didn't want to believe it. He started giving me every excuse to not finish the job and one day he finally showed up.
I confronted him. His latest excuse was that his father had died and he had business to take care of revolving around him. I looked in the newspaper and never saw a death notice for his dad. When he arrived that day, I did not mix words when I accused him. He swore he would never do that, although we had many conversations about his girlfriends brother being one to lift items off of customers in the past, he would never do such a thing.
Thieves are good liars so are addicts. I had filed a police report and within a few weeks, pieces of my jewelry had been discovered at local pawn shops. I understand stolen jewelry is not a top priority with the local police department, so I took matters in to my own hands.
The diamond earrings had been pawned and bought immediately. When I was told how much they were purchased for verses how much I paid for them, I was sick to my stomach. These were the earrings that I had continually traded up with the final trade after Bill died. There were still pieces missing but the police didn't have time to go searching. They had entered his name in to their system and when any one pawned an item with that name, it alerts the police. I left work one night and told Tanya I was going to go window shop at the pawn shops on Tenth Street in Indianapolis. She told me I was crazy to go to Haughville at night and I should do it during the day. I had no idea what she was talking about, I had never heard of Haughville, but discovered it is the most impoverished neighborhood in the city.
I waited as she asked and drove down the next day to the first pawn shop on my list. I had never been in a pawn shop and I have to say, it was quite a lesson. Puppers was riding shotgun with me so I was safe. Pawn shops are busy on a Saturday morning after payday. I was browsing the jewelry cases when I spotted my necklace. I didn't want to create a scene, so I waited until the line at the register cleared. I asked to see the manager and as he approached, I told him the necklace in his show case was mine and it had been stolen recently. He immediately informed me he knew nothing about it and refused to help me.
I went to the car to call the police detective to discover he had weekends off. The woman on the line told me to secure the number of the pawn ticket and the detective would review it on Monday. I went back inside and requested the necessary information, but was told they did not have to provide me such. I went to the corner of the show case, pulled my phone out and snapped a photo of the necklace. The shop was full again and I didn't care at this point of whether I was making a scene or not. I spoke loudly to the manager, "The police will be here on Monday to retrieve the stolen goods you have displayed. I have a picture of it, so don't try selling it between now and then." Every one's eyes were on me as I walked out of the store on to my next adventure.
The next stop was a pawn shop just down the street. As you walked in the door, bright shiny tires were stacked to create a hall of shame, shame that one would so openly display these at the door! I was surprised the rubber was not melting as the tires were so hot. A very large black man was behind the counter, leaning on it as he spoke to another patron. "Good morning beautiful, any thing I can help you with?"
"No. Just window shopping." I proceeded to browse the show case displays but came up empty handed. As I was leaving the building, Super Fly appeared from the back room. A man dressed in a long fur coat, fedora cap, leather briefcase and sporty sunglasses held the door for me as I exited. I knew I was staring, it is not every day you see Super Fly in the broad day light. He crossed the street waiting for the bus. I called Tanya, "You are not going to believe who I just saw! Super Fly rides the bus in Haughville!" We could not stop laughing.
I didn't find any more of my jewelry that day, but eventually it was all recovered with the exception of the earrings and an Omega necklace. I visited several more stores and found them to be a thriving business on a Saturday morning.
A few weeks later the detective called me to come into the station to identify the person of interest. I told him I had a photo of him as I took pictures of any one I hired just in the event it was needed at a later date. While he thought I was taking pictures of the project, I was taking pictures of him and his license plate.
Identifying some one in a line up, is not always as shown in the movies. I drove to the police station and looked at six pictures of six different men. I was surprised to see he already had a mug shot and questioned the detective about it. I was not surprised he had a similar problem three years earlier and had just been released from his probation.
Within a few more weeks, Crime Stoppers posted a picture of him in the local newspaper. Apparently he could not be found, so again, I took matters in to my own hands.
He was on Facebook, so I messaged his friends and family notifying them of the reward Crime Stoppers was offering for his capture. Some were down right nasty stating he would never do such a thing, some stated he was innocent until proven guilty, some of his family were interested in the story as they had not seen him in years and had just reconnected on Facebook. It was through this venue that I discovered his father was alive and doing well. His Aunts were a bit upset that he would use this as an excuse. Finally, the mother of his girlfriend offered to tell the police where he was for the reward if I promised to not tell her daughter.
He had not told his girlfriend, mother of his child what had happened. She had been interviewed as a suspect as he had given her some jewelry to pawn, telling her he found it in a house he was working on. The police were willing to work with her, if she was a witness for their case.
He had just proposed to her a few weeks prior when she learned of this latest escapade and after being told of what really happened, she ended the relationship. He was arrested within days and spent some time in jail before his mom was able to pay the bail.
I faced him in court almost a year after the incident. I drove down to the county court house and again, had a new experience. I stood in line to go through a scanner much like you find in the airports. All of these people in front of me and I was the one they picked to take to the side and frisk. The officer was nice about it as I am sure he detected I was out of my element standing there.
I walked up to the court room and asked to speak to the prosecutor. She advised me what to expect and suggested I sit in the front row where the sign clearly stated, "For Attorneys and Police." She thought I might feel more comfortable sitting there instead of among the others in the room.
Young kids were brought in to the room, dressed in orange jumpsuits to face the Judge. I couldn't imagine their lives were over before they had even started. Children stood there being accused of murdering others, drug charges and being under the influence. The next group were parole violators, who didn't understand when you are sentenced to community service, you need to show up or if you are not to be driving because you have several DUI's against you, getting pulled over drinking and driving will end up with you facing the Judge again.
Another lifestyle that I never thought I would experience in the flesh was there for me to breath in and thank God I was blessed with common sense and knowing right from wrong.
It was finally time to step up and be heard. He couldn't afford an attorney so he was provided one. The room was noisy with chatter. The Judge turned to me after he had heard his side of the story to ask if I had any thing to say. I had written out a statement as I was unsure if I would be able to talk as my emotions were raw that day.
As I began to speak, the victim of this senseless crime, his mother sitting in the court room, I spoke of my kindness to him, my disappointment in him, his lies that his father died and last but not least, he stole the one thing that my late husband had given me. You could hear a pin drop in the room. I sat across from him and never took my eye off him, but he could not look at me. He was sentenced to pay me for the earrings as they were not insured. He owes me over thirteen thousand dollars. I go back to court every time he has a date with the Judge. I want him to know, I have not gone away. I want him to look at me and know that I will be there every time he sets foot in that courtroom. He has not done well paying me as outlined in his probation papers. I have another court date in six weeks. I have written to the Judge to stress the importance of making him responsible for this. He is supposed to make a payment each month and he does if his feet are held to the fire, but if not, he makes one just days before his next court date.
I am hopeful the Judge will consider my plea and make him more accountable. I understand the system is filled with others whose crimes far out weigh his, but this is his second offense and apparently he did not learn the first time.
Tanya reminds me often, 'No good deed goes unpunished." I want to believe there are people who are good out there that just need a little help to get on their feet. I am learning, they don't want to get on their feet as they have done well laying around taking advantage of others.
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