Kansas.city.mo.hospital.episode.html

 

I Travel to KC to escape from having to go to court after driving with bogus Arkansas driver license.

From Memphis I first travel to St. Louis to visit with Dr Harte at the Jewish Hospital. He is not there. Dr. Grant gives me addrss in Kansas City where Dr. Harte is now located.

i.am.in.kansas.city.mo.hospital.html

I meet with Dr Harte in his offife which is part of a clinic I think. I go through my routine of wanting to be comitted because I feel I cannot cope with my problems, etc/

I go through the routine wanting to be commited because I feel I can no longer function in society, etc. Dr Harte tells me he does not think I need commitment. I insist and take out the derringer and slowly pull the long lever.

 

3. I Visit general hosp KC, psychiatric unit

 

4. the derringer episode

 

a form of suicide in the sense of a stage play on Broadway is attempted

 

b fedral law becomes a problem - you cannot mail weapons, guns across state lines without permit, I think.

 

c i come up with solution - take the derringer all apart and then mail the pieces to Nash. This greatly angered Nash.

 

d Tell the story of my first room mate, the big big black guy about 50 who kept saying to me, "The Chinese doctor - he say my brain is rotten. What about your brain. Do it be rotten. I never answered that question, prefering to maintain detente with him as long as I could. Finally I think I satisfied the guy when I replied that the doctors where not sure what was wrong with me but were continuing to try and figure it out. He replied, Oh, and that ended his inquiries.

 

5. commitment - It is easy to volunteer yourself into a psycho ward but quite another thing to then get out. This was the case in the 1960s. But I think today our societies authorities simply dump the mentally disturned onto the streets and let them be someone else problem.

 

6. i meet the catatonics, the hysterical woman who starts at one end of the long hall and then runs down the entire length of the hall screeming her head off. Then she rests a while and begins the show all over again. the psychotics, etc., a full display of the kooky world of the hosptial for the insane

 

7 i take the psycho battery of tests which i had told and taught Nash about. This included the standard INK BLOT TESTS. I should not have done it, but I too saw squashed bugs and the ink smears, which the early sets are BW, I saw blood dripping from one of the blots which somewhat looks like a waiter with a tray. There was also the word association thing which I enjoyed as at that time I had gotten me a pretty good vocabulary.

 

8 I see squashed bugs, etc in the The Rorschach ink blot test - see above

 

9 I read "The Oddessey" by Homer lent to me by the resident MD. I conclude "all life is an oddesy, a series of adventures" Dr. Harte agrees. He is regularly visiting me while I am in the kooky ward. In one of his many letters to me throughout his life time he alluded to that letter and use the quote above.

 

10 getting in is easier than getting out. Hosptial says he is too sick to release.

 

a i get to wear a straight jacket. life does not always turn out like we expected. The also injected me with a sedative which knocked me out cold. And it was about a day later that I started to revive. Dr Harte came to visit me after I regainde awareness and agreed with me that they, staff, should not have given me that knockout medicine.

 

b i get to converse with J.P. Morgan - who really thinks he is.

 

c i get to play some poker with some interesting players

 

d i remember the movie "snake pit"

 

e There is this teenage boy about 16 who liked to play cards with others, such as gin rummy, etc. I never could figure out what he was doing there as he seemed very rational and normal. But then, when you think about the Congress, a bunch of fruitcakes - yet they appear to be functioning more or less normal.

=========================================================================================

Rev. (0) 2022_Dec_30)1:45pm  Initial extemporaneous rough draft

Memphis, 1965.  It seemed to be that the cops were always looking for an excuse to pull me over when I was riding my fast BSA 650 Hornet motorcycle which had a nice set of straight pipes. I got to thinking that probably it had something to concerning my relationship with Glenn Nash.  One time burglary called me in for “routine questioning”.  They wanted to know if I had ever seen Nash smoking “unstamped” cigarettes.  I didn’t know what he was talking about at first.  I asked one of the detectives what he was talking about.  The detective explained that “unstamped” cigarette packs are ones that don’t have the small stamp pasted on the top of each pack of cigarettes. I told him, “no, I haven’t” which was the truth.  I visited often to Glenn’s house in the end of the highway going West.  He had bought a nice house in a new developing subdivision, at 402 W. Oxford Street. 

On a work-related visit to Memphis in about 1990 I took Peggy and Sam over there so that they could see the Glenn’s house.  I had told them parts of the story of my experiences working with Glenn.  And they had seen the mail envelopes that Glenn had sent quite a few times seemingly real concerned that I come and visit him now that he was out of the Florida hospital for the insane, having been judged by the expert psychiatrists that Nash was now “Safe to himself and safe to be released onto the public.” I didn’t expect it, but Ann was out on the front lawn cleaning weeds out of a small garden.  It was strange seeing her after so many years had gone by.  I didn’t stop to talk with her.  I saw no point to it.  She knew the truth and she knew I knew what had actually happened.  Very soon after Glenn had been arrested and taken to Hernando country jail, I was arranging things so that she could pay the late mortgage payments and not loose her house which she needed since Glenn’s young son was only about three or five or so.  Doing so was no big deal, actually.  After Henry and I closed the old school, Memphis Karate Academy, we took a number of things worth keeping.  He wanted to large window AC and gas heater since he had actually bought them several years earlier.  Before then, the students trained cold in the winter and very hot in the summer – just like it is (or was) in Japan.  I wanted the judo mats and Henry was OK with that.  He had been part owner of the school. 

Kang Rhee, Master Tae Kwon Do, 5Dan, asked me if I wanted to come over to his karate school and teach the judo and self-defense classes which he would start if I said, yes.  I said yes.  For one thing his school was at the end of the street I lived on, 44 N. Tucker St. and just across from “beautiful and lovely Overton Park” (an interesting story itself showing what citizens CAN DO when they unite to fight a corrupt government and bureaucracy.) I told Master Rhee that he had a good opportunity to buy these judo mats and they would help him too when he was teaching Aikido and Jujutsu because in these activities – landing of the floor is part of the experience and learning.  He asked the price and I set it to what Ann needed to keep her house.  He said, OK, because what he paid, $550 was way small compared to a new set.  These mats were made of a rubber type material and where shaped to cling together, a sort of tongue and groove affair. They were also each very heavy. 

With Kang Rhee’s check in-hand he rented a u-hall midsize truck and I got one of the old schools’ students to help me load them up from Ann’s house and bring them over to Rhee’s dojo. I urged Ann that come the morning she must take the check over to Rhee’s bank, cash it and then go directly to the bank that held her mortgage and pay off the deficiency.  She agreed, did so, and that was that.  Even though technically Ann had aided and abetted Glenn when he had returned to the Chattanooga area by bringing him cloths, etc. (thus it seems certain that she had kept in contact with him during the entire time of the escapade) the state chose not to press that matter as when you think about it – what would have been gained by doing that?  The only think I can think of is that it would have brought a more complete “justice” in the resolution of the case.  That would have left her young son, Glenn Jr. de facto an orphan.  Every good lawyer knows the legal proverb, “The law is an ass, an idiot” immortalized by the Chief Justice to the Crown, Mr. Bumble.  

 

1. An ass, in England, is a donkey, of which there are many particularly in the political class, such as its MPs and Primed Ministers. And, as every one knows with an above an IQ of 50, they, the donkeys, are stupid.  The overriding characteristic of both donkeys and politicians in England (home of Charles the Dickens whose insightful examinations of the British aristocracy class, its character and true nature – illuminated and in many ways shocked the world to the magnitude of what had emerged in their midst undetected until Dickens brought the revelation to the people.

Americans are about as bad and perhaps a little more obnoxious about it - than the British - in trying to explain and justify just what their existence adds to, its “value-add” to the overall good of society.  One of the easiest things for people in the above mentioned places to do is when they are clustered about like chickens in a barn while waiting their turn to be plucked and then turned into young broilers (assuming they are “pullets” – if they are not then it is more efficient to just let the hogs and pigs eat them alive – (a visual worth seeing) . . . for people to say “I would have done it this way, or that way” and then criticize the way it was done by the other person.  Sometime in our life we are often faced with making a “Solomon” type decision, a “no-win” no matter what you do. It’s the classic Kobayashi Maru test and you don’t know how you will handle it until you yourself have to make that decision of what you will do.  And that decision will also reveal much about what you are, your character, what is most important for you, your very being, dare I say it, your spiritual essence.

Now go back in time with me to around late summer in Memphis (often known locally as Mucus, Tennessee, and sometimes also called Phlegm City, though I never understood why until I had lived there a few years and then happily found a job hundreds of miles away and only returned to visit the Mucus City once in a while.

As I said earlier, the cops had a habit (NOT habit as in, “The Nun wears a habit when going out walking on the streets, especially on Memphis streets), of singling me out, targeting me to be blunt about it – because, I assume, of my association with Attorney Nash who(m) they didn’t like probably because he also was a criminal lawyer.

Like one time I am sitting in the dojo office (Nash had temporarily moved out of the dojo office and into a new fancy one in 100 N. Main street – feeling that “better times were coming his way”  These two detectives (you could figure that by the nice dark suites they wore and not a uniform as regular cops on the beat wear. I am dressed in my karate gi waiting for a student to show up or a potential student who(m) I could sell a “life-time membership” in self-defense whether he was 6 or 60 years old.  If he was in age around 6 – then I had to get parental permission and a check from them.  It was easier to sign up old men to life-time memberships. I think that they were optimist.  But why?  I mean, my oldest customer was 91 years old.  He sure was optimistic.  But I was a very good instructor.  I took plenty of time with all of my students – and gave them as much personal attention I could in correcting their form, focus, etc; and explaining to them the WHY we were doing each of the various “warm-up” and “cool-down” exercise and why we position our arms and hands and body in different ways to defend against changing circumstances.  If you really do care about the student you are working with, young or old, don’t matter none, they all sense quickly where you’re coming from.  If you don’t like sharing knowledge, or you don’t like people (which I can understand) or are NOT patience with the students – then you ought to go into something more digestible to you such as going to West Memphis and visiting the dog racing track. 

So these two detectives come into the dojo, make a sharp right turn into where I am sitting, and ask “Is Mr. Nash here?” “No, he isn’t.”  I didn’t ask them “Can I help you please” because if I said that they would have replied, “Yes you can.” And then they would go into a bunch of details and I didn’t want to go into all of that.

I did ask then, “What do you need” in a polite manner.  The one, who was the older of the two, says to me, “We want to search the school in a couple of locations, do you mind?” I replied, “Not really, but do you have a search warrant?”  He said, “Actually we do” And he took out a paper from inside in that pocket on the left side of his chest and opened it up and laid it on the sales desk.

 

I bent over a little bit and reached for the paper, leaned back in the chair (it was one of those old swivel chairs [old today but not then] and carefully read the warrant.  I slowly leaned back in the chair and brought the warrant closer to my eyes (I had 20-20 vision, still do at 76).  I took a long slow breath deep down my abdomen area where you push your gut OUT and bring the air into ALL of your two lungs and then slowly release the air.  This is the way of yoga and the martial arts.  It does make a huge difference if you do it enough that you make it a habit.  High school coaches who teach their students to breath deep and push the lungs (upper section) out – make a big mistake.  But they are not aware of it.

So, I nodded a little bit, reached up and stroked my chin some, leaned back against the chair again. I was PONDERING [deeply and seriously thoughtful].  I have a saying I have always lived by.  If you don’t know what to say, say nothing.  If you don’t know what to do, do nothing.  The dictum is simply to say, Don’t make matters worse if you are unsure of how to respond.  You most likely then will only make matters worse.  This has kept me from being shot one time (another story from about 1981).

Then when I had finally reached my decision after about three minutes of silent deliberation – I slowly and carefully folded up the warrant along the established creases, straightened up in the chair and leaned forward and handed the search warrant to the lead detective and said, “Go ahead, it’s OK.”

• Pause and upload, it’s lunch time

I have created a separate html web page for this section as had the case gone to trial - and had state asked the simple question, "Have you ever seen this small silver Derringer before?" Do you know why this derringer was left on the liquor store counter top?" The answer would have been YES, and YES, because I have never been masochistic and was not about to screw my life for Glenn W. Nash.

i.travel.