Unheralded

RON SCHALOW: All Of The Things I Don’t Remember

Caution: Some meandering ahead.

I believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford because I can see, hear and comprehend sincerity. It isn’t a tough call.

As for this Brett Kavanaugh character, he has a disposition that would embarrass a Rottweiler. All that snarling would get irritating after about 10 minutes. I’ve seen his type before, and they usually screwed me out of money.

Thank goodness that Kevin Cramer, the kooky congressman, shared his thoughts on sexual assault, at least as it applies to Kavanaugh. He doesn’t think the attack was a big deal because there wasn’t penetration. Repugnant Kev was built to be a shameless toady for a sleazeball like Donald Trump.

Speaking of sleazeballs, the odious manchild who can’t remember what he says from hour to hour and has bragged about assaulting women, mocked the recall of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford on Tuesday.

“How did you get home? ‘I don’t remember,'” Trump said at the rally in Southaven. “How did you get there? ‘I don’t remember.’ Where is the place? ‘I don’t remember.’ How many years ago was it? ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.'”

Imitating Ford, he added, “But I had one beer — that’s the only thing I remember.” — Associated Press

Ugh.

For my part, I’ve never had a #MeToo moment, or for any period of time, so I have no inkling of what it must feel like.

Did I create a #MeToo?

I took a gauzy inventory, I can’t remember being responsible for inflicting a #MeToo type of pain on anyone. When it comes to women, I’ve been less than kind, I’ve been an asshole, and I’ve been a coward. I’ve caused mental hurt. Maybe those times count. I guess they should.

Conversely, I’ve been hurt to the bone, but if rejection were tallied, I would probably come out even. That’s not a proper excuse for being spineless. It was just so easy to simply disappear before cell phones, texts, and instant messenger. Not so easy mentally.

At least a couple of people thought I was a stalker. Incorrectly, but I can understand their thought process.

Anyway, digging around in my mind hasn’t rendered any overt misogynistic results of the physical nature. That doesn’t prove anything. I’m not asserting any innocence in this self-indulgent exercise.

When I took a look, it was obvious that my brain could use a good Swiffering. And after a full accounting, the “things I don’t remember” outnumbers the “things I recall” by a long shot.

I know I never attacked a female, ala Kavanaugh, but the odds are I harassed a few. I definitely ran a dude’s head into an astragal, also known as the post between double doors. No regrets on that one. He was a compulsive jerk and needed softening up before being tossed onto the cold concrete. The dude, not Kavanaugh. Maybe #NotI is the extent of what I personally know about #MeToo.

However, I can provide expert testimony on memory and drinking, which required strained thinking on my part.

More than a few mostly full 375-milliliter plastic bottles of Windsor were found under furniture in abodes throughout the town. I remember that propensity of mine, but no addresses.

My youthful drinking problems ran well into my 30s. Brain cells were willingly sacrificed. Bodies of specifics died. I found the corpses laid out in what the professionals call the lobe of stupidity. The specifics were stacked nearly to the brim. All because of clean living.

I liked beer. I liked lots of beer. Comparatively speaking, Brett Kavanaugh is an amatuer. Teenage brains can’t handle more than two beers and still have any recollection of their name.

A true souse needs practice to do it properly. Nonpros like Brett end up shouting conspiracy theories, bemoaning a weak stomach, besmirching their accusers, drinking lots of water, discrediting their own witness, making up new definitions for words and weeping. Most fall apart, but not on national TV in front of U.S. senators.

He was begging to wake up. I’m sure of it.

I quit liking beer years ago, when there was still less than a thousand varieties. After decades with no refreshing hops, I allow myself to sip on one beer, every few months. For some reason, you will need to know this.

A hard drive check of nonprivate hardwired remembrances rendered buckets full. Here’s a few:

I was held up at gunpoint while carrying the days receipts to the safe, which was in another building. It seemed more dangerous to do it that way, but my thoughts on the topic were dismissed. I remember the generalities of those meetings.

Anyway, late one night, near 30 years ago, three ski-masked men just waited near my walking route, then popped into view, with a silhouette of a pistol attached to an arm. My attention had been grabbed. I set down the beer-box full of deposit bags.

They pushed me to my knees and put the gun to the back of my head. I never said a word. Then, surprisingly, they threw a blanket over my kneeling body, as if it would be difficult for me to figure out the technology. And one told me to count to something. I don’t count on command, yet it was considerate of them not to shoot me.

But the joke was on them. These clowns obviously staked out the place, but they left up to $30,000 cash money on the table because they were too dull-witted to pull their heist on a night when our bars and restaurants were packed, instead of one of the slowest business days of year, and most of their take were useless credit card receipts and personal checks with our business stamp on them.

The silhouette is sharp in my mind. Then, the kneeling. All else is fuzzy.

I know it’s not the same, but when trying to think of my most traumatic experience, the robbery came to mind. I’ve never been to war, or went to an outdoor concert in Las Vegas, or visited Stoneman Douglas High School or lived in a place where missiles scream through the neighborhood on a regular basis.

Being put in the execution position hasn’t affected me in the least. I don’t why. I was more mortified in the seventh grade, 50 years ago, when PE classes had to go through the required swimming lessons in a state of nakedness. At least for my class of boys. Not much was ever said about the pool. There was no good to come of it.

I kept hoping that I would slip on the wet tiles, hit my head on something hard, die of a subdural hematoma, slip into the pool and slowly dissolve in the over chlorinated water.

Adding to the sadism, the instructor made us jump off the diving board, while he chucked dodge balls at us in midflight. I believe that he thought drowning was a realistic option, and he would then use a Sharpie to mark an F on the body.

I can’t remember one other kid in that class. I had my own problems. So, for those who question Dr. Ford because others at the gathering where she was attacked can’t remember the details, why would they?

Also not the same as being sexually assaulted.

Several years before that, at a YMCA non-nude swimming class, I had to be fished out, and those moments of panic are all that I recall. No faces, no names, no before and after.

I remember about 10 yards of an 880 yard race in junior high — what they now call middle school — before our track meets went metric. It happened during my kick, such as it was, down the final straightaway. I may have been startled to be passing other runners; 870 yards are a mystery. Just running around an oval, not remembering.

I forgot my own age for quite a few months, but I don’t remember what the year it was when this happened or if I was adding or subtracting. Then, one day I was walking into this liquor store and saw a sign on the door that said, “We card anyone who looks under 80.”

So, in anticipation, I whip out the wallet, grab my ID. I’m prepared when I head to the checkout. The counter guy made some wise ass remark about my year of birth; something about Ike, and I had to rethink my math. Except for the first sentence that was my Brett Kavanaugh liquor store BS imitation.

Memory, short and long term, is not flawless. But I believe the sober woman who was being violated over a drunken punk Yale legacy, and his oiled up pal. Her brain was not impaired. The heat on his brain seems to be set too high for government work.

There are dozens of Kavanaugh clones kept cool and ready in the lab that don’t have distemper. This one is broken. Next!





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