by
Rick S. Hall
People unfamiliar with Austin may have heard about "Austin Weird" and puzzled over what that phrase means. Early in the year 2003 the esteemed Austin City Council at one of their televised meetings decided to support the phrase. Many people are puzzled as the Council's endorsement of the phrase is somewhat weird. There are even bumper stickers on many car bumpers in Austin that read, "Keep Austin Weird."
So why is Austin "weird"?
At first glance most of Austin appears relatively normal. There are state offices, the Capitol building in the downtown area, high-rise office buildings and the University of Texas campus. How about the nice homes in the neighborhoods around the downtown area, relatively speaking there is little that appears "weird."
What makes Austin "weird"? It's the "weird" people who live here, they give this city its '"weird" quality. Having lived here for quite sometime let me see if I can help define "Austin Weird."
Austin is the Capital of Texas and is overflowing with powerful State and local politicians. Austin is also the "Nexus of Texas," it is the headquarters of most of the state's medical and mental heath agencies. Austin has scores of public and private medical facilities and top ranking physicians. Of course the Austin Chamber of Commerce sports its fair share of "Austin Elite" and wealthy business leaders. And then there are the many CEOs of major corporations and Internet businesses located in Austin.
These political power brokers exist side by side with Austin's movers and shakers and the resulting mix is just one big family. Like many large families, the various family members in Austin don't always get along. The different family members split up into support groups. There are brothers who join with cousins and they often band together to compete against or support other cliques of relatives.
Family members form alliances to smooth their way to political power or status. Some factions join together so they can dictate unpopular social or civic policy changes to the public. This Austin family system often creates unseen turbulence. The result is a political landscape that is dotted with all but invisible political whirlwinds. This type of landscape is difficult if not impossible for the average Austin resident to navigate with any degree of certainty.
The residents of Austin often find themselves caught in the turbulence of these competing family groups and cannot find their way clear of the whirlwinds and end up remarking, "Ain't right!" Not all Austinites can handle the stress these whirlwinds create and they end up "weird." Some family groups invariably seek to suppress that which is "weird" to them. Their efforts simply strengthen, solidify and drive Austinites to join the ranks of the weird! Ironically these family exertions multiplies the whirlwind's end product. Those that survive this turbulence band together in self-defense, avoiding the "establishment." There now exists in Austin a solidarity of the "weird."
We all like to think we control our lives, we make our own choices. In Austin there are times when we acquire our choices and sometimes our choices are made for us. Here are some of events that have produced these "weird" Austinites. These stories are true, the names have been changed for reasons you can readily understand:
*A was six months old and his sister was four when *A's parents decided to leave Detroit Michigan. In 1951 they said their good-byes and started the journey to what Austinites called "Austin, the Friendly City."
After arriving in Austin the family rented a small wood framed house that had free standing gas space heaters. Time passed as the family settled in. *A was now 16 months old. *A and his sister were playfully chasing each other round and around the rooms of the house as little kids will do.
*A's mom stepped out into the backyard to hang wet towels on the clotheslines. The first scream and the brief silence that followed it was quickly followed by another scream. The space heater fell over on its back when *A chasing his sister ran into it. He ended up draped over on top of the open space heater's flaming ceramic grates. His mother burst into the room just in time to see him push back up and fall back into the flames again.
*A suffered burns from his belly button up to his neck and under his chin. And he had burns on his arms and hands. The doctor told *A's mother that she had to change the bandage dressings everyday and she had two choices. She could wrap dressings around *A's hands or she could make crude cotton gloves. If she chose not to use the gloves the skin on *A's fingers would heal back, fusing his fingers together. At some point the doctor would have to cut the skin on *A's fingers apart. His mother could not bear the thought of that.
Years later the burn scars were still visible. He played in the sprinklers with other children. They noticed *A looked different and said he looked "funny." As *A matured most of the scars stretched out and faded away, there is one scar still visible on his arm.
When he was older *A's mother told him what happened. He thanked her for sewing the gloves. *A told his mom the little gloves must have been hard to make. And she replied. "Oh no! Making the gloves was easy, getting them on your hands was the hard part. You always fought like the devil when I tried to change them!" To this day when *A is burned he "fights like the devil," his conflict technique is different, just a wee bit weird.
*B grew up on the very edge of Northeast Austin near Windsor Park. He was eleven when he and his brother joined the Austin Aquatic Club. *B sailed small boats on Town Lake. He was a Boy Scout in Troop 85 and worked his way up to "Star" level in the scouts.
In the 60s, reading science fiction became *B's favorite thing. At age 13 *B worked as a volunteer page at the branch library near his home shelving returned books. At age 14 the Austin Public Library offered *B a job as a page. They actually paid him a huge wage of .77 cents an hour! He read every science fiction book in the Windsor branch library and then he read all the science fiction books at the main library. He read great authors like Asimov, Bradbury, Clark, Delaney, Farmer, Heinlein, Harrison, Norton, Niven, Silverburg and many more.
In his sophomore year in high school *B was in his advisory period and a student counselor wanted to talk to students who would be juniors the next year. The counselor's pitch, take a Vocational Occupational Education-Data Processing class using IBM equipment for four hours a day for two years. After graduation these V.O.E. students could get a job paying $8,000 dollars a year!
*B knew data processing was the path to the future business world. His father said IBM made the best equipment in the world, *B signed right up. *B took a typing class in summer school for the data processing class.
For two years he had a grade average of 98 in the data-processing class. He graduated and with his data-processing diploma in hand, started hitting every personnel office in downtown Austin. *B spent nearly a year looking for a job. He went to nearly every personnel office for every state agency in Austin.
*B went to some state offices two or three times over the course of that year. No one would hire him! It was weird! And finally after returning for the third time to the same state office the personnel director told him why no one would hire him.
"I don't know who set this up over a A.I.S.D. but they are flat incompetent! No one uses the equipment you trained on anymore! That data processing equipment has been obsolete for over 5 years. Why would I hire you full time when I can hire two part-time students from the University of Texas who already know a couple of computer languages we use? Why would we want to spend department money to send you to school so you can learn to operate our computers!"
*B was crushed. Apparently he might as well have been trained to herd flocks of dodo birds! The dodo is an extinct flightless bird, once a native of the island of Mauritius. He felt cheated, he felt weird.
He ended up working mornings as a clerk. *B drove to afternoon college classes in San Marcos. He lasted two years in that commuter grind, quit school and got a full time job.
In the 70s *C read that Kerrville Bus drivers were being paid as much as airline pilots. The Kerrville Bus Company hired drivers when they turned 25. *C started working at the Travis State School on FM- 969 as the school's bus driver.
*C planned to drive at T.S.S. until he turned 25 then work for the Kerrville Bus Company. His "American Dream" was to make enough money so he could afford to build his own home up by one of the Highland Lakes. *C knew he could do it.
In August 1973 it was 5:00pm, quitting time at Travis State School. Over 1,000 dayshift employees were lining up to leave work. Outside the T.S.S. gates on FM-969 something weird happened.
Years later a D.P.S. Trooper testified in court that length of the skid marks on the pavement meant the vehicle that hit *C's motorcycle was going in excess of 45 mph at the point of impact!
*C pulled out onto FM-969 and stopped behind a car waiting to make a left turn. He was sitting on his motorcycle, the bike in neutral with both feet on the road behind a stopped car. Without warning he was instantly catapulted into the air while his motorcycle was crushed into the car in front of him. A witness later stated in court that *C was thrown as "high in the air as the telephone poles" and "he landed straight up and down on his head like a pole!" The people who witnessed the accident rushed over and said he was "dead!" A call was made to A.P.D. in Austin saying just that.
He could not see anything at first, everything was a fog of white. He knew something happened, he felt hot, and the asphalt he was lying on was very hot. When *C tried to get up his arms barely worked, his legs just twitched.
He kept getting hotter so *C managed to stick his arm up and said, "help." And a man reached down, grabbed his hand and pulled him up to his feet. The man told *C as he slapped him on the back. "Your O.K.! Boy you sure are lucky!" That man turned out to be the man driving the Buick that hit *C.
One A.P.D. officer came to the scene looking for the "dead" person and finding out that *C was alive, he called the Sheriffs' Dept. and left. Had the APD officer stayed and investigated the accident he would have heard the witnesses at the scene who said the driver of the Buick had the strong smell of alcohol on his breath. Some witnesses also saw empty containers on the rear seat of the Buick. By the time other law enforcement officers arrived on the scene the containers had mysteriously disappeared. The lone ambulance driver sent out to transport the "dead person" left the scene of the accident saying. "He looks O.K. to me, I'm going back into town where people really need my help."
Four Sheriff's Deputies showed up and started to investigate. They began taking pictures of accident. The D.P.S. called the Sheriff's Dept. and said the accident scene was their call. The deputies moved all the vehicles off the road and trashed their measurements and photos then left the scene. Two D.P.S. troopers from Bastrop showed up 45 minutes later. When *C finally got his day in court two years later there was no law enforcement evidence or photos to support his statement that he was stopped behind the car waiting to turn left. All witnesses who saw the alcohol containers before they disappeared had already left the scene, went home. There was no one to tell the DPS troopers about the containers and they never tested the Buick driver for DWI alcohol use. *C did not know about the alcohol as he was in no shape to notice anything, he could barely function as it was. One witness later testified in court that after the accident *C appeared to be "addled." Addled in Webster's dictionary is defined as: "Addled-to make or become confused."
The 4000-pound Buick Rivera driver told the troopers that *C had suddenly pulled out in front to him and he hit *C while his motorcycle was moving. The force of the impact destroyed the motorcycle and the Buick's front bumper end up punching the car's radiator back into the engine block. The Buick had to be towed away by a tow truck. There was a ticket issued to the car driver by D.P.S.
At one point *C began to feel very bad and approached one DPS trooper who was in his patrol car and asked if he could please lay down in the back seat of his patrol car as he was not feeling well. The trooper just said no and rolled his window up. *C knocked on the trooper's window again and asked him to please let him lay down in his patrol car. The trooper responded by telling *C he was interviewing a witness and if *C did not stop interrupting him that he was going to arrest *C for, "interfering with a police officer in the course of his duties!" The witness in the trooper's car protested telling the trooper, "but that's the guy who got hit by the car!" The trooper responded by saying, "I left a hot meal on the table to come all the way out here. And I intend to get back home to Bastrop before it gets cold!" And the trooper rolled the window up in *C's face again.
*C did not want to get arrested so he went to the side of the road and leaned against a tree for support as there was not place else but the roadway or the bar ditch weeds to lay down on. *C was questioned later by that same trooper. He told the D.P.S. trooper what he knew and how everything suddenly went black after he landed right on the top of his motorcycle helmet! The trooper found no marks on *C, he did note the scratches from the pavement on *C's helmet. Both D.P.S. troopers left the scene of the accident.
*C admitted to the T.S.S nurse that he was starting to hurt all over. That same nurse had tried to get the ambulance driver to take *C to the hospital earlier. But the ambulance driver decided *C was fine. After all, he had just been sent out to pick up the "dead person." He did give *C a quick examination but did not find any marks from the accident and when he asked him, *C knew his name and the date and he was walking around.
The nurse was very concerned because right after the accident one of *C's pupils was markedly bigger then the other one. The ambulance driver checked *C's eyes with a small flash light and said, "well they look fine now." The nurse stayed the whole time after the ambulance driver left. After the D.P.S. released *C that nurse took him straight to the Brackenridge Emergency Room in Austin. The Emergency room doctor did not see a mark on him. *C swore to the doctor that he really did hurt all over! The doctor told him to "go home and take some aspirin." *C lay awake in pain all night and went back to the Emergency Room the next morning. This new doctor responded the same way but did tell *C to go see his family doctor.
*C's parent's directed him to their doctor, *C had never seen the man before. This doctor took x-rays of *C's back and told him "nothing is broken in your back, everything is O.K." and gave *C a prescription for Vicodin for his pains and told him to come back in two weeks.
*C returned and told the doctor he was feeling worse. *C was adamant, there had to be something very wrong with him! The doctor changed *C's prescription to Valium a tranquilizer. The doctor said, "you seem too excited to me."
The doctors were wrong. It would later be discovered that the extreme physical trauma of the accident had broken four of *C's vertebra, and destroyed the sacral table S-l that supports those vertebra. Each vertebra was broken in two and neither the broken vertebra or the S-1 damage would show up on x-ray technology used in 1973.
*C was in terrible pain and he knew he had to find a specialist. He was directed to a surgeon who was the "best orthopedic surgeon in Texas."
The "best orthopedic surgeon in Texas" took x-rays and came back into the examination room saying he found a problem with *C's lower spine.
The "best orthopedic surgeon in Texas" quickly explained. He found a small piece of bone was broken off the back of the L-5 vertebra. He said he could tell from this x-ray evidence that *C "had a back pain problem all your life." That the problem was a "minor congenital problem" that *C had since childhood. Since *C never experienced any problem with his back until the accident he immediately denied any such thing. He pointed out his work record and said he had never had any back pain before!
This surgeon would not believe him, and told *C that he could tell *C had back pains even as a child. This surgeon also failed to see the rest of the extensive physical trauma to *C's spine on the x-rays he took. The "best orthopedic surgeon in Texas" told *C that he was going to keep him on Valium. He told *C to do the physical therapy exercises and return in two weeks.
*C's pains doubled, the more he did the exercises the more his pain increased. *C slowly began to lose his self-confidence if not his sanity.
Hard to believe but things got even weirder.
Two weeks later the "best orthopedic surgeon in Texas," walked into the room feeding *C lines. "So you are O.K! You are doing the exercises and you are feeling better now, right!" Very sarcastically *C parroted back to the surgeon. "Right! I am O.K. and I am doing the exercises and I am feeling better." *C then plainly stated to him. "No, I am not O.K.! These exercises are making my pain worse not better!"
*C explain to the surgeon that his father was very worried and took *C to try to get him into see his doctor. That appointment time had been for his father and his doctor refused to see *C. *C told the "best orthopedic surgeon in Texas that his father could tell *C was in terrible pain and gave him the last two of his pain pills, a medication called Darvocet. *C told his surgeon that the Darvocets really helped his pain and could he please give him a prescription like that. The surgeon responded by saying. "It is illegal to take another person's prescription drug and you and your father should know that! I am not giving you any prescription other than the Valium you already have!"
*C had all he could take at this point and told the surgeon. "I want a second opinion!" This doctor said. "I know another orthopedic surgeon and I can get you in to see him."
The second surgeon gave *C a brief examination and said. "I agree with the first determination. You have a minor congenital problem. *C swore to him that his pain was terrible. The surgeon sat back and with a really syrupy and low sweet tone of voice said. "Look son, let me assure you. Just as soon as you sign those release papers from the insurance company. All your pain will go away!"
*C did not hesitate, he looked this surgeon straight in the eye and said. "Write that down and sign it!" The doctor sat up straight in surprise. *C told him again. "Write what you just said to me on a piece of paper and sign it! The very words you said to me!
The surgeon looked panicked for a second, and he said. "I'm not going to do that!" In that instant *C knew these two doctors were not going to help him, this was beyond weird! He stopped taking the Valium tranquilizers, they didn't stop his pain they just kept him calm and quiet.
*C tried to see six different doctors after that. As soon as those doctors heard the name of the "best orthopedic in Texas" they immediately refused to take *C as a patient. *C now realized for some reason, in going to the "best orthopedic surgeon in Texas," he was "blackballed," every doctor he sought help from refused to help him!
It took two years to get *C's personal injury lawsuit into court. The judge ordered *C and his attorney, "to approach the bench." And in very strong terms the judge told them no one could even say the word "insurance" in front of the jury. By state law the judge would have to stop the lawsuit and *C could not ever file other lawsuit with regards to this accident.
The used car dealership's attorney lived up to his reputation as the best lawyer in Austin. The other two attorneys, one for the insurance company and one for the driver of the used car were said to be the top two attorneys in Dallas. These three attorneys filed five counter suits charging the plaintiff *C with causing the accident. The "best orthopedic surgeon in Texas" changed sides and testified against *C. The surgeon did not appear in court, his deposition was read to the jury.
The surgeon's deposition read like this. "I can tell from x-rays Mr. Hall has a minor congenital back problem, and that he has had back pains all his life. Mr. Hall told me at his second examination that he was O.K. and he was feeling better and doing the physical therapy exercises." And the deposition went on to say. "Mr. Hall told me he took an illicit drug, the name of which I have purposefully forgotten and therefore cannot remember." The "best orthopedic surgeon in Texas" told part of the truth in his deposition. He used *C's parroted sarcastic statement out of context, and left out that *C had immediately said he was not O.K. and felt worse. And this surgeon's slanted statement about the Darvocets *C's father had given him was true in a sense. But when worded like that and with no further explanation of what had actually occurred, the deposition made *C sound like some kind of drug addict!
Both *C's sister and her husband both worked the Texas Rehabilitation Commission as Disability Determiners. *C's brother-in-law heard the surgeon's deposition and made phone calls to doctors in Dallas and Houston. As luck would have it, *C's doctor, the "best orthopedic surgeon in Texas" is also "the head lobbyist" at the State Legislature for the Insurance Industry of Texas! No wonder all the other doctors *C tried to go see would not accept him as a patient! Those other doctors are not going to go into court against a surgeon with this kind of relationship with the insurance companies. This surgeon-lobbyist has a huge conflict of interest, he's a mouth piece for the Insurance Industry of Texas! And who will end up paying $30,000 if *C wins his law suit, the oldest established insurance group in the United States!
The Buick driver who was test driving a used car off of the car dealer's lot, testifies to the jury that *C suddenly pulled right out in front of him. *C told the jury he was stopped on the four-lane road behind a stopped car waiting to turn left. There's no factual evidence from law enforcement officers to support *C's testimony. It's his word against the driver of the Buick.
The jury looks at *C who says he is in great pain and cannot see anything wrong with him. Witnesses of the accident are considered to be showing partiality because they work where *C works, the T.S.S. The prominent orthopedic surgeon testifies to the jury in his deposition that *C has had a "minor congenital back problem all his life" and that "*C told him he feels O.K.! The surgeon's statements about the "illicit drug" (two pain pills) that *C had taken made him look like a drug addict to the jury.
The jury goes out and comes back into the courtroom. The jury finds that the driver of the used car lot's Buick is "not guilty." The jury finds on the five counter-suits that the defendant *C is found "guilty" of causing the accident on all five counts!
Then something weird happens. The judge will only accept the jury's verdict if the jury agrees to add his proviso to their verdict.
So *C is punished by being found guilty of causing the accident on all five counts. On the other hand he is rewarded by the judge's proviso. The terms of the proviso are that *C is to be paid for the cost of his vehicle that was destroyed and his medical expenses up to the point of the jury's guilty verdict. Also no further lawsuits can be made against *C in the future.
*C knew he had to get an appeal, so did his attorney. They needed new information to do that.
Could life get weirder for *C, it sure did.
Seven months before *C's court case came up *C's sister told him. "I want you to go to the Texas Rehabilitation Commission and apply for help. She made him promise. She was worried for him as his weight had dropped from 225 pounds to 160 pounds in the months following the accident. His sister could tell something was wrong and wanted her brother to not give up, to continue to seek medical help. T.R.C. orthopedic surgeon Dr. Senior agreed with the "best orthopedic surgeon in Texas." Dr. Senior sided with the other surgeon's determination of a "congenital problem," as the T.R.C. x-rays didn't show anything wrong with *C. Dr. Senior said if *C missed any of his T.R.C. physical therapy appointments that *C would be dropped from T.R.C.
It did not take the T.R.C. physical therapist long before she could tell the exercises put *C into acute muscle spasms and extreme pain. She stopped the exercises and wrote a report to kick in the T.R.C. protocols that led to an exploratory surgery.
One week after losing his court case, *C is in Dr. Senior's office. The T.R.C. surgeon enters and berates *C in a loud voice. "You never told me you were involved in a lawsuit! That judge tried to pull me into court! If you are planning an appeal of your court case I am going to drop you as a patient right now!" He also added, "if you do not appeal then I might perform an exploratory surgery on your back."
*C had told Dr. Senior months ago that if he did not get some help with his pain he might give up and take his life. He did not know what to do anymore and that seemed like the only escape from pain to *C. So when Dr. Senior gave *C his ultimatum of drop your appeal or I will drop you as a patient. *C decided Dr. Senior was trying to blackmail him with his own life to stop an appeal of his court case. *C lied like a dog to the doctor, he told Dr. Senior that he would not appeal his court case.
"All right then," Dr. Senior explained. "I am going to schedule you for surgery. I want you to know if it weren't for your physical therapist's report and T.R.C. protocols I wouldn't recommend surgery. I don't think there is anything wrong with you!"
One week later the exploratory operation took place at St. David's Hospital at 6:00 a.m. and was suppose to take two hours. Dr. Senior and another surgeon would perform the operation.
8:00 o'clock came and went. Around 8:35 a.m. another surgeon entered the operation room. By noon *C's father and mother were very concerned, five different surgeons had gone into the operating room, none of them came back out. After the eight-hour operation was finally over at 2:00 p.m. Dr. Senior talked to *C's parents.
In C's spinal column the lowest vertebra the L-3, L-4 and L-5 had been broken-in-two at the pedicles, and the S-1 was destroyed and had been surgically leveled. This turned into an extremely complicated operation, all three vertebra needed to be fused to each other and to the sacral table S-1.
*C's father asked how in the world all that could be called a minor congenital problem? *C's mother protested as well and told the doctor her son had, "always been healthy as a horse!" Dr. Senior said, "this not a congenital condition, this is the result the physical trauma from the accident.
*C needed to be kept immobile and calm on his back in bed for at least 12 months. Dr. Senior cautioned *C's parents that *C's recovery was serious enough as it was. Any more stress could would not help. He told *C's parents, "do not tell *C his pain was caused by the trauma from the accident." Dr. Senior told *C's parents. "He has been through a lot for the last two years and does not need anymore stress. So *C's parents never told him. And Dr. Senior never told him either. Of course, this was the very information *C needed to start an appeal of his court case. *C was left thinking the operation fixed a "congenital problem."
The next week Dr. Senior told *C he could, "do anything you want to do" after he recovered. And Dr. Senior said, "this kind of operation will have to be done again within ten years."
*C's brother-in-law checked to see what Dr. Senior wrote in his T.R.C. records. His brother-in-law also phoned the doctor. During the phone call Dr. Senior was not aware that *C was this T.R.C. disability determiner's brother-in-law. Dr. Senior said *C received an operation that lowered his life expectancy. T.R.C. doctors did not like to perform that operation. No one by T.R.C. records had lived past 56 years old with that rarely used operation. And all Dr. Senior wrote in the official T.R.C. records was that *C's operation was a "success." No mention in the T.R.C. records about the extreme physical trauma from the accident causing the damage to *C's spine.
*C spent two months flat on his back at St. David's hospital, he spent the next eight months doing the same thing at home. He took walks through his neighborhood for the next twelve months.
*C tried to get a job. Employers looked at his recent medical history and would not hire him.
In 1977 *C finally got a job as a night watchman on a construction site. After the school was built he became one of the custodians. This new job had some heavy lifting and *C's spinal fusion started to come apart.
As *C got older his spinal fusion degenerated, his pains returned and grew worse. He tried in 1992 to get on Social Security and T.R.C. disability determiners denied his claim for three years. In 1995 *C's claim end up in a Federal court hearing. The Federal Judge declared *C 100% disabled as of 1989. *C began to receive a disability check in late 1995.
*C found a doctor he likes and the doctor heard his medical history and treats him like a human being. In 2002 *C asked his doctor for a CAT scan or MRI of his entire spine, especially his neck. For many years *C had been experiencing sharp pains running from his shoulders down one or the other of his arms. This pain would sometimes get the best of him and he would get nauseous and have to go lie down or pass out.
The CAT scan and the MRI showed that the C-5 vertebra in his neck had an old break-injury and was pinching his spinal cord and lateral nerves. His C-5 had broken with the same kind of breaks he had in his lower spine years ago. *C had never received proper medical care following the accident and the T.R.C. doctors even after finding his lower spine broken never checked the rest of his spine for further damage. That was weird.
*C never did build his American Dream, a house up on the highland lakes.
*D landed a job in Austin in 1979. Before that he lived in Colorado for nine months. While in Colorado he applied for Social Security benefits. He left Colorado after the State of Colorado sent him a letter telling him. "You are disabled. However, you are not disabled to a high enough percentile to qualify for Social Security Benefits."
*D got a job in Austin with the school district. He worked part-time driving Sp. Ed. Wheelchair Busses. About three years later he experienced mid-management at his bus base verbally browbeating the Sp. Ed drivers into driving without a monitor to ride along on the bus route.
*D goes to the next school board meeting as a whistleblower. *D tells them about the Sp. Ed. kid climbing out the window of a bus. The child was hanging by his feet down the side of a Sp. Ed. bus moving 50 mph on the MoPac expressway. There was no monitor on that bus. He tells the school board he can prove from the base records that management cut back on the number of monitors. The transportation dept. soon received more monitors.
After a few years with the dept. *D gains seniority at work and acquires a summer route. He starts to drive a Sp. Ed. wheelchair bus in the hot Texas summers.
In 1983 the afternoon temperatures went up into the 107 to 109 degree range for many weeks. Temperatures inside the busses are even hotter. Scientists now know that the summer of 1983 was the first recorded "El Nino" weather event. It was very hot on the afternoon bus routes. The Sp. Ed. teachers started laying the children on the grass and spraying them with water from a garden hose. They were trying to wet the kids down before they were loaded on the busses in the afternoon. There was even an article in the Austin paper about it and still nothing happened to correct the problem.
*D's Supervisor told him, "we are not going to put air conditioning on those busses!" Plus *D's Supervisor added, "if you do not like working on the wheelchair busses in the summer, you can quit, there are plenty of other drivers who want the work!" *D decided the best thing to do was not quit, he would blow the whistle again.
His peers (the other drivers) elected him to the Director's Advisory Committee on Policy.
The Director told *D that if he wanted to, *D could take the matter to the school board.
*D started by writing a letter to the editor of the daily paper in Austin.
The editor of the paper sat back and said. "Oh you want to say this kind of transportation is inhumane!" So that is what *D did. He changed his letter to read "inhumane," instead of "child abuse." After the letter was printed in the paper nothing happened. So *D read his letter to the school board at their meeting. And still nothing happened, that seemed weird.
There were three different unions at A.I.S.D and they acquired 14 positions as members of the brand new Classified Consultation Council (C.C.C.) so *D decided to join the Council. *D got 230 petition signatures to become the first non-union member and the 15 representative of the C.C.C. One day somebody held an awards ceremony. Seven of those "award" winning classified employees on the C.C.C. did not attend the meeting. Fortunately the C.C.C. had a quorum of eight members present that night.
*D explained the inhumane conditions on the Sp. Ed. Busses. The eight C.C.C members present agreed to vote and ratify a grievance proposal to address the heat problems on the busses. The school district could no longer ignore the problem. Soon all the Sp. Ed. busses are retrofitted with working AC systems. The projected cost to maintain and purchase new busses with factory installed AC systems for the fleet for the next decade was about 8 million dollars. Where there's a will. There's a way! Isn't that weird!
Happy ending, not quite!
A year and a half go by. The windows on the busses are closed the AC systems running. *D noticed his kids were getting sick and staying sick a lot longer than they use to. The base supervisor begins to terminate monitors off busses because they kept breaking dept. policy by falling asleep on their bus routes.
*D would get very sleepy driving the bus, but he had plenty of sleep the night before. Sometimes he would leave work with a bad headache, the skin on his face would look like he had gotten sunburned. The next day the reddish-pink color was gone, that was weird. Spring Break came in 1988. During the ten-day vacation *D felt better and the flu symptoms and headaches stopped. First day back from Spring Break and *D got a headache and drowsy while driving the bus, something clicked. He checked the bus out and finally went under the bus.
He could see where the exhaust system was leaking and he looked up at all the open holes drilled clean through the floor of the bus. The AC supply lines had gaps that also allowed exhaust gasses into bus. Carbon Monoxide (CO) in the engine exhaust was coming up into the bus.
CO is a clear odorless gas. CO does not allow the oxygen in blood cells to release into the body. People with CO in their blood will slowly fall asleep as they suffocate and death follows. Victims of CO poisoning are found with skin that is a bright reddish-pink color. The color is unreleased oxygen in the blood.
*D was going to blow the whistle again and he had a friend with a new video camera. On a Friday *D got permission from his dispatcher so he and his friend could make a video of the busses. They videotaped most of the busses. All the other wheelchair busses had floors with open wheelchair-mount penetration holes and air gaps around the AC supply lines.
The following Monday the base supervisor called *D into his office and asked what was up with the videotaping of the busses?
*D told his supervisor and a road supervisor. "The bus I drive has a faulty exhaust system that is opening up and leaking. Exhaust gasses that are full of carbon monoxide has been coming into the bus making us sick for over a year. On the videotape, all the busses are shown with air gaps around the AC lines and dozens of drilled holes through the floor in the bus!" There are those known faulty exhaust systems on all the busses. The holes in *D's bus got sealed that morning. One month went by before the base mechanics started to seal the air gaps and holes in the other busses.
One week later *D's supervisor pulled him into his office. He happily informed *D that no one could sue the school district!
After weeks of study a team of school district lawyers had found a great big loophole in Federal law. The Federal government had not produced a "repairs and modifications manual" for Sp. Ed. busses. With no manual to guide them, the dept.'s mechanics could not have known they should have sealed those holes and AC supply lines. Of course the regular school busses did have a manual issued by the Federal government. And that manual did state that all penetrations of the floor decking in the bus should not be left open. Legally a Sp. Ed. bus was considered a different type of vehicle.
Months later *D got a new different summer bus route and a different bus. After about and hour on the bus *D started getting a headache and his monitor was falling asleep. He knew what that meant so he drove off I-35 onto the service road, stopped the bus and looked under it. Something had kicked up from the road and damaged the muffler. There was a two-inch open gap in the exhaust system! All engine exhaust gasses were pumping under the bus! There was dry mud coating the exhaust pipe and the muffler connection indicating the exhaust system had been open like that for weeks or months. Even with the all the old holes and air gaps sealed the exhaust gasses entered the bus through the engine compartment.
*D wrote out a repair work order on his bus and then refused to drive this bus for four days. His bus dispatcher began to yell at him to drive the bus because the shop mechanics checked *D's bus and said the exhaust system was not leaking. *D took his dispatcher out to look under the bus, the exhaust pipe was still not connected to the muffler. The dispatcher took one look and said, "oh my gosh, use the spare bus!"
For the third time now *D had blown the whistle about a major problem on the busses. Management now realized *D had an educated nose that could sniff out exhaust leaks on busses from the driver's seat! *D is soon terminated.
Local Austin media outlets that viewed the videotape would not cover the story, the story was considered "too controversial" and it was "old news."
In 2002 *D put the Austin school bus CO story on a web site. Within three weeks *D received an e-mail from a mechanic working for a large Florida school district. The exact same thing happened there. Sp. Ed. bus in Florida is retrofitted for an AC system. The kids on the bus got sick. Parents took them to doctors. Modern blood tests quickly spotted high levels of CO in the children's blood. There was a leak found in the exhaust pipe near the exhaust manifold. Florida mechanic wondered how the Austin school district handled the legal problems? *D told him about the Federal legal loophole.
As the years passed by *D's health went downhill.
*D applied and was approved for Social Security Benefits. *D knew doctors in the 80's thought that if carbon monoxide did not kill you right off that you were O.K. But *D had never felt "O.K." Medicaid would cover expensive neurological tests that picked up signs of CO damage in people. *D tried for years to get on Medicaid.
When he first got on Social Security their office staff told him he should go to the Texas Dept. of Human Resources for Medicaid.
He kept trying to get Medicaid at his local Texas Human Resources office for five years. *D read in the paper that the Human Resources Dept. got caught withholding information from minorities regarding dental care for their children. *D realized he probably had been given the run-around too. *D goes to the same Human Resources office and puts those employees on the burner. Oops! They made a little mistake. It turns out that they were giving *D the run-around. After six years *D finally got Human Resources to stop withholding the information he needed to apply and he did qualify for Medicaid.
The medical community now recognizes the fact that in a working environment, long term exposure on a daily basis to low levels of CO can damage a person's brain. In 2001 *D was using search engines on the Internet and discovered a doctor with a web site which is devoted to "CO Syndrome." The doctor from Wayne University in Michigan urged him to go to a Neuropsychologist in Austin. The doctor told *D to look for a Neuropsychologist familiar with CO who could do specific CO tests for brain damage due to CO exposure. *D found just the man.
*D took three days of tests. The Neuropsychologist said he wanted *D to know that the test results showed he was, "honest" and "that he was not delusional." These CO tests also showed that *D had notable right-side brain damage.
The tests showed that information is being stored just fine in *D's brain. The information just doesn't come back out or it comes back out slowly. *D has greatly impaired memory and impaired motor skills on his left side. Spelling words correctly is almost impossible for *D. Recalling numbers in sequence is next to impossible. Remembering people's names and matching their names to faces is difficult. *D had noticed all these problems but did not know why that had been happening to him, that is why he went for in for the tests. Now he knows why he had those problems, right side brain damage. Isn't that weird.
*D continues to live in Austin, he still runs into Austinites who worked on those Sp. Ed. School Busses and Wheelchair Busses.
*E is a product of Rivercity, Austin is his hometown. He is a firm believer in the city motto, "Austin the friendly city." E is also a firm believer in discussing all the facts, not just telling part of the truth. His home is a small South Austin shack that sits above Town Lake, right across from downtown Austin. *E moved-into that shack during the early 80's. *E had no problem switching to the slow paced south Austin lifestyle. There is quote from a friend off the inside cover of his high school yearbook. "Please keep your zany sense of humor and your warm personality!" *E cultivated his sense of humor until it became an effervescent part of his personality. He worked at all kinds of jobs in Austin.
*E decided to hang car hubcaps on the 6' tall wooden privacy fence that ran along his driveway. He lives on a busy street and people see all the hubcaps daily as they drive by. He finds the hubcaps on the side of the road, they do not cost him anything. So *E decides to give the hubcaps away for free. He starts South Austin's first hubcap orphanage. These are hubcaps that have lost their parent cars, and *E is simply finding them new parent cars to cling to. *E always enjoyed the look on people's faces when he told them the hubcap they wanted was free.
One day in 1985 there was a sign on a street corner calling for a meeting of the local neighborhood association (NA) the subject for that meeting was listed as "helicopter landing pad permit." There was an important builder who wanted to put a landing pad on the tall office building that was under construction near Town Lake. *E has now lived in the neighborhood for two years and decided to check out the NA and see how the members operate. *E thought he could meet new people in the neighborhood and see what his neighbors are like.
*E went to the meeting. He said he was new to the neighborhood and wanted to ask a question about the permit. "Is this a helicopter landing pad permit that could allow regular shuttle flights from the city airport to the office building as a regular helicopter taxi service? It turns out it was an open permit to allow all types of helicopter flights over the neighborhood. The mood of the neighborhood residents changed and they voted no to the permit. Many NA members lived in the shadow of that office building and they came up and thanked *E. But the NA President was shooting daggers at *E with his eyes, the President was boiling hot. *E wondered if there would be any backlash?
One week later the President of the NA knocks on *E's door and he informs *E that he is breaking zoning laws by selling hubcaps from his property. The President called a meeting of the NA Executive Committee. *E's property is not zoned C for commercial sales, selling hubcaps is illegal and the Executive Committee has voted and decided to take action. The President of the NA is an attorney and he informs *E that the hubcaps are to be removed within three days, or *E would be facing a lawsuit! *E told the President that he does not sell hubcaps that he gives them away and shuts his door.
NA tricksters show up at *E's house trying very hard to talk *E into accepting money for a hubcap. They are members of the NA that *E does not know. The second shill who shows up physically tried to shove a $5 bill for a hubcap in *E's shirt pocket and *E had to grab his hand to stop him. That shill walks away and *E shadows this man by walking at a fair distance behind him. And the shill unaware that he is being tailed walks one block north and goes into his house on a street one block over, interesting! These NA shills are walking up to buy a hubcap so *E does not get their license number from their vehicle to find out who they are. Walking up to *E's house is what gives them away as shills. People who stop to find a hubcap have always come to *E's house in their cars. These people who walk up asking for a hubcap and then try to force money on *E stick out like a sore thumb!
So that is what happens. *E steps on the toes of the President of the NA kills the deal he had going with the builder who needs to get a helicopter permit. The permit for his expensive high rise office building would have been a draw for high dollar company executives who use helicopters. The NA President retaliates with NA shills who walk up trying to fabricate hubcap sales. *E stays away from the NA for over a decade, he does not want to mix with people like that. *E continues to give hubcaps away for free. The NA is frustrated by his honesty. And it is *E's honesty that saves him from their planned lawsuit. The NA decides that anybody who gives away hubcaps instead of making a cash profit is just plain weird.
*E eventually retires from the Austin work force and he gets by on what he jokingly refers to as his "little bitty" monthly retirement check.
*E once again finds himself taking the brunt of the NA's ire in the late 90's when the city hall puts the NA in charge of a new program called traffic calming. Most of the residents in the neighborhood do not find out about the NA sponsored planning secessions until they are over and done. The city will not allow any changes in the plans. On these finished plans *E finds that the streets which lead to his home are loaded with these devices, his home is in fact surrounded by traffic calming devices.
*E built a web site on the Internet calling for traffic calming reform. There are links on his web site to other web sites that promote the proper way to plan neighborhood traffic calming projects. He also has links to web sites showing that traffic-calming devices discriminate by actually causing pain and suffering to people with various severe physical or neurological disabilities.
*E's web site soon receives national attention! The web site is featured in newspaper articles across the country. *E is called by radio talk show producers and he ends up speaking to people in cities far and wide about the problems associated with badly planned traffic calming projects. In the May/June 2002 issue of the National Safety Council's magazine *E's web site is featured in an article called "Traffic Calming Efforts." *E's web site has ticked off many members of the NA where he lives.
In 1997 *E learned of the opportunity to become host of an Austin Internet transportation forum. And the rumor is that a famous U.S. movie director is involved in the financing of the nationally known e-company sponsoring the forums. You may have seen some of his pictures, one movie involves a feared invasion on the West Coast after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941(hint, hint!)
On his Austin Light Rail Forum *E spotlighted the dark side of corporate inspired Smart Growth and it's big brother Light Rail. *E learns that Smart Growth can become gentrification planning. This happens when the governing body (city council) in a city adopts massive development densification rezoning and up-zoning of properties along and to either side of transportation development corridors.
Sure enough, in 1998 the Austin's city council installs a Smart Growth Matrix Program called the D.D.Z. (desired development zone.) This Smart Growth program includes zoning overlays along major city transit corridors and their adjacent core neighborhoods.
Smart Growth planning uses property up-zonings, and changing zoning definitions of "single family lots" to force a rapid rise in property taxes so that the rising property taxes literally evict poor and retired people from their homes.
*E in the spirit of telling the whole truth as he knows it, sends off letters to the editors of the Austin Chronicle (a Music/News rag) hoping to take some of the wind out of the sails of the "Good Ship Smart Growth."
Some open-minded members of the NA change their e-email list and open it to all residents in the neighborhood. *E is invited by NA members to join their neighborhood e-mail list, and a heated discussion on Smart Growth and Light Rail quickly begins. It is clear from posts on the e-mail list that NA top dogs love Smart Growth gentrification. These top dogs do not like the dark side of the Smart Growth information that *E is posting on the e-mail forum to his neighbors. These NA top dogs believe that if you do not support their way of thinking, then your views must be contained. As if by providence alone the NA top dog members get some help.
There's a reporter on the e-mail forum and he writes for the "Technopolis" section of the Austin daily paper. The Austin daily clearly loves Smart Growth and Light Rail! This reporter decides to do an article on the "fiery debates" on the neighborhood e-list. The reporter calls *E and he realizes the reporter wants him to be the "heavy" in the article and put *E in a negative spot light. The newspaper's photographer shows up at *E's house. *E decides to wear his humorous handmade Halloween prop for the photographer. No harm in that because its a very humorous Halloween prop. It's a custom fitted party toy that looks just like a real meat cleaver is imbedded in *E's head, a totally funny and zany thing to do.
The article comes out on 10-8-2000 and there is a big photo of *E right on the front of the Technopolis section.
The article is called, "There goes the Internet!" And there is the extreme close up photo that the photographer took of the Halloween prop *E wore. The photo has been taken or cropped so close to *E's head that you cannot tell he is wearing the Halloween prop meat clever! The cut line under the photo which describes what is in the picture reads like this: "Neighborhood e-mail list member *E, considered by some to be the neighborhood Internet bully, displays his homemade meat cleaver in front of his house."
And of course *E's aunt sees the photo with *E's face all over the article in the paper. And she cannot tell *E has a Halloween prop on his head, nobody can. And she calls *E's mother wanting to know, "why is *E standing in front of his house with a meat cleaver in his hand!" Which is the impression the photo and its description gives the public. The Austin newspaper clearly does like Light Rail and Smart Growth if they will do something like that. Talk about bad journalism!
There is one other person featured in this article from the NA's email forum and his photo is in the article. The cut-line under his photo is a quote from this man and he clearly states that *E "will never cross the threshold of my house." Gosh, that is another very negative impression thrown on *E as well.
Why in the world would that man say such a thing? *E thinks he has never met this person then he sees his photo and thinks he recognizes him. He appears to be the shill from the NA who so many years ago tried to forcibly shove a five-dollar bill into *E's shirt pocket to fabricate hubcaps sales. The man in the photo upon reading this information immediately posted to the NA's email list that he moved into the neighborhood "12 years ago" meaning he could not have been the man trying to force a $5 bill into *E's shirt pocket. This claim needs to be taken with a grain of salt. So *E has to say, "I have no intention of ruining your reputation. I would be glad to send your email to our neighborhood list again to highlight your stand. Please let me know if that would help alleviate your concerns." This man has the same physical build, the same hair color and looks just like that shill, and lives on the same street. How weird!
The best way to describe the mindset of the top dogs of the NA is through their email posts. Even before the newspaper article came out Photo-man also stated on the NA's email list. "I don't read *E's posts anymore, nor those of anyone who doesn't love me as much as I love me. Life's too short and we all need to be good friends." Here is another comment from Photo-man on the e-list. "I worked with the poorest of the poor in Latin America for seven years." Photo-man also stated that although he did not mind working with and teaching the poor in Latin America, that did not mean he would let them into his house.
Photo-man has offended many people on the list, and one list member posted this to him. "I apologize for expressing myself so vehemently towards "photo-man's" offensive e-mail. Not for "photo man," but because I probably offended many Anglos in the n'hood who are sympathetic and not trying to erroneously claim our heritage and culture while they mock it at the same time. Indian people try very hard to live amongst the dominant culture and get along with our spirituality intact, however, your disrespect towards us still very fresh, not just something that is in the past as many non-Indians believe."
The President of the NA made email comments during the times when the national WorldCom/Enron scandals were rocking the U.S. economy. He thought the people stealing from cars in the neighborhood were the transients and homeless people living along the railroad tracks. It was pointed out to him that might be possible, but the police were more concerned about the actual people they already caught stealing from cars in the neighborhood.
Gangs from other neighborhoods had been caught dropping off "lookouts" with cell phones late at night. The rest of the gang's members would drive through the neighborhood with their headlights off, stealing from neighbor's vehicles. The lookouts were using cell phones to warn the car full of gang members of approaching police cars. That's who the police were concerned with. So when informed of this the NA's President's mind-set came up with this thought on the email list. "Blue-collar thieves are lazy, that's why they are thieves, unlike white-collar workers who work very hard for what they get." This statement offended many blue-collar people living in the neighborhood. As reported in the Austin daily paper, 51% of the people living in E's neighborhood are ethnic minorities. The NA's membership racial profile is over 95% Caucasian.
How will the Austin City councilmembers force Smart Growth re-zoning and up-zoning into core city neighborhoods near downtown Austin? The council directs the City Planning Department to start a city wide planning program called "Neighborhood Planning Teams." And *E soon realizes what is going to happen when the city starts up the neighborhood planning team in his area. It is in these neighborhood-planning teams that Smart Growth gentrification will occur.
What happened when *E's neighborhood planning team started their regular city sponsored neighborhood planning meetings? These meetings were advertised by the city as "open to the public" who are living or own a business in the neighborhood. If people meet that description then they can come to the meetings and become members of the neighborhood planning team. What actually happens? The NA membership mobs the meetings and the NA controls the majority of the vote and controls the planning process. The NA knows the meetings will be open to the public and non-N.A. residents will show up to be team members. So to control the planning process with a majority vote the NA members mob the meetings, and city planning staff present at these meetings sit there and let them do it.
The ethnic make-up of the planning team that shows up for the meetings is over 95% Caucasian. The "out reach program" to reach out to the Hispanic population of the neighborhood is started and works. The Hispanic representatives show up at the planning team meeting to present their input about the team's proposed planning team public survey. The majority members of the NA ignore the Hispanic representative's input. And the "out reach" members of Hispanic community respond by refusing to come to anymore planning team meetings. And the NA members clearly do not like seeing *E, the only poor and disabled "blue collar" resident of the neighborhood showing up at the meetings either.
And so these city sponsored neighborhood planning meetings get underway and it takes over sixteen months to finish the neighborhood plan. As part of the planning process a public survey is used to draft the neighborhood plan. And the planning team continues to ignore the Hispanic representative's input/suggestions concerning the planning team's public survey. The public survey is mailed out to the whole neighborhood and the planning team constructs the neighborhood plan using the returned survey answers.
How many of the planning team's public survey questions does the NA voting majority allow *E to place on the public survey, not one. *E has been a resident of this neighborhood for more than 20 years, he was at all the planning meetings save one. The NA voting majority continued to vote down every goal or objective *E tried to put in the neighborhood plan. This "majority rules" methodology being used by the NA at these public planning team meetings is beyond weird, it is purposeful benign indifference. This kind of censorship of public input at city sponsored neighborhood planning meetings is called blatant class warfare!
*E still lives in his South Austin shack. For the last three years the property taxes skyrocketed as the county appraisal evaluations on his home went from $ 79,000, to $138,000, to $157,000. The 2003 tax appraisal has just come in. Last year's appraisal was for $157,000 with a tax bill of $782. This year the appraisal dropped to $142,831 but with an increase in the tax rates the bill for 2003 is going to be increased to $979. And sure *E gets a disability break on his taxes. So *E lives month to month on a $729 disability check and the tax bill jumps from 2002- $782 up to 2003- $979 while the value of the home goes down. *E just sees his monthly income decreasing and going down backwards while he tries to save up tax money from check to check during the year 2003 in an attempt to keep his home.
That is the goal of Austin's Smart Growth planning, to legally remove the fixed income elderly and disabled from their homes. When city hall councilmembers deliberately thrust the poor into a bidding war with the rich for housing, the poor always lose!
This is how Austin's Smart Growth Matrix-gentrification planning works. Currently the Austin city council is handing out millions of dollars of Smart Growth "incentives." These incentives come from Austin taxpayer's money and these "incentive" funds are being used to encourage national chain business to set up their businesses next to small businesses already in Austin. And the small business community in Austin now understands their small businesses are to have their market place and incomes under-cut by these national chain stores. Rank and file Austinites and the small business community of Austin now realizes how this kind of Smart Growth inspired subsidized competition works. Their own councilmembers at city hall are trying to remove Austin's established small businesses on major transportation corridors with large national chain stores that do not need the "incentives" to move into Austin. What is the end result of the use of "incentives" by city hall? Austin's small business community owners are now joining the ranks of the Austin weird.
Unfortunately when it comes to finding housing in Austin this toxic and unfriendly Austin Smart Growth planning works too well. *E's little shack on the hill above Austin's Town Lake is now priced out of the reach of most middle-class Americans. Talk about weird!
Over the years there are hundreds if not thousands of similar "events" happening to different Austinites. These residents get caught up in this city's political whirlwinds and by the time most get free of the turbulence many have changed and joined the ranks of the Austin weird.
If you haven't figured this out yet, here is something really weird. *A, *B, *C, *D, and *E are not five different people from Austin Texas.
All of these separate yet true events came from the life of one person. He has lived in Austin for most of his life. His middle name is Sheldon. If you ask Sheldon what living in Austin for 52 years has been like, he will tell you it's been "too interesting."
The following words are Sheldon's.
"Ever since I as a young kid I had a dream where I helped a whole lot of people. I don't remember the dream's details, I just know I help a lot of people. Maybe this is my chance to do that. This may sound weird to some of y'all reading this."
Dear Steven Spielberg.
When you finish your next big movie project. Please, please, please! Make a movie based on Robert Heinlein's book, "Have Space Suit - Will Travel!"
If any parents with young children would enjoy reading with your kids an inspiring story where the "good guys" are kids then Heinlein's book is a good read. Get your hands on a copy of "Have Space Suit-Will Travel."
If there is another message for people from Heinlein's story besides "never give up in the face of hopeless odds." That message should be. "Every night has its dawn."
So read the book! Who knows? Maybe everybody's favorite director Steven Spielberg will decide to make a baa-zillion dollars from a "Have Space Suit - Will Travel" movie. He could make the movie in Austin! Maybe you and your kids will get to go see it!
Best regards, Sheldon
512-441-3613