DUCKtoday

I need to recharge my batteries.

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Saw Gino open the bottle recycling lid looking for bottles. He picks up bottles and puts the proceeds into a bottle that he will use to help people in Greenfield. “The wrong people have all the money.”

Asked if I could take his picture. “You the guy who took the serious picture of lindsey?” Something stops him from seeing her mother. Not going to ask what or why.

So, he said he fell. They all do. First time we spoke, usual conversation: “life is good; I will get it together.” Living around. Doesn’t expect to find work. Told him I would send a picture, but he doesn’t do computers or have an address. I will print one and deliver it on the street. “You can find me easy; I ain’t goin nowhere.”

I gave him a dollar. “Can you give me two so I can buy a beer.”

So, when the word went out that I was the Judge who set the bail that released the accused who went to the accusers lob site and shot and killed her, Mike Wallace called to find out if I wanted to be interviewed on 60 minutes. “What would you say that I couldn’t,” my lawyer said. “I will go after the DA and the Governor and the Mayor, ripping them…. Besides, you have not been grilled on national TV by someone like him….”

I chose to remain silent, taking the high road that Judges are supposed to take, never getting out my story, or the real story of the bail decision or the real reasons behind some of my comments and behaviour, reasons that allowed people of color or weak roots to be frisked/harassed/demeaned at will (especially if they didn’t turn snitch), forced accuseds to accept pleas because they couldn’t afford bail (acts which also took away their rights to sue), and prevented defendants due process because by asserting their rights they might be sentenced more severely because their overworked and underpaid public defenders couldn’t afford to tell the whole story, jury trial time being the most expensive the system has to endure.

But it wasn’t because I was afraid of Mike Wallace; I was more afraid of my lawyer and the system. And, for those of you who have seen Hunger Games, I had good reason to be. I got crushed. It couldn’t have been worse.

He might have liked me. After all, he said he wanted to be fair, which is what I always wanted to be.

I didn’t think I would feel comfortable in the commercial studio. But I do. The subjects talk back, but not like people. Arthur Tress had the same experience and the same discovery.

So Pastor Lloyd Parrill didn’t enter the Trinitarian Congregational Church in Northfield MA on a donkey. But his message for this Palm Sunday, as he welcomed the beginning of Holy Week, was no different from that delivered by Jesus as he entered Jerusalem, “live in peace and miss no opportunity to help others.” As he left the church, this last time he will celebrate Easter before his retirement, Lloyd gave love to his congregants, and they gave it back to him and his wife, Dottie.