Just To Answer The Phone

Aside from my stated, appointed goals of disaster preparedness, I've been told that perhaps the greatest benefit to the Red Cross of my being in this office was exactly that: Somebody being in this office on a steady basis; somebody to be there if and when needed.

Some may not know this, but one of the many ways in which the Red Cross aides our clients, is that we are the only organization outside of the Department of Defense which is authorized to send and receive messages for the military. Last week, a man called my office asking how he could get a message to his son who was serving overseas, to let him know that a member of the family had passed away. After consulting with Chuck - a trusted, experienced volunteer who knows more about the Red Cross than I could ever forget - I was able to put this caller in touch with a military caseworker, through our main chapter office in Murphreesboro. The man thanked me for my speedy response, and I gave him my condolences for his loss.

Yesterday, just before five o'clock in the evening, as I was packing up to leave for the day, the phone rang. The man on the other end of the line identified himself as an officer with the police department in Estill Springs, a town just south of Tullahoma, about a fifteen minute drive. The officer had a great deal of concern in his voice.

"Sir, does your Red Cross office do any work with the mentally ill?"

"Not as a generality, officer," I replied. "We do take measures to help provide some care for the mentally ill, but that's only if the client has been the victim of a disaster of some sort."

"I see," he said, dispiritedly.

"Maybe if you tell me a bit more about the situation, I might be able to find some way to get you some help."

The officer told me that the Estill Police had just found / recovered a man who had been missing for five days. He was known throughout the community as being mentally ill. They had contacted a few different mental health organizations and hospitals, but to no avail. The man's treatments and medications had been changed recently. As a result, he lost his patience, became frustrated, and simply walked off one day.

"My big concern," the officer continued "is that this needs to get solved, and finally. This situation has gone on and off for years, and I'm afraid that if this man doesn't get some serious help, he could run off again, only next time will be the last time because he won't be found."

I took down the officer's information and told him that he would hear back soon, one way or the other. I would make a couple of phone calls and see what I could do. Of course, my first call was to Chuck. He recommended they contact Centerstone, a mental health organization in the area. When I explained to Chuck that Centerstone had been contacted and seemed that they could be of no help, Chuck said that he didn't know who else we could call. I hung up, ready to call back the Estill Police with disappointing news.

But then I looked to the coffee mug on my desk, containing business cards. I flipped through and immediately found that of Jimi Kelley, a friend I had made at VISTA orientation in Atlanta. Jimi is a VP on the board of directors of NAMI Tennessee (National Association for the Mentally Ill), out of Nashville. I immediately called him up. Fortunately, he answered. I briefly explained the situation I had been brought into. Jimi turned his head to one of his colleagues who was in the room with him. The colleague, who never introduced herself, immediately started asking questions of me, for almost none of which did I have answers. The colleague was quite obviously frustrated with the situation and the way that it had been handled thus far. But she asked for the officer's contact information and said "Brian, I got this from here."

I heard back from Jimi today. They were able to talk to the man and convince him that the best thing would be for him to come up to Nashville to check in to a facility. The Estill Springs Police drove him up around midnight. The man and his family are now in the process of receiving the medical, mental, and social services that they need.

I was the only one here. All I did was answer the phone. What if nobody had?

PS: In the three minutes after first publishing this post, it happened again. A hospice worker in Tullahoma had a resident patient pass away in her care. She needed to get a message to the stepson of the deceased, who was serving in the Army overseas.

I think of the problems to which I am tangentially connected. And I thank God I am only thusly involved. It won't stay like this forever. Sooner or later the day will come where somebody in desperate need of help will be standing right in front of me, and there will be nobody else to help, nobody to whom I can refer them.

I've rarely been one to depend on strength and aide from the Divine, let alone from the roots of my Catholic half. But times like these recall to mind a prayer from that heritage: "May the Lord put the love of the Blessed Virgin in my heart, and the steel of the Holy Spirit in my spine. Amen."

Shotguns, Roadkill, Jumper Cables -- Three Things Missing From A Tennessee Saturday Night

This past Saturday night, my friend Haley and I had a bit more of an adventure than either of us had intended. "We're going out to Mike's friend's campsite over in Lynchburg. We have a couple beers, hang out, and then we come back to town." That's how it was pitched to me. Sounds simple enough, right? I've blogged about a visit to Lynchburg before. There isn't a whole lot there, so it couldn't possibly be that complicated. After all, it's just a straight shot west on State Route 55.

We hadn't yet turned onto 55 when Mike called with directions. I should have known right then. "Now there ain't but one single traffic light in Lynchburg. You go through it, then at the third street after it on the left, you'll see a mechanic's garage. You turn left and stay straight for about six, seven miles. After you go over a bridge, you take your first left then you stay on that road for about seven, eight miles. Then, it's gonna fork off to the right-"

"Hey Mike, why don't I just call you when I get to the area. I gotta drive," I said. "There's no way I'm gonna remember this."

About five miles down 55, the sun had gone down completely and the sky was dark. We rolled into Lynchburg. We rolled out of Lynchburg. We turned left at the garage. We went over the bridge and turned left again. This is when I called out Haley on her representation that our destination was in Lynchburg proper. "We're about fourteen miles into the hills on the far side of Lynchburg. The roads are dark and we're just going to drink and hangout? I'm thinking it's best to leave before midnight."

She seemed to agree. "I'm really sorry. I had no idea it was this far out." Haley got Mike back on the phone, giving her directions. Mike soon realized from our landmark descriptions that we had missed our turn. He told us to take the next right. "Dick McGee Road." I couldn't help but laugh.

Two hundred yards up the hill on "Dick McGee Road" the street narrowed to the point of looking like a paved driveway. Of course, no lights. Driving through a patch of woods, we came out on the other side... Houses! Lights! Yes! Wait... Dogs? What the f**k? Two golden retrievers and a big--ass, black German Shepherd were in front of a house which had no front yard. There was a porch and then the street. For all intensive purposes, the street was the yard. And when these dogs saw me coming, they ran into the street, barking at the top of their lungs, blocking my path. I stopped. They just stood there -- about fifteen feet from my headlights. I flashed my high beams and tapped my horn and they yielded to me. As I eased forward at 5-10 mph, they started to re-approach my car, then they started to run along the drivers side, led by the big-ass, black German Shepherd. I don't know if they just stopped and gave up or not. I don't think I ran them over. Suffice it to say, we lost them. Well that was interesting.

"Just keep on that road until you get to the top of the hill, then you turn left."

"Just go up the hill," I replied with a broad stroke of smart ass in my tone. "You mean that big dark thing in front of me that's blacking out half the sky?" Haley had heard the rest of the directions beyond that and insisted she could manage us in from here. But not thirty seconds after leaving the first three dogs, I drove around another bend, swerving to barely miss a yellow lab, lying nonchalantly, cooling herself on the black pavement - square in the middle of Dick McGee Road! (Again, most likely because the road was her front yard.) The bitch barely even lifted her head to acknowledge me!

Finally we got to the top of the hill and turned left, as per the directions. I celebrated upon seeing a double yellow line again. Two lanes! Sweet! Surely enough, along came two more dogs, trotting down the opposite lane, eyeing and sniffing the treeline. What the f**k is with this place? Do they have leashes and fences down here? Or is that just a northern thing? This is when Haley let me know that we were almost there. I'll believe that when I'm sipping a cold one.

"We just keep heading up the hill and turn left at the trailer." I clenched the steering wheel and bit my lip in disbelieve before replying in as calm a tone as possible.

"Let me get this straight," I said. "We're somewhere outside of South Bumblef**ck, Tennessee, and you want me to turn left at the trailer? Am I supposed to believe that we're only going to see one trailer out here?"

Lo and behold, we soon came upon a trailer. "Turn left," she said. "It's only a couple hundred yards in.

We drove through an open cattle gate and over a threshold of some in-laid piping. The gravel soon became parallel dirt tracks, separated by a column of tall grass. A few feet away, on each side of the car, was barbed wire fencing. It couldn't be clearer. We are now on private property. The question was - whose property was it? Did we turn at the right trailer? We drove a few hundred more yards until I noticed that we were all out of barbed wire fence. We were no longer on a private road, but on a trail in the middle of a field.

"It should just be up over this next hill," Haley said unconvincingly. She could see I was growing impatient. "I'm really sorry. I'm so sorry," she pleaded. "If I knew it was all the way out here, we wouldn't have done this." We drove to the top of the next hill. What I saw in my high beams was not a bonfire surrounded by a few pickup trucks... What I did see was about fifty head of cattle crowded on the road, many of them lying down. They quickly got up and moved. I guess they had never seen a big bull that said Nissan on it.

"So now where do we go," about twenty yards later, still no party in sight. The path became gravel again as it went downhill and into the wood.

"Let's just stop for a second. Let me call Mike and see where we are." I stopped the car and was dead silent.

So here I am. A yankee in rebel country. The local with the directions is lost. We're stopped, which means we're a sitting duck. Lost. In the dark. On private property. Unarmed. What could possibly go wrong? Well, the most obvious possibility is that a farmer might pop up out of nowhere in a pair of overalls with a shotgun and fill my ass with lead for trespassing. Then again, we could really have bad luck and accidentally stumble upon a rally of the Ku Klux Klan. What's that noise? Do I smell smoke? Who the f**k knows what kind of sh*t happens way the hell out here?

All of this passed through my mind while we waited for Mike to answer his phone. "I guess there's no signal." We went down the hill further and arrived in front of a driveway by a house. Of course, there was a dog, leashless, barking at my headlights. In rural areas, dogs are much more than pets. They are fanged, ferocious, well trained body guards and really loud alarm systems. Suddenly the possibility of the shotgun-wielding farmer in overalls seemed much more real.

After a few more forwards and reverses of two to three hundred yards each, Mike called us back and said somebody in a Jeep was coming up the trail for us. A young man whose father was the land owner arrived and directed us down the trail, past the house. He warned us that we'd have to open and close a couple of cattle gates before proceeding. We did as we were told, proceeding down the trail, through the woods, through the gates, and into a meadow the size of Wrigley field. The fire roared, the drinks were flowing. The sky was dark and the stars were bright. Mike played soft 80s rock out of his truck's sound system and poured me a drink.

It was after 10 o'clock. I was tightly wound. But soon, after a glass of Sun Drop punch, I was relaxed and in my own element again, listening to good music and the quiet hush of the Elk River only yards away.

Now I told y'all that so I could tell y'all this.

There were two couples there who, shortly after our arrival, hit the proverbial sack, bunking out in the tents behind their pickup trucks. And just around midnight, having had only two cups of punch, it was time to leave. We packed up and got ready to go.

Mike turned the key on his truck. GRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIND. CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK. This happened a few more times. "I'll give you a jump," I said "if you got cables."

"I ain't got cables. Maybe Clive and them got a set. I'll go wake 'em up."

Tina, Haley and I waited by our cars. Mike returned one minute later on a quick-paced tip-toe. His eyes wide. His jaw gaping. And he stopped. He looked like he had just seen an alien.

"Michael, you didn't interrupt something over there, did you," Tina asked.

He replied, exclaiming in a half-whispered Tennessee accent "Man, I ain't never heard f**kin' like that in my entire life!" As we all dubbed over and wheezed in laughter, clutching our ribs with watering eyes, Mike proceeded to offer his impression of the slaps, screams, grunts, and all other sounds he had heard in the ten seconds he stood silently by the tent before sneaking away. "I got a semi just listenin' to 'em!"

Regaining our composure, we decided we would forgo the jumper cables and instead, I would give Mike and Tina a lift home. Home, this time, actually was in Lynchburg. We hopped in, rolled down the windows, and cranked the John Denver. Reaching the cattle gate, Mike hopped out, opened the first, and closed it behind us. And this put the cap on the evening. Mike, in a pair of khaki shorts, golf shirt, and leather docksiders, with a cigarette in his mouth, insisted on running the fifty yards up hill to the next gate. The first thing that came to my mind was to yell after him like the football coach from Dazed & Confused:

"Randy Floyd, before next fall, you're in need of a serious attitude adjustment boy! You better get your priorities straight! And watch out with that other crowd you're runnin' with! Don't think I haven't noticed! -- Come on, now! My grandmother runs faster than that! 'Course she's six five, two hundred eighty pound gorilla, runs the forty in five flat and drives a Mack truck! -- Pick those legs, up boy! Jesus Christ, son, you're wearin' rebel grey!"

Hurry Up and Wait

The key to a successful rate of return in placing any type of cold calls is to throw the script in the trash. Know the content, but just hold a calm, confident conversation with the person on the other end of the line. Repeat approximately one hundred and seventy times over the course of three days, acting each time as if it was still really all that interesting any more.

Key word. Acting. My theatre skills have come in handy, as has my experience in phone banks. The difference is I'm all alone. My buddies and colleagues from the campaign days are hundreds if not thousands of miles away. (Still, in the back of my mind, I hear Gaffney reciting Ray Leotta's lines from Goodfellas.)

"We're having an informal meet and greet next Tuesday afternoon, here at the Tullahoma office. We're going to be discussing what goals we hope to achieve over the next year and beyond, and I'd love to hear any thoughts or suggestions you might have. I hope to get some of your input. I hope you can participate and I very much look forward to meeting you."

As I begin to hack my way through the spreadsheet of names and contact information for those who have been involved in the past, I wish I could say I'm surprised at the inaccuracy of the information contained therein. The list was created within the past several months, using data that was accumulated over the past couple of years. Needless to say, times have changed. The economy has driven people out of town. Phone lines have been disconnected. Email accounts have been closed because the providers have been acquired by other companies. Nobody has been maintaining this data.

Nevertheless, I expect a reasonable turnout of perhaps ten people in total; maybe more. Those who have answered in the affirmative represent a rather diverse group. They are come from all three of my assigned counties. They have different skills and backgrounds that can be useful in disasters. There are veterans as well as newcomers. Everybody has something to learn and everybody has something to contribute.

The real treat is that the PR director in Murphreesboro has shown support for my idea that this meeting should be open to the media. (This decision was just made during a phone conversation I had while writing this post.) She has agreed to polish the release which I took the liberty of drafting, and to send it to her contacts with the local newspapers.

Initiative. Decision. Action. Progress.

The events that took place in the near thirty minutes prior to sitting down and writing this is a story that is straight out of small town life. I sat on the edge of a table, in our front room, staring out of a side window at the roughly two and a half acre field next to the Red Cross office. There was a man walking quickly across the grass, moving his arm like a windshield wiper, parallel to the ground. I watched out the window with Chuck, our most senior volunteer:

(Start)

Me: What's he got there, a metal detector?

Chuck: Sometimes people have picnics or they hold events out there. People think they'll find something. Jewelry, something like that

Me: Well I doubt he'll find anything moving that fast.

Chuck: Nah. He's an amateur, sweeping that metal detector like he would his mother's porch broom.

Me: He's not even walking in a straight line. How the hell's he gonna know where he's been? He'll waste his time walkin' over the same ground over and over again. He's just wandering.

Chuck: Wait! He stopped!

Me: He's turning up the volume on the detector.

Chuck: Maybe he's found something! He's bending down... Think he's got somethin' there? What do you think it might be?

Me: Fifty fifty, wood screw or earring backing.

Chuck: Good guesses. Now he's got his pocket knife out and he's diggin'... He's diggin'... He's diggin'.

Me: He's gettin' up now. He didn't find anything.

Chuck: Did you see that? He just put something in his pocket!

Me: What do you think it was?

Chuck: I don't know. Who really gives a damn.

(End)

Norman Rockwell, eat your heart out.