On the Friday before the following Tuesday primary election, I called Democratic state Rep. Kevin Murphy about a problem. The Scranton lawmaker from the 113th Legislative District said he'd check out the matter immediately. Murphy reassured me that the issue must be a simple misunderstanding.
Murphy's political career then began its immediate slide into oblivion.
The cocky incumbent lost his bid for re-election to a former professional boxer and mixed martial arts cage fighter with no political experience other than a choke-hold.
Murphy didn't tap out, he blacked out.
With no Republican opponent and without a write-in miracle, Murphy will not return to Harrisburg.
And Murphy has nobody to blame but himself.
The Bachelor of Science degree in criminal justice from the University of Scranton that Murphy claimed to possess for decades does not exist.
The desperate spinning he tried during those long few days leading up to his loss failed to convince countless voters that he is anything other than another dishonest politician.
Even in defeat, almost a month after the election, paid public servant Murphy remains dishonest.
As of this morning, Murphy still lists his degree from the University of Scranton on his official Commonwealth House of Representatives biography. Under a color photo of a smiling Murphy posing beside the stars and stripes of the American flag, the lie continues.
"University of Scranton, B.S., Criminal Justice, 1989," is, indeed, BS, but not the kind that signals the accomplishment and discipline required to graduate with a four-year college degree.
Even dummies who graduate can wave their diplomas above their heads and then go back to drinking beer, passing a beach ball or fellow student above the crowd and move back home before the horrible reality of life hits them right between their blurred eyes.
But Murphy's horrible reality has festered for decades.
The difference is that he lived the lie. Now it's time to face the facts. And the facts remain delusional in Murphy's mind. Murphy is not a college graduate. Never was and might never be. That is up to him and university officials.
But he just can't seem to bring himself to simply tell the truth.
Before the April 24 election, Murphy told several conflicting stories about why he did not possess the degree he claimed, even going so far as to argue that he always believed he had the degree until I told him he didn't.
Murphy said he owed money, paid money, never asked for the degree and never accepted the degree. Murphy said he needed to complete a requirement, completed the requirement and even had the audacity to invite taxpayers to his office to see the sacred diploma hanging on the wall once he got his mitts on it. Murphy boldly promised to walk across the stage with the other graduates.
But, the last time I checked with university officials before going on vacation last week, Murphy had not yet received the diploma.
Unless compassionate Jesuits held a private ceremony for Murphy and humility prevented him from issuing a press release about his grand success, Murphy has still not graduated. If he has, I'll be pleased to announce the feat on the air. I'll even invite the Jesuits.
But until and unless that happens, Murphy needs to remove his big lie from the official government website paid for by taxpayers.
God knows that state lawmakers have enough trouble with former office-holders either in prison or heading to prison. A little honesty goes a long way on the dirty road to the hopeful restoration of the public trust.
So if Murphy refuses to publicly tell the truth and remove the lie from the website, I'll tell the truth for him every chance I get. I'll also ask for help from state Democratic leaders because, if Murphy refuses to truthfully update his biography, party leaders must update it for him.
While we're at it, what about the official state job application Murphy filled out before getting elected, back when he worked as an auditor for the Commonwealth? Does the application include the lie about his degree? Did Murphy pass himself off as a college graduate to obtain a job that required a degree? Are criminal charges an option? How about an ethics complaint?
Murphy's official biography includes the fact that he was "raised with Irish Catholic ideals."
Sure and begorrah, if that's true, it's long overdue for Murphy to make a full confession and a mighty good Act of Contrition.
No better meal exists for me than a couple of thick slices of homegrown tomato on a couple of thick slices of freshly baked Italian bread. Add an ice cold bottle of Yuengling laager and I've got sacred last meal material.
When I was a child, I'd sometimes stand among my grandfather's tomato plants in his Minooka garden, close my eyes and inhale the rich, pungent aroma of fresh life on a thick green vine. To this day, if I pick a fat tomato, close my eyes and hold the fruit to my nose, I drift back to a time when cultivating tomatoes meant cultivating the future, when the simplicity of life meant nourishment and tradition.
Such satisfaction has not changed.
We reap what we sow.
And there's still nothing better than a fat tomato sandwich – maybe with mayo, salt and pepper. But a plain and pure tomato sandwich will always be best.
Purity also remains part of the American Dream – the search for good old ways amid traditional goodness. Tradition allows innocence to thrive and grow rather than succumb to strangulation by poisonous weeds of deceit in our culture that grow and kill before anybody notices or does something about it.
We strangle our dreams in Northeastern Pennsylvania on a regular basis. We allow the weeds to rage out of control. We nourish their roots. The metaphor here goes straight to the heart of our political "culture of corruption" that strangles our hope for a better tomorrow.
I've concluded that we will not beat our culture of corruption in my lifetime. So we should not fight to win or lose but fight to fight.
Principle matters.
And principle nourishes hope for the better future based on fairness, equality and true growth. If we nourish a true path of awareness, we have a chance to create a culture of awakening – something definitely worth fighting for. Our culture of awakening will help create and nourish a healthy, thriving garden that will nourish those to come for countless decades.
Allow the poison to spread, however, and our dreams will continue to die.
Changing behavior takes precious time and effort.
In the past few years we've seen positive change occur as dozens of local and state elected officials and business executives have pleaded guilty to public corruption crimes and either pleaded guilty or been convicted.
They have gone to prison. More gangsters will follow in this ongoing federal public corruption investigation. But what about good people who live stable lives? What about law-abiding hard-working good citizens who know the difference between right and wrong? What do we do to increase the odds that the judicial weed whacking that's talking place will cleanse our path for good and allow healthy new fruit to blossom?
Sadly, we do far too little to change behavior. Too many otherwise good citizens stand idly by and allow nepotism, cronyism and political patronage to fester. They even teach their children that maybe a political job might one day be in the works for them – if only they play their political cards right and ingratiate themselves to the proper political people.
If not them, maybe their children will benefit. Survival of the fittest becomes the law of the jungle. And the garden is lost. By this longtime coal region tradition that many of our immigrant ancestors quickly learned how to play, we plant evil seeds that sprout and turn to killer weeds that smother the future of fairness.
To truly ripen, we must change the way we think. To thrive, we must stand against old habits that die hard. To mature we must be brave enough to rise up and stretch to our full height into the sun.
I know, I know, the garden analogy is getting old.
But the culture of awakening will only exist if you help it grow. So plant some seeds and know you did something brave to ensure that those who come after you have long gone have a better shot at making their dreams grow.
Smiling and huge and grossly immature, a teenage Greg Skrepenak sat in the bleachers at the Kings College gymnasium. The occasion, I believe, was a speech concerning one war or another by then Congressman Paul Kanjorski. The hulking GAR High School kid had assembled with other Wilkes-Barre city school students for the event.
Skrepenak sat with Raghib "The Rocket" Ismail from Meyers and Bobby Sura, his basketball teammate from GAR.
Reeking with potential and brimming with hope, blinding storylines brightened the lives of these three working class kids from Northeastern Pennsylvania hard coal country.
The Rocket went on to football acclaim with Notre Dame, a multi-million dollar contract in Canada and a finish with the Dallas Cowboys. Sura set college records in Florida and played with the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers in the National Basketball Association. Skrepenak starred as an All-American in Michigan and played for the Carolina Panthers as well as the storied Oakland Raiders.
But Skrep, as he was known around the Valley, ultimately distinguished himself above and beyond his superstar peers.
After retirement from the pros, the Rocket became an evangelist of sorts and a professional bull rider. Sura basically disappeared after a fight at the Woodlands in which he said he was not involved and police concurred. Skrep ran for and was elected to a responsible position of public trust as a Luzerne County commissioner.
Had Skrep played this game properly, abiding by the rules and upholding the public trust, he might have gone to the state house instead of to the big house.
But Skrep scored a federal prison sentence in West Virginia where strains of "take me home country road" echoed off the walls of his skull as he tossed and turned his 6-foot-8-inch frame in a hoosegow bunk and dreamed of the Heights where he lived and loved and learned nothing about integrity.
Now the big man has returned.
His mother picked him up from a recent day at work as a clerk at a buddy's law firm, according to a published report, and brought him back to the house where he is living under house arrest with mom and dad.
Skrep lost weight and is humbled by his experience, the lawyer told a reporter.
Skrep said he couldn't talk about his experience yet chastised the reporter, asking why the press couldn't just leave him alone.
Let me explain it to you, big man.
We can't leave you alone because you spent too many years expecting our attention.
You and you alone became a celebrity. You and you alone begged us to watch. You and you alone pledged that we could trust you. You and you alone then betrayed the public trust you swore to uphold. You and you alone willingly became a gangster. You and you alone used sacred public service to benefit yourself and your buddies who always thought they were better than anybody and everybody who depended on you to help their often pitiful struggle.
No, Skrep, we will not leave you alone. And you better understand that you will take hits all your life because you are now and always will be an ex-convict who threw it all away.
Amid his failure, his weakness and denial, I wish him well. I believe in rehabilitation and redemption. But, as a former state prison counselor, I also understand the delusion under which the majority of former inmates live their lives after being released from prison.
Too many of them continue to blame others for their faults and dysfunction. Too many refuse to accept real responsibility. They talk about their "mistakes" rather than their crimes. And they desperately grasp image rather than substance. And, of course, they all too often continue to hang out with a bad crowd.
In Skrep's case, that simply means coming home, where he is staying for the remaining couple of months of his sentence.
Skreps's father is a hothead with a temper he cannot control. At least he was out of control the last time I saw him, as he put his face close to mine in court following his son's sentencing and threatened me with violence. I calmly looked him in the eye. I waited but nothing happened. The head of the Scranton office of the Secret Service and an assistant United States attorney witnessed Skrep's father's childish display of macho stupidity.
"That was a threat," the prosecutor said out loud.
But I declined to press charges because I didn't want to add to the Skrepenak family's heartache by putting another bad seed into a jam that was entirely self-created.
Skrep and his dad still need therapy. Maybe the whole family needs counseling. Let's hope they're up to this terribly emotional task.
Just like that long ago day in the gym, the future awaits.
On "Corbett" we're talking and listening and reading and writing at the high-energy fast pace that makes us or breaks us. Indeed, some have broken. Just ask a few politicians who tried to deceive and cajole and spin us into their reality at the expense of our own political future.
Most of us are in this continuing conversation for the duration, whatever that means. And each day we're anxiously looking for more and better ways to speak freely and convey whatever messages we believe matter.
Obviously communication is everything in media.
But in 2012 WILK News Radio is more than a voice on the radio.
You're a major voice as well.
So welcome to the first ever "Corbett" listener/reader/talker survey so I can get a better grip on what you want, need and appreciate in the five days a week, four hours a day we spend together.
And that's just the beginning.
On the air I'm not only sharing my opinion and live observations, I'm digging into stories, investigating politicians and breaking hard news in real time. You quickly interact and offer your impressions. Off the air – at my home and office and elsewhere - you offer tips in person and through phone calls, emails and the regularly mailed hand-written letter.
You email me while I'm on the air.
You text.
The other week during the show I received an email that instructed me to call the emailer at my next break for a "huge" story. When we spoke during the news at the top of the hour, he explained the urgency of his message. He was right and I told him to do his best to get a certain political candidate on the air with me as soon as possible.
I emailed another source and put the word out.
The candidate appeared on the show in less than in 15 minutes.
We broke the story and the candidate provided details as to the serious nature of the matter. The next morning he held a press conference outside the Luzerne County courthouse that might have made the difference in his election victory on Primary Election Day.
Now Matt Cartwright is likely headed to Congress in January.
News happens fast around here. The way we communicate happens equally fast. I'm now tweeting during the show. You're texting. I'm linking stories and videos on my Facebook fan page as well providing material on the WILK News Radio Facebook page. You're commenting on both pages.
And I'm wondering how we can best use our time together, interacting in ways unheard of until recently.
What do you like most?
Least?
Do you go to Facebook to interact with me and others even if you aren't listening to the show? That seems strange to me but some people say they like to get into comment discussions even when they can't listen.
Many people listen in the car while driving from here to there. Do not text and drive, by the way. Others listen at work and can't call or text or tweet. Some listen at work with headphones and text and tweet and comment on company time – also not a good idea.
Still, I need to know how you best communicate with me and others during the time I'm on the air as well as off.
Some Saturday nights I check the pages and add a comment here or there – even on my own time.
That's the draw of immediacy. That's speech. In many ways that's freedom. So let's be free together.
The power of the people can be as savage as the political candidates. And, in Northeastern Pennsylvania, we know the feral force of politics. Our primitive lust for power and survival is rooted deep in the cultural veins that paralleled hard lives and the hard coal that drew many of our immigrant ancestors to this region.
Good battles evil every day. Good sometimes wins. Evil often takes public office.
And the brutes still hold sway in the political arena where candidates do giddy battle with crude weapons that often omit intellect. Last night's primary election results illustrate exactly what we're up against.
Newcomer candidate and millionaire lawyer Matt Cartwright survived a brutal race against 20-year incumbent Congressman Tim Holden that upset the status quo and turned establishment Democratic Party politics upside down. Cartwright overcame the company man who had the support of the company even though party bosses knew they couldn't trust Holden.
With more than 60 endorsements, Holden courted U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty, Wilkes-Barre Mayor Tom Leighton, state senators John Blake and John Yudichak, state Rep. Sid Michaels Kavulich and other establishment Democrats.
Cartwright came into the race with a squeaky voice and too much dependence on scripted jargon. Yet his sincerity and willingness to buck the system he perceives as too conservative and oppressive for an "FDR Democrat," offered the people of his party an alternative.
The people took him up on his invitation. Now, with little significant opposition on the Republican side in November, Cartwright looks like he's headed to Washington in January. If so, we'll see if he keeps his word. We'll see if he can walk the walk through the darkened halls of power in the nation's capital.
But last night the power of the people prevailed.
Enter the savages.
Three major upsets in Northeastern Pennsylvania also illustrate our primeval side. Primordial to its core, the legislative races centered in Lackawanna County offer classic case studies of the primitive nature of the political beast.
But we in hard coal country understand the grunts and the growls. Up here, the call of the wild shapes a symphony.
Just because the newest likely members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives – two of whom ran without any Republican opposition - deserve the jobs doesn't mean that they are fit to uphold the public trust.
They are not.
But they did what they had to do to capture the trophy that will pay them more money than they ever earned in their lives in exchange for their vow to uphold the public trust.
Between our victors – Frank Farina, Marty Flynn and Kevin Haggerty – we encounter an array of past criminal charges likely unmatched by any regional political trio of newcomers in any region in America.
Politicians usually wait until they take office before they compile a police record.
Not our mugs.
They're loaded – and I do mean loaded - with DUIs, bad checks, a questionable military discharge from the Marines, fistfights and bad barroom behavior. If the pasts of our newly elected public servants comprised a reality show the director would best be a SWAT team.
But our future lawmakers all promise pure public service for the people.
Here's looking at you, fellows.
Here's looking at the losers, too, poor saps who actually did themselves in.
Incumbents Kenny Smith and Kevin Murphy piled all their misery on themselves. They couldn't have done a better job losing re-election if they had decided to launch campaign death wishes and lose on purpose. Smith is a major tax scofflaw who owes about a quarter of a million dollars in debt and liens. Murphy publicly claimed for decades a four-year-degree from the University of Scranton that he does not possess.
Good people struggling with their own lives eventually had enough.
Except for Farina, whom voters embraced even though he actually said on "Corbett" last week that he couldn't remember how many times police charged him with crimes. To his credit and in the spirit of good government, though, Farina did remember the public drunkenness charge.
That was St. Patrick's Day in Scranton, he said, as if that somehow excused his degeneracy.
Farina's opponent, Randy Castellani, once had a county commissioner's job. But he quit in the middle of his public service without explaining his departure. Even with party backing, people argued that a quitter never wins.
Instead they welcomed Farina, who also denied ever being sentenced to probation. Farina told me on the air that maybe the guy in the probation report I held in my hands was his father, who has the same name. Farina's campaign manager then called the show to explain Farina's loud lie by saying his client had been nervous when I asked about his probation.
Too many political lug nuts in hard coal country are drunk and disorderly and proud of it. But more and more of us now refuse to buy the party line and place trust in those who are clearly untrustworthy.
Music might soothe the savage beast, but, around here, politics agitates the whole damn jungle.
At about 3:35 yesterday afternoon, while I was on the air, an email came in advising me to call the emailer at my next break. I know that person to be a credible news source and a well-known and upstanding member of the community.
I was on the phone at the four o'clock news break.
At 4:05 I was on the air again, deftly trying to explain the gist of the story that I would try to confirm even though I was deep into my show.
The tip involved the latest televised political attack in the desperate race for the Democratic nomination for the newly expanded 17th Congressional District.
Twenty-year incumbent Tim Holden wants to be re-elected. Challenger Matt Cartwright wants to go to Washington, too.
Both sides admit that one-time underdog Cartwright is in the lead.
Even Holden supporter and former Congressman Chris Carney - like Holden, a conservative "blue dog" Democrat - admitted as much during a Saturday afternoon Holden campaign rally in Scranton.
The tip was ugly.
Holden was airing a campaign commercial that insinuated that Cartwright had contributed campaign cash to admitted criminal and former Luzerne County Judge Michael Toole, who is serving a federal prison sentence for political corruption, in exchange for a favorable medical malpractice verdict for a Cartwright client.
If true, Cartwright would have bribed a crooked judge.
Cartwright would have committed a crime.
Cartwright would have been in a position to be arrested and maybe go to jail.
But the ad was false, my source said.
The ad was a terrible lie.
Cartwright was livid, the source said.
I told my source that I needed Cartwright on the show as soon as possible. I emailed another source and made the same statement. Both sources said they'd see what they could do.
Cartwright called at 4:15.
Cartwright's interview, which can be heard in the wilknewsradio.com "audio vault," sent shockwaves through both campaigns.
Cartwright's reputation was on the line. He said he would fight the scurrilous slander that Holden had authorized. Cartwright said he planned a press conference this morning on the steps of the Luzerne County Courthouse where Toole had betrayed the public trust by becoming a gangster judge.
As bad as the inference was for Cartwright, though, the accusation was worse for Cartwright's client, who planned to appear with him at the press conference.
Doctors had diagnosed the woman with a serious form of cancer. She underwent 12 bouts of chemotherapy. She thought she would die. She said goodbye to her toddler children.
But the woman never had cancer.
After a month-long trial, a jury found in her favor and awarded her a sizable amount of money.
To infer that her lawyer had bribed a judge in exchange for a favorable verdict added to the woman's already horrific experiences.
Holden's TV commercial made no mention of the jury trial or the jury award. People who saw the commercial said the commercial accused Cartwright of giving a crooked judge money and that the judge presided over the trial and made the award himself.
That simply was not true.
That also is simply inexcusable.
I called Holden's campaign and left a message – the fifth invitation, including two personal invites, in several weeks.
Holden failed to respond to my message.
Voters should fail to respond to his re-election bid.
We know all about life in the Northeastern Pennsylvania school of political hard knocks.
But Tim Holden is simply too damn mean for Congress
Wannabe state attorney general Kathleen Kane finally answered her cell phone.
"You're a tough woman to get in contact with," I said early yesterday afternoon.
"I'm running a busy campaign," she said.
After weeks of Kane failing to return my phone calls I finally had a chance to ask questions about the latest implosion in her race to become the first elected female state attorney general.
In the past few weeks she has refused to answer my questions about allegation of fixed parking tickets, exactly how she picked up former President Bill Clinton's personal endorsement and her role in the family trucking company business that is mostly financing her campaign.
But now I had her on the line. And I gave her more than enough rope to hang her campaign out to dry.
Finally, Kane was able.
You are airing a television campaign commercial in which you are surrounded by what look like uniformed police officers, I said. You're standing beside what looks to be a police car, I said.
One of those officers is the Dunmore Borough police chief. He's wearing his Dunmore police uniform. By appearing in uniform in your partisan political ad, he is trying to help you influence voters with his position as a law enforcement officer.
"Do you think that is appropriate?" I asked the aspiring top state law enforcement official.
Kane said she would not have used the chief had she not thought his appearance was appropriate.
Critics say you're using the leader of a public police force as part of your private political army.
"Do you agree?" I asked Kane.
"I don't," she said. "But obviously you do."
"Did the police chief have to ask for permission?" I asked.
Kane said he got permission.
"From whom?" I asked.
"The (Dunmore) mayor," Kane said.
For the record, it's illegal in some states, such as California and Washington, for a police officer to appear in a partisan political ad while wearing a police uniform. And some people claim that the federal Hatch Act prohibits a police officer from appearing in uniform in partisan political campaign commercials. I say "claim' because I do not have a legal opinion yet but hope to know by this afternoon.
"How about the cop in your TV commercial with the beard?" I asked. "He's wearing a Dunmore uniform and he's not even a Dunmore cop."
"He's a retired police officer," Kane said.
"Do you think it's appropriate to mislead voters by dressing up a civilian in an official Dunmore police uniform?" I asked.
Again Kane said the man was a retired officer.
And that's correct. He's a retired Dunmore captain. He's a civilian who is not authorized to wear the Dunmore uniform. He's a partisan Kane supporter trying to help her win an election.
Kane said he wasn't wearing a uniform.
"He's wearing a coat," she said.
The man is indeed wearing a coat – emblazoned with what observers say is the Dunmore Police Department patch – what insiders describe as the "new" police patch.
Ok, I said.
How about the squad car? Did you have permission to use an official Dunmore police car in your partisan political campaign commercial?
Yes, Kane said.
Who gave you permission?
The mayor, she said.
Did you pay for the use of the car, I asked.
No, she said.
You used an official Dunmore police car for free?
"I said we didn't pay for it," she said.
So, yes, Kane used an official Dunmore police car for her personal and political gain, didn't pay for the prop and used it for free.
I invited Kane to come on the show yesterday to talk about this latest implosion of her campaign. She said she already answered my questions and that I should pass along her answers.
Maybe I'll ask the Dunmore mayor if I can borrow the Dunmore police chief, a Dunmore police uniform and an official Dunmore squad car.
Somebody needs to blow the siren and alert the good people of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to yet another example of public corruption that allows a political candidate who should know better to use public resources for private political gain.
Maybe the current attorney general should investigate.
Although appointed and not elected, she's a woman, too.
This obituary appeared yesterday in the Meridian (Mississippi) Star newspaper.
In Memory of
Olive Corbett
June 10, 1920 - April 9, 2012
Obituary
Olive O'Neill Webb Corbett
Olive O'Neill died Monday, April 9, 2012 in Murrieta, CA. Olive was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1920, grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and lived primarily in Meridian form 1942 through 2009, having moved there after her marriage to James L. "Skeeter" Webb.
Olive felt blessed to have grown up in a sports family; her father, Steve O'Neill was in the major leagues for more than forty years and her husband, Skeeter, for twelve years, including playing shortstop for the 1945 Detroit Tigers World Series champions, a team managed by her father.
James J. "shamus" Corbett, Olive's second husband, was twice the heavyweight boxing champion of the Marine Corps during World War II and later became the most decorated state trooper in the history of the Pennsylvania State Police.
Olive was twice widowed, first by Skeeter's death in 1986 after 42 years of marriage and leter when her second husband, Shamus, died in 1997 after nearly seven years of their marriage. Olive lived in Scranton, Pennsylvania during her marriage to Shamus, who had been her childhood friend and sweetheart. After Shamus' death, Olive returned to Meridian.
Olive was a devoted mother and wife, a registered nurse who supervised at three Meridian hospitals, a local radio and television personality during her televised "Miss Broadmoor" series, a strong supporter of the Red Cross, gave much of her time to nursing seminars and several local charities and a long time performer in Meridian's Little Theatre. She treasured her many friendships, especially those in Meridian, some which were fostered were in the lady's "Red Hats" program and many others forged while during her forty plus years as a member of St. Patrick's Catholic Church.
Olive was especially passionate about her family, her nursing profession and numerous nursing students and her Catholic faith, through which she was involved in several outreach programs for children and new church members. She died while living with her oldest daughter, Carol Ann Potter and leaves a void in the lives of her five children (stepsons James L. Webb, Jr of Slidell, LA and Steve Corbett of Scranton, PA, daughter Carol Ann Potter of Murrieta, CA, son, John Robert Webb of Dallas, TX and daughter Pamela Mary Webb Burton of Atlanta, GA), fourteen grandchildren and fifteen great-grandchildren, including extended family members.
Funeral Mass will be held Tuesday, April 17, 2012 at 11 am at St. Patrick's Catholic Church. Burial will follow in Magnolia Cemetery with Barham Funeral Home in charge of arrangements.
Visitation will be at the funeral home on Monday, April 16 from 6pm to 8 pm.
The family requests that in lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Hospice of the Valleys, 25240 Hancock Ave, Suite 120, Murrieta, CA 92562.
A young black girl leaned against a telephone pole on Hill Street Saturday afternoon, staring sadly at the homemade banner draped across the front porch of the small house where 14-year-pld Tyler Winstead lived with his grandparents.
"REAL LOVE NEVER DIES," read the sheet adorned with soft pastels and the image of a white dove.
"RIP Tyler."
"WE LOVE YOU 4EVER."
"Hi," I said.
The child smiled weakly.
An hour or so later, I encountered her in a candy store with her grandmother, a dignified and kindly woman who I knew. We talked about the sadness and she later reminded me that her African-American ancestors went back six generations into the city scene in Wilkes-Barre. I knew her deep roots and had years ago written a column about the contributions and sacrifices her family made in the life and times of her city.
Turning to her heartsick grand-daughter, she pointed to me and said, "He wrote a story about Pop Pop."
The child clutched an Easter basket and looked at the ground.
I remembered sitting in the woman's home that's just a short walk to where Tyler died last week after being shot once in the chest – a crime scene a few doors down from Tyler's house where stuffed animals and balloons now created a mounting memorial to his death.
After gently shaking hands with me the child drifted off to look at the candy.
I asked the woman what she had been hearing. The woman shook her head. Nothing, she said. The tragic mystery of who killed Tyler and why he died remains thick and stifling, a reminder that we are not what we must be to survive as a good community. Until we know the answers to this bad mystery, we are lost.
Law enforcement officials have backed off the vague description issued Thursday night just a few hours after the shooting. Police were then on the lookout for a car and a suspect, black, about 5-feet-10 inches tall and possibly wearing a "hoodie."
The question came into my mind Friday on "Corbett" as we talked about speculation, stereotypes and the confusion surrounding the description as to how "his" height" could be known if he was sitting in a car.
A caller said upped the ante, saying now that four "blacks" were suspects. And the confusion, speculation and stereotypes continued despite my best attempts to head them off and appeal for facts that we could confirm and document – facts that might better lead us to an explanation for Tyler's death.
But too many people already had made up their minds. "Black-on-black" crime, they screamed. Gangs, they wailed. New Jersey and New York transplants, of course, got blamed.
But police and prosecutors are backing off on a clear description. As of this morning, we don't know who or what police are looking for.
I'm looking for public officials to walk Hill Street the way I walked Hill Street Saturday, knocking on doors, talking to children and maybe even stopping by Tyler's grandparents' house. A simple presence can reassure people in the most terrible times. A hug, a handshake and a kind word can do wonders for grief and the feeling of abandonment that too often comes to people – particularly black people – in Wilkes-Barre.
As a Times Leader newspaper columnist I wrote about race in that city for decades. I say today without reservation that progress has not been made in race relations in the city.
Tyler was a black child. His grandparents are black people. His family is black. And even though the short narrow street between Wilkes-Barre Boulevard and Park Avenue is mixed, it is fair to say that black people there feel more alone today than white people or Latinos.
Race always matters.
So does how people approach a discussion of race and the related circumstances that come with living in a predominately white city where Western European roots run deepest – descendants of immigrants from Poland, Ireland and Italy and elsewhere who have developed into the power structure that has given the community one of the most politically corrupt governments in the state and maybe in the country.
I empathize with the oppression of minorities and the fight against discrimination because I take seriously my Irish-American roots – harkening back to signs that said "Irish and Dogs Keep Out" and "No Irish Need Apply." I have a friend who as a child held her 12-year-old friend's head as she lay dying on a Belfast street after being shot in the head by a rubber bullet the size of a toilet paper roll that was shot by a British paratrooper.
But this is America. This is Wilkes-Barre, the city where I lived for 17 years, longer than I lived anywhere in my life. And this is as real as it gets for the future of a city where quality of life is declining for too many people no matter what their race or ethnicity.
The sadness I saw in the eyes of a child leaning against a telephone pole on a narrow street of gunfire and bloodshed is enough to move me to action.
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