Saturday, March 2, 2024

I Need Help

 


       I need help. Not for me, but for three children and their father in north Arkansas…  David, the father, has done some work for me and he is a very intelligent man, a hard worker about as down on his luck as anyone I have ever seen.  He has been beset by the law and justice of Boone County if you want to call it that.  David’s wife and mother of his kids is not with them. He moved from a town in Ohio to a country setting at Lead Hill Arkansas, seeking a better life for them.  He got a job there and traded a kayak for an old car. Times were difficult, so he didn’t have the money to get the car licensed and buy any insurance.  His kids, now from 9 too 13 years of age needed to be fed so David took a chance and drove to a food pantry in nearby Yellville.  Coming back the only cop from Diamond City spied him, a real dandy of a lawman, confiscated his car and wrote him out a fine he had no chance to pay.  The old beat up car was towed, confiscated and sold.  David saw it being driven around a month later, after being told it had been destroyed.  Lying is fine if you are part of the justice system.

       So I called the court in Harrison and told the story of how, could David get his license back, I could help him get a car and he could make a couple hundred dollars per week working for me on weekends.  I was speaking with a ‘judge’s aid’ by the name of Mrs. Wright, who seemed soooo sympathetic, telling me that the lady judge would be very sympathetic to helping those three kids.  She told me to be in court the next Thursday at 10 a.m. and in only minutes, before regular court started, we would see how much money I would have to pay to get fines cleared and get David a drivers license.

    Keep in mind that David works for hourly wages.  He rides a motorbike to work a mile from home in any type of weather, cold, snow, rain, whatever.  But they are as poor as they can get, and Mrs. Wright was sure anxious to help.  Apparently the judge wasn’t!

       That Thursday I drove 2 and a half hours, arrived early to find that Mrs. Wright, for some reason, was gone, couldn’t be called, wasn’t going to be back.  Mrs. Judge had no intention of talking to me, hadn’t even heard of me, or David, and couldn’t care less about three kids.  That wasn’t her job!  Her job was whackin’ victims who appeared before her, guilty or not.  In front of a judge anywhere, offenders are guilty if they cannot pay a lawyer!  But I was told that MAYBE about two o’clock she might see me.  Maybe you can see why I lost my temper.  But the ladies at the desk couldn’t help, and a little banty rooster court helper told me to get out quick or he would take me to jail without charge.

       That’s what the north Arkansas justice system is all about…David and those three kids are of no importance.  Who is, unless they have money?  David can’t afford a lawyer and it takes a lawyer to get him a driver’s license and the kind of money it takes to make a living in north Arkansas.  Lawyers help those who can pay a lot of money.  If anyone has any ideas, let me know.  If we can get him a driver’s license I am willing to help him get a car, and pay the judge and lawyers in Harrison whatever fines they demand.  All they have to do is listen to the problem as Mrs. Wright did and just help someone. And if you get a chance, you might call Mrs. Wright and ask her why she wasn’t at work that day, when I drove 5 hours to do what that judge could do in 5 minutes.

       If anyone knows one good lawyer who might work a couple of hours to help those three kids without being paid, tell me who he is.  I have been around those three children. They are respectful, obedient and intelligent kids.  I want to help them, but I have no idea what to do now.

No comments: