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sarahlwlee · 4 years

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31 Stories in 31 Days: Rain

What is this? As part of celebrating Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month (May), I am writing a story a day about my experiences as a Chinese Malaysian immigrant in America. My friends and family have provided numerous one-word prompts to help me create these stories. Today’s word prompt was contributed by Kim B. and the word is “Rain”. Thank you Kim for your contribution and thank you everyone who stopped by to read my story today.

Hot humid days are not my favorite days. Growing up in Malaysia, the weather was hot and humid with temperatures of 90+ degrees almost year round. Some months it would be torrential rain for days due to monsoon winds, which helps ease the humidity however it brings its own set of challenges, such as flooding. Near my home in Sri Petaling there is a large monsoon drain that helps ease the flooding and overflow of rain fall. I remember walking on the motorist bridge where the monsoon drain is located and knocking my clenched fist on the thick hollow metal railing to hear echoes of what sounded like birds chirping. My father use to tease me and said there were birds trapped in there. I remember trying to find a hole in the railing to help free the birds, only to hear laughter from my father in a distance.

When I was fourteen, I remember my mom telling me to stop using the tap in the sink for water and to start using the water in these new tall barrel-sized bins that came up to my waist. She said there was no more water in the “tangki” (water tank) above our house and in order to get water we had to wait for the water truck for rations. What I didn’t understand at the time, we were experiencing one of the most severe drought, affecting 1.8 million residents across Kuala Lumpur, Bangi and Kajang. Our main water supply was sourced from upper Langat River and it had run dry due to no rainfall. Local paddy field farmers had a hard time keeping up with rice demands in the country and many other farm workers lost crops as well farm animals due to lack of running water. During this time period, the television news focused heavily on our government’s efforts in sending rockets into the sky to seed the clouds with rain artificially to bring this drought to an end. The results were subpar and people did not have running water in their houses for almost six months. Parts of East Malaysia were also affected due to shortage of rainfall.

My mother, along with my father, developed a water storing system at home and made sure that everyone at home understood how much water to use and from which water bin. We had water bins in every bathroom and the kitchen. We had a large water bin in the front and the back of the house as our back up storage. My dad made sure the water was always disinfected before we used it for showering or general cleaning and my mother would boil the water before she used it for cooking. My least favorite chore, washing my school shoes, was put on hiatus to help conserve water. My white school shoes were dirty for a long time but it didn’t matter because everyone else at school had the same problem.

One day when my mother was too tired to get buckets of water from the government water trucks, she asked my brother to help carry water to our house when he came to visit. I remember watching this water truck continuously move while my brother and neighbors desperately followed it to get the water that was dripping out of it. In fact, I remembered one of our neighbors down the street, an older Chinese lady with short bright white hair and no taller than I was with half my body size. She tripped with her bucket in hand while screaming at the truck driver to slow down because she couldn’t walk fast enough to catch up with the water truck. Thankfully, there were kind souls around who saw her fall and helped her to the curb to recuperate while they grabbed her bucket to get her water. My brother was one of those individuals who helped carry water to her house. Some of the older men yelled at the truck driver to stop while banging on his door. It was scary to watch this transpire as a young teenager and feeling extremely helpless, however it gave me an insight into humanity that even in a crisis there are people who will do what’s right to ensure people who needed help the most would be taken cared of first. I wish this was always the case everywhere in the world.

As the months past, some of the cloud seeding allegedly worked and it started to rain though not as heavily as we were accustomed to. I learned how to hoard water and when that first rainfall came, I put my little personal bucket outside my bedroom window with a string tied to it to catch rain water. I was not very successful because I didn’t have a way to funnel the rain into the bucket, it only filled up barely an eighth of an inch. Eventually rain came back in full force and we didn’t have to maintain the highly-disciplined water storing system my parents came up with. We kept all the water bins in the bathroom as well as the front and back of the house even after the drought had passed. Unfortunately the water bins became a hot bed for Aedes mosquito breeding and my parents decided to dump out the water bins in the house to reduce the amount of mosquitoes coming into the house and purchased a special bag of disinfecting dissolving powder that killed Aedes mosquitoes in the water for the bins outdoor. My father became obsessed with burning mosquito coils all around the house, especially when he came home and throughout the evening, and having Mopiko (ointment for itchiness/bites) on hand so if anyone had a mosquito bite, relief was within arms reach.

When I came to Kalamazoo, I was deeply fascinated by people drinking straight out of the tap and personally hesitated to drink directly myself. Understanding where I came from and experiencing the survival methods of drought, you always have to boil the water to ensure its safe enough to drink or cook with. Even when I was living with my parents as a young child in different parts of the United States, my mother insisted we boil the water from the tap so I never knew America had clean running water from their taps until much later. It seems that it’s a requirement for a first world country. It took me a long time to become accustomed to drinking water from the tap. We always had a filtered water jug and reusable water bottles stored with boiled water in the refrigerator all through college. Today, I have two reusable bottles of water in the fridge containing water straight from the tap without boiling and a water bottle next to my bed, also filled with water straight from the tap. Some habits have changed since I arrived 16 years ago in Kalamazoo, but I still don’t like hot humid days.

NOTE: As I was researching for photos to accompany this story that illustrated drought in Malaysia, I found recent news articles that drought continues to occur in Malaysia and the water industry is in dire straits. My heart breaks knowing that in the midst of COVID-19 and a severe drought, it’s a lot to handle over a long period of time. First photo source: AsiaOne Online. Second photo source: Sarah Lee’s bedroom window in the Sri Petaling house.

#aapiheritagemonth #aapi #aapihm #shortstory #rain #drought

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make-the-choice-be-the-voic-blog · 5 years

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Coalition director shares insights on human trafficking.

Human trafficking seems like a dark underworld crime of big cities. But that might not be where it starts. Sara Morley-LaCrois, director of the Kalamazoo Anti-Human Trafficking Coalition, said it usually starts early in a person’s life because of sexual abuse at home. Statics show most sexually-molested children know their abuser.

It’s usually a person they should be able to trust.

After sexual abuse, a child’s life spirals downward. Traumatized by the violation, he or she grows up to be more vulnerable and is often exploited by additional abusers and it may involve money, she said One of Morley-LaCrois’ many clients was raped early in life by her father.

At school, she learned it was abuse through programs such as “OK to Say” or “Good Touches/Bad Touches,” so the girl told a teacher. Her parents were called in for questioning and back home the father locked his daughter in a shed to teach her the lesson, “What happens in this house stays in this house,” Morley-LaCrois said. She grew to believe her body and her life had no value — that she wasn’t worth protecting.

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The Michigan State Police is working at the internet level of the problem, said Trooper Kyle Bowers of the Computer Crimes Unit, Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force — ICAC “My unit deals mainly with internet crimes — child exploitation via photos, videos, etc.,” Bowers said. “We do occasionally investigate cases where a ‘traveler’ is wanting to meet a minor for sexually immoral purposes.” Both types of sex crimes may be more prevalent in St. Joseph or Branch counties than the stereotypical pimp and prostitute walking a dark street.

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[Prostitution] is bondage the person might not fight, having been a victim for many years at the hands family members or people in their family circles. Gaining emotional health once out of trafficking is not easy, Morley-LaCrois said. “For some, they need to take life one day at a time. For some, one hour at a time and for some it might be one minute at a time,” she said. Locally (US), the Kalamazoo YWCA offers the most comprehensive treatment specifically for those who have been trafficked, Morley-LaCrois said. They accept women, men, and non-gender specific people. They provide specialized services necessary for that level of violation.

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For victims, several agencies exist to help: n Branch County Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence (517) 278-SAFE (7233) n St. Joseph County Domestic And Sexual Abuse Services (269) 273-6154. n 1-888-3737-888 if you suspect human trafficking. n 911.

See the full news article at https://www.thedailyreporter.com/news/20190427/coalition-director-shares-insights-on-human-trafficking

“We cannot rely upon the silenced to tell us they are suffering.” - Hanan Ashra

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winterolympicssports2018-blog · 6 years

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How two women built the case against the famed doctor

Click here for More Olympics Updates https://www.winterolympian.com/how-two-women-built-the-case-against-the-famed-doctor/

How two women built the case against the famed doctor

Det. Lt. Andrea Munford of the Michigan State University Police Department, in her office on Friday, Feb. 23, 2018. She is an MSU alumna, and has been with the department since 1997.(Photo: Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal)

Larry Nassar’s trash can was sitting near the curb.

Inside his white, one-story home, police were searching the living room, the bedrooms.

And they were searching the basement, because a woman named Kyle Stephens had recently told Michigan State University Police Det. Lt. Andrea Munford that Nassar had sexually abused her there for years, starting when she was 6.

Stephens had told her parents more than a decade earlier. They hadn’t believed her.

Munford did. And now she had a search warrant.

The house in Holt was filled with “just stuff…” Munford said. “It appeared he never threw anything out.”

Munford was inside when an officer noticed the trash can was full. Put it in the truck, she said. Go through it later.

It was Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2016. Police didn’t yet realize it, but that trash can held the evidence that would crack open the careful façade Nassar had built over 20 years: Larry the superstar who treated Olympians, the caring doctor who slipped forbidden treats to young gymnasts and took their side against strict coaches, the devout Catholic and pillar of his suburban community.

If garbage collectors had come earlier that day, investigators might not have found the four hard drives in Nassar’s trash.

The sheer quantity of clutter in Nassar’s home “was why it was so striking to us that he threw those hard drives out,” Munford said.

On one, the MSU police Computer Forensics Unit would find 37,000 images and videos of child pornography, the accumulation of Nassar’s decade-long collecting.

Nassar was a respected MSU and USA Gymnastics doctor who over the course of a 20-year career sexually assaulted hundreds of women and girls, including a 15-year-old from Kalamazoo who 16 years later called MSU police. That call sparked an investigation that would pull in hundreds of victims, topple the leadership at MSU and USA Gymnastics and send Nassar to prison for the rest of his life.

But first there was Munford, whose inquiry began with a phone call from that former gymnast on a Thursday in August. Then there was prosecutor Angela Povilaitis, who joined the case when the Michigan Attorney General’s Office agreed to partner on the rising number sexual assault reports against Nassar.

MSU Police Det. Lt. Andrea Munford, left, and Assistant Attorney General Angela Povilaitis react to a comment from Judge Rosemarie Aquilina near the end of Larry Nassar’s sentencing hearing in Ingham County Circuit Court on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2018. Behind them (from left) are Jacob Denhollander, Rachael Denhollander and Kyle Stephens. (Photo: Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal)

Over 16 months, the two women built the stories of hundreds of victims into one of the largest sexual assault investigations in U.S. history. They set the stage for Nassar’s seven-day sentencing hearing, where the world watched those women and girls declare themselves an “army of survivors.”

“They believed in us,” said Larissa Boyce, who was 16 and a member of the Spartan Youth Gymnastics program when Nassar abused her in 1997. “Because they believed in us we started to believe in ourselves.”

Before the world knew Larry Nassar’s name and his crimes, these two women were building their case one voice at a time.

Who was that doctor?

Nassar, like Munford, is an MSU graduate, he with a medical degree from the College of Osteopathic Medicine and she with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. Both started working at the university in 1997.

Coming off the 1996 Olympics where he treated the gold medal-winning U.S. women’s gymnastics team, Nassar was hired as an assistant professor with clinical duties. His stature in the gymnastics world grew over the next 20 years and he became an associate professor.

Munford worked in the MSU Police Department’s bike unit and crime scene investigation unit. She became a detective. In August 2016 she was supervisor of the special victims unit.

She was sitting in her glass-walled office in the detective bureau when her phone rang.

Dispatch was on the line, wanting to know who could take a sexual assault report. Munford wrote down contact information and the woman’s name: Rachael Denhollander.

Their phone call was brief. Denhollander didn’t want to give too many details over the phone, but told Munford she wanted to report a sexual assault by an MSU sports medicine doctor from 16 years earlier. They set an appointment for the following Monday. Before the call ended, Munford asked for the doctor’s name.

Then the detective walked across the hall into Capt. Valerie O’Brien’s office. Munford had a question for her boss, even though she was almost certain she knew the answer.

Who was that doctor you investigated a couple years ago?

Larry Nassar.

Yeah, Munford said, it’s the same guy.

‘I never knew how afraid they were’

Rachael and Jacob Denhollander listen to victim impact statements on Monday, Jan. 22, 2018, the fifth day of Larry Nassar’s sentencing hearing in Ingham County Circuit Court. Denhollander’s August 2016 report began the investigation that ended with more than 200 victims. (Photo: Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal)

The following Monday, Rachael and Jacob Denhollander walked around the line of students that stretched out the front door of the MSU Police Department.

They checked in at the front desk and took seats, watching the queue of students who needed parking passes for the new semester. Munford appeared from a side door and welcomed them, walking them back to an interview room furnished with comfortable seating and calming artwork.

Denhollander had wanted the face-to-face meeting. She wanted to give Munford her medical records. She wanted to see how seriously Munford took the report. She wanted to see for herself if Munford believed her, because she suspected others had spoken up in the past and been dismissed.

“I was not confident at all at that point,” Denhollander said later. “I really didn’t know what to expect.”

Jacob Denhollander, her husband, didn’t say much, but over the course of the next hour or so, Rachael told Munford about the five times Larry Nassar sexually assaulted her when she was 15. Nassar had digitally penetrated her vagina. He had been sexually aroused.

“I left cautiously optimistic that she was at least going to try, that it had at least been taken seriously and that she appeared to be someone who was trustworthy,” Denhollander said.

Weeks later, after Denhollander had observed Munford’s dogged pursuit of the truth, her optimism was no longer cautious.

“I never knew how afraid they were that I wouldn’t believe them, because that’s not an option,” said Munford, who more than 17 months later still has the piece of paper where she wrote Denhollander’s contact info. The white, rectangular slip has the words “Start by Believing” printed across the top.

Shannon Smith, right, an attorney for Larry Nassar, questions Det. Lt. Andrea Munford on Friday, June 30, 2017, during Larry Nassar’s preliminary hearing before Judge Julie Reincke in Eaton County District Court in Charlotte, Michigan. (Photo: Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal)

The day after the Denhollanders’ visit, Nassar walked through the same front doors at the MSU Police Department. He sat in the same lobby waiting for Munford. She appeared from the same side door, but walked him to a different interview room, one with gray walls and furnishings not chosen for comfort.

Munford started the interview asking what Nassar had changed about treating patients since 2014, when Amanda Thomashow told police and an MSU Title IX investigator that Nassar had sexually assaulted her. The two investigations ended without repercussions, although new protocols were put in place for Nassar when treating patients at MSU.

Nassar said he’d tried to adapt his techniques, then asked his own question.

“Has there been another complaint?” he said. “I’m just, like, confused right now.”

Munford redirected him back to talking about his changes since 2014, hoping to learn if the description of anything he had stopped doing matched what Denhollander experienced 16 years earlier.

When Nassar began making excuses about why he wasn’t following the new protocols, Munford later said, she knew he was being intentionally inappropriate with patients.

“I lecture on this,” Nassar told her. “That’s the thing that’s frustrating. It’s so, you know, the sacrotuberous ligament, it runs from the pubic symphysis, the falciform process, it runs, it’s like the pelvic floor.”

(Part of the interview is seen below during a preliminary hearing in June 2017)

A taped interview between Dr. Larry Nassar and MSU Police Det. Lt. Andrea Munford plays on Friday, June 23, 2017, in 55th District Court, during Nassar’s preliminary hearing in Mason. Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal

“OK,” Munford said.

“People don’t understand this stuff,” Nassar told her. “So you’re really coming in, the way I describe it, you know, even in some of the videos is, is that if you go towards the labia and go lateral, so you’re going in and apart. And that, there’s muscles that attach to the ligament. And so as you’re treating that, you can feel the release. And that’s, like, a great teaching thing, too.”

The spiral into technical terms in Munford’s interview illustrated how Nassar evaded prosecution for so long. His medical explanations convinced Meridian Township police not pursue charges in a 2004 investigation. Medical information also was part of the unsuccessful 2014 case.

Povilaitis would call this Nassar’s built-in defense.

Munford later said the medical explanations didn’t matter for her, because Nassar couldn’t answer simple questions about whether he had been sexually aroused — “I can’t explain that. Because that should, when I, when I’m working, I’m working” — and whether he had digitally penetrated a 15-year-old girl’s vagina.

‘Their words have power’

When Povilaitis first met with Munford, O’Brien and MSU Police Chief Jim Dunlap in early October 2016, she didn’t know much about their Nassar investigation.

Michigan Assistant Attorney General Angie Povilaitis sits in her Detroit office, Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018. (Photo: Kathleen Galligan, Detroit Free Press)

She knew he was a doctor, that there were several victims making delayed reports of sexual abuse. And she knew she wanted the case. So Povilaitis told them about James Rapp.

Rapp was a Catholic priest who in 2013 was nearing release from an Oklahoma prison, where he was serving time for sexually assaulting young boys. He had taught at Lumen Christi High School in Jackson in the 1980s, and two men came forward to tell the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department that Rapp had abused them when they were students. More victims came forward and in 2015 Povilaitis filed 19 sexual assault charges against Rapp, who eventually pleaded no contest.

The night before Rapp’s sentencing in April 2016, Povilaitis organized a dinner and meeting for about 10 victims. The next morning, several gave impact statements during the sentencing.

“Why should we go forward now with a 30-year-old case? We are preventing future abuse,” Povilaitis told the judge before he sentenced Rapp to 20 to 40 years in prison. “There is no doubt in my mind the fact that these men had the courage to come forward is preventing another child from living a similar fate.

“… Why go forward with a case so many years later? So that we can have a day like we had today. These survivors can know that they’re finally believed and supported, they can confront the evil that has haunted them and their families for decades. They can finally see that their words have power.”

Povilaitis, a former child abuse prosecutor in Wayne County, joined the AG’s office in 2012. Her position is paid for through a federal grant aimed at improving prosecutions of crimes against women: sexual assault, stalking and domestic violence. She works with county prosecutors and takes on cold-case sexual assaults.

The Rapp prosecution was successful, Povilaitis told Munford, Dunlap and O’Brien, because she uses a victim-centered approach. That’s why she wanted to give all the victims in Rapp’s case a chance to speak.

The victim-centered approach is about understanding that the right path for a victim might not be prosecution, but treatment or a restraining order or just telling someone. It’s about treating victims as more than witnesses to their own assaults. At the most basic level, it directs police and prosecutors to start by believing.

Munford shot O’Brien an eager look.

It was their approach, too, one Dunlap initiated years earlier and Munford worked to implement.

Povilaitis said the AG’s Office wanted take on the prosecution of the Nassar sexual assault cases.

That’s what Munford had hoped for.

“Is it inappropriate to high five right now?” she asked the room.

Munford and Povilaitis walked out of Dunlap’s office and into Munford’s. They needed to get to work.

‘You just let them talk’

Munford and Povilaitis took a plane from Detroit to Chicago and a cab from O’Hare International Airport to a three-story brick building in the 1300 block of North Dearborn Street in the city’s Gold Coast neighborhood.

It was late October 2016 and they were meeting Kyle Stephens, whose phone call to Munford helped police get their search warrant for Nassar’s home and led to the discovery of the child pornography evidence.

Stephens was 6 years old when Nassar started abusing her. She wasn’t a patient, just the daughter of family friends. The abuse went on during family visits for six years. He masturbated in front of her, rubbed her feet against his penis and digitally penetrated her vagina.

Kyle Stephens, who was abused by Larry Nassar as a child while visiting his home with her family, addresses Larry Nassar on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018, the first day of victim-impact statements in his Ingham County sentencing hearing. Behind Stephens at left are her mother and Assistant Attorney General Angela Povilaitis. (Photo: Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State )

Stephens told her parents in 2004, but they didn’t believe her.

But those details weren’t yet known publicly, and to many people Nassar remained a beloved and respected doctor.

Munford and Povilaitis planned to charge Nassar for the sexual assaults committed during medical appointments. But to do so, they needed to fully understand osteopathic medical procedures, find experts and select the right cases. In other words, they needed time.

With Stephens, they had a case that could be charged without delay because Nassar would have no chance to use his medical defense. “I mean, he sexually assaulted a child in the basement of his home,” Munford said.

But if Stephens’ case was charged first, it would stand alone for some time. They needed to know she could handle that.

So they headed to Chicago and to Restoration Hardware, which sells upscale furniture and home decorations and offers a café, a wine vault and a coffee bar to accompany its display rooms. Most importantly for Munford and Povilaitis, the atmosphere would be far from a sterile room in a police station. For Stephens, who picked the meeting spot, the store was somewhere she’d feel comfortable, somewhere that might lighten the mood.

Stephens was waiting in the foyer when Munford and Povilaitis arrived.

They started at the table Stephens had a friend reserve for them and ordered a charcuterie plate. They talked about the store, then ordered lunch. They had coffee.

And they talked.

“You just let them have a free narrative,” Povilaitis said. It’s a skill she picked up prosecuting child abuse cases. “Lawyers and police don’t often do a good job listening. We want to jump in all the time. With Kyle, we talked about college and soccer and her job and everything except this.”

They talked about abuse in general terms. About Munford’s and Povilaitis’ backgrounds. About their focus on sexual assault, which impressed Stephens.

After lunch, the three walked from display room to display room until they found one they liked. They continued to talk, diving deeper into the sensitive details while they moved from couch to couch and people around them shopped for furniture.

They talked for several hours that day.

Talking to Munford and Povilaitis was easy, Stephens recalls. They were interested in the details, but in a good way. And they were kind, she said.

Afterward, Stephens, who shakes when she talks about the abuse, was emotionally and physically exhausted. She went back to work.

Munford and Povilaitis, who were fast becoming friends, went back to the airport and talked over a shared plate of pasta.

“She got to know us, I think, and trust us,” Povilaitis later said of that visit. “And we were ready to pull the trigger as quick as we could.”

An arrest at a tire shop

On a Monday in late November, Munford walked into a magistrate’s office in 55th District Court in Mason and walked out with an arrest warrant for Nassar in the Stephens case.

Munford feared that Nassar, who had been fired months earlier, might still be abusing young girls.

“What if people were letting their daughters go for medical treatment at his house?” she said. “Because we knew that he did that in his basement.”

While Munford was with the magistrate, an MSU police surveillance team was watching Nassar. Once she told them she had a warrant, they watched for an opportunity to move in.

That happened at the Belle Tire on South Pennsylvania Avenue near Interstate 96, while Nassar waited to put air in his car’s tires.

Nassar was in handcuffs by the time Munford arrived.

Former Michigan State University doctor Larry Nassar appeared via video teleconference during a hearing on Nov. 22, 2016. (Photo: Chris Haxel/Lansing State Journal)

Larry, you’re under arrest for sexual assault, she told him as she led him to a police car.

Nassar’s only comment during the arrest was to ask what they would do with his car.

Munford called Stephens to break the news.

The next day, during a news conference, Attorney General Bill Schuette called Nassar a “predator” who stole Stephens’ childhood.

Nassar, at this point, still had support from large swaths of the community despite having been fired by MSU and facing a growing number of sexual assault allegations. Just weeks earlier, he had received 2,730 votes for the Holt School Board, though he’d pulled out of the race. He was lining up supporters who might testify as character witnesses should he ever face a trial.

Munford and Povilaitis, who stood behind Schuette during the news conference, had hoped that news of Stephens’ charges would erode Nassar’s support. It wouldn’t.

‘Many sleepless nights’

Povilaitis made the 85-mile drive from her office in Detroit’s Cadillac Place to the police department on MSU’s campus countless times during the case, often turning on her Spotify playlist “Fierce,” which included “Fight Song” by Rachel Platten and “Just Imagine It” by MKTO.

Povilaitis used these drives to go over legal arguments and rebuttals in her head. She returned phone calls and touched base with victims. She called her own voicemail, to leave reminders of ideas or things she needed to do, sometimes returning to her office to find a half dozen messages from herself.

Michigan Assistant Attorney General Angie Povilaitis speaks about pursuing the prosecution of Larry Nassar from her Detroit office, Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018. (Photo: Kathleen Galligan, Detroit Free Press)

And on most of the return trips, Povilaitis carried with her more case files picked up from the “Angie Pile” Munford kept on her desk: hefty, brown accordion-style folders filled with police reports, medical records, notes about victims who reported abuse by Nassar.

Povilaitis organized the files in black, plastic containers that look like tall tackle boxes stacked against a wall of her office. She started with one box. Then came the second, third and fourth. She was building her encyclopedic knowledge of the victims and their stories. A week after the case ended, there were at least a dozen of these boxes, sitting just below a whiteboard Povilaitis had used that summer to plan a third round of charges against Nassar.

As the case grew, Assistant Attorney General Robyn Liddell joined Povilaitis’ prosecution team, and the then months later so did Chris Allen.

At the height of the police investigation, 18 MSU officers were working the case with Munford, but she interviewed most of the women or girls who reported abuse, especially early on. She did it in person in the soft interview room at the police department, the room with couches and art selected to make a traumatic experience a little less so.

That’s where Munford met Larissa Boyce.

Larissa Boyce confronts Larry Nassar on Friday, Jan. 19, 2018, in Judge Rosemarie Aquilina’s courtroom during the fourth day of victim-impact statements in Ingham County, Michigan. Boyce first reported her abuse to an MSU coach in 1997. (Photo: Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal)

Now a mother of four, Boyce was 16 when she was abused in 1997 as member of the Spartan Youth Gymnastics program. She said she told Kathie Klages, the coach, who didn’t believe her. Klages told Nassar and no one else, Boyce said, adding that she was made to believe she was the problem. Shame, humiliation and trauma followed.

Boyce had carried those feelings for nearly 20 years when she walked into the MSU police department to tell someone else what Nassar did. Like other women and girls, her report was prompted by an Indianapolis Star story that detailed Denhollander’s abuse by Nassar.

“She was wonderful,” Boyce said of Munford.

They talked Netflix and chocolate, two things that helped Munford cope with the grueling pace of the 17-month case. She watched “Lost” (she didn’t like the ending) and “How to Get Away with Murder,” and ate Lindor chocolate truffles and Dove ice cream bars.

Munford also spoke to victims on the phone late at night at home. When they needed to talk, she wanted to listen.

“There were many sleepless nights where I know she couldn’t turn it off,” said her husband, Lt. Dan Munford, also of the MSU Police Department. He attended nearly every day of Nassar’s sentencing hearings and was the officer in the plaid shirt who helped deputies subdue a distraught father who rushed at Nassar in Eaton County.

“Being able to there for her, just making her know I had her back and the department did,” he said, “was important.”

She went about two weeks at the start of the investigation without a day off. She brought work home. For the first two months, Munford did about four victim interviews a day.

“I know how heavy it is on their mind,” she said of the victims. “I didn’t want them to have to wait.”

On Feb. 22, 2017, about four months into the investigation with Nassar in federal custody on child pornography charges and 81 women reporting abuse, Munford went to get warrants for more than 20 new charges, all related to medical appointments.

The outside world knew little about what Nassar had done to the women and girls, or whether it could fall within some medically acceptable standards.

“He made it sound like it was this well-known treatment that he did,” Munford said. “And, the more we dove into it, the more we realized no one else does it. He had created this little niche for himself that no one would question.”

‘Until the judge told me not to’

Povilaitis realized the attention the Nassar case was getting when she walked into a small courtroom in Mason on the day Stephens was set to testify in a preliminary hearing. The room was at capacity with attorneys, reporters and cameras.

“It was just this surreal moment,” she said. “It was gross. I was like, ‘This is disgusting. This is somebody’s life. This is not entertainment. This is not a front page.’ But she handled it awesome. Not that we ever had any doubt.”

Stephens, who wouldn’t be publicly identified until Nassar’s sentencing, later said Povilaitis asked questions in the best way possible, allowing her to lay out the facts. It made an uncomfortable process a little less so.

The week after Stephens testified, the new charges were filed. The media attention only grew. Before those victims would give their testimony in a similar hearing, one woman whose case was part of those new charges told Povilaitis she couldn’t go forward.

“At that point in her life it was too much, and we had many conversations about the best way to support her and honor her choices and give her legitimate choices, and at that point she chose for us to dismiss those charges,” Povilaitis later said in court.

In May and June, the remaining nine women would testify.

From the witness stand in that cramped, brick-walled courtroom in Mason, victims could see almost everything: the prosecutors, the judge, the TV cameras and reporters in the jury box. And Nassar, the man who abused them.

“That really bothered a few of them,” Povilaitis said of Nassar’s presence in the courtroom. Some victims had considered Nassar a friend and were still coming to terms with the fact that someone they thought cared about them had abused them.

As Povilaitis questioned victims, Nassar was directly to her left, almost impossible to avoid seeing.

Cross examination of alleged victim Rachael Denhollander from Larry Nassar’s defense attorneys. Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal

So occasionally Povilaitis leaned to her left, blocking the line of sight for the women in the witness stand. It was a protective instinct, to make them feel at ease.

“If I could somehow block him to make them more comfortable,” she said, “then I was going to do it until the judge told me not to.”

‘He’s always manipulating’

Munford was next to Povilaitis in an Ingham County courtroom in late November and was holding her breath.

Weeks earlier they had been preparing for Nassar’s trial. The child pornography evidence had eroded his support, but he and his attorneys were sticking to his medical defense in the face of more than 120 reports of abuse. Then came word that Nassar was open to a plea deal.

Munford worried it might be an attempt at manipulation. “He’s always manipulating,” she said. “Always.”

Larry Nassar is sworn in by Judge Rosemarie Aquilina on Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017, before pleading guilty to seven sex assault charges in Ingham County Circuit Court.. (Photo: Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal)

On the morning of Nov. 22, with plea agreements in Ingham and Eaton counties in writing, Nassar walked into Judge Rosemarie Aquilina’s courtroom. Reporters, photographers and TV cameras crowded the jury box and the space around Aquilina. Nassar stood at the podium in front of the judge.

“I was terrified he wasn’t going to go through with it,” Munford said. “I would listen to his jail calls and I kept listening for things to ensure me that he was really going to do it. But I was never sure until he actually pled guilty.”

In all, Nassar pleaded guilty to 10 sexual assault charges split between Ingham and Eaton counties. Gag orders were lifted, allowing Nassar’s victims to tell their stories more freely.

In early December, Munford and Povilaitis sat together in the gallery of a federal courtroom in Grand Rapids for Nassar’s child pornography sentencing.

Neff’s 60-year sentence, which all but assured that 54-year-old Nassar would die in federal custody, seemed to lessen the significance of the Ingham County sentencing hearing set to begin in January.

‘Povilaitis meeting’

One after another, dozens of women and girls walked into the Hannah Community Center in East Lansing, a repurposed school building not far from the MSU campus.

A sign on the banquet room said “Povilaitis meeting.” Inside, they found pizza, cupcakes and worry stones, small black stones painted with inspirational messages like “You Matter,” “Be Strong” and “believe.” Many would carry those stones to court in the days that followed.

That night, conversation flowed. Some had traveled from across the state, others from Illinois or Kentucky or farther to be there. Several met Denhollander for the first time, the woman many would credit in their court statements as their inspiration for coming forward.

Povilaitis stood in front of them, much like she had the night before Rapp’s sentencing, and explained how the next week would go, what court would be like, where Nassar would sit as they gave their impact statements.

Munford was there, too. She had been waiting months, in some cases more than a year, for these women to meet each other and know that they weren’t alone.

The message from Munford and Povilaitis was encouraging, supportive and eased the tension, Boyce said.

Nassar’s sentencing hearing started the next morning, Jan. 16, in Aquilina’s courtroom on the third floor of Veterans Memorial Courthouse in downtown Lansing. Prosecutors expected 88 women and girls to speak over four days.

‘An army of amazing women’

Stephens was the first at the podium.

“Perhaps you have figured it out by now, but little girls don’t stay little forever,” she told Nassar. “They grow into strong women that return to destroy your world.”

Kyle Stephens was the first victim of nearly 100 to speak Tuesday at a sentencing hearing for Larry Nassar. Stephens, whose parents were friends with the now disgraced doctor, said he repeatedly sexually abused her when she was a child. (Jan. 16) AP

Stephens — whom Munford and Povilaitis had needed to know could carry a case on her own — set the unrelenting tone for what followed.

The hearing, broadcast live with journalists from dozens of outlets present, began to catch the attention of a nation learning of Nassar, his crimes and his victims for the first time.

Stephens’ quote made headlines and adorned signs at the Women’s Marches around the country the following weekend.

“They ended up helping people,” Stephens said of Munford and Povilaitis. The help was not only with seeking justice, but with healing — something the court process doesn’t always foster. “I feel very lucky to have them in my life.”

Melody Posthuma Vanderveen, the woman who hadn’t been ready to testify against Nassar seven months earlier, spoke on Day 3.

“Giving him a life sentence today is what I am asking for, but that is just the starting grounds for what really needs to happen going forward,” she said. “Organizations, businesses, our schools and universities, specifically, should be on high alert to protect innocent children, beginning with women.”

Each day more women and girls came forward asking to speak. And each day more women and girls shed anonymity and shame, telling the world their names and what Nassar did to them.

As the world watched, they were learning what Povilaitis had said during Rapp’s sentencing: That their words have power.

Four days were no longer enough.

Logistics — who would speak each day and in what order — were adjusted each night. Povilaitis, Liddell and Rebecca Snyder, the newly hired victims’ advocate for the AG’s office, did the work from a hotel about a half mile from Nassar’s old MSU office.

Boyce was the last to speak on Day 4, the 105th to do so.

“You chose the wrong prey,” she told Nassar. “We are athletes. We will not give up or give in. We are trained to fight past the pain and hurt. United we are now, an army of amazing women who are paving the path to justice and change.”

Sitting at the prosecution table, Povilaitis from time to time wrote a few words on sticky note. As victims walked by after speaking, she gave them a hug and handed them a note.

“I was trying to — it’s going to sound super cheesy — I was trying to take my strength and pass it on somehow,” she said.

Attention to the proceedings grew. Celebrities and politicians were praising the women, criticizing the institutions that failed to protect them and condemning Nassar and his crimes. The world finally heard Larissa Boyce, Tiffany Thomas Lopez, Brianne Randall-Gay, Kyle Stephens and Amanda Thomashow describe how they weren’t believed when they first reported Nassar.

On Jan. 24, Denhollander was the last to speak on the seventh and final day in Ingham County, the 156th to do so.

“May the horror expressed in this courtroom over the last seven days be motivation for anyone and everyone, no matter the context, to take responsibility if they have erred in protecting a child, to understand the incredible failures that lead to this week, and to do it better the next time,” she said.

The Eaton County hearing took three days, ending on Feb. 5. By then, 265 women and girls had told police they were abused by Nassar.

Det. Lt. Andrea Munford of the MSU Police Department waits to hear Judge Rosemarie Aquilina’s sentence in the case of Larry Nassar on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2018, in Ingham County Circuit Court. (Photo: Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal)

Don’t forget what you’ve seen here, Povilaitis said in court, addressing the world now paying attention. And don’t forget what it took to get here, because it shouldn’t take what it did, she said, adding, “We must all start by believing victims when they tell.”

Nassar was then sentenced for the third and final time in an eight week stretch, all by female judges.

A shell of the man Munford interviewed 17 months earlier, Nassar walked out of the courtroom the last time wearing an orange jail jumpsuit, his legs shackled at the ankles and his hands cuffed to a thick, black restraining belt.

Assistant Attorney General Angela Povilaitis smiles as Rachael Denhollander addresses Judge Rosemarie Aquilina on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2018, during the seventh day of victim impact statements in Ingham County Circuit Court. (Photo: Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal)

Povilaitis made a point to watch until he was gone. Within days he’d be at a federal prison in Arizona.

“What if it had just been Kyle?” Povilaitis said later. “I think about that often. What if Kyle’s parents had reported it to the police in 2004? I would have charged that case in a minute. But I don’t know that every prosecutor would have. Or would we have gotten the same result? You would have had this prominent man who was a doctor who had all the accolades.”

Over the course of the investigation and prosecution, Munford had been inside Nassar’s home, inside his email, inside his laptop, Facebook account, cell phone and more. She read his text messages and listened to his phone calls from jail. Munford has come closer than anyone to understanding Nassar’s manipulations, deceptions and obsessions.

“But,” she said, “we never saw the true evil that made him do all this.”

Follow Matt Mencarini on Twitter @MattMencarini.

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chaplaingumdrop · 7 years

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My Boss the Scam Artist

I figure the best place to start writing memoir is from the back. So let me show you the back half of my story.

My grandfather died on New Year’s Day. I went home for the first time in two years for the funeral. I saw my father for the first time in ten years. Not that I hadn’t already been kind of a big smoker, but from the time I left Kalamazoo to go north until just a few days ago, I’ve been pretty much high non-stop. Some of it was good and fun bonding with my uncle, who can’t smoke much because of his job, and my little brother, who is an MRA and possibly the angriest MMJ patient I’ve ever known. A lot of it was me toking up by myself every few hours. To be perfectly honest, if I hadn’t taken that job working for my friend’s fledgling law office, I’d be baked now, not writing this memoir, and my rent would be paid.

When we first met, my employer-to-be was a prostitute. She worked under the name of Sophie St. Clair, servicing the men of Kalamazoo to pay her way through law school. She was also my primary source of marijuana. I used to come visit, smoke and watch Game of Thrones with her, and duck into the kitchen when a gentleman came to call. She had two kids, a live-in partner who was super chill but had a nasty temper and scared the shit out of her kids. Fun to smoke with though, fascinating human being. The kids were pretty cool too. They weren’t super verbal, but they were toddlers, so it’s to be expected. Over the next year of knowing Sophie they grew into awesome little kids, and I would begin to learn how messed up things were.

Sophie was smoking quite a bit of pot until she started actually working in law, then she transitioned to harder drugs with much shorter half-lives. I never realized the extent of her drug use, but only because I was in my own head too much and ignored the obvious signs of very serious addiction. I also understood having an opiate problem. I had watch my mom struggle with her addiction to prescription pain-killers following several hospital stays complete with very regular administrations of morphine. Sophie had been a veteran and was badly wounded in Iraq, so her replacement parts caused her a great deal of pain. She had gotten addicted to morphine and transitioned to heroin when the VA cut her off, as it was cheaper than pharmaceutical drugs. She had borrowed, as well as stolen, several hundred dollars from me. It all culminated in my paying an electric bill for her and then having her ghost on me, moving a few times, business, rehab, what have you. After rehab she’s still hooking, and she’s smoking crack now, but I never saw her injecting drugs again. Progress, I figure. I introduce her to my roomies because we play D&D and I want to provide her with some social support so she can stay clean and happy. Sometime around the holidays I meet her new assistant, who does not remain her assistant long, leaving after he learned of her prostitution days, taking the dog with him. Enter Rain, grieving my grandfather, smoking too much, and desperately needing a distraction other than my single graduate class.

So it started normally enough, I was given some tasks and we had a lot of boring lawyer talk. I made my own contract on RocketLawyer and did W4 and insurance. Her retainer accounts were apparently messed up however, so I needed to cover some retainers to keep handling business. No big deal, I have some cash from student loans and can loan my lawyer friend some money, it’s in my contract that I get reimbursed for out-of-pocket costs. Her daughter gets a bad urinary tract infection and her ex hits her up for money to take care of it, which I agree to because I adore her children and want them well and happy.

We have to cancel our first business trip because of an unreliable driver (she isn’t allowed to drive because of seizures related to a TBI), and then a client who fucked up really bad and got locked up. Steadily and surely our trips get canceled, I wonder why I ever try to plan anything with her, and I keep smoking to deal with the stress that she’s causing me.

Then she started getting sick. Frequent seizures, general tiredness, bad shit. She had some scans done, there was a shadow on the scan, which upon biopsy would turn out to be a malignant tumor pressing on her TBI. A month goes by, I’ve loaned her money without a scrap of repayment, much less my wages. She’s sleeping on my couch with my youngest roommate, who has taken it upon himself to look after her health. They’re also fucking. It’s sort of cute, so I enjoy it for a bit. We keep doing lawyer things, I am suspicious but not enough to not continue going along with it all. Eventually, my accounts are drained. That’s when I notice a lack of documents coming my way and she’s started doing her lawyer talk stuff with her nursemaid. Every time I mention to her that she owes me 10k she says I’m next in line, she’s being hit up by everybody and has these medical bills and all. Predictably, she is never able to go out and get me my money or to go to the office to pick up the mail with my bar card and insurance information. She says her colleague Mark was going to drop it off, but then got stuck in Detroit helping sort out the travel ban, which was among my early work for her and a cause that I care about very deeply as a person of faith.

As of today two months have passed. I am unpaid. She is still on my couch, fucking my roommate. By this point I had started to shake off the haze and bothered to do some research. My active mourning period had mostly ended, or at least paused. My partner has been immensely helpful to me. She’s a student, an activist, and worthy of far more respect than I afford her due to her age and experience. She happened to meet Mark (the very same) at a meeting regarding the creation of a new county ID (we’re a sanctuary city, so the county is creating identification cards to help refugees and immigrants get around more easily). They had the chance to talk and as it turns out my boss has never been a lawyer. This disturbs me greatly, as I realize I don’t have a signed contract because of reasons. First it was a lost file, then it was her just never getting around to it, so I had asked my partner to print off a couple of copies so I can just make my “boss” sign. She claims to need her notary stamp, which brings us to the meeting. My partner had the good fortune to not interact much with Sara and brought fresh eyes and a sober mind to my life. She found that super sketchy and made a point of helping me when I wasn’t sure how to help myself or sort out what I believed about anything or anybody. Nobody is objective about their partners, but it’s nice that she’s better at addressing my suffering than I am. What she learned from Mark was that Sophie had worked with him once on an assignment in law school and then proceeded to throw his name around a lot. He was also never stuck in Detroit helping out refugees, she did not rent the office space next to his, and he’s really tired of having people call up to ask about her. Upon further research we determined that the registration number she gave me belongs to a lawyer with a very low internet profile a few towns away, and I had never bothered to look into it until now. It was fairly clear that I needed to force a signature and begin preparing to take action.

Thursday, March 16, Sophie told us her five year-old daughter had just died. I loved this child like one of those friends your kid calls auntie or uncle but actually isn’t. The thing is, I’d begun to suspect something was up with the kids for a while. I messaged a friend who had been ripped off by her, who told me to message the children’s grandmother, who could answer my questions for me. I was then contacted by the children’s stepmother, who very angrily informed me that the children are secure and happy, with parents who love them. She shamed her/us for having the nerve to intrude into their lives with Sophie’s scams and lies, that she had plenty of chances to get her shit together and be a mom to the kids. That it was her choice to be a hooker and abuse heroin. That the police keep coming to her home trying to arrest Sophie, that she’d received a letter from the Sheriff stating that she’d jumped bail too many times and would remain in jail until trial, and that if she ever wanted to leave Kalamazoo forever, this would be a damned good time. Then she promptly severed the line of communication and I was unable to reply. Today I sent a message to her husband to thank him and assure him I’d do what needs to be done. I assured him that Sophie had not been using my Facebook to access photos of the kids for one of her schemes, that I had been burned by her to the tune of 8-10k, and all I needed was answers. He asked for her new phone number, just to try to keep tabs on her. I gave it, and he began to answer my questions.

He told me she has around six active warrants for her arrest, and some waiting for her back in California. One of them for prostitution, one for impersonation of a court official, three theft warrants (one being for guns), and one for failure to pay child-support. He also told me she was never in the Marines, and that her hips are 100% real and made of bones growing in her body. He told me they split because the Sheriff picked her up and took her to prison in another state. That the “rape” (quotations his) she had blamed the dissolution of their relationship on had occurred when she got released and started turning tricks down there. He told me she’s got a teenage kid somewhere in Arizona, and that this isn’t the first or even the second time she has pretended one of her kids had died so she could run a new scam on somebody.

Hours later, an old friend visited. We’ll call her Alyssa. She had overdone it one night and struck a housemate in drunken rage. Police were called. She went to jail. She just got out today and she’s not allowed in her house while the housemate is still living there. She had contacted Sophie for help with the situation. The moment she and Sophie had stepped outside to talk I immediately informed her partner that Sophie was not a lawyer and that Sophie’s daughter had not died. He seemed puzzled, but also like he’d expected to find out that Sophie was a fraud. I shared as much as I could before they returned inside. Alyssa’s partner told me about her situation and that she didn’t have a place to go at the moment. I offered my bed should she require it, and he went to retrieve some things from the house and bring her an overnight bag. Shortly after he left I retreated downstairs while Sophie and Alyssa talked. I began to hear powerful weeping and realized that Sophie was telling Alyssa about her daughter. I bit my tongue while waiting for an opportunity, which arrived shortly. Alyssa joined me in my bedroom and we talked. I told her what I knew and showed her what I had gathered. I told her of my plans to file a police report after the holiday weekend (St. Patrick’s Day, I expect the police to be processing drunks through Sunday, so finding time to meet me for paperwork seems unlikely).

Alyssa and I make our reports on Monday.

#chapter #inprogress #biographies & memoirs

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spanglerscribbles · 7 years

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Sticky Notes on My Face.

Considering what is going on in the world at this point, I thought I’d share I bit of my personal history regarding a certain psychological battle (albeit still ongoing) that I’m sure many of you will relate to. No politics here. This will be a safe space. Plus, I need to write this out and get it off my chest. I figured those who read this will get a better understanding of the human being behind the screen and/or find out more about themselves after reading my story.

I want you to pay close attention to this next paragraph.

I’m the first born child in my little family, and soon became an older sister to my baby brother after 3 years of waddling on planet earth. As I grew up, I was homeschooled. Despite the social stigma regarding this private system, it’s made me who I am today. I would go back and do it all over again. I was raised by my mom and dad, my mom being a highly esteemed worship leader at our local church, and my dad being on staff at said church as the kid’s ministry pastor. I would have been around 10 when they got these positions. I followed after my mom’s footsteps and joined our youth group’s worship team as a singer. Later, I began to discover a more creative side of myself. I’m an artist, in the general term. To narrow it down, I am in the visual arts, dappling in graphite and digital mediums. But to be even MORE specific, as I grew older I became a conceptual developer, character designer, digital illustrator, graphic designer, animator, screen writer, and creative director, to name a few. I am now a graduate of Kalamazoo Valley Community college, with a degree in animation with honors. Currently, I am nearing the end of production for my first collaborative, animated short film that will release in the coming months.

Wonderful. Now that I’ve talked about myself, I want you to do something for me. Count all of the titles I have stated in the segment above. Adding the obviously worded statements plus the one’s loosely mentioned… that’s 17.

17 titles mentioned about myself. Out all those 17, which stood out to you the most? Which sounded more appealing to you? Were they intriguing? Relatable? Likable?

Whether we like it or not, we are all labeled. There will always be some aspect of us that people identify with as soon as our name is mentioned, and it will always have a name.

I want you to think up a list of all the titles and labels others have given you or that you’ve given to yourself. Think up as many as you can. A contractor, Pastor’s kid, singer, university student, doctor, engineer, couch potato, foodie, pretty, ugly, football player, band geek, hyper, emo, conservative, liberal…

It could be a small list or an extensive list. Think of all of yours? Great.

Who would you be if they all just went away?

Photo by Kelsey Wilson

Are These Labels What Really Define Me?

I want you to go back to the list of my own titles. There were plenty to choose from such as homeschooler, worship leader’s kid, pastor’s kid and artist. Those were the labels I was known for growing up.

When my family moved to Michigan and started going to our awesome local church, I had to start my life over. I was a fresh face, a newbie. I had to start making new friends, but I didn’t know how. I grew up with friends already by my side back in Indiana. Meeting new people and befriending them was a foreign concept to me at the time.

But soon, kids and adults alike began to address me as Karen’s kid or Brad’s kid… since my parent’s faces were quickly becoming well known in the community. Which, for some reason, made me popular. I befriended other PKs (pastor’s kids) while my dad was on staff. I remember two or three kids in particular I gravitated towards during those first few years in the mitten state. We would often stay in church all day on Sunday because of our parent’s pastoral obligations, so we would run up and down the office space and just be goofy kids.

I was homeschooled from 1st grade onward, which was another label I was recognized for as I went into middle school. I never went to co-op, or went to many outside classes with others in the homeschool community, so all of my friendships were cultivated in our church’s youth group. Everyone knows once you go into middle school, things start to change… everywhere. Kids start to judge things they don’t understand a little more harshly than before. So a lot of the kids I tried to be friends with picked on me for having that label. So for a long time, I tried to suppress that and make my PK status more prominent.

But I was in middle school now and my dad wasn’t overseeing these grades. So that title was only visible to a select group of kids along with the adults in my life who respected my parents. With my credibility gradually declining, I had to find another title that would help maintain what social status I had. So I started bringing my sketchbook to youth group with me.

Kids were drawn to me like a moth to a flame. It was like I had these sticky notes on my face that listed all the titles I had in my possession that molded me into this appealing museum piece. I was shocked to see so many kids I’ve never met just walk up to me and gawk at my drawings. I did’t even need to initiate anymore… I just had to create interesting things to gain the interest of others. Almost every week I would come in early, sit down on the couch, just draw whatever come to mind, and let people come my way. From then on, I was known as the artist. I would post art on Facebook, I would create more drawings on my off time to show off on social media and in person. This went on, and it worked. Until life decided to not go my way.

Photo by Gregg Lawson

Loss of Self.

It was the summer of my last year in middle school. I remember my family sitting down at the dinner table and my dad telling us the news that he was leaving his position as the children’s pastor. Soon after that, my mom stepped down from the worship team after singing in every morning service for nearly 5 years. Just like that, 2 prominent titles that the world identified me with were gone. I wasn’t the pastor’s kid anymore. I wasn’t the worship leader’s kid anymore.

I panicked. I literally had anxiety attacks over this for months. I had no idea how this would affect me and my friendships and other people’s perceptions down the road. It got worse once I transitioned into high school.

I was friends with all lower classmen, besides a few guys I hung out with in my same grade. But they changed drastically in short span of time, and seemed as though they did’t want anything to do with me. I was in the midst of an identity crisis, and I had to figure out someway to make myself appealing to these new, older, taller group of students with the only positive label I had to my name.

I worked my butt off to be known as the creative artist.

I didn’t bring my sketchpad with me as often as I used to, but I drew almost every day. I honed my skills, and got better. I posted more online, I made more friends over seas because of my art. I had a batch of “online friends” to brag about to people. I wrote stories to draw more characters about. I did everything to make myself look as impressive as a freshmen could with the talent that I had.

Come sophomore year, I gradually found my people. I clung to these new friends every weekend, because they were the only ones that accepted me. I drew for them. I made art for them. I tried to appeal myself to them as often as I could. In hindsight, the smothering of creative adulation was farfetched and unnecessary, but back then that was the only thing I knew to do to maintain a relationship.

So I got better. I drew more and more. I wrote creative stories, and built magical worlds with my visual talent. I made all of my work known to people. Creating art began to transform into an obligation than a pleasant pastime. Once I graduated high school and my friends parted ways, it crashed on top of me like a dump truck. The friends I thought I had weren’t intentional about keeping in touch. They found new labels, and were drawn to those of the same name. I was left alone, on my own path. All the work I poured into art was squandered. It meant nothing. Even in the midst of working towards my animation degree, I had no passion for it. Not only did I lose my love for creativity, I lost my identity.

Photo by Chris Holt

Who Are You, Really?

Freshman year of college was a rough time for me. In the midst of change, I had to take a few steps back to rediscover myself. My whole perception of love and friendship came out of the mindset that I had to perform. I felt I needed to create more content, to live up to my artistic title in order to get the admiration I wanted from the people around me. Because that was what I was known for. That was who I was.

But was it really?

It was’t until a year later I went to a conference with dozens of like-minded creatives, passionate about their craft as well as their calling that I began to understand. I had conversations with people that were twice as old as me who had been dealing with these same issues. There were professionals in the industry who talked about these things. It was then I knew I wasn’t alone on this journey of self discovery… but it doesn’t have to be as complicated as one might think.

So what if all my labels disappeared? I was no longer an artist. I could’t sing. I have no talent to speak of. I was’t pretty, but I was’t ugly. Not athletic or smart. No notable works to be mentioned. I have done nothing to entertain the masses or add to society. Who would I be then?

To my surprise, I’m more than all of those labels combined. I went back to my roots. The foundational truths of God’s Word that I was raised on. It’s amazing how we can go throughout life and sometimes forget or completely disregard what the Bible says about God’s love and promises.

In Romans 8 it describes us as heirs to God, adopted into His family through faith in Jesus. Going on it mentions we have a purpose in His plan as His children.

I am a new creation. 1 Corinthians 5:17

I have not a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7

I was bought with a price. 1 Corinthians 6:20

I am a light. Matthew 5:14

I am blessed. Ephesians 1:3

I am an overcomer. 1 John 5:4

I am more than a conqueror. Romans 8:37

I am loved. Romans 5:8

The list can go on and on. There are so many places in the Bible that state God’s opinions about me. The kicker is that he thought of these things before I was even conceived. Before my heart started beating, before my eyes saw the world, He loved me. I didn’t have to do anything to earn it. He loves me, because He loves me, because He loves me… just because.

I didn’t do anything.

Do you know how much relief I felt when I was reminded of that? There was NOTHING I could do that would make Him love me any more or any less than He does right now. He’s always been in my corner, I was just too blind by my own warped mindset to perform and succeed to gain admiration from others. In reality, it was far simpler than what I imagined.

Photo by Luke Spangler

The Love that Defines You.

I didn’t need to put sticky notes listing my accomplishments and my titles all over me. Those are just things I happen to be called or that I happen to do. Those can come and go. Life has a habit of shifting your perspective that way. But what I know for sure, where my foundation lies and what I am grounded in is the fact that I’m loved by the Creator of the Universe.

You may be reading this with one or two or fifteen labels spinning in your mind that you’re known for. You may feel the pressure to uphold those titles because you feel that if those sticky notes fall away, you would be left with an empty canvas that no one would love or admire.

But know that in the very heart of it all, the treasure of your being is the unconditional love that burns inside you. The Love that wants you to prosper in life. The Love that had a plan and a purpose for you before you were born. The Love that loves your abnormally large nose, the one dimple on your left cheek, your bushy eyebrows and frizzy hair. The Love, that no matter how screwed up you are, or what awful things you may have done, or how many people you’ve hurt, He is there by your side, willing to walk life out with you as you rediscover yourself in Him again.

No matter how others see you, know without a shadow of a doubt, you will always be loved by the One who wanted you here in the first place, just because you’re His creation.

Cheers,

Hannah Spangler

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ecotone99 · 4 years

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[MS] Waking Up in a Strange Place

Logline: A man wakes up in a stranger's house, no clothes, no cell phone, no recollection of how he got there; all he wants is to get home, but he has to solve this puzzle first.

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Norman Mallard slowly opened his eyes, woke up, caught a glimpse of a painting on the wall; he did not recognize it.

"What's that?" Norman is now fully alert. Eyes wide open, he looks around and doesn't recognize the room he's in, at all. Norman leaps to his feet, wearing t-shirts and boxers, "Where am I? Where are my clothes?"

Norman leaves the bedroom to find himself in a stranger's home. He quickly makes his way to the front of the house to the front door; he doesn't know the neighborhood either. A woman across the street is watering her lawn, seeing Norman in his boxers; she gives him a slight eyebrow raise. Norman begins to back-up and back in the house. He's looking around for a phone, "No landline, welcome to modern times."

There's a wedding picture on the wall, the couple looks familiar, but he doesn't know where from. Norman stares at the image for a minute or so, trying to get his recollection,

"I've seen them before." Curious, Norman starts to dig through drawers and cabinets, listening attentively for people coming home.

"Nothing with a name, a bill, junk mail, parking ticket?"

Norman finally finds a math assignment done by a child, on top of the paper is the name Liam Ventura.

"Ventura, where have I heard that name before, Ventura?"

Norman had worked on the police squad for 30 years; he was to retire next fall. Maybe it was a criminal that he busted, looking to get back at him, was he drugged, kidnapped,

"Was I drunk last night." If he was three sheets to the wind somewhere, and someone took him in, afraid he was going to drink and drive, that'd be ok. Norman can't remember anything that he did yesterday, it's like someone erased his brain. He thought to himself, though, it wasn't like anyone was holding him here, he was free to go. After searching most of the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen area, he couldn't find any evidence as to what happened last night.

Norman decided that he would borrow a pair of pants, head home, and look into it another time. He entered the main bedroom, where there was men's clothing in a closet, the shirts embroidered with the letters V and V, that stood for Vic Ventura,

"What a schmuck." Norman knew that name from somewhere; he didn't know where, though.

As it would turn out, the pants were a little too tight; he didn't care, he put on the pants, a snug fit, borrowed a pair of sneakers, and left the house. The neighborhood was familiar yet strange to Norman, it was like he had been here before, but he couldn't recollect where or when. He walked about 10 feet from the house and saw a guy sitting in his car down the road, looking at him.

"What is this guy looking at? Are you looking at me? I'm being watched." Norman decided to call a taxi. He would have called his wife or daughter, but, of course, all of the numbers were saved in his cell phone, which he didn't have. He was probably better off, Norma, his wife, is going to chew him out for not coming home last night.

"She's probably worried sick."

Norman quickly walked across the street and knocked on the neighbor's door.

"Hi, I'm sorry to bother you, could I borrow your phone, I need to call myself a taxi," Norman said as the lady pulled out her cell phone and let him dial.

"Do you mind, could you look up the number for me, I don't know how these dam smart devices work," Norman said. The lady, probably in her early fifties, used the search engine device to look up a number of a taxi company. Norman placed the call.

"Hi, I need a taxi," Norman said into the phone as he looks at the lady for an address.

"265 Mapleton Road," the woman said as Norman repeated the address into the phone.

"I'm sorry I don't have any money on me, but I have some money at the destination, I'll gladly pay you with a large tip when we get there, Ok, thanks," Norman said as he handed back the phone,

"It's been a tough day, thanks for the help," Norman said.

By the time Norman finished the call, the guy who was watching him had driven away or had changed locations. Norman didn't give it much thought and patiently waited for his taxi curbside.

Norman looked at the mailbox, inside there was a bill addressed to Natalie Ventura. The only thing he knew at this point, was this house was owned by a couple named Vic and Natalie Ventura, and they had a son named Liam. Norman figures he may never solve this puzzle, and it'd be best if he just goes home. He pauses for a minute on the name Natalie; it makes him think of his daughter because his daughter is named Natalie, she's off at college now.

The taxi finally comes, Norman gets in and gives his address,

"35 Dexter Street," he says.

"Dexter Street? I don't know that one, what town?" The driver asks.

"Toledo, why, what town is this?" Norman asked.

"You're in Kalamazoo, sir," the driver said.

With that, Norman got out of the taxi; he wasn't about to pay $200 for a cab ride home. He went back into the house; he was determined to wait it out, wait for someone to get there, finally have someone tell him what the hell happened last night.

An hour went by, and Norman's mind started to race, how did he end up in Kalamazoo? He decided to look deeper into the house; there has to be something that connected him with the Ventura's. As Norman was digging through some old boxes in the basement, he stumbled upon photos of his family, his daughter, his wife when they were younger. He starts to think; these people have been stalking me. They had his daughter's high-school diploma, her Honor Society letter, photos of her and her friends, all buried in a box in the basement.

"What the hell is going on here?"

Norman was sure that this couple had kidnapped his daughter, locked her up somewhere, or God forbid, she's already dead. Norman becomes paranoid, he wants answers to questions, and he wants them now. He starts digging around the house for a weapon, so when they come back, he's ready.

Armed with a little league baseball bat from Liam's bedroom, he waits, minutes turn into hours, Norman's about to doze off, when all of a sudden a car pulls into the driveway. Norman's wide awake now, a woman gets out of a Jeep, and enters the back door, Norman is waiting for her.

As the woman enters the house, Norman jumps out, scaring her half to death.

"I want answers right now, where is my daughter?" Norman screams.

"Oh my god, dad, you scared me half to death," the woman says.

"Dad?" Norman says. This woman has to be at least in her late forties, "my daughter's at college, who are you?" Norman asks.

"Oh no, not another spell, Dad, it's me, Natalie, your daughter," Natalie says as she begins to cry.

"I don't believe you; you have her locked up somewhere, it's all connected to this Ventura thing," Norman says.

"Dad, Ventura is my married name, I've been married to Vic Ventura for ten years, don't you remember you were at the wedding," Natalie says.

Norman is trying to recall, but he can't, the last thing he remembers is his daughter going to college. Norman drops the bat and has a seat in the kitchen. The previous 25 years of his life, gone without a trace from his memory. He wants to speak to his wife, Norma, but she died a month ago.

Norman was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's last week when he was arrested in Toledo, trying to enter a house he did not live in. 35 Dexter Street, his residence when he was in the police force. After he was released from the hospital, Natalie and Vic took him in. She spent the afternoon traveling to Toledo to retrieve personal items, clothing, toothbrush, and other amenities for him. She didn't realize it had gotten this bad; she would never have left him alone if she knew he couldn't remember where he was.

Norman did not accept that Natalie was his daughter, so he convinced himself that a plot was going on. Norman was troublesome the rest of the night, and when Vic and Liam came home from a baseball game, he was determined to discover the truth and even threatened Vic with a baseball bat.

Norman was admitted to a 24-hour nursing facility; the Alzheimer's had advanced too rapidly for Vic and Natalie to take care of them on their own. Memory is our reality; it is the foundation on which we understand our position in the world. It's a reference point to people, locations, and moments in life. Without recollection, every day is like waking up in a strange place, trying to find out where you are today. The worst part of it is that your loved ones are affected the most because they watch slowly as you forget who they are.

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#Blogger #Story

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dalovelee1 · 6 years

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Hey, hey now. Thank you for stopping by my blog. There are some spectacular events coming up that my Sistah Queens should not miss. I promise you will not be be disappointed.

HAIR Is Where You’ll Find the Love

Today

It’s my Anniversary. Shout out to my husband of 13 years. Cheers to us! We’re celebrating all weekend at an undisclosed location. I love you Deon. We both need this time away from the world. Let’s wild out.

Pitch Competition sponsored by Michigan Good Food Fund. Grand Rapids is a mecca for black entrepreneurship. That’s one of the many reasons I love my city. It’s nice to see so many brothas and sistahs turn their visions into executed plans. That’s the company I need to keep, positive and determined. Anyway, this is a competition in which six food businesses will compete for $7,500 by pitching their grind to a live audience. I hear the audience will also have an opportunity to vote for one of the business to receive $2,500. The food business are Forty Acres Soul Kitchen, Malamiah Juice Bar, Royal Jelly Foods, Dreamgoats, Good Life Naturals, and The Only Bean. I’ve heard of a few of these places but I’ve never tried them. You know if I did, I’d give you the low down. That’s what my blog is all about. It lasts from 4-7 PM at the Downtown Market, 435 Ionia SW.

Tomorrow, September 15

End of the Summer Food Truck Festival is taking place at the Kent District Library in Kentwood. Go get your grub on with some of the most fastest-growing businesses around. Come back to this post and let me know what was good and what wasn’t.

The Haunt opens. The Haunt is Grand Rapids’ scariest haunted house if you like that kinda thing. It’s at a new location, 1256 28th Street in Wyoming. Go on and face your fears. Scare your kids. Enjoy life. It’s too short. Don’t forget to look in the mail for a get a free admission with a paid admission coupon. They have them every year.

Monday, September 17

The Touch Skin Soft Heart discussion is taking place at the Grand Rapids Public Library downtown. If you haven’t got the book, it was written by Grand Rapid’s very own Shannon Cohen, a true leader and inspiration. She will have a conversation with attendees and Mayor Rosalynn Bliss is moderating. How about that? Go head Shannon. We’re proud of you. She’s going to teach women how to take care of themselves while still taking care of everyone, and everything, else. It’s a free event, but make sure you grab a copy of the book.

Tuesday, September 18

Bax to the Future is an open house for those interested in learning about Baxter Community Center. it’s free and a light lunch is provided. Baxter has several programs that benefit the community, including a child development center, a wholistic health center, mentors and market place where families can get food and clothing. There’s a huge gym with a kitchen that can be rented to the community for birthday parties, resource fairs and other events. Go take a look.

Thursday, September 20

Master Mind Sessions by the Urban Core Collective is taking place at the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce. If you aren’t familiar with the Urban Core Collective, it’s a non-profit that addresses systemic racism. the Master Mind Sessions empower minority leaders through a panel discussion on the third Thursday of each month. The focus of September’s session is When the Well Runs Dry – Navigating Burnout, Loneliness, Anxiety As a Black or Brown Leader. I think I might need to get my butt up in there. It’s a luncheon that costs $10. There’s only room for 50 people so don’t miss out.

Friday, September 21

Venture Launch is a workshop for new entrepreneurs hosted by the GR Chamber. It’s a FREE 3-hour workshop designed to help you get your business off the ground. We need to fill this up so the Chamber will continue to provide free events. It’s happening from 9 AM until 12 PM. You can register by clicking on this link. Thank me later by becoming a sponsor of my blog. #eachonereachone

The African American Art & Music Festival is also jumping off this weekend at Calder Plaza, in the middle of downtown GR. This is a two-day event so you won’t miss out if you can’t make it on Friday. It kicks off at 5:30 PM and will last until 10 PM. On Saturday the hours are 10 AM until 10 PM. There will be be great food, a DJ, a basketball tournament, African drumming, and many other exciting ways to celebrate black culture and unity. I know my natural Sistahs are gonna show out. I can’t wait to get my hair crush on. I’ll definitely write an article about it with tons of pictures.

The 65th Anniversary Civil Rights Celebration & Gala is taking place that same night. The City of Grand Rapids’ Office of Diversity & Inclusion is hosting this event. It will be at the JW Marriott downtown so you it will be classy and elegant. Whew! Turn up. According the the Facebook event page, “The theme of the Gala is, “Braiding Generations: Past, Present and Future.” The entire city will be celebrating and honoring our past, looking at the present state of civil rights in Grand Rapids and helping us shape and design the future of Grand Rapids. It starts at 5:45 and costs a $100 for a ticket. Click here if you want to purchase one.

Saturday, September 22

The African American Art & Music Festival will still be going on.

Sunday, September 23

Brunch #18 for the WOC Creatives in GR group will be held at Forty Acres Soul Kitchen. The theme is “All. Black. Everything.” I love it! There will be a photo shoot, food and great company. This will be a strategic planning session for the group so if you ever wanted to come to a brunch, this is the one you don’t want to miss. Get involved. Support. By the way, wear black and bring black shades for the shoot.

Tuesday, September 25

Hook-A-Sista-Up will have their monthly support group and accountability check-in. I’m not sure of the location or presenter, but it’s always from 6 PM – 8 PM. I’ll update this article when I have the info. I want to send a special shout out to the ladies of HASU for allowing me to feature photos from our lasting meetup on this article.

Thursday, September 27

Angela Davis is coming to Kalamazoo, MI. Wow! One of the originators of the afro. A true Sistah of tha struggle. The event is called Black Lives Matter Then & Now. Power to tha people! The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership is sponsoring the event. It will be held at Dalton Theater at Kalmazoo College. Get your tickets here.

Support, Support, Support

We have to support events that are relevant to the natural hair community. I’m so proud to be able to highlight so many positive and uplifting events. Get connected. Buy products and network. Let me know if you have an event that I should share with the community by shooting me an email at [email protected].

Until my podcast is edited. Peace!

We Show Love Around Hair: Grand Rapids Area Natural Hair Meet-Ups & Related Events: Sept. 14-27, 2018 Hey, hey now. Thank you for stopping by my blog. There are some spectacular events coming up that my Sistah Queens should not miss.

#African American #black women #bloggers #Natural Hair Blog #Natural Hair Community #Natural Hair Meetup

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jesusvasser · 7 years

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Traversing the Country in Our Four Seasons 2017 BMW M2

On a sunny Saturday morning in Howell, Michigan, I entered my next destination into our Four Seasons 2017 BMW M2’s navigation system: a Holiday Inn Express in Des Moines, Iowa, a bit more than 500 miles from where the car currently sat, humming an impatient idle. It was ready to hit the road and so was I, with a supply of caffeine in the back seat ample enough to keep a small child up for days on end, a Spotify account to keep me entertained through thousands of miles of featureless farmland, and the M2’s 360-hp turbocharged straight-six engine constantly willing to park my butt in a rural jail for flagrant disregard for speed limits. Should be a fun trip, in other words.

Residents of either coast love to write off Michigan and cast doubting shadows on its struggles to return to a prosperous existence, but as I head for the western state line, I’m reminded of the wonderful time I had over the previous few days. From the picturesque, wooded recluse of Howell, to Kalamazoo, still rich with its guitar-building history, to the numerous automotive museums around the greater Detroit area, Michigan has much to discover.

Nevertheless, this initial stretch of the 2,500-mile jaunt home to Los Angeles is fairly blasé. Interstate 90 takes me through the northwest tip of Indiana, then across Illinois, just south of Chicago and Lake Michigan. Unexpected are the first signs of construction, with whole lanes blocked off for repaving and speed limits dropped by 20 mph or more from normal, but not a whole lot of work actually seeming to happen—a theme that would be continued throughout the trip.

The M2’s trunk is packed with photo and video gear, while the rear seat holds my laptop bag, a single roll-aboard packed with a week’s worth of clothes, and several boxes full of Automobile and Motor Trend back issues—a gift from our Michigan office as we rebuild the archves at our Los Angeles office following its recent floor-to-ceiling renovation. There’s still plenty of room in the car for me to feel comfortable and the M2 never struggles with the extra load—it’s eager to go all the time.

I-90 gives way to the less-interesting, arrow-straight I-80, and the first night’s stop is in Des Moines. I’m back on the road a little after 7 am, heading towards Sterling, Colorado. I’ve got the entire state of Nebraska to contend with and before long, the M2 noses into the state and finds itself traipsing through a traffic-clogged Omaha. The M2’s dual-clutch gearbox (a $2,900 option) makes traffic a breeze, but it’s not perfect in its operation. Especially when cold, the transmission’s response moving away from a stop can be lazy, with longer than expected periods of clutch slippage followed by abrupt take-up and the resulting jerk forward. It’s an inconvenience more than a serious issue, but I can’t help but think I’d just save myself the hassle—and the $3k—and spec the standard manual gearbox.

The rest of Nebraska is featureless and uneventful, with straight interstate, lots of farmland on both sides, and the occasional wind farm to boot. The M2’s satellite radio and Spotify are my primary sources of entertainment and my voice is becoming hoarse from singing along over not just the radio, but also over the noise of the M2’s rubber-band-like 19-inch tires (245/35 front, 265/35 rear). Excess road noise and a little bit of harshness over sharper bumps are the car’s main faults in grand touring–style driving and both appear to be largely to do with the narrow sidewalls. After another eight hours on the road, I veer onto I-76 and shortly after, find the small town of Sterling, Colorado. There’s a cute historic downtown area, though it’s sparsely populated, and just beyond that, a Union Pacific train station. Fast food for dinner isn’t ideal, but it’s about 95% of what Sterling appears to offer and the M2 spends the evening resting in the parking lot of a newly built Holiday Inn Express–evidence that this town is a popular rest stop.

Day three dawns and I have high hopes of some exciting scenery for the first time on this trip. Before hitting the hay the night before, I plotted a course that would take me around the south of Denver, through Colorado Springs and on to Pike’s Peak—the mountain famous for its big elevation (14,115 ft) and the annual hill climb race that bears its name. The day’s driving goes largely to plan, with wide-open plains leading the way to Denver and my first view of the Rocky Mountain range behind the city. After a quick stop in Colorado Springs to check on a family-owned rental property, I made my way to the Pike’s Peak toll booth. The sunshine I had going through Denver has turned to dark skies and light rain by the time I pay the $15 toll and start making my way up the mountain’s sinuous, 19-mile road. It’s been a couple decades since I was here last while on a family vacation as a child and now, of course, the entirety of the road is paved—a response to environmental concerns about the amount of loose soil that used to be kicked off the sides of the old partial-dirt roadway.

The speed limit up the mountain is low—just 15 mph or so—and there’s plenty of traffic, even in the damp conditions. Occasionally, slow traffic will pull over whether out of courtesy or just to do some sightseeing, but it’s still a crawl for most of the drive, as expected. Rarely, I get the chance to pick up the pace and string a few corners together, the M2’s straight-six bark reverberating off the mountainside and the snap-crackle-pop downshifts trailing off into the very thin air. The M2 is the perfect size for this road, and I wish I had this little ribbon of asphalt all to myself. By the time I reach the summit, over an hour has passed.

Stepping out of the car, I’m greeted by air with just 60 percent of the oxygen content at sea level and it feels like it. The slight light-headedness wears off quickly and I buy a decal at the gift shop and a hot cup of coffee before heading back down the mountain, keeping the car mostly in second gear to avoid cooking the brakes. A mandatory inspection station is set up a few miles down the road from the summit, where attendants stop each and every car to check brake temps with an infrared thermometer gun and issue warnings where necessary.

I make it to the mountain’s base and set off west for Grand Junction, Colorado for the evening, by way of the 24 and 9 highways through such scenic ski towns as Breckenridge. The smaller highways blends into the scenic I-70, which follows the winding Eagle River to the western edge of Colorado and my stop for the night. The M2 is a blast to drive through this undulating section of mostly high-speed sweepers and we make good time as the weather clears to sunshine once again. The weather is in a constant state of flux in the Rockies. It’s a long day on the road with the Pike’s Peak excursion – I’ve been in the car nearly 12 hours by the time I’m eating dinner in Grand Junction before settling in for the evening.

I’m back on the road early the next day for the last big leg of the trip, 500 miles to Las Vegas, Nevada. From there, it’ll just be four or five hours of desert highway on the way home to Los Angeles. The scenery continues to impress as I plod across Utah and a small corner of Arizona along the I-15. Though I’m not at the right trajectory to pass through Monument Valley, the red rocks and bold cliff faces outside Zion National Park are stunning and I stop several times for a better look and some photographs. The environment, combined with the relative isolation of a solo cross country road trip is refreshing—a thankful reprieve from a daily life filled with computer monitors, cell phone screens, and the constant, tiring churn of city life.

Before long, that all fades as the bright lights of Las Vegas come into view. The M2 is parked safely in the garage at the Treasure Island hotel and casino and I check into my room and decide on plans for the night. The Who are playing at Caesar’s Palace, a short walk down the Las Vegas Strip and a quick StubHub.com search reveals good tickets for under face value. The Who aren’t spring chickens any longer, but the show is surprisingly energetic. In any case, a couple beers and a great concert are amazing rewards for nearly 2,000 miles of driving over the last several days.

In the morning, the M2 feels refreshed too and bursts to life with its staccato brap! filling the garage with echoes of exhaust noise. It’s a straight shot to L.A., where the BMW and I arrive by early afternoon. The car is filthy and I’ll wash it over the weekend by hand in my driveway. Best to savor these moments alone with one of BMW’s best cars of late, before the rest of the staff gets to it.

Our 2017 BMW M2

MILES TO DATE 22,304 PRICE $57,545 ENGINE 3.0L DOHC turbocharged 24-valve I-6/365 hp @ 6,500 rpm, 343 lb-ft @ 1,400-5,560 rpm TRANSMISSION 7-speed dual-clutch automatic LAYOUT 2-door, 4-passenger, front-engine, RWD coupe EPA MILEAGE 20/26 mpg (city/hwy) L x W x H 176.2 x 73.0 x 55.5 in WHEELBASE 106.0 in WEIGHT 3,505 lb 0-60 MPH 4.2 sec TOP SPEED 155 mph

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jonathanbelloblog · 7 years

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Traversing the Country in Our Four Seasons 2017 BMW M2

Our 2017 BMW M2

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eddiejpoplar · 7 years

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Traversing the Country in Our Four Seasons 2017 BMW M2

Our 2017 BMW M2

#IFTTT #Performance Junk Blogger 6

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