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| been there a number of years. Jesus said to visit the prisoners. I think that’s the gospel
mission. It’s a way to keep the reality that they are human beings. They can be freed up internally. The prisoners are reaching out themselves and letting her know who needs help. I think they are showing concern for others.” Sister Carol Gnau and several others, including seniors, have been visiting Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville. “We take some goodies and stay for about an hour. That’s been going on for years,” she said. They have Communion with prisoners. “They also have death row there now,” said Gnau. “That used to be in Columbia (at Broad River). There’s more than one Catholic on death row. I believe there are two. That has been very interesting. I think sometimes on the outside people have a stereotype about what inmates are like. They’re not all functional illiterates. They express regrets for their crimes. And they can be thoughtful of others too. That’s been a very rewarding experience. I enjoy it. Mostly it’s about listening. Sometimes they’ll tell me about their case or how it’s been going. We laugh sometimes too.” Gnau said she cannot divulge the identity of the death row inmate she is now counseling due to confidentiality. Is the subject of death ever covered? “If they ask about that, we talk about that. He can’t forgive himself yet. I say, ‘You have to do as well as God.’” Gnau meets with her contact in the community area of death row. “It’s very loud and noisy in the community area. The TV is at full pitch,” she said. The cells have a tiny window, she added, and the cells are isolated. For 11 years she has been ministering to prisoners. Why? “It’s part of the Gospel,” she said. Gnau explained her opposition to the death penalty. “I’m very much opposed to it. That enables me to be compassionate. It’s still another form of killing. I think it’s revenge. You’re never taught that. I don’t think it’s our place to take life. I’m opposed to abortion too.” Executions have been accelerated in the past few years, and there have been changes in regulations in the past two years, she said. “I image that’s from the change of administration,” she said. Deacon Roland Thomas at St. Martin is getting older and better at his ministry near Columbia. “I was appointed by the chaplain for the institutions in the Midlands of the state. There are about 11 prisons in the area. I go to one or two every day. I am responsible for all the Catholics who want to see me. I don’t limit my ministry to Catholics alone. I’ve been doing this since 1976. “Even though I’m getting older now, next week I will be 74 years old, I can’t stop. So they minister to me as much as I do to them, even though I feel like I may have to stop. My health is still good. I want to do it as long as I can. If I don’t go, I miss it also.” Why? “When I started doing it, we had a priest in Columbia who was the chaplain. I used to go with him all the time at CCI before it was demolished. Nobody else asked for that ministry. I wanted to do something where I thought I could make a difference.” When Kevin Bacon visited Myrtle Beach’s Planet Hollywood recently, I told him he was great in “Sleepers.” “Thanks man,” replied Bacon, who portrayed a sadistic guard. What was CCI really like? Thomas recalls. “It was a dungeon. It was built back before the Civil War days. They used to house horses there. It was a dungeon just like you read about in history. The stories are there. It was demolished about five years ago. It was not fit for human habitation.” The day Thomas talked about the S.C. prison system an editorial had just come out in The State June 29. “It’s not getting any better,” said Thomas. “Right now the latest thing the inmates are talking about is they don’t have the freedom to write a letter. They cannot write a letter to anybody and seal it. It has to be stamped and left unsealed before it will be mailed.” Suicide is a real threat for some prisoners. “I’m dealing with a young man now who has tried to. He has cuts on his arms. He’s been in for 15 or 20 years for murder charges. I don’t normally ask them why they are there. It usually comes out later. They need to treat them as humans. When you take a person’s freedom away, that’s not good. They don’t have it good at all. You’ve got to ask to go to the bathroom. There are people who want to keep these people in jail all the time. There is no such thing as rehabilitation in the penal system in South Carolina. It’s a dead animal, and that’s not good.” Thomas supports education for prisoners. “I’m talking about being able to read and write. Most of the people in jail probably have less than a sixth grader’s education. You have to be mindful of that. there are some Ph.Ds. as well. They’ve got everybody in there. Success cases return to Thomas like a love boomerang. “That’s how I make it. It’s a pleasure to see them come out and keep contact. I get Christmas cards. It’s heartwarming. There was a guy who came back to minister as a minister.” To: Tim From: Mark boss came in at 9 p.m. after i was done with my pages. he started in with ‘suggestions’ before even saying hello. matter of fact, the asshole didn’t even say hello. just tear up the page and start over. not quite that bad, but might as well have. had composing old man mad at me when i went back with changes. durn. e-mail To: MARK FROM: TIM Out on the town!!! Wagging the big dog! Watch out! It was good to see everyone! I wanted to go fishing with Seth and Owen and Fran. I wanted for ya’ll to be able to come over...and my week just started getting convoluted. Take it EZ. I interviewed a plastic surgeon last Friday, and he showed me photos of his best work. I think he was shedding tears, he was so proud. Fleshy scalp, a man who lost an eye....whew! Two state senators said disparaging things to me off-the-record today, one comparing a detractor and former opponent to Lyndon LaRouche and the other saying the local daily wouldn’t cover Jesus coming the 2nd time. 10-4 tim It was deadline day today. I didn’t have to go to Crack City to deliver the paper. I always have to get drunk to take our paper to the Florence Morning News to get it published. I hate the trip. Last week I asked to use the bathroom. Usually I just drop it because I feel like Hinkley delivering a pizza to Reagan. So this trip I had worked up a pastel, yellow vitamin beer piss and used it to fertilize the bathroom tile as a puddle rose in the room’s corner, splashing so loudly I had to bank it, using the backboard. I had to interview the publisher of the local daily today and ask about a ministerial association calling for Christians to cancel their Sun News subscriptions the week of the gay pride march and festival next weekend. I was nervous. Their editorial page editor said that she and an editor were the only persons who could served as a spokesperson for the newspaper. This is Knight-Ridder now. Their sister paper is the Pulitzer Prize-winning Charlotte Observer. “Hi, this is Tim Bullard with the Myrtle Beach Herald. I was doing a story for Thursday’s paper on the ministerial association calling for readers to cancel subscriptions to the paper over the alleged pro-gay stance the paper had taken in its coverage.” “We stand by our coverage. If the readers want to continue to get the best in news coverage on the community, then they should continue to read The Sun News.” She asked me how long I had been at the paper. I was getting nervous. “Ah, two and a half years.” My gestation period. “What’s your deadline?” “Well, the paper is taken over to this afternoon, ah, the....” I couldn’t say the name. Or I thought I couldn’t. “The Florence Morning News....” I couldn’t go stammering on with my soliloquy about the whorehouse because I would unmask myself as delusionally obsessed with this crap, but I did in slow motion, treading in slowly like the fall my cousin Jeff and I, as kids, waded into some deep mud, a bog on his farm in Newton, N.C. in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains about 60 miles from Boone. Jeff saved me. There was a snake threatening us. “And I say those words with the utmost of acid tongued disgust....” I didn’t mean to say it, but it came up like bile, and I said each word slower and slower. “Over....a.....bordello.” This was not the type of person you wanted to call it a whorehouse to. Most newspapers don’t like you reading a story back to them, so when I suggested that I would let her see the story, she didn’t ask for it, so I was embarrassed. I can do it at our paper, no objection. It’s okay. Carte blanche. But most papers don’t like you doing that. You can be fired for it most of the time. You can usually cover yourself when you say that you weren’t exactly sure about something, but they usually tell you to cover your ass and take better notes or switch it around. Move a few words around. That’s all you have to do to appease an editor. I never was that much of an asshole, but this could mean a promotion for me. Knight-Ridder seems to treat women a lot better than its males, especially at this paper, and it would help to make more money and move up, making better salary. Diane doesn’t want me to, but I’ve got to start making more money. Date: 98-04-22 23:33:10 EDT From: markk@onslowonline.net (Mark) To: Bulltim@aol.com (tim bullard)
gonna try to get up to kinston and check out single-A Cleveland Indians minor league baseball. gonna send you an http from chicago tribune. they have a columnist who’s a good computer writer.
Today is Thursday, the day I deliver papers, and at 10:15 a.m. I will have a chance to interview the governor at the Chabad Center. He’s going to give Ms. Schiller the honor of being in the Order of the Palmetto. It’s kind of like a redneck Kentucky Colonel status. When you’ve heard someone in this group of the Order tell a “joke” with the “N” word, however, it somewhat tarnishes the award. Yesterday on Friday, I had to meet the boss at Hardee’s and shuttle the day-late newspaper to the frigginging Florence Morning News. I got a wheel leaving the parking lot. What a royal pain in the ass. I hate going over there. I refused to go, and now she’s making me go again. I got back with seconds to spare for the governor’s press conference. I got to ask him why he failed to make a comment to the N.Y. Times that week concerning a story they were running about the lack of hate crime legislation in South Carolina. His answer was sterling. He said to check with his media department and that he tries to respond to requests from S.C. media first. I liked that. When my parents were pulling up in our drive today to give us a $2,000 check for a new IRA, I was on a knee, wiping off the bumper of my white Tracer, the one that I had just bought when I was fired in Florence, pasting a “Beasley For Governor” bumper sticker on my car. My wife claims I’m turning Republican. I’m not. I’m just returning a favor. This week’s paper contained a journalistic rarity, a sight so rare that it rivals a backyard sighting of the blue- speckled hummingbird. Our newspaper published a photograph that had obviously been doctored, a fire scene downtown that had brown flourishes in the sky part above a building, resembling faintly the appearance of smoke, but looking a little more like a coffee spill. I thought I had seen it all. On Tuesday the governor and the Attorney General refused to talk to the N.Y. Times about hate crimes against gays for a story on the growing number of assaults against gays in South Carolina. We had a case in the local Conway paper just the other week about a guy in the cop column who reported to local police that someone had thrown a brick through the back window of his vehicle because he was gay. Paragraph 175: that’s the ordinance that Hitler reinforced as law, making homosexuality a high crime so they could put them in concentration camps too. Film at 11. I should have asked the governor about the execution set for the next morning, but there wasn’t enough time in all the rush, photographs and handshakes. Oh yeah. The whorehouse is still open. Barry Williams and Debby Boone will start in “Pizzazz!” July 6-Sept.17, and Williams can’t wait to start the $3 million production at The Palace. “It looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun,” he said backstage at The Palace. “I’m very excited about the show. I do play a little golf, and I do play tennis, so that’s all nice. I do look forward to settling in.” Williams was in town to publicize the show, which will feature The Royal White Tiger, the Golden Tabby Tiger (one of 12 in the world), a black panther and a spotted leopard, all of which have been in movies. “As the name implies, Pizazz is a high-energy family show. Think Las Vegas-style musical extravaganza revue. Debbie and I will host. We have 16 singer-dancers coming down from New York with a 12-piece band. It’s a variety show of sorts. We will have a trio of barber shop singers, The Harrington Brothers, who I worked with last year in ‘The Music Man.’ They’re just wonderful. I’ll be doing different music, swing music and pop. We’ll have a large-scale lion and tiger show in the middle.” The Harrington Brothers, Mike, David and Doug, have been singing for 26 years, performing The Mills Brothers, The Beach Boys, Big Band and The Beatles. “Debbie and I will be taking everyone through a musical journey. We will be doing everything from high-energy production numbers, like Miami Sound Machine. I’ll be doing ‘Rhythm Is Going To Get You,’ ‘Conga,’ ‘Get On Your Feet’ to intimate sections to tributes to country, Broadway and a patriotic section.” His hobbies include tennis, water sports, diving and surfing. Rehearsals started Monday. “There was a thing called ‘The Real Live Brady Bunch,’ which was a play. It played off- Broadway, and it played at The Kennedy Center. It played Chicago. It played worldwide.” His singing career continued after “The Brady Bunch,” the television hit which sent him, Florence Henderson and Robert Reed into millions of American homes with a fresh, wholesome message of family values and comedy. He has performed in musical theater, his staple, including “Victor, Victoria” and last summer’s “The Music Man,” which he will reprise after the Palace stint. “I’ve recorded different albums with The Bradys, solo efforts early on. I haven’t recorded in a while. I sing for corporations in Las Vegas and all over the country.” Williams loves the theater, which was celebrated recently with the Tony Awards in New York. “I wasn’t surprised by any of them. It’s always the case, I think some people are overlooked or maybe one category gets stacked with too many good people where any of them would have won in a different year. By in large, I was pretty satisfied with the Tonys and their outcome. “I think ‘Lion King’ certainly has broken new ground. I think ‘Ragtime’ is not only a good, but important work for Broadway. I think the state of musical theater is overall, very good, very good.” Williams talked about his work with the late Robert Reed. “Bob was a mentor of mine. I learned a lot through working with him. I had great respect for him. We had a very nice friendship. When you lose someone, particularly so young, I mean, he was 59, it was just five years ago last month, I can’t say it was a total surprise. I knew for a while that he was ill. But it’s a loss. All of the Brady clan felt that loss. I put together the memorial service for him, and I miss him. I would think he would love to see me doing this show, for instance.” Williams stays in touch with Florence Henderson. “All of them,” he said. Williams is concerned about the nuclear situation in Pakistan and India. “I don’t know you stop it. Thank you for asking. I’m rarely asked about political questions. I don’t know if anyone cares what I think about it. I don’t see how it can be stopped. I think if people have access to that information, they are going to use it. I think it sets a very dangerous precedent because instead of moving away from it, it tends to heat up the argument. “My biggest fear about all this stuff is that somebody who is completely irrational and get a hold of something like that and do it for kicks or come over here and be willing to martyr themselves and blow themselves and blow themselves up with some kind of nuclear device strapped to their chest in a New York subway and alike. It’s a frightening prospect. But I don’t think just because they’re setting off tests that they’re going to be lobbing bombs at each other any time soon.” Family values mean a lot to Williams, whose reputation is based on the concept and Americana. “You bet it is. And with good reason and by design. ‘The Brady Bunch’ was around at a time that there wasn’t even a term ‘family values.’ That is, by in large, what our show is all about and what it represented. Even though it was an idealized family, it certainly represented a lot of things that I think are valuable and valid and moral and important for families today, which would be getting along, talking things out between your parents, telling the truth and helping one another, that kind of thing.” His fan mail come from mothers, kids and new fans. “I get mail from people who have seen shows and have been either touched by the play I’m in or working,” he said. “It kind of runs the gamut. It’s very positive.” He was in the National Touring Company’s “City of Angels” and has appeared on Broadway in the musical “Romance, Romance.” He was in the title role of “Pippin” on Broadway and has headlined at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas. Williams was in the first Brady Bunch movie. I’m not very star-struck with him, and I feel guilty. “I thought it was very cleverly done. My criteria is something that can stand up on its own, that is if you weren’t a fan of The Brady Bunch television series, if you didn’t know all the inside jokes, if you didn’t share some phenomenal part of your past with that show, would the movie work? While I think the first one does, I don’t think the second did. I thought the second one was one- note and one-joke, and not a very funny one at that. It was really insulting to the legacy of The Brady Bunch.” The Brady Bunch also has a web page. Williams has hosted the Barry Williams Celebrity Tennis Classic which benefited the Adam Walsh Child Resource Center in Anaheim, Calif. He has written “Growing Up Brady/I Was A Teen-Age Greg.” Boone was in last year’s production of “The Sound of Music” at The Palace. I taped a message from him to my wife, who loves the TV show. “To a groovy chick,” he wrote. It’s on the fridge. He said if my article was good, he’d put it on the official Brady Bunch web site. It was there, sure enough, later on. Groovy, dude. “Dining With Friends,” the third annual fund raiser for CARETEAM, the Grand Strand’s assistance organization for AIDS patients and those infected with the HIV virus, was a well- attended event Saturday night at Celebrity Square. Hard Rock Cafe held a media reception at 8 p.m. while others attended parties across the Grand Strand. Valerie Graham of Jeep Safari, Jade Kurian and Allison Floyd of WPDE, Stephen Greene of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, Kemosabi Joe of 106.5 FM and many others. Joe has a rank morning show with a racist character who is supposed to sound like a dumb black woman - “Susan B. Anthony Jones.” The premise to the skit each morning is that she gets into a bind at work and is too stupid to figure it out, using “Amos and Andy” dialogue. It’s an oldies station. And of course, it was Station of the Year two years in a row. Outside the Hard Rock Cafe in Celebrity Square a live band performed as city council members Judy Rodman, Rachel Broadhurst and Chuck Martino enjoyed the festivities. Some politicians avoid this fete like the plague. “Right now it looks like right at over $30,000. We were very pleased,” said Sue Meijer, office manager of CARETEAM. “Last year I believe they raised over $38,000.” There were about 46 parties booked. “We’re still in the process of tallying that,” she said. Plans will begin for next year’s function in about a month, Meijer said. Funds raised go toward providing counseling and medication for patients. The event was developed by Triad Health Project in Greensboro, N.C. and was launched here in April 1996. In 1997 there were more than 800 in attendance. CARETEAM Inc. was established in 1993 as a non-profit organization dedicated to the empowerment of men, women and children living with HIV and AIDS through education, treatment, housing, meals, treatment education, transportation and other initiatives. The Treatment Advocacy Program is an education initiative targeting HIV- positive people and their caregivers with wellness-focused information in the areas of medical treatment, general mind and body health and practical and spiritual wellness. ********* Wiping away tears while sobbing, a woman’s eyes were glued to Sister Roberta Thoen SSMN of St. Michael’s Catholic Church AIDS Ministry Team at The Pavilion in Myrtle Beach Saturday morning during testimonials for the 6th Annual CARETEAM AIDSWalk. I was starting to choke up too. I always thought of Gene Clark, the psychological counseling in Pinehurst who helped me in 1976. I went to his funeral, and I always remembered him at these events. I’m getting choked up again. “My brother died of AIDS three years ago,” she said to the crowd of 300 people, holding the microphone under cloudy skies. CARETEAM is an agency which serves HIV positive clients and residents who have AIDS in Horry, Georgetown and Williamsburg counties. There were 366 clients last year with an estimated 450 clients expected this year. Team members included Kathy Herrigan, Dee D’Aiello, Terry Nalewajk, Nancy Rawls, Ginny Tiu, Catherine Berry, Ramona and Alastair McCoy, Sister Isabel Haughey OSF , Sister Roberta SSMN, Sheila Pras and Roman, Davon, Asia and Ashley Magwood, grandchildren of Martha Kapek. “I’m here to support the AIDSWalk,” said Sister Roberta. “I’ve been doing this for years.” She has taken part in the City of Hope event at the University of California at Berkeley. Download 2.99 Mb. Share with your friends:
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