Groundhog Day: When Rodents (aka Vermin) Get It Wrong

2/4 Author's Note:  This post has been updated to "rehash" the latest on Community One (formerly First National Bank of Asheboro).  The "right" groundhogs in Asheboro continue to strike out.  Scroll to botton. 

As I said yesterday, February 2 is always a bad day.  Thirteen years ago today, Randolph Medical Associates fired me - just two weeks after I was asked by LDRP nurses at Randolph Hospital to intervene in a neonatal case that a Moses-Cone-owned Family Practitioner was grossly mismanaging (in doing so, by ALL accounts, saving the child's life) - and a week after I had completed my service obligation to the National Health Service Corps.  Again, the story is summarized on the Housecalls sidebar and I just don't feel like doing the links.

Six years ago today, my Father died.  One of the great regrets of my life is that he did not live to see me truly and fully vindicated.

I was not planning on doing a post today, but a ditty by the Courier Tribune's Annette Jordan caught my eye this morning, and a friend of mine with a subscription e-mailed the text this evening. 

Regular readers of Housecalls might remember Annette.  Once upon a time, not so very long ago, she waxed poetic about the Courier's efforts to ". . . to make Lady Justice as fair and color blind as possible, and to set right those true injustices that do occur."

Right, I know.  The Courier Tribune is big on fiction.

In her latest offering Annette muses on the 1993 Bill Murray movie, "Groundhog Day", where Bill's character relives the same day over and over until he "gets it right". 

She goes on to ponder if she'd ever met her husband if she'd not come home from college one weekend . . . or if the robbery of her disabled Father might have escalated to something worse if she'd not interrupted what was going on. 

Annette goes on to bigger pictures and "what if's" . . . like what might have happened if a Naval intelligence officer had been more on-the-ball in the days before Pearl Harbor . . . or if the Presidential limousine in 1963 had gotten a flat tire and diverted away from Dealey Plaza to make up for lost time . . . or if a Yankee bartender had made the drinks of the 9/11 hijackers just a little bit stronger (causing them to be hung over and late for their flights) . . . or if Hirohito had had a sushi-induced nightmare about little boys and fat men - and taken up Truman on offers to surrender.

And before I get sued for pilfering copy-righted intellectual property, I've got to say, I've heard all of this before.  It's hardly original material.

Annette sums up her treatise with this (and I quote the article - which you too can read if you pay $87/year, OR have a friend with a subscription send it to you):

"In retrospect, perhaps events play out like they’re supposed to. Perhaps it’s best we can’t relive days in history or in our personal lives. We just have to learn from our mistakes so life doesn’t read like one long day repeated."

The problem with Annette's "get over it", "move on along" theory, of course, is that some events in our lives (in my case, events engineered by people who would like everyone else to view what happened as "ancient history"), DO SERIOUS DAMAGE.  They DON'T play out "the way they were supposed to".  And once done, they cannot be undone.

In my case, it was a dream undone, a career de-railed, opportunities dashed . . .  professional doors and windows nailed shut, a personal life turned to a shell of what it might have been . . . ALL FOR THE WRONG REASONS.

My point it this:  Some of us are forced to live in the refuse and the rubble - to "relive the day", over and over again in the consequences that we bear.  And if wrong was done to us, it's even harder to live with those consequences . . . particularly if those responsible are never held accountable . . .  and if we are treated as if we do not exist.

And I'm thinking that people who've not walked in those kinds of shoes would be less likely to expound on forgiveness if they had.

And so we're back to Annette & the rest of the crew at the Courier, who for THIRTEEN YEARS, have pretended that what happened to Dr. Mary Johnson did not happen.  Everything's just hunky-dory in good ole' Asheboro.

What if, when all of this first happened, Annette/"the team" had printed ALL of the letters parent wrote to Ray Criscoe protesting my sudden/unexplained departure?

What if Annette & company had asked the Board Members of "non-profit" RMA and Randolph Hospital what the hell was going on?

What if Annette & company had been the LEAST bit interested in investigating/reporting was in my complaint to Clinton DHHS Secretary Donna Shalala . . . as opposed to simply spewing the headline that I was a "liar" when their biggest ad account SLAPP-sued me?

What if my legal "victory" had been printed on the Courier's front page . . . as opposed to buried in a second-page "short-take"?

What if, over the last nearly eight years, the oh-so-noble justice-seekers at the Courier had spent a couple of hours talking to me . . . and reviewing the very black-&-white case I can make against Randolph Hospital executives for perjury, contempt and fraud?

What if the Courier had done a story on the case . . . putting the DA and local/State/Federal law enforcement on the hot seat for not doing their jobs?

More recently hat if they did stories on cyberstalkers in the same way that oh, I don't know, the N&O reports on cyber-bullies?

I know that some local/Greensboro bloggers made a whole lot of fuss a few weeks ago about calling people "vermin".  But on this Groundhog Day, I think the shoe fits.  The journalistic rodents at the Courier have gotten it wrong for thirteen years.  I've suffered horribly for all of the opportunities they missed.  My family has suffered.  We're not EVER going to "get over it".

My friends are beyond disgusted.  And the community itself has paid a high price.  Asheboro's reputation is known far and wide - in no small part, thanks to that blog none of "the right people" are reading.

You wanna talk about price tags?  Just look at Bob Morrison's RIDICULOU$ salary.  Of course, you won't be reading about that in the Courier either.  It might piss off a "right person" sitting on one of the Boards that approved it.

Like Mike Miller.  Like Keith Crisco.  Both rodents in my book.

Speaking of Mikey, my "ex" called this evening to check on me.  He's a sweet man who still cares.  He relayed a story about a conversation he had had with a local businessman today who has been reading the blog and was, (1) horrified by some of FNB's business practices, and (2) impressed that someone like Buzz Armfield would stand up for me so forcefully and eloquently.

I told my ex I didn't want to talk about any of it this evening. 

But after I hung up, it did get me thinking in a Groundhoggish way.

What if none of this had happened, what if I had just hung up on those pesky nurses, let the baby die, and kept my mouth shut about ALL the CRAP . . . just for the dubious privilege of continuing to practice in good ole' home and hearty Asheboro?

What if I had become one of the rodents?  What if I had finely honed the "skill" of looking away?  Or worse, what if I found perverse pleasure in another's genuine pain - unjustly inflicted . . . or in trying to "break"/destroy another human being just for fun and giggles?

Moreover, what if the groundhogs in Asheboro could admit their own mistakes?  And learn from them?

I expect if they don't come out of the shadows, winter is going to hang around Asheboro for a very long time.

2/4 Update (Subtitled, "Singing In The Rain"):

At the risk of being accused of "re-hashing" Community One's woes (it's ancient history, dontcha know), this morning, shortly after 7 AM, I was rudely awakened by a phone call from my pal Buzz Armfield-of-the-Asheboro-Armfields.  He was positively giddy on the other end of the phone - telling me that he would have called at 4 AM with "the news", but (given my not-so-secret-power to summon the flying monkeys) thought better of it.  He had just gotten back from a very early morning walk with his dogs.  It was sleeting in Guilford County, and colder than a witch's titty, but Buzzy was feeling all warm inside. 

At first, the Buzzman would not tell me why he was in such a good mood - only telling me to get the hell out of bed and check my e-mail.  But seeing green mist suddenly puff out through his phone, he relented.

NASDAQ has finally delisted Community One.  It is now officially a "penny stock".

What's more (miracle of miracles!!!) the Courier Tribune reported the news before the News & Record.

When I finally did get around to checking my e-mail, I had to laugh.  This is what Buzz had to say:  "I was more surprised by the Curious Tribune airing it out . . . Ray has grown balls, and I can see them . . . but they both look like your face and head smiling back at me."

I'm not quite sure how a girl is supposed to take that;)

What goes around has come around for Buzz (his warm fuzzies would be warmer and fuzzier if Mike Miller had not somehow engineered the very soft landing at Pfeiffer College, but that is neither here nor there).  And I'm glad for him. 

I imagine it's very close to how I would feel if I ever got to see non-profiteers, Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin, do the perp walk for their crimes (we shall be working on that this year).

As FNB implodes in on itself, I can only hope that there is a trickle-down effect, in terms of some of the smug, elitist, arrogant & cliquish "right people" bullshit (I'm sorry Mama, there's just no other word for it) that has been going on in Asheboro for almost two decades. 

Today, those who might chide me for my bitterness can kiss my ass.  Mike Miller and the rest of his fine upstanding-kind . . . the guys with the with-small-town-values . . . Asheboro's "leaders" who sit on the Boards & run the mills, could have done something to help me if they'd actually given a royal damn about medical ethics and good medicine. 

But they didn't . . . it was all about looking good rather than being good . . . and the rest is not-so-ancient history.  I'm so NOT getting over it, and I'm hoping to line-up-the-ducks and come after them legally shortly.

In terms of getting screwed-over by these jerks, it's actually nice to have some company now.

Randolph Hospital and First National have always been pretty tight - with the "right" types intermingling and hob-nobbing on their Boards of Directors for years and years (I believe the marketing types would call it "creating connections"). When new doctors came to town, in addition to being pointed in the direction of certain realtors (wink/nod), they were always directed to First National for their home mortgages and business loans. 

"Yes, you can".  Sounds dubiously familiar doesn't it?

I'm actually grateful now that I did not take out the monster loans to hang out a shingle in Asheboro after Bob and Steve shafted me with their as yet uninvestigated, unprosecuted perjury, contempt and fraud (which I will reiterate did not bother the Mike Miller-types sitting on the hospitals' Board of Directors one bit).  I'd have been in a deep hole and fore-closed on by now (of course, that's what Bob and Steve really wanted).  And I have to wonder now how much Randolph Hospital's financial bottom line is tied up with their favorite bank. 

Or did Mike Miller warn Bob and Steve off before his own shareholders?

And I'm hoping that as this mess continues to fall in on the heads of people who treated me and my family like dirt under their shoes, that one day, very soon, Dr. Mary will be singing in the sleet and rain too.

We need to get the state/Feds investigating and intervening a whole lot more in Randolph County.