Musing On Asheboro, North Carolina's Logo

I'm in a sour mood this month.  Regular readers know it will last the better part of the month.

The Courier is pumping out so much material that I cannot keep up.  Several posts are in the offering.  But this one should be relatively short . . . because it involves imagery.

The City of Asheboro is looking for a designer to fashion a logo for their "Creating Connections" branding concept.  The branding statement goes as follows (it's in blue because it's just so darned - I can say darned now because I hail from a place that has bar-fights - PROGRESSIVE).

In Asheboro you can come face to face with a polar bear, join your neighbors for a concert in the park or find a networking group to help your business succeed. Our “come as you are” attitude invites you to jump in and become part of the community — whether you’re here for an afternoon or a lifetime. Located in the heart of North Carolina and home to rich economic, natural and cultural resources, Asheboro offers residents, visitors and businesses opportunities to create connections.

Here's the thing about all the fluff.  As a home-girl, I returned to Asheboro under state and Federal public service obligations which I fully and honorably completed.  Just days prior to the end of the Federal obligation, I was threatened with termination if I so much as opened my mouth about problems at the "non-profit" hospital that Asheboro's $700,000 man, Bob Morrison, still runs (because no one sitting on the hosptial's BOD has the stones to fire him for his misdeeds). 

Two days after that, I was put in the horrible position of having to choose between my job and a baby's life.  The rest is not-so-ancient history - outlined on the Housecalls sidebar so I won't "rehash" a lot here.

One of the unenforced (by the government) conditions of my public service agreement with the National Health Service Corps was that my continued practice in the area to which I was recruited could not be interfered with either during or after my obligation was complete.  In other words, I was supposed to have been allowed to transition my practice from "non-profit" RMA's umbrella to my own practice . . . to start my own business based on the work I'd already done and the patient base I had built.

(If Bob and Steve wanted to keep that business, it was their job to keep me happy - not cut me off at the knees.)

Since that's not even close to what Morrison and Eblin and their crafty lawyers engineered, hundreds of thousands of Federal and state dollars were poured down the drain - when, after MONTHS of Randolph Hospital's unique brand of loving economic assistance, Dr. Anderson and I decided we weren't going to be lambs to Randolph's slaughter (at least any more than we already had been).

[I hope you got the imagery I inserted.  There's more to come.]

Those "come-as-you-are" types, Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin, did not want me to stay in Asheboro - or establish a successful practice that would compete with their little publicly-funded monopoly (that they've preferred to run & salary like a private company) OR any of the the private practices that hospital board members ran (Jim Kinlaw wanted all the "white bread" for himself).  Unless I was silently cleaning up their messes (insert unpleasant, "Yes Massa, Whatever you say Massa" imagery) they didn't want me on their "team".

So when I think of "connections" and Asheboro, I don't get the warm fuzzies.  I don't want to dance, skip or sing.

When I think of "connections" and Asheboro I picture the trapped-like-an-animal look on a deeply-cyanotic (that would be blue as in no oxygen as opposed to blue as in the Clinton/Hunt/Sleazely administrations) baby girl's face as she struggled for every breath . . . her lungs filled with her own meconium . . . her stomach not suctioned of the thick, black goo, her airway not protected from it . .  .  because the Cone-owned IDIOT who was attending her had misdiagnosed her condition - the same IDIOT who was preparing to stick a needle in her chest to decompress a non-existent pneumothorax - the same IDIOT who I stopped from doing that lest he escalate the death spiral she was already in . . .. a death spiral that the nurses recognized but he did not.

I connect the feeling of abject terror I had that this innocent baby would die right in front of me with that of the peacefully-sleeping mugs of Bob Morrison, Steve Eblin and Mike Bridges . . . who were at home in their beds while I was making these choices . . . and dealing with their mess . . . a mess created because, in their never-ending pursuit of money, they had marketed the aforementioned IDIOT to the public as being something he wasn't.

I connect that with the simmering fury I felt . . . and still feel every single day of the life I now have . . . that I was fired because I put that baby girl first . . . and for that horrible, awful sin against my fellow man, my life and practice (my business, if you will) in the place where I grew up, turned to ashes.

I connect that with the rage that Morrison and Eblin, backed by all the "right people" on their rubber-stamping, mill-town Board of Directors, had the audacity to sue me for "libel" . . . in a particularly despicable bid to humiliate me in front of my friends and family, intimidate me into silence (you could call that the BACKFIRE of the century), hopefully bankrupt me, and (most of all)deflect attention away from what they did.

I connect with the relief that I felt when I realized the lawsuit was dead-in-the-water before it was even filed - because friends/colleagues had already come forward to defend me/support my version of events . . . and Randolph Hosptial's trial lawyers had not done their homework.

And I connect with the horror I felt after it was all "over" . . . when I realized I had been duped and lied to - by my own attorney (who didn't do his own homework) - and swindled by people who swore a false Oath to God in a Court proceeding . . .  something that's illegal everywhere but in a Randolph County Courtroom policed by out local Jabba-the-Hut (inserted for imagery) Garland Yates.

Most of all I connect, with the sneers and smug mugs of all of the VIP's and officers of the Court and "journalists" who have determinedly pretended I did not exist and none of this happened . . . VIP's and officers of the Court and "jounalists" who tell me that the wrong that was done to me is "ancient history" and "irrelevant" to the corruption of our day . . . people I think, who might be scraping rotting egg off their faces (more imagery) later this year.

But lately, I've also been connecting with a lot of people who've also been treated badly by Asheboro's powers-that-be . . . powers who are now trying to re-market their town with smoke and mirrors and dancing celebrities and malted meals and polar bears under glass.

Of course, in terms of logos and branding, courtesy of this year's Super Bowl and the early morning musings of Buzz Armfield-of-the-Asheboro Armfields, I now have a great mental image to use every time Bonnie Renfro opens her mouth to gloat over her economic successes (about half-way through, press four repeatedly, insert Malt-O-Meal for Dorritos, and use your imagination).

Anyway, as I contemplate a new logo for Asheboro . . . and attempt to tie it to the zoo and making connections . . . and then meld in my own experience as a home-girl who came as she was, and one-night-in-the-middle-of-the-night did what she was supposed to do (as opposed to what she was told to do), I'm using the imagery that immediatly comes to mind . . .

. . . under a picturesque hillish facade, a baby polar bear covered in ashes from a Seagrove kiln and soaked in its own blood is surrounded by elephants and asses and big fat cats that just trampled it nearly to death . . . or maybe . . .

. . . a monkey with Keith Crisco's eyes and Bonnie Renfro's lips, covered in its own feces, eating the brains of its young . . . or maybe . . .

. . . just a blood & gore-filled shark tank.  Of course, we don't have one of those at the zoo.  Because our sharks walk on land.

Of course, I'm sure the young sap artist the city finds to produce its logo will come up with something much more cheerful, drenched in hypocrisy and wholly inaccurate.

Told ya, I was in a foul mood.

Update:  This afternoon, I heard from another NHSC provider from the state of New York, whose story would make your skin crawl.  The NHSC brass, as usual, were USELESS in terms of holding practice/hospital she worked for responsible for horrible working conditions. And I'm thinking this story is going to come in handy in the near future.