1 September 2013 - SANDRA FARRIS - Guest Court Clerk and Author

SANDRA FARRIS

- Guest Court Clerk
and Author -

G'day guys,

Today I welcome an author who has previously been on my blog, answering my Top 28 Questions - Sandra Farris. However, Sandra has kindly offered to give us an insight into her life as a US court clerk. Thanks, Sandra ...

TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOURSELF AND YOUR PROFESSIONAL JOURNEY.

My first marriage ended in divorce because of alcohol and physical abuse. I had three small children, no money, didn’t know how to drive, no job and only a high school education. I learned to drive, got a job, and with my parents help got a used car. The job was in a big box store, first as an optometrist’s assistant, then moved out in the store as a sales clerk when the optometrist laid me off (not enough patients to pay for help).

Through the years I worked in a produce warehouse in L.A., receptionist at an aircraft parts manufacturing plant, sold out of state land.

Second marriage failed and again no money, no job, cars repossessed because my husband didn’t know his spending limit. At least this time I didn’t have small children to support.

I signed up at the unemployment office, which sent me on an interview at Superior Court. I walked three miles to catch the bus until they moved the bus line closer to where I lived. It was really hot that summer in Arizona, more so walking alongside the pavement. I cussed every man I ever knew as I walked. 

Ultimately I got a car again. I have been single twenty-one years and have accomplished so much more than I ever did while married. I might add, “happily single” to that.

I really had no trouble getting a job when I applied. I worked for the court system until I retired to work on my writing.

WHEN AND HOW DID YOU BECOME A COURT EMPLOYEE? WAS IT SOMETHING SPECIFIC?

To continue from above. . . When I went on the interview, the woman who interviewed me was the Court Administrator.  We talked for over an hour and she hired me on the spot.

WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT YOUR WORK?

I enjoyed working with people, helping them. It gave me extreme pleasure and that good feeling you get when you do something nice for someone. I remember an elderly lady coming in for her arraignment (first court appearance to plead guilty, or not guilty) Usually you could do that at the front counter if it was a civil traffic matter. She was charged with a misdemeanor criminal case. She took an apple from the store without paying for it. She was so scared, she was shaking when she came to my window. “I don’t know why I did it”, she told me. I took her hand and told her it was going to be okay. We have nice judges. I talked to her for a little while and she had calmed down quite a bit before she went into the courtroom. She came back later but I was busy, she gave me a big smile and left. I guess things worked out for her.

WHAT IS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT YOUR WORK?

Seeing the faces of the people who commit crimes you read about in the paper.  A man appeared at my window with another person. He was there to find out where he needed to go to register as a sex offender. He let the other man ask the question while he tried to hide behind a plant on a shelf on my side of the window. I will never forget the look in his eyes. Very haunting and eerie.

WHAT WERE YOU IN A PAST LIFE? BE SPECIFIC.

I’m not sure you would call my first job a sales clerk or not. I worked in a huge file room approving credit card purchases for J.W. Robinson Store in Los Angeles, California. I was a receptionist for an optometrist, and also a company that made fasteners. Moved from that to sales clerk in a big box store, worked in the billing department for a produce company, and  then for an aerospace company that made airplane parts. Last, but not least, before I retired to write I worked for the court system seventeen years.

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO CHANGE DIRECTION?

At first I knew nothing about the court, having had no experience with it. I worked as salesperson mostly in the past. Once I started working for the court, I continued with it until I retired. It was always different with each person, officer, or attorney who appeared at my window. It was exciting, scary, sad, happy, every emotion you can think of. I did retire after 17 years to work on my writing.

I began writing as a hobby in my freshman year of high school and was encouraged by an English teacher. I looked on in as a hobby until my later years. Unfortunately it suffered through having children, supporting them and myself, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT?

Survival. Next conquering cancer, then my three sons and my books and short stories I have published. Sorry, that’s more than you asked, but I suppose it all ties in with the first.

WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON AT THE MOMENT?

Three short stories and 2 novels, both sequels to previous novels.

WHAT INSPIRES YOU?

My faith and the stories that keep popping into my head.

WHAT BOOKS DO YOU READ?

Mostly mysteries, but occasionally I will venture into another genre.

DO YOU HAVE A PREFERRED SCHEDULE EVERY DAY? WHAT IS IT?

I answer e-mails, check out Face Book and other groups I belong to on line, how my book trailer is doing with viewers, do housework, or run errands in the morning and write in the afternoon. I can’t seem to get motivated to write until then, but I get all the other things out of the way that nag at me that I should be doing.

DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE? WHY?

A favorite book that I have written or someone else? My favorite book I have written is “Can You Hear the Music?” because it was the first book I ever wrote and I lived with those characters for a long time. I grew very fond of them. I’ve had nothing but good comments, such as this one:

“Grown men don't cry.

Oh yes they do cry. I did at a couple places in this book. I normally don't read this kind of story but a friend recommended it and the title grabbed me. You see, as an 81-year old great grandfather, I preach to my kids and grandkids that they should look for and find the positive side of things and not let themselves be governed by all the negative things around us. Our heroin finds the good in people as unlikely they may seem to be by all appearances and she puts her trust in them. The book held my interest throughout. It also brought memories of the stories told by my mother of a man who worked at a little printing company in Chicago every winter but was a hobo every summer riding the rails all over the country doing odd jobs to earn his keep and moving on when a job was completed. Mom knew him through her job at the same shop and although he was uneducated she said he was very wise ... just like 'Andy" in the book.”

WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST JOY IN YOUR WORK?

Creating. Creating characters, events, places, and then having people read and like the book.

DO YOU HAVE A MENTOR?

My family as a unit is my mentor.

WHAT WAS THE WORST COMMENT FROM A READER?

On my short story e-book, Hobo, a man posted that he “loved hoboes but not this one, it was awful.” The book wasn’t even about hoboes, but a feral dog with that name and a little boy who wanted to make him a family pet.

WRITERS ARE SOMETIMES INFLUENCED BY THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN THEIR OWN LIVES. ARE YOU?

Yes, the little girl in, “Can You Hear the Music?” is a compilation of several children I met through the years. Most of all, a little boy in an orphanage in Dallas, Texas. My homemaking class drew names of children there and bought Christmas gifts that we took to their Christmas party. I had a 5-year-old boy’s name, and seeing those children coming down the stairs, knowing they had no family stuck with me through the years.

Also two little girls who lived next door years later whose parents were killed in a car accident and were living with a relative. They weren’t physically abused that I know of, but mentally, and also treated like dirt.

OTHER THAN YOUR WORK, WHAT ELSE DO YOU LOVE?

Movies, family get togethers, lunch with friends, reading a good book, hiking and travelling.

DESCRIBE YOUR PERFECT DAY.

Get up feeling great, full of ideas and all day to write, or read a good book.

IF YOU WERE STUCK ON A DESERT ISLAND WITH ONE PERSON, WHO WOULD IT BE? WHY?

An inventor, so he could devise a way to get off the island.

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IF YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO SPEAK TO WORLD LEADERS?

Stop being greedy, and killing your people with all the wars. Learn to talk to one another.

WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE?

Continue writing, learning and hopefully travelling.

WHAT ARE YOUR TOP FIVE BOOKS?

“Can You Hear the Music?”, “Lady Ace”, “Obituary Column”, “Hobo”, and “Memory of a Murder”.

WHAT’S THE FUNNIEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO YOU?

I can’t think of anything right now, possibly because it may have been embarrassing and I probably wanted to forget it.

ANYTHING YOU’D LIKE TO ADD?

I think I’ve been long winded long enough. Get me talking and I get long-winded.

WHO DO YOU ADMIRE MOST? WHY?

My mom. Her mother died when she was young and both she and her siblings had to live with grandparents. Her grandfather was a love, but her grandmother was really mean to them, although quite different with her own children.

My mom got married, raised five daughters while married to an alcoholic who was mean to her. She hung in there, made a loving home for my sisters and I. She didn’t divorce my dad, although she wanted to at times. She was from the old school that you married them and stayed with them through thick and thin. She deserved all the medals in the world.

http://www.sandrafarris.com/sandrafarris.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/writersan

Face Book Authorpage: https://www.facebook.com/authorsandrafarris

FB Book Link: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Can-You-Hear-The-Music/456396787733038

Link to the trailer for the movie based on my book, Obituary Column. They changed the name to The Treasure Within: http://treasurewithinmovie.com

The trailer for my award winning book trailer for Can You Hear the Music?: You tube:  http://www.youtube.com/standquietAndListen
 

Clancy's comment: Thanks, Sandra. You've had it tough and deserve some 'Sandra Time'. Go for it!

I'm ...

Think about this!

31 August 2013 - DOCTOR MARTIN LUTHER KING JUNIOR - 50 Years On

MARTIN LUTHER KING JUNIOR

- 50 YEARS ON - 

 Born: January 15, 1929, Atlanta, Georgia, United States

Assassinated: April 4, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee, United States

Buried: April 9, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site, Atlanta, Georgia, United States

Awards: Nobel Peace Prize, Time's Person of the Year.

Children: Bernice King, Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott King, Yolanda King

Education: Boston University (1954–1955)

"I HAVE A DREAM"

G'day folks,

Two days ago, August 28th, was the 50th anniversary of the Peace March on Washington DC and the famous speech, 'I Have A Dream', by Martin Luther King Junior in 1963. Having lived and worked in Washington DC, and walked over the very hallowed ground, I feel it worhwhile to remind ourselves of what happened on that day in 1963.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience.

"I have a dream this afternoon that my four little children will not come up in the same young days that I came up within, but they will be judged on the basis of the content of their character, not the color of their skin." 

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke these words in 1963, but this was not the speech that would go down as one of the most important addresses in U.S. history.

King spoke these words in Detroit, two months before he addressed a crowd of nearly 250,000 with his resounding "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs on August 28, 1963.

Several of King's staff members actually tried to discourage him from using the same "I have a dream" refrain again.

As we all know, that didn't happen. But how this pivotal speech was crafted is just one of several interesting facts about what is one of the most important moments in the 20th century in the United States:

MLK's speech almost didn't include "I have a dream" 

King had suggested the familiar "Dream" speech that he used in Detroit for his address at the march, but his adviser the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker called it "hackneyed and trite."

So, the night before the march, King's staff crafted a new speech, "Normalcy Never Again."

 King was the last speaker to address the crowd in Washington that day. As he spoke, gospel singer Mahalia Jackson called out to King, "Tell 'em about the dream, Martin."

Then he paused and said, "I still have a dream."  Walker was out in the audience. "I said, 'Oh, s---.'" "I thought it was a mistake to use that," Walker recalled. "But how wrong I was. It had never been used on a world stage before."

The rest, of course, is history.

 The march almost didn't include any female speakers, either

It was only after pressure from Anna Arnold Hedgeman, the only woman on the national planning committee, that a "Tribute to Negro Women Fighters for Freedom" was added to the official program. It took further convincing to have a woman lead it.

Daisy Bates spoke in the place of Myrlie Evers, the widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers. Bates, president of the Arkansas NAACP who played a key role in integrating schools in Little Rock, told the crowd: "We will walk until we are free, until we can walk to any school and take our children to any school in the United States. And we will sit-on and we will kneel-in and we will lie-in if necessary until every Negro in America can vote. This we pledge to the women of America."

Earlier, Josephine Baker, an internationally known American entertainer who had moved to France to find fame, addressed the crowd. Dressed in a military jacket draped with medals for her contribution to French resistance in World War II, she spoke in very personal terms about freedom:

"You know I have always taken the rocky path. I never took the easy one, but as I get older, and as I knew I had the power and the strength, I took that rocky path, and I tried to smooth it out a little. I wanted to make it easier for you. I want you to have a chance at what I had. But I do not want you to have to run away to get it."

 Women had been central to the civil rights movement -- Diane Nash, Ella Baker, Dorothy Height and many others -- but were only included in the program that day after one woman spoke up.

The most prominent white speaker was called the "white Martin Luther King" 

Walter Reuther was the head of the United Automobile Workers, which provided office space, staff and funding for the march in Detroit and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He was the seventh speaker listed on the program, and shared his remarks to the crowd.

"We will not solve education or housing or public accommodations as long as millions of Negroes are treated as second-class economic citizens and denied jobs," he said.

In 1998, Time Magazine included him in its list of Builders & Titans Of The 20th Century. Irving Bluestone, Reuther's former administrative assistant, shared this popular story to explain who Reuther was at the March on Washington: "Standing close to the podium were two elderly women. As (Reuther) was introduced, one of the women was overheard asking her friend, 'Who is Walter Reuther?' The response: 'Walter Reuther? He's the white Martin Luther King.'"

An openly gay man organized the march in less than two months

Bayard Rustin is "the most important leader of the civil rights movement you probably have never heard of," as LZ Granderson put it in his recent CNN column. Not only did he organize the march in a matter of months, Rustin is credited with teaching King about nonviolence. He also helped raise funds for the Montgomery bus boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Council.

During the time, his sexual orientation was known, and he was often in the background to prevent it from being used against the movement.

Fifty years after the march, Rustin, who died in 1987, will be honored with a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama in November.

It wasn't the first planned 'March on Washington' 

Labor leader and civil rights advocate A. Philip Randolph had threatened a "March for Freedom" on the National Mall in 1941 to pressure then-President Franklin Roosevelt to provide equal opportunity for defense jobs. Randolph hired Rustin to organize part of the march, which they felt was the only way to prompt action after numerous appeals.

It worked: The march was called off after Roosevelt established the Fair Employment Practices Committee, abolishing racial discrimination in hiring.

The march was a Hollywood star-studded event

Popular actor and singer Harry Belafonte used his star power to help bring other celebrities to the March on Washington. Besides reaching out to the stars themselves, Belafonte went to many of the studio heads in Hollywood to get prominent actors and actresses temporarily released from their duties so they could participate.

He was successful. The Hollywood list of attendees that day read like a who's who of A-listers: Marlon Brando, Sidney Poitier, Lena Horne, Sammy Davis Jr., Charlton Heston and Burt Lancaster, who also gave a speech.

But having the Hollywood stars there wasn't just for show or for increased media attention. It also helped calm President John F. Kennedy's nerves about the march.

"I believe that their presence did a lot to assuage people who were preoccupied with the fact there could be violence," Belafonte said.

"One of the things that I said in my conversations with the Kennedys in discussing why they should be more yielding in their support of our demonstration was the fact that there would be such a presence of highly profiled artists -- that that alone would put anxiety to rest," he added.

"People would be looking at the occasion in a far more festive way."

 

One march worker fell asleep during MLK's speech

Back in 1963, college student Patricia Worthy took a job answering phones for the March on Washington's planning office. She had 10 phone lines to answer, and they rang from the time she walked in until she left for the day.

"I recall one day I'll never forget, I heard someone say, 'Where is this young lady who handles the phone?' And finally I looked up, and there he was -- Dr. King -- and he said, 'I want to meet this young lady. She has put me on the hold twice, and hung up on me once, and I want to know who she is.' "

Worthy said she was "so embarrassed," but then the civil rights icon gave her a hug. By the day of the march, she was so tired, she dozed off and accidentally slept through the historic march and the "I Have a Dream" speech.

Everything worked out for her in the end: Worthy had a successful legal career and now teaches law at Howard University.

 Another hitchhiked all the way from Alabama only to have MLK check in on him 

Robert Avery and two of his friends hitchhiked nearly 700 miles from Gadsden, Alabama, to Washington to participate in the march.

Avery, who was 15 years old at the time, was no stranger to the dark side of the civil rights movement. A few months earlier, he was struck by a cattle prod wielded by Alabama police during anti-segregation demonstrations in Gadsden.

The three youths arrived in the nation's capital a week before the march after three days of hitchhiking, and they were put to work making signs for the event. At one point, King walked in and asked for them. He had been in Gadsden the night before, and their parents had asked the civil rights leader to check on them. King sat down with the three and talked to them for about 20 minutes, asking them about their dreams, Avery later recalled.

'I Have a Dream' beat JFK's 'Ask not what you can do' speech

There's no doubt that King's speech was the most memorable part of the March on Washington. It's still taught in school, and memorized by children, half a century later.

But how does it compare against other pivotal speeches by 20th century leaders, such as John F. Kennedy or Franklin D. Roosevelt?

Well, a panel of more than 130 scholars got together in 1999 to rate the best speeches of the 20th century and King's speech ranked No. 1.

Now, you might like to watch an old black and white video of that day:

I HAVE A DREAM

Clancy's comment: The first time I stood at the Lincoln Memorial, I looked out and felt an eery silence, wondering what it would have been like to have been there on that day. Fairly extraordinary I guess.

Pax vobiscum, Doctor King ... and many thanks to CNN.

 I'm ...

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