| I thought that I would scribble a quick note on my trip to Atlanta over the weekend: Thursday I left Bermuda on Thursday afternoon and got to the hotel in downtown Atlanta uneventfully by 5:30 pm. I thought about studying for the following day�s exam but instead decided that I would only get stressed, so I should instead go to watch a ballgame. I therefore jumped in a cab to Turner Field to go see the Atlanta Braves take on the Houston Astros. I paid $40 for the best seats in the house (not that bad if you compare the cost of watching Premiership football or that awful gridiron game-I guess its because they play 6 days a week for 6 months of the year). I hadn�t eaten in my bid to get to the ballpark and get a decent seat. On enquiring what Turner Field�s caterers offered for the vegetarian in their midst, I was informed that �everything has meat in it�. Welcome to the 21st century. I sat next to a lawyer called Scott from Florida and his 2 kids. The game was fantastic, I saw 3 home runs and some great pitching by Burkett, but at the end the Braves managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I shared a cab back uptown with 3 Georgian college kids who regaled each other with a great story of the last time they went to a ballgame - they drank so much beer that, on the way home, they had to pull the car over and �piss on some million dollar house�s porch� If I caught someone doing that outside my front door I�d shoot him dead man�. Friday Friday morning I tried to do a little studying for the exam. I then made my way to the examination hall and sat the exam. It was more tricky than the practice exams but I had a decent stab so we�ll see. I was slightly hampered by there being 5 or so questions that weren�t in my study materials. My notes were ancient so maybe they changed the syllabus or something, who knows. The one thing that sticks out in my memory was how incredibly keen the students were. There was no admission after 12:30 so I waltzed up around 12:10, plenty of time to get settled and ready to go. On arrival 90% of the people (the other 10% being smokers who needed a last dose of nicotine) had found their seats with their 15 pencils at the ready (did they think that the answers had to be carved in stone) and were ready to go. One I noticed even had a scientific calculator with a spare battery. It�s a legal ethics exam for Christ�s sake. As I had an engagement to meet a friend directly after the exam, I didn�t hang about and instead made my way back to the hotel as that�s where the car was. As I walked by the Hard Rock Caf�, I saw a touching scene. A young man (I�m guessing he was circa 20 years old) was down on one knee popping the question to his intended bride. To his delight she accepted in her best southern drawl. I bet they go forth and multiply in the next year and that they will be very happy in their trailer park. They�ll also have a great story to tell their grandkids in 14 years time of how grandpappie popped it on the street outside Hard Rock. The mind boggles. Following that my next appointment was with an old retired minister called Randy who has visited people on death row for many years and currently visits my friend Tracy (details can be found by clicking here). Randy has even written a book about his experiences (here�s the link if you are interested). Randy and I talked for a couple of hours about Tracy, baseball and capital punishment generally. He is a really interesting man and I enjoyed our chat immensely. We discussed how the D.A., with grandchildren on their knee, would feel about effectively devoting their life to killing people (they have the decision about whether to seek the death penalty). Randy said that there are several women in Atlanta who have made a long career out of prosecuting and obtaining a death sentence. Neither of us really arrived at an answer that we had much conviction in. After that I headed back to Atlanta and, in the absence of anything better to do, I decided to go watch another game of baseball. Kurt Schilling, who has the best record in baseball right now, was pitching for the Arizona Diamondbacks so that had to be worth seeing. This time I paid $10 for the cheapest seats in the house. The contrast was marked. Whereas the night previous I had sat in the midst of a knowledgeable, if somewhat subdued crowd, this time around the crowd were raucous, the baseball a distraction from the task in hand which was drinking beer and trying to think of smutty innuendoes to say to people you�ve never met before. I got offered some �salty nuts� only for me (and the 3 rows behind) to be informed by her spouse that he alone possessed these. After 3 innings I decided to go for a walk and circumnavigated the stadium for the duration of the game, watching a couple of innings from the bar and the rest from various vantage points. Unfortunately this game was not a classic and the Braves got thrashed but every cloud has its silver lining and as a result of the pummelling many of the crowd left early which meant I got to sneak into the good seats again. This time I decided to walk the 3 miles or so home from the stadium and by the time my head hit the pillow I think I was already asleep, it had been a long day. Saturday I woke up late and immediately headed to the prison. On arriving I remembered from last time that I must park as far away from the prison as is humanly possible and then walk all the way to the gate past the 500 or so empty spaces that visitors aren�t allowed to park in. On getting to the gate the lady counted my change (which you can use for the vending machine) and decided that I had $1.00 too much. I told her that my car was in a different zip code and could she keep it or throw it out so that I didn�t have to make the long trek back to the vehicle. �Nope� was the response and so I trudged back to the car to deposit four quarters in the front seat. On arriving at the gate a second time I was at least allowed to fill out the form in order to enter. When I told her that I didn�t know my car registration number, it being a hire car, I once again was obliged to trot off back to the car. Third time worked a charm and I made it through the gates, bar code scanners and metal detectors and found my way in. Tracy arrived promptly and we spend the next few hours chatting. One of the subjects which we discussed was what would he do if he was offered life without the possibility of parole. Tracy said that that to him was no kind of life and that he would not accept it as an alternative to death row. He said that he had already had a major row with one of his lawyers about this. I can see both sides of the argument and am not sure which side to come down on. If you get life at least you�ll be around for the foreseeable future and you could live in hope that the law would be changed or that the exculpatory evidence would finally allow you to be paroled. Tracy tells me however that you have to sign a contract saying that you agree to life without parole come what may and to drop further appeals and there ain�t even the remotest possibility of it being overturned. As he said, he could live for another 40 years and if his current standard of life is all that he can look forward to then they might as well execute him now. We mulled it over for a while but I�m not sure that I know enough about the issue to come down clearly on one side or the other. We also talked about all the places he has been in the world, his impressions of the pyramids, his truck which he used to drive around the country delivering foodstuffs. I told him that I had my first plate of grits, he said that he gets fed them Monday to Friday without fail. He told me that his brother has just been caught a third time for armed robbery in North Carolina and under the �Three Strikes� rule his sibling now faces the rest of his life behind bars. If Tracy ever gets out, do you know what the thing that he would like to do most is? More than anything in this world he would like to walk with his bare feet on damp grass. Strange the things that we yearn for. As usual the time flew by, there were few, if any, awkward pauses and the conversation amicable. He is currently trying to track his son down but has been unsuccessful thus far. His daughter is fine and hopes to come and see him soon (she is Spanish and lives near Gibraltar). I admire Tracy a lot. His chequered past is well documented and he makes no attempt to hide it. Yesteryear clearly still troubles him and the demons still close in from time-to-time making him think about ending his life, giving up his appeals in order to let the state terminate it on his behalf and pushing his sanity to breaking point. The treatment of his hypoglycaemia means that, as a bye product, toxicity builds up in his blood so they have to take change his medication once in a while to counteract this. When they do that his depression can be overwhelming. Despite this Tracy always gets back up again under the most trying circumstances and stays positive. He is well read, interesting, articulate, with a voracious interest in a wide range of subjects. Most of all he is caring. He seemed more concerned with whether I�d gotten into the prison ok, how was my knee, how was I coping in driving on the wrong side of the road than he was with his own predicament. At the end we hugged and I thanked him for coming up to see me. I told him that I derive more benefit from my visit than he does. Whilst he was kind enough to disagree, I maintain that that is the case. I leave the prison, seeing the world in 20/20 and realising what is important in life, thereby finding it easier to sift through the extraneous. I left the prison with a gentleman called Gabriel who is a spiritual counsellor to another death row inmate called John. We had a coffee together at a nearby Truck Stop and had a chat. It turns out that the following day Gabriel was about to go to California, this being the first step in his new life as a missionary for the Brotherhood of Charity (the same organisation as Mother Theresa apparently). After the caffeine injection we bade each other goodbye. As stated above after a visit I have a much better idea of what my priorities should be so I called my sister from the Truck Stop and found out that my football team (Wimbledon F.C.) had won 3-1 earlier that day! I then headed back once more to downtown Atlanta and a half-hour snooze on my hotel bed ensued. I woke up and decided to go to the Shopping Mall as I couldn�t face watching another loss at Turner Field. Here I wondered around thinking about my conversation with Tracy. I bought two books which Randy had previously recommended �The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass and Before the Mayflower by Lerone Bennett. I had a foot long veggie delite at Subway (my favorite dinner) and I even managed to go to a CD store without making a purchase, truly uncharted waters. On return to the hotel I passed an hour in vain attempting to find something worthwhile to watch on telly but gave up and read the Douglass book until 2 a.m. Sunday Nothing really of note to report other than the �plane ride home. Firstly the Captain didn�t show. They therefore had to get another one and we took of an hour late. The second captain at least had a sense of humour and made the following announcement: �I would like to humbly thank each and every passenger for taking me to Bermuda today. An hour and a half ago I was in Atlanta putting up wallpaper. While my wife probably won�t speak to me for weeks I�m glad to be here�. I didn�t mind so much as I got to finish the Douglass Autobiography. When we landed the Delta steward announced that �We shall be de-planeing from the front and rear exits�. On getting off the aeroplane I apologised to the captain for disrupting his wallpapering and asked him if he thought that there was such a verb in the english language as �de-planeing�. He said that he didn�t know but that he would look into it. I told him (with a smile on my face) that if we Brits were kind enough to give him a language the least you Yanks could do is to refrain from misappropriation. I mean whatever next, taxi drivers asking drunken clientele to �de-taxi from the aft passenger side�, Denzil Washington in �The Hunt for Red October II� exclaiming to the crew members �We�re going down, De-sub! I repeat all sailors De-submarine immediately!� Your intrepid reporter has drawn his line in the sand at Beach Vocab and will do all he can to stop the tide washing over it. |