Like Alka Seltzer fizzing in a glass of water, my trusty cameraman, Al, gyrates around my desk.
“AC, I got a great idea for a that is messed up segment.”
Al is twitching with excitement. He has a group of papers in his mitten sized fingers. I pull my head phones off my head, and stop in mid-edit. I give him one of those what now looks. He tosses the stack of freshly printed papers onto my desk. They float into my work space, in a desultory mess, like leaves blowing across a yard.
“Big Screen TV’s…”
His words trail off as if his sentence had been chopped in half by Jack the Ripper.
“Big Screen TV’s are messed up?,” I ask him curiously.
Al picks up one of the pages and shakes it back and forth, not really looking at it.
“Yeah, it’s the holiday season and people want to buy big screen tv’s, but it is so damned confusing.”
Al flashes me a toothy smile that shows off his distinguished “David Letterman Like Gap. I’ve worked with Al for 12 years. When his brain is churning like a cement mixer, I know he’s got something. I lay my headphones down and pick up one of the sheets of paper. MYTHS OF FLAT PANEL TELEVISIONS is the headline.
“What the heck is this?” I ask.
“It’s confusing buying this stuff. LCD? Plasma? HD?…”
Again the guillotene slams down on Al’s sintax, forcing me to play carnival fortune teller.”
“LCD? Plasma? Yeah, what the hell is the difference?”
Al’s eyes sparkle. He knows I have grabbed onto the mental rope he has tossed me, and I am begining to climb into the cement mixer of his run on sentence infested brain.
“I got you. It’s messed up buying a flat panel TV because it is so confusing. I’ve worked in TV my whole life, and I even get a little intimidated going into Circuit City.”
“The salesman starts talking gibberish about resolution and HD capabilities and man it is messed up,” Al blurts out.
“So you think we should do a story that does what?”
“Maybe try and simplify things a little,” he says.
“That could be cool,” I respond. “We could narrow the choices down to the simples options, and if people could learn a thing or two, it would make them better consumers. If nothing else, plasmas look great on camera so the video would rock!”
Al’s potato sized digits are flexing with anticipation. “Let’s do it.”
The opening is about four feet wide, and eight feet long.
Because this is the place sun light goes to die, I can only estimate the depth at about 35 feet.
Regardless, the sink hole between Marty Potter’s stairwell and foundation is dark, and ominous, like a cave.
I point my camera into the void, half way expecting bats to come flying at me, screeching a high pitched, radar intensified scream. As I creep closer to the edge, a section of dirt crumbles, cascading down the slope. It disappears into the void. I listen for the sound to help guage the depth. The dirt clod explodes at the bottom. The sound echoes.
Wow, this is pretty deep, I think to myself.
The men who live in this Bellevue apartment nod at me with that “I told you so” kind of look.
At several points during the interview, Potter and his room mate tell me the hole is at the very least concerning; at the very most frustrating.
“It showed up the day after Thanksgiving,” Potter says in a very low and calm way. “I’ve been on the phone about it every single day since, and nobody cares.”
Potter is wearing a ball cap pulled low over his eyes. The truck driver by trade is calm, and his tone measured.
“I’ve called Metro Codes,” he pauses; his eyes search the sky as he counts inside his head. “At least seven or eight times,” the 37 year old tells me. “I finally called the police,” he says. “The officer got down on the edge and shined his mag light down there. He told me to call Codes. Finally someone at Codes told me to call waste water. So I’ve been calling them and nobody has returned my calls.”
“What about your apartment complex?,” I ask. “Surely they care. I mean the apartment belongs to them.”
“They sent up some 20 year old kid with a piece of paper. Haven’t heard a thing since then.”
“Nobody from the office has contacted you? Not even one time to ask a question or tell you what is going to happen?”
The easy going trucker with the sink hole under his front stairs smiles a sly smile.
A Confederate Flag flies prominently in the front yard of this Middle Tennessee neighborhood. To some it represents racism. To others it salutes history. What do you think? Wednesday October 31st at 5pm, Andy Cordan examines the issue on THAT’S MESSED UP.
But you can voice your opinion now.
Greg Forest is a black man who lives in the Stonehenge subdivision in Lavergne.
The 31 year old is upset because a neighbor down the street has erected a flag pole and hoisted a Confederate Battle Flag.
“Well first of all I find it offensive,” the resident of six years tells me.
“I have to look at it every morning When I come home from work,” he says in a soft spoken tone.
“Why does he have to put up a big flag pole up that high and what is the statement behind this flag?” he asks me.
There is a stiff, cool breeze on this October morning and the Rebel Flag is totally unfurled.
“What does it say to you as a black man?” I ask.
“It is racist to me. I’m not going to lie to you that’s all we know. I don’t see nothing else out of it. ”
“What are the images in your heart and mind when you see that based on the history of the USA?”
“Hatred. The KKK. Slavery.”
Forest is emotional as he says the words.
If I put a NAACP flag or a big Malcolm X flag in my yard, wouldn’t I get a lot of attention? Someone will call on me. I want to know what is the statement behind it. If he had it on the side of the house, it wouldn’t be as big an issue, but he had to plant it high, in the middle of his yard, like it is an official flag on a Capitol Building.”
“Have you ever knocked on his door?”
“No,” he says calmly. “I don’t hate him. I don’t know the people who live there. I won’t knock on his property, because I don’t want to offend him.”
I also speak with Mary Smith. Smith is a 55 year old black woman who tells me she has lived in this neighborhood for 7 years.
Mary is also very troubled by the Rebel Flag flying high above her neighborhood.
“It is offensive to me. I keep kids at my house. Their parents said to me, are you going to let something like that come up in your neighborhood? You know what it stands for.”
Like Forest, Smith tells me that she doesn’t know the man who lives in the small house where the flag is.
“It may stand for peace,” she says. “But In my heart, it is racial. He has it so high. If it was on his porch, sticking out, it wouldn’t draw attention.” » Continue Reading
I wanted to let you know about something that is truly “Messed Up” I live in Lake Forest Estates in LaVergne and every year for Halloween and Christmas we are known for our decorations. Last Christmas several of our inflatable decorations were destroyed and stolen. This year we decorated for Halloween and the first night part of it was destroyed. I put it back and then 2 days before Halloween we were hit again. We then took everything down and put a sign in our front yard explaining why. Tonight during trick or treating we had an overwhelming response from many parents who were concerned and upset that this was happening. Several were also victimized but really didn’t think there was anything they could do. What I’m hoping is that by raising awareness we can take our neighborhood back. I’m getting tired of staying up all night just so I can guard my house. I’ve enclosed a few pictures so you can see what I am talking about. Thank you for your time. We enjoy your segments
by
Loading …
