Book Quote: Gibsonton

 

   

One of the great things about living in Florida is that you can't throw a rotten orange for hitting a weird story. I wanted very much to write about Gibsonton, a town just outside of Tampa where carnival folk used to make their winter home. I knew of a tragic tale in Gibsonton but I knew there were some marvelous love stories as well and I tell them both in Crazy Little Thing: Why Love and Sex Drive Us Mad. Here's a sample:

     "She was a little, living doll," Ward says.,"and always had a great personality. She also had two sets of teeth and black silky hair growing over her face and her body had a complexion that was kind of brownish-green in color." He remembers her as a marvelous dancer."     

      There is a love story that goes with that description and another between Al and Jeanie Tomaini, the giant and the half-lady, who married and opened a cafe. That's them on the left - I couldn't find any attribution for the photo. But anyway, this seems to be a classic case of opposites attract. ;)

Survivors of 'Dirty John' - Debra and Terran Newell at CrimeCon

Got to go to CRIMECON in New Orleans this year and meet crime analyst Dr. Laura Richards (far left) and Terra and Debra Newell (third and fourth from left). The Newells were at the center of the  Dirty John story, one of the craziest, scariest love and crime stories ever. 

I've met a lot of famous people but I was really flustered when I met Terra Newell who a hero / shero of mine. This petite, soft-spoken, gentle woman was attacked by her mom's ex-husband. She fought him off - fought for her life - and she won. That makes her a modern dragon slayer. It was exciting to meet her and to hear these three women talk about their story.

Even though I literally wrote the book on crazy love (which you can buy here!) I struggled to understand how Debra got tangled up with John, maybe because she seems so in control. These three women did a panel, though, in which I learned a lot about her predicament. Trying to outfox a psychopath is something I don't think most of us can imagine --  like running through a wet golf course in spiked heels carrying an open container of nitroglycerin.

Anyway, it was a thrill to meet these women and I can't wait till next CrimeCon. It's just like TV except when you wonder things out loud like "How'd that happen?" you get an answer.

Caught masturbating with a teddy bear - for the fourth time

Charles Marshall, 28, of Cincinnati, Ohio was arrested FOUR THE FOURTH TIME for having sex with a teddy bear in public, The Daily Mail reports. No word on whether it was the same teddy bear. God, I hope it wasn't Pooh or Paddington. Teddy Ruxpin, maybe, just to hear what he'd have to say about it, but not Pooh or Paddington! One wonders if the Build-a-Bear in Cincinnati has a restraining order against him.

What I don't get it the guy is obviously a specialist. You have your garden variety furries, you have people who get off on having sex in public, but having sex with teddy bears in public is quite the niche. If he had any business sense he'd be doing this on the web and probably make at least enough to get his bear(s) dry cleaned. Some people just never get the hang of capitalism.

Man Kills Wife, Pets Over Dog's Accident

Michael Stephen Stolz, a 76 year-old resident of the Dallas suburb Lewisville, shot his wife and her two dogs because one of the dogs defecated on the floor of the house, the Star Local News reports. There had been no other police calls to their home & police didn't know how long the pair had been married. Stolz shot the dog causing his wife to start screaming at which point he shot her as well. Police arrested Stolz after a four-hour stand off.  Two dead dogs, a Rottweiler and a German Shepherd mix, were found shot and killed in the home along with Bernice, who had been shot multiple times says DallasNews.

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As I write this the Supreme Court is deliberating over the Affordable Care Act. I don't know how anyone could read this and doubt that health care, including mental health care, should be easier to get...that if, say, you might snap and shoot someone over something the dog did that you could have someone to talk to besides a bartender or your friends. I wish everyone could have an on-retainer therapist. We'd be healthier and think of all the shrinks it would employ. But as far as I know you can't just pop into a strip mall and get a counseling session like you can pop into a Wal-Mart and buy a gun. So, for now, there will probably always be more stories like this to report. Damn.

Sad face horked off Gawker 

Couple married 76 years dies 16 hours apart

Maybe it's because spring is in the air but I've seen more of the touching, sweet, if-this-doesn't-make-you-tear-up-you're-a-Vulcan type storieslately, including this one, about Cleda and Rosemond "Frell" Blair, a devote couple of 76 years who died just 16 hours apart from one another. Can you imagine 76 years? Sometimes it's hard to manage 76 minutes with another person.
 Cleda died at 95 and Rosemond, 94, less than a day later. Their son said they were "inseparable," and Yahoo's Shine, where I picked the story up from, talks about the legitimacy of Broken Heart Syndrome, wherein a traumatized person can produce up to 30 times the level of stress hormones as "normal patients" would, enough to cause cardiac trauma. I wonder, too, if when you're together that much for that long it doesn't almost turn into that eerie bond that twins have, where something happens to one and the other feels it.

Interesting how our survival instinct is supposed to reign supreme but how our need to be attached to a particular person can circumvent it - and sometimes poetically. I'd imagine that though it's sad for the survivors (including two children, 12 grandchildren and 32 great-grandchildren) it might at least be comforting to know that, in a sense, Cleda and Rosemond still haven't separated. True romance.

If this doesn't bring a tear to your eye, your ducts are broken

French paratrooper Abel Chennouf was gunned down by Al-Qaeda militant Mohamed Merah who went on a killing spree in southwestern France this week before he was shot by police according to The AFP. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has given permission for Chennouf's very pregnant girlfriend Caroline Money to marry Abel Chennouf posthumously.

Argument ends in car wreck

It started as an argument between Valerie Ann Lacroix, 21 and her husband. The couple from Newport News had a fight and he left the house and got in his car.
     Now we all know how infuriating it can be to have someone walk away from an argument but sometimes it's the best thing - give each other time to cool off, right? Valerie must not have thought so. She got in her car and smashed into his car, causing him to hit two parked cars. The two proceeded to take their act on the road where she rammed his car again, causing him to collide with a fire hydrant and crash into a utility pole. He was taken to the hospital. She was charged with malicious wounding and attempted malicious and might be brought up on other charges later, according to this report from WTKR-TV.
     Didn't know there was such a charge as "malicious wounding." Suppose they changed some of the names of charges to things like "mental case" and "crazy broad" that people might be more likely to avoid getting arrested?

(Fabulous graphic from Velma's Retro Clip Art & Images)