Tag Archives: sex abuse

Dredging up memories of a true-blue eccentric … or weirdo

A fellow and I spoke this afternoon about someone I no longer think much about, but someone who occupied a most unique position in the community where I once lived.

The individual with whom I spoke said he is putting the finishing touches on a documentary film he is producing about none other than the late Stanley Marsh 3.

He and I hope to meet face to face at a later date. We will discuss Marsh in greater detail. The gentleman, who said he lives in Austin, is looking for a more longer-range view of Marsh. He thinks I can provide it.

How is that? Well, as I told the filmmaker, I did not know Marsh well. I mostly knew of him. Indeed, this individual’s reputation was, to put it kindly, far-reaching in the extreme.

Marsh was a premier eccentric. He also possessed tons of money. He was the purveyor of avant garde artwork, such as the lawn signs that cropped up on people’s yards all over Amarillo. They had flaky, sometimes nonsensical phrases. But they were fun to read and they often drew a laugh. The signs were the product of the Ant Farm, a Stanley Marsh 3 “organization”; he employed young people, mostly boys, to work at the museum.

That is my segue into the darker side of Marsh’s life. He was accused of doing nasty things with these young men. It provided plenty of grist for social commentary throughout the Panhandle. I reckon that the documentarian with whom I spoke will want to talk about that, too, and about Amarillo’s reaction to the allegations.

Arguably, though, Marsh’s greatest “contribution” to Amarillo’s popular culture rests with the Cadillacs that are buried nose down in that field just south of Interstate 40 and west of Amarillo’s city limits. Cadillac Ranch has been immortalized in a Bruce Springsteen song and is actually identified on the official Texas highway map.

I told the documentary filmmaker that I spoke with Marsh perhaps three times over the nearly 18 years I served as editorial page editor of the Amarillo Globe-News; twice by phone and once in person. Marsh was kind enough to tell me a time or two that he liked my work at the newspaper and I took that compliment as the highest praise imaginable.

Well, Marsh died in 2014. He left a decidedly mixed legacy. Folks admired him for his philanthropy and his generous contributions to health and higher education in the Panhandle, as well as his goofiness or reviled him because of the allegations that were leveled against him.

I will look forward to visiting with this filmmaker. My task now is to dig deeply into my own memory of what I can recall about a man who, depending on your point of view, was either an icon or a pariah.

Sex abuse ain’t a joking matter

Put yourself in the mind for a moment of someone who is recovering from sexual abuse or sexual harassment.

You’re hurting, right? You’re in pain. You cannot sleep at night because of the trauma you’ve endured. Maybe there’s a trial pending involving the individual who did so much damage to you.

Then you’re traveling in your motor vehicle and you hear a couple of fools on the radio making jokes about um, sexual abuse and harassment. Is it funny to you? Do you slap your knee while guffawing at the idiocy coming out of your vehicle radio? Of course not!

This morning, my wife and I were tooling north along U.S. 385 heading toward Dalhart on our way for a two-night stop in our fifth wheel in suburban Denver. We dialed our truck radio to those two redneck morning drive-time yokels; John Boy and Billy, isn’t that their name? I believe their radio show is syndicated out of the Carolinas … North or South. I don’t know, nor do I care.

These idiots were cracking wise about a list of questions you might get have to answer regarding sexual abuse or harassment. They seemed to be talking about their relationships with each other.

“I hope they get lots of complaints,” my wife blurted out to me when she heard those morons yukking it up over their idiotic quips.

“That is not funny,” she said. No kidding. It isn’t.

Those morons just affirmed to me in spades why I hate listening to them.

The lesson — which I am certain is lost on those blathering blowhards — is that there are some issues that aren’t funny. Sex abuse and harassment are two of them.

Reports of sexual abuse are truly stomach-churning

I am sickened, right along with millions of other Americans, at the news out of Pennsylvania involving reports of sexual abuse of thousands of children by priests associated with several Catholic dioceses.

These children have grown to be men and women. They are speaking out. The church is now having to deal with yet another terrible scandal involving is holy men and the children under their spiritual care.

But there’s another aspect of the story that also sickens me. It is that Pennsylvania has a statute of limitations that prohibits these individuals from being prosecuted for their heinous crimes.

I am thinking that one legislative remedy might be for Keystone State lawmakers to rescind the statute of limitations for sex crimes, particularly those involving children.

They ought to look, for example, to Texas, which has no such time limit on when it can prosecute someone for crimes they commit against the most defenseless among us.

This story is far from its conclusion. May the victims — who call themselves “survivors” — find some measure of peace. I hope they draw some strength from the love that comes their way from the rest of the nation.