No, sorry, you aren’t a writer or artist (I’m guessing)—at least not yet. Otherwise every mom in America would have a refrigerator covered in art and poetry. The difference in vocation and avocation is money. The difference between a stained bit of canvas and art is that the latter is valued by the art marketplace as art—i.e. people are willing to pay for it. If some significant portion of you income is derived thusly, thou art an artist. Otherwise, you have a hobby. Maybe one day…

So I’ll continue to assume that the highest level of professional success that you’ve managed to achieve to date is prison guard, or something similar. Nuts don’t fall very far from the tree.

As you enjoy your time with the old assh*le, remember that everything he puts in his mouth, everything he owns, has ever owned, every bit of wealth effect trickled down through his family, every Sunday dinner you enjoyed at his house, every ice cream cone he bought you, every birthday gift he gave you - every bit of it came from money he was paid to brutally beat children. Enjoy.

He didn’t beat his own kids?

Know the joke:
He: Will you sleep with me for $1,000?
She: Yes!
He: How ‘bout $10?
She: What do you think I am?
He: We’ve already established that; we’re just haggling price

I guess nobody was willing to pay the SOB enough.

I wish him only a life of hemorrhoids the size of artichokes, and many many days to enjoy them - at least ‘til he goes public and completely candid about what he and his buddies did. Details—no more pejoratives like “spanking.”

This is the logical place for you to cop a condescending tone and tell me how sorry you feel for people like me.

Since they quoted you, I’m sure you know the St. Pete Times did yet another expose on that craphole. Just in case you haven’t seen it, here’s an URL

http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2009/reports/marianna/

There’s yet another bunch of lying old losers making stuff up about your grandpa and his homies.

And in case you want to argue that nobody knew, nobody came forward, yada yada—I suggest you click the “More Documents” link. It was very well known. In particular, look at the senate committee testimony doc at the top of the page. The schools own former psych describes an actual beating in the white house—you know—what grandpa says didn’t happen?  (Make note of “personalities”—why he believes brutality persists.) The U.S. Senate was told—that did no good. Dozier brushed it off and the governor left it to Dozier’s discretion. Who in the hell do you expect me to have told when I was a 17 year old JD?

Got the guts to actually read it?

PublishAmerica isn’t a vanity press? You’re SO lost in the bozone.

No, they didn’t “pay for your book to be published.” Almost every single copy of your book is sitting on your coffee table, on your mom’s coffee table, in your grandpa’s bookcase, on your brother’s bookshelf, you gave away as Xmas presents, etc. You may even have a box of ‘em that you bought to try to sell through your local bookstore. Any luck?

P/A paid nobody nothing; their only expense is the variable cost of an author copy or two ~ $2 each. YOU paid THEM.

If the purpose of publishing isn’t to sell books to strangers, what is it?  To see your name on a book? So you can brag that you’re a “published author?” So Mom and Dad will be proud?

Well, isn’t that the definition of VANITY press?

All “self publishing” or “print on demand” companies are primarily modern day vanity presses.

If you think you’re a “published author,” I suggest you try joining a professional writer’s organization.

Not a model? Well, there’s somebody using the same usernames as you on various websites (including a poetry site or two), and she’s using your pictures. There’re some blurbs about a couple of “model search” trips and scholarships to film schools and such. Good thing that’s not you, ‘cause that dumb bimbo is dealing with scammers. And she apparently is listed on the web site of a modeling agency up in Dothan, is using your name, says she’s lives in Marianna—and is pregnant to boot!

But there’s good news—she’s asking people to buy your book.

I apologize for having been misled.

Nah, you don’t “attack” anybody. Hundreds of old men are just lying and making crap up. We’re all a bunch of criminals anyway and we all knew the rules and broke ‘em anyway so we deserved what we got. We’re “blaming” people for our own failures. We’re cowards for not letting you know about this in what you consider a timely fashion. And nobody should be bitter ‘cause, like, you were spanked too—by daddy. Nah—no attacks from you. Pfffftttttt

Don’t know you? I know you at least as well as you know any us. And every single one of us knows what went on in that place; you know squat.

While I have your permission to fart on, I fart in the direction of your pretentious attitudes - the real purposes of media, your self limited “time for reconciliation”, your notion of “when it counted,” your trite admonishments to forgive and move on, ad nauseum. Those are hardly your provenance.

I fart twice in the direction of you referring to the beaten as cowards for not confronting the beaters sooner. You grew up in that town and heard the same complaints from your earliest memory and you’ve been denying them ever since. Nothing new has happened, other than the Internet has finally made it all public and the media has finally picked up on it.

It’ll be time to “move on” when a big light has shined on those roaches, when even thick-headed people like you can’t deny what they did any longer, and when everyone who looks at them will see the monsters they were.

BTW—Is Troy Tidwell your grandfather?

You aren’t a model because you were “accepted” by a scammery such as “Model Search America.” You’re gullible and foolish. You were ripped off. And it was the second time?

You aren’t an author or poet because you post poetry on poetry blogs that are only read by other poet wannabes. Any idiot can blog and unfortunately most insist on it.

You aren’t a “published author” because you’ve been “accepted” for “self publication” by a vanity press such as PublishAmerica. Any pretentious idiot can “self publish,” and unfortunately most insist on that too. You (and family) are the only one(s) who will buy your books. You’re gullible and have been ripped off yet again.

Puffery and—oh yeah—“hot air.”
You’re a currently not employed former prison guard and fast food worker. I presume you chose those gigs because they were the best paying that were available.

Good luck with the big dreams, but you’re hardly one with any substantial degree of judgment.

A “published author” and “freelance artist,” eh?  A claim of sophistication? Erudition? Professional success? I guess it does sound better than “unemployed prison guard.”

Obviously, that’s not hard to check out. Why so modest? According to your numerous “about me’s,” you’re an author, poet, performer, actress, comedienne, singer, songwriter, composer, lyricist, artist, sculptor, and model. Wow! That’s impressive for a young woman living in a hick town with only an AA from the local hick town junior college. And with interests in magic, mysticism, spirituality, Gnosticism, and all things spooky. Ooooo…

A photographer is someone who makes more than an inconsequential amount of money from their photographs. Otherwise, someone just has a camera. An artist is someone who makes more than an inconsequential amount of money selling their creations. Otherwise, someone has a hobby…

And trust me—quantum physics ain’t what you think.

Since you insist on being a pedantic twit, last time I looked “gospel truth” was a common idiom meaning ‘unquestionable truth” (oxymoron, in retrospect). “I fart in your general direction” is from Monty Python—a taunt at your pomposity. “Published authors” know such things.

“Reason” is a way to deduce the unknown from the known.” As a former (and still sometimes) engineer, I often do. But in this particular case, I was there and a first hand witness. I observed the fundamental facts with my own eyes and butt and reported them accurately—hardly a product of emotion.

On the other hand, your last missive contains not a single fact, not a single bit of “reason.” Not a word about FSB or Tidwell. Nothing but a bunch of touchy feely ‘hurt and healing,’ ‘flawed humanity,’ some “forgiveness” crap, a stab at a grand philosophical thought, and then the last refuge of the truly clueless, religious bilge. BTW—that’s the definition of both “ridiculous emotion” and “hot air.”

Just in case you want to dismiss what 60 men from the Jacksonville area had to say about the place:

http://jacksonville.com/news/whitehouseboys

Click on the “Meet the Men” link to the left.

Let’s establish a couple of indisputable facts, shall we tkpippin?

I say I was beaten raw and bloody for saying “Harvey Hootowl.”

It seem there are only two possibilities for my claim. One is that, for some odd reason, I just showed up at this site and made up some outrageous lies for the purpose of ???

The other is I’m just telling it like it was.

And there can be no question that I know beyond any shadow of a doubt which is the gospel truth.

Now, having established those facts, what possible reason could you have for arguing with me?

Orphans should know the rules? What planet do people like you and Tidwell come from? Punitive?

Does it occur at all to you that, were it not for their undeserved situation, they WOULDN’T BE IN a place where there’s a rule against saying “Harvey Hootowl” with sadistic assh*les that think beating them bloody is an appropriate punishment for breaking it?

Sadly, apparently not. That’s probably why you think so highly of Tidwell.

One of these days I’m gonna create a taxonomy of responses to hearing about FSB. “My daddy spanked me too…” will certainly be in.

Well, my stepfather beat me severely virtually every day of my life from my earliset memories at 4 or 5. “The belt” was his preference but he was often too angry and impatient and just went with fists, or kicking if I fell down, or a broom or a mop or whatever was handy.

He once beat the crap out of me with a toilet plunger and then went after my deaf brother who just happened to wander by. The worst I remember was when he split the back of my head open with the heel of his shoe because I didn’t get my little sister’s diaper changed fast enough and she peed all over the place.

The neighbors called the police and they arrested him often until it was obvious that it did no good and they all just stopped—he didn’t.

So you will pardon me if I’m dismissive of your Beaver Cleaver spankings.

So understand this—the whitehouse was far worse.

tkpippin,
To answer some of your other questions…
Kids *normally* do things like steal peanut butter, try cigarettes, etc, right?

Well, let’s see—ya got a place that beats kids severly for stuff any sane adult would expect normal kids to do, AND even beats them raw bloody for saying a silly thing like “Harvey Hootowl.”

And they run away. Sheesh—who could have predicted that? Apparently, no one of your ilk.

Maybe that’s why you work in such a place and hate not being able to use violence against them. If you don’t like it, leave. I’m sure there are sooooo many other places that can use your considerable talents.

If the true history of that sordid place is making life difficult for ya’, then I suggest you blame your assh*le friend Tidwell. He was one of the very senior people who made it that way, or could have caused change, or quit. Blame the beaters, not the beaten.

I f*rt in the direction of your suggestion that we should shut up for some greater good.

tkpippin,
You seem unable to comprehend basic English. I’m sure what Tidwell did because I know what position he held—Just like I know what a random plumber does—‘cause that’s what plumbers do.

The position he held (Homelife Supervisor or Director of Training) required that every night he was on duty he drive around and hand out punishments, including taking kids down to the whitehouse for beatings. 2 were on duty (1 on each campus) and both were required to be present for a beating, so they met at “108” whenever either had a carful and the beatings began.

Every night he was on duty, Troy Tidwell beat kids and witnessed kids being beaten by his south campus counterpart. The other people that had his job title did the same, the person who had his job before him did the same, ad nauseum. I have no knowledge of him being any worse than the others. That is what they were SUPPOSED to do, not what they arbitrarily decided to do.

Does that get through you bozone layer?

“...I don’t believe a word that comes out of your mouths!”

Fair enough. Then let’s recap what is agreed to by everyone.

Every single night, grown men took boys to a building (maintained solely for the purpose) where they were made to lie on a cot and hit (on average) 20 times with with a leather paddle akin to a thick razor strap. This is not in dispute.

Now, where in hell do you imagine that was OK? Spare me the “times were different.” 1967 wasn’t the dark ages. This went on nowhere else. A paddling from a high school principal was 3 licks, bent over with hands on the seat of a chair.

It would seem the only disagreement was whether the hitting was “spanking” or “beating.” The difference may well be on which end of the paddle one participated.

Then why was a cot necessary? Because nobody could take such a “spanking” standing up? Has anyone ever been “spanked” so hard that they were knocked down? A dedicated “spanking” building?

Puleeeeezze.

No riotgirl, like so many, you are quite wrong. There were always a very large number of kids there who did virtually nothing to have been sent to that place.

They were often orphans or kids whose parents essentially turned them over to the state. Many did nothing more than earn the title “incorigible.” Almost all were poor, and many from dysfunctional families. Judges and social workers often thought of the place as something like a boy scout camp where a kid would learn a trade, and they sent kids there to get them out of a crappy home.

Many were as young as 8 or 9—too young to have any clue about crime. There were even a couple of retarded kids (as we called them in those days) when I was there. One of them was a really tragic case.

Yeah - teenagers lie, just like teachers and everyone else. They also tell the truth, like everyone else. But today most of us are in our 60s and retired. I am a retired engineer and college professor. I have no reason to lie.

My comment is this:  these were teenage boys that were for all intents and purposes incarcerated at this “boys school.”  Am I the only person who wonders exactly how true these stories are?  I am a teacher (not at Dozier) and I have students who are even younger than these lie ALL THE TIME!!!  A person does not get sent to a school like this for being an honest and agreeable person, so I don’t believe a word that comes out of your mouths!

“...And they all seem to have forgotten what they were disciplind for…”

I got (in order) 18, 20, 47, 17, and 10.

47 was for saying two words—“Harvey Hootowl”—to a cottage father who got up on the wrong side of the bed, and on a day when Robert Hatton was on punishment patrol.

10 was for running away with 3 or 4 other guys, stealing 2 cars, and wrecking one of them along with the state car that forced us off the road. There was another of the many investigations under way. We could always tell because the mean lick count dropped drastically.

One of the others was for smoking a cigarette and another was for stealing a jar of peanut butter. I don’t remember the other or what order the offenses were in.

I hope that satisfies your curiosity.

I have no personal knowledge or memory of Tidwell or a one-armed man. I surmise that he must have worked on the north campus, whereas I lived on the south.

The people who beat me were White and Mitchell. The most sadistic b*stard there was Robert Hatton who taunted me and egged on White to beat me bloody one night.

But Tidwell held one of the 6 positions whose job included administering “Maximum Disciplinary Action.” That included trips down to “108” (building 108) as they referred to it, the “Boy Scout Hut” as the sign outside read, the Whitehouse as it was generally known.

No, I’m afraid that there aren’t two sides. Think of the most evil person you can. I’ll bet ya’ he had friends and family that liked him and for whom he did good things. But he’s still evil.

As far as I’m concerned, anybody who beat kids bloody should be beaten bloody. And if nobody gets around to beating him until he’s old and, well, I think he deserves all the mercy he showed helpless kids.

Huh? Hundreds, maybe even thousand of former residents have been telling about what went on in that place for the past 50 years, all have told similar stories, but they’re just “allegations.” What in the hell could “proof” look like?

Hey Pokey—I was there. I know what happened. I was beaten bloody by a couple of those sadistic b*st*ards; you will excuse me if I f*art in the direction of your disengenous open mindedness.

The beatings weren’t secret. They weren’t done clandestinely in the middle of the night by rogues. There was a general punishment protocol of which the beatings were a part. Every employee knew exactly what happened.

The former employees denied it then, just like now, because they were acclimated to it—just like a person can become acclimated to working on a manure pile all day.

Every former resident yearns to give every doubter a personal demo, so you can decide if it was just a spanking or abuse.

PS—I know nothing about rape or graves.

Also, the unidentified grave sights were supposedly for the victims of the fire from the 20s, 30s, or 1940s that claimed multiple lives. Though I’m not certain of the specific time, perhaps it would be in the reporter’s best interest to research & report this along with the conspiracy theories, instead of just reporting the bias interpretation of the conspiracy theory alone.

I am so sick and tired of hearing these stupid allegations.  Have you even thought to interview people who have actually worked at Dozier, and present their side to this “story”?  There are many of them who are fighting mad about these allegations. There is no way you could live and work out there all those years and never hear anything about beatings that occurred.  Why don’t you read some recent issues of the Jackson County Times, where several people who worked there have been interviewed? They were not interviewed together, yet they all say basically the same thing—these beatings never happened.  The physicians would have KNOWN about them and reported them, or lose their licenses!  As for blaming Mr. Tidwell, anybody can make up a story to MAKE A STORY! They are naming him because he is the only supervisor still around.  They are lying about him administering most of the spankings..yes, spankings, not beatings! He was not even allowed to do that! I’m disappointed in your station!

Recant- I do realize that Mr. Fuqua made some comments as Mr. Tidwell’s representative, but not in rhetoric of defense; only in comment of the occurrence of the allegations. To begin with, Mr. Tidwell was referred to as secondary disciplinary…but now is mentioned as the primary, since all the persons then in positions of power are now deceased. My question now arrives, “Where is the news?” Perhaps the real news would be a report on the psychological conditions of the proposed “victims”. These allegations from individuals as reports from news centers might want to reconsider until the truth emerges. A timely lawsuit could be in effect from the distortions made on reality. Should this happen, it would be quite ironic I suppose. Just a thought. The only reason I mention these things is because it happens time and time again throughout history. A bias news report has no intrinsic worth, it only negates the credibility of report’s source.

I am curious to know why Mr. Tidwell’s name is even mentioned, since the report has no comment from him or his representatives. Nor have the allegations against Mr. Tidwell been confirmed as a conviction. It seems to me that all the “victims” in this case are taking advantage of the non-existence of authoritative elements from the corresponding time-period. If they have been so bitter, why didn’t they file the charges when the time period was relevant? I have followed this case and heard other men that attended Dozier say that punishments given were hard, but fair; and that they have no else to blame but themselves for the events of punishment. It seems that the allegations brought about by these certain individuals are looking for pity upon themselves because they failed to overcome obstacles in life; now looking for a hand-out. They blame these incidents for the failure of maintaining decent relationships in life, but don’t realize that they’re responsible for their own actions.