Whistle-Blower #16

    Yesterday started out great especially for a Monday. I got a call saying I had over-paid a bill and was geating money back. I went to the bank and found out I still had some money left in my account. Then I stood in the line waiting for the soup kitchen to open. Yes, I eat at soup kitchens due to my cowardliness in life.
Standing there, I revealed to some of my buds that I had a fear of bridges. Jimmy asked, "What? A big guy like you afraid of bridges? Come on, man!"
    Not wanting to be dissed, I retorted, "Well, you fear going a day without pot!"
Jimmy and another guy, Phobic Frank, laughed.
    When blogging yesterday's post at the library, a very bright, very driven woman came by and gave me page 300 which I had asked her to read. On it, she had written that she "loved it."
    Walking on air from my little victories so far that day, I went to the gym. The game warden was standing at the counter talking to the manager, Steve. As he walked away, I called out, "Mr. Game Warden." He turned around to face me, and I continued, "What did you think of my page?" Our ensuing conversation went something like this, but first let me emphasize, as this is a law enforcement officer, that I am not giving exact quotes but am paraphrasing: "Did you say this was a page to a book you're working on?"
    "Yes, Black Panther. That was page 300."
    "Okay. I gave it to my daughter to read, and she said, 'Daddy, what's a cat-hound?"
    "That's cute."
    "I liked it. It had a rhythm and was friendly. You felt like you were there."
    "Thank you. That means a lot to me coming from a game warden and an outdoorsman."
    He walked closer to me and said, "I want to write a book on (was it "ethology" the study of behavior characteristics of animals?), but that wouldn't be like this. It's more classifications. Are you still writing it?"
    "Yes, still working on it."
    "I'd like to see more."
    "That's great! I'll tell you what: When I get to page 325, I'll give you a copy."
    "That would be great. Look forward to seeing it."
    His tone was warm and sincere. Propelled by the day's good news, I lifted far too long- three and a half hours. Of course, most of that was spent sitting on a bench and trying to recover from the previous set. Wiped out, I went home, drank my protein and milk mix, and got into bed as soon as possible.
    This morning, I woke up abruptly and early. I had been reviewing in a dream my conversation with the game warden. I realized I had actually talked to a game warden about Black Panther, though we hadn't touched anything about what I had said, just how I had said it. I found myself fearful and regretful that I had given him the page. What was his reaction to what I had said? I felt I couldn't talk to him about fishing without letting him know I was writing an expose on black panthers and the Florida's Game Commission's attitude toward them.
There would be no honor in blind-siding him, and I have been dishonorable too much in my life.But what did he think of the validity of what I was saying? Had he called his buddies, if any, at the Florida Game Commission? I would have, but I fight clean and legally. I don't have that faith in Florida's Game Commission, not from what all the people in Black Panther have said. Plus, the logging industry will kill people who get in the way of their greedy interests. Sister Dorothy Strang was shot dead while walking down the street with her sisters by loggers. She is only one of many who get jailed or killed for opposing logging, a business that usually rapes the land and murders the animals. But it is highly profitable. Follow the money.
    This leads me to the next step of walking across the street from the library where I am now to the State Attorney's Office and giving them a copy of this post so, again, the local game warden won't be blind-sided about me writing about our conversation at the gym. That means he will have my blogsite's name, and can watch what happens with Black Panther and me. The more, the merrier, aye? Peter Nickerson, 352-359-0850, peternickerson12@yahoo.com

Whistle-Blower #14

    Speaking of game wardens, Monday I thought I saw our area's game warden getting into a big, white truck with a cap on it in the parking lot behind the bank. He had something white in his hand, and it was probably a deposit slip. However, my imaginative mind wondered if he could have gone to the State Attorney's Office two doors down with page 300 of Black Panther, the expose on the Florida panther. Maybe he considered the page so momentous that he had to share it with the SA. Of course, I think the book is that compelling, but does anyone else?
Peter Nickerson. 352-359-0850.

Whistle-Blower #13

    After the luncheon with the other social services directors of the Tidewater Region in Virginia where one director said resignedly, "Well, I guess we're all going to have to provide Betty's [Copland's] therapy," and I urged them not to, citing the death of her pregnant foster child, I heard nothing for a while. One day, Jennifer Gaylor, my one eligibility worker, said to me, "I hear that Betty's coming after you." I didn't even ask why. I was totally isolated from people because of my shame about the "therapy" I was getting from the psychiatrist. It was not because I was engaging in a homosexual relationship but because I was being duped by the psychiatrist and cheating on my girlfriends. At least in those days, the Africans still in Africa were leaving the green monkey alone.  I didn't want to get close to people because I was afraid of being asked questions, and I certainly did not want to ask any questions for fear I'd be asked questions in turn. Instead, I passively waited for Betty to strike. I didn't think of warding off the strike by going to the media to tell them why she was coming after me. I simply read the newspapers waiting to see when and what it would be. Summer progressed into fall, and my mother from Idaho came to visit. I was reading the paper one morning, and I explained that Jennifer Gaylor had said that Betty Copland was coming after me, so I was watching the papers. All she said was, "Oh." No alarm. No questions.  I fully appreciate how unhumanly cold that remark was now that I have children. If my son or daughter were to tell me someone was coming after them the last thing I would say was "Oh. Pass the sugar please." I would want to know what was going on. I would insist on knowing or I would leave. My child would not commit vocational suicide if I could do anything about it! If I had to leave because my child wouldn't tell me what was going on, I'd check into a nearby motel and start looking into things even if it took a private investigator. Looking at my Mom's response, I have to wonder if part of my lack of a response to Betty was because of genetics. How could I have been so passive? Peter Nickerson, MS, MSW.

Whistle-Blower #12

    Breaker! Breaker! Yesterday at the gym, I asked another lifter about fishing. I thought I had heard him talking about fishing last year. This man is a regular, and I thought he was probably law enforcement. I had never talked to him before as he's a little severe looking, but I had been told that the rainbow trout die at the place I fish. I caught a 17 inch rainbow there and hoped for a bigger one.I asked him and found out that the rainbows do die because of the heat. I also got a lead on another body of water for big bows. I decided that if  Black Panther gets published, I didn't want him to think I had blindsided him. I also didn't like the fact that I felt anxious about what his reaction would be to my book since it is very critical of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission - the old Game Commission in a new package. Since I am trying to become more assertive, I felt it was necessary for transparency and my own growth as a man to give him page 300 of Black Panther. I had just made copies of it. I went out to the truck and brought it to him. He snatched it out of my hand, and I poked it with my hand as he held it. Macho stuff. I told him, "Just in case this is published and becomes famous, I don't want you saying 'That son of a bitch blind-sided me!'"
He laughed and said, "I'll read it."
    This page features my question to two Pennsylvania cat hunters if they thought Florida Fish and Wildlife would shoot black panthers. This was the first and only time I had the courage to ask such an inflammatory question in the Banana Republic of Florida. I can only hope that game wardens up here are aware that they are not Florida game wardens in general, and that they are more professional, especially scientific, in their profession than Florida game wardens. The fountainhead of being scientific is being curious. I found only one person in Florida Fish and Wildlife who had a scintilla of curiosity. He was a field biologist. Everyone else was completely invested in the party line that there were no panthers in Florida beyond the hundred in south Florida, and there was no such thing as a black panther or black puma, or black cougar or black catamount or anything in Florida. Their demeaning behavior toward those who had sightings was not that of a scientist but of someone he would hew to the party lie or lose his job. That brought out the worst in people.  Peter Nickerson, MS, MSW. Investigating the black panther phenomenon since 1998.

Whistle Blower #11

    The training itself was very interesting particularly the parts where mothers struggled to get physical control over their children. By this I mean that the mother would move like an anaconda, wrapping the acting-out child up with her limbs until the child could no longer move. Of course, the mother didn't crush the child though there was usually plenty of screaming going on by the child that would make you think she was. Obviously, this wouldn't work on older children. Even so, it took some mothers a long time to wrest complete control. As she did this, the therapist gave the mother encouragement plus there was a therapist looking in on this rather primal scene through a one-way mirror. She would actually make phone calls into the therapy room to advise the first therapist. All this was highly dramatic, and the mother and child would be completely exhausted.
    However, the idea that this therapy could be duplicated in public social services agencies was ridiculous unless it was widely supported by State welfare. Even so, the associations for licensed social workers and psychologists would object very strongly to people with only undergraduate degrees in say, government, giving therapy. In addition, State welfare was running social workers by a computer program that gave them only a few hours each month to work with their foster care cases and their child abuse/neglect cases. It was already a ridiculous amount of time without adding in the social worker and a second social worker doing family counseling. All I had to do was show the consequences - two dead people [guess what? fetuses are people for you who are in la-la land.], and there would be hell to pay. And Betty Copland, Director of York County Social Services, knew it. Peter Nickerson, MS,MSW. Director of Williamsburg Social Services for eight years, 352-359-0850.