main
iOS 8 months ago
parent 21c3ef7be6
commit 956064b725

@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
"601d1cc7-a4f3-4f19-aa9f-3bddd7ab6b1d": {
"locked": false,
"lockedDeviceName": "iPhone",
"lastRun": "2024-07-05T07:14:44+02:00"
"lastRun": "2024-07-19T07:15:52+02:00"
}
}
}

@ -12,8 +12,8 @@
"checkpointList": [
{
"path": "/",
"date": "2024-07-05",
"size": 17027173
"date": "2024-07-19",
"size": 8765155
}
],
"activityHistory": [
@ -3642,7 +3642,63 @@
},
{
"date": "2024-07-05",
"value": 1453
"value": 2064
},
{
"date": "2024-07-06",
"value": 2224
},
{
"date": "2024-07-07",
"value": 250309
},
{
"date": "2024-07-08",
"value": 4422
},
{
"date": "2024-07-09",
"value": 1683
},
{
"date": "2024-07-10",
"value": 31085
},
{
"date": "2024-07-11",
"value": 1665
},
{
"date": "2024-07-12",
"value": 2841
},
{
"date": "2024-07-13",
"value": 2548
},
{
"date": "2024-07-14",
"value": 1778
},
{
"date": "2024-07-15",
"value": 8823126
},
{
"date": "2024-07-16",
"value": 5670
},
{
"date": "2024-07-17",
"value": 2100
},
{
"date": "2024-07-18",
"value": 2079
},
{
"date": "2024-07-19",
"value": 1443
}
]
}

@ -3277,7 +3277,7 @@ __export(main_exports, {
default: () => AdvancedURI
});
module.exports = __toCommonJS(main_exports);
var import_obsidian13 = require("obsidian");
var import_obsidian14 = require("obsidian");
// node_modules/obsidian-community-lib/dist/utils.js
var feather = __toESM(require_feather());
@ -3299,15 +3299,17 @@ var BlockUtils = class _BlockUtils {
var _a, _b;
const cursor = editor.getCursor("to");
const fileCache = app2.metadataCache.getFileCache(file);
let currentBlock = (_a = fileCache == null ? void 0 : fileCache.sections) == null ? void 0 : _a.find(
(section) => section.position.start.line <= cursor.line && section.position.end.line >= cursor.line
);
if (currentBlock.type == "list") {
currentBlock = (_b = fileCache.listItems) == null ? void 0 : _b.find((list) => {
if (list.position.start.line <= cursor.line && list.position.end.line >= cursor.line) {
return list;
}
});
const sections = fileCache == null ? void 0 : fileCache.sections;
if (!sections || sections.length === 0) {
console.log("error reading FileCache (empty file?)");
return;
}
const foundSectionIndex = sections.findIndex((section) => section.position.start.line > cursor.line);
let currentBlock = foundSectionIndex > 0 ? sections[foundSectionIndex - 1] : sections[sections.length - 1];
if ((currentBlock == null ? void 0 : currentBlock.type) == "list") {
currentBlock = (_b = (_a = fileCache.listItems) == null ? void 0 : _a.find(
(section) => section.position.start.line <= cursor.line && section.position.end.line >= cursor.line
)) != null ? _b : currentBlock;
}
return currentBlock;
}
@ -4080,12 +4082,12 @@ var Handlers = class {
this.plugin.success(parameters);
}
async handleUpdatePlugins(parameters) {
parameters.settingid = "community-plugins";
this.handleOpenSettings(parameters);
this.app.setting.activeTab.containerEl.findAll(".mod-cta").last().click();
new import_obsidian7.Notice("Waiting 10 seconds");
await new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(resolve, 10 * 1e3));
if (Object.keys(this.app.plugins.updates).length !== 0) {
new import_obsidian7.Notice("Checking for updates\u2026");
await app.plugins.checkForUpdates();
const updateCount = Object.keys(this.app.plugins.updates).length;
if (updateCount > 0) {
parameters.settingid = "community-plugins";
this.handleOpenSettings(parameters);
this.app.setting.activeTab.containerEl.findAll(".mod-cta").last().click();
}
this.plugin.success(parameters);
@ -4430,7 +4432,20 @@ var Tools = class {
parameters.filepath = void 0;
parameters.uid = await this.getUIDFromFile(file);
}
for (const parameter in parameters) {
const sortedParameterKeys = Object.keys(parameters).filter((key) => parameters[key]).sort((a, b) => {
const first = ["filepath", "filename", "uid", "daily"];
const last = ["data", "eval"];
if (first.includes(a))
return -1;
if (first.includes(b))
return 1;
if (last.includes(a))
return 1;
if (last.includes(b))
return -1;
return 0;
});
for (const parameter of sortedParameterKeys) {
if (parameters[parameter] != void 0) {
suffix += suffix ? "&" : "?";
suffix += `${parameter}=${encodeURIComponent(
@ -4478,8 +4493,32 @@ var Tools = class {
}
};
// src/modals/workspace_modal.ts
var import_obsidian13 = require("obsidian");
var WorkspaceModal = class extends import_obsidian13.FuzzySuggestModal {
constructor(plugin) {
super(plugin.app);
this.plugin = plugin;
this.setPlaceholder("Choose a workspace");
}
getItems() {
const workspacesPlugin = this.app.internalPlugins.getEnabledPluginById("workspaces");
if (!workspacesPlugin) {
new import_obsidian13.Notice("Workspaces plugin is not enabled");
} else {
return Object.keys(workspacesPlugin.workspaces);
}
}
getItemText(item) {
return item;
}
onChooseItem(item, _) {
this.plugin.tools.copyURI({ workspace: item });
}
};
// src/main.ts
var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian14.Plugin {
constructor() {
super(...arguments);
this.handlers = new Handlers(this);
@ -4490,22 +4529,22 @@ var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
this.addSettingTab(new SettingsTab(this.app, this));
this.addCommand({
id: "copy-uri-current-file",
name: "copy URI for file with options",
name: "Copy URI for file with options",
callback: () => this.handlers.handleCopyFileURI(false)
});
this.addCommand({
id: "copy-uri-current-file-simple",
name: "copy URI for current file",
name: "Copy URI for current file",
callback: () => this.handlers.handleCopyFileURI(true)
});
this.addCommand({
id: "copy-uri-daily",
name: "copy URI for daily note",
name: "Copy URI for daily note",
callback: () => new EnterDataModal(this).open()
});
this.addCommand({
id: "copy-uri-search-and-replace",
name: "copy URI for search and replace",
name: "Copy URI for search and replace",
callback: () => {
const fileModal = new FileModal(
this,
@ -4523,7 +4562,7 @@ var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
});
this.addCommand({
id: "copy-uri-command",
name: "copy URI for command",
name: "Copy URI for command",
callback: () => {
const fileModal = new FileModal(
this,
@ -4537,9 +4576,9 @@ var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
});
this.addCommand({
id: "copy-uri-block",
name: "copy URI for current block",
name: "Copy URI for current block",
checkCallback: (checking) => {
const view = this.app.workspace.getActiveViewOfType(import_obsidian13.MarkdownView);
const view = this.app.workspace.getActiveViewOfType(import_obsidian14.MarkdownView);
if (checking)
return view != void 0;
const id = BlockUtils.getBlockId(this.app);
@ -4551,6 +4590,14 @@ var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
}
}
});
this.addCommand({
id: "copy-uri-workspace",
name: "Copy URI for workspace",
callback: () => {
const modal = new WorkspaceModal(this);
modal.open();
}
});
this.registerObsidianProtocolHandler("advanced-uri", async (e) => {
var _a, _b, _c;
const parameters = e;
@ -4576,7 +4623,7 @@ var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
file = this.app.vault.getMarkdownFiles().find(
(file2) => {
var _a2;
return (_a2 = (0, import_obsidian13.parseFrontMatterAliases)(
return (_a2 = (0, import_obsidian14.parseFrontMatterAliases)(
this.app.metadataCache.getFileCache(file2).frontmatter
)) == null ? void 0 : _a2.includes(parameters.filename);
}
@ -4586,10 +4633,10 @@ var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
(_b = this.app.workspace.getActiveFile()) == null ? void 0 : _b.path
);
const parentFolderPath = parentFolder.isRoot() ? "" : parentFolder.path + "/";
parameters.filepath = (_c = file == null ? void 0 : file.path) != null ? _c : parentFolderPath + (0, import_obsidian13.normalizePath)(parameters.filename);
parameters.filepath = (_c = file == null ? void 0 : file.path) != null ? _c : parentFolderPath + (0, import_obsidian14.normalizePath)(parameters.filename);
}
if (parameters.filepath) {
parameters.filepath = (0, import_obsidian13.normalizePath)(parameters.filepath);
parameters.filepath = (0, import_obsidian14.normalizePath)(parameters.filepath);
const index = parameters.filepath.lastIndexOf(".");
const extension = parameters.filepath.substring(
index < 0 ? parameters.filepath.length : index
@ -4599,7 +4646,7 @@ var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
}
} else if (parameters.daily === "true") {
if (!(0, import_obsidian_daily_notes_interface2.appHasDailyNotesPluginLoaded)()) {
new import_obsidian13.Notice("Daily notes plugin is not loaded");
new import_obsidian14.Notice("Daily notes plugin is not loaded");
return;
}
const moment = window.moment(Date.now());
@ -4648,7 +4695,7 @@ var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
if (!(source === "more-options" || source === "tab-header" || source == "file-explorer-context-menu")) {
return;
}
if (!(file instanceof import_obsidian13.TFile)) {
if (!(file instanceof import_obsidian14.TFile)) {
return;
}
menu.addItem((item) => {
@ -4737,7 +4784,7 @@ var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
let path;
let dataToWrite;
if (parameters.heading) {
if (file instanceof import_obsidian13.TFile) {
if (file instanceof import_obsidian14.TFile) {
path = file.path;
const line = (_a = getEndAndBeginningOfHeading(
this.app,
@ -4752,15 +4799,21 @@ var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
dataToWrite = lines.join("\n");
}
} else {
let fileData;
if (file instanceof import_obsidian13.TFile) {
fileData = await this.app.vault.read(file);
if (file instanceof import_obsidian14.TFile) {
path = file.path;
const fileData = await this.app.vault.read(file);
if (parameters.line) {
let line = Math.max(Number(parameters.line), 0);
const lines = fileData.split("\n");
lines.splice(line, 0, parameters.data);
dataToWrite = lines.join("\n");
} else {
dataToWrite = fileData + "\n" + parameters.data;
}
} else {
path = file;
fileData = "";
dataToWrite = parameters.data;
}
dataToWrite = fileData + "\n" + parameters.data;
}
return this.writeAndOpenFile(path, dataToWrite, parameters);
}
@ -4769,7 +4822,7 @@ var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
let path;
let dataToWrite;
if (parameters.heading) {
if (file instanceof import_obsidian13.TFile) {
if (file instanceof import_obsidian14.TFile) {
path = file.path;
const line = (_a = getEndAndBeginningOfHeading(
this.app,
@ -4784,18 +4837,19 @@ var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
dataToWrite = lines.join("\n");
}
} else {
if (file instanceof import_obsidian13.TFile) {
if (file instanceof import_obsidian14.TFile) {
path = file.path;
const fileData = await this.app.vault.read(file);
const cache = this.app.metadataCache.getFileCache(file);
if (cache.frontmatterPosition) {
const line = cache.frontmatterPosition.end.line;
const first = fileData.split("\n").slice(0, line + 1).join("\n");
const last = fileData.split("\n").slice(line + 1).join("\n");
dataToWrite = first + "\n" + parameters.data + "\n" + last;
} else {
dataToWrite = parameters.data + "\n" + fileData;
let line = 0;
if (parameters.line) {
line += Math.max(Number(parameters.line) - 1, 0);
} else if (cache.frontmatterPosition) {
line += cache.frontmatterPosition.end.line + 1;
}
path = file.path;
const lines = fileData.split("\n");
lines.splice(line, 0, parameters.data);
dataToWrite = lines.join("\n");
} else {
path = file;
dataToWrite = parameters.data;
@ -4805,19 +4859,19 @@ var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
}
async writeAndOpenFile(outputFileName, text, parameters) {
const file = this.app.vault.getAbstractFileByPath(outputFileName);
if (file instanceof import_obsidian13.TFile) {
if (file instanceof import_obsidian14.TFile) {
await this.app.vault.modify(file, text);
} else {
const parts = outputFileName.split("/");
const dir = parts.slice(0, parts.length - 1).join("/");
if (parts.length > 1 && !(this.app.vault.getAbstractFileByPath(dir) instanceof import_obsidian13.TFolder)) {
if (parts.length > 1 && !(this.app.vault.getAbstractFileByPath(dir) instanceof import_obsidian14.TFolder)) {
await this.app.vault.createFolder(dir);
}
const base64regex = /^([0-9a-zA-Z+/]{4})*(([0-9a-zA-Z+/]{2}==)|([0-9a-zA-Z+/]{3}=))?$/;
if (base64regex.test(text)) {
await this.app.vault.createBinary(
outputFileName,
(0, import_obsidian13.base64ToArrayBuffer)(text)
(0, import_obsidian14.base64ToArrayBuffer)(text)
);
} else {
await this.app.vault.create(outputFileName, text);
@ -4850,7 +4904,7 @@ var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
if (parameters.openmode == "popover" && (supportPopover != null ? supportPopover : true)) {
const hoverEditor = this.app.plugins.plugins["obsidian-hover-editor"];
if (!hoverEditor) {
new import_obsidian13.Notice(
new import_obsidian14.Notice(
"Cannot find Hover Editor plugin. Please file an issue."
);
this.failure(parameters);
@ -4859,11 +4913,11 @@ var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
this.app.workspace.setActiveLeaf(leaf, { focus: true });
});
let tFile;
if (file instanceof import_obsidian13.TFile) {
if (file instanceof import_obsidian14.TFile) {
tFile = file;
} else {
tFile = this.app.vault.getAbstractFileByPath(
(0, import_obsidian13.getLinkpath)(file)
(0, import_obsidian14.getLinkpath)(file)
);
}
await leaf.openFile(tFile);
@ -4884,6 +4938,9 @@ var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
if (openMode == "silent") {
return;
}
if (import_obsidian14.Platform.isMobileApp && openMode == "window") {
openMode = true;
}
let fileIsAlreadyOpened = false;
if (isBoolean(openMode)) {
this.app.workspace.iterateAllLeaves((leaf) => {
@ -4897,7 +4954,7 @@ var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
});
}
return this.app.workspace.openLinkText(
file instanceof import_obsidian13.TFile ? file.path : file,
file instanceof import_obsidian14.TFile ? file.path : file,
"/",
fileIsAlreadyOpened ? false : openMode,
mode != void 0 ? { state: { mode } } : getViewStateFromMode(parameters)
@ -4905,7 +4962,7 @@ var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
}
}
async setCursor(parameters) {
const view = this.app.workspace.getActiveViewOfType(import_obsidian13.MarkdownView);
const view = this.app.workspace.getActiveViewOfType(import_obsidian14.MarkdownView);
if (!view)
return;
const mode = parameters.mode;
@ -4928,8 +4985,8 @@ var AdvancedURI = class extends import_obsidian13.Plugin {
}
}
async setCursorInLine(parameters) {
const rawLine = parameters.line;
const view = this.app.workspace.getActiveViewOfType(import_obsidian13.MarkdownView);
const rawLine = Number(parameters.line);
const view = this.app.workspace.getActiveViewOfType(import_obsidian14.MarkdownView);
if (!view)
return;
const viewState = view.leaf.getViewState();

@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
"isDesktopOnly": false,
"js": "main.js",
"fundingUrl": "https://ko-fi.com/vinzent",
"version": "1.40.1",
"version": "1.41.0",
"author": "Vinzent",
"authorUrl": "https://github.com/Vinzent03"
}

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@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
{
"id": "obsidian-icon-folder",
"name": "Iconize",
"version": "2.14.1",
"version": "2.14.2",
"minAppVersion": "0.9.12",
"description": "Add icons to anything you desire in Obsidian, including files, folders, and text.",
"author": "Florian Woelki",

@ -9,6 +9,7 @@
}
.iconize-icon-in-link {
transform: translateY(20%);
margin-right: var(--size-2-2);
display: inline-flex;
}

File diff suppressed because one or more lines are too long

@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
{
"id": "obsidian-media-db-plugin",
"name": "Media DB",
"version": "0.7.1",
"version": "0.7.2",
"minAppVersion": "1.5.0",
"description": "A plugin that can query multiple APIs for movies, series, anime, games, music and wiki articles, and import them into your vault.",
"author": "Moritz Jung",

@ -85,7 +85,7 @@
"MomentsIcon": "https://images.pexels.com/photos/256514/pexels-photo-256514.jpeg",
"MomentsQuote": "Share your thino with the world",
"DefaultThemeForThino": "classic",
"LastUpdatedVersion": "2.4.47",
"LastUpdatedVersion": "2.4.49",
"ShareToThinoWithText": false,
"ShareToThinoWithTextAppend": "",
"ShareToThinoWithTextPrepend": "",

File diff suppressed because one or more lines are too long

@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
"id": "obsidian-memos",
"name": "Thino",
"description": "Capturing ideas and save them into daily notes. (Closed source)",
"version": "2.4.47",
"version": "2.4.49",
"author": "Boninall",
"authorUrl": "https://github.com/Quorafind/",
"isDesktopOnly": false,

@ -4,40 +4,45 @@
"05.01 Computer setup/Storage and Syncing.md": [
{
"title": ":cloud: [[Storage and Syncing|Storage & Sync]]: Backup Volumes to [[Sync|Sync.com]] %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-06-10",
"rowNumber": 192
"time": "2024-09-09",
"rowNumber": 178
},
{
"title": ":coin: Backup [[Storage and Syncing#Instructions for Anchor|Anchor Wallet]] %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-10-03",
"rowNumber": 174
},
{
"title": ":floppy_disk: Backup [[Storage and Syncing#Instructions for FV|Folder Vault]] %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-05",
"rowNumber": 186
"time": "2024-10-04",
"rowNumber": 177
},
{
"title": ":iphone: Backup [[Storage and Syncing#Instructions for iPhone|iPhone]] %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-09",
"rowNumber": 180
"time": "2024-10-08",
"rowNumber": 175
},
{
"title": ":camera: [[Storage and Syncing|Storage & Sync]]: Transfer pictures to ED %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-11",
"rowNumber": 197
"time": "2024-10-10",
"rowNumber": 180
},
{
"title": "Backup [[Storage and Syncing#Instructions for Anchor|Anchor Wallet]] %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-10-03",
"rowNumber": 174
"title": ":iphone: Backup [[Storage and Syncing|news for previous year]] %%done_del%%",
"time": "2025-01-15",
"rowNumber": 176
}
],
"06.01 Finances/hLedger.md": [
{
"title": ":heavy_dollar_sign: [[hLedger]]: Update Price file %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-05",
"time": "2024-10-04",
"rowNumber": 418
},
{
"title": ":heavy_dollar_sign: [[hLedger]]: Update current ledger %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-05",
"rowNumber": 424
"time": "2024-10-04",
"rowNumber": 425
}
],
"05.02 Networks/Server Cloud.md": [
@ -189,7 +194,7 @@
"01.03 Family/Opportune de Villeneuve.md": [
{
"title": ":birthday: **[[Opportune de Villeneuve|Opportune]]** %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-14",
"time": "2025-07-14",
"rowNumber": 105
}
],
@ -238,7 +243,7 @@
"01.03 Family/Jacqueline Bédier.md": [
{
"title": ":birthday: **[[Jacqueline Bédier|Bonne Maman]]** %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-13",
"time": "2025-07-13",
"rowNumber": 105
}
],
@ -329,48 +334,48 @@
"01.02 Home/Household.md": [
{
"title": "♻ [[Household]]: *Cardboard* recycling collection %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-09",
"rowNumber": 80
"time": "2024-07-23",
"rowNumber": 81
},
{
"title": "🛎 🧻 REMINDER [[Household]]: check need for toilet paper %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-15",
"rowNumber": 93
"time": "2024-07-29",
"rowNumber": 95
},
{
"title": "♻ [[Household]]: *Paper* recycling collection %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-16",
"time": "2024-07-30",
"rowNumber": 75
},
{
"title": "🛎️ :house: [[Household]]: Pay rent %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-31",
"rowNumber": 90
"rowNumber": 92
},
{
"title": ":blue_car: [[Household]]: Change to Winter tyres @ [[Rex Automobile CH]] %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-10-15",
"rowNumber": 104
"rowNumber": 107
},
{
"title": ":ski: [[Household]]: Organise yearly ski servicing ([[Ski Rental Zürich]]) %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-10-31",
"rowNumber": 113
"rowNumber": 116
},
{
"title": ":blue_car: [[Household]]: Clean car %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-11-30",
"rowNumber": 106
"rowNumber": 109
},
{
"title": ":blue_car: [[Household]]: Renew [road vignette](https://www.e-vignette.ch/) %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-12-20",
"rowNumber": 105
"rowNumber": 108
},
{
"title": ":blue_car: [[Household]]: Change to Summer tyres @ [[Rex Automobile CH]] %%done_del%%",
"time": "2025-04-15",
"rowNumber": 103
"rowNumber": 106
}
],
"01.03 Family/Pia Bousquié.md": [
@ -388,15 +393,15 @@
}
],
"01.01 Life Orga/@Finances.md": [
{
"title": ":heavy_dollar_sign: [[@Finances|Finances]]: update crypto prices within Obsidian %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-09",
"rowNumber": 116
},
{
"title": ":heavy_dollar_sign: [[@Finances|Finances]]: Swiss tax self declaration %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-31",
"rowNumber": 125
"rowNumber": 126
},
{
"title": ":heavy_dollar_sign: [[@Finances|Finances]]: update crypto prices within Obsidian %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-08-13",
"rowNumber": 116
},
{
"title": ":moneybag: [[@Finances]]: Transfer UK pension to CH %%done_del%%",
@ -406,7 +411,7 @@
{
"title": ":heavy_dollar_sign: [[@Finances|Finances]]: Close yearly accounts %%done_del%%",
"time": "2025-01-07",
"rowNumber": 123
"rowNumber": 124
}
],
"01.01 Life Orga/@Personal projects.md": [
@ -444,27 +449,32 @@
}
],
"06.02 Investments/Crypto Tasks.md": [
{
"title": ":chart: Check [[Nimbus]] earnings %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-08",
"rowNumber": 92
},
{
"title": ":ballot_box_with_ballot: [[Crypto Tasks]]: Vote for [[EOS]] block producers %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-08-06",
"rowNumber": 72
},
{
"title": ":chart: Check [[Nimbus]] earnings %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-08-12",
"rowNumber": 92
}
],
"05.02 Networks/Configuring UFW.md": [
{
"title": "🖥 [[Selfhosting]], [[Configuring UFW|Firewall]] Get IP addresses caught by Postfix %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-06",
"time": "2024-07-27",
"rowNumber": 239
},
{
"title": "🖥 [[Selfhosting]], [[Configuring UFW|Firewall]] Get IP addresses caught by Postfix %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-27",
"rowNumber": 318
},
{
"title": "🖥 [[Selfhosting]], [[Configuring UFW|Firewall]]: Update the Blocked IP list %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-06",
"rowNumber": 316
"time": "2024-07-27",
"rowNumber": 322
}
],
"01.03 Family/Amélie Solanet.md": [
@ -618,15 +628,15 @@
}
],
"02.01 London/@@London.md": [
{
"title": ":birthday: **Alex Houyvet**, [[@@London|London]] %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-13",
"rowNumber": 120
},
{
"title": ":birthday: **Stefan Schmidt**, [[@@London|London]] %%done_del%%",
"time": "2025-06-29",
"rowNumber": 117
},
{
"title": ":birthday: **Alex Houyvet**, [[@@London|London]] %%done_del%%",
"time": "2025-07-13",
"rowNumber": 120
}
],
"01.01 Life Orga/@Lifestyle.md": [
@ -665,7 +675,7 @@
"01.07 Animals/@Sally.md": [
{
"title": ":racehorse: [[@Sally|Sally]]: Pay for horseshoes (150 CHF) %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-10",
"time": "2024-08-10",
"rowNumber": 142
},
{
@ -708,7 +718,7 @@
"01.07 Animals/2023-07-13 Health check.md": [
{
"title": ":racehorse: [[@Sally|Sally]], [[2023-07-13 Health check|Note]]: Check front hoofs healing",
"time": "2024-07-16",
"time": "2024-07-30",
"rowNumber": 53
}
],
@ -736,7 +746,7 @@
"00.01 Admin/Calendars/2023-10-28.md": [
{
"title": "11:48 :musical_keyboard: [[@Lifestyle|Lifestyle]]: Buy an ampli (Verstaerker): Yamaha A-S301 or Marantz PM6007",
"time": "2024-07-07",
"time": "2024-12-20",
"rowNumber": 103
}
],
@ -782,17 +792,17 @@
{
"title": ":sunny: :partying_face: [[@@Zürich|:test_zurich_coat_of_arms:]]: Check out Seenachtfest Rapperswil-Jona %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-08-01",
"rowNumber": 129
"rowNumber": 119
},
{
"title": ":sunny: :runner: [[@@Zürich|:test_zurich_coat_of_arms:]]: Check out tickets to Weltklasse Zürich %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-08-01",
"rowNumber": 137
"rowNumber": 126
},
{
"title": ":sunny: :partying_face: [[@@Zürich|:test_zurich_coat_of_arms:]]: Street Parade %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-08-10",
"rowNumber": 127
"rowNumber": 117
},
{
"title": "🎭:frame_with_picture: [[@@Zürich|:test_zurich_coat_of_arms:]]: Check out exhibitions at the [Kunsthaus](https://www.kunsthaus.ch/en/) %%done_del%%",
@ -802,22 +812,22 @@
{
"title": ":sunny: :partying_face: [[@@Zürich|:test_zurich_coat_of_arms:]]: Zürich Openair %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-08-23",
"rowNumber": 128
"rowNumber": 118
},
{
"title": "🎭:frame_with_picture: [[@@Zürich|:test_zurich_coat_of_arms:]]: Check out exhibitions at the [Rietberg](https://rietberg.ch/en/) %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-09-15",
"rowNumber": 96
"rowNumber": 94
},
{
"title": ":maple_leaf: :movie_camera: [[@@Zürich|:test_zurich_coat_of_arms:]]: Check out Zürich Film Festival %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-09-15",
"rowNumber": 112
"rowNumber": 105
},
{
"title": ":maple_leaf: :wine_glass: [[@@Zürich|:test_zurich_coat_of_arms:]]: Check out Zürichs Wine festival ([ZWF - Zurich Wine Festival](https://zurichwinefestival.ch/)) %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-09-25",
"rowNumber": 113
"rowNumber": 106
},
{
"title": ":snowflake:🎭 [[@@Zürich|:test_zurich_coat_of_arms:]]: Check out floating theatre ([Herzlich willkommen!](http://herzbaracke.ch/)) %%done_del%%",
@ -827,57 +837,57 @@
{
"title": ":maple_leaf: :wine_glass: [[@@Zürich|:test_zurich_coat_of_arms:]]: Check out [Discover the Excitement of EXPOVINA Wine Events | Join Us at Weinschiffe, Primavera, and Wine Trophy | EXPOVINA](https://expovina.ch/en-ch/) %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-10-15",
"rowNumber": 114
"rowNumber": 107
},
{
"title": ":snowflake: :person_in_steamy_room: [[@@Zürich|:test_zurich_coat_of_arms:]]: Check out [Sauna Cubes at Strandbad Küsnacht — Strandbadsauna](https://www.strandbadsauna.ch/home-eng) %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-11-15",
"rowNumber": 104
"rowNumber": 100
},
{
"title": ":christmas_tree: :cocktail: [[@@Zürich|:test_zurich_coat_of_arms:]]: Check out pop-up bars ([Pop-ups at Christmas | zuerich.com](https://www.zuerich.com/en/visit/christmas-in-zurich/pop-ups)) %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-12-01",
"rowNumber": 105
"rowNumber": 101
},
{
"title": ":snowflake: :swimmer: [[@@Zürich|:test_zurich_coat_of_arms:]]: Samichlausschwimmen %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-12-08",
"rowNumber": 120
"rowNumber": 113
},
{
"title": ":snowflake: :partying_face: [[@@Zürich|:test_zurich_coat_of_arms:]]: ZüriCarneval weekend %%done_del%%",
"time": "2025-02-15",
"rowNumber": 121
"rowNumber": 114
},
{
"title": ":hibiscus: :partying_face: [[@@Zürich|:test_zurich_coat_of_arms:]]: Sechseläuten %%done_del%%",
"time": "2025-04-15",
"rowNumber": 123
"rowNumber": 115
},
{
"title": ":hibiscus: :runner: [[@@Zürich|Zürich]]: Zürich Marathon %%done_del%%",
"time": "2025-04-21",
"rowNumber": 135
"rowNumber": 125
},
{
"title": ":hibiscus: :fork_and_knife: [[@@Zürich|:test_zurich_coat_of_arms:]]: Book a restaurant with terrace for the season: [[Albishaus]], [[Restaurant Boldern]], [[Zur Buech]], [[Jardin Zürichberg]], [[Bistro Rigiblick]], [[Portofino am See]], [[La Réserve|La Muña]] %%done_del%%",
"time": "2025-05-01",
"rowNumber": 106
"rowNumber": 102
},
{
"title": ":hibiscus: :canned_food: [[@@Zürich|:test_zurich_coat_of_arms:]]: Check out [FOOD ZURICH - MEHR ALS EIN FESTIVAL](https://www.foodzurich.com/de/) %%done_del%%",
"time": "2025-06-01",
"rowNumber": 108
"rowNumber": 103
},
{
"title": ":hibiscus: :partying_face: [[@@Zürich|:test_zurich_coat_of_arms:]]: Zürich Pride Festival %%done_del%%",
"time": "2025-06-15",
"rowNumber": 125
"rowNumber": 116
},
{
"title": ":sunny: :movie_camera: [[@@Zürich|:test_zurich_coat_of_arms:]]: Check out programmation of the [Zurich's finest open-air cinema | Allianz Cinema -](https://zuerich.allianzcinema.ch/en) %%done_del%%",
"time": "2025-07-01",
"rowNumber": 110
"rowNumber": 104
}
],
"03.02 Travels/Geneva.md": [
@ -1007,13 +1017,20 @@
"01.06 Health/2024-06-29 Fungal treatment.md": [
{
"title": ":test_pharmacie_logo_svg_vector: [[2024-06-29 Fungal treatment|Fungus]]: Take the pill %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-06",
"time": "2024-07-20",
"rowNumber": 58
},
{
"title": ":test_pharmacie_logo_svg_vector: [[2024-06-29 Fungal treatment|Fungus]]: Nail lack %%done_del%%",
"time": "2024-07-08",
"rowNumber": 65
"time": "2024-07-20",
"rowNumber": 62
}
],
"01.06 Health/2023-02-25 Polyp in Galbladder.md": [
{
"title": "🩺 [[2023-02-25 Polyp in Galbladder|Polype in gallbladder]]: Organise control scan for polype",
"time": "2025-07-12",
"rowNumber": 68
}
]
},

File diff suppressed because one or more lines are too long

@ -1,9 +1,9 @@
{
"id": "obsidian-tasks-plugin",
"name": "Tasks",
"version": "7.6.0",
"version": "7.6.1",
"minAppVersion": "1.1.1",
"description": "Task management for Obsidian",
"description": "Track tasks across your vault. Supports due dates, recurring tasks, done dates, sub-set of checklist items, and filtering.",
"helpUrl": "https://publish.obsidian.md/tasks/",
"author": "Martin Schenck and Clare Macrae",
"authorUrl": "https://github.com/obsidian-tasks-group",

@ -48,8 +48,9 @@
"devMode": false,
"templateFolderPath": "00.01 Admin/Templates",
"announceUpdates": true,
"version": "1.9.1",
"version": "1.10.0",
"disableOnlineFeatures": true,
"enableRibbonIcon": false,
"ai": {
"defaultModel": "Ask me",
"defaultSystemPrompt": "As an AI assistant within Obsidian, your primary goal is to help users manage their ideas and knowledge more effectively. Format your responses using Markdown syntax. Please use the [[Obsidian]] link format. You can write aliases for the links by writing [[Obsidian|the alias after the pipe symbol]]. To use mathematical notation, use LaTeX syntax. LaTeX syntax for larger equations should be on separate lines, surrounded with double dollar signs ($$). You can also inline math expressions by wrapping it in $ symbols. For example, use $$w_{ij}^{\text{new}}:=w_{ij}^{\text{current}}+etacdotdelta_jcdot x_{ij}$$ on a separate line, but you can write \"($eta$ = learning rate, $delta_j$ = error term, $x_{ij}$ = input)\" inline.",

@ -11615,15 +11615,25 @@ var QuickAddApi = class {
plugin,
choiceExecutor
).format;
const modelProvider = getModelProvider(model.name);
let _model;
if (typeof model === "string") {
const foundModel = getModelByName(model);
if (!foundModel) {
throw new Error(`Model '${model}' not found.`);
}
_model = foundModel;
} else {
_model = model;
}
const modelProvider = getModelProvider(_model.name);
if (!modelProvider) {
throw new Error(
`Model '${model.name}' not found in any provider`
`Model '${_model.name}' not found in any provider`
);
}
const assistantRes = await Prompt(
{
model,
model: _model,
prompt,
apiKey: modelProvider.apiKey,
modelOptions: settings?.modelOptions ?? {},
@ -11657,11 +11667,17 @@ var QuickAddApi = class {
plugin,
choiceExecutor
).format;
const _model = getModelByName(model);
if (!_model) {
throw new Error(`Model ${model} not found.`);
let _model;
if (typeof model === "string") {
const foundModel = getModelByName(model);
if (!foundModel) {
throw new Error(`Model ${model} not found.`);
}
_model = foundModel;
} else {
_model = model;
}
const modelProvider = getModelProvider(model);
const modelProvider = getModelProvider(_model.name);
if (!modelProvider) {
throw new Error(
`Model '${_model.name}' not found in any provider`
@ -17612,6 +17628,7 @@ var DEFAULT_SETTINGS = {
announceUpdates: true,
version: "0.0.0",
disableOnlineFeatures: true,
enableRibbonIcon: false,
ai: {
defaultModel: "Ask me",
defaultSystemPrompt: `As an AI assistant within Obsidian, your primary goal is to help users manage their ideas and knowledge more effectively. Format your responses using Markdown syntax. Please use the [[Obsidian]] link format. You can write aliases for the links by writing [[Obsidian|the alias after the pipe symbol]]. To use mathematical notation, use LaTeX syntax. LaTeX syntax for larger equations should be on separate lines, surrounded with double dollar signs ($$). You can also inline math expressions by wrapping it in $ symbols. For example, use $$w_{ij}^{ ext{new}}:=w_{ij}^{ ext{current}}+etacdotdelta_jcdot x_{ij}$$ on a separate line, but you can write "($eta$ = learning rate, $delta_j$ = error term, $x_{ij}$ = input)" inline.`,
@ -17642,6 +17659,7 @@ var QuickAddSettingsTab = class extends import_obsidian34.PluginSettingTab {
this.addTemplateFolderPathSetting();
this.addAnnounceUpdatesSetting();
this.addDisableOnlineFeaturesSetting();
this.addEnableRibbonIconSetting();
}
addAnnounceUpdatesSetting() {
const setting = new import_obsidian34.Setting(this.containerEl);
@ -17726,6 +17744,16 @@ var QuickAddSettingsTab = class extends import_obsidian34.PluginSettingTab {
})
);
}
addEnableRibbonIconSetting() {
new import_obsidian34.Setting(this.containerEl).setName("Show icon in sidebar").setDesc("Add QuickAdd icon to the sidebar ribbon. Requires a reload.").addToggle((toggle) => {
toggle.setValue(settingsStore.getState().enableRibbonIcon).onChange((value) => {
settingsStore.setState({
enableRibbonIcon: value
});
this.display();
});
});
}
};
// src/logger/quickAddLogger.ts
@ -19866,6 +19894,11 @@ var QuickAdd = class extends import_obsidian42.Plugin {
}
});
log.register(new ConsoleErrorLogger()).register(new GuiLogger(this));
if (this.settings.enableRibbonIcon) {
this.addRibbonIcon("file-plus", "QuickAdd", () => {
ChoiceSuggester.Open(this, this.settings.choices);
});
}
this.addSettingTab(new QuickAddSettingsTab(this.app, this));
this.app.workspace.onLayoutReady(
() => new StartupMacroEngine(

@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
{
"id": "quickadd",
"name": "QuickAdd",
"version": "1.9.1",
"version": "1.10.0",
"minAppVersion": "1.6.0",
"description": "Quickly add new pages or content to your vault.",
"author": "Christian B. B. Houmann",

@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
{
"name": "Minimal",
"version": "7.7.4",
"version": "7.7.7",
"minAppVersion": "1.6.1",
"author": "@kepano",
"authorUrl": "https://twitter.com/kepano",

File diff suppressed because one or more lines are too long

@ -61,20 +61,12 @@
"state": {
"type": "markdown",
"state": {
"file": "00.01 Admin/Calendars/2024-07-05.md",
"file": "00.01 Admin/Calendars/2024-07-19.md",
"mode": "preview",
"source": true
}
}
},
{
"id": "2e3b89e86b85061a",
"type": "leaf",
"state": {
"type": "thino_view",
"state": {}
}
},
{
"id": "95dd8907a411f142",
"type": "leaf",
@ -88,6 +80,14 @@
}
}
}
},
{
"id": "16b24a0a8bd5053a",
"type": "leaf",
"state": {
"type": "thino_view",
"state": {}
}
}
],
"currentTab": 4
@ -172,7 +172,7 @@
"state": {
"type": "backlink",
"state": {
"file": "00.01 Admin/Calendars/2024-07-05.md",
"file": "00.01 Admin/Calendars/2024-07-19.md",
"collapseAll": false,
"extraContext": false,
"sortOrder": "alphabetical",
@ -189,7 +189,7 @@
"state": {
"type": "outgoing-link",
"state": {
"file": "00.01 Admin/Calendars/2024-07-05.md",
"file": "00.01 Admin/Calendars/2024-07-19.md",
"linksCollapsed": false,
"unlinkedCollapsed": false
}
@ -255,32 +255,32 @@
},
"active": "6266e3653a250845",
"lastOpenFiles": [
"00.03 News/Emma Stone Has Changed Her Whole Style of Acting. Its a Wonder to Behold..md",
"00.03 News/An Atlanta Movie Exec Praised for His Diversity Efforts Sent Racist, Antisemitic Texts.md",
"01.02 Home/@Main Dashboard.md",
"00.01 Admin/Calendars/2024-07-05.md",
"00.03 News/Bad Boy for Life Sean Combs History of Violence.md",
"01.01 Life Orga/@IT & Computer.md",
"01.01 Life Orga/@Life Admin.md",
"00.01 Admin/Calendars/2024-07-04.md",
"00.01 Admin/Calendars/2024-07-03.md",
"00.01 Admin/Calendars/2024-07-02.md",
"00.01 Admin/Calendars/2024-07-19.md",
"00.01 Admin/Calendars/2024-07-18.md",
"01.02 Home/@Shopping list.md",
"01.02 Home/Life - Practical infos.md",
"01.06 Health/2024-07-02 Checkup.md",
"00.01 Admin/Calendars/2024-07-01.md",
"04.03 Creative snippets/Project 2/@Meta Data.md",
"00.01 Admin/Calendars/2024-06-30.md",
"02.03 Zürich/Albishaus.md",
"00.01 Admin/Calendars/2024-04-14.md",
"03.02 Travels/37 Best Airport Meals Around the World, According to Travel Editors.md",
"00.03 News/Neal ElAttrache, Doctor for Tom Brady and Leonardo DiCaprio.md",
"00.03 News/Inside Snapchats Teen Opioid Crisis.md",
"00.02 Inbox/Death on Shishapangma.md",
"00.03 News/Joe Biden should drop out.md",
"00.03 News/Inside the Slimy, Smelly, Secretive World of Glass-Eel Fishing.md",
"00.03 News/Harvard Scientists Say There May Be an Unknown, Technologically Advanced Civilization Hiding on Earth.md",
"00.03 News/I Was the Person Who Named the Brat Pack - I Stand By It.md",
"03.03 Food & Wine/Chicken Schnitzel.md",
"03.03 Food & Wine/@Main dishes.md",
"00.02 Inbox/2024-07-19.md",
"00.01 Admin/Calendars/2024-07-17.md",
"03.03 Food & Wine/Chilli con Carne.md",
"00.03 News/What a Leading State Auditor Says About Fraud, Government Misspending and Building Public Trust.md",
"00.03 News/Dear Caitlin Clark ….md",
"00.03 News/Frank Carone on Eric Adamss Smash-and-Grab New York.md",
"00.03 News/Super Bowl Strip Tease The NFL and Las Vegas Are Together at Last.md",
"00.01 Admin/Calendars/2024-07-16.md",
"00.03 News/The NYPD Commissioner Responded to Our Story That Revealed Hes Burying Police Brutality Cases. We Fact-Check Him..md",
"00.03 News/New Yorkers Were Choked, Beaten and Tased by NYPD Officers. The Commissioner Buried Their Cases..md",
"00.03 News/Scenes From the Knives-Out Feud Between Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer.md",
"01.06 Health/2024-06-29 Fungal treatment.md",
"00.03 News/The President Ordered a Board to Probe a Massive Russian Cyberattack. It Never Did..md",
"00.01 Admin/Calendars/2024-07-15.md",
"03.03 Food & Wine/Big Shells With Spicy Lamb Sausage and Pistachios.md",
"00.07 Wiki/Romain Gary.md",
"05.01 Computer setup/Storage and Syncing.md",
"00.03 News/@News.md",
"00.03 News/She Made $10,000 a Month Defrauding Apps like Uber and Instacart. Meet the Queen of the Rideshare Mafia.md",
"00.02 Inbox/Pasted image 20240521223309.png",
"00.01 Admin/Pictures/Sally/ima10032556959173512188.jpeg",
"00.01 Admin/Pictures/Sally/IMG_4552.jpg",

@ -101,7 +101,7 @@ hide task count
This section does serve for quick memos.
&emsp;
- [ ] 11:48 :musical_keyboard: [[@Lifestyle|Lifestyle]]: Buy an ampli (Verstaerker): Yamaha A-S301 or Marantz PM6007 📅 2024-07-07
- [ ] 11:48 :musical_keyboard: [[@Lifestyle|Lifestyle]]: Buy an ampli (Verstaerker): Yamaha A-S301 or Marantz PM6007 📅 2024-12-20
%% --- %%

@ -16,13 +16,13 @@ Stress: 25
FrontHeadBar: 5
EarHeadBar: 20
BackHeadBar: 30
Water:
Coffee: 1
Steps:
Water: 3.5
Coffee: 6
Steps: 12968
Weight:
Ski:
IceSkating:
Riding:
Riding: 2
Racket:
Football:
Swim:
@ -114,7 +114,7 @@ This section does serve for quick memos.
&emsp;
Loret ipsum
🐎: 2 chukkers with [[@Sally|Sally]] at [[Polo Park Zürich|PPZ]]
&emsp;

@ -0,0 +1,134 @@
---
title: "🗒 Daily Note"
allDay: true
date: 2024-07-06
Date: 2024-07-06
DocType: Note
Hierarchy:
TimeStamp:
location:
CollapseMetaTable: true
Sleep: 6
Happiness: 80
Gratefulness: 90
Stress: 25
FrontHeadBar: 5
EarHeadBar: 20
BackHeadBar: 30
Water: 2
Coffee: 2
Steps: 5477
Weight:
Ski:
IceSkating:
Riding:
Racket:
Football:
Swim:
---
%% Parent:: [[@Life Admin]] %%
---
[[2024-07-05|<< 🗓 Previous ]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[@Main Dashboard|Back]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[2024-07-07|🗓 Next >>]]
---
&emsp;
```button
name Record today's health
type command
action MetaEdit: Run MetaEdit
id EditMetaData
```
^button-2024-07-06Edit
```button
name Save
type command
action Save current file
id Save
```
^button-2024-07-06NSave
&emsp;
# 2024-07-06
&emsp;
> [!summary]+
> Daily note for 2024-07-06
&emsp;
```toc
style: number
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### ✅ Tasks of the day
&emsp;
```tasks
not done
due on 2024-07-06
path does not include Templates
hide backlinks
hide task count
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 📝 Memos
&emsp;
This section does serve for quick memos.
&emsp;
%% --- %%
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 🗒 Notes
&emsp;
🍽️: [[Chilli con Carne]]
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### :link: Linked activity
&emsp;
```dataview
Table from [[2024-07-06]]
```
&emsp;
&emsp;

@ -0,0 +1,150 @@
---
title: "🗒 Daily Note"
allDay: true
date: 2024-07-07
Date: 2024-07-07
DocType: Note
Hierarchy:
TimeStamp:
location:
CollapseMetaTable: true
Sleep: 8.5
Happiness: 80
Gratefulness: 90
Stress: 25
FrontHeadBar: 5
EarHeadBar: 20
BackHeadBar: 30
Water: 2.4
Coffee: 4
Steps: 12692
Weight:
Ski:
IceSkating:
Riding: 1
Racket:
Football:
Swim:
---
%% Parent:: [[@Life Admin]] %%
---
[[2024-07-06|<< 🗓 Previous ]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[@Main Dashboard|Back]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[2024-07-08|🗓 Next >>]]
---
&emsp;
```button
name Record today's health
type command
action MetaEdit: Run MetaEdit
id EditMetaData
```
^button-2024-07-07Edit
```button
name Save
type command
action Save current file
id Save
```
^button-2024-07-07NSave
&emsp;
# 2024-07-07
&emsp;
> [!summary]+
> Daily note for 2024-07-07
&emsp;
```toc
style: number
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### ✅ Tasks of the day
&emsp;
```tasks
not done
due on 2024-07-07
path does not include Templates
hide backlinks
hide task count
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 📝 Memos
&emsp;
This section does serve for quick memos.
&emsp;
%% --- %%
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 🗒 Notes
&emsp;
🚗: [[@@Zürich|Eglisau]]
🐎: S&B with [[@Sally|Sally]] at [[Polo Park Zürich|PPZ]]
📺: [[Time of the Gypsies (1988)]]
✉️: voeux danniv:
- [[Amaury de Villeneuve|Papa]]
- [[Laurence Bédier|Maman]]
- Ana
- [[Noémie de Villeneuve|Noémie]]
- Lorena
- [[Aglaé de Villeneuve|Aglaé]]
- Pam
- [[Philomène de Villeneuve|Philo]]
[[Marguerite de Villeneuve|Marguerite]]/Arnold/[[Dorothée Moulin|Dorothée]]
- Alex
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### :link: Linked activity
&emsp;
```dataview
Table from [[2024-07-07]]
```
&emsp;
&emsp;

@ -0,0 +1,136 @@
---
title: "🗒 Daily Note"
allDay: true
date: 2024-07-08
Date: 2024-07-08
DocType: Note
Hierarchy:
TimeStamp:
location:
CollapseMetaTable: true
Sleep: 7.5
Happiness: 90
Gratefulness: 80
Stress: 25
FrontHeadBar: 5
EarHeadBar: 20
BackHeadBar: 30
Water: 3
Coffee: 5
Steps: 16113
Weight:
Ski:
IceSkating:
Riding:
Racket:
Football:
Swim:
---
%% Parent:: [[@Life Admin]] %%
---
[[2024-07-07|<< 🗓 Previous ]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[@Main Dashboard|Back]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[2024-07-09|🗓 Next >>]]
---
&emsp;
```button
name Record today's health
type command
action MetaEdit: Run MetaEdit
id EditMetaData
```
^button-2024-07-08Edit
```button
name Save
type command
action Save current file
id Save
```
^button-2024-07-08NSave
&emsp;
# 2024-07-08
&emsp;
> [!summary]+
> Daily note for 2024-07-08
&emsp;
```toc
style: number
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### ✅ Tasks of the day
&emsp;
```tasks
not done
due on 2024-07-08
path does not include Templates
hide backlinks
hide task count
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 📝 Memos
&emsp;
This section does serve for quick memos.
&emsp;
%% --- %%
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 🗒 Notes
&emsp;
🍽️: [[Korean Barbecue-Style Meatballs]]
📺: [[Tokyo Story (1953)]]
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### :link: Linked activity
&emsp;
```dataview
Table from [[2024-07-08]]
```
&emsp;
&emsp;

@ -0,0 +1,134 @@
---
title: "🗒 Daily Note"
allDay: true
date: 2024-07-09
Date: 2024-07-09
DocType: Note
Hierarchy:
TimeStamp:
location:
CollapseMetaTable: true
Sleep: 7.5
Happiness: 80
Gratefulness: 90
Stress: 25
FrontHeadBar: 5
EarHeadBar: 20
BackHeadBar: 30
Water: 4.5
Coffee: 4
Steps: 10493
Weight: 92.7
Ski:
IceSkating:
Riding: 2
Racket:
Football:
Swim:
---
%% Parent:: [[@Life Admin]] %%
---
[[2024-07-08|<< 🗓 Previous ]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[@Main Dashboard|Back]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[2024-07-10|🗓 Next >>]]
---
&emsp;
```button
name Record today's health
type command
action MetaEdit: Run MetaEdit
id EditMetaData
```
^button-2024-07-09Edit
```button
name Save
type command
action Save current file
id Save
```
^button-2024-07-09NSave
&emsp;
# 2024-07-09
&emsp;
> [!summary]+
> Daily note for 2024-07-09
&emsp;
```toc
style: number
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### ✅ Tasks of the day
&emsp;
```tasks
not done
due on 2024-07-09
path does not include Templates
hide backlinks
hide task count
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 📝 Memos
&emsp;
This section does serve for quick memos.
&emsp;
%% --- %%
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 🗒 Notes
&emsp;
🐎: 2 chukkers with [[@Sally|Sally]] at [[Polo Park Zürich|PPZ]] > 1 goal
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### :link: Linked activity
&emsp;
```dataview
Table from [[2024-07-09]]
```
&emsp;
&emsp;

@ -0,0 +1,134 @@
---
title: "🗒 Daily Note"
allDay: true
date: 2024-07-10
Date: 2024-07-10
DocType: Note
Hierarchy:
TimeStamp:
location:
CollapseMetaTable: true
Sleep: 7.5
Happiness: 80
Gratefulness: 90
Stress: 25
FrontHeadBar: 5
EarHeadBar: 20
BackHeadBar: 30
Water: 2
Coffee: 4
Steps: 17580
Weight:
Ski:
IceSkating:
Riding:
Racket:
Football:
Swim:
---
%% Parent:: [[@Life Admin]] %%
---
[[2024-07-09|<< 🗓 Previous ]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[@Main Dashboard|Back]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[2024-07-11|🗓 Next >>]]
---
&emsp;
```button
name Record today's health
type command
action MetaEdit: Run MetaEdit
id EditMetaData
```
^button-2024-07-10Edit
```button
name Save
type command
action Save current file
id Save
```
^button-2024-07-10NSave
&emsp;
# 2024-07-10
&emsp;
> [!summary]+
> Daily note for 2024-07-10
&emsp;
```toc
style: number
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### ✅ Tasks of the day
&emsp;
```tasks
not done
due on 2024-07-10
path does not include Templates
hide backlinks
hide task count
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 📝 Memos
&emsp;
This section does serve for quick memos.
&emsp;
%% --- %%
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 🗒 Notes
&emsp;
🍸: [[Bar am Wasser]]
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### :link: Linked activity
&emsp;
```dataview
Table from [[2024-07-10]]
```
&emsp;
&emsp;

@ -0,0 +1,134 @@
---
title: "🗒 Daily Note"
allDay: true
date: 2024-07-11
Date: 2024-07-11
DocType: Note
Hierarchy:
TimeStamp:
location:
CollapseMetaTable: true
Sleep: 7
Happiness: 80
Gratefulness: 90
Stress: 25
FrontHeadBar: 5
EarHeadBar: 30
BackHeadBar: 20
Water: 3.75
Coffee: 3
Steps: 9635
Weight:
Ski:
IceSkating:
Riding: 1
Racket:
Football:
Swim:
---
%% Parent:: [[@Life Admin]] %%
---
[[2024-07-10|<< 🗓 Previous ]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[@Main Dashboard|Back]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[2024-07-12|🗓 Next >>]]
---
&emsp;
```button
name Record today's health
type command
action MetaEdit: Run MetaEdit
id EditMetaData
```
^button-2024-07-11Edit
```button
name Save
type command
action Save current file
id Save
```
^button-2024-07-11NSave
&emsp;
# 2024-07-11
&emsp;
> [!summary]+
> Daily note for 2024-07-11
&emsp;
```toc
style: number
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### ✅ Tasks of the day
&emsp;
```tasks
not done
due on 2024-07-11
path does not include Templates
hide backlinks
hide task count
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 📝 Memos
&emsp;
This section does serve for quick memos.
&emsp;
%% --- %%
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 🗒 Notes
&emsp;
🐎: S&B at [[Polo Park Zürich|PPZ]] with [[@Sally|Sally]]
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### :link: Linked activity
&emsp;
```dataview
Table from [[2024-07-11]]
```
&emsp;
&emsp;

@ -0,0 +1,136 @@
---
title: "🗒 Daily Note"
allDay: true
date: 2024-07-12
Date: 2024-07-12
DocType: Note
Hierarchy:
TimeStamp:
location:
CollapseMetaTable: true
Sleep: 7.5
Happiness: 80
Gratefulness: 90
Stress: 25
FrontHeadBar: 5
EarHeadBar: 20
BackHeadBar: 30
Water: 3
Coffee: 5
Steps: 12413
Weight:
Ski:
IceSkating:
Riding:
Racket:
Football:
Swim:
---
%% Parent:: [[@Life Admin]] %%
---
[[2024-07-11|<< 🗓 Previous ]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[@Main Dashboard|Back]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[2024-07-13|🗓 Next >>]]
---
&emsp;
```button
name Record today's health
type command
action MetaEdit: Run MetaEdit
id EditMetaData
```
^button-2024-07-12Edit
```button
name Save
type command
action Save current file
id Save
```
^button-2024-07-12NSave
&emsp;
# 2024-07-12
&emsp;
> [!summary]+
> Daily note for 2024-07-12
&emsp;
```toc
style: number
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### ✅ Tasks of the day
&emsp;
```tasks
not done
due on 2024-07-12
path does not include Templates
hide backlinks
hide task count
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 📝 Memos
&emsp;
This section does serve for quick memos.
&emsp;
%% --- %%
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 🗒 Notes
&emsp;
🩺: [[2023-02-25 Polyp in Galbladder|Control scan]]
🍽️: [[Spicy Szechuan Noodles with Garlic Chilli Oil]]
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### :link: Linked activity
&emsp;
```dataview
Table from [[2024-07-12]]
```
&emsp;
&emsp;

@ -0,0 +1,138 @@
---
title: "🗒 Daily Note"
allDay: true
date: 2024-07-13
Date: 2024-07-13
DocType: Note
Hierarchy:
TimeStamp:
location:
CollapseMetaTable: true
Sleep: 8
Happiness: 80
Gratefulness: 90
Stress: 25
FrontHeadBar: 5
EarHeadBar: 20
BackHeadBar: 30
Water: 3.6
Coffee: 3
Steps: 8986
Weight:
Ski:
IceSkating:
Riding: 2
Racket:
Football:
Swim:
---
%% Parent:: [[@Life Admin]] %%
---
[[2024-07-12|<< 🗓 Previous ]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[@Main Dashboard|Back]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[2024-07-14|🗓 Next >>]]
---
&emsp;
```button
name Record today's health
type command
action MetaEdit: Run MetaEdit
id EditMetaData
```
^button-2024-07-13Edit
```button
name Save
type command
action Save current file
id Save
```
^button-2024-07-13NSave
&emsp;
# 2024-07-13
&emsp;
> [!summary]+
> Daily note for 2024-07-13
&emsp;
```toc
style: number
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### ✅ Tasks of the day
&emsp;
```tasks
not done
due on 2024-07-13
path does not include Templates
hide backlinks
hide task count
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 📝 Memos
&emsp;
This section does serve for quick memos.
&emsp;
%% --- %%
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 🗒 Notes
&emsp;
📖: [[Underworld]]
🐎: 2 chukkers with [[@Sally|Sally]] at [[Polo Park Zürich|PPZ]]
🍽️: [[Spicy Coconut Butter Chicken]]
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### :link: Linked activity
&emsp;
```dataview
Table from [[2024-07-13]]
```
&emsp;
&emsp;

@ -0,0 +1,134 @@
---
title: "🗒 Daily Note"
allDay: true
date: 2024-07-14
Date: 2024-07-14
DocType: Note
Hierarchy:
TimeStamp:
location:
CollapseMetaTable: true
Sleep: 7.5
Happiness: 80
Gratefulness: 90
Stress: 25
FrontHeadBar: 5
EarHeadBar: 20
BackHeadBar: 30
Water: 6.25
Coffee: 2
Steps: 6250
Weight:
Ski:
IceSkating:
Riding: 2
Racket:
Football:
Swim:
---
%% Parent:: [[@Life Admin]] %%
---
[[2024-07-13|<< 🗓 Previous ]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[@Main Dashboard|Back]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[2024-07-15|🗓 Next >>]]
---
&emsp;
```button
name Record today's health
type command
action MetaEdit: Run MetaEdit
id EditMetaData
```
^button-2024-07-14Edit
```button
name Save
type command
action Save current file
id Save
```
^button-2024-07-14NSave
&emsp;
# 2024-07-14
&emsp;
> [!summary]+
> Daily note for 2024-07-14
&emsp;
```toc
style: number
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### ✅ Tasks of the day
&emsp;
```tasks
not done
due on 2024-07-14
path does not include Templates
hide backlinks
hide task count
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 📝 Memos
&emsp;
This section does serve for quick memos.
&emsp;
%% --- %%
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 🗒 Notes
&emsp;
🐎: 2 chukkers with [[@Sally|Sally]] at [[Polo Park Zürich|PPZ]]
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### :link: Linked activity
&emsp;
```dataview
Table from [[2024-07-14]]
```
&emsp;
&emsp;

@ -0,0 +1,134 @@
---
title: "🗒 Daily Note"
allDay: true
date: 2024-07-15
Date: 2024-07-15
DocType: Note
Hierarchy:
TimeStamp:
location:
CollapseMetaTable: true
Sleep: 7
Happiness: 80
Gratefulness: 90
Stress: 25
FrontHeadBar: 5
EarHeadBar: 20
BackHeadBar: 30
Water: 2
Coffee: 5
Steps: 13942
Weight:
Ski:
IceSkating:
Riding:
Racket:
Football:
Swim:
---
%% Parent:: [[@Life Admin]] %%
---
[[2024-07-14|<< 🗓 Previous ]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[@Main Dashboard|Back]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[2024-07-16|🗓 Next >>]]
---
&emsp;
```button
name Record today's health
type command
action MetaEdit: Run MetaEdit
id EditMetaData
```
^button-2024-07-15Edit
```button
name Save
type command
action Save current file
id Save
```
^button-2024-07-15NSave
&emsp;
# 2024-07-15
&emsp;
> [!summary]+
> Daily note for 2024-07-15
&emsp;
```toc
style: number
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### ✅ Tasks of the day
&emsp;
```tasks
not done
due on 2024-07-15
path does not include Templates
hide backlinks
hide task count
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 📝 Memos
&emsp;
This section does serve for quick memos.
&emsp;
%% --- %%
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 🗒 Notes
&emsp;
🍽️: [[Big Shells With Spicy Lamb Sausage and Pistachios]]
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### :link: Linked activity
&emsp;
```dataview
Table from [[2024-07-15]]
```
&emsp;
&emsp;

@ -0,0 +1,134 @@
---
title: "🗒 Daily Note"
allDay: true
date: 2024-07-16
Date: 2024-07-16
DocType: Note
Hierarchy:
TimeStamp:
location:
CollapseMetaTable: true
Sleep: 7.5
Happiness: 80
Gratefulness: 90
Stress: 25
FrontHeadBar: 5
EarHeadBar: 20
BackHeadBar: 30
Water: 3
Coffee: 4
Steps: 14236
Weight: 92.8
Ski:
IceSkating:
Riding:
Racket:
Football:
Swim:
---
%% Parent:: [[@Life Admin]] %%
---
[[2024-07-15|<< 🗓 Previous ]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[@Main Dashboard|Back]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[2024-07-17|🗓 Next >>]]
---
&emsp;
```button
name Record today's health
type command
action MetaEdit: Run MetaEdit
id EditMetaData
```
^button-2024-07-16Edit
```button
name Save
type command
action Save current file
id Save
```
^button-2024-07-16NSave
&emsp;
# 2024-07-16
&emsp;
> [!summary]+
> Daily note for 2024-07-16
&emsp;
```toc
style: number
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### ✅ Tasks of the day
&emsp;
```tasks
not done
due on 2024-07-16
path does not include Templates
hide backlinks
hide task count
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 📝 Memos
&emsp;
This section does serve for quick memos.
&emsp;
%% --- %%
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 🗒 Notes
&emsp;
🍽️: [[Korean Barbecue-Style Meatballs]]
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### :link: Linked activity
&emsp;
```dataview
Table from [[2024-07-16]]
```
&emsp;
&emsp;

@ -0,0 +1,136 @@
---
title: "🗒 Daily Note"
allDay: true
date: 2024-07-17
Date: 2024-07-17
DocType: Note
Hierarchy:
TimeStamp:
location:
CollapseMetaTable: true
Sleep: 7.5
Happiness: 80
Gratefulness: 90
Stress: 25
FrontHeadBar: 5
EarHeadBar: 20
BackHeadBar: 30
Water: 4.5
Coffee: 5
Steps: 8204
Weight:
Ski:
IceSkating:
Riding: 2
Racket:
Football:
Swim:
---
%% Parent:: [[@Life Admin]] %%
---
[[2024-07-16|<< 🗓 Previous ]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[@Main Dashboard|Back]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[2024-07-18|🗓 Next >>]]
---
&emsp;
```button
name Record today's health
type command
action MetaEdit: Run MetaEdit
id EditMetaData
```
^button-2024-07-17Edit
```button
name Save
type command
action Save current file
id Save
```
^button-2024-07-17NSave
&emsp;
# 2024-07-17
&emsp;
> [!summary]+
> Daily note for 2024-07-17
&emsp;
```toc
style: number
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### ✅ Tasks of the day
&emsp;
```tasks
not done
due on 2024-07-17
path does not include Templates
hide backlinks
hide task count
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 📝 Memos
&emsp;
This section does serve for quick memos.
&emsp;
%% --- %%
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 🗒 Notes
&emsp;
🐎: 2 chukkers with [[@Sally|Sally]] at [[Polo Park Zürich|PPZ]]
🍽️: [[Chilli con Carne]]
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### :link: Linked activity
&emsp;
```dataview
Table from [[2024-07-17]]
```
&emsp;
&emsp;

@ -0,0 +1,138 @@
---
title: "🗒 Daily Note"
allDay: true
date: 2024-07-18
Date: 2024-07-18
DocType: Note
Hierarchy:
TimeStamp:
location:
CollapseMetaTable: true
Sleep: 7.5
Happiness: 80
Gratefulness: 90
Stress: 25
FrontHeadBar: 5
EarHeadBar: 20
BackHeadBar: 30
Water: 3.35
Coffee: 3
Steps: 8036
Weight:
Ski:
IceSkating:
Riding: 1
Racket:
Football:
Swim:
---
%% Parent:: [[@Life Admin]] %%
---
[[2024-07-17|<< 🗓 Previous ]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[@Main Dashboard|Back]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[2024-07-19|🗓 Next >>]]
---
&emsp;
```button
name Record today's health
type command
action MetaEdit: Run MetaEdit
id EditMetaData
```
^button-2024-07-18Edit
```button
name Save
type command
action Save current file
id Save
```
^button-2024-07-18NSave
&emsp;
# 2024-07-18
&emsp;
> [!summary]+
> Daily note for 2024-07-18
&emsp;
```toc
style: number
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### ✅ Tasks of the day
&emsp;
```tasks
not done
due on 2024-07-18
path does not include Templates
hide backlinks
hide task count
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 📝 Memos
&emsp;
This section does serve for quick memos.
&emsp;
%% --- %%
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 🗒 Notes
&emsp;
📖: [[Underworld]]
🐎: S&B with [[@Sally|Sally]] at [[Polo Park Zürich|PPZ]].
🍽️: [[Chicken Schnitzel]]
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### :link: Linked activity
&emsp;
```dataview
Table from [[2024-07-18]]
```
&emsp;
&emsp;

@ -0,0 +1,134 @@
---
title: "🗒 Daily Note"
allDay: true
date: 2024-07-19
Date: 2024-07-19
DocType: Note
Hierarchy:
TimeStamp:
location:
CollapseMetaTable: true
Sleep: 7.5
Happiness: 80
Gratefulness: 90
Stress: 25
FrontHeadBar: 5
EarHeadBar: 20
BackHeadBar: 30
Water:
Coffee:
Steps:
Weight:
Ski:
IceSkating:
Riding:
Racket:
Football:
Swim:
---
%% Parent:: [[@Life Admin]] %%
---
[[2024-07-18|<< 🗓 Previous ]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[@Main Dashboard|Back]] &emsp; &emsp; &emsp; [[2024-07-20|🗓 Next >>]]
---
&emsp;
```button
name Record today's health
type command
action MetaEdit: Run MetaEdit
id EditMetaData
```
^button-2024-07-19Edit
```button
name Save
type command
action Save current file
id Save
```
^button-2024-07-19NSave
&emsp;
# 2024-07-19
&emsp;
> [!summary]+
> Daily note for 2024-07-19
&emsp;
```toc
style: number
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### ✅ Tasks of the day
&emsp;
```tasks
not done
due on 2024-07-19
path does not include Templates
hide backlinks
hide task count
```
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 📝 Memos
&emsp;
This section does serve for quick memos.
&emsp;
%% --- %%
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### 🗒 Notes
&emsp;
Loret ipsum
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### :link: Linked activity
&emsp;
```dataview
Table from [[2024-07-19]]
```
&emsp;
&emsp;

@ -1,12 +0,0 @@
---
title: "🧚🏼 Arrivée Meggi-mo"
allDay: true
date: 2022-03-19
endDate: 2022-03-20
CollapseMetaTable: true
---
# Arrivée de [[@@MRCK|Meggi-mo]]
- [l] Arrivée à [[@@Zürich|Zürich]] de Meggi-mo, le [[2022-03-19|19/03/2022]].

@ -1,11 +0,0 @@
---
title: "🧚🏼 Départ de Meggi-mo"
allDay: true
date: 2022-03-24
endDate: 2022-03-25
CollapseMetaTable: true
---
# Départ de Meggi-mo
Départ de ma [[@@MRCK|Meggi-mo]] le [[2022-03-24|24/03/2022]].

@ -1,9 +0,0 @@
---
title: "👨‍👩‍👧 Arrivée de Papa"
allDay: false
startTime: 20:25
endTime: 20:30
date: 2022-03-31
---
- [l] [[2022-03-31]], arrivée de [[Amaury de Villeneuve|Papa]] à [[@@Zürich|Zürich]]

@ -1,9 +0,0 @@
---
title: "👨‍👩‍👧 Départ Papa"
allDay: false
startTime: 13:30
endTime: 14:00
date: 2022-04-04
---
[[2022-04-04]], départ de [[Amaury de Villeneuve|Papa]]

@ -1,11 +0,0 @@
---
title: "🗳 1er tour Présidentielle"
allDay: true
date: 2022-04-10
endDate: 2022-04-11
CollapseMetaTable: true
---
1er tour des élections présidentielles à [[@@Paris|Paris]], le [[2022-04-10|10 avril 2022]]; avec [[@@MRCK|Meggi-mo]] dans l'isoloir.

@ -1,8 +0,0 @@
---
title: "🗳 2nd tour élections présidentielles"
allDay: true
date: 2022-04-24
endDate: 2022-04-25
---
2nd tour des élections présidentielles le [[2022-04-24|24 Avril]] à [[@@Paris|Paris]].

@ -1,9 +0,0 @@
---
title: "🛩 Arrivée à Lisbonne"
allDay: false
startTime: 16:00
endTime: 16:30
date: 2022-04-27
---
Arrival on [[2022-04-27|this day]] in [[Lisbon]].

@ -1,9 +0,0 @@
---
title: "🛩 Départ de Lisbonne"
allDay: false
startTime: 15:30
endTime: 16:00
date: 2022-05-01
---
Departure from [[Lisbon]] to [[@@Zürich|Zürich]] [[2022-05-01|this day]].

@ -1,9 +0,0 @@
---
title: "🧚🏼 Definite arrival of Meggi-mo to Züzü"
allDay: true
startTime: 06:30
endTime: 07:00
date: 2022-05-15
---
[[@@MRCK|Meggi-mo]] is arriving to [[@@Zürich|Zürich]] for good on [[2022-05-15|that day]].

@ -1,17 +0,0 @@
---
title: "🚆 Weekend in GVA"
allDay: true
date: 2022-10-14
endDate: 2022-10-17
CollapseMetaTable: true
---
Weekend à [[Geneva]] avec [[@@MRCK|Meggi-mo]].
&emsp;
Départ: [[2022-10-14]] de [[@@Zürich|Zürich]]
Retour: [[2022-10-16]] à [[@@Zürich|Zürich]]

@ -1,16 +0,0 @@
---
title: "🗼 Weekend à Paris"
allDay: true
date: 2022-10-21
endDate: 2022-10-24
CollapseMetaTable: true
---
Weekend à [[@@Paris|Paris]] avec [[@@MRCK|Meggi-mo]].
&emsp;
Départ: [[2022-10-21]] de [[@@Zürich|Zürich]]
Retour: [[2022-10-23]] à [[@@Zürich|Zürich]]

@ -1,10 +0,0 @@
---
title: "💍 Fiançailles Marguerite & Arnold"
allDay: false
startTime: 16:30
endTime: 15:00
date: 2022-11-19
CollapseMetaTable: true
---
Fiançailles de [[Marguerite de Villeneuve|Marguerite]] et [[Arnold Moulin|Arnold]] [[2022-11-19|ce jour]] à [[Geneva|Genève]].

@ -1,12 +0,0 @@
---
title: "👪 Papa à Zürich"
allDay: true
date: 2022-12-26
endDate: 2022-12-31
completed: null
CollapseMetaTable: true
---
[[Amaury de Villeneuve|Papa]] arrive à [[@@Zürich|Zürich]] le [[2022-12-26|26 décembre]] à 13h26.

@ -1,12 +0,0 @@
---
title: "Stef & Kyna in Zürich"
allDay: true
date: 2022-12-30
endDate: 2023-01-05
completed: null
CollapseMetaTable: true
---
Stef & Kyna arrivent à [[@@Zürich|Zürich]] le [[2022-12-30|30 décembre]] avec Swiss le matin.

@ -1,13 +0,0 @@
---
title: Médecin
allDay: false
startTime: 11:15
endTime: 12:15
date: 2023-01-23
completed: null
CollapseMetaTable: true
---
[[2023-01-23|Ce jour]], 1er RDV avec [[Dr Cleopatra Morales]].

@ -1,12 +0,0 @@
---
title: Genève
allDay: true
date: 2023-02-06
endDate: 2023-02-08
completed: null
CollapseMetaTable: true
---
Depart à [[Geneva|Genève]] [[2023-02-06|ce jour]] et retour le [[223-02-07|lendemain]].

@ -1,13 +0,0 @@
---
title: ⚕ Médecin
allDay: false
startTime: 12:15
endTime: 13:15
date: 2023-02-09
completed: null
CollapseMetaTable: true
---
[[2023-02-09|Ce jour]], RDV de suivi avec [[Dr Cleopatra Morales]]

@ -1,91 +0,0 @@
---
title: "👰‍♀ Mariage Eloi & Zélie"
allDay: true
date: 2023-02-10
endDate: 2023-02-12
CollapseMetaTable: true
---
Mariage d[[Eloi de Villeneuve|Éloi]] avec [[Zélie]] en [[@France|Bretagne]] (Rennes) [[2023-02-11|ce jour]].
&emsp;
🚆: 23h11, arrivée à Rennes
&emsp;
🏨: **Hotel Saint Antoine**<br>27 avenue Janvier<br>Rennes
&emsp;
### Vendredi 10 Février
&emsp;
#### 17h: Mariage civil
Mairie de Montfort-sur-Meu (35)
&emsp;
#### 20h30: Veillée de Prière
Chapelle du château de la Châsse
Iffendic (35)
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### Samedi 11 Février
&emsp;
#### 14h: Messe de Mariage
Saint-Louis-Marie
Montfort-sur-Meu (35)
&emsp;
#### 16h30: Cocktail
Château de la Châsse
Iffendic (35)
&emsp;
#### 19h30: Dîner
Château de la Châsse
Iffendic (35)
&emsp;
---
&emsp;
### Dimanche 12 Février
&emsp;
#### 11h: Messe
Chapelle du château de la Châsse
Iffendic (35)
&emsp;
#### 12h: Déjeuner breton
Château de la Châsse
Iffendic (35)
&emsp;
🚆: 13h35, départ de Rennes

@ -1,13 +0,0 @@
---
title: 🎬 Tár @ Riff Raff
allDay: false
startTime: 20:30
endTime: 22:30
date: 2023-02-19
completed: null
CollapseMetaTable: true
---
[[2023-02-19|Ce jour]], [[Tár (2022)]] @ [[Riff Raff Kino Bar]].

@ -1,12 +0,0 @@
---
title: 🩺 Médecin
allDay: false
startTime: 15:00
endTime: 15:30
date: 2023-03-06
completed: null
CollapseMetaTable: true
---
[[2023-03-06|Ce jour]], rdv avec [[Dr Awad Abuawad]]

@ -1,13 +0,0 @@
---
title: 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Marg & Arnold à Zürich
allDay: true
date: 2023-03-11
endDate: 2023-03-13
completed: null
CollapseMetaTable: true
---
Arrivée le [[2023-03-11|11 mars]] de [[Marguerite de Villeneuve|Marg]] et [[Arnold Moulin|Arnold]].
Départ le [[2023-03-12|lendemain]].

@ -1,12 +0,0 @@
---
title: 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Molly & boyfriend in Zürich
allDay: true
date: 2023-03-18
endDate: 2023-03-20
completed: null
CollapseMetaTable: true
---
Weekend in [[@@Zürich|Zürich]] for [[@@MRCK|Meggi-mo]]s cousin Molly and boyfriend.
Arrival on [[2023-03-18|18th March]] and departure on Monday [[2023-03-20|20th March]].

@ -1,13 +0,0 @@
---
title: 🩺 Médecin
allDay: false
startTime: 11:45
endTime: 12:15
date: 2023-04-14
completed: null
CollapseMetaTable: true
---
[[2023-04-14|Ce jour]], rdv avec [[Dr Cleopatra Morales]]

@ -1,10 +0,0 @@
---
title: 🏠 Arrivée Papa
allDay: false
startTime: 20:26
endTime: 21:26
date: 2023-12-21
completed: null
---
[[2023-12-21|Ce jour]], arrivée de [[Amaury de Villeneuve|Papa]] à [[@@Zürich|Zürich]]

@ -1,10 +0,0 @@
---
title: 🗼 Départ Papa
allDay: false
startTime: 13:30
endTime: 14:30
date: 2023-12-27
completed: null
---
[[2023-12-27|Ce jour]], départ de [[Amaury de Villeneuve|Papa]] de [[@@Zürich|Zürich]] pour [[@@Paris|Paris]]

@ -1,135 +0,0 @@
---
Tag: ["🚔", "💸", "🇺🇸"]
Date: 2023-06-05
DocType: "WebClipping"
Hierarchy:
TimeStamp: 2023-06-05
Link: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/05/the-ugly-fight-over-the-brinks-robbery-in-california.html
location:
CollapseMetaTable: true
---
Parent:: [[@News|News]]
Read:: [[2023-06-05]]
---
&emsp;
```button
name Save
type command
action Save current file
id Save
```
^button-100MillionGonein27MinutesNSave
&emsp;
# $100 Million Gone in 27 Minutes
[crime](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/tags/crime/) Updated May 25, 2023
## After possibly the most expensive jewelry heist in U.S. history, Brinks went after the victims.
![](https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/398/8b8/80fc560a9edcf5b2055beac1f3735ac4be-brink-1.rsquare.w700.jpg)
California sheriffs deputies search the back of the Brinks truck where millions in jewelry were stolen last year. Photo: Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department
Jean Malki was carefully wrapping up a necklace containing more than 25 carats of fancy yellow diamonds, a rare Australian-mined Lightning Ridge black opal, and a deep-magenta Burmese ruby after a long day of sales at the International Gem & Jewelry Show when a bewildering announcement came over the loudspeaker.
Strange and suspicious individuals have been seen hanging around the expo, the show organizer warned, urging people to leave with extreme caution.
Up until then, July 10, 2022, had been a normal day for Malki, a veteran jeweler for 40 years who sold most of his estate collection at shows like this one in San Mateo, California, just south of San Francisco. Malki, who got his first taste of the industry by moving diamonds for Zales, is a traveling salesman who continually packs and unpacks items that are sometimes worth millions apiece. These shows feature dozens of jewelers from all over the country selling everything from decorative beads to rare Rolexes. 
Instead of moving the merchandise himself in his car, Malki had opted for what he thought was the safest possible alternative: a Brinks armored truck. He handed his entire collection to a Brinks guard who packed the items into the truck and told Malki he would receive them the following day for another show five hours south in Pasadena.
Soon, Malki learned he had made the wrong decision.
Just after 2 a.m. the next day, at an unremarkable truck stop right at the Los Angeles County line, the guard driving the Brinks truck went inside to grab a bite. His co-pilot was asleep in a berth in the cab. When the driver returned 27 minutes later, dozens of bags of precious gems and watches sent by Malki and 14 other dealers estimated to be worth up to $100 million were gone.
The heist, by some estimates, is the largest jewelry theft by value in modern U.S. history. In the ten months since, the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department and the FBI have announced no suspects. Even if the thieves are found, it might not help most of the jewelers whose livelihoods were effectively wiped out; they are locked in a bitter legal fight with Brinks that has prevented them from receiving any insurance money. They say they feel robbed twice: first by the thieves, then by Brinks refusal to pay them for what they believe is the companys own negligence.    
Founded in the 19th century, Brinks has been transporting valuables, mostly cash, between banks for so long that its name is synonymous with high security. Its trucks, a fleet of rolling vaults, have long tempted thieves, from the [1981 heist that killed two police officers and a Brinks guard](https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/cheri-laverne-dalton-1981-brinks-robbery-suspect-wanted/) in New York to a string of [armed robberies last month in Chicago](https://abc7chicago.com/armored-truck-robbery-calumet-city-il-brinks/13127609/). In the jewelry trade, Brinks has also become something of a monopoly, according to jewelers. Its often the only option for shipping valuables securely at shows like the San Mateo expo. (In 2018, the company bought a major competitor, Dunbar, for [$520 million](https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-county/bs-bz-brinks-buys-dunbar-20180814-story.html).) It is so dominant that jewelers and showrunners I spoke with said they fear criticizing Brinks will lead the company to ban them as customers, which could end their businesses.
The vehicle transporting millions of dollars in jewelry from San Mateo was not one of the companys famous armored cars but a semitruck. While the cab was armored, according to a review of sheriffs deputies body-camera footage, the trailer actually carrying the valuables was not. There were no surveillance cameras, and an incident report noted the jewelry was secured inside the trailer by a single locking device in the rear. The thieves simply cut the lock, as evidenced by the slivers of metal left behind, and appeared to have taken it with them.
Thats not the level of security the jewelers thought they had signed up for.
The trucks lock was taken after it was cut. Photo: Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department
“Brinks was supposed to use an armored truck. They didnt use an armored truck; they used a trailer to transport our jewelry,” said Ming Cheng, a jeweler who worked the show with his wife. He lost his entire stock in the theft, mostly hundreds of pieces of pearl jewelry. “And only two armed guards — one was sleeping, and one went to get some food, and they didnt keep an eye on the truck. How could this happen?”
The Brinks guards seemed just as shocked.
That night, James Beaty had been sleeping in a small compartment behind the seats, taking what Brinks says was part of the federally required ten hours off per day that limit how much time a driver can be awake on the road. Tandy Motley had been behind the wheel for hours when he pulled into the Flying J truck stop in Lebec. When he came out after his meal, he noticed the red seal wrapping the back of the truck had been torn and was lying on the ground. He called 911.
The guards determined that 24 of the 73 bags Brinks had initially said were onboard were missing, according to the body-camera footage, though Brinks would later put the figure at 22.
“Holy shit,” Beaty said after counting. “Ive been here eight years, and Ive never seen anything like this.”
They began piecing the night together, telling the two officers who arrived that they thought they had been followed from the show in San Mateo.
“I just had a weird feeling,” said Motley between puffs on his vape, about a figure at the show. “He was staring me right in the eye. And I looked — its like why is this guy dogging me? He had a beard, driving a silver SUV. And then just sitting there for like two minutes. And then I was — after that, I was kind of watching to see if anyone was following me … They had to have come in here with a fucking trailer.”
The guards and deputies agreed it appeared to be a calculated theft for another reason: The stolen items were not the most convenient to grab, as the bags from the immediate opening of the back door would have been were the thieves in a hurry to take what they could. The missing bags were stowed further back and had been seemingly handpicked even though the entire load was wrapped in identical, bright-orange heavy plastic bags that concealed what was inside.
“Well, what doesnt make sense to me is you would think the back half of the trailer would be empty rather than leapfrogging the stuff,” said one deputy.
“As much as they took in a little amount of time — they knew what they was getting,” said Beaty.
Consequently, the guards suggested the thief could have been one of the jewelers. “It almost makes me wonder if the jeweler robbed himself, you know? Like he knew exactly what they had or something, right, for insurance,” said Motley.
Later, Motley said he was worried the suspicion might turn on him. “You know what worries me the most is they always want to blame the employee first,” he confided to one of the deputies.
Each of the 73 bags was labeled with a distinctive colored tag, but its in dispute whether those tags denoted value, destination, or ownership. After the deputies arrived, Beaty called the Brinks guard who had packed up the shipments at the show, whose name was given as Nelson. Based on what Beaty claimed was their conversation, he told deputies the tags indicated value.
“He thinks that all the LAX stuff is what got stolen because its the highest value,” Beaty said of Nelson, referring to bags that were headed to Los Angeles International Airport instead of the Pasadena show.
“But thats right there,” Motley said, confused. “It says LAX on it.”
“Im just telling you what he said,” Beaty replied, and the contradiction wasnt pursued any further.
It later was determined that the jewelry stolen was indeed among some of the most expensive pieces being shipped, according to Gerald L. Kroll, the lawyer representing the victims against Brinks. Taken together, the ease of the theft and the weak security have left some of them believing it was an inside job.
“Reading the police report that we had, its just kind of hard to believe its just a coincidence that some people decided to rob a Brinks truck. And they knew when they were going to leave. They knew where theyre going to stop. They knew how long theyre going to stop,” said Malki.
Sergeant Michael Mileski confirmed that the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department Major Crimes Bureau and the FBI were looking into that angle. He said authorities have so far served several warrants at various residences and businesses for records and to search property but have no updates to announce. The lack of answers has allowed rumors to swirl about where the gemstones and watches went, including that some of the pieces ended up in Israel. Others believe the thieves are playing it smart by holding on to the jewelry and will likely do so for years until the spotlight fades.
Bags were stolen from deep inside the truck, suggesting the thieves knew what they were looking for. Photo: Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department
Some of the jewelers learned their collections had been stolen not through Brinks but through word of mouth. Cheng found out something was wrong when his items didnt arrive at the Pasadena show and he went to the Brinks office in downtown L.A. for answers. Even then, he couldnt get any information. Not until two days after the heist did Brinks send letters to each jeweler alerting them of a “loss incident.” The company said it couldnt comment on an active investigation but promised that it “strives to implement the best security practices to protect our customers assets.”
Cheng said his takeaway from Brinks handling of the situation was “theyre hiding something, thats for sure.”
Brinks eventually returned with an offer: They would pay the jewelers back the amount they had bought in insurance for the theft but no more. The total the jewelers had purchased from Brinks, in addition to their own insurance they had elsewhere, was just under $10 million. The majority of the jewelers, who argue that their collections totalled a true value nearly ten times that, scoffed. So two months later, Brinks sued them in a New York federal court, in part accusing the jewelers of breach of contract and of fraud because they had allegedly undervalued their items. “Brinks believes that each Defendant seeks to recover more from Brinks than is permitted under the Contract,” the company wrote in its suit. (Brinks did not respond to requests for comment.)
The lawyer defending the jewelers sees it differently. “We feel confident that we have enough evidence to prove the purported contract is unconscionable. The clients were told to write down how much insurance they wanted,” Kroll said, not the value of their goods. “The example would be like fire insurance on your home. Who insures 100 percent of their house? Your house might be worth many millions of dollars, but you get to decide how much insurance you want for an event of a fire.”
“Our contracts are clear, easy to read, and, except to Mr. Kroll, uncontroversial,” Brinks shot back. “The contracts clearly ask our customers to state the actual value of their goods, and explain that we will reimburse losses promptly up to that declared value.
Two weeks later, 14 of the 15 victims countersued Brinks in Los Angeles County Superior Court, seeking $200 million in total damages. (Since then, three have settled for an undisclosed sum.) They accuse the company of negligence for putting their valuables in a lightly protected truck, especially after being warned of heightened security risk at the expo. The show manager, Arnold Duke, said in an interview that he had alerted the Brinks guards.
“We say in this case that Brinks should have paid them the insurance value on day one,” said Kroll. “Thats what the people paid for, and thats what they expect to see. I think Brinks is trying to hold that money as a tactic to get these people to capitulate. Most of these people have lost everything. These are mom-and-pop businesses. This is not the lifestyle of the rich and famous.”
“Our customers trust us to cover them for any losses, however unlikely,” Brinks said. “In turn, we trust our customers to declare the full and correct value of the goods they ask us to transport. According to the information the customers provided to us before they shipped their items, the total value of the missing items is less than $10 million. In this case, we held up our end and fulfilled our contract, promptly settling a claim by one of the affected customers and subsequently settling two more. The others have chosen to litigate, admitting under oath that they undervalued their goods, and even did so regularly. While we are deeply disappointed by this breach of our trust and the plain language of our contracts, the courts have responded favorably to our position, and we remain willing to compensate these customers for the declared value of their goods.”
The lawsuits have also revealed strange inconsistencies in the thefts timeline. First, that the truck left San Mateo at midnight and arrived 300 miles away at the Flying J truck stop in just two hours — meaning the semi would have had to be going about 150 miles per hour. But in a deposition, the driving guard said they actually left much earlier, at 8:25 p.m. Second, Beaty said in a deposition that he went to sleep at 3:39 p.m. on the day the jewelry was loaded onto the truck and wasnt woken up until after the heist at almost 3 a.m.
Brinks in its lawsuit argues that Beaty followed standard company practices and was “in compliance” with federal regulations that allow drivers time to sleep and take breaks. But Kroll said that by the time the truck had pulled into the rest stop just after 2 a.m., Beatys ten hours of mandated sleep were up. When deposed by Kroll, Beaty acknowledged that he could have been woken up and outside on guard by then.
Since the lawsuits began, Brinks has cut off all ties with the jewelers involved and wont allow them to use their company for security. The jewelers arent sure if its a lifetime ban. “Its like youre killing somebody and then on the day of their funeral, youll be the first one to walk in,” said Malki, who is struggling to support three young children.
With no resolution in sight, Cheng is stuck paying rent for an empty showroom because, he said, his landlord wont let him out of the lease. After immigrating to Los Angeles from Hong Kong, he got into the jewelry business at 21 and learned English from his customers. For the past 30 years, he has flown to a show almost every week, traveling what he estimates as 3 million miles in total. Earlier this month, he started a new job: working six days a week as a sous-chef at a Chinese restaurant.
“I dont think anybody could prepare for this. What comes worse than death? I think besides death, this is something worse to happen to you,” Cheng said through tears. “Im 66 years old now — the only thing I know is the jewelry business, I dont speak very good English, and I wasnt educated too much. I have to start everything again. If I am young, I can handle it, but its been so hard.”
$100 Million Gone in 27 Minutes
&emsp;
&emsp;
---
`$= dv.el('center', 'Source: ' + dv.current().Link + ', ' + dv.current().Date.toLocaleString("fr-FR"))`

@ -1,549 +0,0 @@
---
Tag: ["🥉", "🏈", "🇺🇸", "👤"]
Date: 2023-02-12
DocType: "WebClipping"
Hierarchy:
TimeStamp: 2023-02-12
Link: https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/35604915/49ers-legend-joe-montana-reflects-legacy-ahead-super-bowl
location:
CollapseMetaTable: true
---
Parent:: [[@News|News]]
Read:: [[2023-02-14]]
---
&emsp;
```button
name Save
type command
action Save current file
id Save
```
^button-49erslegendJoeMontanareflectsonlegacyNSave
&emsp;
# 49ers legend Joe Montana reflects on legacy ahead of Super Bowl
**MY LATE FATHER** bought me a Joe Montana jersey when I was a boy. Home red with white stripes. I don't remember when he gave it to me, or why, but I'll never forget the way the mesh sleeves felt against my arms. The last time I visited my mom, I looked for it in her closets. She said it'd been put away somewhere. On trips home I half expect to still see my dad sitting at the head of the long dining room table, papers strewn, working on a brief or a closing argument. He was an ambitious man who had played quarterback in high school and loved what that detail told people about him -- here, friends, was a leader, a winner, a person his peers trusted most in moments when they needed something extraordinary. Lots of young men like my father play high school quarterback, roughly 16,000 starters in America each year. Only 746 men have ever played the position in the modern NFL and just 35 of them are in the Hall of Fame. What my father knew when he gave me that jersey was that only *one* of them was Joe Montana.
Tom Brady Sr., bought his son, Tommy, a No. 16 jersey once, too. They sat in the upper deck of Candlestick Park together on Sundays. They looked down onto the field and dreamed. Tommy enrolled as a freshman at Michigan the year Joe Montana retired from football. Forced out of the game by injuries, Montana left as the unquestioned greatest of all time. His reputation had been bought in blood and preceded him like rose petals. Everybody knew. But over time the boy who sat in the upper deck idolizing Montana delivered on his own dreams and built his own reputation. Here, friends, was a threat. The boy, of course, went on to win his own Super Bowls. A fourth, a fifth, a sixth and a seventh. Parents now buy their children No. 12 jerseys because there can only be one unquestioned greatest of all time. No. 16 is no longer what it once was. Joe Montana now must be something else.
"Does it bug you?" I ask.
"Not really," Montana says.
He sits at his desk and taps his fingers on his thumb, counting, keeping track of odds and evens. Placid on the surface, churning beneath the waves.
"You start thinking," he says, his voice trailing off.
"I wish ... "
---
![](https://a1.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2023%2F0207%2Fnfl_joe%2Dmontana%2Dlegacy_16x9.jpg&w=320&h=180&scale=crop&location=origin)
**MONTANA COMES INTO** his San Francisco office waving around a box of doughnuts he picked up at a hole in the wall he loves. He's got on Chuck Taylors and a fly-fishing T-shirt.
"... so chocolate, regular and maple crumb," he says.
It's a big day for his venture capital firm and nothing spreads cheer like an open box of doughnuts. He looks inside and chooses.
"Maple."
It's a tiny office, stark, with mostly empty shelves, a place rigged for work. There's a signed John Candy photo a client sent him -- a nod to a famous moment in his old life -- leaning against the wall. Four Super Bowl rings buy him very little this morning on the last day of the Y Combinator -- a kind of blind date Silicon Valley prom that puts a highly curated group of 400 founders in front of a thousand or so top investors. Each founder gets about a minute and a half to two minutes to pitch investors like Joe. A company founder promises to, say, fully automate the packing process, reducing manual labor from days to hours, a market opportunity of $10 billion. You can hear the nerves in their voices as they talk into their webcam. Some clearly haven't slept in days. Without considering my audience -- 11 plays, 92 yards, 2 minutes, 46 seconds -- I marvel at the insanity of having your entire future determined in an instant.
"I know," Montana laughs.
His company, Liquid 2, consists of multiple funds. He's got two founding partners, Michael Ma and Mike Miller. Recently he brought in his son, Nate, along with a former Notre Dame teammate of Nate's named Matt Mulvey -- which makes three Fighting Irish quarterbacks. His daughter, Elizabeth, runs the office with a velvet fist. Their first fund is a big success and contains 21 "unicorns," which is slang for a billion-dollar company. They're headed toward 10 times the original investment. Montana, it turns out, is good at this.
"You just look at the teams and the relationship of the founders," he says. "How they get along? How long they've known each other?"
We take the doughnuts and his computer down the hall to a conference room. Nate and Matt are already there.
"So that guy hasn't responded to us," Matt tells him.
That guy, Amer Baroudi, is a Rhodes scholar and a founder of a company they love. It's always a dance. Much bigger investors than Liquid 2 are also after these ideas. The guys huddle and decide that No. 16 should write him directly, politely, and tell him they're interested and would love to connect. As he does that, the companies keep presenting new ideas. Microloans in Mexico. A digital bank for African truckers. They're all on their laptops and their phones while the presentations happen on a big screen at the end of the room. His partners keep in touch on a Slack channel. Joe's handle is JCM.
One founder developed weapons for the Department of Defense. Another worked for NASA. Every other one it seems went to MIT or Cal Tech. They worked for McKinsey and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. One idea after another, pitched by passionate, interesting people. I can feel Joe vibrating with energy and excitement. He leans over Nate's shoulder with his hand on his back. He rubs his nose, then his chin, then moves his hand over his mouth in concentration. His eyes narrow.
He checks his phone and smiles.
"Amer," he says.
---
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**MONTANA'S CAR IS** parked a block up and we get to an intersection just as the light is changing. A work truck lurches into the intersection and then stops. The driver rolls down the window and sticks out his head. He nods at me.
"I might hit *you* ... " he says.
He looks at Joe and breaks into a grin.
"... but I won't hit him."
The Montanas live in a city where it's still common for No. 16 to be the only Niners jersey framed on barroom walls. He's beloved in the 7-mile by 7-mile square where he built his legend and where he and his wife, Jennifer, built their life. The Montana home is just steps from where Joe proposed nearly 40 years ago. Friends joke about how grossly romantic they are, always holding hands, still taking baths together, and one friend said she can actually see Joe's body language change when Jennifer enters a room, as if he knows it's OK to relax. In the car he's always got his hand on her knee. Once during a game he looked at the sideline phone that connected him to the coaches upstairs. He picked it up and, just to see, pressed nine. To his shock he got an outside line and looking around, he dialed Jennifer to say hello. She's always been able to level him out. "The only one that cools him down -- and he doesn't go full Super Bowl mode -- is if my mom's there," Nick Montana says.
From one of their roof decks in the Marina district, they can see both bridges, Alcatraz and the old wharfs. After moving around a lot since football ended they've returned here. They know their neighbors. The kid whose family shares a fence line once accidentally threw his USC branded football over that fence. It came hurtling back -- with a note written on the ball that said, "Go Notre Dame. Joe Montana No. 3." It's a beautiful place to call home. Their lives revolve around the kitchen. Jennifer and the two girls make salads. Joe mans the wood burning oven or the grill. The two boys -- "they're useless," Jennifer jokes -- bring wine or lug stuff around. Everyone does the dishes.
"They're very Italian," family friend Lori Puccinelli-Stern says. "A lot of everything they do is around a big table with family and friends and them cooking. Cooking together. Eating together."
Before they died Joe's parents always lived near them. When he retired, Grammy and Pappy moved up to Napa Valley, too. Pappy coached the boys' and girls' youth sports teams. Most Sundays after football ended they would all gather for huge family dinners. Grammy would make her famous ravioli. Jennifer makes it now.
The neighborhood between his office and his home is North Beach, the old San Francisco Italian enclave, and one afternoon he drove me down the main boulevard. We passed Francis Ford Coppola's office and the famous City Lights bookstore, rolling through the trattorias and corner bars of North Beach. Up the hill to the left is the street where Joe DiMaggio grew up. DiMaggio's father, Giuseppe, kept his small fishing boat at the marina where the Montanas now live. Every day, no matter how dark and menacing the bay, Giuseppe DiMaggio awoke before the sun and steered his boat off the coast of California. He gave his son an American first name and wanted for him an ambitious American life. Joltin' Joe realized every dream his dad dreamed but emerged from the struggle a bitter man prone to black moods as rough and unpredictable as his father's workplace.
Bitterness is such a common affliction of once-great athletes that it's only noteworthy when absent. Ted Williams burned every family photo. Michael Jordan kept trying to get down to his playing weight of 218 years after his retirement. The story goes that Mickey Mantle used to go sit in his car during rainstorms, drunk and crying, because the water hitting the roof sounded like cheers. Joe and Jennifer's front door is just around the corner, maybe a three-minute walk, from the house DiMaggio bought for his parents with his first big check in 1937 and where he moved when he retired from baseball in 1951. He and Marilyn Monroe spent their wedding night there. The Marina remained full of memories for him. DiMaggio loved to sit alone there and stare out to sea as if looking for a returning vessel. The two Joes knew each other in the 1980s but weren't friends. DiMaggio was much closer to Joe's mother, who worked as a teller at the branch where the Yankee legend banked.
"Why did your mom have a job?" I ask as we drive down Columbus Avenue.
Joe smiles. His mom was one of a kind. When he was a kid she bleached his football pants at night so he'd always look the best. She found the job herself.
"She got tired of just hanging around," he says.
---
**THE FIRST JOSEPH** Montana, Joe's great-grandfather, was born Guiseppi Montani in 1865 in a mountain village in the Piedmont region of Italy. The Montanis had been in their town for generations when Guiseppi left everything behind. He carried only his name, which described the world he'd left behind. In America, the family changed the "i" to an "a" and were now the Montanas of Monongahela City, Pennsylvania, putting down roots in a sooty town with physical but stable jobs. All the men worked in coal and steel. They raised huge American families. Guiseppi died in his home on Main Street and left behind 16 grandchildren, one of them Joe's dad. Two of Joe's grandparents were born in Italy. All four were Italian. His maternal grandmother, who went to Mass every day and spent the rest of her time sewing, always told him stories about her home.
"My grandmother came over when she was 12 or 13," he says.
"You've been to the town?"
"Yeah," he says, "but I'm trying to get back."
He regrets not learning Italian as a child when he moved around the ankles and knees of his relatives who parlo'd and prego'd away in the kitchen, a place where flour and water became dough. A few times as an adult he's tried to learn. Taken classes. Bought Rosetta Stone. It just never stuck. Even as he reaches an age where learning new things can hang just out of reach, he remains happiest when he's curious and engaged. It's clear his kitchen in San Francisco is a place where he engages with his ancestors. The old ways matter to him. Once during a commercial shoot at Ellis Island he slipped away to find his family's records. I can picture him in those archives, a public figure on the outside but inside still the boy trying to understand where he came from, why he wanted what he wanted, why he feared what he feared. He inherited his ambition from his father, who inherited it from his grandfather, who pulled up stakes and wrote a new story on top of a rich vein of coal. His inheritance is both a charge and a burden. He's not standing on the shoulders of his ancestors so much as he is bringing them along for the ride -- chasing a dream so big that reaching it would make all their dreams come true as well. His inheritance demanded that he strive for the mountaintop alone -- *Guiseppi Montani* -- and his birthright promises that he be permitted to enjoy reflecting on that climb.
His grandmother refused her wealthy grandson's offers of an all-paid return trip to her village, he says. She wanted her memories of the past to remain uncomplicated. Hers was a generation that wanted to keep moving forward, to resist the pull of some older and more limiting story of who they were or what they were capable of becoming. Hers was a devout act of forgetting. Joe understands. He doesn't go home anymore, either.
His high school football coach, Chuck Abramski, hated him. Really he hated Joe's father, who wanted to be the primary voice in his talented son's ear, but he took it out on Joe. When Montana refused to quit basketball to join Abramski's offseason workout program, Abramski didn't start him for three games until he looked dumb keeping a phenom on the sideline. When Joey Montana became the Greatest of All Time, his success turned Abramski's coaching career into footnote, a parable about a small man not ready for his moment in the sun. That ate at him. His tombstone says Coach. It was his entire identity. He was a proud man who, when faced with the biggest decision of his professional life, made the wrong one, out of stubbornness and pride, and then doubled down on his mistake over and over again. Every few years he would get quoted in a Montana profile. The last time came in the days before Montana's fourth and final Super Bowl, which he would win.
"A lot of people in Monongahela hate Joe," Abramski told Sports Illustrated.
He kept going.
"If I was in a war," he said, "I wouldn't want Joe on my side. His dad would have to carry his gun for him."
"I called him about it," Montana said at the time. "Three times now, I've seen those Abramski quotes around Super Bowl time, about why people hate me. I asked him why he kept saying those things, and he said, 'Well, you never sent me a picture, and you sent one to Jeff Petrucci, the quarterback coach.' I said, 'You never asked.' I mean, I don't send my picture around everywhere. We ended up yelling at each other. We had to put our wives on."
Montana showed grace the coach couldn't really bring himself to show. He invited Abramski to Canton, Ohio, for his Hall of Fame induction.
"Joe was very gracious to my dad," daughter Marian Fiscus says.
Abramski died almost five years ago.
Montana doesn't feel nostalgic about his hometown. He left it for good long ago. Once he and his family flew to Pittsburgh for an event. Jennifer and their daughters took a day and drove the 27 miles south to Monongahela to see where Joe grew up. They plugged in the address and ended up at a collapsing house occupied by squatters. Joe stayed behind in Pittsburgh, like his grandmother, looking beyond whatever they might find in the old dirt.
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**WE GO TO** lunch at a small Italian place near his office on the edge of North Beach and Chinatown. Joe orders the pesto for his pasta. It's not on the menu, but they make it for him. He checks his watch. After lunch he's got a meeting and then he promised to show a neighbor how to make an anchovy dip created 700 years ago two hours south of where Guiseppi Montani lived. Joe's neighbor bought the ingredients and is paying for the lesson with a few Manhattans.
Sitting at the table, after we each order a glass of white wine, Joe tells me a story.
They were in Italy. Joe and Jennifer, their girls. His parents. Her parents. They got to Sicily, to the town where his mother's family lived. They wandered into a little restaurant on a side street. The owner of the place played a trumpet whenever the mood struck. The grown-ups drank three bottles of wine.
The waiter came up to Alexandra. She was 18 months old.
"Vino, prego," she said. The adults roared approval.
"I can't give you wine," the waiter said kindly.
"OK," she replied. "Beer then."
The room erupted. The staff loved this big American family. The Montanas ate and laughed. The owner played his horn. Later, the Montanas moved outside and found a nearby park where a man played accordion and local couples danced in the dust. The Montana girls joined in. Joe watched, smiling, holding on to the picture of it in his mind.
Back in San Francisco, our wine arrives. Big and crisp. Perfect for lunch. He raises a glass and says "Cheers." We are at a table in the back with me facing the room. I can see the whispers and pointing begin. Depending on when you were born, Joe Montana is either the most famous man in the world or a fading former football star, but he is always Joe Montana. Well, almost always. There's a funny story. A few years back he went to watch a family friend coach a college volleyball game at the University of San Francisco. The gym holds 3,000 people but when the game starts only about 200 are in the seats. Then Joe comes in. A half-hour later the stands are packed, the news of his appearance gone viral in the insular city. The crowd is now rocking, except the camera flashes are all middle-aged men trying to get a shot of Joe pumping his fist.
Before the third game the teams take a break.
One of the players is freaking out at the size and volume of the crowd.
"Where did all these people come from?" she asks in a panic.
Her coach apologizes and says it was his fault and he'd invited his very famous friend, Joe Montana. The girl grins and nods.
"Oh my god!" she says. "Hannah Montana's dad is here?!"
Montana's children say he likes being recognized more now than he did at the peak of his powers. He knows what it is like to be both canonized *and* forgotten. "I can see that heartbreak in my dad a little bit," his daughter, Allie, tells me. "The more distance he gets from his career, the more time he spends reminiscing on stories." But he's learning to make peace with slipping from the white-hot center of the culture, too. His most recent Guinness commercial has him at a bar where he laughs when some young guy asks if he used to play pro tennis.
One of the recent California wildfires nearly burned down their big home in wine country. After they'd been evacuated a law enforcement friend called Joe and told him to come immediately if they wanted to save anything. The house held every piece of football memorabilia he owned. His home gym was full of it, floor to ceiling. They rushed in and had only minutes to get what mattered most. He and Jennifer grabbed family photographs and big stacks of the kids' artwork over the years. They turned to go, but Nick stopped them as they headed out the front door. They'd left something priceless and irreplaceable behind, he said. He was right. They went back and carried out cases of Screaming Eagle cabernet and the old Bordeaux.
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**NOT FIVE MINUTES** later we're at the same table drinking the same crisp white wine from the same delicate stemware when the mood suddenly darkens. The trigger, I think, is a question about the bitterness of DiMaggio, who'd grown up so close to where we sat. Montana chafes at the word, *bitter*, and empathizes with the baseball legend.
"Some things stick with you," he says.
A neuron fires in whatever part of his hippocampus that's kept him as driven after four titles as he was before one.
"Are there things you're still struggling to let go of?"
He pauses.
"I struggle to try to understand how the whole process took place with me leaving San Francisco," he says. "I should have never had to leave."
You wanted an audience with that other Joe Montana? Here he is. In the flesh, vulnerable and wounded, holding his hurt in his hands like a beating heart. Time seems to collapse for him a bit, as if an old wound is being felt fresh. We're at the table waiting on pesto, but he's somewhere else.
Jennifer Montana spots these approaching storms faster than anyone else in his life. Some mornings, she says, she sticks out her hand and says, "I'm sorry, my name is Jennifer. I don't think we've met."
A black mood can make him shut down.
"He's so complex," she says. "Joe, and you'll hear me tell you this so many times, he has so many different personalities. There's two or three main ones. The main one is about kindness. There's a deep, deep kind of love and affection. And then there's a moody, everybody-out-to-get-him kind of personality. It's only true in his mind."
He's most sensitive when someone tries to take something from him. At every level he's had to fight his way onto the field. Chuck Abramski wanted to replace him with a kid named Paul Timko. Dan Devine wanted to replace him with Rusty Lisch *and* Gary Forystek. Bill Walsh and George Seifert wanted to replace him with Steve Young. "It's actually what was feeding the beast," Jennifer tells me later. "He continually thinks of himself as the underdog and that they want to take this or that person wants this. They said I can't."
He sits at the table now reconstructing a timeline. Chapter and verse. In 1988 and 1989, he led the team to Super Bowl titles. His third and fourth. In 1990 San Francisco was leading the NFC Championship Game deep in the fourth quarter when he got hurt. Steve Young took over and Montana never started for the Niners again.
"Why wasn't I allowed to compete for the job?" he says. "I just had one of the best years I'd ever had. I could understand if I wasn't playing well. We had just won two Super Bowls and I had one of my best years and we were winning in the championship game when I got hurt. How do I not get an opportunity? That's the hardest part."
As Montana worked to recover, he says Seifert banned him from the facility when the team was in the locker room. Something ruptured inside Joe that still hasn't healed. Those other coaches doubted him, fueled him, even manipulated him, but in the end they never pushed him out of the circle. A team was a sacred thing. Joe's an only child -- an essential detail to understand, former teammate Ronnie Lott says, because he lived so much of his early life in his own head -- and his teammates became his family. All the old Niners knew Joe's parents. They gathered around his mom's table for ravioli. Jennifer made fried chicken for team flights. As much as Joe wanted to win football games he also wanted to belong to his teammates, and they to him.
"Why am I not allowed in the facility?" he says. "What did I do to not be allowed in the facility?"
Montana did his rehab alone. Isolated and wounded, he faced endless blocks of time. One way he filled it was going to a nearby airport for flying lessons. The 49ers facility was in line with the flight path in and out of the field. Every day he'd take off and from the air he could see *his* team playing without him.
"They wouldn't even let me dress."
He returned for the final regular-season game of 1992 and played well in the second half. On his last play Seifert wanted a run, according to Montana, who instead threw a touchdown pass. On the sideline, Montana says, Seifert threw his headset down. Word got back to Montana, who has never let that go, either.
He sighs.
He says he ran into Seifert the night before a funeral for one of the old Niners a few years ago. Jennifer and Joe walked into a hotel bar and there was George and his wife. Jennifer pulled Joe over to say hello.
"The most uncomfortable thing I've been through in a long time," he says.
They tried to make small talk and then just fell silent.
"Inside I think he knows," Montana says, before he moves back to talking about old Italian recipes and family vacations, the storm ebbing away. "You guys won another Super Bowl, but you probably would have two or three more if I'd stuck around."
Three more, by the way, would give him seven.
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**WALMART ONCE PAID** Joe Montana, John Elway, Dan Marino and Johnny Unitas to do an event. The four quarterbacks went out to dinner afterward. They laughed and told stories and drank expensive wine. Then the check came. The late, great Unitas loved to tell this story. Montana grinned and announced that whichever guy had the fewest rings would have to pay the bill. Joe had four, including one over Marino and one over Elway. Elway had two. Unitas said he only had one Super Bowl ring but had of course won three NFL titles before the Super Bowl existed.
Marino cursed and picked up the check.
*Joe liked being king,* is how his fiercest rival, Steve Young, puts it to me. I sit at a table in Palo Alto with Young, who laughs a little as he describes being around other guys who've dominated his position.
"You want to talk about a weird environment," he says. "Go hang out with 10 Hall of Fame quarterbacks. Every one is kind of like ... "
Young looks around from side to side at imaginary rivals. Preening stars and maladjusted grinders, insecure narcissists and little boys still trying to earn their father's love, just a whole mess of somewhat unhinged alpha males with long records of accomplishment.
"... do we race?" he says.
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**IN THE PAST** nine seasons, before retiring for the second time in as many years, Tom Brady won four Super Bowls. Montana watched those games, most at his home overlooking San Francisco Bay. He's been known to sometimes yell at the television, not so quietly rooting for the Seahawks or Falcons. In an email to me once, Montana called him "the guy in Tampa" instead of using his name.
"He definitely cares," Elizabeth Montana says. "I don't think he would own up to caring, but he gets pretty animated at the Tom Brady comparison and is quick to point out the game has changed so much."
Brady was 4 years old when he watched Joe throw the famous touchdown pass to Dwight Clark. He and his parents went together. Tom cried because they wouldn't buy him a foam finger. That was 1982. Montana showed him the way. Both were underrated out of high school and both slipped in the draft because supposed genius coaches didn't quite believe in them.
Montana watched Brady's first professional snap in person. The Patriots played in the Hall of Fame preseason game in Canton just two days after Montana stood on stage there and delivered his induction speech. He'd awoken in the dark the night before to write it, finally figuring out a way to say what he felt.
"I feel like I'm in my grave in my coffin, alive," he told the crowd. "And they're putting, throwing dirt on me, and I can feel it, and I'm trying to get out."
He was 44 years old.
They met for the first time not long after that. Montana invited him out to the house and they visited. Nate and Nick remember Brady serving as timekeeper as the brothers tried to see who could hold their breath longer in the swimming pool.
Brady won three Super Bowls in four seasons and then stalled. A decade passed. One night, working on a story, I drank wine and smoked cigars with Michael Jordan in his condo. We argued about sports and watched ESPN. A "SportsCenter" poll asked viewers to vote for either Montana or Brady as the greatest quarterback and this set Jordan off. At that moment Brady only had three titles and Montana had four, but the idea of the undefeated nature of time hit Jordan hard. "They're gonna say Brady because they don't remember Montana," he said. "Isn't that amazing?"
Brady missed an entire season to an injury and lost two Super Bowls. He looked at his hero's career and saw the warning signs coming true. Once at an event in Boston he got interviewed by positive thought guru Tony Robbins and talked about how he saw injuries derail the career of Montana. His almost religious dedication to prolonging his career was in some part born out of Montana's pain. In 2015, seven months before Montana founded Liquid 2, Brady won his fourth Super Bowl.
When Pete Carroll called for the pass that ended up in Malcolm Butler's hands, Montana yelled what everyone else did, but with a little more on the line.
"Give the damn ball to Marshawn," he says.
In 2016, at Super Bowl 50, the game's greats all returned for a ceremony. It was a big enough deal that Jennifer Montana went into the safe and took out all four of Joe's rings to wear on a safety pin as a brooch. Nearly every living Super Bowl MVP took the field. Montana was cheered. Brady, recently shadowed by deflated footballs, was booed. A month later Brady and Julian Edelman worked out in Brady's home gym. "Houston" was written on a whiteboard. Edelman asked what it meant, and Brady said that's where the Super Bowl was being held that season.
"We're gonna get you past Joe," Edelman told him.
Brady stared at him.
"I'm not going for Montana," he said. "I'm going for Jordan."
Brady liked to text Joe from time to time and talk about breaking his record. Joe laughed but his inner circle quietly bristled. I ask Steve Young if Tom Brady knows he's in Joe Montana's head? "I think anybody that traffics in this space knows exactly what's going on," Young says finally. "But everyone has to recognize and appreciate that's how you get there. Joe is not immune."
Montana's family is protective of his legacy. His sons accurately point out that no modern quarterback has ever taken hits like the ones their dad absorbed regularly. Jennifer correctly says the game has changed too much to compare eras and that he played in four and won four. But four is still less than still seven. Recently Brady and Montana were voted by the NFL as two of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. "I'm sure there's a kid out there somewhere who's looking at this list, watching tape of me and Joe and making plans to knock both of us down a spot," Brady said.
Brady praises Montana as "a killer" in public, but Joe's friends feel like he's made little effort to get to know the older player in real life. They have each other's phone numbers. Something about Brady specifically seems to irritate Montana -- friends say he'd be happy if Patrick Mahomes won eight titles -- but the truth is, the two men are similar, driven by similar emotions to be great. Ultimately Montana may not care about a ring count, but watching himself get knocked down a spot fires deep powerful impulses and trips old wires even now.
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**IN THE PAST** several years Montana authorized and participated in a six-part docuseries, which came as a shock to people who knew how militantly the quarterback guarded his privacy. The documentary, "Cool Under Pressure," premiered in January 2022, just two months after Brady's own docuseries. The opening narration sets the frame Montana sees for himself: "For decades he was considered the GOAT of quarterbacks. What most don't know is he spent his whole career being doubted."
The Montanas watched the first rough cut of the documentary on vacation with their closest couple friends, Lori Puccinelli-Stern and her husband, Peter Stern. Joe puttered around the kitchen because he doesn't like to watch himself, listening from afar. Jennifer sat on the couch and got so nervous she started braiding Lori's hair. Every now and then Lori would hear her quietly say, "Oh my god, he never told me that."
For decades she had heard Joe's parents talk about how he'd had to fight through coaches in high school and college. Sitting there watching the film, she realized they hadn't been exaggerating. It shocked the kids, too. They see him as such a conquering hero, preordained, even, that the obstacles placed in his way surprised them. Joe's youngest son started making mental notes about questions he needed to ask about college and his experience with Walsh.
"I never knew how s----y he got treated at Notre Dame," Nick Montana says. "I never knew how s----y he got treated at the Niners. My first question was: Why do you still like Bill? He talks about him like he's a god. How are you still cool with that guy?"
Peter, a tough former Berkeley water polo player, looked visibly shaken at the physical punishment Joe absorbed. There's Joe in the back of an ambulance and Joe crawling around on the ground like a war movie casualty and Joe loaded onto stretchers and carts.
The violent league he dominated no longer exists. He got knocked out of three different playoff games with hits that would now be illegal. Jim Burt hit him in 1987, and the camera settles on Montana seeming to mumble. He was knocked cold and taken away in the back of an ambulance. In the fourth quarter of the 1990 NFC Championship Game, he rolled out, dodged Lawrence Taylor and looked downfield. Leonard Marshall hit him from behind, helmet to helmet, driving Montana's head down into the turf. The hit broke his hand, cracked his ribs, bruised his sternum and stomach and gave him a concussion. Steve Young sprinted onto the field in concern and got to Joe first.
"Are you all right, Joe?" he yelled.
"I'll be all right," Joe whispered.
The team doctors asked where he hurt.
"Everywhere," he told them.
Montana, who looked like a golden boy with his hair and his Ferrari, knew the secret to winning football better than anyone. It wasn't athleticism or mental acuity or even accuracy.
"Suffering," Ronnie Lott says.
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**LOTT LEANS IN** across a table in a Silicon Valley hotel lobby, missing finger and all. His eyes dance with aggression and wonder and his voice sometimes drops to a menacing whisper. His friend Joe, back when they were young, loved the suffering, he remembers, because in it lay redemption and victory. Catholicism and football are so alike, it's no wonder so many great quarterbacks rose from industrial immigrant towns perched above rich coal deposits deep in the Pennsylvania ground. But the geographical trope often overshadows how *personal* a quest must be to survive a climb to the mountaintop.
"It was his commitment to going to the edge," Lott says, "and part of that going to the edge is: Are you willing to go there because you feel like you can go beyond that? The reason I think Joe has taken that position in his life is that his dad took that position. He taught his son, "Hey, look, you have to be willing to go die for it.'"
Lott knew Joe's parents and is Nick Montana's godfather, a role he takes as seriously as you might expect from a warrior monk. He knows Joe inherited his values and impulses from his dad but any deeper understanding remains out of reach. Montana is as much a messy tangle of pride, longing and striving as you or me or Ronnie Lott. That's part of Montana's inheritance, too. His teammates looked at him and through the glass darkly saw the best version of themselves. That's a quarterback.
Lott's voice cracks.
"I'm always amazed at some of the things that we don't know about his love, his perfection, about his will," he says. "If I knew I was going to die, I'd probably want to sit there and just stare at him. Because he's going to instill something in me that's going to say, 'You've still got another one. You've still got another one. You've still got another one.'"
Ronnie wants to tell me a story that might show what he's struggling to say. Once in the locker room Bill Walsh singled out and berated Bubba Paris for being fat. Then the coach wheeled around to the locker room for a final bit of theatrical punctuation.
"Anyone got anything to say?" Walsh barked.
The whole team stayed quiet. Ronnie. Jerry. Roger. Everyone.
Joe stepped forward. Nobody messed with his team.
"I'm taking care of his fines."
The room fell silent.
"If anybody's got anything to say about it ... " he continued, and nobody said a word -- not even Walsh.
Ronnie is telling this story because something like it happened daily. The often opaque Montana's native tongue is example. He almost got hypothermia during a college game once but still returned to win the game. His body temperature was 96 degrees. Sitting in the Notre Dame locker room, he calmly drank chicken noodle soup until it rose enough for the doctors to let him back in the game. "How many weeks did I see him on Wednesday and say there's no way," Young says. "There are tons of times in games when I thought there was no physical way he could play, and he would play and play well."
In the 1993 AFC title game, Bruce Smith and two teammates drove Montana's head into the ground. Smith heard the quarterback moaning and got concerned. He asked Montana if he was OK but Joe couldn't understand the words.
"The one in Buffalo was a felony," close friend and former teammate Steve Bono says.
The hit ended the Chiefs' playoff run and hurried the end of Montana's career.
"He was pretty sure after that Buffalo concussion," Jennifer said.
She told him to take his time and to be sure of his decision.
"Do you want me to play?" he asked.
"What I don't want you to do is say, 'I retired' and then take it back," she told him.
He played one more season.
He hurts a lot at night now. Sometimes he gets out of bed and sleeps on the floor. After one back surgery his doctors made him sleep in a brace. He hated it. Jennifer would wake up and catch Joe trying to quietly undo the Velcro one microfiber at a time. She knows how to stretch his legs to bring relief and can tell his pain level just by looking at him from across a room.
Montana accepts that pain is the price football extracts. It's easy to imagine why the success of Tom Brady, who got out without any scars, would seem like a violation of the most basic codes of the game. Growing up, Montana idolized Johnny Unitas, who made the plays *and* took the shots. Joe wore No. 19 as a kid. A photo exists of him as a rookie wearing a Niners No. 19, but when camp broke, the equipment managers assigned him No. 16 instead. The next time Montana chose a number again, with the Kansas City Chiefs, he picked No. 19. Years later Joe and John played golf together in North Carolina. On the first tee, Montana confessed that he'd just purchased a Baltimore Colts No. 19 jersey, the only piece of sports memorabilia he'd ever bought.
"You should have called me," Unitas told him. "I'd have given you one."
Football had destroyed Unitas' body and he needed to Velcro his golf club to his hand in order to swing. "Johnny was so bitter against the NFL," Montana remembers, but he also remembers it as a great day, because bitterness and pain seemed like a price both men agreed to pay when they first stepped under center and asked for the ball.
Since his last game Montana has endured more than two dozen surgeries. Maybe the worst was a neck fusion. He stayed in the hospital for about a week, and as he checked out, Jennifer called Lori and Peter and asked them to come meet them at the house. Joe wanted to play dominos. (Joe and Lori play an ongoing game against Jennifer and Peter.) Lori walked in and turned away. Joe looked terrible, thin, wearing a neck brace. He ate a little salad and faded in and out. Lori walked outside and cried. It's like she realized for the first time that even Joe Montana was going to age and die. She turned around to see that Jennifer had followed her. They two women hugged and then Jennifer gestured upstairs.
"If you asked him right now if he would do it again," she said, "he would answer in one second. Absolutely yes."
---
**STEVE YOUNG IS** sitting in his Palo Alto office and thinking about why Montana would do it all over again, and why he would, too. There's football memorabilia everywhere on the walls and shelves. The market closes in less than five minutes. As financial news scrolls across a huge screen, he searches for the right way to describe how he feels now about Joe Montana.
"I don't want it to be a weird word," he says.
He's got an idea in mind but is nervous.
"Tenderness," he says finally.
Time has revealed so much to Young, who is probably the most thoughtful member of the Hall of Fame. Namely, that time itself is both the quarterback's greatest enemy and most precious resource. The shiny monument and the inevitable swallowing sand. That knowledge rearranges the past. All those years ago he just wanted snaps with the first team, to be QB1 and take his place atop the food chain. Now he understands. He wasn't trying to take Joe Montana's job. He was trying to kill him, to take away the air in his lungs and the ground beneath his feet, to burn down his home and bury the ashes. He took years away and left blank pages where more Montana legend might have been inscribed. Fans and pundits measure a career in terms of titles and yards and touchdowns. Players get seduced by those, too. But in the end those metrics are merely byproducts of a complicated and deeply personal calculus, each man driven by different inheritances and towards different birthrights. There isn't a number that feels like enough. The goal is always more.
"Every player in history wants to write more in the book," Young says. "I think about that all the time."
His voice gets softer.
"No matter how much you write," he says, "you want to write more."
Young goes quiet.
Then says, "I've talked to you more about this than he and I would ever consider talking about it."
Bill Walsh traded for Young in 1987 because he worried Montana's back injury might end his career. Joe actually thought about retiring then but the competition with Young filled him with determination. When Steve stepped onto the field for his first practice, Montana looked him up and down and said, "Nice shoes." They had No. 16 written on them. The San Francisco trainers had put a pair of Joe's cleats in Steve's locker. The fight was on. Montana held off the younger, more athletic Young until his injury in 1991. If you read Young's autobiography, it's actually a book about Joe Montana.
"I guess in some ways I admire him in a way that no one else can," Young says.
He says he gets it. Montana retired at 38. Brady won three Super Bowls after turning 38. The violence that drove both Steve and Joe into retirement was erased from the quarterback position Tom dominated for 23 seasons.
Montana can only sit and watch.
"I think he thought what he wrote in the book was plenty," Young says, "and I think he's a little surprised it didn't turn out that way. That's why it probably bugs him. If he could ... he wouldn't allow it. With our age, we're stuck. We're in the same boat. I definitely have spent time wanting to write more in the book."
I say something about Brady calling Montana a killer.
"A predator has no feeling," Young says, suddenly defensive of his former rival. "Joe was a good dude. Assassin doesn't work. He's more emotionally athletic than that. An assassin is not emotionally athletic. A predator is not emotionally athletic. You'd be doing him a disservice. You don't get there without being a spiritual, emotional and physical athlete. But that dynamic doesn't rule the day. It's not like that's all you are."
To Young former quarterbacks are virtuoso violinists who have their instrument stripped away just as they master it. He wants another stage. Unitas did, too, and Montana, and Elway, and Marino. One day, so will Brady.
"Everything would be informed by that desire," Young says. "Please give me the violin back. Please ... "
He smiles. Thinks.
"The day you retire you fall of a cliff," he says. "You land in a big pile of nothing. It's a wreck. But it's more of a wreck for people who have the biggest book."
His wife has been texting but he got lost in his memories about Joe. Young asks me to tell Montana hello for him and then packs up his stuff to go on the afternoon school run. I turn and look around his office. A framed No. 16 jersey hangs on his conference room wall.
---
![](https://a4.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2023%2F0202%2Fr1125711_1007x807cc.jpg&w=225&h=180&scale=crop&location=origin)
**JENNIFER MONTANA MEETS** me in a little breakfast place she likes by the water. She comes into the room with pink Gucci slippers and a wide, friendly smile. It's early in the morning. Her art studio is around the corner, and she does a lot of sculpture and painting. Yesterday she and Joe drove around the city with the windows down. They got to a stoplight and the person a lane over hurriedly rolled his window down, too. He had a few seconds' audience with Joe Montana.
"Thank you for the great childhood," the man said.
We find a corner to talk.
"I think he really fought in the 15 years after retirement," she says.
They met on the set of a razor commercial. He'd been divorced twice. She was the actress tasked with admiring the matinee idol quarterback's close shave. He wanted to ask her out and fumbled hard on the approach, which she found endearing. They've been married nearly 40 years now and are very different. She is lit from the inside with the beatific now. He still has the aspirational immigrant struggle between discovering and remembering imprinted on every cell.
"I think the talks that we've had is ... everything is right here," she says. "*You have the world at your feet* and you have to remind him of that on occasion, because the thing that motivates him is not having the world at his feet."
He became a good pilot. For a few years he competed in serious cutting horse events. Neither of those made him feel valuable again. A business he owned with Ronnie Lott and fellow teammate Harris Barton failed. He'd been retired for 20 years, a long gap between successes, before he got into the venture capital world and rediscovered any kind of a familiar rush. That's a lot of wandering. "You've got a family that loves you," she says. "You've got four healthy, beautiful children. We're in love. You've got money in the bank. What could you really want for? But it didn't solve the problem of looking for the next thing."
They experience time differently. She urges him to look at the rising sun and be happy. He loves that view but remains tethered to his own suspicion of happiness, his own belief in the value of suffering. Bridging that tension has been their shared task.
He loved being a dad after football -- although other parents in Napa Valley gossiped about how the intense rust belt sports dad didn't vibe with wine country chill -- and worried a lot about everything he'd missed while winning four Super Bowls. Like a lot of children from his neck of the woods, raised on the dueling icons of the crucifix and the smokestack, he's a complex mix of work ethic and guilt. He wants a big family. He also wants to work hard, to achieve as only an individual can. These days if he's in an honest mood, he'll describe the deep regret he feels about how much football took him away from his kids. Never mind that Jennifer says his guilt is mostly internal and not rooted in the reality of their lives. He *was* there, she insists. Sometimes he got *too* involved when the season ended, stepping back into her world and messing with the system. "To this day it makes him melancholy to think of how much he missed," she says. "And I go, 'Joe, you really didn't.'"
The four Montana children have a complex relationship with their father's fame. His daughters heard all the mean comments kids made, supercharged by jealousy. They were embarrassed at all the attention. About the only two boys in America who didn't want to wear Montana on their backs were Nate and Nick, whose jerseys had their mother's maiden name on them during youth football, trying to find even a sliver of daylight between their father's accomplishments and their own. In hindsight they've come to believe he intentionally dulled his own legend for their benefit. "I think something that over time I appreciate more and more is how much effort he put into family," Nick Montana says. "There's obviously a lot of things he could have done post-career to garner more fame, more wealth, but the most important thing to him was being present for us."
That sentiment makes Jennifer smile. She knows it's true and went against her husband's natural wiring to compete and win. This winter we meet up again at a trendy breakfast spot down in Cow Hollow. She drives the few blocks from their house on her white Vespa. We talk a lot about how he is happy but still has work to do on himself.
"I want him to be content," she says.
Most of the time, he is. Most of the time. Every now and then he'll experience what can best be described as a biological response. He built himself to respond to challenges both real and imagined. Jennifer will be sitting next to him in a car and he'll start gunning the engine, moving in out of traffic, and she'll have to remind him that some other driver isn't trying to race, or to cut him off, or to start some competition on the freeway.
In those moments, she says, "He still hasn't figured it out."
Sometimes Jennifer worries he feels the best part of his life is over and her main role now is to counter that with reminders and activities. His flaws -- the guilt, the pettiness, the occasional dark cloud of blame and paranoia -- are part of why she loves him. He will always be a guy who sees the glass as half-empty. That's what allowed him to become and to be *Joe Montana*. Sometimes she gets tired having to throw boundless positive energy at one of his black moods. But in the end, the complications *are* the man, not some wilderness to hack through while looking for him. The untamed part of him is why she's still here all these years later. "I think we're each other's best friend," she says, "and it's not always pretty, but it's pretty darn good."
---
**FIVE YEARS AGO** his father died. They'd been so close. Joe Sr. used to show up at Notre Dame unannounced in the middle of the night, after a six-hour drive, just to take his son and his roommates out to a diner. In 1986, Joe's parents moved full time to California. His mom died in 2004. The family buried Joe Sr. in the rich wine country dirt. Next to Joe's mom. The San Francisco Bay was the home this family had been searching for since Guiseppi Montani set sail in 1887. Four people gave Joe's dad eulogies: his four grandkids. Allie started to break down and Nate moved to the front of the church and stood by her side.
They'd entered the stage of life where people started to fall away. A year after his father died, his best friend, Dwight Clark, died, too, after a battle with ALS. They met as rookies, bonding over beers and burgers at the Canyon Inn by their practice facility. They became legends together, navigating a bitter falling out and ultimate reunion. In the end they kept faith with one another, knowing or maybe learning over the years that what they accomplished meant less to them than the fact that they'd done it together. As Clark slipped away, Montana sat by his bedside. The old Niners worked out a schedule to be sure Dwight was never alone.
When he got the news Joe fell apart. Jennifer called Lori and asked if she could talk Joe down. Sometimes she can get through to him when nobody else can. "I talked to him on the phone for 45 minutes," Lori said, "and he was sobbing so hard he couldn't breathe."
Before he died Dwight had asked Joe to deliver a eulogy. His first draft skimmed along the surface -- there was a limit, he felt, to how deep he could go without just dissolving in public -- but Jennifer told him he needed to rip it up and start again. This wasn't a sports speech. Joe's second draft hit the mark. He was poignant and funny. He said Dwight loved to remind him that, you know, nobody called it "The Throw." Everyone laughed. His voice cracked. Jennifer sat in the audience next to their old friend Huey Lewis. Back in the day, Joe, Dwight and Ronnie sang backing vocals for Lewis' hit song "Hip To Be Square"; that's them crooning, "Here, there, everywhere."
Huey leaned over and told Jennifer he felt sorry that Joe was always the guy who got asked to speak at funerals. After all these years he remains their QB1. Just a few months later, as part of the new stadium in the southern suburbs, the Niners dedicated a new statue to "The Catch." There's Montana with his arms raised in the air. Twenty-three yards away Dwight Clark is frozen in the air with his fingers on the ball. The team asked Joe to speak on behalf of himself and Clark.
"I miss him," Joe said.
Montana spoke with humility -- calling out Eric Wright, whose tackle *after* "The Catch" actually won the game -- and talked about how time and age were ravaging their once strong team. Opponents once lost sleep thinking about the San Francisco 49ers coming into their city and now they were old enough to be dying. They were in that strange transition from people to memories.
"It's truly an honor ... " he said.
Montana looked at the statues of himself and his best friend.
"... to be remembered forever."
His friends felt he was more emotional that day than at the funeral. It was a little chilly with clear skies. Joe looked down to his left and saw Dwight's children. "He was looking in the eyes of mortality," Lori says.
---
![](https://a2.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2023%2F0202%2Fr1125714_2379x1634cc.jpg&w=262&h=180&scale=crop&location=origin)
**THE PANDEMIC BROUGHT** everyone home.
For the first time since Allie went to Notre Dame in 2004, minus a couple of summers, all six Montanas were together all the time. What a gift! Empty nesters never get their birds back. And there weren't just six of them anymore. The first grandbaby had been born and another was soon to follow. Everyone worked from home, and three or four nights a week gathered around a big, loud table at Joe and Jennifer's place. Nate usually handled the music unless they watched a game or movie. Joe and Jennifer loved it. They laughed and ate and danced and gave thanks for their growing family. They hung out in the backyard. Joe has every grill imaginable out there, with Jennifer always finding bigger and better ones to work into the mix, so they watched him cook and made cocktails.
Joe asked me once if I knew the quiet sound of a gondola cutting like a blade through the shadow-thrown canals at night. He loves a moment, whether it's cataloging the way ice hits a glass in a Basque beach town or looking over at the sideline and noticing John Candy watching the game. Because he trusts and loves Jennifer, he's trying to learn to better manage the blank spaces between moments, but he does have his own version of contentment. He's a romantic at heart, equally at home in dive bars and triple-deck yachts. They've traveled constantly, with their family, and with friends. Boat trips to the south of France and rain forests in Costa Rica, again and again, and long winding journeys up and down Italy. The whole family met up this last summer in Istanbul where a fan stopped him for a picture in the streets. He shopped in the ancient stalls in the old town souk. They sat at a café where boats nosed up right to the dock. His travel tips for the beaches of Europe belong in a book. They've bungee jumped in New Zealand and ran with Bill Murray at Pebble Beach. Five years ago he did the full five-day climb up Machu Picchu with Jennifer and the kids. Everyone was worried about him, but he tapped into something inside and endured the pain. One foot in front of the other. For a bit the boys had to carry their backpacks, but mostly Jennifer just kept barking at anyone slowing down and Joe marched in determined silence. They made it up and he looked out through the beams of light. He'd earned this moment. At his feet the emerald green grass grew through the stone ruins and around him dark peaks rose in the air like cathedrals.
Once the pandemic travel restrictions loosened the whole family went to the North Shore of Oahu. It's a surfing paradise. They'd booked two weeks. Two weeks turned into a month. They kept traveling together, chasing sunlight and water, Costa Rica, back to Hawaii, down to the islands, then to their little weekend place in Malibu. They surfed, they fished, they played dominos, they ate fresh seafood as the sun sank into the water.
They moved as a pack and that's how I found them when I arrived in San Francisco last summer to meet Montana for the first time. He seemed like a case study in a psychology journal: forced to leave a job he did better than anyone who'd ever come before, forced to try to find a replacement for the time and passion that job required, forced to undertake that search while a kid who grew up idolizing him tore down his record and took his crown. If you wanted to understand the fragility of glory and legacy, Joe Montana isn't *a* person you should talk to about it. He is *the* person.
"Look at Otto Graham or Sammy Baugh," Joe says as we sit in his office during our first meeting, seeing his place in a continuum that existed before he entered it and will exist once he's gone. He knows intellectually that comparison is a foolish talk radio game and yet. A bit later, unbidden, he says he wishes every living human could have the experience of standing on an NFL football field on a Sunday afternoon. Just to experience the way crowd noise can be felt in your body, the sound itself a physical thing, waves and vibrations rolling down the bleachers -- 80,000 voices united coursing right through you. Mickey Mantle sat in the rain in his car looking for that noise. Joe DiMaggio stared out at the San Francisco Bay hoping to hear it come through the fog. Even talking about it gives Montana chills. If the number of titles separates the men on the quarterbacking pyramid, then the memory of the game, the feel of it, connects them. That's Joe's point about Otto and Sammy. "Those guys were so far ahead of the game," he says. "I don't know how you compare them to today's game or even when we played."
It's the moment that matters. Not records. He was fine to let his trophies burn. He misses the moments. The moments are what he thinks about when he sits at home and watches Brady play in a Super Bowl. He's not jealous of the result or even the ring. He's jealous of the experience.
"To sit in rare air ..." Ronnie Lott says, searching for the words.
"... is like being on a spaceship."
Breathing rare air changes you. Every child who's sucked helium from a birthday balloon knows this and so does Joe Montana and everyone who ever played with him. It's the feeling so many kids hoped to feel when they slipped on the No. 16 jersey and let the mesh drape over their arms.
"He breathed rare air with me," Lott says, and the way he talks about air sure sounds like he's talking about love.
---
**TOM BRADY RECORDED** a video alone on a beach and again told the world that he was done with football. *For good this time*, he said with a tired smile. His voice cracked and he seemed spent. He's a 45-year-old middle-aged man who shares custody of three children with two ex-partners. Next year he'll be the lead color commentator for Fox Sports. This past year he'd just as soon forget. He retired for 40 days, then unretired and went back to his team, looking a step slow for the first time in his career, and finally retired again. Those decisions set off a series of events that cost him the very kind of family, the very wellspring of moments, that have brought Joe Montana such joy. Brady has fallen off the cliff that Steve Young described and faces the approaching 15 years that Jennifer Montana remembered as so hard. Tom's book is now written. He will leave, as Montana did before him, the unquestioned greatest of all time.
"You cannot spend the rest of your life trying to find it again," Young says.
Stretched out before Brady is his road to contentment. The man in the video has a long way to go. Montana knows about that journey. He understands things about Brady's future that Tom cannot possibly yet know. On the day Brady quit, Montana's calendar was stacked with investor meetings for the two new funds he's raising. When he heard the news, he wondered to himself if this announcement was for real. Brady had traded so much for just one more try. On the field he struggled to find his old magic. His cheeks looked sunken. His pliability and the league's protection of the quarterback had added a decade to his career. But along the way they also let his imagination run unchecked. Brady's body didn't push him to the sidelines. He had to decide for himself at great personal cost. Montana was never forced to make that choice. He had to reckon with the maddening edges of his physical limits but was protected from his own need to compete and from the damage that impulse might do. For all his injuries took from him, they gave him something, too.
---
![](https://a3.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2023%2F0202%2Fr1125706_2428x3600cc.jpg&w=122&h=180&scale=crop&location=origin)
**THEY'VE GOT TWO** grandchildren now, Lil Boo and Bella Boo, and a third on the way.
"A boy," Lori says with a grin.
The momentum of the pandemic hasn't stopped. Jennifer has planned a monthlong trip to the coast where Spain and France meet. Everyone is coming. All four kids and the grandbabies. Joe and Jennifer are flying to Paris three days early. Just the two of them, so they can walk alone through the Tuileries Garden, holding hands in the last warm kiss of fall. She's checked the rotating exhibits at the Modern but there's nothing that she's dying to see, so mostly they'll just sleep and walk the city and spend meals talking about what they'll eat next.
"Baguettes in the morning," she says. "Coffee to lunch to dinner."
When Joe and Jennifer take stock, they're pleased. Sure the boys' college football careers didn't end how they wanted, and Joe is still upset the Niners wouldn't sign Nate and give him a chance in the pros, but all four kids have graduated from college. Both girls went to Notre Dame like their dad. Both boys work in venture capital and each has created success on their own. Joe didn't hire Nate until he went out and experienced the startup world himself. They have good manners. The boys -- men -- stand up and shake hands when a stranger comes to their table. Nick, the youngest, just turned 30. When I visited, all four kids were living in the city. Jennifer, who does not pull punches when talking about her complex man, says Joe is happier than he's ever been.
One Sunday when I was in town they had a big family barbecue. The FAM2 text chain came alive with plans and details and instructions. (FAM1 was retired because Nate's girlfriend got added, which required a new group.) They gathered on their big rooftop terrace with views of both bridges. Joe made ribs. Everybody hung out for hours. None of the kids were in a hurry to leave. The two little girls ran around shot from a cannon, demanding attention. His grandchildren are the path to the ultimate contentment Jennifer wants for him. Everyone who knows him says so.
Allie went into labor late at night and she remembers the first time she saw her dad hold the little baby -- "love, wonder, excitement -- literally like a kid who just got the baseball card they had been buying all that gum for ..." -- but also what she described as "profound sadness and longing." Even as he held his family's future in his arms he thought of his mom and dad not getting to meet this baby and, Allie thinks, not getting to see their son be a grandfather.
The grandkids call him Yogi. Jennifer is Boo Boo. He loves it when they teeter down the hall and crawl into bed between them. A few days ago Lil Boo spent four straight nights with them. She is taking swim lessons at a club in their neighborhood. Joe gets her dressed in a cute pink bathing suit and takes her down to the pool. All the other kids have their moms, so that's the scene. A bunch of screaming kids, with their San Francisco mothers in the pool -- plus one former quarterback splashing and smiling.
"It's so interesting to see him with these grandbabies now," Lori says. "He missed all that when his kids were young. He's like a little kid himself. After all the ups and downs, all the surgeries, all the moves, the kids -- you're only as happy as your most miserable child -- right now to me it feels like all the kids are settled, they're all kicking ass. But the biggest change in our 30 years of friendship is them being grandparents -- there's even a new connection between them. When Lil Boo does something hysterical, they'll look at each other with this ... this is the result of us."
On a recent trip to Costa Rica, Joe and Jennifer took Boo out into the surf and gently and carefully got her on a board. Jennifer rode with her while Joe stood behind them, holding tight to the cord, watching with pride. Not long ago Lil Boo announced she wanted to ride on a cable car. This would be Joe's second time on one of them (his first was filming a United Way commercial years ago while Tony Bennett stood next to him and crooned, "I left my heart ... ")
Joe and Jennifer led the little girl outside and toward the closest trolley. The conductor was rushing past them, certainly not going to stop, until he saw *who* was standing there trying to flag him down. He hit the brakes. These are the great joys of being Joe Montana now.
He can make a cable car stop for Lil Boo.
---
**NOT VERY LONG** ago Joe wakes up early before work and in the particular quiet of a morning house, he mixes the water and the flour and gets pizza dough made and resting before he heads into the office. Nate and Matt are waiting on him downtown, between the Transamerica building and the trattorias and pool halls of Joe DiMaggio's youth. They have a busy day listening to pitches from founders ahead. It's warm in San Francisco, high 60s and rising, with no marine layer tucking the city into a pocket of grayed white.
They're launching a new fund, designed to push more capital to companies they've already decided to support. Joe is raising the money and he says when that's done he might finally step back from the daily grind. Jennifer doesn't believe that for a moment. A big Post-it note in his office lists the ways in which they're planning to grow, to make the business larger and more complex. That's why Matt is here, to help with the investments but also with the structures and processes of a larger firm.
"We're always going to be innovating," he says.
We're sitting around a conference table. Someone's left two Tootsie Rolls on a Buddhist shrine as a kind of offering. Nate is eating noodles. Joe is talking about how football kept him from studying architecture and design at Notre Dame because those classes met on fall afternoons. He scratches his ear and hunches over the screen. Jennifer told me to correct him when he used bad posture which I obviously do not do.
When the presentations end for the day Joe heads home. FAM2 is a flurry of activity. Tonight is pizza night for the Montana family of San Francisco, California, and it's hard not to think about Guiseppi Montani and whatever his wildest dreams for his descendants might have been when his ship pulled out of the harbor. Later that evening an email arrives on my phone with six pictures attached. I open them. Joe Montana has sent over photographs of his pizzas. There's good mozzarella and fresh basil on one. Thick wedges of pepperoni and mushrooms on another. The crusts look charred and chewy. The next morning he grins and says they turned out pretty well but he still has room to improve.
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Date: 2023-08-10
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# A Climate Warning from the Cradle of Civilization
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![](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/07/25/world/00iraq-water-babylon-drawing/00iraq-water-babylon-drawing-articleLarge.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp)
Every schoolchild learns the name: Mesopotamia the Fertile Crescent, the cradle of civilization.
Today, much of that land is turning to dust.
[Alissa J. Rubin](https://www.nytimes.com/by/alissa-j-rubin)
Photographs and Video by [Bryan Denton](https://www.nytimes.com/by/bryan-denton)
Alissa J. Rubin and Bryan Denton spent months reporting from nearly two dozen cities, towns and villages across Iraq.
July 29, 2023
The word itself, Mesopotamia, means the land between rivers. It is where the wheel was invented, irrigation flourished and the earliest known system of writing emerged. The rivers here, some scholars say, fed the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon and converged at the place described in the Bible as the Garden of Eden.
### Listen to This Article
Now, so little water remains in some villages near the Euphrates River that families are dismantling their homes, brick by brick, piling them into pickup trucks — window frames, doors and all — and driving away.
“You would not believe it if I say it now, but this was a watery place,” said Sheikh Adnan al Sahlani, a science teacher here in southern Iraq near Naseriyah, a few miles from the Old Testament city of Ur, which the Bible describes as the hometown of the Prophet Abraham.
These days, “nowhere has water,” he said. Everyone who is left is “suffering a slow death.”
Image
![Children in a small body of water a few inches deep.](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/07/12/multimedia/xxiraq-water-01-hvkg/xxiraq-water-01-hvkg-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)
Boys searching for fish in the stagnant, shallow waters of a shrinking irrigation canal in a village on the outskirts of Najaf, Iraq.
Image
Desiccated agricultural fields are now a common sight in once-verdant areas of Iraq. In many places, the groundwater has become too salty to drink.
Image
A dead water buffalo in a familys corral near Basra, Iraq. As water has become scarce, farmers have struggled to keep their herds alive.
You dont have to go back to biblical times to find a more verdant Iraq. Well into the 20th century, the southern city of Basra was known as the “Venice of the East” for its canals, plied by gondola-like boats that threaded through residential neighborhoods.
Indeed, for much of its history, the Fertile Crescent — often defined as including areas of modern-day Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iran, the West Bank and Gaza — did not lack for water, inspiring centuries of artists and writers who depicted the region as a lush ancient land. Spring floods were common, and rice, one of the most water-intensive crops in the world, was grown for more than 2,000 years.
But now [nearly 40 percent](https://www.planetarysecurityinitiative.org/news/iraqs-growing-desertification-problem) of Iraq, an area roughly the size of Florida, has been overtaken by blowing desert sands that [claim tens of thousands of acres](https://www.unep.org/resources/report/geo-6-global-environment-outlook-regional-assessment-west-asia) of arable land every year.
Climate change and desertification are to blame, scientists say. So are weak governance and the continued reliance on wasteful irrigation techniques that date back millenniums to Sumerian times.
A tug of war over water — similar to the struggles over [the Colorado River in the United States](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/22/climate/colorado-river-water.html), the [Mekong in Southeast Asia](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/world/asia/china-mekong-drought.html) and the [Nile in northern Africa](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/world/middleeast/nile-dam-egypt-ethiopia.html) — has also intensified water shortages for tens of millions of people across the region.
Another culprit is common to large regions of the world: a growing population whose water demands continue to rise, both because of sheer numbers and, in many places, higher living standards, increasing individual consumption.
Here in Iraq, the fallout is everywhere, fraying society, spurring deadly clashes between villages, displacing thousands of people every year, emboldening extremists and leaving ever more land looking like a barren moonscape.
In many areas, water pumped from below the surface is too salty to drink, the result of dwindling water, agricultural runoff and untreated waste. “Even my cows wont drink it,” one farmer said.
Even in the north, where fresh water has historically been available, well diggers in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, bore down 580 feet last summer — and still found only salty water.
Iraq is now the fifth most vulnerable country to extreme temperatures, water scarcity and food shortages, [the United Nations says](https://iraq.un.org/en/202663-factsheet-impact-climate-change-environment-idp-and-returnee-locations-integrated-location). Next door in Iran, a province of two million people [could run out of water](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/21/world/middleeast/iran-drought-water-climate.html?searchResultPosition=1) by mid-September, Iranian lawmakers said, leaving few options beyond mass exodus.
And for the rest of the Middle East and some other areas of the world — including parts of Mexico, Pakistan, India and the Mediterranean — Iraq and its neighbors offer an unmistakable warning.
“Because of this regions vulnerabilities, one of the most vulnerable on the planet, it is one of the first places that is going to show some kind of extreme succumbing, literally, to climate change,” said Charles Iceland, the director of water security for the World Resources Institute, a research organization.
But, he added, “no countries, even the rich countries, are adapting to climate change to the degree they need to.”
### PART 2
## Hotter, Drier, Faster
Video
![](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/12/07/iraw-water-canal-image/iraw-water-canal-image-videoSixteenByNine1050.jpg)
An almost empty irrigation canal in Dhi Qar Province.CreditCredit...
Many people in the villages near the Euphrates River remember how, 20 years ago, the date palm trees grew so thick and close together that their leaves blocked the sunlight. The splashing of children in the irrigation canals and the sloshing of water jugs being carted home provided the backbeat of summer life.
Now, the irrigation canals are so dry in summer that the small bridges spanning them are barely necessary and the sounds of daily life signal waters scarcity: the crackle of brown grasses and the rustle of dried out palm leaves. Some palms have no leaves at all, their bare trunks standing like the columns of ancient ruins.
Water comes from the government in red plastic barrels, in rations of about 160 gallons a month per family. Even when used sparingly, it barely lasts a week in the heat, said Mr. Sahlani, the sheikh and science teacher, who lives in the village of Albu Jumaa. Graffiti scrawled in Arabic on a half-destroyed concrete wall expressed the frustration: “Where is the state?” it read.
As recently as the 1970s and 1980s, Iraqs water ministry built artificial lakes and dams to hold the immense annual overflow from winter rains and gushing snow melt from the Taurus Mountains, the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates.
Even today, traces of Iraqs greener past can be seen every spring. In the Anbar desert, a brief winter rain can turn the shallow valleys green and speckle them with flowers. Along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, the water still nourishes trees beside the narrow banks, with bands of green fields on either side.
But even those bands have shrunk in recent decades.
The region is [getting hotter — faster](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2021RG000762) — than many parts of the world. By some estimates, the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean could warm by 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) or even more during this century. In the worst months of summer, some places are already [nearly unlivable](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/18/world/middleeast/extreme-heat.html).
Precipitation, already low, is expected to wane across the Middle East. The drought gripping Iraq is now in its fourth year, and the country is particularly vulnerable because most of its water comes from rivers that originate outside the country, holding it hostage to the decisions of its neighbors Turkey and Iran.
### PART 3
## Water Wars
Image
So much water has disappeared that many bridges have become unnecessary.
The chokehold on Iraqs rivers has been tightening for decades.
Since 1974, Turkey has built 22 dams, hydroelectric plants and irrigation projects on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, modeled in part on the Tennessee Valley Authority in the United States.
Then, in the early 2000s, Iran started building more than a dozen smaller dams and tunnels on tributaries to the Tigris, devastating Iraqi provinces like Diyala, which was known just 10 years ago for its peaches, apricots, oranges and dates. The tributaries from Iran are the only source of water in the province, other than the dwindling rainfall.
The impact has been drastic: The water flowing into Iraq has dropped almost 50 percent on the Euphrates and by about a third on the Tigris since major dam building began in the 1970s, according to statistics from Iraqs water ministry.
Hashem al-Kinani and his family have felt the changes firsthand. For generations, they farmed 20 acres east of Baghdad, on the Diyala border, facing one trial after another.
First, the American invasion and the ouster of Saddam Hussein bit into the states support of farmers. Then in 2006, Al Qaeda moved in and killed many local men, leaving their headless bodies in ditches. Hashem lost an uncle, and the family house was bombed by Al Qaeda. Making matters worse, rainfall has become more erratic and gradually diminished. As the Iranian dams came on line, river water became too scarce to grow fruit.
The fig and pomegranate trees have died. His family sold off their 1,500 head of cattle and their sheep, because it was impossible to feed them. Hes not sure how much longer he can hang on.
“Farming is over here,” he said. “I cannot stay, but what can I do?”
Image
The family of Hashem al Kinani has farmed 20 acres east of Baghdad for generations, but over the last two decades water has become too scarce for fruit growing.
Image
An abandoned home in a farming village.
Image
Most of Iraqs drinking and irrigation water comes from rivers that originate outside the country, holding it hostage to the decisions of neighboring Turkey and Iran.
History is replete with water wars, and one of the earliest recorded conflicts took place here in the Fertile Crescent, where [scribes documented](https://www.worldwater.org/conflict/list/) a fight over water between Sumerian city states more than 4,000 years ago in what is now Iraq.
Many modern nations have gone on the offensive to ensure that their people have enough water. Ethiopia has spent years [building a colossal dam on the Nile](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/09/world/africa/nile-river-dam.html), inciting fear and anger from Egypt downstream. China has done the same [with the Mekong](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/world/asia/mekong-river-dams-china.html). Central Asian nations have had a long-running feud over the Amu Darya and Syr Darya Rivers, which have been drained to such an extent that by the time they reach the inland Aral Sea, [there is little water left](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/AralSea).
Worldwide, countries share nearly [900 rivers, lakes and aquifers](https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/transboundary-waters), according to the United Nations, and though a [treaty](https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=XXVII-5&chapter=27&clang=_en) exists to govern their use, fewer than half of all countries have ratified it. Notably absent from the list are upstream nations like Turkey, Iran and China.
In 2021, Iraqs water ministry threatened to drag Iran to the International Court of Justice for taking its water. But Iraqs Shiite-dominated government, which is close to Tehrans leaders, dropped the issue.
The Kinani family, whose farm withered as Iran built dams, still grows a little wheat, mostly for its own consumption. But the once-clear irrigation canal the farm uses now has nearly stagnant, viscous water with a brownish-green color and a nauseating smell.
“We are irrigating with sewage water,” Mr. Kinani said.
### PART 4
## ISIS RETURNS
Image
A lack of water has complicated security efforts and the continuing battle against a persistent Islamic State insurgency.
Drought brings other, less obvious dangers, too.
In parts of Iraq, rivers and irrigation canals once provided strategic barriers — their waters too wide, fast or deep for extremist fighters to traverse.
Today, if those waters are running at all, they are often low enough to walk across.
Militants who had been pushed back in recent years are taking advantage of the drying landscape to come back and attack with ease, according to Sheikh Muhammed Dhaifan, who has been fighting to keep his tribe northeast of Baghdad from leaving the 44 villages where they have worked the land for generations.
When Al Qaeda seized the tribes land in 2005, it used stones to block the irrigation canals fed by the Adaim River and forced many farmers to flee.
After Al Qaedas defeat, Sheikh Muhammed persuaded most of his clan to return. But then in 2012, as the Islamic State began to emerge, his tribe was forced to leave again.
Finally, after almost five years, ISIS was vanquished and the villagers began to come back.
Now the chief enemy is drought, stealing not just their livelihoods, but also their sense of safety. In some places, the water hardly covers the pebbles lining the riverbed. ISIS barely has to slow down to get across.
“We used to be protected by the river,” said Sheikh Muhammed. “Now, sometimes they walk, sometimes they drive their motorbikes, the water is so low.”
Last year, Islamic State fighters crossed on foot at night and killed 11 soldiers, many as they slept, at an Iraqi Army outpost on the rivers banks.
This year, the fighters have moved farther east, attacking villages on the Diyala River, which is also low because of drought and Irans dams. More than 50 civilians were killed in the province in the first five months of 2023, most by fighters aligned with ISIS.
In the past, the snowmelt and rains sometimes swelled the regions rivers, prompting Turkey and Iran to share more water with Iraq. But the future looks unlikely to offer much respite.
The current trend of a hotter, drier Iraq — and a hotter Middle East — is expected to last for decades, making the once-fertile crescent less and less livable.
Already, Iraq does not have enough water to meet its needs, [the World Bank says](https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/iraq/publication/iraq-country-climate-and-development-report). But by 2035 its water deficit could widen significantly, cutting into the countrys homegrown food supply and the economy as a whole.
Pleas to Turkey to share more water have largely gone unheeded.
In the summer of 2022, at the height of last years drought, Turkeys ambassador to Iraq responded to Iraqs requests for more water by complaining that Iraqis were “squandering” it, calling on the Iraqi government to enact “immediate measures to reduce the waste.” This year, when a similar request came, Turkey shared more water for a month before cutting back again.
Turkeys complaints about Iraq are not unfounded. Iraqs irrigation efforts lose large quantities to evaporation and runoff. Water soaks into earthen canals, leaks from rusted pipes and runs off after being used in flood irrigation — the 6,000-year-old method of saturating fields.
The fertilizer in the runoff makes the groundwater saltier. Studies in southern Iraq show large areas with salt levels so high that the water cannot be used for drinking, irrigation or even washing clothes.
Iraqs population makes the forecast even more dire: It is [one of the fastest-growing](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.GROW?locations=ZQ) in the region.
Mr. Sahlani, the science teacher near Naseriyah, recalled how much of life in rural southern Iraq was lived on the water just 20 years ago. Locals started their days in small boats, pushing off at first light to fish before returning after sunrise to tend the fields. While some still do, the river fish are often too small, their flesh too inundated with pollutants, to make it worthwhile these days.
The changes are especially evident in [the vast marshes of southern Iraq](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/12/travel/iraq-mesopotamian-marshes.html). Some 60 years ago, they were the largest wetlands in western Eurasia. People have lived there for thousands of years.
Saddam Hussein drained the marshes of about 90 percent of their water to deprive his enemies of a place to hide in their thick reeds and small islands. In doing so, he stifled “the lungs of Iraq,” said Azzam Alwash, the Iraqi-American engineer who helped re-flood the wetlands after the United States invasion.
Surprisingly quickly, marine life rebounded, migratory birds returned and so did the people who had left. Once again, the mashouf *—* the long, narrow boats used by the Sumerians — glided through the waterways. Herds of water buffalo flourished.
But years of drought, along with the chokehold on river water from Turkey and Iran, have devastated the marshes again.
“The marshes are drying,” Mohammed Raed, 19, said as he left them behind, walking his familys emaciated buffalo toward a neighboring province, where there was still the hope of feeding them.
Mr. Sahlani, the science teacher, said people now eyed their upstream neighbors with suspicion, accusing them of taking more water from the irrigation canals than theyre due and then shutting the sluice gates, leaving too little for residents downstream to grow crops.
Without realizing it, he was describing — on a much smaller scale — Iraqs standoff with Turkey and Iran, which control much of the Euphrates and the Tigris.
“I understand the problem,” said Ghazwan Abdul Amir, the Iraqi water ministrys director in Naseriyah, adding that the government was hoping to bring more water to residents in the area.
But water is scarce and money is tight, he said: “Maybe next year.”
Fixing Iraqs outdated farming techniques, which waste as much as 70 percent of the water used for irrigation, according to a study done for Iraqs water ministry, is paramount. But persuading farmers to change has been slow going. There were just 120 drip irrigation systems allotted to farmers in Mr. Sahlanis province last year to save water — and the farmers had to pay for them.
Past the urban sprawl of northern Naseriyah, with its small auto repair shops and vegetable stands, the land empties out. Storm clouds gather in the late afternoon but then disperse without shedding a drop. Tufts of grasses, yellow and brown by late June, offer signs that crops grew here not so long ago.
The wind starts early each morning, blowing ceaselessly until dusk. It strips the topsoil, drying the land until all that is left is an earthen dust that piles on the quickly mounting dunes.
A short drive off the highway, deeper into the desert, lies Al Najim, a village being blown off the map. Thirty years ago, it had 5,000 people. Today there are just 80 left. The temperature hovered at 122 degrees.
Qahatan Almihana, an agricultural engineer, pointed at the towns landmarks: buildings half-covered in sand, doors buried too deep to open. Sand piled halfway up the walls, poured in the windows and weighed down the roofs.
“That was the school,” he said. The teachers stopped coming in early 2022.
Sheikh Muhammad Ajil Falghus, the head of the Najim tribe, was born in the village. “The land was good, the soil was good,” he explained. Until the early 2000s, he said, “we grew wheat and barley, corn and clover.”
Now, all that grows are small groups of tamarisk trees planted as a bulwark against the sands.
“We are living now on the verge of life,” the sheikh said. “There is no agriculture, no planting possible anymore. This is the end of the line, the end of life. We wait for a solution from God, or from the good people.”
Image
The village of Najim is being blown off the map. Thirty years ago, it had 5,000 people. Today, there are just 80.
## A Climate Warning from the Cradle of Civilization
Jane Arraf contributed reporting from Chibayish, Iraq, Falih Hassan from Baghdad, and Kamil Kakol from Sulimaniyah.
Produced by Mona Boshnaq, Michael Beswetherick and Rumsey Taylor. Top illustration Chronicle, via Alamy
Audio produced by Parin Behrooz.
[Alissa J. Rubin](https://www.nytimes.com/by/alissa-j-rubin) covers climate change and conflict in the Middle East. She previously reported for more than a decade from Baghdad and Kabul, Afghanistan, and was the Paris bureau chief. [More about Alissa J. Rubin](https://www.nytimes.com/by/alissa-j-rubin)
A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Mesopotamia, Once Verdant, Is Running Dry. [Order Reprints](https://www.parsintl.com/publication/the-new-york-times/) | [Todays Paper](https://www.nytimes.com/section/todayspaper) | [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp8HYKU.html?campaignId=48JQY)
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&emsp;
```button
name Save
type command
action Save current file
id Save
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^button-ACoderConsiderstheWaningDaysoftheCraftNSave
&emsp;
# A Coder Considers the Waning Days of the Craft
I have always taken it for granted that, just as my parents made sure that I could read and write, I would make sure that my kids could program computers. It is among the newer arts but also among the most essential, and ever more so by the day, encompassing everything from filmmaking to physics. Fluency with code would round out my childrens literacy—and keep them employable. But as I write this my wife is pregnant with our first child, due in about three weeks. I code professionally, but, by the time that child can type, coding as a valuable skill might have faded from the world.
I first began to believe this on a Friday morning this past summer, while working on a small hobby project. A few months back, my friend Ben and I had resolved to create a *Times*\-style crossword puzzle entirely by computer. In 2018, wed made a Saturday puzzle with the help of software and were surprised by how little we contributed—just applying our taste here and there. Now we would attempt to build a crossword-making program that didnt require a human touch.
When weve taken on projects like this in the past, theyve had both a hardware component and a software component, with Bens strengths running toward the former. We once made a neon sign that would glow when the subway was approaching the stop near our apartments. Ben bent the glass and wired up the transformers circuit board. I wrote code to process the transit data. Ben has some professional coding experience of his own, but it was brief, shallow, and now about twenty years out of date; the serious coding was left to me. For the new crossword project, though, Ben had introduced a third party. Hed signed up for a ChatGPT Plus subscription and was using GPT-4 as a coding assistant.
Something strange started happening. Ben and I would talk about a bit of software we wanted for the project. Then, a shockingly short time later, Ben would deliver it himself. At one point, we wanted a command that would print a hundred random lines from a dictionary file. I thought about the problem for a few minutes, and, when thinking failed, tried Googling. I made some false starts using what I could gather, and while I did my thing—programming—Ben told GPT-4 what he wanted and got code that ran perfectly.
Fine: commands like those are notoriously fussy, and everybody looks them up anyway. Its not real programming. A few days later, Ben talked about how it would be nice to have an iPhone app to rate words from the dictionary. But he had no idea what a pain it is to make an iPhone app. Id tried a few times and never got beyond something that half worked. I found Apples programming environment forbidding. You had to learn not just a new language but a new program for editing and running code; you had to learn a zoo of “U.I. components” and all the complicated ways of stitching them together; and, finally, you had to figure out how to package the app. The mountain of new things to learn never seemed worth it. The next morning, I woke up to an app in my in-box that did exactly what Ben had said he wanted. It worked perfectly, and even had a cute design. Ben said that hed made it in a few hours. GPT-4 had done most of the heavy lifting.
By now, most people have had experiences with A.I. Not everyone has been impressed. Ben recently said, “I didnt start really respecting it until I started having it write code for me.” I suspect that non-programmers who are skeptical by nature, and who have seen ChatGPT turn out wooden prose or bogus facts, are still underestimating whats happening.
Bodies of knowledge and skills that have traditionally taken lifetimes to master are being swallowed at a gulp. Coding has always felt to me like an endlessly deep and rich domain. Now I find myself wanting to write a eulogy for it. I keep thinking of Lee Sedol. Sedol was one of the worlds best Go players, and a national hero in South Korea, but is now best known for losing, in 2016, to a computer program called AlphaGo. Sedol had walked into the competition believing that he would easily defeat the A.I. By the end of the days-long match, he was proud of having eked out a single game. As it became clear that he was going to lose, Sedol said, in a press conference, “I want to apologize for being so powerless.” He retired three years later. Sedol seemed weighed down by a question that has started to feel familiar, and urgent: What will become of this thing Ive given so much of my life to?
My first enchantment with computers came when I was about six years old, in Montreal in the early nineties, playing Mortal Kombat with my oldest brother. He told me about some “fatalities”—gruesome, witty ways of killing your opponent. Neither of us knew how to inflict them. He dialled up an FTP server (where files were stored) in an MS-DOS terminal and typed obscure commands. Soon, he had printed out a page of codes—instructions for every fatality in the game. We went back to the basement and exploded each others heads.
I thought that my brother was a hacker. Like many programmers, I dreamed of breaking into and controlling remote systems. The point wasnt to cause mayhem—it was to find hidden places and learn hidden things. “My crime is that of curiosity,” goes “The Hackers Manifesto,” written in 1986 by Loyd Blankenship. My favorite scene from the 1995 movie “Hackers” is when Dade Murphy, a newcomer, proves himself at an underground club. Someone starts pulling a rainbow of computer books out of a backpack, and Dade recognizes each one from the cover: the green book on international Unix environments; the red one on N.S.A.-trusted networks; the one with the pink-shirted guy on I.B.M. PCs. Dade puts his expertise to use when he turns on the sprinkler system at school, and helps right the ballast of an oil tanker—all by tap-tapping away at a keyboard. The lesson was that knowledge is power.
But how do you actually learn to hack? My family had settled in New Jersey by the time I was in fifth grade, and when I was in high school I went to the Borders bookstore in the Short Hills mall and bought “Beginning Visual C++,” by Ivor Horton. It ran to twelve hundred pages—my first grimoire. Like many tutorials, it was easy at first and then, suddenly, it wasnt. Medieval students called the moment at which casual learners fail the *pons asinorum*, or “bridge of asses.” The term was inspired by Proposition 5 of Euclids Elements I, the first truly difficult idea in the book. Those who crossed the bridge would go on to master geometry; those who didnt would remain dabblers. Section 4.3 of “Beginning Visual C++,” on “Dynamic Memory Allocation,” was my bridge of asses. I did not cross.
But neither did I drop the subject. I remember the moment things began to turn. I was on a long-haul flight, and Id brought along a boxy black laptop and a CD-*ROM* with the Borland C++ compiler. A compiler translates code you write into code that the machine can run; I had been struggling for days to get this one to work. By convention, every coders first program does nothing but generate the words “Hello, world.” When I tried to run my version, I just got angry error messages. Whenever I fixed one problem, another cropped up. I had read the “Harry Potter” books and felt as if I were in possession of a broom but had not yet learned the incantation to make it fly. Knowing what might be possible if I did, I kept at it with single-minded devotion. What I learned was that programming is not really about knowledge or skill but simply about patience, or maybe obsession. Programmers are people who can endure an endless parade of tedious obstacles. Imagine explaining to a simpleton how to assemble furniture over the phone, with no pictures, in a language you barely speak. Imagine, too, that the only response you ever get is that youve suggested an absurdity and the whole thing has gone awry. All the sweeter, then, when you manage to get something assembled. I have a distinct memory of lying on my stomach in the airplane aisle, and then hitting Enter one last time. I sat up. The computer, for once, had done what Id told it to do. The words “Hello, world” appeared above my cursor, now in the computers own voice. It seemed as if an intelligence had woken up and introduced itself to me.
Most of us never became the kind of hackers depicted in “Hackers.” To “hack,” in the parlance of a programmer, is just to tinker—to express ingenuity through code. I never formally studied programming; I just kept messing around, making computers do helpful or delightful little things. In my freshman year of college, I knew that Id be on the road during the third round of the 2006 Masters Tournament, when Tiger Woods was moving up the field, and I wanted to know what was happening in real time. So I made a program that scraped the leaderboard on pgatour.com and sent me a text message anytime he birdied or bogeyed. Later, after reading “Ulysses” in an English class, I wrote a program that pulled random sentences from the book, counted their syllables, and assembled haikus—a more primitive regurgitation of language than youd get from a chatbot these days, but nonetheless capable, I thought, of real poetry:
> Ill flay him alive
> Uncertainly he waited
> Heavy of the past
I began taking coding seriously. I offered to do programming for a friends startup. The world of computing, I came to learn, is vast but organized almost geologically, as if deposited in layers. From the Web browser down to the transistor, each sub-area or system is built atop some other, older sub-area or system, the layers dense but legible. The more one digs, the more one develops what the race-car driver Jackie Stewart called “mechanical sympathy,” a sense for the machines strengths and limits, of what one could make it do.
At my friends company, I felt my mechanical sympathy developing. In my sophomore year, I was watching “Jeopardy!” with a friend when he suggested that I make a playable version of the show. I thought about it for a few hours before deciding, with much disappointment, that it was beyond me. But when the idea came up again, in my junior year, I could see a way through it. I now had a better sense of what one could do with the machine. I spent the next fourteen hours building the game. Within weeks, playing “Jimbo Jeopardy!” had become a regular activity among my friends. The experience was profound. I could understand why people poured their lives into craft: there is nothing quite like watching someone enjoy a thing youve made.
In the midst of all this, I had gone full “Paper Chase” and begun ignoring my grades. I worked voraciously, just not on my coursework. One night, I took over a half-dozen machines in a basement computer lab to run a program in parallel. I laid printouts full of numbers across the floor, thinking through a pathfinding algorithm. The cost was that I experienced for real that recurring nightmare in which you show up for a final exam knowing nothing of the material. (Mine was in Real Analysis, in the math department.) In 2009, during the most severe financial crisis in decades, I graduated with a 2.9 G.P.A.
And yet I got my first full-time job easily. I had work experience as a programmer; nobody asked about my grades. For the young coder, these were boom times. Companies were getting into bidding wars over top programmers. Solicitations for experienced programmers were so aggressive that they complained about “recruiter spam.” The popularity of university computer-science programs was starting to explode. (My degree was in economics.) Coding “boot camps” sprang up that could credibly claim to turn beginners into high-salaried programmers in less than a year. At one of my first job interviews, in my early twenties, the C.E.O. asked how much I thought I deserved to get paid. I dared to name a number that faintly embarrassed me. He drew up a contract on the spot, offering ten per cent more. The skills of a “software engineer” were vaunted. At one company where I worked, someone got in trouble for using HipChat, a predecessor to Slack, to ask one of my colleagues a question. “Never HipChat an engineer directly,” he was told. We were too important for that.
This was an era of near-zero interest rates and extraordinary tech-sector growth. Certain norms were established. Companies like Google taught the industry that coders were to have free espresso and catered hot food, world-class health care and parental leave, on-site gyms and bike rooms, a casual dress code, and “twenty-per-cent time,” meaning that they could devote one day a week to working on whatever they pleased. Their skills were considered so crucial and delicate that a kind of superstition developed around the work. For instance, it was considered foolish to estimate how long a coding task might take, since at any moment the programmer might turn over a rock and discover a tangle of bugs. Deadlines were anathema. If the pressure to deliver ever got too intense, a coder needed only to speak the word “burnout” to buy a few months.
From the beginning, I had the sense that there was something wrongheaded in all this. Was what we did really so precious? How long could the boom last? In my teens, I had done a little Web design, and, at the time, that work had been in demand and highly esteemed. You could earn thousands of dollars for a project that took a weekend. But along came tools like Squarespace, which allowed pizzeria owners and freelance artists to make their own Web sites just by clicking around. For professional coders, a tranche of high-paying, relatively low-effort work disappeared.
[](https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a27287)
“I should have known he has absolutely no morals—Ive seen how he loads a dishwasher.”
Cartoon by Hartley Lin
The response from the programmer community to these developments was just, Yeah, you have to keep levelling up your skills. Learn difficult, obscure things. Software engineers, as a species, love automation. Inevitably, the best of them build tools that make other kinds of work obsolete. This very instinct explained why we were so well taken care of: code had immense leverage. One piece of software could affect the work of millions of people. Naturally, this sometimes displaced programmers themselves. We were to think of these advances as a tide coming in, nipping at our bare feet. So long as we kept learning we would stay dry. Sound advice—until theres a tsunami.
When we were first allowed to use A.I. chatbots at work, for programming assistance, I studiously avoided them. I expected that my colleagues would, too. But soon I started seeing the telltale colors of an A.I. chat session—the zebra pattern of call-and-response—on programmers screens as I walked to my desk. A common refrain was that these tools made you more productive; in some cases, they helped you solve problems ten times faster.
I wasnt sure I wanted that. I enjoy the act of programming and I like to feel useful. The tools Im familiar with, like the text editor I use to format and to browse code, serve both ends. They enhance my practice of the craft—and, though they allow me to deliver work faster, I still feel that I deserve the credit. But A.I., as it was being described, seemed different. It provided a *lot* of help. I worried that it would rob me of both the joy of working on puzzles and the satisfaction of being the one who solved them. I could be infinitely productive, and all Id have to show for it would be the products themselves.
The actual work product of most programmers is rarely exciting. In fact, it tends to be almost comically humdrum. A few months ago, I came home from the office and told my wife about what a great day Id had wrestling a particularly fun problem. I was working on a program that generated a table, and someone had wanted to add a header that spanned more than one column—something that the custom layout engine wed written didnt support. The work was urgent: these tables were being used in important documents, wanted by important people. So I sequestered myself in a room for the better part of the afternoon. There were lots of lovely sub-problems: How should I allow users of the layout engine to convey that they want a column-spanning header? What should *their* code look like? And there were fiddly details that, if ignored, would cause bugs. For instance, what if one of the columns that the header was supposed to span got dropped because it didnt have any data? I knew it was a good day because I had to pull out pen and pad—I was drawing out possible scenarios, checking and double-checking my logic.
But taking a birds-eye view of what happened that day? A table got a new header. Its hard to imagine anything more mundane. For me, the pleasure was entirely in the process, not the product. And what would become of the process if it required nothing more than a three-minute ChatGPT session? Yes, our jobs as programmers involve many things besides literally writing code, such as coaching junior hires and designing systems at a high level. But coding has always been the root of it. Throughout my career, I have been interviewed and selected precisely for my ability to solve fiddly little programming puzzles. Suddenly, this ability was less important.
I had gathered as much from Ben, who kept telling me about the spectacular successes hed been having with GPT-4. It turned out that it was not only good at the fiddly stuff but also had the qualities of a senior engineer: from a deep well of knowledge, it could suggest ways of approaching a problem. For one project, Ben had wired a small speaker and a red L.E.D. light bulb into the frame of a portrait of King Charles, the light standing in for the gem in his crown; the idea was that when you entered a message on an accompanying Web site the speaker would play a tune and the light would flash out the message in Morse code. (This was a gift for an eccentric British expat.) Programming the device to fetch new messages eluded Ben; it seemed to require specialized knowledge not just of the microcontroller he was using but of Firebase, the back-end server technology that stored the messages. Ben asked me for advice, and I mumbled a few possibilities; in truth, I wasnt sure that what he wanted would be possible. Then he asked GPT-4. It told Ben that Firebase had a capability that would make the project much simpler. Here it was—and here was some code to use that would be compatible with the microcontroller.
Afraid to use GPT-4 myself—and feeling somewhat unclean about the prospect of paying OpenAI twenty dollars a month for it—I nonetheless started probing its capabilities, via Ben. Wed sit down to work on our crossword project, and Id say, “Why dont you try prompting it this way?” Hed offer me the keyboard. “No, you drive,” Id say. Together, we developed a sense of what the A.I. could do. Ben, who had more experience with it than I did, seemed able to get more out of it in a stroke. As he later put it, his own neural network had begun to align with GPT-4s. I would have said that he had achieved mechanical sympathy. Once, in a feat I found particularly astonishing, he had the A.I. build him a Snake game, like the one on old Nokia phones. But then, after a brief exchange with GPT-4, he got it to modify the game so that when you lost it would show you how far you strayed from the most efficient route. It took the bot about ten seconds to achieve this. It was a task that, frankly, I was not sure I could do myself.
In chess, which for decades now has been dominated by A.I., a players only hope is pairing up with a bot. Such half-human, half-A.I. teams, known as centaurs, might still be able to beat the best humans and the best A.I. engines working alone. Programming has not yet gone the way of chess. But the centaurs have arrived. GPT-4 on its own is, for the moment, a worse programmer than I am. Ben is much worse. But Ben plus GPT-4 is a dangerous thing.
It wasnt long before I caved. I was making a little search tool at work and wanted to highlight the parts of the users query that matched the results. But I was splitting up the query by words in a way that made things much more complicated. I found myself short on patience. I started thinking about GPT-4. Perhaps instead of spending an afternoon programming I could spend some time “prompting,” or having a conversation with an A.I.
In a 1978 essay titled “On the Foolishness of Natural Language Programming,’ ” the computer scientist Edsger W. Dijkstra argued that if you were to instruct computers not in a specialized language like C++ or Python but in your native tongue youd be rejecting the very precision that made computers useful. Formal programming languages, he wrote, are “an amazingly effective tool for ruling out all sorts of nonsense that, when we use our native tongues, are almost impossible to avoid.” Dijkstras argument became a truism in programming circles. When the essay made the rounds on Reddit in 2014, a top commenter wrote, “Im not sure which of the following is scariest. Just how trivially obvious this idea is” or the fact that “many still do not know it.”
When I first used GPT-4, I could see what Dijkstra was talking about. You cant just say to the A.I., “Solve my problem.” That day may come, but for now it is more like an instrument you must learn to play. You have to specify what you want carefully, as though talking to a beginner. In the search-highlighting problem, I found myself asking GPT-4 to do too much at once, watching it fail, and then starting over. Each time, my prompts became less ambitious. By the end of the conversation, I wasnt talking about search or highlighting; I had broken the problem into specific, abstract, unambiguous sub-problems that, together, would give me what I wanted.
Having found the A.I.s level, I felt almost instantly that my working life had been transformed. Everywhere I looked I could see GPT-4-size holes; I understood, finally, why the screens around the office were always filled with chat sessions—and how Ben had become so productive. I opened myself up to trying it more often.
I returned to the crossword project. Our puzzle generator printed its output in an ugly text format, with lines like `"s""c""a""r""*""k""u""n""i""s""*" "a""r""e""a"`. I wanted to turn output like that into a pretty Web page that allowed me to explore the words in the grid, showing scoring information at a glance. But I knew the task would be tricky: each letter had to be tagged with the words it belonged to, both the across and the down. This was a detailed problem, one that could easily consume the better part of an evening. With the baby on the way, I was short on free evenings. So I began a conversation with GPT-4. Some back-and-forth was required; at one point, I had to read a few lines of code myself to understand what it was doing. But I did little of the kind of thinking I once believed to be constitutive of coding. I didnt think about numbers, patterns, or loops; I didnt use my mind to simulate the activity of the computer. As another coder, Geoffrey Litt, wrote after a similar experience, “I never engaged my detailed programmer brain.” So what *did* I do?
Perhaps what pushed Lee Sedol to retire from the game of Go was the sense that the game had been forever cheapened. When I got into programming, it was because computers felt like a form of magic. The machine gave you powers but required you to study its arcane secrets—to learn a spell language. This took a particular cast of mind. I felt selected. I devoted myself to tedium, to careful thinking, and to the accumulation of obscure knowledge. Then, one day, it became possible to achieve many of the same ends without the thinking and without the knowledge. Looked at in a certain light, this can make quite a lot of ones working life seem like a waste of time.
But whenever I think about Sedol I think about chess. After machines conquered that game, some thirty years ago, the fear was that there would be no reason to play it anymore. Yet chess has never been more popular—A.I. has enlivened the game. A friend of mine picked it up recently. At all hours, he has access to an A.I. coach that can feed him chess problems just at the edge of his ability and can tell him, after hes lost a game, exactly where he went wrong. Meanwhile, at the highest levels, grandmasters study moves the computer proposes as if reading tablets from the gods. Learning chess has never been easier; studying its deepest secrets has never been more exciting.
Computing is not yet overcome. GPT-4 is impressive, but a layperson cant wield it the way a programmer can. I still feel secure in my profession. In fact, I feel somewhat more secure than before. As software gets easier to make, itll proliferate; programmers will be tasked with its design, its configuration, and its maintenance. And though Ive always found the fiddly parts of programming the most calming, and the most essential, Im not especially good at them. Ive failed many classic coding interview tests of the kind you find at Big Tech companies. The thing Im relatively good at is knowing whats worth building, what users like, how to communicate both technically and humanely. A friend of mine has called this A.I. moment “the revenge of the so-so programmer.” As coding per se begins to matter less, maybe softer skills will shine.
That still leaves open the matter of what to teach my unborn child. I suspect that, as my child comes of age, we will think of “the programmer” the way we now look back on “the computer,” when that phrase referred to a person who did calculations by hand. Programming by typing C++ or Python yourself might eventually seem as ridiculous as issuing instructions in binary onto a punch card. Dijkstra would be appalled, but getting computers to do precisely what you want might become a matter of asking politely.
So maybe the thing to teach isnt a skill but a spirit. I sometimes think of what I might have been doing had I been born in a different time. The coders of the agrarian days probably futzed with waterwheels and crop varietals; in the Newtonian era, they might have been obsessed with glass, and dyes, and timekeeping. I was reading an oral history of neural networks recently, and it struck me how many of the people interviewed—people born in and around the nineteen-thirties—had played with radios when they were little. Maybe the next cohort will spend their late nights in the guts of the A.I.s their parents once regarded as black boxes. I shouldnt worry that the era of coding is winding down. Hacking is forever. ♦
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# A Fake Death in Romancelandia
![A portrait of Susan Meachen who wears a wide-neck pink shirt and sits in a park with a lake out of focus behind her, brightly reflecting sunlight.](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/01/13/multimedia/00FAKE-SUICIDE-01-wmfh/00FAKE-SUICIDE-01-wmfh-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)
Susan Meachen, a romance novelist in Tennessee, has faced questions from police about faking her own death online.Credit...Jessica Tezak for The New York Times
The Great Read
A Tennessee homemaker entered the online world of romance writers and it became, in her words, “an addiction.” Things went downhill from there.
Susan Meachen, a romance novelist in Tennessee, has faced questions from police about faking her own death online.Credit...Jessica Tezak for The New York Times
- Published Jan. 16, 2023Updated Jan. 19, 2023
### Listen to This Article
*To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times,* [*download Audm for iPhone or Android*](https://www.audm.com/?utm_source=nyt&utm_medium=embed&utm_campaign=fake_death_in_romancelandia)*.*
Late Monday morning, two police officers drove up a gravel driveway to a mobile home in Benton, Tenn., a tiny town in the foothills of the southern Appalachians, to question Susan Meachen, a 47-year-old homemaker and author of romance novels.
She had been expecting them. For a week, she had been the focus of a scandal within the online subculture of self-published romance writers, part of the literary world sometimes known as “Romancelandia.”
The police wanted to talk to Ms. Meachen about faking her own death. In the fall of 2020, a post announcing she had died had appeared on her Facebook page, where she had often described her struggles with mental health and complained of poor treatment at the hands of other writers.
The post, apparently written by her daughter, led many to assume she had died by suicide. It sent fans and writers into a spiral of grief and introspection, wondering how their sisterhood had turned so poisonous.
But she wasnt dead. Two weeks ago, to the shock of her online community, Ms. Meachen returned to her page to say she was back and now “in a good place,” and ready to resume writing under her own name. She playfully concluded: “Let the fun begin.”
Other writers, seeing this, were not in the mood for fun. Describing deep feelings of betrayal, they have called for her to be prosecuted for fraud, alleging that she faked her death to sell books or solicit cash donations. They have reported her to the F.B.I. cybercrimes unit and the local sheriff and vowed to shun her and her work. Some have questioned whether she exists in real life.
Ms. Meachen does exist. In a series of interviews, she said the online community had become a treacherous place for a person in her mental state, as she struggled to manage a new diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
“I think its a very dangerous mix-up, especially if you have a mental illness,” she said. “I would log on and get in, and at some point in the day my two worlds would collide, and it would be hard to differentiate between book world and the real world. It was like they would sandwich together.”
Image
A text message from Ms. Meachen to Samantha A. Cole, another romance writer in her Facebook group.Credit...via Facebook
When she was first introduced to “the book world,” as she calls it, she was alone at home for long stretches while her husband, a long-haul truck driver, traversed the country.
She read romance novels, sometimes plowing through more than one a day. She had always been a reader, despite dropping out of school in the ninth grade to marry. The online romance community was a revelation to her, “like an escape, a timeout, a break from everyday reality,” she said.
Over time, though, it began to feel more like quicksand. Over the next three years, she self-published 14 novels and maintained a near-constant social media presence. She was also diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a disease characterized by periods of manic activity that can alternate with deep depression.
The book world made her disorder worse, she said. Writing often sent her into a manic state, and conflicts on the fan pages left her seething. She knew she should walk away, and she tried. But she said it was “an addiction”; every time she tried to log off for good, her phone would ping.
### Dead people dont post
Romance writers groups can be fizzy, exhilarating places. There is sexy cover art. There is snappy industry jargon, like HEA (Happily Ever After), Dubcon (dubious consent) and Reverse Harem (a female protagonist with multiple male love interests.)
At their best, the groups are a fountain of support for “indie” authors, who self-publish their work and help each other with covers and marketing, which is known as “pimping.” At their worst, they can be “epicenters of nonstop drama,” said Sarah Wendell, the co-founder of the romance blog Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.
Ms. Meachens fan page, The Ward — a humorous reference to a psychiatric hospital — went in that direction. She complained bitterly about colleagues who, she said, she had helped but had failed to help her in return, and threatened to leave the indie world.
“Every day it got to the point Id rather be dead than to deal with the industry and the people who swear they are friends,” she [wrote](https://www.facebook.com/groups/1625944067497096/posts/3304801539611332/) in September of 2020. “Ive had some dog eat dog jobs in my life but this one is by far the most vicious with the least amount of money.”
Image
![Rolling hills outside Benton, Tenn., with a single home on a hill and mountains in the background. A line of flags is slightly out of focus in the foreground.](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/01/13/multimedia/00FAKE-SUICIDE-02-wmfh/00FAKE-SUICIDE-02-wmfh-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)
Ms. Meachen lives in the tiny town of Benton in the Appalachian foothills in southeastern Tennessee.Credit...Jessica Tezak for The New York Times
She described her psychiatric treatment and alluded to past suicide attempts.
“Dear Scary people in my head, I truly understand weve been doing your story for over a year,” she wrote. “Waking me up with muscles screaming at me to get up and finish does not motivate me.”
Ms. Meachens psychiatrist, Dr. Niansen Liu, confirmed, with her permission, that she is under his treatment for bipolar disorder and that she has been prescribed medications for anxiety, depression and psychosis. He would not comment further on her case.
Her online friends worried about her, and some reached out to express their concern, but there was a limit to what they could do, said Kimberly Grell, who became friendly with her through writing groups.
“She was becoming pretty chaotic,” Ms. Grell said. “It just seemed like every problem that surfaced with her she was in the middle of, and it turned to where she was the victim of it all.”
She sympathized with Ms. Meachens frustration, though, as it became clear that she might not be able to earn money with her writing.
“A lot of people get into this type of business thinking theyre going to make their millions, like Stephen King or James Patterson,” said Ms. Grell, who exited the romance industry last year to sell [beaded jewelry](http://foxwood-designs.weebly.com/#/). “The reality is, its a money pit. You are literally tossing your money into a pit hoping someone will find you.”
Ms. Meachens husband, Troy, said he came to see the “book world” as a danger to his wifes welfare.
When she sent out samples of her work to other authors, the responses she got were often “really brutal,” he said. When writing, he said, she had periods of mania and psychosis; sometimes, he would come home and “she would talk like a character from a book, like she was the individual she was writing.”
He worried that it was too dangerous to leave her alone during the day. “It got to the point where it was like, enough is enough,” he said, comparing the communitys effect on her to a whirlpool. “She was going round and round,” he said, “and the bottom was just right there.”
This reached a climax in the fall of 2020, according to Mr. and Ms. Meachen and their 22-year-old daughter, who described the episode on the condition that her name not be used.
It had been a rough few weeks. In August, someone had called police because they feared she would harm herself. On September 10, Mr. Meachen was away, hauling a shipment of chemicals. Their daughter stopped by to check on her mother, and found her semiconscious.
Ms. Meachen had taken a large dose of Xanax, enough to make her “like a limp noodle,” and was “not cognitive or responsive,” Mr. Meachen said. He instructed their daughter to announce her death online, he said.
“I told them that she is dead to the indie world, the internet, because we had to stop her, period,” he said. “She could not stop it on her own. And, even to this day, Ill take 100 percent of the blame, the accolades, whatever you want to call it.”
The [post](https://www.facebook.com/susan.meachen/posts/pfbid0Z35M43475M5vsLFxmbbX7MrncLWNxZhvr8cVKUMJvMNEVMUAxjwTug3s41gq5pR5l) on Meachens page said she had died two days earlier. “Author Susan Meachen left this world behind Tuesday night for bigger and better things,” it said. “Please leave us alone we have no desire in this messed-up industry.”
A follow-up post appeared on Oct. 23. “Sorry thought everyone on this page knew my mom passed away,” it said. “Dead people dont post on social media.”
Image
Ms. Meachen and her husband of 27 years, Troy. He said he came to see the “book world” as a danger to his wifes welfare.Credit...via Susan Meachen
### I feel majorly gaslit
The news of Ms. Meachens death radiated out through the fan pages. Ms. Meachen was well known in the community, and had often reached out to new authors, volunteering to provide cover art or help with marketing.
“Susan, I will never, ever forget how kind you were to me,” wrote Sai Marie Johnson, 38, the author of “Embers of Ecstasy,” at the time.
“I only wish you would have known I would have talked you through the night, Id have defended you against your bullies,” she wrote. “I will do everything I can to make a difference so your death is not in vain.”
Ms. Johnson, who lives in Oregon, was so upset that she reached out to Ms. Meachens daughter online and offered to edit her mothers last book for free, as a tribute. But the damage had been done, she said: Over the months that followed, many members, disgusted by the “Mean Girl”-ness of it all, migrated out of the community or deleted their accounts.
“It caused a huge shift in this community,” Ms. Johnson said. “There was a lot of drama, but this was the tidal wave. Nobody before had gotten so abused that they wanted to commit suicide.”
The subject receded, replaced by other dramas, until Jan. 2, when Ms. Meachen reappeared on her fan page with the news that she was alive.
Ms. Meachen did not see it as a particularly big deal. Eager to resume writing under her own name, she had been considering such a move for about a year, she said. She sat down at the computer, she said, and “hit enter before I could talk myself out of it.”
“I debated on how to do this a million times and still not sure if its right or not,” the [post](https://www.facebook.com/groups/1625944067497096/posts/5808796625878465/) read. “Theres going to be tons of questions and a lot of people leaving the group Id guess. But my family did what they thought was best for me and I cant fault them for it.”
For the first few hours, the response was muted. Then, as she put it, “all hell broke loose.” Her post was widely shared by Samantha A. Cole, a romance writer from the suburbs of New York City, along with a seething commentary.
“I was horrified, stunned, livid, and felt like Id been kicked in the gut and the chest at the same time,” wrote Ms. Cole, who previously worked as a police officer, and asked to be identified by her pen name to avoid the notice of people she had arrested.
More than anything, Ms. Cole said, she was hurt. She had gone into a “major funk” for months over Ms. Meachens death, worried that she had not been a good friend. Worse, in the recriminations that followed, Ms. Cole was accused on one fan page of bullying Ms. Meachen, something both women said was untrue.
Ms. Cole, who describes herself as “naturally suspicious,” set about documenting Ms. Meachens false claims in [a series of screen shots and DMs](https://www.facebook.com/100079582864860/posts/pfbid02pczyXmW2ATJRDyZgrgVU6nb4RMiVC5z4kLyDgaUAutuHaNC7gGpaYFBnsCCE5xQZl/?mibextid=BUZLm6).
Image
An excerpt from Ms. Coles Facebook page.Credit...via Facebook
She provided screenshots showing that Ms. Meachen had [appealed to the group for financial help](https://www.facebook.com/100079582864860/posts/pfbid026bsMAjkkBvbFbMdYspsCjHPKuj79z3TEiqwA57Y9v611q5ye116j6PJUHXkG48nwl/?mibextid=Nif5oz) in medical emergencies and noted that she returned to the fan page under a new identity, T.N. Steele, effectively eavesdropping on her own mourners.
“It was important to me because the people that had grieved for her death for so long had a right to know that the whole thing was a hoax,” Ms. Cole said. “Thats what led me to do this, my anger and the sense of betrayal. I needed a way to vent.”
Many authors who are angry say it is because they know so many people struggling with mental illness themselves, and that it is despicable to falsify suicide for any reason.
“I feel majorly gaslit,” said Ms. Johnson, who, last week, filed a report about the incident to the cybercrimes unit of the F.B.I. She added, “It doesnt seem like she is apologetic, and she is trying to cast blame on people, trying to get them to accept that she had a mental illness.”
As the scandal drew the attention of mainstream media outlets to the romance industry, many of its senior figures drew a weary sigh.
“I do not think it is going to help the romance industrys persona of being a bunch of overly emotional women,” said Clair Brett, the president of the Romance Writers of America.
### A twinge of remorse
Ms. Meachen watched from Benton while the online backlash made headlines in Greece and Britain and France; reporters from various countries were appearing in her DMs, which stressed her out.
This meant, among other things, that her real-life neighbors might read her novels, which fall on the racier end of the genres spectrum. For years, she has carefully separated her two identities — the romance writer and the homebody — but now they were smashing together.
She had not heard again from the police and sounded confident that she would not face charges, saying the family had not received substantial donations after her online death announcement; she had offered the detectives access to her bank accounts to prove it. She did admit feeling remorse for the fans who had grieved her loss.
“Im sorry for their mourning, but from a legal standpoint, I did nothing wrong,” she said. “Morally, I might have done something wrong. But legally, theres nothing wrong.”
If Ms. Meachen was on the edges of a literary world before, she is now cast out of it. Her fan page has gone silent. Her inbox is full of angry messages from former friends. Looking back on the whole story, she said she regrets it all, starting with entering the romance groups.
“It wasnt good for me,” she said. “No, it wasnt. I wish I had never met the book industry whatsoever.”
She has set aside her plans to resume writing fiction, for now, to deal with more immediate concerns. Someone is impersonating her on social media, issuing comments about the scandal, she said, and hoax Susans were bouncing around the internet saying God knows what.
“Thats whats so funny about it,” her husband said. “You can be anybody you want to be on the internet.”
Audio produced by Tally Abecassis.
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Date: 2023-06-11
DocType: "WebClipping"
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TimeStamp: 2023-06-11
Link: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/06/12/a-mothers-exchange-for-her-daughters-future
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&emsp;
```button
name Save
type command
action Save current file
id Save
```
^button-AMothersExchangeforHerDaughtersFutureNSave
&emsp;
# A Mothers Exchange for Her Daughters Future
“Will I live to see its end?” your mother asks.
She is sixty-nine years old and lies in the hospital room where she has been marooned for the past eight years, shipwrecked in her own body.
“It” is the story that you are now writing—this beginning you have yet to imagine and the ending she will not live to see.
Write as if you were dying, Annie Dillard once said.
But what if you are writing in competition with death?
What if the story you are telling is racing against death?
In your dreams, you are always running. Running to catch your mother, running to intercept her before she reaches the end.
In your dreams, your mother has no legs, no arms, no spine—no body. She is smooth and pure, a sheet of glass that becomes visible only when it breaks. At which time she disintegrates into smaller and smaller pieces until you are whispering to a sliver on the tip of your finger. That fine fleck of her. What is a mother? you ask. Is this still a mother? Is that?
Your mother, who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, speaks with her eyelids, using the last muscles over which she exercises twitchy control.
A.L.S. is an insurrection of the body against the mind. It is a mysterious massacre of motor neurons, the messengers that deliver data from brain to organ and limb.
It is a disease that [Descartes](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/11/20/rene-descartes-think-again) would have loved for its brutal division of the mind, “a thinking, non-extended thing,” from the body, an “extended, non-thinking thing.”
To speak her mind, your mother is dependent on your body. At her bedside, you trail your finger around a clear-plastic alphabet chart, as if you were teaching her a new language. Blinking is what she has—that raw, moist thwacking.
One day, your mother wants to know what you are writing about.
You tell her that it is about you. The two of you.
“Whats interesting about us?” she asks.
You are in the middle of explaining that you are still working that out when she starts blinking again: “Summery.”
Summer?
You often have trouble communicating. Language warps and tangles between you. Chinese and English. Chinglish and misspelled English. Words that begin in English and wobble into Chinese Pinyin.
Her body, frozen, is still the most expressive thing there is. That singular determination to be understood.
*Summary*, you realize—she is asking for a summary. When you were ten and learning to write in English, she demanded that you write book summaries. Three-sentence précis with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Taut and efficient, free of the metaphors and florid fuss of which you were always so fond.
Before you can ask if that is what she wants now—a synopsis of your unwritten story—there is a stench. It is your mothers shit, and already a single brown rivulet has seeped down the limp marble of her thigh.
Your mother is a marionette controlled by tubes and wires. To position her in such a way that the health aide can wipe and clean, you must align your body with hers—yours are the limbs that scaffold her limbs, the arm that clasps her arm, the knee that supports her knee.
Your mothers face is creased in pain. Her teeth are clenched, tiny chipped doors.
The alphabet chart again.
D-E-A-D.
No, you hurry to assure her, as you have a thousand times before. No, discomfort is not death. Discomfort is only temporary.
The creases deepen.
L-I-N-E.
Deadline.
You tell your mother the month and the year that your book is due, and she asks for the exact date.
Most people dont meet their deadline, you say. You are distracted. There is too much shit. It is a wet, languid mass that has gathered in all her folds. Mud-brown and yellow and green oozing across the loaf of her flesh.
You want to rid your mother entirely of its unacceptability, but that is plainly impossible. Scrub too hard, even with a wet towel, and you will tear the rice paper of her skin. Too lightly and the bacteria left behind will fester into infection. These are the inevitabilities that come from living in a bed for eight years. You want to save your mother from these inevitabilities, just as she wants to save you from your own. But, helplessly and hopelessly, you are both beyond each others reach.
Ill try to make the deadline, you say, as you pull the sheet from underneath her. You are wiping the folds around her pubic bone when she signals with her eyes for you to stop. She is grimacing again, in pain. A kind you would have to crawl into her body to understand.
“Not try. Never try,” she spells out. “You do. Or you dont.”
Not long after you and your mother arrived in the U.S., before your father left for good, a stranger came to the door of your dank studio apartment in New Haven to convince your mother of the existence of God. Plump, dignified, with a loose, expressive face, she was the first American, and the first Black person, you had ever seen up close. “Jehovahs Witness” meant nothing to your mother, so she took to calling the woman Missionary Lady.
That first day, Missionary Lady came bearing a free Chinese-language picture book in which a white-haired man with benevolent eyes presided serenely over Popsicle-colored sunsets. While your mother presented her with slices of watermelon, the visitor even chimed in with a few halting words of Chinese that shed picked up in the immigrant-dense neighborhood, only one of which you understood: “Saviour.”
Your mother could have used a savior then. Her marriage was on the verge of dissolution, her visa was about to expire, and she had scarcely two hundred dollars to her name and an eight-year-old daughter in tow.
In the course of several months, Missionary Lady visited weekly. Did your mother confide in her new friend the difficulties of her life? You dont know. But sometimes, as the light grew dim in the evening, you saw her thumbing through the picture book.
One of those times, when you couldnt contain yourself any longer, you asked her, “Did Missionary Lady accomplish her mission?”
“Its a good story,” your mother said, sighing. “But a story cant save me.”
Your mother didnt believe in God. But she had an iron faith, embodied in a classic fable popularized by [Chairman Mao](https://www.newyorker.com/tag/mao-zedong):
Once upon a time in ancient China, there lived an old man named Yu Gong. His house was nestled in a remote village and separated from the wider world by two giant mountains. Although he was already ninety years old, Yu Gong was determined to remove these obstructions, and he called on his sons to help him. His only tools were hoes and pickaxes. The mountains were massive, and the sea, where he dumped the rocks hed chipped away, was so distant that he could make only one round trip in a year. His ambition was absurd enough that it soon invited the mockery of the local wise man. But Yu just looked at the man and sighed. “When I die, there will be my sons to continue the task, and when they die there will be their sons,” he responded. The God of Heaven, who overheard Yu, was so impressed with his persistence that he dispatched two deputies to help with the impossible goal, and the mountains were forever removed from Yus sight.
The world in which your mother grew up was predicated on the ideals of perseverance and will power. Born of messianic utopianism, its morality was one of extreme polarity. If you didnt attempt the impossible, you were indolence itself. If you were not flawless, you were evil. If you could not face the prospect of becoming a martyr, you were a coward. If you were not absolutely pure in thought and deed, you were damned. A single moment of lassitude could signal a descent into depravity. Discipline and endurance were destiny.
There was an old adage that your mother repeated for as long as you can remember, as if fingering rosary beads: “Time is like water in a sponge.” You, she implied, wouldnt have the fortitude to squeeze out every drop. Would you have had the perseverance of Old Man Yu? she was in the habit of asking you, challenging you.
You couldnt imagine your mother not moving a mountain. The brute, burning force of her striving was its own religion.
In China, your mother had been a doctor. In Connecticut, she got a job as a live-in housekeeper. When that job ended, she got another. For years, you wandered like nomads, squatting in immense, remote houses, as disconnected from your idea of home as the country in which you found yourselves.
Not long after you moved into the first house, your mothers employer gave you a journal with a [Degas](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/11/degas-at-moma) ballerina on the cover. One of the first things you recorded in it was the cost of the journal, which you found on the back cover: $12.99, almost twice your mothers hourly wage. “Dear Diary,” you wrote in an early entry, “How will I fill you up?” The blank face of the page. The empty house of you.
In the residence that physically housed you, you and your mother occupied one room and one bed. You liked to pretend that the room, wrapped in chintz and adorned with prints of mallards, was your private island in the middle of foreign territory. All around you was unrecognizable, ephemeral wilderness, your mother the sole patch of habitable terrain. Only she knew where you came from, was part of your lifes seamless continuity, from the crumbling concrete tenement house where you lived during your first seven years to the studio apartment where the Missionary Lady brought you God and on to the mallards and the chintz. Without your mother, everything was smoke, the true shape of things hidden. A chipped enamelled rice cooker was all you retained of the apartment from which the two of you had been evicted months earlier. Your mother had managed to sneak it into this room and place it under the night table. You recorded this fact in your journal, because it was as if the two of you had got away with something illicit.
[](https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a27033)
“I wasnt getting any work done at home, so I thought Id try somewhere hot, bright, and uncomfortable.”
Cartoon by Asher Perlman
The two of you, feckless as runaway children.
When your mother was pregnant in China, she prayed for twins. It was the only permissible subversion of the states single-child policy.
Sometimes, in the womb, one twin eats the other, you learned from a medical encyclopedia in your school library. This isnt exactly true—one twin absorbs the other, who has stopped developing in utero. The medical term for this is “a vanishing twin.” You were not a twin, but the imagined carnage of cannibalism, of one baby devouring the other, stayed in your memory. Both children in the womb *try* to survive. Only one does.
You wandered into the plot of your life, half asleep. Like that room you shared with your mother, it didnt belong to you. One moment you were your mothers fellow-émigré and co-conspirator, and the next you were a rope pitched into the unknown, braided with strands of her implacable resolve and reckless ambition. You were the ladder upward out of her powerlessness, the towline that pulled the enterprise forward.
You had only partial access to the plan, but your mother hurtled ahead, measuring possibility against potential, maneuvering education and opportunity into position.
Your grades in school were not a measure of your aptitude in language arts or arithmetic but a testament to your ability to hold on to life itself. To grip the rock face, evade the avalanche, and swing yourself up to the next slab. Your mother lived below you, on the eroded slope, the pebbles always slipping beneath her feet, as she spelled out the situation with a desperation that struck you as humiliation: “You go to *school* in America, and I clean *toilets* in America.”
Your mother hated nothing so much as cleaning toilets. The injustice of it. Specks of other peoples shit that clung to the bowls upper rims, which she had to reach inside with her hands to wipe off.
The toilet bowl was the crucible of indignity, this strange commode you began using only upon arrival in this country.
In the latrine in your tenement in China, everything was steeped and smeared in the natural, variegated brown of feces. But here things were different. Here the gleaming white of the porcelain was accusatory, so clearly did it mark the difference between the disgusting and the pristine, the pure and the wretched.
The first time you clogged the toilet in the bathroom connected to your room—you had not known it was possible to dam up such a civilized contraption with your own excrement—you just stood there, stupefied, as the water rose and poured over the edge. Even before your mother sheepishly borrowed the plunger from her employer, before she hissed that it was enough that she cleaned other peoples shit to earn a living, she couldnt go around cleaning up yours, too, you felt dipped in an ineradicable disgrace.
One of the first stories about survival that you read in the American school your mother sent you to was that of a man who lost everything. Youd thought this was a story about an American god, but your teacher told you that it was also “Literature.”
In the land of Uz, there lived a man named [Job](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/16/misery-3). God-fearing and upright, Job had seven sons and three daughters. He owned seven thousand sheep. Then, as the story goes, Satan and God decided to terrorize him. He was robbed of his home, his livestock, his children. Both mental and physical illness tormented him. His entire body was covered in painful boils that caused him to cry, “Why did I not perish at birth and die as I came from the womb?” In the end, when Job maintained his unswerving loyalty to God, everything was returned to him twofold.
In the story of Yu Gong, God rewards an old man who endeavors to do the impossible by helping him to accomplish in one lifetime what should have taken many. In the story of Job, God rewards an old man who maintains his faith against all odds by multiplying his worth.
Your mothers story was different from both Yu Gongs and Jobs:
Once upon a time there lived a woman who wanted to exchange her present for her daughters future. Little did she know that, if she did so, the two of them would merge into one ungainly creature, at once divided and reconstituted, and time would flow through both of them like water in a single stream. The child became the mothers future, and the mother became the childs present, taking up residence in her brain, blood, and bones. The woman vowed that she had no need for God, but her child always wondered, Was the bargain her mother had made a kind of prayer?
The first time you saw your mother steal, you were eleven and standing in the lotions aisle of CVS.
The air constricted in your lungs as you watched her clutch a jar of Olay face cream, slipping it into her purse, while pretending to examine the bottles on the next shelf over. Her fingers: they moved with animal instinct, deft and decisive, as if trapping prey.
It was your mother who had taught you that it was wrong to steal.
She didnt shoplift for the same reason that your seventh-grade classmates did. There was no thrill in it for her, of that you were certain. The things she stole were not, strictly speaking, items you or she needed in order to survive. She stole small indulgences that she did not believe she could afford, things that ever so briefly loosened the shackles of her misery.
And, knowing this, whenever you saw her steal you felt a slow, spreading dread, the recognition that there was something in you that could judge your mother, even as you actively colluded with her.
What you know of your mothers childhood can be summarized in a single story that is about not her childhood but her fathers:
There once lived a little boy, the son of impoverished tenant farmers. One day, he was invited to the village fair by the child of his richer neighbor. The neighbor gave the boy a few coins to spend at the fair. Ecstatic, he bought himself the first toy of his life, a wooden pencil, which he hung proudly around his neck the whole day. When he returned home, his parents beat him within an inch of his life. Those coins could have bought rice and grains! Enough to feed the family for a week!
This was the only story your grandfather told your mother of his childhood, and the first time she told it to you, you recognized the echo of every hero tale you were taught as a child. A Communist cadre till the end, your grandfather had run away at age sixteen to join the Party, which had given him the first full belly he had known. Just as important, the Party had taught him how to read, inspired the avidity with which he had marked up Maos Little Red Book: his cramped, inky annotations marching up and down the page like so many ants trooping through mountains.
The second time your mother told you the story, you were ten or eleven and she didnt have to tell it at all. The two of you were at Staples, shopping for school supplies. “*Back-to-school sale*,” the posters all over the store screamed. Four notebooks, four mechanical pencils, your mother had stipulated, but you wanted more. You always wanted more. When you persisted, she had only to look at you and utter the words “You have more than anyone” for you to know exactly whom she was referring to.
The story was growing inside you, just as it had grown in your mother: a cactus whose spines pierced their way through your thoughts.
One day, your mother unexpectedly appeared in your reading life as an indigent Austrian immigrant in nineteen-tens New York. The novel was called “[A Tree Grows in Brooklyn](https://www.amazon.com/Grows-Brooklyn-Anniversary-Perennial-Classics/dp/0060736267/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2HK9ZSE26ZC8&keywords=tree%20grows%20in%20brooklyn&qid=1685719621&sprefix=tree%20grows%20in%20brooklyn,aps,89&sr=8-1),” and although you could have found neither Austria nor Brooklyn on a map, the narrative moved through you until you seemed to be living inside it, instead of the other way round.
You read the novel once, twice, three times, swallowed up by the dyad of the plain, timorous, bookish daughter and her fierce and unsentimental working-class mother. The idea that mutual devotion could generate seething resentment and sorrow—it made your heart hammer. The episode that left the deepest impression on you involved a ritual in which the mother allows her daughter to have a cup of coffee with every meal, even knowing that she wont drink it, will just pour it out. “I think its good that people like us can waste something once in a while and get the feeling of how it would be to have lots of money and not have to worry about scrounging,” the mother remarks.
*Scrounging*. Until you read that sentence, you had not realized that that was what you and your mother did. It had never occurred to you that there could be another way for the two of you to live.
Now it seemed that you could be lacking in means yet be in possession of possibilities—this you who was one with your mother but not your mother, who squatted in other peoples houses, who hungered for everything but contributed nothing.
But what did you mean to accomplish by telling your mother that story? Your mother, for whom every story was a tool, for whom *that* story could only be a knife.
How slowly she turned to face you as she said these words: “I know what you are doing. If thats the mother you want, go out and find her.”
You were alone and she was alone. But it was the way the loneliness lived separately in each of you that pushed you both to the brink of disintegration.
Every time she left the house without you to run an errand or to pick up the children who were her charge, you were newly convinced that she would not return. Half of you had departed.
The other half was stranded in that airless prison, with nothing but your journal, your notebooks, and your mechanical pencils.
One day, she let slip something she could only have read in that journal.
When you confronted her about it, she was coolly impenitent.
“Oh, you must have known,” she said briskly.
“Known what?”
“I wouldnt have read it if I didnt have to.”
You didnt know how to respond except to stare at her in amazement.
“Yes,” she doubled down, eyes ablaze. “I wouldnt have to if you didnt keep so many secrets.”
Secrets? The only things you had ever kept from your mother were thoughts that you knew were unacceptable: sources of your own permanent self-disgust and shame. Her reading your journal was akin to her examining your soiled underwear.
“You are behaving like a child,” you muttered.
“What did you say?”
You caught a glint in her eye, a primordial helplessness. She had no choice but to unleash upon you, smash her rage into you like countless shards of glass.
Long after you had moved out of that room with the mallards and the rice cooker, the room that fused two into one, you understood that she was not so much beating you into submission as pulling you back into her body. It was an act not of aggression but of desperate self-defense.
How old were you the day the two of you found yourselves in that art museum? Old enough that you were interested in things that tested the boundaries of your understanding, old enough to pause for a long while in front of a sculpture—a circle cast in metal, like an oversized clock, inside of which were two simplified figures in profile. One walking from the top, feet mid-stride at twelve oclock, the other, with the same rolling gait, stepping past six oclock.
“What are we looking at?” your mother asked, by which she meant, What are *you* looking at?
You were in the habit of puzzling out the right answer, but this time you spoke instinctively.
“Life is not a line but a circle,” you said. You spoke confidently precisely because it was not a great insight. You knew it to be true the way you knew the sky to be blue. “No matter where you are, you can only walk into yourself.”
You had received a scholarship to a fancy boarding school. She had moved from housekeeping to waitressing. Your world had expanded while hers remained suspended.
“A circle?” she said, and then said it again, questing and songlike. “Life is a circle.”
There was a silence during which she tilted her chin and appraised you as if you were one of the figures in the sculpture. “Thats nice,” she said softly, with something akin to wonder.
You spent your early twenties waiting for your real life to begin, peering at it, as if through a window. How to break that windowpane? You didnt know. You were living in New York now, and you had a menial job at the Y.M.C.A. on the Bowery, where you were tasked with putting up multilingual signage. Most days, you had enough downtime to read books purporting to teach you how to write books.
The Y.M.C.A. was next to a Whole Foods, and every day after work you filled up a container with overpriced lettuce, beets, and boiled eggs and slipped upstairs to eat it in the café without paying. One day you were caught and led to a dark, dirty room where a Polaroid of you was snapped and you were told that, if you were ever caught stealing again, the police would be called.
The security guard who caught you, a boy who looked younger than you, couldnt hide his pleasure when he dumped the untouched food in the trash. Did you steal that, too, he said, smirking, and nodded at the book in your hand.
It was a copy of “[The Writing Life](https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Life-Annie-Dillard/dp/0060919884/ref=sr_1_1?crid=151VIED4XRHE1&keywords=dillard%20writing%20life&qid=1685719706&sprefix=dillard%20writing%20life,aps,82&sr=8-1),” the first book of Annie Dillards youd read. You had just got to the passage where Dillard refers to a succession of words as “a miners pick.” If you wield it to dig a path, she says, soon you will find yourself “deep in new territory.”
For you, the path always led back to your mother. How many times did you start a story about a mother and a daughter, only to find that you could not grope your way to an ending? How many times on a Friday after work, as you rode the train from the city to Connecticut, where your mother still lived, did you feel the forward motion as a journey backward through time?
In her presence, you were always divided against yourself.
There was the you who was walking away from her and the you who was perpetually diving back in.
Motor neurons, among our longest cells, pave a path of electric signals from brain to body. As A.L.S. progresses, cognitive function usually remains intact, but the motor neurons cease to deliver those signals. Without directives from above, limbs and organs gradually shut down until, at last, the body no longer knows how to inhale air.
You were twenty-five when your mothers illness was diagnosed, and never had the battle plan been more clear. You moved her into your apartment, one you had selected for the two of you, with a room for her and one for you. You fed her bottles of Ensure by the spoonful—until it had to be pushed through a feeding tube directly into her stomach. You set an alarm clock to wake you whenever you needed to adjust her breathing machine. You took on additional freelance work and began borrowing money from friends; you opted out of medical insurance for yourself until you could afford a part-time home aide, who was subsequently replaced by a full-time one. And then two.
The day that the motor neurons in your mothers body could no longer travel the length of her diaphragm, you received a call from the home aide, telling you that your mother was unconscious and that her skin was turning a translucent shade of blue.
At the hospital, when it became clear that your unconscious mother would die without mechanical ventilation, you were asked to make the choice on her behalf.
Will you save your mother or let her die?
It wasnt a choice.
Neither of you lived in the realm of choices. This was what you could not find the language to convey when her eyes flapped open, when her mouth dropped and no sound came out. A maimed bird. You had done that. You had done it not by choice but by pure instinct.
There was your mother, locked inside her body. There was her face, the color of cement after rain. There were her eyes: dark, plaintive, screaming.
That was the first terrible day of the alphabet chart, which you had encouraged her to learn while she still had the faculty of speech. Which she had dismissed, along with the use of a wheelchair. Your mothers belief in the future was always as selective as her memory of the past.
At 2 *a.m*., a heavy-footed, uniformed woman came in to change your mother.
“Family members arent allowed,” she said.
You posed this as a possibility to your mother and watched her eyes quake.
“Well be done in a jiff.”
A jiff—the words knocked around in your head. “In a jiff,” you repeated to your mother. In a jiff, you were pushed out of the room, stumbling down the waxen-floored corridor and wheedling with the charge nurse for permission to be an exception to the rule.
“Really,” the woman said, “we are very experienced here.” She regarded you for a second—the clench of your face, the madness of your eyes. “You cant care for the patient if you dont take care of yourself first.”
You walked back to your mothers room and pulled open the curtain. The aide was gone. The sheets had been changed. A strong antiseptic smell hung heavy in the air. Your mothers face was twisted and swollen, streaked with secretions gray and green.
You asked if she was O.K., but you didnt want to know the answer. Or, rather, you already knew it.
“How could you?” your mother replied, through the alphabet chart. “You left me like an animal.”
Your mother never liked animals much and barely tolerated the pets of her employers. In the first family, there were two dogs, Max and Willy, a blond and a chocolate Lab, but your mother never called them by their names. To her, they were the Smart One and the Dumb One.
Once, when the six-year-old child she was tasked with caring for asked what her favorite animal was, she answered “panda” without even a pause. You were older, and it had never occurred to you to ask your mother such a question. “Have you ever seen one?” the child continued. “In real life?”
“No,” she responded. “Of course not.”
A whiskered doctor with a sagging belly delivers the news that your mother has pneumonia in both lungs and is at grave risk if she doesnt get a tracheostomy.
Frowning, he speculates that she may not survive the pneumonia, in any case. “Look at her,” he instructs you, his voice raised to be heard above the machines that hum out her life. “Her body is *wasted*.” That word: “wasted.” It is a word you want to eviscerate. A word as savage as “jiff.”
“So what do we do?” you ask.
“We wait.”
She has been placed on two kinds of antibiotics. You ask how long they will take to work.
“*If* they work,” he corrects you.
Once upon a time there lived a woman who wanted to collapse time and space. The plan was to exchange her present for her ailing mothers future. Little did she know that, if she did so, the two of them would merge into one ungainly creature, at once divided and reconstituted, and time would flow through both of them like water in a single stream.
But the stream. How strangely that stream would flow, not forward but in a loop, as the mother became the childs purpose.
One creature, disassembled into two bodies.
Pneumonia, bladder infections, kidney stones: predators that attack your mothers body with such frequency and ferocity that she is permanently entombed in the womb of her hospital room. The room around which you and a rotation of private aides orbit like crazed, frenetic birds.
You are thirty and have just begun writing for a living. Your mothers English is not good enough for her to read your magazine articles, but she is interested only in the efficiency of a summary, anyway. Always her first question: Do other people like it? By which she means the people on whom your survival depends.
[](https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a27483)
“Odd, since neither of us ever overfeeds her by even the smallest amount.”
Cartoon by Julia Suits
When you began writing about her, it did not feel voluntary.
But how it must have struck her: treachery, theft, shame manipulated and exploited.
The last time you see your mother alive, you lie. You tell her that you need to leave so that you can check on her belongings at the care facility, but, really, you are hoarding time to work on a story, time that will vanish once the next day begins. She nods. You dont make eye contact. You can never bear to look her in the eye when you are lying.
The last time you see your mother alive, you lie.
You lied, and she died.
Sunlight is a knife in the morning. There is a predatory quality to its intensity. Opening your eyes, you half expect to disappear. To be absorbed into the ether. When, instead, the world appears, you cannot trust it. You have never seen the world without your mother in it. So how can you be sure that you are seeing it or that this is, in fact, the same “it”?
Tell the story well enough, because you got to go to school while she scrubbed toilets.
Tell the story well enough so that time and space will collapse and the two of you will course in a single stream, like water. Tell the story well enough to abolish the end.
Tell the story well enough.
Tell the story well enough.
Tell the story well enough.
Tell the story well enough so that both babies will survive.
In your new apartment, you live among your mothers journals, her shoes, her clock, that strange hanging circle, long ago stopped. Sometimes you wonder if you made her up. Her voice in your head: an incessant pull of you to yourself, your most enduring tether.
Tell me a story, the mother inside you says.
What kind of story? you respond.
Something you read thats interesting but not too complicated. A story that I can understand.
What comes to mind is the story of the octopus.
The kind I used to cook for you? she asks.
Yes, you say. Like the kind you used to soft-boil for me and marinate with vinegar and sesame oil.
But you know animals dont interest me.
And why is that?
Because I am not a small child.
Right. I am the child, and I want to tell my mother a story about a mother. A mother who also happens to be an octopus.
She rolls her eyes. Oh, how she rolls her eyes.
Once upon a time there lived a mother octopus. For a long time, she roamed alone on the ocean floor, and then one day she became pregnant.
How did she become pregnant?
Not important to the story. Whats important is that she lays eggs only once in her life.
I hope she lays quality eggs, my mother says, grinning.
Well, there are a lot of them, tiny white beads that float free until she gathers them into clusters with her long arms and twists them into braids, which she hangs from the roof of an underwater cave. She is a very resourceful octopus, you see.
It sounds tedious, your mother says. Not unlike this story.
In the sea, there is no time for exhaustion, you continue, faster, trying to breathe it all out before she interrupts you again. Everything is cold, barren, and dark. Death swallows up whatever is not protected. To keep her eggs growing, the mother must bathe them constantly in new waves of water, nourishing them with oxygen and shielding them from predators and debris.
Do all the mothers do this? she asks. Or just this particular octopus?
All the octopuses who are mothers. They dont move or eat.
This is not the kind of story I had in mind, she remarks.
A good story moves. It glides and slithers like an octopus in a way that is unexpected yet inevitable.
Yes, I know that. You arent smarter than me, you know.
I have always known that.
Well, go on and finish it. What happens to the octopus? When does she get to eat? Will her babies survive?
The babies in the eggs get bigger and stronger. They are eager to begin their own lives. But they are also small. The mother knows this. She, too, has become small. She is weaker now. Without food and exercise, her tangle of arms goes dull and gray. Her eyes sink into their sockets.
I dont think I like where this is going.
Just bear with me a little longer, you say. When the eggs are about to hatch, the mother octopus thrusts her arms to help the babies emerge; she may throw herself rocks, or mutilate herself. She may consume parts of her own tentacles. This is her final act, you see. And then, with her last bit of strength, she uses her siphon to blow the eggs free. Those perfect miniatures of their mother, with tiny tentacles and an inborn sense of what they must—
No! she interrupts. I see what you are doing.
What? you respond. Jesus, what is it?
You are doing the predictable thing. Just what you say a story is not supposed to do.
I dont know how to tell it any other way, you say quietly.
Why dont you have a choice? she asks.
Stop it, stop it! you interject. I am talking to my dead mother in a made-up story. You would never use that word: “choice.”
But I am free to do whatever I want now, she says.
Now that you are dead?
Now that I live only in *your* story.
But my story *is* your story, you say. What am I without you?
A thing that moves, your mother answers. A thing that is alive. ♦
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Date: 2023-11-12
DocType: "WebClipping"
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Link: https://www.trulyadventure.us/a-school-of-their-own
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Parent:: [[@News|News]]
Read:: [[2023-11-15]]
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```button
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# A School of Their Own
![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a238ba10abd049ac5f4f02c/295efa1c-225b-4470-b3ce-ab96bd203bea/School+of+Their+Own_Cover.png)
## Fed up with her job and marriage, a mother walks out on her life and enrolls at her daughters college. when an unexpected threat arises, she will have to summon the power to stand up and fight the man.
![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a238ba10abd049ac5f4f02c/16759fe1-c340-4799-8597-2d3c3a226cef/School2.png)
**SHARON SNOW** was nearly 50 years old and a mother of three when she dropped off her youngest daughter, Elizabeth, at Texas Womans University in the fall of 1993. As she looked out across the rolling green campus in north Texas, with its famous redbud tree-lined walkways and red-brick buildings, she couldnt help but note the difference between TWU and the other (co-ed) schools her older daughters had decided to attend. The tour guides remembered her name, the folks in the administration building, she thought, treated her like an actual person and not just another number. And it seemed like women…. Well, they were just everywhere.
![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a238ba10abd049ac5f4f02c/627f11d2-85d9-455e-954d-c5f6cdf70135/School3.png)
In the classrooms (both as students and professors), in the residence halls, in the gym: everywhere you looked there were women doing what they wanted, unapologetically, and without a man behind them telling them what to do.
Women had never been the authority in Sharons family. A good, Christian girl from Fort Worth, she did what was expected of her after high school, marrying and starting a family. Though she reveled in being a mother, being a wife never suited her. Her husband was strict and urged her into a boring corporate desk job that she hated. Now, after 30 years, she stepped foot on campus and realized she wanted more—she wanted this.
A volunteer gig made her think she could be a good social worker, so she quietly investigated the program at TWU. Could she actually go back to school? It had been years since shed been in a classroom. And what about Elizabeth? Sharon was “scared to death” of what her daughter might think. As much as she ached for this new beginning, she didnt want to jeopardize Elizbeths experience.
It was Elizabeth, however, who encouraged her to take the leap and start her new journey. “She kept calling me and telling me what an amazing time she was having,” Sharon says. And so she finally admitted to her daughter what she had been thinking about: how she wanted to do some good, how she wanted to help people and be free from the suffocating life in the suburbs. Elizabeth was ecstatic.
In the Summer of 1994, right before Elizabeths sophomore year began, Sharon left the burbs, her husband and her job—all of them for good—and moved into a tiny one bedroom apartment across the street from campus. It smelled like mold, but she didnt care. It felt like she was finally home, in a place where she could be the silly, passionate and outrageous Texas woman she knew she was.
It was like a plot straight from a fish-out-of-water Hollywood movie: Elizabeth, the cool 19-year-old sophomore volleyball player, and her mom Sharon, the 47-year-old freshman social work student rediscovering herself. Sharon was Elizabeths number-one fan, attending all of her volleyball games, cheering her on side-by-side with friends who were twenty years her junior. She discovered a passion for poetry and performed regularly at open mic nights. Her new young friends were in awe of her, and she became a de facto maternal figure, shooting the shit and talking about sex and relationships while everyone passed around a joint.
“I was just out of a 30 year marriage, and for the first time in my life I could sleep with anyone I chose to, and I was very open about it,” she says. “It was a marvel to me. Sex could be just for sex. It could be fun. It was fun. I could be sexy and flirtatious.” Gone was the shy, scared housewife. “It was totally a rebirth.”
That rebirth came complete with a new mentor: Dawn Tawater, a graduate social work student in her late 20s, a mother of three, and a certified badass.
Once a teenage “dropout derelict” who gave birth to her first child at 16, Dawn had sicced Greenpeace on local governments, worked with civil rights leaders at the Dallas Peace Center, and thrown banners off interstates to protest the Gulf War. “I got thrown out of city hall so many times.” Fierce as hell and cuddly as a bag of nails, she had founded the Denton chapter of the National Organization of Women (NOW) while at TWU, where the group organized Take Back the Night marches, fought for a free speech area on campus, and worked with the NAACP to protest a prison where young black men were dying at alarming rates.
![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a238ba10abd049ac5f4f02c/fd4a6cbc-1401-4a4e-af24-478be1316a34/School4.png)
The university was an oasis. Initially conceived by the state as a place to produce the perfect wives and mothers, by the 60s it had become a haven for women like Sharon and Dawn who wanted more out of life and had a lot more to give. In the late 80s, TWU won a hard-fought battle against budget-conscious lawmakers who proposed the school might be merged with the larger co-ed school across town. In the afterglow, students like Dawn and Sharon thrived, thrilled to be surrounded by women who were eager to learn and break free from their strict conservative pasts. Sharons fears of feeling out of place melted away in the classroom where young mothers brought their infants to class without issue and listened intently when she raised her hand to speak. Dawn, meanwhile, continued her work, bolstering the ranks of NOW to fight injustices on and off campus. They had all found this place, the last public womens university in the country, where women were encouraged to meet their true potential.
Then one day a rumor began to circulate. Sharon shook her head when she heard, confused. She thought: Why would a man sue to get into TWU?
![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a238ba10abd049ac5f4f02c/cbc6c652-9606-4d6d-b4fa-4c10dab23b8c/page%2Bbreak%2Bmarker.png)
**STEVEN SERLING** didnt think it was fair. Not one bit. Why would TWUs courses be closed to simply on the basis of his gender?
The 35-year-old airline mechanic had been accepted as a nursing student, but when Serling was told he wouldnt be able to change his major or take classes in the liberal arts programs, he balked. Invoking a recent Supreme Court case in which a woman successfully sued for admittance into the Citadel, a public military college in South Carolina, Serling began to press his case. How was it OK for Shannon Faulkner to demand acceptance to an all-mens school and yet he couldnt do the same at a womens school? Steven wrote to state officials, including then-Governor Ann Richards, alleging TWUs women-only admissions policy was akin to reverse sexism, funded by taxpayers.
Serling seemed to be itching for a fight, and he came out in the press swinging.
“Everyone has special needs,” he said in a newspaper interview. “Women who feel the need for a special environment because they lack self-esteem need to get professional help.” In a *Houston Chronicle* story, he compared his woes to that of racial segregation. “Separate but equal wasnt appropriate in the South in the 1950s and it shouldnt be in Texas in the 1990s.”
Stevens letter-writing campaign caught the attention of state lawmakers, who not only vowed to bring up the issue at the next legislative session but also contacted the TWU Board of Regents directly to let them know the school was swimming in legal hot water and that the legislature would be forced to act. By December, with the next session only one month away, the TWU Board of Regents was feeling the heat.
Sharon was walking out of her womens studies class when her favorite professor pulled her aside and told her about a Board of Regents meeting being held that night. “You need to go to that meeting,” her professor insisted, “and get as many people there as you can.” Ordinarily the agenda for Board of Regents meetings was distributed to students well in advance. However, the editor of the school paper recalls the agenda was faxed to her office after the final issue of the semester had been sent to the press. “I got the gut feeling that they just didnt want a large crowd at that meeting,” shed later tell the *Dallas Observer*.
![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a238ba10abd049ac5f4f02c/c30af51e-56f0-4f3a-b103-986ee310abaa/Untitled+design+%286%29.png)
Dawn and Sharon feared men would trample all over TWU, taking precious resources that previously were exclusive to women, a rarity in society. Every student leadership position was held by a woman, every sports team was for womenhell, every scholarship was given to a woman. Men dominated all of these opportunities at practically every single Texas state school at the time. Why, students thought, did they need to take TWUs?
It wasnt just the schools identity, however, that was at risk. The threat of shutting down the school entirely was very real. Why would the state support two co-ed schools in one small college town? TWU had just fought off a campaign to merge with the University of North Texas by saying it was unique and special because it was a single sex institution. If that distinction went away, what would keep lawmakers from again recommending to shut it down to save money?
Sharon, tipped off by her professor, ran to her tiny apartment across the street from campus, opened up her phone book, and called everyone she knew. Once Dawn got word of the mystery meeting, she lit up her phone tree, full of NOW members, passing along word that something big was going down. That evening, on December 9, 1994, through the efforts of Sharon, Dawn and good-old-fashioned landlines, 200 students packed the ground floor of the Administrative Clock Tower. Upstairs, on the top floor, the Board of Regents gathered for its meeting.
Students began to trickle upstairs where they finally understood the gravity of the situation. With only a week left of classes in the semester, and with no input or debate, the Board of Regents was about to vote on one of the most consequential parts of TWUs identity.
Friends sent the message back downstairs, and the packed ocean of students, sitting body-to-body, holding hands, burst into tears. “Hell no, we wont go!” they began to chant. Others began to sing, flabbergasted that the rumors they had heard all semester were now becoming reality. Upstairs, students did their best to convince the Regents to keep the school single sex.
They didnt know it, but that ocean of students, rallied by Sharon and Dawn, were part of the gravitational pull that was creating the third-wave feminist movement. The movement built on the civil rights advances for women in the 60s and 70s but sought to be more intersectional, lifting up the voices of not only white, elite women, but also women of color and women from all economic backgrounds. TWU was the working womans university, the students argued, the last public womens university in the country, which offered affordable tuition to women across the country. Tuition at TWU in 1994 was around $1,200 a semester for an in-state, undergraduate student. Meanwhile, tuition at an elite, private womens college like Wellesley cost up to $9,000 a semester.
It didnt matter. The meeting was a formality. The public portion ended, and the crowd eventually dispersed. Sharon, Dawn and a handful of other students walked the five minutes to Dawns house, just off campus, to commiserate. The phone rang later that night with the official news: it wasnt even close. By a vote of 6-1, the school would officially begin accepting male students in all programs effective the fall of 1995.
A crushing weight settled on Sharon. It was a betrayal. A lesson from her womens studies class echoed in her mind. Perpetrators groom their targets by making them feel safe. They wait until no one is around to attack. It was happening right now, she thought. Had TWU groomed her? This was supposed to be her safe place, where her voice mattered, but now she wasnt so sure. All she knew was she had never been angrier. And now she felt she had the tools to do something about it.
![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a238ba10abd049ac5f4f02c/cbc6c652-9606-4d6d-b4fa-4c10dab23b8c/page%2Bbreak%2Bmarker.png)
**DAWNS PLACE,** a three-bedroom house, nestled right behind a TWU high-rise full of classrooms, was old, its white paint cracked and peeling. Its most distinguishing feature was a large concrete porch out front that connected to the living room via handsome French doors. It was the perfect place to hang out, smoke, listen to music, and maybe start a movement. “Everybody who was anybody in feminism, the second wave of the hippie movement, we all knew it all started and stopped at Dawns house,” says Tracey Elliott, a TWU and NOW alumna who described Dawn as a mix of Bob Dylan and the Black Panther party.
Shell-shocked at the Regents decision, Dawn, Sharon, Tracey and the other few women lit up their phone trees again. They werent done fighting. The next evening, students overflowed from inside Dawns home out onto her porch and front yard. They were starting a protest group, she said, and Protesting 101 with Professor Dawn was officially in session. They went over goals, what to wear to a protest, what your rights were if law enforcement harassed you, how to handle the media, and the basic strategies to keep the public pressure on the administration.
The students, many of whom had grown up in conservative households and had never been to a protest before, listened intently as Dawn spoke. “There I was,” Tracey says, “this girl who went to a redneck high school where everyone was wearing ropers and jeans, with the belt to match and all that, and suddenly Im in this world where Im surrounded by people listening to the Indigo Girls all day long and talking about all these issues, womens issues, and how we needed to be part of making a world a better place.”
A sheet of paper circulated as Dawn spoke. She told the group to write their names down if theyd be willing, if it ever got to that point, to be arrested. “I explained what civil disobedience was and that these people would have to be willing to go to jail,” she says. About 20 women signed up, including Sharon.
Dawn kept the sheet of names to herself and looked up at the crowd. The group would need a name and a mission to be their north star. After a quick vote, the Texas Womans University Preservation Society was officially born. Their mission? To preserve, uphold, and progress womens equality in all facets of society. Their first challenge? Saving their school.
![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a238ba10abd049ac5f4f02c/cbc6c652-9606-4d6d-b4fa-4c10dab23b8c/page%2Bbreak%2Bmarker.png)
**FINALS** were only a week away with the holiday break not far behind. Keeping up their momentum was critical. Like army ants at their colony, TWUPS members came and went through Dawns house at all hours of the day—the front door always unlocked for easy access. Members laid in the grass in the front yard painting signs for rallies. Inside, Dawns kitchen table was turned into a sewing station where sheets found at Goodwill were stitched together into 20-foot banners. Elsewhere, members talked strategy, did radio interviews with morning talk show hosts, and socialized while lounging on the front porch hammock. Two members even got on the phone second-wave feminist icon Gloria Stienem, who wished them luck with the fight.
When Dawn was home, it was a full house. She had just separated from her husband, a police officer in Dallas, and was the primary caregiver for her three kids, all under the age of 10. Gillian Williams, a TWU alumni and friend of Dawns, recalls playing with the youngsters, sipping on lemonade, and going over the groups plans. She had spent her time at TWU protesting the lack of women of color in their womens studies program, so she had her own experience getting the attention of the administration.
The night before the first rally, Dawn called Sharon and told her shed be the one to speak to the crowd. Sharon demurred, unsure of her abilities as a public speaker, but Dawn insisted. It was part of her plan to decentralize the power in the group. “I didnt want any of that patriarchal, hierarchical shit,” she says.
It was a complete 180 from the years of being silenced by her husband. She was in awe of Dawn, this woman with so much raw power inside of her. Dawn was unafraid. So unafraid, in fact, that shed cede her power to Sharon. What did Dawn see in her? Could she see it in herself? She knew she had a voice, and no matter how terrifying the prospect, it was time to use it.
The next day, clad in a custom-made white long-sleeve shirt with their name and logo (the female gender symbol) on the front and their slogan (“Texas Womans University - Keep it That Way!”) on the back, Sharon stood up in front of around 400 students and local media. She had stayed up all night working on her speech. In the front row she noticed her daughter Elizabeth. Breathing deeply, she opened her mouth and heard the words tumble out. Gone was the meek housewife. Sharon Snow had something important to say. When she was done, she looked at her daughter in the front row, who was crying. Sharon felt a wave of purpose and energy coursing through her. “This is power,” she thought.
![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a238ba10abd049ac5f4f02c/df223283-6f1b-41bb-b528-87a056e798b2/451777cb-b83d-46a7-a939-3dd1e620d4b6.png)
Courtesy of Rebeca Vanderburg
For a week the group held rallies, sit-ins and candlelight vigils across campus, giving speeches, waving their homemade signs, and chanting for the Board of Regents to reverse the vote. The Preservation Society organized a “girl-cott” of the bookstore, dressed up “Minerva,” a 15-foot-tall Pioneer Woman statue on campus, in a mourning black hood and cape, and sported their own matching black armbands.
But as the rallies continued, the crowds began to shrink, with fewer new faces showing up each time. Dawn and Sharon recognized the group wasnt growing and needed a new way to get their message out. “I remember thinking we needed more allies and more voices,” another TWUPS member told me. It was time for some civil disobedience.
Memories are hazy, but members recall surreptitiously creeping through campus at night, dressed in black, with flashlights, rope and banners in hand. Supportive faculty and buildings with unminded locks gained them access to rooftops and various landings on campus where TWUPS members tied enormous 20-foot banners with messages of resistance to coeducation. *BETRAYED* screamed one dangling from a 21-story residence tower. *REVERSE THE VOTE* read another one, successfully unfurled off a classroom building after a 70-year-old visiting professor caught the students trying to use a credit card to jimmy a door and let them in with his own key. For the young women, all of the undercover operations and sneaking around was exhilarating. Rebeca Vanderbug, one of the younger students in the group, remembers exactly how it felt to her: “It was like Mission Impossible.’”
![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a238ba10abd049ac5f4f02c/cbc6c652-9606-4d6d-b4fa-4c10dab23b8c/page%2Bbreak%2Bmarker.png)
**ROBIN DEISHER** and Amy Nickum, two young Preservation Society members, pressed their bodies to the floor, frozen, as a TWU police cruiser slowly passed beneath them. The pedestrian bridge arching over the main artery of campus had for years greeted students and visitors with its stately letters spelling out the name of the university. Tonight, if they werent caught, that would change.
Amy had no fear. She knew she wasnt doing anything wrong. She had never been a bad kid, never stolen anything or defaced property before, especially not at TWU. The school was like a second home to her. As a kid shed spend hours at the chapel on campus and at the library while her mother completed her PhD. Later, when her mother returned as a professor, it was a no-brainer where Amy would attend college. And so, when the Board of Regents and the likes of Steven Serling were threatening to take her home away, Amy knew what she had to do. “I was going to push back,” she told me. “Hard.”
When the coast was clear, Robin and Amy got back to work. They reached down, their arms and heads poking out on either side between the guardrails, and pried off what they had come for. Around the corner, Sharons daughter, Elizabeth, waited in the getaway car.
Students and faculty the next morning were left agog when they spotted the duos handiwork. “It was all over campus, all anyone could talk about!” says Dr. Linda Marshall, Amys mother. “Everyone woke up and saw the bridge and said The W and the O are missing! It says Texas Mans University!’”
![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a238ba10abd049ac5f4f02c/b16c9862-f71c-4dcd-b3ac-94ce7fe68fef/School7.png)
Deborah Bono/Courtesy of the Denton Public Library
![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a238ba10abd049ac5f4f02c/cbc6c652-9606-4d6d-b4fa-4c10dab23b8c/page%2Bbreak%2Bmarker.png)
**THE OLD GUARD** was not pleased. The mostly traditional and conservative members of the TWU Alumni Association generally believed in the Preservation Society and their mission but were horrified by the escalating tactics. They thought fighting the Regents in the courtroom and out of the eyes of the press was the more appropriate channel to enact change. The banners, bridge prank and slogans written in shoe polish all over campus windows rankled the older women. To them, the Preservation Society was embarrassing and making their school ugly.
Excoriating the increasing militancy of the protests, the alumni formed a group with straight and narrow student leaders and faculty members who together filed a lawsuit against the Board of Regents in an effort to reverse the vote. Even Sharon, who could operate both as a rebel and as a level-headed student, was invited to sign on the lawsuit. Though she maintained her allegiance to TWUPS, she also joined the alumni-led group, signing onto the lawsuit to work the “proper channels” and keep tabs on their efforts. The group argued the Board had violated the Texas Open Meetings Act by not giving the community sufficient notice for a meeting that should have been open to the public. The group also argued that since TWU was chartered by the state legislature as a womens university, only the legislature, and not the Board, had the authority to change its founding mission of being a school for women.
Dawn, through her experience as a radical protestor, knew that asking politely rarely effected change.
“The alumni basically had that old-school mindset that we have to be all please-and-thank-you route with this thing,” says Tracey. “Dawn basically said, no, were going to take the fuck-you route, and that was never going to jive with women who went to TWU in the 70s. We were really fighting, and they were not. They were handbag clutchers, and we were not.” Just as they had suspected, winter break killed a lot of momentum for the Preservation Society. The rallies had flamed out and the banners never flew for longer than a day, ripped up and dumped in the free speech area Dawn had procured for the school in years prior. The group needed to change course. “If theyre not gonna let us maintain a symbolic presence,” she asked Sharon, “what do we do?”
Dawn knew they needed something big and splashy, something that would look great on the evening news and in the papers.
Sharon poured some coffee while Dawn explained. “Do you remember that Kevin Costner movie?” Dawn asked, not quite recalling 1989s “Field of Dreams.” “If you build it,” she said, reciting the famous line, “they will come.”
![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a238ba10abd049ac5f4f02c/e8da51ca-7cc4-4a75-8f1b-79bdb3721b97/Untitled+design+%2812%29.png)
A sign at tent city. Courtesy of Rebecca Vanderburg.
“What if we build a tent city?” Dawn asked. It would be their biggest and boldest act of civil disobedience yet. They would literally set up a village of tents on campus and live out of them for as long as they needed, talking to curious lookie-loos, answering questions from students and the media, and, most importantly, applying pressure on the University. Sharons eyes lit up with excitement. “Oh my God,” she said. “I love you!”
With a new project at hand, the group sprung back to life as students returned from winter break. Flyers with the ominous Kevin Costner phrase covered the school and downtown area, piquing the interest of community members. “The next day people were saying Well what are you going to build? Whats going on?’” Sharon recalls. “It was very cinematic.” The group rounded up all the tents they could find, even pilfering through their families camping gear to gather what they needed and got ready to set up their tent city.
At 6:30 a.m. in late January 1995, members gathered at Dawns house, their cars packed with tents. They talked over their strategy: first, park the cars in the visitors lot, close to the target. Hubbard Lawn was the center of campus and stretched from the library to the student union, the perfect location for maximum exposure. Next, scramble out and set up the tents as fast as possible. Finally, make a scene when administrators and Public Safety show up to try and shut them down.
![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a238ba10abd049ac5f4f02c/be895968-c217-4bd2-91f2-154f9a8cac1f/Untitled+design+%2811%29.png)
A view of tent city. Courtesy of Rebecca Vanderburg.
The drive to campus only took one minute, but it was indelible for Sharon, the most profound moment of her life. As they drove past quiet houses and empty streets, she thought, “I cant do this. I cant do this. My momma didnt raise me to do this.” She was a church-going little kid, not a revolutionary. But as the car pulled up to the center of campus, she thought of herself as something more. A person who believed in women. Someone who could get up in front of hundreds of people and give an impassioned speech. A person with a voice and a cause that mattered. She was at a crossroads. Would she be the little kid in the white patent leather shoes? Or would she be the woman who stood up for what she believed in?
She opened the car door and, as her feet hit the ground, she knew.
The members flew out of the cars, their tents and other supplies in hand. Tents went up quickly along with handmade signs and a makeshift flagpole, proclaiming their territory and mission. About 15 tents in total were erected. Then…nothing.
“We sat around all day,” recalls Dawn. “Like, where are the cops? Where are the pigs? Wheres the fuzz?”
The women had assumed once the school awoke DPS would be immediately alerted and Preservation Nation would be stormed and taken down. Instead, administrators let the scene play out. “Theyd send pizza out,” Robin says, “and Dawn would say Dont eat it! Theyre trying to win your affection! We didnt accept anything.”
Music from Tracy Chapman and Janis Ian filled the air as members painted tents with peace signs and the female symbol. A large white walk-in tent was dubbed “The White House.” Members brought their dogs and kids to play hacky sack, kick ball, dance, and read together. Saul Alinskys “Rules for Radicals” was one of Dawns favorites.
For many of the members, tent city was their new home. “I would wake up at tent city, go home to eat, go to class, and then just come back,” remembers Jennifer Foreman. “My life didnt stop, it was just like, OK, now I live in a tent.” Not every member slept at tent city, but for those who did, the freezing nights were the hardest to endure. They set up a trash can fire to keep warm, but DPS, who frequently patrolled the area, quickly took it down. With no electrical outlets, campers turned to propane heaters for warmth.
![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a238ba10abd049ac5f4f02c/4062e0e3-0711-48fd-9a2f-a337c1efc8b8/School6.png)
Beyond students who would visit for questions, the group fielded media from all over, including a young Scott Pelley, who at the time was assigned in Dallas for CBS. The *Associated Press*, *The New York Times*, *The Chronicle of Higher Education*, and the local NPR affiliate KERA all wanted access. “The Battle of the Sexes,” as one headline put it, now had a headquarters.
Perhaps the most endearing of their visitors was a group of elderly women who had driven across the state in an Oldsmobile to drop off cookies and chat, along with an employee over at the local art house theater, who brought leftover popcorn every night.
Other visitors, however, were less kind. One night, the women were jolted awake after a car parked nearby turned on their high beams and blasted Pink Floyds “Dirty Woman.” On another occassion, someone else drove by, yelled a homophobic slur, and threw a bottle at one of the few male Preservation Society members—a husband whose wife was a student at TWU and TWUPS member. “I had never been called a dyke before!” he recalled years later.
Men piled into pickup trucks and mooned the group while shouting they were a bunch of cunts and whores. Sharon and her friends laughed the assaults off, even more sure of their mission to keep men like these out of TWU. “What did they think they were going to do?” Sharon says. “We had just built a city out of tents in the middle of the campus. Were they going to scare us by calling us cunts? Not likely.”
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**TWELVE DAYS** after Preservation Nation was erected, the few students who had braved the 25 degree weather woke up with a start. The smell of smoke wafted through the quiet, frigid night.
A fire was burning.
A 14-year-old boy, the son of a member who was a single mother, had kicked over a space heater while doing his homework, starting a small fire that burned through the plastic roof of his tent. There were only 3 or 4 people at tent city on this night because of the cold. Rebeca Vanderburg was one of the students there. “It was like, everybody up and out of their tents,” she says, “and oh my God, oh my God.”
Dawn and Sharon had questioned whether they should allow kids to spend the night at tent city, especially on school nights, but decided they didnt want to alienate members who were single mothers. Fearing the ire of his mother more than a potential blaze, the boy used his hands to pat out the fire, burning himself in the process.
Dawn knew they had been rankling administrators and members of the alumni-led lawsuit group. The chairwoman of the alumni group, Dr. Bettye Myers, had been by tent city earlier in the week and had a confrontation with Dawn, yelling at her to tell everyone to take down tent city and leave. Dawn refused.
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In the hours after the fire, administrators finally made their move and demanded tent city be shut down. They said it was no longer a safe environment. The Preservation Society was told they could either take their things and go or tent city would be taken by force. “Bettye stomped out of here and had them do this to us,” Dawn told the Denton Record Chronicle in 1995. “This has nothing to do with safety. The fire was put out with a fire extinguisher. The boy was taken to a doctor and he only suffered minor burns.” It didnt matter.
Everything was coming to a head.
Word spread from tent city about the news, and a small group retreated to Dawns house. Dawn pulled out the list of the 20 students who said they were willing to get arrested back when the group was formed. Six were standing in front of her. “This is the moment,” Dawn said. Sharons daughter Elizabeth, and her roommate Jennifer, wiped the tears from their eyes and found their conviction. Rebecca, sitting on the driveway, worried what her mom and stepdad were going to think when she told them she was arrested. Amy, who had helped snatch the “WO” off the campus bridge, was scared, but her conscience was clear. If she was going to have something on her record, this is what she wanted it for. They decided to get into Robins tent, “The White House,” since it was the largest, and not move. Six young women, all between the ages of 18 and 20, would take the final stand for the Preservation Society.
Afraid her ex-husband might take her kids away, Dawn couldnt join them. Instead, she got on the phone and contacted a lawyer to help free the girls after the conflict.
For Elizabeth, before any arrests were made, she knew she had to call her mom.
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**SHARON HUNG UP** the phone at the NordicTrack store where she worked with fellow TWUPS member Robin. “Theyre getting arrested in your tent!” she yelled to her.
Robin perked up as Sharon raced out of the store. “Good, get in there!”
Back at TWU, the six young women made it to “The White House” and held hands in a circle as day made way to evening. They could hear DPS and campus custodial crews tearing down Preservation Nation around them, throwing out the tents they had collected and tearing down their flagpole. Finally, the White House was the only tent left. Time slowed down as the voices of DPS officers began getting louder and louder, telling them to come out. Jennifer remembers their condescending voices well. “Do you girls really want to get in trouble for this?” “We know youre good girls and just want to come out.”
Rebecca remembers DPS finally threatening the group with pepper spray. “My memory is \[they said\] you can either come out of this tent or were gonna pepper spray you. And so were like, I think were not going to get pepper sprayed and then they told us we were under arrest and for us to sit down.”
Preservation Nation had fallen. The six students hooked arms and walked together as DPS escorted them to the campus station, a mix of uncertainty and dread running through them all. This was Texas in 1995, and not Dallas or Houston, but a small speck of a college town closer to Oklahoma than Austin. Before their time at TWU, before they were inspired by Dawn and all of her fuck-the-man bravado, they would never have dreamed of putting themselves in a situation where they could be arrested. For them, they might as well have been TWUs Most Wanted.
They were put at ease when they found Dawn and a lawyer at the station, ready to fight. “There were no handcuffs or bars or anything,” Elizabeth says. “The lawyer came in and was like, dont freak out,” Jennifer says. “Theyre full of shit, this is not a big deal, dont be scared by these assholes.” In the end, DPS scolded the group and said theyd be reprimanded by the administration at a later date.
By the time Sharon arrived, the young women were free, crying and hugging each other. The shy conservative girls whod never even considered talking back to authority were long gone. Even though the school was still on track for coeducation, they had at least tried to do something and let administrators know how important it was that there was a school in Texas that let women fight back. “It felt like we had done something big in at least fighting until the last second and feeling some celebration in that,” Jennifer says. “We felt like we won because we didnt give up.”
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**IN THE END** the administration got its way — but not without an embarrassing fight with a motivated cross section of its student body.
The alumni lawsuit also bore no fruit. In 1996, a judge finally ruled that the Board of Regents was within its powers when it voted to make the school co-ed. That same year, however, Lenni Lissberger, the editor of the student newspaper at the time, won a battle to legally make the school more transparent about its business operations. Still fuming that the school had gotten away with the short notice about the regents meeting, she worked with lawyers and lawmakers to draft a bill that requires universities to post notice of their meetings in the county where said meetings will take place, not just in Austin, as the law had previously stated. The bill passed unanimously and is still Texas state law, impacting the entire spectrum of issues at state-funded universities, including those that impact women on campus.
Ironically, and perhaps aided by the powerful showing of the group Dawn and Sharon helped lead, opening its doors to men indirectly led to the creation of TWUs masters degree program in womens studies, the first of its kind in the state. Long in gestation, the passion for keeping TWU a place “primarily for women” was the fuel administrators needed to make the program a reality. The same year the school became co-ed, it also began requiring all students to take a womens studies course, a requirement students must still fulfill before graduating.
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Steven Serling, the would-be nursing student who had cried reverse sexism, was no doubt aware of the frenzy he inspired. Any preliminary exuberance might well have turned to panic as the dedication of the resistance intensified. Despite technically winning his campaign, Serling never showed up for his first class and was never seen on campus again.
In the Fall of 1994, when the Preservation Society was formed, TWU had just over 10,000 students. Today, it has over 16,000, an all-time high. The school still only has womens sports teams, and the male population has never risen over 10 percent of the student body. I graduated from TWU in 2010, and, as a cisgendered man, I am keenly aware of how complicated my membership is in the long history of an institution created as a space for women.
So why go to a womens college today, especially one that isnt even exclusively for women? Preservation Society member Christina Krause Marks told me in anticipation of our conversation that she thought about the people she works with as a therapist who dont fit so neatly into the male/female construct. “The whole nonbinary perspective has really turned this all on its ear.” She says its more important to focus on questioning power structures rather than centralizing the conversation around a she-versus-he scenario, which excludes students that dont fit that categorization. Back in 1995, she says, “Trans women were not part of the conversation, you know? There are parts of pro-women history that Im not proud of the more I learn about it.”
For most of the Preservation Society members I spoke to, TWU is a happy memory to revisit. I spoke over the phone with Elizabeth, now a teacher and musician living just outside Austin, with her children popping in occasionally, wondering what was keeping their mom from the dinner table. Sharon pursued her dream of influencing large groups of people and became a professor, first at Virginia Tech and later at the University of Vermont. “Ive told my students over and over again, you can take over the administration building. Just do it. Just go do it!” Dawn, meanwhile, teaches sociology at Austin Community College, the inkwell of her TWU memories a mix of pride and sadness. “I have to tell you my impression is that Im sort of the Voldemort of TWU,” she told me the first time we spoke back in 2019, hurt that the school hadnt ever celebrated the work of the Preservation Society. She presumes it is because shed been (and still is) critical of the school and is unwilling to dull her edge. “They want to keep things nice, sweet and civil,” she says, a wry smile on her face. “Im not for the purge or anything like that, but theres a time and a place.”
Its easy to see what Dawn sees—a battle lost and a group largely forgotten by a university now only primarily for women. But if you look closer, its also easy to see the threads of the Preservation Societys legacy that have stitched together a thriving university.
In May 2021, TWU celebrated as the Texas Legislature passed legislation establishing TWU as its very own university system, not unlike other state schools who have a main campus and numerous satellites. In addition to the expansion of operations across their three campuses, perhaps this new system cements TWUs status as a school whose existence isnt up for debate any longer. The TWU system is the nations first and only university system with a focus on women.
![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a238ba10abd049ac5f4f02c/f2d26ed2-5a12-4087-b638-1d18241f3e5b/School1.png)
For a new generation of bright minds and powerful voices, Texas Womans University, once again, has been reborn.
![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a238ba10abd049ac5f4f02c/a6c7e6cc-3ea5-42cc-9116-e5216b31de34/page%2Bbreak%2Bmarker.png)
*LUIS RENDON* Originally from South Texas, Luis G. Rendon is a journalist living in New York City. He writes about Tejano food and culture for Texas Monthly and Texas Highways.
For all rights inquiries, email team@trulyadventure.us.
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# A Small-Town Paper Lands a Very Big Story
Listen to this article.
Bruce Willingham, fifty-two years a newspaperman, owns and publishes the McCurtain *Gazette,* in McCurtain County, Oklahoma, a rolling sweep of timber and lakes that forms the southeastern corner of the state. McCurtain County is geographically larger than Rhode Island and less populous than the average Taylor Swift concert. Thirty-one thousand people live there; forty-four hundred buy the *Gazette*, which has been in print since 1905, before statehood. At that time, the paper was known as the Idabel *Signal*, referring to the county seat. An early masthead proclaimed “*INDIAN TERRITORY, CHOCTAW NATION*.”
Willingham bought the newspaper in 1988, with his wife, Gwen, who gave up a nursing career to become the *Gazettes* accountant. They operate out of a storefront office in downtown Idabel, between a package-shipping business and a pawnshop. The staff parks out back, within sight of an old Frisco railway station, and enters through the “morgue,” where the bound archives are kept. Until recently, no one had reason to lock the door during the day.
Three days a week (five, before the pandemic), readers can find the latest on rodeo queens, school cafeteria menus, hardwood-mill closings, heat advisories. Some headlines: “Large Cat Sighted in Idabel,” “Two of States Three Master Bladesmiths Live Here,” “Local Singing Group Enjoys Tuesdays.” Anyone whos been cited for speeding, charged with a misdemeanor, applied for a marriage license, or filed for divorce will see his or her name listed in the “District Court Report.” In Willinghams clutterbucket of an office, a hulking microfiche machine sits alongside his desktop computer amid lunar levels of dust; he uses the machine to unearth and reprint front pages from long ago. In 2017, he transported readers to 1934 via a banner headline: “*NEGRO SLAYER OF WHITE MAN KILLED*.” The area has long been stuck with the nickname Little Dixie.
*Gazette* articles can be shorter than recipes, and what they may lack in detail, context, and occasionally accuracy, they make up for by existing at all. The paper does more than probe the past or keep tabs on the local felines. “Weve investigated county officials *a lot*,” Willingham, who is sixty-eight, said the other day. The *Gazette* exposed a county treasurer who allowed elected officials to avoid penalties for paying their property taxes late, and a utilities company that gouged poor customers while lavishing its executives with gifts. “To most people, its Mickey Mouse stuff,” Willingham told me. “But the problem is, if you let them get away with it, it gets worse and worse and worse.”
[](https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a27929)
“And how long till they start saying the Great after my name?”
Cartoon by Maddie Dai
The Willinghams oldest son, Chris, and his wife, Angie, work at the *Gazette*, too. They moved to Idabel from Oklahoma City in the spring of 2005, not long after graduating from college. Angie became an editor, and Chris covered what is known in the daily-news business as cops and courts. Absurdity often made the front page—a five-m.p.h. police “chase” through town, a wayward snake. Three times in one year, the paper wrote about assaults in which the weapon was chicken and dumplings. McCurtain County, which once led the state in homicides, also produces more sinister blotter items: a man cashed his dead mothers Social Security checks for more than a year; a man killed a woman with a hunting bow and two arrows; a man raped a woman in front of her baby.
In a small town, a dogged reporter is inevitably an unpopular one. It isnt easy to write about an old friends felony drug charge, knowing that youre going to see him at church. When Chris was a teen-ager, his father twice put *him* in the paper, for the misdemeanors of stealing beer, with buddies, at a grocery store where one of them worked, and parking illegally—probably with those same buddies, definitely with beer—on a back-road bridge, over a good fishing hole.
Chris has a wired earnestness and a voice that carries. Listening to a crime victims story, he might boom, “*Gollll-ly!*” Among law-enforcement sources, “Chris was respected because he always asked questions about how the system works, about proper procedure,” an officer said. Certain cops admired his willingness to pursue uncomfortable truths even if those truths involved one of their own. “If I was to do something wrong—on purpose, on accident—Chris Willingham one hundred per cent would write my butt in the paper, on the front page, in bold letters,” another officer, who has known him for more than a decade, told me.
In the summer of 2021, Chris heard that there were morale problems within the McCurtain County Sheriffs Office. The sheriff, Kevin Clardy, who has woolly eyebrows and a mustache, and often wears a cowboy hat, had just started his second term. The first one had gone smoothly, but now, according to some colleagues, Clardy appeared to be playing favorites.
The current discord stemmed from two recent promotions. Clardy had brought in Larry Hendrix, a former deputy from another county, and, despite what some considered to be weak investigative skills, elevated him to undersheriff—second-in-command. Clardy had also hired Alicia Manning, who had taken up law enforcement only recently, in her forties. Rookies typically start out on patrol, but Clardy made Manning an investigator. Then he named her captain, a newly created position, from which she oversaw the departments two dozen or so deputies and managed cases involving violence against women and children. Co-workers were dismayed to see someone with so little experience rise that quickly to the third most powerful rank. “Never patrolled one night, never patrolled one day, in any law-enforcement aspect, anywhere in her life, and youre gonna bring her in and stick her in high crimes?” one officer who worked with her told me.
Chris was sitting on a tip that Clardy favored Manning because the two were having an affair. Then, around Thanksgiving, 2021, employees at the county jail, whose board is chaired by the sheriff, started getting fired, and quitting. The first to go was the jails secretary, who had worked there for twenty-six years. The jails administrator resigned on the spot rather than carry out the termination; the secretarys husband, the jails longtime handyman, quit, too. When Chris interviewed Clardy about the unusual spate of departures, the sheriff pointed out that employment in Oklahoma is at will. “It is what it is,” he said. In response to a question about nepotism, involving the temporary promotion of his stepdaughters husband, Clardy revealed that he had been divorced for a few months and separated for more than a year. Chris asked, “Are you and Alicia having sex?” Clardy repeatedly said no, insisting, “Were good friends. Me and Larrys good friends, but Im not having sex with Larry, either.”
Meanwhile, someone had sent Chris photographs of the departments evidence room, which resembled a hoarders nest. The mess invited speculation about tainted case material. In a front-page story, branded “first of a series,” the *Gazette* printed the images, along with the news that Hendrix and Manning were warning deputies to stop all the “backdoor talk.” The sheriff told staffers that anyone who spoke to the *Gazette* would be fired.
Manning has thick, ash-streaked hair, a direct manner, and what seems to be an unwavering loyalty to Clardy. She offered to help him flush out the leakers, and told another colleague that she wanted to obtain search warrants for cell phones belonging to deputies. When Chris heard that Manning wanted to confiscate *his* phone, he called the Oklahoma Press Association—and a lawyer. (Oklahoma has a shield law, passed in the seventies, which is designed to protect journalists sources.) The lawyer advised Chris to leave his phone behind whenever he went to the sheriffs department. Angie was prepared to remotely wipe the device if Chris ever lost possession of it.
John Jones, a narcotics detective in his late twenties, cautioned Manning against abusing her authority. Jones was the sheriffs most prolific investigator, regarded as a forthright and talented young officer—a “velociraptor,” according to one peer. He had documented the presence of the Sinaloa cartel in McCurtain County, describing meth smuggled from Mexico in shipments of pencils, and cash laundered through local casinos. Jones had filed hundreds of cases between 2019 and most of 2021, compared with a couple of dozen by Manning and Hendrix combined. The *Gazette* reported that, on December 1st—days after confronting Manning—Jones was bumped down to patrol. The next day, he quit.
Within the week, Hendrix fired the departments second most productive investigator, Devin Black. An experienced detective in his late thirties, Black had just recovered nearly a million dollars worth of stolen tractors and construction equipment, a big deal in a county whose economy depends on agriculture and tourism. (At Broken Bow Lake, north of Idabel, newcomers are building hundreds of luxury cabins in Hochatown, a resort area known as the Hamptons of Dallas-Fort Worth.) Black said nothing publicly after his departure, but Jones published an open letter in the *Gazette*, accusing Hendrix of neglecting the case of a woman who said that she was raped at gunpoint during a home invasion. The woman told Jones that she had been restrained with duct tape during the attack, and that the tape might still be at her house. Hendrix, Jones wrote, “never followed up or even reached out to the woman again.” Curtis Fields, a jail employee who had recently been fired, got a letter of his own published in the *Gazette*. He wrote that the sheriffs “maladministration” was “flat-out embarrassing to our entire county,” and, worse, put “many cases at risk.”
Around this time, Hendrix was moved over to run the jail, and Clardy hired Alicia Mannings older brother, Mike, to be the new undersheriff. Mike, who had long worked part time as a local law-enforcement officer, owned IN-Sight Technologies, a contractor that provided CCTV, security, and I.T. services to the county, including the sheriffs department. The Willinghams observed that his new position created a conflict of interest. In late December, the day after Mikes appointment, Chris and Bruce went to ask him about it. Mike said that he had resigned as IN-Sights C.E.O. that very day and, after some prodding, acknowledged that he had transferred ownership of the company—to his wife. He assured the Willinghams that IN-Sights business with McCurtain County was “minuscule.” According to records that I requested from the county clerk, McCurtain County has issued at least two hundred and thirty-nine thousand dollars in purchase orders to the company since 2016. The county commissioners have authorized at least eighty thousand dollars in payments to IN-Sight since Mike became undersheriff.
Mike urged the Willinghams to focus on more important issues. When he said, “Im not here to be a whipping post, because theres a lot of crime going on right now,” Chris replied, “Oh, yeah, I agree.” The undersheriff claimed to have no problem with journalists, saying, “Im a constitutional guy.”
State “sunshine” laws require government officials to do the peoples business in public: most records must be accessible to anyone who wishes to see them, and certain meetings must be open to anyone who would like to attend. Bruce Willingham once wrote, “We are aggressive about protecting the publics access to records and meetings, because we have found that if we dont insist on both, often no one else will.” The Center for Public Integrity grades each state on the quality of its open-government statutes and practices. At last check, Oklahoma, along with ten other states, got an F.
In January, 2022, Chris noticed a discrepancy between the number of crimes listed in the sheriffs logbook and the correlating reports made available to him. Whereas he once saw thirty to forty reports per week, he now saw fewer than twenty. “The ones that I get are like loose cattle on somebodys land, all very minor stuff,” he told me. He often didnt find out about serious crime until it was being prosecuted. In his next article, he wrote that fifty-three reports were missing, including information about “a shooting, a rape, an elementary school teacher being unknowingly given marijuana cookies by a student and a deputy allegedly shooting out the tires” of a car. The headline was “*Sheriff Regularly Breaking Law Now*.”
Two weeks later, the sheriffs department landed back on page 1 after four felons climbed through the roof of the jail, descended a radio tower, and fled—the first escape in twenty-three years. Chris reported that prisoners had been sneaking out of the jail throughout the winter to pick up “drugs, cell phones and beer” at a nearby convenience store.
Three of the escapees were still at large when, late one Saturday night in February, Alyssa Walker-Donaldson, a former Miss McCurtain County, vanished after leaving a bar in Hochatown. When the sheriffs department did not appear to be exacting in its search, volunteers mounted their own. It was a civilian in a borrowed Cessna who spotted Walker-Donaldsons white S.U.V. at the bottom of Broken Bow Lake. An autopsy showed that she had suffered acute intoxication by alcohol and drowned in what was described as an accident. The findings failed to fully explain how Walker-Donaldson, who was twenty-four, wound up in the water, miles from where she was supposed to be, near a boat ramp at the end of a winding road. “Even the U.P.S. man cant get down there,” Walker-Donaldsons mother, Carla Giddens, told me. Giddens wondered why all five buttons on her daughters high-rise jeans were undone, and why her shirt was pushed above her bra. She told a local TV station, “Nothing was handled right when it came to her.” Giddens suspected that the sheriffs disappointing search could be attributed to the fact that her daughter was Black and Choctaw. (She has since called for a new investigation.)
Not long after that, the sheriffs department responded to a disturbance at a roadside deli. A deputy, Matt Kasbaum, arrived to find a man hogtied on the pavement; witnesses, who said that the man had broken a door and was trying to enter peoples vehicles, had trussed him with cord. “Well, this is interesting,” Kasbaum remarked. He handcuffed the man, Bobby Barrick, who was forty-five, then cut loose the cord and placed him in the back seat of a patrol unit. An E.M.S. crew arrived to examine Barrick. “Hes doped up *hard*,” Kasbaum warned. When he opened the door, Barrick tried to kick his way out, screaming “Help me!” and “Theyre gonna kill me!” As officers subdued him, Barrick lost consciousness. Several days later, he died at a hospital in Texas.
The public initially knew little of this because the sheriff refused to release information, on the ground that Barrick belonged to the Choctaw Nation and therefore the arrest fell under the jurisdiction of tribal police. The Willinghams turned to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a nonprofit, headquartered in Washington, D.C., that provides pro-bono legal services to journalists. (The Reporters Committee has also assisted *The New Yorker*.) The organization had recently assigned a staff attorney to Oklahoma, an indication of how difficult it is to pry information from public officials there. Its attorneys helped the *Gazette* sue for access to case documents; the paper then reported that Kasbaum had tased Barrick three times on his bare hip bone. Barricks widow filed a lawsuit, alleging that the taser was not registered with the sheriffs department and that deputies had not been trained to use it. The suit also alleged that Kasbaum and other officers had turned off their lapel cameras during the encounter and put “significant pressure on Barricks back while he was in a face-down prone position and handcuffed.” Kasbaum, who denied the allegations, left the force. The *Gazette* reported that the F.B.I. and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation were looking into the death.
Chris and Angie got married soon after joining the *Gazette*. By the time Chris began publishing his series on the sheriffs department, they were in their late thirties, with small children, two dogs, and a house on a golf course. They once had a bluegrass band, Succotash, in which Angie played Dobro and Chris played everything, mainly fiddle. He taught music lessons and laid down tracks for clients at his in-home studio. Angie founded McCurtain Mosaics, working with cut glass. The couple, who never intended to become journalists, suppressed the occasional urge to leave the *Gazette*, knowing that they would be hard to replace. Bruce lamented, “Everybody wants to work in the big city.”
Five days a week, in the newsroom, Chris and Angie sit in high-walled cubicles, just outside Bruces office. The *Gazettes* other full-time reporters include Bob West, who is eighty-one and has worked at the paper for decades. An ardent chronicler of museum events, local schools, and the weather, West is also known, affectionately, as the staffer most likely to leave his car running, with the windows down, in the rain, or to arrive at work with his toothbrush in his shirt pocket. He once leaned on his keyboard and accidentally deleted the newspapers digital Rolodex. One afternoon in May, he ambled over to Angies desk, where the Willinghams and I were talking, and announced, “Hail, thunderstorms, damaging winds!” A storm was coming.
Bruce and Gwen Willingham own commercial real estate, and they rent several cabins to vacationers in Hochatown. Chris said, “If we didnt have tourism to fall back on, we couldnt run the newspaper. The newspaper *loses* money.” An annual subscription costs seventy-one bucks; the rack price is fifty cents on weekdays, seventy-five on the weekend. During the pandemic, the Willinghams reduced both the publishing schedule and the size of the broadsheet, to avoid layoffs. The papers receptionist, who is in her sixties, has worked there since she was a teen-ager; a former pressman, who also started in his teens, left in his nineties, when his doctor demanded that he retire. In twenty-five paces, a staffer can traverse the distance between the newsroom and the printing press—the *Gazette* is one of the few American newspapers that still publish on-site, or at all. Since 2005, more than one in four papers across the country have closed; according to the Medill School of Journalism, at Northwestern University, two-thirds of U.S. counties dont have a daily paper. When Chris leads tours for elementary-school students, he schedules them for afternoons when theres a print run, though he isnt one to preach about journalisms vital role in a democracy. Hes more likely to jiggle one of the thin metal printing plates, to demonstrate how stagehands mimic thunder.
As the Walker-Donaldson case unfolded, Chris got a tip that the sheriff used meth and had been “tweaking” during the search for her. Bruce asked the county commissioners to require Clardy to submit to a drug test. Urinalysis wasnt good enough—the *Gazette* wanted a hair-follicle analysis, which has a much wider detection window. The sheriff peed in a cup. Promptly, prominently, the *Gazette* reported the results, which were negative, but noted that Clardy had declined the more comprehensive test.
“This has to stop!” the sheriff posted on the departments Facebook page. Complaining about “the repeated attacks on law enforcement,” he wrote, “We have a job to do and that is to protect people. We cant cater to the newspaper or social media every day of the week.” Clardy blamed the *Gazettes* reporting on “former employees who were terminated or resigned.”
Locals who were following the coverage and the reactions couldnt decide what to make of the devolving relationship between the *Gazette* and county leadership. Was their tiny newspaper needlessly antagonizing the sheriff, or was it insisting on accountability in the face of misconduct? Craig Young, the mayor of Idabel, told me that he generally found the papers reporting to be accurate; he also said that the county seemed to be doing a capable job of running itself. He just hoped that nothing would disrupt Idabels plans to host an upcoming event that promises to draw thousands of tourists. On April 8, 2024, a solar eclipse will arc across the United States, from Dallas, Texas, to Caribou, Maine. McCurtain County lies in one of the “totality zones.” According to *NASA*, between one-forty-five and one-forty-nine that afternoon, Idabel will experience complete darkness.
In October, 2022, Chris got another explosive tip—about himself. A local law-enforcement officer sent him audio excerpts of a telephone conversation with Captain Manning. The officer did not trust Manning, and had recorded their call. (Oklahoma is a one-party-consent state.) They discussed office politics and sexual harassment. Manning recalled that, after she was hired, a detective took bets on which co-worker would “hit it,” or sleep with her, first. Another colleague gossiped that she “gave a really good blow job.”
The conversation turned to Clardys drug test. As retribution, Manning said that she wanted to question Chris in one of her sex-crime investigations—at a county commissioners meeting, “in front of everybody.” She went on, “We will see if they want to write about that in the newspaper. Thats just the way I roll. O.K., you dont wanna talk about it? Fine. But its “public record.” Yall made mine and Kevins business public record.’ ”
At the time, Manning was investigating several suspected pedophiles, including a former high-school math teacher who was accused of demanding nude photographs in exchange for favorable grades. (The teacher is now serving thirteen years in prison.) Manning told a TV news station that “possibly other people in the community” who were in a “position of power” were involved. On the recorded call, she mentioned pedophilia defendants by name and referred to Chris as “one of them.” Without citing evidence, she accused him of trading marijuana for videos of children.
Chris, stunned, suspected that Manning was just looking for an excuse to confiscate his phone. But when he started to lose music students, and his kids friends stopped coming over, he feared that rumors were spreading in the community. A source warned him that Mannings accusations could lead to his children being forensically interviewed, which happens in child-abuse investigations. He developed such severe anxiety and depression that he rarely went out; he gave his firearms to a relative in case he felt tempted to harm himself. Angie was experiencing panic attacks and insomnia. “We were not managing,” she said.
That fall, as Chris mulled his options, a powerful tornado struck Idabel. Bruce and Gwen lost their home. They stored their salvaged possessions at the *Gazette* and temporarily moved in with Chris and Angie. In December, the *Gazette* announced that Chris planned to sue Manning. On March 6th, he did, in federal court, alleging “slander and intentional infliction of emotional distress” in retaliation for his reporting. Clardy was also named as a defendant, for allowing and encouraging the retaliation to take place. (Neither he nor Manning would speak with me.)
In May, both Clardy and Manning answered the civil complaint in court. Clardy denied the allegations against him. Manning cited protection under the legal doctrine of qualified immunity, which is often used to indemnify law-enforcement officers from civil action and prosecution. She denied the allegations and asserted that, if Chris Willingham suffered severe emotional distress, it fell within the limits of what “a reasonable person could be expected to endure.”
On the day that Chris filed his lawsuit, the McCurtain County Board of Commissioners held its regular Monday meeting, at 9 *A*.*M*., in a red brick building behind the jail. Commissioners—there are three in each of Oklahomas seventy-seven counties—oversee budgets and allocate funding. Their meeting agendas must be public, so that citizens can scrutinize government operations. Bruce, who has covered McCurtains commissioners for more than forty years, suspected the board of discussing business not listed on the agenda—a potential misdemeanor—and decided to try to catch them doing it.
Two of the three commissioners—Robert Beck and Mark Jennings, the chairman—were present, along with the boards executive assistant, Heather Carter. As they neared the end of the listed agenda, Bruce slipped a recording device disguised as a pen into a cup holder at the center of the conference table. “Right in front of em,” he bragged. He left, circling the block for the next several hours as he waited for the commissioners to clear out. When they did, he went back inside, pretended to review some old paperwork, and retrieved the recording device.
That night, after Gwen went to bed, Bruce listened to the audio, which went on for three hours and thirty-seven minutes. He heard other county officials enter the room, one by one—“Like, Now is your time to see the king.’ ”
In came Sheriff Clardy and Larry Hendrix. Jennings, whose family is in the timber business, brought up the 2024 race for sheriff. He predicted numerous candidates, saying, “They dont have a goddam clue what theyre getting into, not in this day and age.” It used to be, he said, that a sheriff could “take a damn Black guy and whup their ass and throw em in the cell.”
“Yeah, well, its not like that no more,” Clardy said.
“I know,” Jennings said. “Take em down there on Mud Creek and hang em up with a damn rope. But you cant do that anymore. They got more rights than *we* got.”
After a while, Manning joined the meeting. She arrived to a boisterous greeting from the men in the room. When she characterized a colleagues recent comment about her legs as sexual harassment, Beck replied, “I thought sexual harassment was only when they held you down and pulled you by the hair.” They joked about Manning mowing the courthouse lawn in a bikini.
Manning continually steered the conversation to the *Gazette*. Jennings suggested procuring a “worn-out tank,” plowing it into the newspapers office, and calling it an accident. The sheriff told him, “Youll have to beat my son to it.” (Clardys son is a deputy sheriff.) They laughed.
Manning talked about the possibility of bumping into Chris Willingham in town: “Im not worried about what hes gonna do to me, Im worried about what I might do to him.” A couple of minutes later, Jennings said, “I know where two big deep holes are here, if you ever need them.”
“Ive got an excavator,” the sheriff said.
“Well, these are already pre-dug,” Jennings said. He went on, “Ive known two or three hit men. Theyre very quiet guys. And would cut no fucking mercy.”
Bruce had been threatened before, but this felt different. According to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, forty-one journalists in the country were physically assaulted last year. Since 2001, at least thirteen have been killed. That includes Jeff German, a reporter at the Las Vegas *Review-Journal*, who, last fall, was stabbed outside his home in Clark County. The countys former administrator, Robert Telles, has been charged with his murder. Telles had been voted out of office after German reported that he contributed to a hostile workplace and had an inappropriate relationship with an employee. (Telles denied the reporting and has pleaded not guilty.)
When Bruce urged Chris to buy more life insurance, Chris demanded to hear the secret recording. The playback physically sickened him. Bruce took the tape to the Idabel Police Department. Mark Matloff, the district attorney, sent it to state officials in Oklahoma City, who began an investigation.
Chris started wearing an AirTag tracker in his sock when he played late-night gigs. He carried a handgun in his car, then stopped—he and Angie worried that an officer could shoot him and claim self-defense. He talked incessantly about “disappearing” to another state. At one point, he told his dad, “I cursed our lives by deciding to move here.”
It was tempting to think that everybody was watching too much “Ozark.” But one veteran law-enforcement official took the meeting remarks seriously enough to park outside Chris and Angies house at night, to keep watch. “Theres an undertone of violence in the whole conversation,” this official told me. “Were hiring a hit man, were hanging people, were driving vehicles into the McCurtain *Gazette*. These are the people that are *running* your sheriffs office.”
On Saturday, April 15th, the newspaper published a front-page article, headlined “*County officials discuss killing, burying Gazette reporters*.” The revelation that McCurtain Countys leadership had been caught talking wistfully about lynching and about the idea of murdering journalists became global news. “Both the FBI and the Oklahoma Attorney Generals Office now have the full audio,” the *Gazette* reported. (The McCurtain County Board of Commissioners declined to speak with me. A lawyer for the sheriffs office wrote, in response to a list of questions, that “numerous of your alleged facts are inaccurate, embellished or outright untrue.”)
On the eve of the storys publication, Chris and his family had taken refuge in Hot Springs, Arkansas. They were still there when, that Sunday, Kevin Stitt, the governor of Oklahoma, publicly demanded the resignations of Clardy, Manning, Hendrix, and Jennings. The next day, protesters rallied at the McCurtain County commissioners meeting. Jennings, the boards chairman, resigned two days later. No one else did. The sheriffs department responded to the *Gazettes* reporting by calling Bruces actions illegal and the audio “altered.” (Chris told me that he reduced the background noise in the audio file before Bruce took it to the police.)
People wanted to hear the recording, not just read about it, but the *Gazette* had no Web site. No one had posted on the newspapers Facebook page since 2019, when Kiara Wimbley won the Little Miss Owa Chito pageant. The Willinghams published an oversized QR code on the front page of the April 20th issue, linking to a Dropbox folder that contained the audio and Angies best attempt at a transcript. They eventually put Chriss articles online.
In a rare move, the seventeen-member board of the Oklahoma Sheriffs Association voted unanimously to suspend the memberships of Clardy, Manning, and Hendrix. The censure blocked them from conferences and symbolically ostracized them from Oklahomas seventy-six other sheriffs. “When one goes bad, it has a devastating effect on everybody,” Ray McNair, the executive director, told me. Craig Young, Idabels mayor, said, “It kind of hurt everyone to realize weve had these kind of leaders in place.”
Young was among those who hoped that Gentner Drummond, the attorney general, would depose the sheriff “so we can start to recover.” But, on June 30th, Drummond ended his investigation by informing Governor Stitt that although the McCurtain County officials conversation was “inflammatory” and “offensive,” it wasnt criminal. There would be no charges. If Clardy were to be removed from office, voters would have to do it.
Decades ago, Bruce launched “Call the Editor,” a regular feature on the *Gazettes* opinion page. Readers vent anonymously to the newspapers answering machine, and Bruce publishes some of the transcribed messages. When the world ran out of answering machines, he grudgingly upgraded to digital, which requires plugging the fax cable into his computer every afternoon at five and switching it back the next morning. A caller might refer to Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer as “buffoons,” or ask, Why is the Fire Department charging me a fifty-cent fee? There have been many recent messages about the sheriff and the commissioners, including direct addresses to Clardy: “The people arent supposed to be scared . . . of you or others that wear a badge.”
Bruce and Gwen worried that the ongoing stress would drive Chris and Angie away from the *Gazette*—and from McCurtain County. Sure enough, theyre moving to Tulsa. Angie told me, “Were forty years old. Weve been doing this half our lives. At some point, we need to think of our own happiness, and our familys welfare.” Bruce protested, but he couldnt much blame them. ♦
The newspaper managed to secretly record a county meeting and caught officials talking about the idea of killing *Gazette* reporters.
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# A Truckers Kidnapping, a Suspicious Ransom, and a Colorado Familys Perilous Quest for Justice
**“Why havent we killed him already?”**. It was one of the few things Orlando León could hear his captors arguing about through the sound of rain pounding on a metal roof in Guatemala. From where he sat with his hands bound in front of him and a hood pulled over his head, he wondered the same thing: *How was he still alive? And how long had he been sitting there*?
A metallic taste filled Orlandos mouth as blood dripped from the gums where his top four front teeth had once been. It was difficult to see anything through the hood, but Orlando knew he was in a cemetery. Before his kidnappers had shoved him inside a small building, hed been able to make out the silhouettes of gravestones and crosses when flashes of lightning illuminated them against the dark backdrop of the jungle. Judging from other stories hed heard about kidnappings in Guatemala, he figured his abductors had already dug an unmarked grave for him.
“What do you want from me?” Orlando asked.
“Shut up, you son of a bitch,” one of the captors said.
The other men inside the room continued arguing in hushed tones before appearing to come to an agreement. Orlando could hear them rustling around. “Use these,” one of them said amid the beeps of cell phones being turned off and on. “They could be tracking us.” Then, before using one from what Orlando presumed to be a bag full of burner phones, the men demanded a number from him.
Thousands of miles away in Aurora, Sylvia Galván Cedillos cell lit up with a call from an unknown number in Guatemala. It was October 19, 2014, and it had been almost 12 hours since relatives in Guatemala alerted her that a group of men had snatched her husband from the streets of his ancestral village of Aldea Zarzal. Since then, her house had sounded like an emergency call center. Sylvia and her daughter, 28-year-old Alondra León, tried to find out more about who Orlando had recently been in contact with. And her sons, Chris and Elvis León, then 27 and 30 years old, respectively, had reported the kidnapping to the Aurora Police Department—although, according to the family, Aurora PD failed to take a report once it heard the incident was in Guatemala. Officers instructed them to contact the FBI.
So, the family turned to other officials, including the FBI (who the family says advised them to file a report online but declined to get involved right away), as well as the Guatemalan consulate in Denver, Guatemalas national police, and local police in the Zacapa region of Guatemala where Orlando had last been seen.
After Sylvia saw the unknown number on her screen, she answered uneasily.
“Call the police again and well kill your husband,” a man said.
A jostling sound obscured the other end of the line before Sylvia heard a familiar voice. “Stop asking around about these guys,” Orlando said to his wife. “Just do what they say!”
Before hanging up, the callers said theyd be in touch. Now the León family felt even more unsettled. How had the kidnappers known theyd been calling police in Guatemala? Later, the family would speculate that alerting both the local and national police put enough pressure on Orlandos captors to save his life, but in the panic of that day, it seemed that any move might be the difference between life and death. Sylvia couldnt make sense of it. Why had Orlando been kidnapped? Her husband had simply made a routine trip down to Guatemala to sell used cars from America like he had dozens of times before.
Another call came in after midnight in Colorado. This time, the kidnappers issued instructions: Orlando could live, and they would spare his Guatemalan relatives as well, if Sylvia deposited $7,000 into a specified bank account at Wells Fargo. Sylvia and her son, Elvis, say they didnt question the request and remember going to a Wells Fargo branch on a Monday morning to pay the ransom.
The promise of the money compelled his captors to let Orlando go free, but while Sylvia and Elvis were at the bank, something else happened: As Sylvia gave a female bank teller the account number, Sylvia divulged that the deposit was a ransom payment. Sylvia asked the teller if she would be willing to share the name and address of the account holder. The bank teller initially declined and cited a privacy policy. But after Sylvia shared details of the familys plight, the Wells Fargo employee, according to Sylvia and Elvis, discreetly turned her computer screen around so that it faced the mother and son. “This money isnt going to Guatemala,” the teller said.
Elvis and Sylvias eyes went wide as they realized their money was being routed to a bank account in the Denver metro area. They werent sure yet, but it occurred to them that it was possible Orlando had been kidnapped by associates of the very people whod hired him to transport cars from Colorado to Guatemala.
![](https://cdn.5280.com/2023/04/Sylvia-and-Orlando-Leon_AmandaLopezPhoto_1M5A9953.jpg)
Orlando León and Sylvia Galván Cedillo this past winter in Colorado. Photo by Amanda López
**Drive along the highways of south Texas,** or in Mexicos eastern states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz, and Tabasco, and theyre hard to miss: caravans of used passenger vehicles, usually old pickup trucks, heading southbound toward Central America. Oftentimes, the used autos are piled high with secondhand goods, such as washing machines and motorbikes, and theyre typically hauling a second passenger vehicle behind them with torn pieces of duct tape spelling out “In Tow” on a rear hitch or window. The drivers of these vehicles are transmigrantes, a term derived from a special visa program that the Mexican government devised to allow goods and vehicles to move overland from the United States to Central America along designated highways and without drivers having to pay high import-export fees.
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the idea behind the program was to allow families in the United States to move—or transmigrate—across Mexico to Central America while not imposing heavy customs duties on items they brought along with them. Other times, individuals from the United States use the visa to personally transport goods (which theyre not allowed to sell in Mexico) to family members in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, often during the holiday season. Over the past three decades, though, an entire industry of freelance truckers has arisen around the program and its tax loopholes.
Like many who fall into the transmigrante trade, Enrique Orlando León has Central American roots. A skilled auto mechanic, Orlando grew up in rural Guatemala, moved to the United States in the 1970s, and met his wife, Sylvia, in Los Angeles, where they had three children. In 1995, the family of five moved to Colorados Front Range to escape their gang-troubled neighborhood in Southern California.
It was not long afterward that Orlando—now 67 years old, with salt-and-pepper hair often hidden beneath a baseball cap—attended an auto auction in Highlands Ranch, where he met a man who described how hed been transporting used cars he bought in Colorado to Central America. To cut down on customs fees, the man explained, hed been using Mexicos transmigrante program—and was generating handsome profits by selling the vehicles in Guatemala. “You can earn 100 percent returns,” the man told Orlando. “Even up to 200 percent, depending on the type of vehicle.”
Intrigued, Orlando checked out the mans claims. Not only was it completely legal to use the transmigrante program in this way, Orlando learned, but it was also a classic arbitrage scenario, the term economists use when the same item has different prices in separate markets. Certain types of cars were in much higher demand in Guatemala, with price tags significantly elevated over their counterparts in the United States. And the most sought-after vehicles of all? Toyota pickup trucks—especially Tacomas—which farmers in Guatemala like to use to move materials up and down steep rural roads. “Back then \[in the 90s and 2000s\], if you found a used Toyota pickup here for $900,” Orlando says, “you could sell it in Guatemala for $3,000.”
As it turned out, Orlando had inadvertently moved his family to an ideal home base for work as a Guatemala-bound transmigrante. For a while, he remembers, Colorado seemed to be a gold mine of cheap Toyota pickups, and his skills as a mechanic paid off when he bought and repaired salvage vehicles from local auto auctions such as Copart, as well as online resources like Craigslist and, later, Facebook Marketplace. With I-25 and I-70 merging in Denver, the Centennial States central location also makes it an ideal staging ground for local transmigrantes who make trips to fetch used vehicles in states like Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana.
From the start, Sylvia didnt love her husbands new profession. Early on, Sylvia noticed that Orlandos profits were actually pretty meager after factoring in what he spent on gas, motels, bribes, repairs, and flights home. “And when he left, it was always more work for me to take care of the children,” she says.
Then there were the inherent dangers of the job, which even Orlando readily lists: car accidents, highway robberies, police shakedowns, and running the gauntlet through cartel territory, which could involve payoffs or far scarier run-ins, including kidnappings. To mitigate those risks, transmigrantes stick together in caravans, and it wasnt long before Orlando befriended other drivers in Colorado—a group he currently estimates to be about 30 strong. Among them is Jorge Reyna, who lives in Capitol Hill and has been doing transmigrante runs since 1987. Like Sylvia, Reyna points out that the financial incentives of transmigrante work dont always justify the effort or the risk, but he has always had other reasons for doing the trips. “Its a job that doesnt enslave you like all those people who work five days a week, eight hours a day, in an office,” Reyna says.
Plus, Reyna explains, being a transmigrante allows Guatemalan-born men like himself and Orlando to maintain a connection with their families and ancestral homelands. “We bring things that help people in Guatemala,” Reyna says. Whenever transmigrantes deliver cars and other requested items, like televisions, washing machines, clothing, and furniture, theyre hauling away Americas detritus for a second life in Guatemala. Americas excess becomes Guatemalas gain.
“This is a good thing for the people of Guatemala,” Reyna says. After enduring a 36-year civil war that ended in 1996 and resulted in the deaths of as many as 200,000 people, Guatemala has had to play catch-up with the economy of the modern world—and goods from America help in that process. The main problem, as Orlando and Reyna learned, is that not everyone surrounding the transmigrante trade is so noble-minded.
**In 2011, Orlando felt like hed caught a break.** During his decade-plus of transmigrante runs, it had always been time-consuming work finding leads on used trucks, checking under their hoods, and oftentimes losing bids for those vehicles at auctions. Cheap Toyota trucks were also becoming increasingly difficult to come by. It seemed like transmigrantes across the American West scoured the same auction sites and Facebook pages that Orlando used. Where hundreds of transmigrantes used to cross the Texas border each month in the late 1990s, now hundreds, sometimes thousands, were doing so every week. So, when Orlando met a Guatemalan family in Colorado who wanted to hire him to move their cars and their goods, the Aurora mechanic seized the opportunity to do some contract work.
Over the next three years, Orlando estimates he did half a dozen trips as a hired hand for one family. (*5280* is not naming Orlandos employers at the request of the León family and because the individuals have not been charged with any crimes.) Orlando says he never examined the cargo in the vehicles that closely, and everything always passed inspections at the U.S.-Mexico border. “But I also never suspected anything was up,” he adds.
That would all change in September 2014, when his Colorado employers asked if he could drive a box truck full of furniture to Guatemala. Orlando initially told them he was busy; he was already planning to transport a school bus hed bought to resell in Guatemala and had promised to drive the bus in a caravan full of other transmigrantes, including Reyna. But when Reyna heard about his friends dilemma and suggested another driver that Orlando could subcontract with to drive the box truck, the Colorado employers gave Orlando the go-ahead.
Later that month, the caravan set off from the Texas border and rumbled southbound through Mexico. Before nightfall, the weather turned rainy, and as the hours stretched on, the box truck got well ahead of Orlando and Reyna. Daylight disappeared as the caravan passed the city of Naranjos in Veracruz. Thats when they saw the brake lights. The word was that there was an accident ahead—and it involved a big rig and a box truck.
By the time Orlando realized his hired driver had flipped his vehicle sideways in a drainage ditch while trying to avoid a wayward semi, Mexican police had already stuck the driver into a hospital-bound ambulance and were working to impound the damaged vehicle. Knowing the Mexican police would likely confiscate everything they could, given the opportunity, Orlando says he paid the cops $600 in cash so they wouldnt rob the truck he was supposed to deliver to Guatemala. Still, it would take nearly four weeks for Orlando to get the box truck out of the impound lot and tow the wreckage to Guatemala.
Much to Orlandos relief, Carlos,\* the recipient of the box truck, seemed in relatively good spirits when Orlando handed it off to him near the Mexico-Guatemala border on October 13. To make up for the delay in delivery, Orlando had promised to provide a comparable box truck to make up for the damaged one, and Carlos agreed to the transmigrantes offer. So, when Orlando traveled six hours away from the border to stay with his sister in Aldea Zarzal, he figured the ordeal was mostly over. A few days later, however, Carlos knocked on Orlandos sisters front door at 8:30 a.m. and asked if Orlando had time to grab coffee with him and two of his friends.
As soon as Orlando stepped out into the street, he felt the butt of a pistol slam against his face. A villager would later find Orlandos teeth lying in the roadside grass. It was only after the Coloradan regained consciousness and found himself in the cemetery that he began to question the legitimacy of the delivery hed made. *Had Mexican authorities, despite their assurances, stolen anything while the truck sat in impound? And what, exactly, had been inside*?
Even now—years later—Orlando still hears rumors about what may have been concealed in the trucks cargo, including guns or even up to $2 million in cash hidden inside pieces of furniture. If that much money had gone missing, though, Orlando doesnt think hed be alive—or that hed have been able to negotiate his release for such a comparatively small sum. While his kidnappers originally asked for $15,000, Orlando says he negotiated it down to $7,000 by telling his captors they could keep the school bus hed driven down to sell in Guatemala. Only in retrospect does it appear that some outside factor—perhaps his familys calls to local Guatemalan police—saved him from a shallow, unmarked grave.
![](https://cdn.5280.com/2023/04/Orlando_Leon_injuries_courtesy_elvis_leon.jpg)
Photos of Orlando Leóns injuries from a Guatemalan police report and an X-ray that he had done after his kidnapping. Photos courtesy of Elvis León
**Orlando managed to escape** Guatemala with his life, but now he craved justice. No sooner had he returned to Colorado than the León family began approaching numerous U.S. law enforcement agencies—and politicians. This included a second conversation with the Aurora Police Department, which did send an officer to the León home on October 26, 2014, to take a report, but only after Morgan Carroll, then a Colorado state senator, had heard about the situation and called the department to ask it to do something. Once again, Aurora Police referred the Leóns to the FBI, who the Leóns say told them that the Wells Fargo account Sylvia and Elvis had deposited money into had multiple account holders. Although the name Sylvia had written down at the bank was a person related to Orlandos ex-employers, it would be difficult to prove in court who actually received the money. (In a statement to *5280*, the FBI could not “confirm or deny” that the agency ever looked into the matter.)
Orlando then approached the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) after other Guatemalans in Denver suggested that his employers may have been involved in narco-trafficking. The DEA, according to the León family, told them two things: that the agency believed they were in imminent danger and should move, and that it found Orlandos story too suspicious to accept at face value. This included the fact that Orlando had been kidnapped by a man in Guatemala—Carlos—whom he had delivered vehicles to before and could easily identify. “They basically said that there were a lot of red flags in this story,” remembers Orlandos son Elvis, who had begun helping his Spanish-speaking parents interface with U.S. law enforcement agencies. “The DEA said that my dad knew more than he was letting on, and unless he confessed that he was selling drugs, or moving money and guns for these guys, that they would not move forward with us.”
While the answer frustrated Orlando, who swore he had no knowledge of illegal activity before his kidnapping, the DEAs response insulted Elvis. The now 38-year-old Army veteran had served a tour in Iraq and thought his military service would help get agencies like the DEA to take his familys situation seriously. As Elvis saw it, his father—a permanent legal resident—was inviting powerful federal agencies to pick over the details of his life and work. Orlando himself had also told the DEA that there couldve been contraband in the cars hed transported from Colorado. *Why*, Elvis wondered, *was his father being asked to confess to the very things he wanted the feds to investigate*?
It would take finding an agent with personal experience investigating Guatemalan criminal activity in Colorado for Orlando to gain any traction. In 2016, after a year and a half of dead ends with other federal agencies, Elvis and Orlando walked into a U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) office in Greenwood Village and were directed to Andrew Anderson. The HSI agent had previously investigated another Colorado incident in which unsuspecting drivers moved contraband to Guatemala. That 2010 case [involved a shipping company](https://www.denverpost.com/2010/11/30/feds-probing-aurora-shipper-over-guns-bound-for-guatemala/) called Transportes Zuleta, an unwitting, DHL-type outfit that a number of Colorado-based criminals took advantage of and used to illegally ship guns to Guatemala by hiding weapons inside speakers and televisions. As Anderson worked that case and helped nab one suspect in an undercover gun buy, the white, Spanish-speaking agent came to develop a variety of Guatemalan sources around Denver. “Whats unique about the Guatemalan community here is that they all seem to know each other,” Anderson says.
When Anderson, who is now retired, learned the details surrounding Orlandos kidnapping, not only did the story of an innocent driver bear resemblances to the Transportes Zuleta case, but Anderson was also able to go back to various sources and vet Orlandos reputation. “I had several people say, I know that guy; hes a great guy. He takes cars to Guatemala,’ ” Anderson says. The references matched Andersons own sense of the man. “He seemed just to me like an older, hardworking guy,” he says. “I didnt have any reason to think he was involved in anything.”
The agent felt comfortable enough around Orlando that he decided to take him on a few ride-alongs so that Orlando could help identify the people whod hired him in Colorado, as well as point out properties where he had picked up vehicles. Anderson recalls some of the locations being isolated pieces of ranchland, making them difficult targets for in-person surveillance.
Surveillance difficulties werent the only issue, though. Once Anderson started asking around to see if any of his old sources knew the suspects—and might be willing to gather intel on them—the agent learned that people were intimidated by Orlandos former employers. The word was they had guns. And money. The federal agent soon began to understand why the León family was so afraid.
**By the time Orlando began doing ride-alongs** with Anderson in late 2016, there had already been a number of developments in his kidnapping case south of the U.S. border. Based on a police report that Orlando had submitted before hed returned to Colorado, the Policía Nacional Civil—Guatemalas national police—had arrested one of his captors in March 2015. As *La Prensa Libre*, a Guatemalan newspaper, reported, Carlos “was captured in El Molino…. He is accused of having participated in the kidnapping of a businessman in October of 2014.”
When the León family heard the news, Elvis says he and his parents were shocked. “This doesnt happen in a place like Guatemala,” Elvis says. “No one gets arrested there.” The report was cause for celebration, some of which Elvis captured on video. With his parents permission, he had begun filming his familys experiences for a possible documentary. After leaving the Army on an honorable discharge, Elvis had studied film production at Aurora Community College and Regis University on the GI Bill. With a few documentary shorts in his [portfolio](https://www.storiesbyelvis.com/) (*Cecil & Carl*, a film about an aging gay couple in Denver, played at 50 international festivals and earned eight awards), the budding auteur realized that, in the aftermath of his fathers kidnapping, he had intimate access to one of the most compelling human dramas he could imagine.
The project would eventually consume him and grow to include more than 600 hours of footage. But even from the start, Elvis recognized a second incentive to capture video: By documenting the incidents that had started to befall his family in Colorado post-kidnapping, he could gather evidence for law enforcement.
Not long after Carlos arrest in Guatemala, Sylvia says cars with tinted windows would slowly drive by the familys Aurora home; in one case, Orlando remembers a vehicle parking directly in front of the house and idling there for hours with its engine on. The couple, who had never owned firearms, started keeping weapons in their house and taking target practice on the weekends. They installed security cameras around the property.
![](https://cdn.5280.com/2023/04/Elvis-Lean_AmandaLopezPhoto_1M5A0423.jpg)
Elvis, Orlando and Sylvias son, has documented his fathers ordeal on video. Photo by Amanda López
Then the family began getting calls from Guatemala, some of which Elvis captured on video. Orlandos relatives told him they were receiving death threats—including warnings that they would “eat worms”—and begged Orlando to drop his accusation against Carlos. Another time, Orlando says one of Carlos lawyers called him and offered to pay back the ransom money, which he refused. Finally, Orlando says he got three calls from Carlos himself, from inside the jail where he was being held before trial. “In Guatemala, if you pay the police enough money, theyll let you do anything inside a jail,” Orlando says. “So, Carlos calls me and says, Cmon, how much money do you need? And I said, I cant do anything for you.’ ”
The threats to Orlandos relatives only escalated, and he grew more embittered that the investigation wasnt going anywhere. Elvis noticed his dad became desperate to gather more evidence. At night, Orlando had begun playing detective, driving around to map out the various homes and companies the Colorado suspects owned. While Orlando never saw any of the suspects, everyone in the León family feared that Orlandos sleuthing might lead to his death.
By mid-2017, the case in Guatemala seemed to have stalled; Carlos trial had been delayed for more than two years, and it still wasnt clear to anyone when or if it would actually happen. The family also heard less and less from HSI, until August 2019, when Anderson delivered bad news: Without any inside sources or a suspect they could flip in Colorado, his agency couldnt gather enough evidence on Orlandos ex-employers to continue its investigation.
As disappointing as this development was, Sylvia prayed her husband might take Andersons news as a sign to give up his quest for justice. The strange cars driving by the house, the veiled threats, the constant fear—it was getting to her. “We had many fights about this,” she remembers. “I told him, You are free. You are well. Think about how many times they kidnap someone and you never see them again. So please stop for us, OK?’ ”
Orlando remained implacable. He said he had to see his case through. Although Sylvia believed her husband ignored many of her pleas, she was able to get Orlando to agree to one concession: that he wouldnt leave the United States on transmigrante runs. Per their agreement, he would only take used cars as far Los Indios, Texas, to hand them off to other drivers. After all, she said, the border was dangerous enough.
**The Free Trade International Bridge,** a four-lane highway with barbed wire fences that spans approximately 500 feet across an emerald green section of the Rio Grande between Los Indios, Texas, and Matamoros, Mexico, has traditionally been the only border crossing that transmigrantes could use under Mexicos visa program. That changed in March 2021, when a second port of entry in Presidio, Texas, opened. Still, Los Indios continues to see the vast majority of transmigrantes. According to data compiled by Cameron County, Texas, around 5,000 transmigrantes enter Mexico through there every month. Those numbers have created a cottage industry in Los Indios, which includes not just rest stops, convenience stores, and dorms for transmigrantes, but also so-called forwarding agencies, which transmigrantes use to pay document fees, get visa paperwork approved by Mexican officials, and get sign-off from U.S. customs agents (who check to make sure vehicles leaving the United States are not stolen).
Forwarding agencies are viewed as necessary middlemen who help transmigrantes navigate government bureaucracy. When Orlando and Reyna first started doing their trips, these agencies fees were negligible. But starting around 2011, the prices charged by every agency in town began climbing; by 2022, it wasnt uncommon for a transmigrante to pay almost $500 per vehicle in various fees.
According to [a federal indictment](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/criminal-charges-unsealed-against-12-individuals-wide-ranging-scheme-monopolize-transmigran-0) unsealed by a U.S. District Court judge in December 2022, there were nefarious reasons behind the price hikes. A group of alleged extortionists, some of whom are U.S. citizens with family ties to the Matamoros-based Gulf Cartel, are accused of coercing Los Indios forwarding agencies into a price-fixing scheme. When some industry personnel refused to go along with the conspiracy, things turned violent.
On March 9, 2019, a woman who handled transmigrante paperwork and had refused to pay bribes or engage in price-fixing had driven just beyond the Free Trade International Bridge and was inside Mexican territory when gunshots crackled around her. The woman, whose identity has been concealed in the federal indictment, was shot but survived. Another industry worker she was with, Rocio Alderete, died at the scene.
Eight months later, more bullets: On November 5, 2019, three forwarding agency employees from another company that had refused to go along with extortion demands found themselves in the gunsights of assassins. This time, all three employees who had traveled to the Mexican side of the border died from gunshot wounds.
The killings laid bare a dark side of the transmigrante industry. Everyone, including Orlando and Reyna, heard about them. As the U.S. Department of Justice would reveal in its indictment charging a dozen individuals for 11 crimes, including extortion and money laundering, the accused criminal ring may have siphoned $27 million worth of fees and bribes from transmigrantes since 2011. According to one person *5280* spoke with in Los Indios who asked not to be named because the court cases are still pending, that figure is conservative.
“We do everything we can to reduce border violence,” says HSI acting deputy special agent in charge Mark Lippa, “and we understand that theres a legitimate means for \[transmigrantes\] to operate in our border area.” For the transmigrante community at large, the indictment signaled that not only were American authorities approving the trade publicly, but they were also finally coming in to protect it.
**Orlando cannot say the same for himself**—in this country or in Guatemala. It is a truth he will likely never get over. On a recent day in early February, Orlando met up with Jorge Reyna at an auto junkyard near Watkins, the two veteran transmigrantes sporting oil-stained sweatshirts to protect themselves against the Eastern Plains subfreezing chill.
In a hushed tone, Orlando mentioned that, just the week before, the last active case against his kidnappers had been dropped by a Guatemalan judge. He knew he should have expected this; history was simply repeating itself.
In fall 2017, Orlando had gone to Guatemala to testify in Carlos trial. At considerable risk, the then 62-year-old had arranged an in-and-out operation so that he could show up at the courthouse just long enough to take the stand. Less than two weeks later, though, the judge dismissed the case. Prosecutors blamed Sylvia, a key witness, for not testifying in person—shed been too afraid to go to Guatemala. But rumors also circulated about payoffs to court personnel and threats that influenced other witnesses testimonies.
Elvis says that moment, along with HSIs later decision to drop the case, triggered something of a collapse for the León family. After everything theyd endured, it seemed like everyone had abandoned them. Without a direction or tidy ending, Elvis documentary project floundered. “Everyone was always like, *This is amazing. It has Netflix written all over it*,” says Elvis, who has since moved to LA. [But no one would actually write a check.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwI4hadf-Vw)
Arguments between his parents spiraled. “Im not remaining silent, because everyone else remains silent,” Orlando would often tell Sylvia as he continued to press Guatemalan police to make arrests. “Thats what has allowed gangs to take over. I have to try to help others so that the same thing that happened to me cant happen to them.”
“That fight is so big for just one man,” Sylvia would respond.
Not everyone would say Orlandos crusade is irrational. According to Jeff Brand, a Boston-based psychologist who wrote his doctoral dissertation on [trauma in Guatemala](https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/48169/PDF/1/play/), some people simply cannot “get over” their trauma—nor should they be expected to—especially if they come from a culture fraught with violence. While not remarking on Orlandos particular case, the psychologist says, “The idea of alleviating trauma symptoms and putting it behind me may mean nothing when I know that, at any moment, it could happen to me again, or to the people I love, or to the community I call home.”
But home remains elusive for Orlando. While hed like to retire in Guatemala someday, its still too dangerous for him there. So, he stays in Colorado, where the peril still feels very real—his ex-employer still lives in the Centennial State, and whispers suggest that hes been asking around for Orlandos new cell number—albeit maybe less brazen.
As Orlando and Reyna neared the heart of the junkyard, mangy dogs danced around their feet in a sludgy mixture of mud and snow. After sidestepping a piece of plywood, the two men emerged into a clearing filled with nearly a dozen used Toyota trucks with Colorado and Wyoming plates. Orlando smiled wistfully. Soon, these vehicles would be filled with used items and a group of transmigrantes would take them down through Los Indios—more American waste finding a second chance in Guatemala.
Orlando still hopes for another chance, too. “They may be abandoning them,” Orlando says of the cases against two of Carlos alleged co-conspirators in Guatemala. “But, in my mind, I know that someone is going to help me find justice one day.”
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# A Young Man's Path Through the Mental Health Care System Led to Prison — and a Fatal Encounter | Crime | Seven Days
Published September 6, 2023 at 10:00 a.m.
Updated September 13, 2023 at 10:09 a.m.
![Mbyayenge "Robbie" Mafuta's yearbook photo - COURTESY](https://media2.sevendaysvt.com/sevendaysvt/imager/u/blog/39042208/crime1-1-8ba7d53afeda25bf.jpg)
- Courtesy
- Mbyayenge "Robbie" Mafuta's yearbook photo
H e was being hunted — he was certain of it. Bus passengers studied him from the corners of their eyes. Trucks kept circling the block. Strangers hovered close. He heard shouts and screams, spectral sounds usually shrugged off as urban din. But on this windy December night in 2020, the young man took them as clues that assassins were closing in.
He hid inside a downtown café and called Burlington police for help. Soon, nurses at the University of Vermont Medical Center were introduced to Mbyayenge Mafuta. Friends knew him by his nickname, Robbie, which he pronounced in an unusual way, ROW-bee, that sounded like the name of the six-inch Bowie knife he'd begun carrying for protection.
#### about this story
Our reporting is based upon hundreds of pages of court documents, police reports and interviews with Mbyayenge "Robbie" Mafuta and people who know him. *Seven Days* also obtained Mafuta's medical records from his court-appointed attorneys, with Mafuta's permission.
Clinicians sketched a profile of the new patient: 19 years old, Black, clean-shaven, no known psychiatric history. He was paranoid, and likely hallucinating. "I am being followed by a group of people unknown to me," Mafuta told a nurse. She escorted him to Room 37, one of two in the emergency department outfitted with retractable metal screens used to shield medical equipment when patients lash out during a psychotic episode.
A specialist arrived two hours later and began asking questions. The first was easy: Where do you live?
"In my head," Mafuta answered.
Over the next two years, Mafuta's name and face would become familiar to doctors, police, correctional officers and residents of a city increasingly anxious about the interlocking problems of mental illness, homelessness and crime. He would return to the hospital again and again and take to sleeping on downtown park benches. He would be tackled and tased during a publicized run-in with Burlington cops, stoking a policing debate that had been ignited by George Floyd's murder. During a heated local election campaign, city officials would deploy Mafuta as a symbol of decaying public safety.
Then, in a matter of seconds inside a St. Albans prison last December, Mafuta [beat and gravely injured his cellmate](https://m.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/victim-dies-following-alleged-beating-in-vermont-prison-cell/Content?oid=37769211). Mafuta stepped outside their cell that day, dazed and bloody, as prison officers scrambled to save Jeffrey Hall, who subsequently died in a hospital. Last month, Mafuta appeared in a Franklin County courtroom to answer a charge of murder.
The bare facts of the attack seem to point to a dangerous and volatile defendant whose destructive impulses flared in prison. But interviews with Mafuta and people close to him, as well as a review of police records and hundreds of pages of medical charts, reveal a far more complicated chain of events.
This more disquieting account is the story of a young immigrant who endured childhood trauma but matured into a gifted and charismatic teen — only to sink into a quicksand of mental illness and homelessness from which an overtaxed, fragmented network of care was unable to rescue him. His descent offers a telling glimpse into the inadequacies of a system that provides limited support during the early stages of psychiatric illness, forcing the machinery of criminal justice to respond when crises result.
If Mafuta's murder case makes it to trial, his attorneys will seek to convince jurors that he was not guilty because he was insane when he attacked Hall, a finding no Vermont jury has delivered in living memory. Mafuta's future could hinge on what a dozen people in law-and-order Franklin County imagine was going through his mind during a 30-second spasm of violence.
But the path to the events of Cell 17 travels first, two years earlier, through Room 37 in UVM's emergency department, where a frightened teenager went to feel safe.
---
### 'I Had to Grow Up Really Fast'
![Mafuta playing for the South Burlington Dolphins as No. 77 - COURTESY OF SOUTH BURLINGTON DOLPHINS](https://media1.sevendaysvt.com/sevendaysvt/imager/u/blog/39042209/crime1-2-7dabc63d54053d1b.jpg)
- Courtesy Of South Burlington Dolphins
- Mafuta playing for the South Burlington Dolphins as No. 77
Mafuta was suspicious of the man taking notes. Mafuta had been sitting in the emergency department for more than two hours, exposed in his hospital gown, nervously spinning the identification bracelet around his wrist. His eyes checked the doorway. Even here, he did not know whom to trust.
His interlocutor worked with an [all-hours crisis service](https://howardcenter.org/first-call-for-chittenden-county/) run by Chittenden County's mental health provider, Howard Center. At first, Mafuta evaded the queries. But the therapist, an immigrant like him, specialized in working with young, traumatized adults, and with gentle questioning Mafuta began to reveal some details about his life.
Again and again, Mafuta had lost people close to him: his biological mother, who lived on another continent; a caseworker who died of cancer; a friend who drowned in Lake Champlain. Now he felt alone and unmoored in the place where he'd grown up. Explaining that to the stranger in Room 37 transported Mafuta to the furthest reaches of his memory, to those of the young child who departed the Democratic Republic of the Congo for the United States.
Had they come as refugees? He wasn't sure. He knew he was 5 when he'd said goodbye to his mother and boarded an airplane to Indiana with his father, younger brother and stepmother. He was in elementary school when the family later moved to a brick apartment building in Essex, wedged into a suburban neighborhood of mostly single-family houses.
![Mbyayenge "Robbie" Mafuta' - COURTESY OF SOUTH BURLINGTON DOLPHINS](https://media1.sevendaysvt.com/sevendaysvt/imager/u/blog/39042211/crime1-4-6d3408e9399244e9.jpg)
- Courtesy Of South Burlington Dolphins
- Mbyayenge "Robbie" Mafuta'
Mafuta, outgoing and adventurous, wandered into the backyards of neighbors. He knocked on doors to ask for rides to school when he missed the bus. Some neighbors invited Mafuta into their homes to play Xbox with their kids. Others yelled at the Mafuta boys for playing with their family's toys, telling police they thought the children might steal them.
Inside the family's sparsely furnished apartment, Mafuta's father, Ponda, expected obedience, Mafuta would later recall. Mafuta had chores by the time he was 8 years old, and when he didn't do them, his father punished him harshly. When Ponda came home one afternoon to discover his son playing in the yard, Mafuta ran inside and pretended to sort the laundry, still dirty. The boy's screams reached the downstairs neighbor, Patrick Graziano, who was accustomed to loud noises from above, but nothing like this.
"You can tell when a child is in fear," he said.
Graziano ran upstairs, pushed open the Mafutas' door and found Ponda swinging a shoe at his son, who had curled defensively in a ball. Graziano pinned the man to the floor. The police took the father away in handcuffs.
It was the first of two times Ponda would face criminal charges for hitting his eldest child. The charges in both cases were later dropped, in one instance because Ponda agreed to go to specialized counseling for refugees and survivors of torture. (The elder Mafuta did not respond to interview requests.)
His son, nevertheless, was taken into state custody. Mafuta recalled moving from "one white house to the next" until he landed at Allenbrook, [a South Burlington group home](https://www.nfivermont.org/services/residential-programs/allenbrook-program/) for teens with behavioral challenges. He'd been diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder, and he saw a youth therapist.
Allenbrook had its own strictures. The home ran on a system tied to privileges. Residents gained points for doing their dishes, lost points for taking too long in the shower. Mafuta got in trouble for running away. More than once, he turned up at the playground of the Burlington apartment complex where his family had since moved.
He missed the African dishes his family cooked at home: fufu, pondu madesu. He missed his siblings. Even though Mafuta was scared of his father at times, he missed him, too.
"I had to grow up really fast," he told a caseworker years later.
Most of Mafuta's middle school peers in South Burlington had cellphones. He stole a teacher's so he could have one, too.
![Mafuta with the team - COURTESY OF SOUTH BURLINGTON DOLPHINS](https://media2.sevendaysvt.com/sevendaysvt/imager/u/blog/39042210/crime1-3-f156213f73ea579c.jpg)
- Courtesy Of South Burlington Dolphins
- Mafuta with the team
In sports, he found an outlet. The group home connected him to a youth football team, [the Dolphins](https://sbdolphins.com/), and coach Rene LaBerge showed him how to channel pent-up aggression into something positive. "I used football as a way to express myself," Mafuta later recalled.
By high school, he was a five-foot-10, 215-pound defensive standout and a frequent presence in opponents' backfields, disrupting plays before they began. He was named [all-state defensive lineman](https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/sports/high-school/football/2018/12/05/2018-vermont-h-s-football-coaches-all-state-teams/2220504002/) on the [inaugural Burlington-South Burlington varsity football squad](https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/sports/high-school/football/2018/08/13/what-know-burlington-south-burlington-football-cooperative/976555002/), the SeaWolves.
Once Mafuta learned to become a teammate, making friends came naturally. He brought dates to school dances and blew curfew to snack at Al's French Frys. He started making rap music with friends, including North Ave Jax, who now plays sold-out shows.
Around that time, Anais Carpentier, a junior, was struggling to find her place after moving to Vermont with her family. Mafuta introduced her to his friends and brought her to hangouts. "I got you," he told her. She'd drop him off at Allenbrook, and they'd lose track of time chatting in the parking lot.
"He's the reason high school wasn't that bad for me," Carpentier said.
Mafuta's senior classmates voted him as having the "most Wolfpack pride" — and roared when the high school principal called his name on graduation day in June 2019. His parents posed for photos alongside him in his cap and gown.
His time at Allenbrook was winding down. Mafuta hoped an athletics scholarship would propel him to college, maybe even Yale University. That didn't pan out, nor could he afford prep school. So as friends embarked for college, Mafuta went instead to Kentucky, where his father had found new work, to try to live with his parents again.
They continued to clash. Just before the pandemic, he moved back to Vermont on his own.
---
### Assassins and a Tapped Phone
![Mafuta and Anais Carpentier - COURTESY](https://media1.sevendaysvt.com/sevendaysvt/imager/u/blog/39042215/crime1-8-3cc3dd5e73fed617.jpg)
- Courtesy
- Mafuta and Anais Carpentier
The crisis therapist at the hospital in December 2020 wanted to know about those months between Mafuta's return to Vermont and his current, paranoid state. Mafuta, though, was fixated on the previous week. He had been hearing noises inside a recent girlfriend's home, Mafuta explained, but she told him he was imagining them. Then the mysterious troupe began stalking him.
"Writer doubts that this is the first episode," the therapist noted. "It is more likely that he has not revealed it before."
Mafuta had been under enormous stress. After returning to Burlington, he stayed with a friend's mother, who kicked him out because, she said, he kept smoking weed in the house. He bounced from couch to couch. The pandemic hit, and Mafuta began staying in state-sponsored motel rooms. He had no car, and the rooms had no kitchens.
Carpentier visited him in the run-down motels. But he became harder to find, and, at the end of summer 2020, she lost his trail.
A separate friend picked up Mafuta at Oakledge Park one evening. Taylor Chibuzo had only known Mafuta for a couple of years, but he had become her best friend. She'd look in awe at his journals, full of deft drawings and doodles. On this night, Mafuta seemed agitated. As she drove, he directed her to take abrupt turns because someone was following them. He seemed convinced that her phone was tapped. That night, Chibuzo found him standing in her front yard, staring at nothing but the pitch black.
It was the first time Chibuzo had felt uncomfortable around her friend. His paranoia made her wonder about schizophrenia, a disease she knew little about.
It was months before clinicians would deliver such a diagnosis, though [research on schizophrenia](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2021.686666/full) indicates that Mafuta's age, migrant background and history of childhood abuse put him at a higher risk for developing the disease. But psychosis has many causes, and diagnosing an underlying condition takes time. A hospital psychiatrist who assessed Mafuta that December night wondered whether his symptoms might have been a result of heavy cannabis use. The specialist encouraged him to stay at the hospital until his condition improved.
Mafuta seemed amenable, telling them his assassins would leave his body in a ditch if he returned to the street. Still, just a few hours later, he changed his mind and walked out.
Over the next few days, Mafuta contacted Burlington police repeatedly to express fear that he was being followed. Then someone called 911 from Lakeview Cemetery to report what they believed might be a body. It was Mafuta, alive but face down in the snow next to the grave of his friend who had [drowned in Lake Champlain](https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/2017/07/11/name-oakledge-drowning-victim-released/467961001/) several years earlier. Mafuta refused help but later showed up at the fire department asking for a ride to the emergency room. He left the hospital shortly after, only to return hours later, explaining that he hadn't been in the "right headspace" earlier. He agreed to be admitted to the psychiatric unit.
That day, Mafuta took his first dose of an antipsychotic medication. Over the week that followed, doctors noted that his paranoia seemed to subside. On December 18, he told them that he'd stopped hearing from a joke-telling "imaginary friend" and assured them that he had thrown away the cellphone he believed was tapped. He asked to be discharged.
Doctors urged him to stay a few more days so they could discuss a treatment plan going forward. Mafuta said he would schedule follow-up appointments on his own and sleep at a friend's house. The hospital ordered him a cab to help him get there.
---
### 'Something Must Be Going On'
![Mafuta with his lawyer Paul Groce - JAMES BUCK](https://media1.sevendaysvt.com/sevendaysvt/imager/u/blog/39042212/crime1-5-a0b3e7308f084f9a.jpg)
- James Buck
- Mafuta with his lawyer Paul Groce
Mafuta had reached a critical juncture. One or two psychotic episodes can cost someone a job, damage relationships and prompt encounters with the police. But intensive, ongoing care can, for some people, reverse that trajectory.
Vermont is the [only state without an intervention program known as coordinated specialty care](https://www.samhsa.gov/blog/new-tool-offers-hope-people-experiencing-early-serious-mental-illness-their-families), which the federal government says is proven to work. It's meant to prevent someone in the early stages of psychosis from spiraling toward deeper trouble. Some Vermont mental health workers, with state support, [have pioneered a similar yet distinct treatment approach](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32152853/) that marshals a team of therapists, family and friends to help a person address their needs. This more collaborative technique is not widely available, however, and most Vermonters do not receive such treatment. Mafuta wouldn't, either.
In the weeks following his December discharge, he had no further contact with the hospital or Howard Center, according to his medical records. Instead, he tried to solve mounting problems on his own.
Mafuta went to Goodwill and asked to be hired back for a job he had abandoned weeks earlier. When the manager said no, according to a police report, he knocked over merchandise and was barred from the property. Mafuta told a South Burlington officer who responded to stay "six feet away." The officer placed a written notice of trespass on the ground.
Soon after, in early January 2021, a Burlington police officer flagged down Mafuta on an Old North End sidewalk while investigating a report that someone resembling him had tried to break into a parked car. Mafuta walked past the officer, who grabbed his shoulder. He told the officer not to touch him. The exchange became heated and turned into a scuffle. Mafuta was [eventually subdued by an electric shock](https://vtdigger.org/2021/02/08/new-footage-shows-moments-before-burlington-officers-shocked-teen-with-stun-gun/). He was booked for assaulting the officer and released.
Three days later, he showed up at the house of a New North End family he didn't know and demanded they let him inside because, he told them, his phone was dead, according to court records. After they shut the door, he broke into their garage and began smashing items. Police arrested him at gunpoint.
That prompted the Chittenden County State's Attorney's Office to ask a judge to detain Mafuta while the cases played out in court. He was locked up for the first time in his life.
Soon, videos of his arrest-by-Taser received extensive news coverage in Burlington.
State's Attorney Sarah George began fielding calls from acquaintances who'd known Mafuta through their work at South Burlington High School. His recent behavior didn't add up, they told her; something must be going on. The calls surprised George: In her experience, people didn't usually speak up for homeless Black men.
The prosecutor said she asked the callers whether they knew anyone who could give Mafuta a place to live and watch over him. None came forward, so Mafuta spent nearly three months imprisoned while awaiting trial. "I don't think our intention was ever to have him be in that long," George said.
Incarceration had a "seriously adverse effect" on Mafuta because of his youthfulness and mental health issues, his public defenders argued in a bid for his release pending trial, which a judge granted in March. They hired a social worker to arrange for a hotel room, provide Mafuta with a cellphone and help him stay on top of his medication.
Meanwhile, a pair of psychiatrists evaluated Mafuta and determined that he was insane at the time of the January incidents. Prosecutors and his public defender began working out a deal to drop the charges in exchange for community treatment.
Then he was accused of another crime.
Mafuta had begun working in the kitchen at Olive Garden in South Burlington following his release but walked off during one of his shifts. When he learned days later that he no longer had a job, he [hijacked a truck in the parking lot with one of its owners still inside](https://www.wcax.com/2021/05/28/milton-man-steals-truck-with-person-inside/) and sped off toward a friend's house. He stopped to let her out, then continued driving until police pulled him over.
This time, a court-ordered psychiatrist concluded that Mafuta had understood his actions and was mentally fit to stand trial for the carjacking charge. He spent another four months in prison, until October 2021.
By then, as word spread of his erratic behavior, many peers were writing him off, his friend Carpentier said. She tried to stick by him, but it was growing more difficult.
Phone conversations with Mafuta devolved into arguments. He cussed her out and accused her of plotting against him. "That had never happened before," she said.
---
### Trusted Voices
A second deal with prosecutors sent Mafuta to treatment court, a community-based program for defendants with mental health conditions or drug addictions. It entailed drug tests, therapy and regular visits before a judge.
He was assigned a caseworker from Howard Center, the county mental health agency. His caseworker tallied Mafuta's strengths: "good energy, trusting, motivated toward change, old soul." For needs, she listed "affection, encouragement." Mafuta said what he needed most was consistency. It had been 10 months and two prison stints since his initial hospital visit.
Treatment court offered structure and supervision. He sought out new work, joined a cooking class and showed up to mandated court hearings.
Still, Mafuta's housing situation was precarious, and he strained to make sense of the waves of psychosis that doctors now suspected were symptoms of schizophrenia.
"I had to be my own father, which is where this voice in my head came from," he told his caseworker. "It is my best friend. I trust this voice more than anything else in the world."
One of the only people outside the system still keeping tabs on Mafuta was a Burlington barber, Tony Clarke. Clarke had met Mafuta years earlier while working with his father at Magic Hat Brewing and had occasionally joined Ponda on visits to Allenbrook group home. After Mafuta returned to Vermont, he and Clarke grew close.
Mafuta was desperate to prove that he could make it on his own. In phone calls with his father, he betrayed little of his troubles. He put on a strong face whenever he spoke to Clarke, too.
Clarke saw through the façade. "I was telling his father, like, 'Yo, shit is *not* good,' and he couldn't believe it," Clarke said.
When Ponda found out his son was homeless, he flew to Burlington and paid a woman from their former church to put up Mafuta, Clarke said. The arrangement ended because, Mafuta said, he was caught smoking weed at that house, too. Mafuta's struggles were stressful for Ponda, Clarke said, "because he wanted to help him but couldn't."
Early one morning, Clarke was taking out the trash from his Main Street barbershop, [Kut Masterz](https://www.instagram.com/kutmasterz_/?hl=en), when he heard someone rapping to himself at a bus stop. He rounded the corner and saw Mafuta, who by then was spending nights at a shelter on Shelburne Road. Clarke invited him inside.
Clarke started swinging by the shelter in case Mafuta needed a ride. Mafuta became a frequent presence at the barbershop, where he could count on food, comfort, conversation and a crisp haircut — usually a flattop or a fade.
When Mafuta said odd things, such as declaring that the left side of his body "walked with death," Clarke would tell him to "knock the bullshit off, man. I know you; this is not you." He didn't know what else to say.
Mafuta relied increasingly on doctors, yet the medication gave him tremors that got so bad in January 2022 that he went to the emergency room. A doctor suggested he stop taking the pills and visit his primary care physician in Colchester.
It's unclear whether he ever followed up. But when Mafuta returned to the UVM Medical Center emergency department again in April 2022, he disclosed that he had not taken his medication in three months.
Mafuta now said the Ku Klux Klan was following him and that his medications were being used for mind control. He tried to "cast spells" on one clinician and told another he might need to harm her so that she would stop writing things down.
"Just kill me now!" he screamed.
He shook the stretcher in his room, slammed a stool on the floor, and ran down a hallway with security and staff in pursuit.
The doctors decided that his threatening words and behavior were grounds for emergency inpatient treatment, otherwise known as involuntary commitment.
He spent another night in an emergency room, waiting for a bed.
---
### 'Swath of Destruction'
![Mafuta being brought into court by Sheriff John Grismore - JAMES BUCK](https://media2.sevendaysvt.com/sevendaysvt/imager/u/blog/39042213/crime1-6-0d19ef6c22deb30d.jpg)
- James Buck
- Mafuta being brought into court by Sheriff John Grismore
Mafuta ended up at the [Brattleboro Retreat](https://www.brattlebororetreat.org/), a nonprofit psychiatric hospital two hours away.
"Get out," he told the first nurse to enter his room.
He did not want to be in a hospital. His 21st birthday was coming up. He'd only gone to the emergency department in Burlington because he was looking for someplace to sleep, he told another nurse. Being homeless, he said, made his symptoms worse.
He struggled to explain the voices he heard in ways that doctors and nurses could understand — or he'd deny hearing anything. Like many people thought to have schizophrenia, he questioned his diagnosis. In time, Retreat staff persuaded Mafuta to try different antipsychotic medicines, which he said helped settle his mind. He went to peer meetings and made snacks using recipe cards. He wrote poetry.
As his stay neared the one-month mark, Mafuta wanted to return to Burlington so he could take more cooking classes. His treatment team began making plans for his discharge in May 2022.
One of the providers noted that Mafuta might benefit from residential treatment upon release. They placed him in a short-term crisis stabilization center, [ASSIST](https://howardcenter.org/mental-health/home-and-housing-supports/crisis-stabilization-support/), run by Howard Center.
During Mafuta's fourth day at ASSIST, house staffers made him take a Breathalyzer test because they thought, incorrectly, that his drink contained alcohol. Mafuta lost control. He thrust his elbow through a wall, causing his arm to bleed, and smashed a window. Employees hid in their offices while the police came.
The manager said Mafuta had to leave. But, she told police, he was unsafe to be on his own. An officer drove him to the UVM Medical Center.
Later that night, the hospital discharged him. Mafuta was back on the street — what would become his final, crushing stint. At a homeless shelter, he damaged property and was told to leave. He slept outdoors, usually on park benches, and lost track of his medications. His hallucinations became overwhelming, and he got more criminal citations and made more trips to the ER. "I just want to get my fucking medications so I can sleep," he yelled during one visit, before punching a machine. He was given an injection of a powerful antipsychotic drug.
Nighttime could be terrifying. He sought out safety in City Hall Park, a popular homeless hangout, only to wake up to the patter of rain and realize that everyone else had left. Mafuta wandered empty downtown streets, panic mounting, wondering where the other homeless people had gone. "I'm hearing people talking to me," he remembered later. "I'm seeing shadows walk across the streets." He huddled near Wi-Fi hot spots so he could listen to music on his headphones until daybreak.
Feeling suicidal, he jumped in front of traffic on Shelburne Road. He had outbursts at the library and at a pharmacy. He was accused of smashing windows at churches and businesses and of stealing clothes, a phone.
Burlington residents, meanwhile, were losing patience with the sort of public displays of homelessness, disorder and property crime that Mafuta was coming to represent. Those concerns fueled the August 2022 primary battle for Chittenden County state's attorney, in which George's challenger, backed by the Burlington police union, [pledged to clean up the streets by keeping more suspects behind bars](https://m.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/will-public-safety-worries-end-progressive-prosecutor-sarah-georges-sweeping-reforms/Content?oid=36110678).
Mafuta's personal crisis crashed into the politics of public safety during the final 72 hours of the campaign. Police again found Mafuta jumping in front of traffic. The next day, he was removed from a daytime shelter after ripping the door handle from a car in the parking lot.
On the eve of the primary election, Mafuta smashed windows at the bus station downtown, court papers allege. Then, in the early morning hours, he walked to the South End home where one of his former foster families lived. He asked to stay there, but they declined. Mafuta launched rocks through a bedroom window. He went on to damage more than 30 other nearby homes, prosecutors allege.
Voters awoke on primary day to headlines dubbing the vandalism spree a "[swath of destruction](https://www.mychamplainvalley.com/news/local-news/vandal-vuts-swath-of-destruction-through-south-end/)." The phrase had been plucked straight from [a press release](https://www.burlingtonvt.gov/Press/south-end-vandalism-spree-arrest-made) sent out by then-acting Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad. The release noted that Mafuta had accumulated more than 100 "police involvements," including one occasion in which he'd asked police to take him to jail so he could get his medication.
Mayor Miro Weinberger called on authorities to do more to "sustain the peace and safety that this community has long enjoyed."
George, who won reelection, said the police chief spoke dismissively of Mafuta's struggles during an administrative meeting a few days later. "Everybody has mental health issues these days," George said she heard him say.
In an email to *Seven Days*, Murad said he didn't recall his exact words. His point, he said, was that most people with mental illness don't harm others, and those who do must be treated in ways that also preserve public safety. Absent effective treatment, prison is sometimes the only option, Murad wrote. For too long, he added, Mafuta "was able to repeatedly victimize others."
---
### Staring Blankly
![A cell in Northwest State Correctional Facility - LUKE AWTRY](https://media1.sevendaysvt.com/sevendaysvt/imager/u/blog/39042214/crime1-7-8a09c2a2e9bdf588.jpg)
- Luke Awtry
- A cell in Northwest State Correctional Facility
The vandalism spree convinced Superior Court Judge John Pacht that efforts to help Mafuta in the community were not working.
He ordered Mafuta to be kept at the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital in Berlin until a psychiatrist could evaluate whether he needed a prolonged hospital stay. A few weeks later, a state psychiatrist found Mafuta fit to stand trial, and he was transferred to Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.
"Client will be better served by the correctional facility where he is currently held," a note in his Howard Center file concluded.
The Department of Corrections deemed Mafuta to have "[serious functional impairment](https://doc.vermont.gov/sites/correct/files/documents/SFIDesignationReport_DOC_09-21-2022.pdf)," a designation for prisoners with debilitating mental illness. Only 40 or so Vermont inmates meet the narrow criteria for the designation at any given time. Most are housed at Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, which maintains more extensive medical resources, including a residential psychiatric unit.
Mafuta was one of three inmates in St. Albans with the high-needs designation. He met periodically with social workers and a psychiatrist employed by the state's private medical contractor at the time, [VitalCore Health Strategies](https://vitalcorehs.com/), to plan treatment.
He was assigned to a general-population unit with narrow cells and a shared bathroom. Fellow inmates said they soon noticed him acting strangely. He told them he could hear their thoughts. Some days he stared blankly at the wall.
Even so, Mafuta was unusually "genuine," fellow inmate Daniel Mitchell said. The pair sometimes walked circles together around the unit. Mitchell learned that Mafuta didn't have family members who visited or money to buy items from the commissary. He sometimes asked to use other inmates' tablet computers so he could listen to music.
As winter set in, Mafuta was struggling. He asked Mitchell for help getting a job in prison, but Mitchell said the correctional officers didn't think Mafuta was reliable enough. He asked a psychiatrist for a higher dosage of his antipsychotic medication, but records show he was denied; his dosage had just been increased.
Some inmates worried. One spoke to a correctional officer, who told the inmate to put his concerns in writing, according to a court affidavit filed by a Vermont state trooper. The inmate wrote that the way Mafuta looked at him and others "has me thinking he's going to hurt someone really bad." But he never submitted the note.
On December 19, 2022, Mafuta's public defender and a Chittenden County prosecutor told a judge that they were nearing a deal to close his pending cases, so long as they could find him a place to live — typically a condition for release.
Later that day, Mafuta began screaming and throwing things inside his cell. He was taken to the segregation unit and placed on suicide watch because he said he planned to kill himself.
Prison officials returned Mafuta to the main unit the following day at his request, despite his refusal to take some of his medications, medical records show. "He was able to process what happened last night and create a plan," a VitalCore therapist wrote in an email to prison officials.
He was placed in Cell 17 — and assigned a new roommate.
---
### A Scream for Help
Jeff Hall, like Mafuta, had fallen into homelessness in the place where he grew up.
The 55-year-old had attended Burlington High School but did not graduate. He worked for a time stocking shelves at a grocery store but spent much of his adult life in trouble with the law.
His problems in recent years appeared to be intertwined with addiction. By last December, Hall was awaiting trial on several charges, including allegedly stealing a MacBook, $500 Gucci sunglasses and other items from a parked car. Police met the victim at City Hall Park, where she recovered some of her belongings from a cart Hall pushed around.
He had a mixed reputation in prison. One former cellmate recalled Hall fondly. The only frustration, the cellmate said, was Hall's insistence on watching every NASCAR race, even the monotonous qualifying laps. "Doesn't make sense to watch the race if you're not gonna watch the qualifier," Hall would say. Others said they knew Hall for his sticky fingers. He once managed to swipe a cup of Red Bull from a correctional officer's desk, Mitchell said, impressed. Hall's family, through an attorney, declined interview requests.
Prison officials were unaware of any trouble between Mafuta and Hall, according to court records. Four inmates interviewed for this story said the same.
But inmates said they were alarmed by Mafuta's state of mind following his brief time on suicide watch. As Mafuta walked with Mitchell on December 22, Mafuta's distress was obvious. And for the first time, according to Mitchell, his comments suggested violence.
"He was like, 'My voices keep telling me to hurt people ... I keep telling them I don't want to hurt anyone; I'm not a hurtful person,'" Mitchell recalled. "He kept trying to hold them back, basically."
Mitchell gave Mafuta scoops of instant grounds so his friend could make coffee.
Officers soon came to the unit to perform the afternoon head count, during which inmates are told to wait in their unlocked cells. Hall walked back to the one he shared with Mafuta. Seconds later, a scream for help escaped from behind the steel door.
Officers scrambled to find the source. Officer David Lumbra headed first for Cell 12, where he had heard the cellmates were not getting along. But the cries were several cells away.
As Lumbra continued his search, Mafuta walked out of his cell, expressionless, his hands and pants covered in blood, and sat at a nearby table, according to court records and accounts of inmates. The officer looked in, saw Hall on the floor and radioed for backup.
Mafuta sat quietly until officers handcuffed him and hauled him away. He was strip-searched and placed in a cell outfitted with a security camera.
Matt Engels, a longtime prison supervisor and trained EMT, shined a penlight into Hall's eyes. They were dilated and unresponsive, a sign of possible brain injury. An ambulance rushed Hall to the hospital, where he was placed in a medically induced coma. He would [die within three months](https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/obituaries/bfp041179).
State troopers who investigated were escorted by prison staff to Cell 17, which had been cordoned off with evidence tape. They noted bloodstains on the floor and the edge of the metal bunk bed.
They also noticed a separate, lighter stain nearby — a cup of coffee spilled during the rush to aid Hall.
---
### 'He's Gonna Get Smoked'
![Mbyayenge "Robbie" Mafuta' - COURTESY](https://media2.sevendaysvt.com/sevendaysvt/imager/u/blog/39042216/crime1-9-c087a01baf25e06b.jpg)
- Courtesy
- Mbyayenge "Robbie" Mafuta'
In the days that followed the episode, Mafuta offered varying accounts that are hard to reconcile. He told a psychiatrist by phone that his voices hadn't instructed him to harm anyone. Instead, he knew Hall had been making disrespectful comments and stealing things from other inmates, "so I decided to handle the situation because I thought it was the right thing to do."
That conversation, a week after the attack, took place because corrections staff were concerned that Mafuta needed to be hospitalized; he was refusing his medication and had spent hours the previous day speaking to himself in a mirror. "I'm seeing shit and hearing shit all the time ... You are using my words," a security camera recorded him saying.
Two weeks later, a correctional officer overheard Mafuta speaking to inmates. They were laughing, and Mafuta didn't seem to understand how seriously he'd injured Hall. "What? He's still in the hospital? That's crazy," the officer heard Mafuta say. One of the inmates told investigators that Mafuta said he'd "spazzed out, came to and there was blood all over him."
Investigators have not offered evidence that Mafuta plotted the attack. No one claims to have seen what happened inside the cell. Mafuta declined to talk to the police, and his attorneys instructed him not to answer questions about the encounter during interviews with *Seven Days*.
In August, the state charged Mafuta with [second-degree murder](https://m.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/murder-charge-filed-against-man-accused-of-beating-cellmate/Content?oid=38845019). At his arraignment in St. Albans, Mafuta, who had grown a patchy beard and put on weight, looked older than his 22 years. Shackled and dressed in thin, red prison clothes, he sat quietly as his public defenders entered a not-guilty plea.
This was no longer in Burlington, where prosecutors in George's office had worked with defense attorneys to find ways to limit Mafuta's time behind bars. George had [established a track record](https://m.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/mentally-ill-or-criminal-dismissals-of-murder-cases-spark-firestorm/Content?oid=27715487) of choosing not to pursue murder charges when experts believed the defendant was insane.
Mafuta was flanked by two public officials who were continuing to enforce the law [despite their own alleged misdeeds](https://m.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/franklin-county-states-attorney-resigns-amid-impeachment-probe/Content?oid=38953384). To his left stood Sheriff John Grismore, whom voters elected even as he faces an assault charge for kicking a handcuffed detainee. To Mafuta's right sat Franklin County state's attorney John Lavoie, who at the time was facing impeachment proceedings before the Vermont legislature over his use of crass, racist and sexist language with his employees. Lavoie [submitted his resignation](https://m.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/franklin-county-states-attorney-resigns-amid-impeachment-probe/Content?oid=38953384) hours after Mafuta's arraignment. On Monday, Gov. Phil Scott appointed [former state prosecutor Bram Kranichfeld](https://m.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/prosecutor-turned-priest-named-franklin-county-states-attorney/Content?oid=39032465) as Lavoie's interim replacement.
If Mafuta is found not guilty, or has the charges dismissed because of his mental health, the state will then face another, politically charged question: what to do with him next.
Meantime, other questions surround the case, including whether Mafuta should have returned to general population from mental health watch so soon. The Department of Corrections reviewed its own handling of the matter, including decisions made by its health care contractor, and found no missteps, according to Corrections Commissioner Nick Deml. "There's really nothing in the record that would have led us to a different conclusion," he said.
Independent investigations are standard whenever someone dies in prison. But none was performed in this case because Hall was no longer in state custody when he died months later. Department leaders could have commissioned an independent report anyway but didn't.
Mitchell, Mafuta's prison friend, wonders whether Mafuta should have been incarcerated at all, given his need for psychiatric care. Even Deml acknowledges that his agency is relied on a lot — perhaps too much — to care for sick people.
"I feel like he's gonna get smoked and be in here even longer," Mitchell said, "when he should have never been in here in the first place."
Mafuta spoke to *Seven Days* for three hours over separate phone calls this summer. He frequently struggled to find his words but discussed his relationship with his father, his experiences at the hospital and the desperation he had experienced living on the street.
Asked what he needed during that time, he answered in the present tense, as if he were not sitting behind bars and could remain so for a long time to come.
"I need permanent housing, I need clothes, and I need a way of getting a job so I have money so I can pay for stuff," he said from Southern State Correctional Facility, where he has been held for most of this year in a restrictive unit. "I don't like waking up every day thinking I need to steal or I need to starve."
Mafuta also seemed to acknowledge, in a way he hasn't always, that if he were freed, he would not be able to rebuild his life alone.
"I just don't see myself going anywhere," he said, "if I have to do all this on my own."
A question weighs on his two close friends, Carpentier and Chibuzo: *Could I have done more?*
Chibuzo now lives in West Virginia with her husband. She still thinks about Mafuta every day.
"I still would put everything on it that he's not evil," she said. "I just think, clearly, there's something very, very wrong. And I think he's been trying to tell people."
Carpentier is starting her final semester of college, where she's studying psychology and criminal justice. Her memories of visiting Mafuta in motel rooms inspired her senior thesis: a study of how children in state custody can be better supported into adulthood.
During their final days together in Burlington, Carpentier said, they would sit in her car and she would try, the best way she knew, to get him to open up.
"Where's the kid I know, who always smiled and laughed?" she'd ask, encouragingly.
"Stuff happened, and it changed me," he'd tell her.
"That's pretty much all he would say."
The original print version of this article was headlined "From Room 37 to Cell 17 | A young man's path through the mental health care system led to prison — and a fatal encounter"
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# A corrupt Chicago cop destroyed hundreds of lives. Now victims want justice.
CHICAGO  JaJuan Nile was a joker, a picky eater and his mother's only son. Growing up, he dreamed of starting a landscaping business.
But he never got the chance. Instead, a run-in with a now-disgraced Chicago police officer put the 20-year-old behind bars for a crime he didn't commit. It changed the course of his life, his family said.  
Nile was charged with possession of cocaine in 2007 and sentenced to three years in prison. With a felony on his record, he was repeatedly denied jobs and apartments.   
Two years ago, just after he received his certificate of innocence and landed a job, the father of three young kids was fatally shot.  
"He never got to his full potential because of what happened to him. It definitely led him to do other things, led him to get discouraged," his younger sister, Shawntell Nile, told USA TODAY.
Nile was among nearly 200 people who have been cleared of charges tied to former Sgt. Ronald Watts and his Chicago Police Department team. It's the largest series of exonerations in the citys history, said Joshua Tepfer, a lawyer with the University of Chicago Law Schools Exoneration Project, which has represented most of the victims.  
For almost a decade, Watts and his team preyed on innocent people at the Ida B. Wells Homes public housing project, where they extorted money and planted drugs and guns, knowing their victims largely Black and low-income residents wouldn't be believed, said Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx.
"He was asking for people to pay a tax, if you will," said Foxx, who has repeatedly sent written statements and held news conferences on the misconduct allegations and the steps her office has taken to rectify the harm Watts and his team caused. "He really carried himself as the top dog in that neighborhood, and people who didn't comply had cases put on them."  
![A vacant lot is seen along Martin Luther King Drive where the Ida B. Wells Homes used to stand in Chicago, on Dec. 10, 2022.](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/13/USAT/af63eaf8-21c8-46f2-8d31-a7634d0ef7d9-XXX_ChicagoMassExoneration_15_dcb.jpg)
A vacant lot is seen along Martin Luther King Drive where the Ida B. Wells Homes used to stand in Chicago, on Dec. 10, 2022. Max Herman, USA TODAY
Watts, an 18-year veteran of the department, had vendettas against some people, Foxx said. Other times he targeted people just because "he could," she said.  
Local and federal law enforcement [were investigating allegations](https://loevy-content-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2022/08/COPA-Report-1087742.SRI_.pdf) of the team's corruption as early as 2004, according to a recently unveiled report from the city's Civilian Office of Police Accountability. That's the same year Watts won "Officer of the Month," according to court filings.  
But it wasn't until 2012 that Watts and a member of his crew, Kallatt Mohammed, [were arrested on federal charges](https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/chicago/press-releases/2012/chicago-police-sergeant-and-officer-charged-with-stealing-5-200-from-individual-they-believed-was-transporting-drug-proceeds) of stealing $5,200 in government funds from an undercover informant. They pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 22 and 18 months, respectively.  
Despite the convictions, local officials did not take action for the hundreds of people who had been arrested by Watts. That is until one victim, Clarissa Glenn, pressed the issue.  
!["Some communities, doors close on us, and you dont know where to turn," said Clarissa Glenn, 52. She stands on the corner of East 37th Street and South Rhodes Avenue near the former Ida B. Wells Homes Extension where she was once lived. Dec. 10, 2022](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/13/USAT/b6a25848-ab6c-4378-8d5b-27977e3c015c-XXX_ChicagoMassExoneration_09_dcb.jpg)
"Some communities, doors close on us, and you dont know where to turn," said Clarissa Glenn, 52. She stands on the corner of East 37th Street and South Rhodes Avenue near the former Ida B. Wells Homes Extension where she was once lived. Dec. 10, 2022 Max Herman, USA TODAY
Spurred by Glenn, lawyers with the Exoneration Project and attorney Joel Flaxman began vetting victims' cases and bringing them to the Cook County State's Attorney's office in 2016. The office launched a comprehensive review of cases the following year, and prosecutors have moved to vacate the convictions in batches through a patchwork of litigation and cooperation with attorneys working on behalf of the victims. 
Since then, prosecutors have moved to dismiss at least 226 convictions and juvenile adjudications connected to Watts and his team. Collectively, the wrongful prosecutions cost 183 people sentences of 459 years in prison (not including pretrial detention), plus 57 probation and 10 boot camp sentences.
An Illinois Court of Claims judge described the scandal as "one of the most staggering cases of police corruption" in Chicago history and said "Watts and his team of police officers ran what can only be described as a criminal enterprise right out of the movie 'Training Day.'" A Cook County Circuit Court judge said officers actions resulted in "wrongful convictions." And an Illinois Appellate Court ruling detailed how "corrupt" officers fabricated a case to secure a false conviction.
### About this story
USA TODAY interviewed six people whose lives were upended by Watts and his crew. In the course of securing exonerations, lawyers for the victims have filed a host of documents alleging Watts and other officers fabricated cases. USA TODAY reviewed dozens of the documents, interviewed exonerees and attorneys, and returned to the scene of the since-demolished housing project on Chicagos South Side.
- **[How victims lives were forever changed](https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2023/02/05/chicago-police-ronald-watts-exoneration-cases/10470598002/#this-ruined-my)**
- **[Whats next in the fight for justice](https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2023/02/05/chicago-police-ronald-watts-exoneration-cases/10470598002/#whats-next-in)**
Almost every exoneree has now filed a federal civil rights lawsuit arguing their constitutional rights were violated by Watts, his team and the city of Chicago, Tepfer said.
"It's important to step back and just realize how incredibly awful this is, how sickening it is, and the impact it has not just on these individuals but on the community trust," Tepfer said.
Asked about the exonerations, an attorney for Watts, Thomas Glasgow, said, "I do not believe Mr. Watts has any comment regarding this matter." Watts, 59, is no longer an officer and lives in Arizona. 
In responses filed in court to the federal cases, Watts and other officers have denied they fabricated cases. 
As the city pours millions into legal battles, Watts' victims are still searching for justice.  
Nile won't get that chance. Instead, his sister and children are left with lockets filled with his ashes and an urn on the mantle when his family gathers for their monthly Sunday dinners.  
"I just want people to at least step in our shoes and see how it affected our lives not only my brother, but us as well," Shawntell Nile said. "It's an ongoing issue that needs to be addressed."
![Shawntell Nile, 33, wears a locket containing her late brother JaJuans ashes near the former Ida B. Wells Homes site in Chicago where he lived, on Dec. 10, 2022. JaJuan received a certificate of innocence in 2020.](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/13/USAT/4b3a3a06-7192-4d66-a4b9-915f54674ebc-XXX_ChicagoMassExoneration_20_dcb.jpg)
Shawntell Nile, 33, wears a locket containing her late brother JaJuans ashes near the former Ida B. Wells Homes site in Chicago where he lived, on Dec. 10, 2022. JaJuan received a certificate of innocence in 2020. Max Herman, USA TODAY
![This ruined my life](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/indepth-static-assets/uploads/master/10470598002/36becfc6-d67e-4268-9219-9b939d9652c8-corrupt-line.jpg?width=450)
In January 2003, Larry Lomax's younger brother was battling thyroid cancer and needed money. So Lomax, then 45 and a father of four, finished up work at his factory job and took the train more than an hour from Zion, Illinois, to the Ida B. Wells housing project to bring him some cash.
But he never had the chance to give his brother the money.
Lomax was walking up the ramp of his brother's building when officers grabbed him from behind, beat him, knocked out some of his teeth and took the money, according to Lomax's affidavit  a written statement Lomax made to Cook County Circuit Court under oath in his exoneration case.
![Larry Lomax, 65, sits inside his apartment in Waukegan, Illinois, on Dec. 11, 2022.](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/13/USAT/cec59bef-310a-4f1f-89ac-2c67ff446b20-XXX_ChicagoMassExoneration_04_dcb.jpg)
Larry Lomax, 65, sits inside his apartment in Waukegan, Illinois, on Dec. 11, 2022. Max Herman, USA TODAY
At the police station, Lomax asked an officer what hed been charged with.
"Watts told me that if I would say that the guys I was arrested with had been selling drugs and that I had seen them with the drugs, they would let me go," Lomax said in the affidavit.
He refused and was charged with possession of heroin. He told his public defender he had been framed, but the attorney recommended he take a plea deal, Lomax said. He spent two months in jail and was sentenced to two years probation.
![A photo at the home of Larry Lomax in Waukegan, Illinois, shows Lomax and his brothers at his mothers home in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1995.](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/13/USAT/fb1cbe93-deb6-41f4-9ecf-7aef3cd52f7e-XXX_ChicagoMassExoneration_06_dcb.jpg)
A photo at the home of Larry Lomax in Waukegan, Illinois, shows Lomax and his brothers at his mothers home in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1995. Max Herman, USA TODAY
Lomax's brother died of cancer less than a year after the arrest. He lost his job. He couldn't afford his car or rent. And when his youngest daughter was born in 2006, a family member had to take custody of her.
Lomax, who now lives in Waukegan, Illinois, said he eventually found work through Catholic Charities. He joined a therapy group and went every Friday for years.
"This ruined my life," he said. "The thing that hurt me most is I didnt have nothing to do with this."
Lomax's conviction was vacated in 2018, and he received a certificate of innocence. He hopes to see Watts and his team brought to court someday.
"They got off with a slap on the wrist," he said.
![I still havent physically recovered](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/indepth-static-assets/uploads/master/10470598002/36becfc6-d67e-4268-9219-9b939d9652c8-corrupt-line.jpg?width=450)
Derrick Mapp still feels the pain in his side from the day in April 2006 that Watts and another officer punched his ribs over and over again, causing his left lung to collapse.
Mapp was returning to his mother's apartment when Watts and another officer grabbed him, started questioning him about "where the stuff was" and dragged him to the incinerator room, according to an affidavit in his exoneration case.
"They punched on me, punched on me," said Mapp, 49, who still lives on Chicago's South Side. "I told them I didnt know, so they cuffed me."
![Derrick Mapp, 49, sits at his mothers home in the Calumet Heights neighborhood of Chicago on Dec. 11, 2022.](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/13/USAT/11a78897-edf6-4f03-b82e-eb9061a1fb99-XXX_ChicagoMassExoneration_01_dcb.jpg)
Derrick Mapp, 49, sits at his mothers home in the Calumet Heights neighborhood of Chicago on Dec. 11, 2022. Max Herman, USA TODAY
Mapp, then 33, was struggling to breathe when he was taken to county jail, the affidavit said. He was later diagnosed with the collapsed lung and spent more than two months in the hospital, according to hospital records.
Mapp was charged with a felony drug crime. He took a plea deal, was sentenced to four years and was detained about 18 months, leaving his girlfriend alone with their two sons, 11 and 12.
Mapp had been the breadwinner of his family, and he'd worked since he was a kid. But when he got out of jail, he couldn't find a job.
"People didn't trust me," he said, adding, "everything just went backward."
Mapp's conviction was vacated in 2020, and he received a certificate of innocence in 2021.
Derrick Mapp
> I still havent physically recovered. I still get scared when I see the police, and that happens often.
Now, Mapp said he gets by on "a little side work" in his neighborhood. He still can't sleep some nights. He tosses and turns.
He's married and has two grandkids. He loves to take them to the park to ride their bikes and throw a baseball. But he doesn't travel too far from home — he's constantly looking over his shoulder and listening for sirens.
"I still havent physically recovered," Mapp said. "I still get scared when I see the police, and that happens often."
!['A lie ruined me'](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/indepth-static-assets/uploads/master/10470598002/36becfc6-d67e-4268-9219-9b939d9652c8-corrupt-line.jpg?width=450)
Pregnant and with a 2-year-old daughter at home, Crystal Allen had to trudge through the snow and travel over an hour to get to her probation officer in Chicago. 
She was framed by Watts on felony drug charges in 2007 not once, but twice, according to affidavits in her exoneration cases  and was sentenced to two years of probation in a city where she no longer lived.
"It was a whole nightmare," Allen recalled, crying. "And he was getting away with it."
![Crystal Allen, 37, stands outside her home in Lafayette, Indiana, on Dec. 13, 2022.](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/13/USAT/19e792de-0863-44e2-a4c0-3f29797751b1-DSCF9369.JPG)
Crystal Allen, 37, stands outside her home in Lafayette, Indiana, on Dec. 13, 2022. Grace Hauck, USA TODAY
In April 2007 when Allen was 22, she was at a relative's apartment to get some belongings for her move to Indiana. She heard a knock on the door, and Watts and another officer barged in, according to an affidavit. When the officers began questioning her, Allen said she gave them the receipt of a clothing store she had just visited to show she had not been in the building long.
"I still ended up going to jail," said Allen, now 37. "I didnt even know what the charges were."
Crystal Allen
> A lie ruined me my whole life, my childrens lives.
Watts and his team arrested Allen again that July while she was out on bond. She pleaded guilty to both charges. "My family didn't really have money for me to fight it," she said.
The felony convictions destroyed her relationship with her grandmother and caused her to lose her housing assistance and food stamps, Allen said.
"A lie ruined me  my whole life, my childrens lives," she said.
Last year, Allen's convictions were vacated, and she received certificates of innocence. She rarely returns to Chicago. At home in Lafayette, Indiana, Allen feels more at peace. She has five kids and got married in 2019. She's largely a stay-home mom and works for DoorDash and Walmart delivery to make ends meet.
She thinks about how more than a dozen members of Watts' crew still receive a paycheck from the Chicago Police Department. "I dont think that that's fair," she said. 
![I didnt get a chance to go to their funerals or say goodbye](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/indepth-static-assets/uploads/master/10470598002/36becfc6-d67e-4268-9219-9b939d9652c8-corrupt-line.jpg?width=450)
Theodore "Ed" Wilkins, 42, still wakes to cold sweats after nightmares about the first time Watts put drugs on him. He was 23 in June 2003 and preparing to testify to the innocence of a man Watts had framed.
That's when Watts fabricated a heroin case against Wilkins, according to an affidavit in his exoneration case.
Wilkins was falsely arrested by Watts and his crew two more times through 2007 and cumulatively spent nearly four years in custody. He had two kids at the time, and his girlfriend left him, he said.
Later, Wilkins pleaded guilty to separate charges unrelated to Watts.  Because of his prior convictions, prosecutors were able to charge Wilkins with a more serious class of felony that carries harsher punishment. He was sentenced to nine years in prison and three years mandatory supervised release.
"I didnt know they were going to use the Watts cases to upgrade the charges against me," he said. "Its a doubling effect, a trickling down of nothing good."
![Ed Wilkins, 42, sits across from the former Ida B. Wells Homes site in Chicago where he once lived, on Dec. 10, 2022.](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/13/USAT/e0dc9b53-8946-457f-b423-16b6860d1ffa-XXX_ChicagoMassExoneration_11_dcb.jpg)
Ed Wilkins, 42, sits across from the former Ida B. Wells Homes site in Chicago where he once lived, on Dec. 10, 2022. Max Herman, USA TODAY
While he was incarcerated, Wilkins said numerous loved ones passed away, including his uncle, cousins and grandmother his mother figure and best friend.
"I didnt get a chance to go to their funerals or say goodbye," Wilkins said.
Wilkins was in prison when he started the exoneration process is 2017. His first Watts convictions was vacated in February 2022, weeks before he was set to be released.
He received certificates of innocence in April, a relief not only for him but his three kids, ages 10, 18 and 21.  
"The incarcerations have affected them as well," he said. "They werent able to see me like they wanted to."
![I was trying to do something right](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/indepth-static-assets/uploads/master/10470598002/36becfc6-d67e-4268-9219-9b939d9652c8-corrupt-line.jpg?width=450)
Chris Jones forever regrets going home in May 2008 to visit his mother and friends at the housing project where he grew up. The 27-year-old had a young daughter and had just moved in with his aunt in a new area of the city.
He wanted a fresh start. But he didn't get one.
"As soon as I came outside, I got arrested. And I lost a year of my life," said Jones, who still lives on the South Side.
Unlike Watt's typical case, it wasn't just a drug charge. This time, it included a gun.
![Chris Jones sits on the back stoop of his home in the Park Manor neighborhood of Chicago on Dec. 11, 2022.](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/13/USAT/09d6a5b8-910f-4c40-919a-2b829105a720-DSCF9279_1.JPG)
Chris Jones sits on the back stoop of his home in the Park Manor neighborhood of Chicago on Dec. 11, 2022. Grace Hauck, USA TODAY
That day, Jones walked out of his mother's building and saw a group of people gathered, according to an affidavit in his exoneration case. Watts and other officers arrived, detained the group  including Jones  and took them to the station.
At the station, one of the officers "pulled a box out from under one of their desks," Jones' affidavit said. Watts opened it, and a number of "small baggies" tumbled out. Meanwhile, other officers searched the home of Jones' mother, where they claimed to have found a gun.
Jones was charged with manufacturing and delivery of heroin and possession of a gun. Prosecutors later dropped the drug charges. 
"I still dont know why he did it to me," Jones said.
Jones spent 105 days in pre-trial custody and 234 days in prison, followed by two years of parole. 
"I wish I had just stayed in my aunts house," Jones said. "I'm not saying Im an angel. Ive done my wrongdoings. But I was trying to do something right."
Chris Jones
> I still dont know why he did it to me. These are the people who are supposed to serve and protect us.
Like the handful of other Watts victims charged with gun crimes, Jones was labeled a violent felon. Because of that, he's struggled to get jobs and [obtain a passport](https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/2022/06/09/felon-obtain-passport/7534161001/). 
After more than four years of waiting, Jones's conviction was vacated in October. He recently found work as a pawn broker and is expecting a fourth child.
Jones said he is forever distrustful of police he wouldn't even call for help if someone were to break into his house. He teaches his kids to be wary, too.
With his freedom restored, Jones hopes to get a passport and take his family on vacation.
"I have that choice now."
![I was an open target](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/indepth-static-assets/uploads/master/10470598002/36becfc6-d67e-4268-9219-9b939d9652c8-corrupt-line.jpg?width=450)
Clarissa Glenn wouldn't stand for Watts' lies.
Between 2004 and 2006, Watts and his crew falsely arrested Glenn's boyfriend multiple times when he refused to pay bribes, according to the affidavits of Glenn and her then-boyfriend in their exoneration cases. 
So Glenn reported the crimes to the office that investigates police misconduct. But the officers got wind of the report, according to the affidavits.
"I was an open target," said Glenn, now 51.
![Clarissa Glenn, 52, stands on the corner of 37th Street and South Rhodes Avenue near the former Ida B. Wells Homes Extension in Chicago where she was once lived, on Dec. 10, 2022.](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/13/USAT/8868a90d-7197-4e7c-8988-ea248efbc259-XXX_ChicagoMassExoneration_10_dcb.jpg)
Clarissa Glenn, 52, stands on the corner of 37th Street and South Rhodes Avenue near the former Ida B. Wells Homes Extension in Chicago where she was once lived, on Dec. 10, 2022. Max Herman, USA TODAY
In retaliation, Watts and his crew framed Glenn and her partner, Ben Baker, for a drug case in December 2005, according to Glenn's affidavit. They had three sons at the time.
"My boys were looking out the window seeing me placed in handcuffs and in a police car," she said.
Fearful for the fate of their children, Glenn said she and Baker took a plea deal that sentenced Glenn to one year probation and Baker to four years in prison.
Two of their sons had received scholarships to college. But after the convictions, the boys had to come home to work, she said.
"I'd never been in trouble with the law. I did everything I was supposed to do … and the doors were closed in my face," Glenn said. "No one helped. No one listened. I was lost."
So Glenn contacted her alderman, the Cook County state's attorney and three lawyers to try to expose Watts, clear her name and bring Baker home. Ultimately, she connected the FBI with the informant who brought Watts down.
Clarissa Glenn
> Id never been in trouble with the law. I did everything I was supposed to do … and the doors were closed in my face. No one helped. No one listened. I was lost.
Glenn received a pardon from the governor of Illinois in 2015. The next year, Glenn's and Baker's cases were vacated, and Baker was released from prison after more than a decade of incarceration. Baker received a certificate of innocence in 2016 and Glenn in 2018.
Glenn said having her named cleared is a "blessing." But she's affected by the Watts ordeal every day.
"What he has done to me ... he broke me," Glenn said, crying. "And there's no way to repair that."
![Whats next in the fight for justice](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/indepth-static-assets/uploads/master/10470598002/36becfc6-d67e-4268-9219-9b939d9652c8-corrupt-line.jpg?width=450)
More than six years since the exonerations began, a handful of Watts' victims are still waiting to have their convictions vacated.
In 2017, the Chicago Police Department placed 15 officers associated with Watts on desk duty. Asked by USA TODAY for an update, department spokesperson Don Terry named the officers and said at least five have resigned since 2018, one was relieved of police powers in October, and nine remain active with the department.
The recent city report filed in 2021 and [made public last year](https://loevy-content-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2022/08/COPA-Report-1087742.SRI_.pdf) following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit recommended the firing of one of Watts' team members for submitting false reports and providing false testimony in the mid-2000s. The officer, Alvin Jones, was promoted in 2014. He resigned in May.
Despite the exonerations, officers named in the federal suits continue to maintain their innocence in responses filed in court. 
"I get a lot of questions from people like, 'Why aren't these cops in jail?'" Tepfer said. "I think those are good questions to ask."
Watts moved to Las Vegas in 2013, according to court filings. He now lives in Arizona.
Beyond Watts and the officer charged in 2012, no other officer on Watts' team has been criminally charged. At least 10 officers [have been barred](https://www.wbez.org/stories/top-cop-10-officers-banned-as-witnesses-remain-fit-for-police-powers/f861c69c-e15f-4766-abc8-a7419255ae9b) from testifying for the Cook County States Attorneys office in criminal cases since 2017. The officers are "not credible," Foxx said.
Foxx said her office is confronting the role it played in the scandal and is reviewing its policies for approving charges in the hopes of preventing future wrongful convictions. But she said the statute of limitations precludes her from charging Watts and the other officers.
"The righteous anger about this is that (Watts) did inflict all of this harm that we all know that he has done and has eluded the ultimate responsibility not just for shaking down that one informant but for literally these hundreds of people," Foxx said.
![Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx speaks at a news conference, in Chicago on Feb. 22, 2019.](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/14/USAT/600c4d02-7a7e-4c60-8aab-fe4dd82dcbe6-AP19102668123541.jpg)
Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx speaks at a news conference, in Chicago on Feb. 22, 2019. Kiichiro Sato, AP
Victims and their families will never be made whole, Foxx said. "But there's something that is owed to them," she said.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has said [Watts "shattered" lives](https://twitter.com/LoriLightfoot/status/1095120116742791168). Her office directed USA TODAY's requests for comment to the Chicago Police Department, which declined to comment further. The Cook County Public Defender's office also declined comment.
Meanwhile, the federal civil rights cases are still in fact-finding, and the officers have maintained their innocence in court filings.
!["This is something that was done to my brother," said Shawntell Nile, 33, who blames Watts and his crew for stealing her brother's life. "We have to keep fighting for him."](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/13/USAT/e1c3397c-7ddf-451e-be2f-e375e5a25673-XXX_ChicagoMassExoneration_16_dcb.jpg)
"This is something that was done to my brother," said Shawntell Nile, 33, who blames Watts and his crew for stealing her brother's life. "We have to keep fighting for him." Max Herman, USA TODAY
Exonerees who spoke with USA TODAY said the city needs to take accountability for the pain Watts and his team inflicted. There's precedent for it: Chicago [has paid reparations](https://www.chicagotribune.com/la-na-nn-chicago-police-torture-20150506-story.html) to victims of police torture in the past.
"Nobody disputes from Lori Lightfoot to the state's Attorney's Office, the federal government that these officers were corrupt," Tepfer said. "And if you can't even do anything about that where no one even disputes it why should the community trust you?"
*According to the Chicago Police Department, the nine officers associated with Watts who remain on the force are: Brian Bolton, Miguel Cabrales, Robert Gonzalez, Manuel Leano, Lamonica Lewis, Douglas Nichols Jr., Calvin Ridgell Jr., Gerome Summers Jr. and John Rodriguez.*
*The five officers who resigned are: Alvin Jones, Darryl Edwards, Kenneth Young Jr., Matthew Cadman and Michael Spaargaren. Elsworth Smith Jr. was relieved of police powers.*
*The 10 officers barred from testifying for the Cook County State's Attorney's Office are: Bolton, Edwards, Gonzalez, Jones, Leano, Lewis, Nichols, Ridgell, Summers and Young.*
*All of the officers have been named in numerous federal suits. Attorneys representing some of the officers directed USA TODAY requests for comment to the city of Chicago, which again declined to comment. In responses filed in court, the officers deny allegations of wrongdoing.* 
*Reach out to criminal justice reporter Grace Hauck at [ghauck@usatoday.com](mailto:ghauck@usatoday.com), or follow her on Twitter at [@grace\_hauck](https://twitter.com/grace_hauck).*
Published 10:05 am UTC Feb. 5, 2023 Updated 9:04 pm UTC Feb. 8, 2023
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# A crumbling, long-forgotten statue with an unusual erect phallus might be a Michelangelo. Renaissance scholars want hard evidence.
Some 400 years ago, Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi — whose family would produce two popes, more than a dozen cardinals, and a smattering of statesmen — bought what became known as the Villa Ludovisi from Italy's Orsini family. A sprawling estate on the outskirts of Rome, it included an art collection that drew admirers from across Europe and, most notably, Caravaggio's only ceiling mural.
In a place of honor was a life-size marble statue of the Greek god Pan with a wicked expression, a forked beard, and an 8-inch erect penis leaning left. The cardinal, it appears, built a pillared shrine for it between two majestic cypress trees.
Over the centuries, new research has found, the Ludovisi family's attitude toward the marble god changed. A satyr with an ugly grimace and an imposing phallus? What would the neighbors think?
A sculpted fig leaf covering the uncircumcised penis was last seen in 1885. A row of hedges was planted in front of the statue, allowing it to recede out of view.
By the second half of the 20th century, the hedges were gone and a tree was planted in front of the statue. Artists and scholars continued to copy and study the works of the villa, but the statue left the public record for a century, not drawn or photographed between 1885 and 1985. Pan, the Greek god of woodlands and lust, was left to waste away behind a tree.
When Corey Brennan, a classics professor at Rutgers University, visited the property for the first time, in spring 2010, he didn't know what to do with the statue. The villa's steward at the time, Princess Rita Jenrette Boncompagni Ludovisi, had cleared away the tree a couple of years earlier and brought the sculpture back into public view.
She said the statue was created by Michelangelo Buonarroti, the Renaissance master who painted the Sistine Chapel and etched David out of marble before his 1564 death. She learned this from her husband, Nicolò, who heard it from his grandfather Francesco Boncompagni Ludovisi, whose "depth of historical information, handed down from generation to generation, always is proven to be historically correct and consistent," Princess Rita told Insider.
The statue's provenance was widely accepted by the 1830s, but a group of German scholars later in the 19th century had cast doubt on the attribution. When, in July 2022, a student of Brennan's, Hatice Köroglu Çam, said she was a Michelangelo fanatic, he turned the question over to her.
"See what you can do with it," he recalled telling her.
Çam took on the assignment with relish. Digging into the estate's archives and other historical documents, she found centuries-old private sketches of the statue and correspondences and journal entries describing it.
Over time, the elements had beaten the statue, whittling away some of its fingernails, softening its facial features, and receding the satyr's hairline. But in older sketches, those aspects are more sharply drawn.
The more Çam looked, the more she was convinced the statue was created by the master himself.
## The statue is stuck outdoors amid a messy family dispute over the property
Çam's identification of the statue as a bona fide Michelangelo, argued over the past year and a half in [a four-part, 28,000-word treatise](https://villaludovisi.org/2023/05/05/a-new-self-portrait-of-michelangelo-the-statue-of-pan-at-the-casino-dellaurora-in-rome-part-iv-physical-condition-conservation-mandates/) on Brennan's website dedicated to the history of the Villa Ludovisi comes amid a bitter dispute over what will happen to the opulent property and all its stories.
In 1988, the villa had been passed on to Prince Nicolò Boncompagni Ludovisi, a Roman noble and the heir to the villa.
Fifteen years later, he met Jenrette, who had previously lived as a US Republican Party operative, a congressman's spouse, an author of a tell-all memoir about being the ex-wife of a congressman who cheated on her, a Harvard Business School alumna, and a real-estate mogul. At the time, the prince wanted to develop a hotel, and [a mutual friend asked her to help out](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/28/the-renovation-rita-jenrette-princess-italy).
They married in 2009, and the newly named Princess Rita spent a decade and millions of dollars cataloging, cleaning, restoring, and studying the property's artwork and architecture. She brought on Brennan to help bring the villa to its former glory.
The prince left the villa to his wife in his will. But after his death in 2018, his three sons from a previous marriage disputed her ownership. A messy inheritance conflict ensued, complicated by the Italian Culture Ministry's legal control over many of its treasures. Çam got to study the Ludovisi Pan, as the sculpture is known, in July 2022, just months before [the princess was evicted from the property](https://nypost.com/2023/05/13/playboy-princess-i-lost-500m-palace-in-bitter-royal-feud/).
To help settle the estate dispute, an Italian court ordered the property to go up for auction in January 2022, first at $546 million. The Ludovisi Pan, if it's really a Michelangelo, could be worth as much as $100 million, according to Brennan, who noted that [one of the artist's drawings sold last year for $21 million](https://news.artnet.com/market/michelangelo-drawing-breaks-record-2117046). The Caravaggio mural alone, experts opined, was worth $360 million. (The princess [once described the property as](https://www.tatler.com/article/caravaggio-ceiling-fresco-italian-villa-aurora-471-million-ludovisi-family) "a Caravaggio with a house thrown in.")
Hosted on a janky Italian government website alongside apartments and tennis courts, in need of an estimated $11 million in repairs, and with the provision that the Italian Justice Ministry could swoop in and force a sale to the Culture Ministry anyway, the villa attracted no bidders. Five more auctions, with prices successively revised downward, were also unsuccessful.
A seventh auction, with the asking price lowered to $122 million, was scheduled to begin in June. But over the summer, Princess Rita and her stepchildren came to an agreement where they'd put more money into sprucing up the villa and auction it privately. The group hopes to partner with an organization such as Sotheby's or Christie's to sell it properly.
The sale will likely still be difficult. Only a handful of prospective buyers could pay a high price for the villa and provide the necessary upkeep. Some cultural treasures within the property — like the Caravaggio — are physically immovable. And even if the Italian government doesn't ultimately purchase the property, it still has some discretion over how most of the artwork, including the Ludovisi Pan, can be moved or restored. The villa has 40,000 square feet of indoor space, but officials have refused to allow the statue to be moved indoors, where Brennan and Çam — who is now pursuing an art-history doctorate at Temple University — say it needs to be to protect it from further damage. The princess told Insider she hoped a buyer would appreciate the villa's treasures, including the Pan, newly uncovered frescoes, and what she said were the remains of Julius Caesar's estate "where he romanced Cleopatra."
"Now that all heirs have signed a rapprochement, I can only hope that someone purchases our home who appreciates all we have discovered therein, from the archive, to which I have devoted two decades of my life," she said.
The mainstream press has already accepted the Pan statue's attribution to the Renaissance master. [The New Yorker described it](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/28/the-renovation-rita-jenrette-princess-italy) as "a statue of Pan by Michelangelo" in 2011 without qualification. CBS News, visiting it in 2017, [said it was a Michelangelo sculpture "in all his glory."](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/principessa-rita-a-fairytale-life/) Earlier this year, [CNN said](https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/20/europe/texas-rita-jenrette-boncompagni-evicted-intl/index.html) it was "recently unearthed" as a Michelangelo. The [New York Post called it](https://nypost.com/2023/05/13/playboy-princess-i-lost-500m-palace-in-bitter-royal-feud/) one of his "masterpieces."
Michelangelo scholars are more skeptical.
William E. Wallace, an author or editor of eight books about the Renaissance artist, viewed the statue on a Jenrette-led tour in 2015 with a group of conservationists**.** He told Insider the sculpture was interesting but "not a great thing." The evidence that Michelangelo created it, he said, simply isn't there.
"They're hopeful that it's a Michelangelo because it'll sell for $50 million. If it's a garden sculpture by nobody, it's $5,000," Wallace said. "So there's a big difference by putting the name like Michelangelo on it. But there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever that he has anything to do with this object."
Whether further examination determines it's a Michelangelo or not, there's no question it's an important sculpture that needs further preservation and study, Brennan said.
"Either way, it's an understudied 16th-century sculpture that needs to come out of the elements," he said.
In its current state, the statue has literally lost its luster. The marble has turned dull. Apparent attempted repairs in previous years have left holes and rusting metal pieces in its face and neck. Cracks are forming on the right testicle.
"There are a lot of cracks, a lot of holes, a lot of metal pieces," Çam said. "But it has a lot of secrets. And it is melting. It's melting in front of the world."
## The family was embarrassed by the phallus, Çam says
For some time, Çam found in her research, visitors to the Villa Aurora, the most prominent part of the Villa Ludovisi, assumed the statue was from ancient Rome.
The earliest reference to it in the Ludovisi archives is in a January 1633 inventory. In the early 1700s, it was cataloged alongside other statues on the property that were thousands of years, not decades, old. It left an impression on Francis Mortoft, who visited the property in 1659. "Wee saw a very ridiculous statue of A satyr, which canot but stir up any man to much laughter in looking on such a Rediculous piece, but yet very excellently well made," he wrote in his journal.
By the mid-1700s, something had changed. Visitors had generally understood that the sculpture was attributed to Michelangelo, according to records unearthed by Çam, even if they thought it wasn't his best.
Writing in his private notes in 1756, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, widely considered the founder of the field of art history, [identified it](https://villaludovisi.org/2023/05/05/a-new-self-portrait-of-michelangelo-the-statue-of-pan-at-the-casino-dellaurora-in-rome-part-iv-physical-condition-conservation-mandates/) as part of "the school of Michelangelo." The Swiss painter and writer Henry Fuseli believed it to *predate* Michelangelo, theorizing it influenced Michelangelo's sculpture of Moses.
Throughout the first half of the 19th century, [visitors generally agreed Michelangelo himself created it](https://villaludovisi.org/2022/11/05/a-new-self-portrait-of-michelangelo-the-statue-of-pan-at-the-casino-dellaurora-in-rome-part-iii-reception/). [Çam found in her research](https://villaludovisi.org/2022/11/05/a-new-self-portrait-of-michelangelo-the-statue-of-pan-at-the-casino-dellaurora-in-rome-part-iii-reception/) that the exceptions were three German scholars who visited between 1836 and 1880s and considered it not a genuine Michelangelo, if "Michelangelo-esque."
The Germans didn't give reasons for their conclusion. Victor Coonin, a professor of Italian Renaissance art at Rhodes College, offered one: It doesn't have that Michelangelo je ne sais quoi.
The Ludovisi Pan is "a wonderful, delightful statue" but is "a little bit lifeless," Coonin said. In his works, Michelangelo investigated his subjects, interested in what makes them profound or beautiful, and invited the viewers of his work into that process. The Ludovisi Pan is not the work of an artist engaged in that kind of exploration, Coonin said.
"That's part of what makes Michelangelo, Michelangelo — that it's about something more than what it appears to be," Coonin said. "And this Pan looks to me rather to be what it purports to be."
The statue does not, at first glance, look like a lot of Michelangelo's other sculptures, especially the full-scale ones. They are typically religious figures in the Christian tradition; their faces look like they've been struck by a heavenly light, in poses that inspire reverence. The Ludovisi Pan stares you down with a cruel laugh, provoking you while resting at ease.
Yet, Çam said, the details are unmistakable.
Take a look at the statue's right hand, she said, which is virtually identical to the right hand on Michelangelo's sculpture of Moses, down to the veins shaped in a diamond pattern. The index and middle fingers are spaced in the same way, she wrote, and the Pan's fingers are buried into the pelt over his shoulder in the same way Moses' is buried into his tangled beard.
The Pan statue, Çam said, also resembles Michelangelo's titanic portrait of David. Each stands in almost the same pose, slightly shifting its weight on the right leg, which is supported by a marble-carved tree stump.
Most compellingly, the Ludovisi Pan appears to be not just any ordinary sculpture by Michelangelo but a self-portrait, Çam said.
She came to that conclusion while looking at other works considered to be Michelangelo's self-portraits, including a mask in his 1533 drawing "The Dream of Human Life." 
"I thought maybe this is Michelangelo's self-portrait because it's almost identical," she told Insider.
Like the artist, the Pan statue has a forked beard, a full lower lip, and "a flattened and broken nose," Çam said. And in [a series of illustrations of grotesque figures](https://villaludovisi.org/2022/09/12/a-new-self-portrait-of-michelangelo-the-statue-of-pan-at-the-casino-dellaurora-in-rome-part-ii-testimonia-sketches-earlier-inventories/) held in Frankfurt's Städel Museum, Michelangelo drew a faun, a half-human, half-goat beast, with a face that looks very similar to the Ludovisi Pan's.
"The depiction of the eyes, the shape of the eyebrows, and the treatment of the lower forehead between the eyebrows are the same," Çam wrote. "Significantly, the long, broken, and wide-shaped nose and wide-shaped nostrils are almost identical."
The ravages of time have made those similarities less clear. But they are striking, Çam told Insider, in early illustrations and photographs of the Pan that she discovered in the Ludovisi family's archives, made when the statue's features were in better condition.
And in a 1723 drawing by the artist Hamlet Winstanley, the figure is presented in a "near-flawless state," she wrote. The statue's potbelly once looked like abs, its smile laughing with you and not at you. That illustration, Çam said, demonstrates similarities to Michelangelo's other works and helps explain why other visitors to the Villa Aurora were so enamored with the work.
We see "the finer details of the Ludovisi Pan that have now largely disappeared," she wrote: the curls of its beard, the hairy animal pelt slung over its right shoulder, and the fur on its goatlike legs, which have become smooth over time.
If the statue is so great, and a possible Michelangelo, then why is it wasting away? Çam theorized that the phallus had something to do with it.
While it was originally covered by a fig leaf — which could be removed if an artist wanted to draw the faun fully nude — it disappeared at some point. Giuseppe Felici, a family archivist, described the statue as "repugnant and obscene" in a 1952 chronicle of the property. The Ludovisi family, Çam surmised, was embarrassed by a large, erect phallus greeting their visitors. They shuffled the statue to less-prominent places on the property and planted some shrubs in front of it.
"It was the Pan's erect phallus that negatively affected its placement and presentation — from at least the early 18th century exhibited with a fig leaf, and eventually positioned behind a tree — at different locations on the property of the Villa Ludovisi," Çam wrote.
Given how prominently the statue was once presented on the Ludovisi estate, it was odd for it to be given the short shrift centuries later, Brennan said. While other sculptures show male genitalia, the Pan is the only statue with a fully erect penis, their research found.
"There was plenty that they boasted about," Brennan told Insider. "The family was really proud of their artwork but not this piece."
That same uneasiness removed the statue from discourse among connoisseurs over whether it was created by Michelangelo, Çam said.
"The phallus is what prevented this sculpture from getting proper recognition, which in turn directly affected its attribution to Michelangelo," she wrote. "Squeamishness about subject matter overshadowed all the stylistic similarities between Michelangelo's works and Pan, derailed its scholarly acceptance, and caused the sculpture to be abandoned to its present fate."
## It's hard to carve a marble statue in secret
The trouble for Çam's theories is that Michelangelo was not some obscure artist whose life and work were shrouded in mystery before his death. He was a rock star. He carved David out of marble when he was 26. He is the best-documented artist of the Renaissance.
Historians have more than 1,000 letters written by or to Michelangelo, in addition to bank records, contracts, and biographies written during his lifetime. In none of them is any reference to a self-portrait Pan obtained by the Orsini family, according to Coonin, the Rhodes College professor.
"That everybody would've ignored it or didn't know about it, that Michelangelo wouldn't have mentioned it to anyone, that nobody mentioned it as being a Michelangelo within Michelangelo's lifetime — I think that that's rather unlikely for such a large and idiosyncratic sculpture to escape complete mention in the literature," he said.
It is Michelangelo's very celebrity that explains why so many features may appear Michelangelo-esque, Wallace, a professor of art history and architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, said.
By the time of his death, many considered him the greatest artist who ever lived. He inspired legions of imitators and students of his work, perhaps including whoever made the sculpture, he said.
"That artist who probably carved that garden sculpture had seen the Moses," Wallace said. "And so when he came to carve hands and the beard, he thought to invoke the greatest master of carving of all time, and he would be praised by his contemporaries for being able to imitate Michelangelo very nicely."
As for the faces looking like Michelangelo's? Çam and Brennan conceded the Pan could be the work of an imitator — perhaps a student in an oedipal struggle with the master — though still of immense historical value. Anyone who spent months carving a big, expensive block of marble to make Michelangelo look like a beast would have shaken up the Italian art scene.
"It's either Michelangelo doing a self-portrait, or it's one of Michelangelo's contemporaries depicting Michelangelo as half goat, half man. And either option is really interesting," Brennan said. "If it's Michelangelo who is portraying himself as such, that's unbelievable. But if someone else, I can't imagine one of his followers saying, 'Oh, here, Michelangelo, I'm your assistant here, and I've created this sculpture of you as the god Pan.'"
Çam and Brennan said they believed the Pan could be one of Michelangelo's early works, from before he became famous. The statue, Çam said, reflects his interest in antiquity and mythology, even if those themes are not as developed as in his later works.
But to Wallace, the simplest explanation is the most likely.
"Everybody in Florence in the 16th century was seeing these drawings by Michelangelo, and they provided artists all kinds of ideas about how to go about carving things," Wallace said. 
Besides, a life-sized marble statue is not exactly the kind of thing you can make discreetly.
"Marble is extremely heavy, expensive, it's hard to move. You need to carve it somewhere and keep it there — marble isn't carved quickly," Coonin said. "And so you'd have to have a piece of marble standing in a studio somewhere that he's working on continuously and never be seen or mentioned by anyone."
As for the family being mortified by the statue's penis? Çam simply hasn't brought enough evidence to support her theory that the Ludovisis demoted it because of its genitals, Wallace and Coonin said**.** Garden statues are rearranged all the time.
"Maybe they got embarrassed by the penis and so they put it out in their garden. I don't know," Wallace said. "All of this sounds very fuzzy."
## 'Found' Michelangelos come and go
In 1996, a sculpture of a young archer displayed in a French Embassy in Manhattan, New York, caught the eye of a young graduate student who thought it looked like the work of one of Michelangelo's contemporaries. Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt, an art-history professor at New York University, took a look and [thought it was made by Michelangelo himself](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/arts/design/06archer.html), perhaps one of his early works. Other scholars were skeptical.
Wallace, as he does here, described it in [a magazine piece](https://www.academia.edu/23738352/They_Come_and_Go_Art_News_96) at the time as "wholly unlikely." He said then, as he does now, that these "new" Michelangelos "come and go."
"On average, a new Michelangelo has appeared every two or three years for the past 75 years," he wrote in the April 1996 issue of ArtNews.
Wallace told Insider he was being "polite" those decades ago. Michelangelo creating the cupid, he said, "is still unlikely and less than likely."
He keeps a list of 200 works that have been attributed to Michelangelo since 1900. Only one — a wooden crucifix in a church in Florence, Italy — has achieved consensus as the real thing, he said.
That graduate student who spotted the archer statue, James David Draper, later got a job as a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, down the block from the embassy where he first saw the statue. In 2009, [France loaned it to the museum](https://www.metmuseum.org/press/exhibitions/2010/marble-sculpture-attributed-to-michelangelo-on-loan-to-metropolitan-museum-from-french-republic), where it remains. In its [description of the sculpture](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/236774), the Met elides all debate: It was "only recently it was recognized as Michelangelo's lost Cupid," the museum says. Draper [estimated Michelangelo made the sculpture when he was 15 years old](https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/little-archer-big-mystery-258/), an early age when the historical record is relatively murky. On a recent rainy Sunday, throngs of visitors walked around the statue. They paid more attention to the colorful porcelain works nearby, fired by anonymous artists and also once owned by storied Italian families.
How can we be sure a Michelangelo is a Michelangelo? Michael Daley, an art historian and the editor of ArtWatch UK — who [has extensively argued that the $430 million "Salvator Mundi" painting](http://artwatch.org.uk/problems-with-the-new-york-leonardo-salvator-mundi-part-i-provenance-and-presentation/) is [not a genuine work of Leonardo da Vinci](https://www.insider.com/is-leonardo-da-vinci-salvator-mundi-fake-crystal-orb-2017-10) — told Insider that these things were determined by connoisseurship. If enough Michelangelo experts say a Michelangelo is a Michelangelo, then it's a Michelangelo.
Çam didn't disagree. The visitors of the 18th century, she said, *were* connoisseurs. When the statue was in better shape, they believed it possessed the same divine spark that burned in Michelangelo's other works. But contemporary connoisseurs have different standards. Can the marble be traced to the quarries of Carrara, which Michelangelo prized for its quality material? Are there other documents that can help determine its ownership? Can it be traced to a time when Michelangelo was young, or to when other artists may have been imitating his style?
"The visual/stylistic case is not established for the work being an autograph Michelangelo," Daley wrote in an email. "Essentially, the weakness is that the author's photo-comparisons of details attest at best to work's Michelangelo-like features and in some instances are actually counter-productive."
Wallace said, "It's a matter of weight of opinion over time."
He added: "The weight of opinion over time usually is pretty negative. These things come out as Michelangelo and then they descend. They become followers of Michelangelo, pupils of Michelangelo, anonymous followers of Michelangelo."
The Ludovisi Pan — perhaps because it has been ravaged by the eras, perhaps because it has always looked this way — stares us down.
Its stature has shifted, but it has outlived kings and empires. Across the chasm of time, its smile has widened, turning crueler, mocking our questions.
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# Adam Sandler doesnt need your respect. But hes getting it anyway.
Adam Sandler will be honored by the Kennedy Center with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. (Erik Carter for The Washington Post)
## In a rare sit-down interview, the former SNL star and comedy icon reflects on his career as he receives the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor
PITTSBURGH — During every Adam Sandler stand-up show, he straps on his electric guitar and sings a song. Unlike the bite-size ditties hes peppered through the set about selfies or baggy shorts, this one concerns his late, great “Saturday Night Live” buddy, Chris Farley.
It is a perfect tribute. Sandler, singing softly as he strums in G, captures the complicated beauty of Farley as clips of his most memorable high jinks play on a giant screen behind him. The crowd roars as he references Farleys electrifying SNL turns as a Chippendales dancer and a motivational speaker “living in a van down by the river.” There is a hush as Sandler slips into the bridge, a peek into his friends vulnerability.
*I saw him in the office, crying with his headphones on*
*Listening to a KC and the Sunshine Band song*
*I said, “Buddy, how the hell is that making you so sad?”*
*Then he laughed and said, “Just thinking about my dad”*
Sandler first performed “Farley” in 2015 during a guest spot at Carnegie Hall, a show that inspired him to return to doing stand-up tours. And he played it when he hosted SNL in 2019, choking up visibly.
“Only Sandler could do that,” says Dana Carvey, an SNL star when the younger comedian arrived in 1990. “Thats another gear that Adam has. Hell be really, really silly. But hes not afraid to go for sentimentality and earnestness.”
The song, with its mix of low- and highbrow, the profane and poetic, could serve as a four-minute-and-22-second window into why the comedian and actor is being recognized with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. And its why his friends are glad that, at 56, hes finally getting his due. All of which may sound strange for someone whose films — generational comedies that include “Happy Gilmore,” “The Wedding Singer” and “Grown Ups” — have earned more than $3 billion at the box office. But for Sandler, popularity and praise have rarely come hand in hand.
That has changed some in recent years. Sandlers dramatic acting performances in 2017s “The Meyerowitz Stories,” last years basketball drama “Hustle” and especially 2019s “Uncut Gems” brought unlikely (and ultimately fruitless) Oscar buzz. His 2019 stand-up special “100% Fresh” and 2020s throwback comedy “Hubie Halloween” confirmed why hes been packing movie theaters and arenas since the Clinton administration. The Twain puts Sandler in the company of such figures as Eddie Murphy, Carol Burnett and Steve Martin.
And the timing is perfect, says his old boss, Lorne Michaels, himself a recipient of the prize from the Kennedy Center in 2004.
“The nature of comedy is you get the audience, you get the money,” says Michaels, SNLs creator and executive producer. “Respect is the last thing you get.”
###
Completely new and fresh
Sandlers Happy Madison Productions headquarters is in a small building in Pacific Palisades, not far from where he lives with his wife, Jackie, and their daughters, Sadie, 16, and Sunny, 14.
On a recent Friday afternoon, the bearded Sandler enters the room with a slight limp courtesy of hip replacement surgery he had in the fall. A few days earlier, he was in Boston, helping Sadie look at colleges. The next day hell go to the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards with his daughters who will watch him receive the King of Comedy Award and submit to the inevitable sliming. (Sandler is the first person to receive the top comedy honors from Nickelodeon and the Kennedy Center, let alone receive them in the same month.)
Sandler typically doesnt do interviews like this. He will go on podcasts with buds, sit on the couch on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” or answer goofy questions on “Entertainment Tonight” (“Who would be at *your* murder mystery party?”) but this — a three-hour drill-down about his career — is not his thing. He can tell you exactly why.
Flash back to 1995 in the SNL offices. Al Franken, the veteran writer and future senator, confronts Sandler and tells him that nobody appreciated his quotes in that TV Guide story. Huh? Sandler checks and sees that the magazine ran a quote from him complaining that “the writing sucks” on the show.
“I go, I never f---in said that. I never would say that,’” he remembers now. “So I called the writer. I said, Why did you say I said that? And he kind of didnt want to talk to me. I should have taped the conversation.”
Then, a few months later, came the New York magazine article titled “[Comedy Isnt Funny](https://nymag.com/arts/tv/features/47548/).” Michaels gave Chris Smith, a writer with the magazine, unfettered access to Studio 8H for weeks. The resulting article mashed the writers disgust for the show with anonymous quotes attacking its cast. The harshest mockery was reserved for the boyishly sensitive Farley.
“He came and fake buddied up with us,” says David Spade, who was also in the cast. “We let him in on all these meetings and dinners, and he wrote a s---ty piece to get himself notoriety.”
Asked about his article today, Smith says SNL “was not a happy place at the time.”
By then, Sandler had starred in “Billy Madison,” an instant entry into the teenage canon that debuted at No. 1 at the box office. It also got terrible reviews. *Terrible* reviews*.* It was one of the last times Sandler read what the critics had to say, good or bad.
“When Billy Madison came out and I realized Im going to be in the newspaper, that was a big deal,” he says. “When I was a kid, if I got a couple of hits in baseball and was [in the Union Leader](https://www.unionleader.com/sports/concord-outlasts-goffstown-for-state-little-league-title/article_8b8a6919-f218-5669-beff-61b3b0043e7d.html) — Adam Sandler, you know, shortstop got a single and a double — I got excited. And then I read a couple reviews and I was like, Woof, that hurts. I thought they would have a good time with it like I did. And then Happy Gilmore was getting trashed and my friends were getting all riled up, and I just said, No, I dont need to read that stuff.’”
Ultimately, Sandler would respond. Just not to the critics.
“I decided I wanted to talk through what I like to do,” he says. “I like to do my stand-up. I like to do my movies. I was just happy doing that.”
Sandler grew up in Manchester, N.H., the youngest of Judy and Stanleys four children. They were supportive parents. Judy praised his singing, and the boy would sometimes entertain her by crooning Johnny Mathis from the back seat. Stanley, an electrical contractor, coached his sports teams and bought him an electric guitar at the age of 12. Sandler still takes that Strat out onstage. He named his character in 2022s “Hustle” after Stanley, who died in 2003.
Growing up, Sandler played basketball for the local Jewish community center team and guitar in bands called Messiah, Spectrum and Storm. He also fell in love with comedy, listening to Steve Martin and Cheech & Chong records, watching “Caddyshack” and “Animal House,” and seeing Eddie Murphy on SNL.
He headed to New York University in 1984 to study acting and was setting up his room in Brittany Hall when Tim Herlihy walked in. Sandler told Herlihy he wanted to be a comedian. Herlihy told Sandler he wanted to study economics and get rich. That first weekend, though, he handed Sandler a few jokes he had scribbled down for him. Hes been a regular writing partner since, from 1995s “Billy Madison” to “Hubie Halloween.” Elsewhere in the dorm, they met a business major, Jack Giarraputo, and his roommate, Frank Coraci, who was studying film. Another NYU acting student, Allen Covert, also joined the crew. All remain essential partners with the exception of Giarraputo, who left the business in 2014 to spend more time with his family.
Sandler did his first stand-up at 17 at an open mic in Boston. He didnt realize you had to write material and remembers riffing about his family. At NYU, he became a club regular. At first, he struggled and sometimes even turned on the crowd, until some older comics told him yelling at the audience wasnt a great strategy.
What he had going for him, even before he had great material, still works for him onstage. There is a natural ease and a likability. He will chuckle as he tells a joke, as if youre playing pool or getting a burger and your buddy has a funny story to tell you.
“Its not an affectation,” says Herlihy. “Its the way his mind works. When hes laughing, its like, Oh, this is a good part. Like this guy who lived it cant even get through it without laughing.”
“As a young person,” adds director Judd Apatow, who roomed with Sandler after NYU but before SNL, “everybody that encountered him thought, This guy is going to be a gigantic star. Because he was making us so happy when we hung around with him.”
That personality captured Doug Herzog, then an MTV executive who would later launch “The Daily Show” and “South Park.” In 1987, Herzog had gone to a club to see another act as he scouted for MTVs “Remote Control” game show. He ended up hiring Sandler, who was still living in his dorm.
“Im waiting and this kid jumps onstage — sneakers, old-school sweatpants, end-of-the-80s ratty T-shirt, backwards baseball hat,” says Herzog. “I would say an idiosyncratic kind of vibe and tone. Youre also, like, in the heyday of the Beastie Boys and I was like, Oh, he kind of looks like a Beastie Boy and hes funny and hes charming.’”
Sandlers biggest break came two years later. He and Chris Rock auditioned for SNL with a group of comics. Michaels remembers there were others in the room who were more versatile. But nobody as original.
“Most people audition in the style of things that have already been on the show,” Michaels says. “But what Im looking for is something that makes you laugh because you havent seen it yet. Both of them had that. Adam was truly funny but in a style that was completely new and fresh.”
###
Friction at SNL
In 2019, Sandler returned to host SNL for the first time and centered his monologue on how much he loved being a cast member. Then he mentioned a question his daughter had asked. “If it was the greatest, Dad, then why did you leave?”
As the piano kicked in, Sandler began a ballad: “I was fired.”
Which is not exactly true. But Sandlers SNL run, from 1990 to 1995, would see two factions emerge inside 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Those who got it and those who didnt. Executives were known to lodge complaints about his work. And within the cliquey cast and writers room, there was also a split.
“At read-through, Adam would do an \[Weekend\] Update piece, like where he was a travel guide and the joke would be that he was just not doing what a travel guide is supposed to be doing,” says Robert Smigel, a writer on the show for eight years. “But he was delivering the information with a blissful idiots enthusiasm. And it was incredibly funny. And I just remember me and Conan \[OBrien\] and the nerds — Greg Daniels and \[Bob\] Odenkirk — giggling uncontrollably in one corner of this room. This room that otherwise had a black cloud hanging over it.”
Jim Downey, the legendary writer who had worked with John Belushi, Gilda Radner and Bill Murray, decided early on that Sandler was the closest thing SNL ever had to Jerry Lewis. Those wacky voices, the off-kilter characters. He could also sing, bringing his acoustic guitar onto Weekend Update to do his irresistible tributes to Thanksgiving and Hanukkah (“O.J. Simpson, not a Jew. But guess who is? Hall of Famer Rod Carew — he converted.”) As Downey watched the split, between appreciators and disparagers**,** he developed a term to describe Sandlers critics. *Half-brights*.
“Ordinary people had no problem with him, and really smart people had no problem,” says Downey. “But there was this group in the middle who would just take great offense at this kind of thing. They thought it was self-indulgent and infantile. And the thing about Adam was: … Most performers — its very important that they be respected as intelligent and often more intelligent than they really are. Adam was a guy who did not care if you thought he was smart and, in fact, went out of the way to obscure the fact that he is, Id daresay, a lot more intelligent than 90 percent of the performers Ive worked with.”
Sandlers greatest bits were deceivingly multidimensional. “The Herlihy Boy,” named after his college roommate, was a commercial you would never see. A needy, potentially sociopathic man-child pleads to housesit (“Pleeeeeze … it would mean so much to me if you just let me water your plants”) or walk your grandmother across the street. Every minute or so, the camera pulls back to show Chris Farley as an exasperated older relative who wants you to give the damn kid a break while screaming, pleading and generally Farleying at full blast.
“To me, that was a rhythm piece,” says Sandler. “Im going to calmly talk, Farleys going to go f---ing bananas. Camera will zoom back in — calm energy — then widen to a sick man screaming. I knew that had a comedy rhythm to it. I learned that from SNL. I learned what made me laugh. Like [Dan Aykroyd on Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jphfMd4_LCs) That rhythm influenced me.”
Sandlers most famous character may have been Canteen Boy, a voice and persona he would adapt for his hugely successful 1998 film, “The Waterboy,” and bring back nearly 25 years later for “Hubie Halloween.” Canteen Boy is a misfit — always dressed in Boy Scout attire with a baby-talk voice — who is universally mocked but still exudes a boastful pride.
“It wasnt like a single joke that escalates,” says Smigel. “It was a conversation between a somewhat strange guy and a couple of other people who were perceived as normal. And the other guys are just kind of smirking and making ... comments that they think are going over his head, but theyre not. And the weird guy doesnt want to let them know that theyre hurting him. So hes acting like theyre going over his head, for his own dignitys sake. So thats a lot going on in a Saturday Night Live sketch.”
Canteen Boy, like so many of his ideas, was polarizing. But it was, in a way, a microcosm of Sandlers time on SNL — the smug, self-assured grown-ups looking down on the goofy kid who was much smarter than they realized.
“Somebody like Franken is like, Really, Canteen Boy?’” says Smigel. “And I literally said to Al, Its the most complex sketch in read-through.’”
Franken wasnt the only doubter. NBCs executives complained, too. Don Ohlmeyer, a network president, targeted Sandler, Farley and Spade. *These guys arent funny,* hed tell Michaels. *I think they are*, Michaels would respond. The execs longed for the past, for Roseanne Roseannadanna or Chevys pratfalls. They didnt understand Sandler singing, “A turkey for me, a turkey for you, lets eat turkey in a big brown shoe.”
“Whether its in painting or in music or in writing, style changes are disruptive,” says Michaels. “And the reaction to Adam on the show, in the world, was growing, but it wasnt visible in the mainstream because they were all baby boomers.”
“I dont think I ever met Don Ohlmeyer,” says Sandler. “I shook it off. Thats not what I heard when I walked down the street and some kid talked to me about [Crazy Pickle Arm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lza3Q57t7YQ). I was going by the response of my New Hampshire friends calling me up, my father telling me his buddys kid thought such and such was funny. Or my brother. What he liked. I didnt take it personally. I didnt sit there and go, maybe I should change.”
By 1995, he had been at SNL for five seasons when Michaels talked with Sandlers manager, Sandy Wernick. “Billy Madison” had come out a few months earlier. Wernick told Michaels that Sandler was filming “Happy Gilmore,” in which Sandler played a temperamental failed hockey player who joins the golf tour to save his grandmother from being evicted.
“I said, Listen, I can protect him at the show, at least for now,’” says Michaels. “But theyre so adamant about his not being funny and not being good. So I think — go. He can leave.”
###
Winning audiences
Losing SNL was scary. “Billy Madison” had done well, but it wasnt exactly “Ghostbusters.” He wondered whether he would keep getting opportunities.
“Maybe the other companies are going to start saying, Dont hire him because of this. They dont like him over there. Maybe theres a reason. Sandler says. “I was probably just nervous about that, but I didnt doubt myself.”
By now, Sandlers NYU team was humming. Herlihy would write with him. Giarraputo would help produce, do marketing, pitch in on jokes. Coraci came on board to direct “The Wedding Singer” and “Waterboy.” He would later do “Click,” “Blended” and “The Ridiculous 6.” Following Sandlers lead, they focused on the audience, not the critics.
Test screenings would be key.
“Adam would sneak into the back of the theater and he would listen,” says Giarraputo. “As a comedian, its like a live audience — which jokes are working. Sometimes, we would have to open up spaces for jokes because they were laughing so hard.”
So when “Billy Madison” came out and was savaged by critics — Herlihys 84-year-old grandfather tried to comfort him after a Long Island Newsday writer compared the film to the horrors of Auschwitz — the gang jumped in a car and sneaked into theaters to watch audiences roar.
Ticket sales kept increasing. Home viewing on videotape, then DVD, was huge. “The Waterboy” made $186 million on a $23 million budget. “Big Daddy,” out in 1999, topped $230 million.
“Everybody wants to be loved,” says Tamra Davis, who directed “Billy Madison.” “But sometimes, its like when your parents dont get your music. I kind of saw it as a badge of glory.”
###
Moving beyond comedy
In between his career-defining epics “Magnolia” and “There Will Be Blood,” Paul Thomas Anderson decided to write a movie for Sandler. Anderson loved watching a particular Sandler sketch on SNL, “[The Denise Show](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twIgfEhXvXg),” where Sandlers scorned ex-boyfriend, Brian, would throw a petulant, self-pitying tantrum. In 2002s “Punch-Drunk Love,” he cast Sandler as pent-up lonely man Barry Egan opposite Emily Watson, and Sandler was the unexpected recipient of critical praise.
He then branched out into more romantic comedies, including “50 First Dates” with Drew Barrymore and “Just Go With It” with Jennifer Aniston.
That made perfect sense to Queen Latifah, who played his wife in last years “Hustle” and remembers laughing at him on SNL.
“I love 50 First Dates,’” she says. “Adam knows how to play the romantic comedy, and I think a lot of it is because this is a guy I would like to meet. This is a guy that would make me laugh. This is a guy whos sweet. This is a guy who has real feelings and gets pissed off.”
Sandlers dramatic side returned in Apatows “Funny People,” the 2009 film in which he played a darker, Rodney Dangerfield-ish version of a comic, and in 2017, when Noah Baumbach wrote a part for him as a musical and sweetly underappreciated house-dad opposite Dustin Hoffmans narcissistic, insecure patriarch in “Meyerowitz.” Then came 2019s “Uncut Gems,” a film by Josh and Benny Safdie. They had grown up with Sandlers comedy albums from the 1990s. They spent years recruiting him to play the deeply flawed Howard Ratner, a jewelry dealer with a gambling addiction and a dissolving marriage.
“Theres this rage and this deep sweetness to him,” says Josh Safdie. “And hes the only person who could have expressed what made Howard lovable for us.”
That range has also impressed his co-stars.
Jennifer Aniston, who has made three movies with Sandler, including the new Netflix adventure comedy “Murder Mystery 2,” remembers watching Sandler rhyme “deli” with “Arthur Fonzarelli” when he did “The Chanukah Song.”
“I mean, you couldnt keep a straight face,” she says. “And personally, I think \[You Dont Mess With the\] Zohan is one of the funniest movies and then he has Uncut Gems. Its very rare for actors to be able to hit it out of the park in every genre.”
“I dont know how he gets there. I have no idea,” says Eric Bogosian, who was [portrayed by Sandler on SNL](https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/wfpas-monsters-of-monologue-94/2872689) in 1994, and who acted alongside him in “Uncut Gems” 25 years later. “But he does drop into a very centered place and speaks from a kind of authenticity when you watch his scenes.”
Sandler does not look for dramatic roles. He says his wife ultimately convinced him he was right for “Uncut Gems” after he expressed apprehension about the role.
“When I see him like that,” says Jackie in an email, “I let him know why I think he would be great at that specific part and why I think his fans would like to see him be that character. Because people coming up on the street and telling him how much one of his movies meant to them, thats what drives him.”
Sandler can also take a different approach on a project hes hired for as an actor than one under Happy Madison Productions. He focuses on his part, not punching up the script or talking through shots or casting. One thing he doesnt take these roles on for is to show something to his critics.
“But I do think hes trying to prove something to himself,” says Dustin Hoffman.
“Adam does compete — with himself,” writes Jackie. “He wants to come up with something new that he hasnt done before.”
In “The Meyerowitz Stories,” Hoffman says, there were times when Sandler would seem unsure of his performance and the older actor would find himself reassuring him.
“What I think he does that is similar to what I try to do is that you think a lot about what youre to do with this so-called character,” says Hoffman. “And then when you get there, forget it all. What sticks is what then comes out. Hes very alive in the moment and not preplanned.”
Sandlers material may have changed, but his personality has not. His primary mission is to make you laugh. Whether onstage or in his office, he will talk about his excitement over a project — that “Hustle” is the first Happy Madison production that wasnt a comedy — but there will never be any whining about not getting an Oscar nomination for “Uncut Gems” or “Meyerowitz.”
“Hes not looking for pats on the back,” says Spade, who remains a close friend. “Hes already won.”
When Sandler was a kid, he just wanted to make it like Rodney, Eddie or Aykroyd. And he did. Then he got to do the roles James Caan or Robert Duvall could pull off. And then he got married and suddenly he had a family. Hell celebrate his 20th anniversary with Jackie this summer, and more than anyone else shes the one who counsels, pushes, advises him on what to do. With what roles to take and with the girls and their birthday parties, bat mitzvahs and college tours. At 56, he is both the king of comedy and the dad with every intention of taking off 10 pounds.
Back onstage in Pittsburgh, “Farley” comes late in the gig, but its not the finale. Instead, Sandler tells the crowd he loves them and says the next one is for Jackie. And then hes strumming a familiar tune, “Grow Old With You” from “The Wedding Singer,” only this time hes not sporting a mullet and Billy Idol isnt there to offer vocal and moral support. The verses have been changed to match his real life.
*… Now when I get chubby*
*We do the couples cleanse*
*You tell me I should have been nominated*
*For “Hustle” and “Uncut Gems”*
*I said, “Ill stick with the Kids Choice Awards*
*As I grow old with you”*
They are cheering now, with their “Happy Gilmore” hockey jerseys, their memories of Opera Man and that Hanukkah song, and Sandler, from the stage, turns the final line in his song back to the crowd.
*Thanks for growing old — with me.*
The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor ceremony will air at 8 p.m. March 26 on CNN.
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Date: 2023-12-17
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# Adrift
![A wrecked wooden boat sits on the beach against a purple sky.](https://projects.apnews.com/features/2023/adrift/__cdn__/images/2000.8fb0e3c9a7dcb47dd869.jpg)
BELLE GARDEN, Tobago (AP) Around 6:30 a.m. on May 28, 2021, a couple of miles from Belle Garden Beach on the Caribbean island of Tobago, a narrow white-and-blue boat drifted onto the horizon.
As it wobbled back and forth, fish gathered, feeding on the barnacles that had grown below the surface.
From a distance, it seemed no one was aboard. But as fishermen approached, they smelled death.
Inside were the decomposing bodies of more than a dozen Black men. No one knew where they were from, what brought them there, why they were aboard — and how or why they died. No one knew their names.
What is clear now, but wasnt then, is this:
For nearly two years, The Associated Press assembled puzzle pieces from across three continents to uncover the story of this boat — and the people it carried from hope to death.
The vessel that reached Tobago was registered in Mauritania, a large and mostly deserted country in northwest Africa nearly 3,000 miles (4,800 km) away. Evidence found on the boat — and its style and color as a typical Mauritanian “pirogue”— suggested the dead were likely African migrants who were trying to reach Europe but got lost in the Atlantic.
In 2021, at least seven boats appearing to be from northwest Africa washed up in the Caribbean and in Brazil. All carried dead bodies.
These “ghost boats” — and likely many others that have vanished — are in part an unintended result of years of efforts and billions of dollars spent by Europe to stop crossings on the Mediterranean Sea. That crackdown, along with other factors such as economic disruption from the pandemic, pushed migrants to return to the far longer, more obscure and more dangerous Atlantic route to Europe from northwest Africa via the Canaries instead.
Arrivals on the Atlantic route jumped from 2,687 in 2019 to more than 22,000 two years later, according to Spains Interior Ministry. But for those to arrive, many more must have departed, said Pedro Vélez, an oceanographer at the Spanish Institute of Oceanography. Vélez wasnt surprised to learn of migrant boats appearing in the Caribbean that is where floating devices dropped by scientists on the West African coast naturally drift.
“The sea conditions there are extremely harsh,” he said. “Extremely harsh.”
In 2021, at least 1,109 people died or disappeared trying to reach the Canaries, according to the International Organization for Migration, the deadliest on record. But thats likely a fraction of the real death toll. The men in the Tobago boat, for example, are not included in this number.
Other estimates are higher. Caminando Fronteras, a Spanish migrants rights organization, recorded more than 4,000 dead or missing on the Atlantic route in 2021, with at least 20 boats vanishing after departing from Mauritania.
These migrants are as invisible in death as they were in life. But even ghosts have families.
The AP investigation included interviews with dozens of relatives and friends, officials and forensic experts, as well as police documents and DNA testing. It found that 43 young men from Mauritania, Mali, Senegal and possibly other West African nations boarded the boat. AP has identified 33 of them by name.
They departed the Mauritanian port city of Nouadhibou in the middle of the night between Jan. 12 and 13, 2021. Clothing and DNA testing confirmed the identity of one of the bodies, bringing closure to one family and opening the way for others to seek the same.
The lack of political will and global resources to identify dead and disappeared migrants mean such resolutions, even partial ones, are rare. Each year, thousands of families wonder about the fate of loved ones who left their homes for Europe.
Few ever find out.
This is the story of one boat and the people it carried from hope to death.
## The Discovery
On the morning of May 28, 2021, Lance Biggart got a call from one of his fellow fishermen. A strange boat had appeared.
The 49-year-old Tobago native quickly reached his colleagues aboard his small but speedy boat, the Big Thunder. Dozens of fishermen joined him at the scene, filming the pirogue with their smartphones. Some continued fishing shiny mahi-mahi that had gathered around the corpses, life circling around death.
Biggart remembers being puzzled by how the boat could have survived Atlantic swells.
“A wave came, and the boat rocked so, so badly,” he recalls.
One of the dead men sat by the bow. The fishermen and police wondered if he was the last to die, moving away from the rest of the dead in the bottom of the boat. Biggart and his colleague were asked by the coast guard to tow the pirogue back to shore. A tractor pulled the boat out of the water.
Men in white overalls carefully removed 14 bodies, three skulls and other large bones one by one, placing the remains in 15 bags. Some victims were missing limbs or heads. The sun had mummified some parts, while the salt and water at the bottom of the boat had putrified others.
Recovered from the boat were clothing, 1,000 West African CFA francs (under $2) and a few euros. Police also found half a dozen corroded cellphones with SIM cards from Mali and Mauritania. Tobagos Cyber Crime Unit extracted a contact list from one of the SIMs.
Police in Trinidad and Tobago passed the numbers on to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which reached out several times to the government of Mauritania. They never got an answer, they said. Mauritanias Foreign Ministry did not respond to phone calls or repeated requests for comment by email from the AP.
In the weeks that followed, customers stopped buying Biggarts fish, fearing the dead were victims of some sort of sorcery. Others made unfounded speculations: Were they Ebola victims whose bodies had been thrown in the boat and set adrift?
As a man of the sea himself, Biggart felt responsible.
“I have a friend who went to sea and never came back,” he says. “I dont know the people and them. But I know the family will be hurting.”
Yet months later, unable to identify the victims, police rebranded the criminal investigation into a “humanitarian” case. The remains were kept at the morgue of the Forensic Science Center in Trinidad.
To this day, there they sit.
## A trail of clues
In 20 years as a forensic pathologist, Dr. Eslyn McDonald-Burris had never seen so many bodies arrive at the local mortuary in Tobago at once. Their apparent African descent reminded her of her enslaved ancestors.
“Its kind of emotional for me, because Im thinking why? What is happening here?” asked the soft-spoken Burris, who has since retired. “And then when I started looking at ocean currents. ... Its the same currents that they used when they brought us here.” She concluded they most likely died of “dehydration and hypothermia as a consequence of being lost at sea.”
Opening the body bags one by one, Burris was opening a small window into each persons life. She looked for anything to help answer questions: Who were they? Where were they trying to go? What happened on the boat?
One had prayer beads with a crescent and a star, Muslim symbols. Another carried in his pocket a small label with Arabic writing of a water bottle from Mauritania. Yet another wore a watch on his left wrist, still running even though the time and date were wrong. “5:32 Sun,” it read.
Most shared similar traits — “that sort of tall, slender look, long thin face,” Burris says. Many wore several layers of clothing, common for seafaring migrants. A few wore dark green weather-proof jackets and pants, typically used both by fishermen in West Africa and by migrants seeking to avoid detection by port authorities.
As Burris pulled back the layers of clothing, she found soccer jerseys and shorts with the insignia of European teams as well as the Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. One man was dressed more formally, wearing a black button-down shirt with thin white stripes.
Another stood out to Burris. “A young man of African descent, slim build, dark complexion,” her autopsy report read.
He had short, dark-brown hair. His ears were “notably very small." His teeth were in good condition. His body was the most mummified of all, and his clothing was still relatively clean, suggesting he may have been one of the last to die.
“Down here we say a sharp boy,” Burris said, affectionately referring to his style.
He was found wearing distressed jeans, a Nike hoodie and a white patterned T-shirt underneath with some words on it — a lyric to a well-known Lionel Richie song.
It read: “HELLO, IS IT ME YOURE LOOKING FOR?”
## An Aunt in France
Thousands of miles away, in the French city of Orléans, May Sow had all but given up hope of finding her nephew alive.
It was mid-January 2021, and Alassane Sow, 30, wasnt answering his phone, leaving his family in both Mali and France desperate. May searched the internet for any trace of him.
A few days earlier, Alassane had told her over the phone that he was thinking of boarding a boat to Spain and, ultimately, to France to work, as some of his friends had done. His estranged father had also left for Spain. Smugglers charged 1,500 euros, and he had saved some money working as a security guard in Mauritania.
She thought it was a terrible idea. “Its suicide,” she warned him. A family she knew from the Ivory Coast was mourning a relative who died trying to reach Europe.
Alassane said smugglers told him he would travel on a sturdy boat with a proper engine, not the flimsy overcrowded rubber boats often seen capsizing in the Mediterranean. But even if he made it, she told him, he wouldnt be allowed to work legally in France.
“When I go to Paris, I see people, migrants sleeping outside, under tents,” May recalled.
Alassane wouldnt hear of it. After all, his French family had a good life with stable careers that allowed them to send money back to their Mali village of Melga, to support his mother.
Alassanes grandparents had immigrated to France from the former colony decades ago, leaving their eldest daughter, Alassanes mother, back in Mali. They had six more children in France, including May.
When May and her siblings tried to bring Alassanes mother over, she was an adult no longer eligible for family reunification. She applied for a visa for France eight times, only to be rejected each time.
The Sow family in France had tried to support Alassane in two projects back in Mali, in livestock and in commerce. Both ultimately failed in part because of the impact of climate change and a fragile economy in a country plagued by years of conflict and political instability. The convenience store he opened with their help hardly made enough money to feed his family.
He ultimately moved to Mauritania to make roughly 75 euros a month, May said. That wasnt enough.
May said the “kind, serious and respectful” young man never asked his French relatives for more money. Prosperity was in Europe, and the only way he could afford to get there was by boat.
“I think in his head, he thought he didnt have a choice,” May said.
![A man stands on the beach wearing a striped button down shirt.](https://projects.apnews.com/features/2023/adrift/__cdn__/images/1200.5df98c905511349928aa.jpg)
Mays nephew Alassane Sow
On the night between Jan. 12 and 13, 2021, he boarded a pirogue in Nouadhibou, Mauritania, headed to Spains Canary Islands, his family learned later.
After the initial silence came rumors, including one that his boat had been stopped in Morocco and the migrants sent to prison. May contacted a Malian community representative in Morocco to check prisons and morgues. No trace of Alassane.
She reached out to a page on Facebook called “Protect Migrants not Borders,” used by families of missing migrants to exchange information. That was when May realized her nephew was one of thousands disappearing each year en route to Europe.
Every day people posted about a missing person. Few were ever found.
Any tips she obtained were by word of mouth. There was no official information. She felt helpless.
Alassanes mother, grandmother and wife held onto hope that he was alive, probably in prison somewhere, and couldnt call. May was growing increasingly skeptical.
One night, she had a dream. She saw him dead with many people in the water, and she cried out for him.
In her nightmare, Alassane eventually opened his eyes but couldnt speak. After that, she was sure they had shipwrecked. But she had no proof.
A few months later, her sister shared a news report about a Mauritanian boat found in Tobago with dead bodies inside. Then an AP reporter contacted her asking about the same. Could her nephew be among those?
He left in January. The boat was found in May. But except for the time frame, there was no evidence to suggest it was his boat. After all, the pirogues used by migrants departing Nouadhibou look the same.
## Following the trail
The contact list extracted from one of the SIM cards on a phone in the boat by authorities in Tobago contained 137 names.
The AP went down the list calling the numbers, asking those who replied if they knew anyone missing. One name kept coming up: Soulayman Soumaré, a taxi driver from Sélibaby in southern Mauritania, near the borders with Mali and Senegal.
The AP traveled to Sélibaby, a two-day drive from the fishing town of Nouadhibou on a strip of tarmac that cuts through a bleak desert, and spoke to dozens of relatives and friends to reconstruct what happened.
Soulayman had gone missing a year earlier, along with dozens of other young men from nearby villages. They had taken off from Nouadhibou on a boat carrying 43 people to the Canary Islands on the night of Jan. 12, 2021. It was the same boat that Alassane Sow boarded.
Forty-seven people were meant to have boarded the boat originally. Four men never got on. One, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, confirmed that he and dozens of other relatives, friends and acquaintances from Sélibaby and two nearby villages had traveled to Nouadhibou. There, they waited in apartments arranged by smugglers. He heard more people from a town on the border of Mali and Mauritania would also be getting on the boat.
Finally, on Jan. 12, the smugglers called. They would be leaving for Spain that night.
To avoid attracting authorities attention, the migrants split into smaller groups and left separately on different pirogues. They were to meet in the ocean and all transfer to a larger pirogue bound for the Canaries.
In Nouadhibou, hundreds of fishermen zip in and out all day and night, and port authorities struggle to inspect every boat for migrants. But when they saw four men allegedly going fishing without the typical dark green overalls, police stopped them.
Little did they know that their lives had just been spared.
## Families, still waiting
Just as few people in Tobago had ever heard of Mauritania before, families in Mauritania had never heard of Tobago. When shown the island on a map, with the Atlantic Ocean separating both nations, many gasped.
A few miles away from Sélibaby, on a dirt road dotted with goats, lies the village of Bouroudji, home to 11 of the missing young men. AP reporters shared the available information with their mothers: A Mauritanian boat had drifted to Tobago with 14 bodies. One phone retrieved from the boat was linked to the group their sons had traveled with. There were no known survivors.
“Theyre all dead,” one mother exclaimed. She covered her face with her hands and left in despair.
Others hung onto hope. Until they saw their sons bodies, the mothers said, they could still be alive. They pulled out their cellphones and shared photos of their sons with AP. Among them were two young men named Bayla Niang and Abdoulaye Tall.
Niangs father, 71-year-old Ciré Samba Niang, said they were desperate for any information.
“Theres people who say theyve died. There are people who say they are in prison,” he said. “There are others who say, nonsense.”
Niang said he wasnt aware of his sons plans. He blamed local unemployment along with better opportunities abroad. Many in his generation had also moved to Europe and made good money for Mauritanian standards.
“If one goes to Europe, in one or two years theyll be able to build a house (in Mauritania), to buy a car,” Niang said. “The other person sees that and says, I cant stay here. I have to go, too.’”
![A man relaxing on a field of green.](https://projects.apnews.com/features/2023/adrift/__cdn__/images/1200.63a409b73032ea411d7e.jpg)
![A man standing in a clothing store.](https://projects.apnews.com/features/2023/adrift/__cdn__/images/1200.336ae62df2773f0a4bc0.jpg)
![A close-up selfie of a man in a black jacket](https://projects.apnews.com/features/2023/adrift/__cdn__/images/1200.9843a979a43bcf259106.jpg)
![Three men standing together posing for the camera.](https://projects.apnews.com/features/2023/adrift/__cdn__/images/1200.1787d0ab9de1b00a977f.jpg)
Clockwise starting from the top left: Houdou Soumaré, Cheikh Dioum, Houdou and Soulayman with Djibi Koumé, Soulayman Soumaré. Images courtesy of the families.
In the nearby village of Moudji, the parents of Soulayman Soumaré and his cousins Houdou Soumaré and Djibi Koumé, who had also disappeared, struggled to get on with their lives. One mother was severely depressed and suffering from panic attacks, the villagers said. “You cannot even talk because everyone is so upset,” said Oumar Koumé, the father of Djibi Koumé.
Like the mothers of Bouroudji, Koumé asked to see the bodies found in the boat that reached Tobago.
“If you see someone is dead in front of you, you know it is done. But if you dont see it, every day there are rumors,” he said. “Your heart aches.”
Adama Sarré is a 46-year-old nurse and single mother. Her 25-year-old son, Cheikh Dioum, is among those who disappeared.
An introvert, Dioum would sometimes stay in his room for days, his mother said. He was upset, frustrated. He had repeatedly asked her for money to travel to Europe. But on her meager nurses salary, she had little to give him. She advised patience. She recalled telling him: “Cheikh, go slowly, go slowly. If I work and find money, I will get you a plane ticket and you will go.”
Dioum thought she was lying, she said. He left without saying goodbye.
“I call his phone, it doesnt work,” she said. “Im just sitting here.”
## A Survivors Account
We may never know what happened to the men as they drifted from Nouadhibou to Tobago. But accounts from survivors of other shipwrecks in the Atlantic offer a clue.
Moussa Sako was rescued by the Spanish Air Force on April 26, 2021. Their boat was spotted by chance more than 310 miles (500km) from the Spanish island of El Hierro — “in the middle of nowhere,” as one of the rescuers described it.
They had set off 22 days earlier from Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania. Only three of 63 people who boarded survived.
Like many on the boat, Sako, an asylum-seeker from Mali, had never seen the ocean. Four men with maritime experience, including a Senegalese “captain,” were in charge of reaching the Canaries. The voyage was to take four to five days.
They were packed like sardines, with Sako squeezed in the middle. The leaking gasoline and salt water in the bottom of the boat burnt their skin, making it painful to sit.
Not long after departing, they ran out of food and water. On the fourth day they ran out of fuel. To slow down their drift and be more visible to rescuers, they made a makeshift anchor by tying the engine and other heavy metal scraps to a rope.
With each day that passed, the boat drifted further. Tensions boiled into arguments. The smugglers, some said, had betrayed them.
More days passed. No rescue came. A growing number of people wanted to cut the rope loose to drift faster. Sako thought they would be better off staying still, where the sea was still calm and they could see some lights at night. But Sako was defeated in a vote. The rope was snipped.
Just as he feared, the wind took them to more agitated waters that poured over their boat. The next evening the first person died, a 20-year-old man. They washed and wrapped his body in Islamic tradition and prayed before throwing it overboard.
By the second week, three to four people were dying every day.
Some had hallucinations. One man jumped to his death thinking they had arrived. Others jumped to end their suffering. Sako, the healthiest, tried to help the others.
“I had four full (layers of clothes) on me,” he recalled. “I would take one off and put it on them ... until I had only one.”
On day 18, he tried to get away from the rotting bodies. But they were everywhere. Only a handful of people were still alive. They hardly spoke.
Sako no longer feared death. He did worry about what would happen afterward.
“I wanted that even if I died, for people to recover (my body) and bury me,” Sako said. “If you disappear in the water, they can look for you for a hundred years.”
Finally, on day 22, a grey plane appeared in the sky above. Then came a helicopter. A rescuer dropped down and pulled Sako and the other two survivors from the corpse-ridden pirogue.
The bodies of 24 people were recovered and buried in the Canaries with case numbers instead of names. The remains of the other 36 were swallowed by the Atlantic.
## (Partial) Answers
The number of people attempting the Atlantic crossing to the Canaries is falling again as Spain and the EU, with help from their African partners, try to close that migration route in a constant cat-and-mouse game. But the reasons pushing these men, women and children to go — a lack of jobs, poverty, violence, climate change — have only gotten worse.
One year after the 43 men departed Nouadhibou, the white-and-blue boat sat abandoned on the side of the road in Belle Garden, much like the case itself.
The clothing, objects and cellphones recovered from the boat and the bodies had been kept in the back of the Scarborough police station in Tobago. Even though it had been cleared for disposal, the officer in charge of storing police evidence had decided to hold onto the items “in case someone came looking for this some day.”
With latex gloves, the officer and an AP reporter cut open the sealed bags, pulling out the decaying evidence on the concrete floor to be documented.
There were the dirty soccer jerseys and shorts of Juventus, Paris St-Germain, Barcelona, Real Madrid and The Football Federation of Mauritania that Burris had noted in her autopsy reports. There were the dark green weatherproof coats and pants so many migrants wear during the crossing. There were the cellphones, so worn out that the devices fell apart at the slightest touch.
After days analyzing photos of the evidence like a puzzle, one T-shirt seemed familiar. In a photo shared by one of the mothers from the Mauritanian village of Bourdouji, 20-year-old Abdoulaye Tall is seen wearing a colorful T-shirt with words on it, but only parts of it were visible: “IS IT ... E ... YOURE.”
Suddenly, it came into focus. He was wearing the shirt that had struck Dr. Burris: “HELLO, IS IT ME YOURE LOOKING FOR?”
The AP shared its finding, along with photos of the T-shirt, with Talls father. He said he was grateful for the information, even though it shattered his hopes.
“Its obvious hes dead,” Djibi Tall said. “Its Gods will.”
The AP also shared photos of the evidence collected in Tobago with other families of the missing in Mauritania, Mali, Senegal and France.
May Sow, the aunt in France, stared at the photos on her phone for days and stayed up late at night. One photo looked familiar: a black striped button-down shirt.
She went back to photos of her nephew from shortly before he disappeared. There it was — the same black striped shirt. He wore it on special occasions.
“I dont think they had the right to bring things with them, so he must have worn his best clothes,” she said.
She reached out to one of Alassanes friends in Mauritania who had accompanied him on the first part of the journey to the boat. He confirmed that Alassane had worn the striped shirt underneath a jacket with red pockets. Both were found on one of the bodies.
May Sow was already mourning the loss of her nephew, but her sister was still in denial. Sow reached out to the Red Cross in Senegal for help with a DNA test to confirm. But because Alassanes mother was from Mali, they couldnt help.
So in late June, the AP got a saliva sample sent from Alassanes mother to the Forensics Science Center in Trinidad and Tobago.
Three months later, on Oct. 4, 2022, an email arrived in May Sows inbox.
“I regret to inform that the DNA sample result is a positive match.”
![A beach with palm trees at dawn.](https://projects.apnews.com/features/2023/adrift/__cdn__/images/2000.867edaae945036bf6323.jpg)
## Epilogue
Alassane was buried after an Islamic funeral on March 3, 2023, at the Chaguanas Public Cemetery in Trinidad and Tobago. His family, unable to travel, held prayers in both his hometown in Mali and in France.
Of the 43 people believed to have boarded Alassanes boat, only 14 bodies and skeletal remains were found in Tobago. The Red Cross has collected 51 DNA samples from family members of 26 missing migrants in hopes of identifying the other bodies at the Forensic Science Center in Trinidad. Those results arent yet known.
Some things are, in the end, unknowable. Its possible — probable, even — that the world will never learn what exactly happened during the 135 days and nights that Alassane and the others spent adrift in the Atlantic.
But at least May Sow knows one thing now.
“At least, for my nephew, we have proof that it is him,” she said. “We can pray for him and believe that he is in a good place.”
### More in this project
## Digital Presentation Credits
Text and Visual Reporting: Renata Brito and Felipe Dana
Text Editors: Ted Anthony and Mary Rajkumar
Photo Editors: Enric Marti and Felipe Dana
Motion Graphics: Marshall Ritzel
Creative Direction: Raghu Vadarevu and Nat Castañeda