MORRO BAY

The view here is given generously
To each house built densely
On a hillside.  The fog ends
At the freeway, and
Just short of the top of the rock.

John is subdued;
I think it's me, then think I'm paranoid.
Bekah is quietly bored.
Emily is sweet
And mellow and being raised well.

I wish I could draw! These tops of houses,
These swallows and their noise.
The wires and the traffic.
Beyond, the great Pacific.
Investing me with serenity I may attempt to maintain.

        But musts are plenty and pressing,
        Shoulds so numerous too;
        If I can be a phoenix I'll rise and shine
        For you and you
        And you and you and you
        And you too.

As words rise and fall
Like tides unceasing, flow of cars
On an interstate.  As children grow,
Become adults, babies grow into children,
Eggs turn into babies.

        All this while it sits in me.
        It flows through me.
        It becomes me, like
        A soft light
        On a late night
        In a dark room
        Where I'm happy, and
        Allowed to be.

Rory is on the balcony swing,
Imperiously demanding, "Faster!"
In the distance I hear Journey sing
"Wheel in the Sky," which seems to be
Appropriately philosophical, as I

Stand at the threshold of 40,
Dusting off my knees,
Homeless but not yet hopeless.

Copyright © Barbara Bales 1997.
- posted by barbara @ 11/29/2002 07:55:00 PM  0 comments

 
happy turkey day to all. i'm here at my brother's house in morro bay, CA, and the sun is
shining, i can see the whitecaps of the waves from his front balcony,
and the rock looms reassuringly.
but that is not why i feel compelled to make a blog entry. the reason
i needed to blog today is a dream i had last night, after we arrived
here: i dreamed i was looking at my blog, and under one of my entries
it said, "[60] have yacc'd at me" - -

lol lol hehehehehe
enjoy your turkey. :)
- posted by barbara @ 11/28/2002 12:49:00 PM

 
NYPD Blue (a Titles and Air Dates Guide)

"But my heart is so full now. If I don't apply it to the canvas, this thing is going to beat me."
a victim ruminating to Andy Sipowicz

i'm sitting in my living room, doing laundry, writing a report, reviewing a record, watching NYPD Blue. I look up in time to see this character say this and the wisdom of it goes straight to my heart. i am near tears. i know why i write it. why i dabble in watercolors. yes, i am a creative person. but if i can't make some kind of art out of this, it will beat me.

damn it might anyway. ain't that a bitch.
- posted by barbara @ 11/26/2002 10:57:00 AM  0 comments

 
baggage carousel
big news over here.
we had 3 little ones overnight...one pure beige tonk, 2 pure white siamese. lola would NOT have the babies in the basket; no, she had the first one on me while i slept and the next two in the pile of laundry i have decided i'll do today.
we go to morro bay for thanksgiving, too. i'll do the laundry today, i swear...and work, too.


~yndygo's blues~
yndygo noticed a detail about my parents from my memorium [something i've always wanted to put in the LA Times obit section for some reason] saturday. my parents died on the same day, twelve years apart. i've always felt it was significant. i think in spite of their problems, of which there were many, my parents were and must still be true husband and wife.
- posted by barbara @ 11/26/2002 07:16:00 AM  0 comments

 
I N ** M E M O R I U M

Francis Dean Bales March 25, 1919 - November 23, 1968 and Marie G. Bales December 28, 1925 - November 23, 1980

Mom, Dad, your daughter remembers. and loves you. Take good care of my baby.....
mom and dad on their wedding day, 05-29-53
- posted by barbara @ 11/23/2002 06:51:00 AM  0 comments

 
Bekah’s father heard from his attorney, who deposed Rambo on 11-20-02 at her prison home up in Stockton, CA. my attorney had opted not to appear, apparently because I do not have the funds to finance travel associated with this lawsuit. and since the prison officials [or who knows?! rich white woman. already got away with murder] had locked ME out of the depo, I was unrepresented as Rambo spun lies so brazen she should be brought up on perjury charges.

why aren't people who lie under oath ever prosecuted????

count to ten, breath deeply in through nose, out slowly through mouth...do the heart chakra breathing and remember your mantra: Bekah's presence is more vital to me than her absence....

hm. sorry. this past week has set me back by my estimate three to six months in my grief work. I’ve been asking why these past few days, and I had pretty much abandoned that avenue of frustration for months. been feeling sorry for myself [my least favorite way to feel except for hopeless. in fact very close to hopeless] and making pathetic begging apologies to the spirit of my unavenged only girl. there are moments so bleak I wish I’d grow some suicide bones so I could give up this wretched fight. moments that I am so certain the conclusion has already been scripted somehow: we lose. not comforted knowing that I stand on the side of right and truth and justice. moments when the word justice seems to have a chorus of laughing demons attached, pointing at me, taunting me, like "stupid, you thought it was for real. NOBODY thinks justice is for real."

she lied through and through and appeared to Bekah's dad's attorney [who soon may be mine as well, since he is working on the case and right now it seems as if my attorney is just coasting while taking some pains to be sure his hand will still be attached to the cookie jar if and when it turns out to have something besides dirt in it]
to be an unlikable person and an unsympathetic witness.

As far as Bekah goes, he told her dad that the convict is remorseless. the word heartless may have been uttered by somebody other than myself. his attorney said that the two lawyers who appeared on her behalf were caught off guard by the information that was discussed and appeared to be so disgusted with their client that when the depo was concluded they left the prison immediately rather than hanging behind for a few minutes to consult with her. I don't know; I’ll get the transcript and know for myself that they weren't there on behalf of the two bars who have also been sued.

okay, an example or two of her lies.

before I tell what Rambo said, please understand that Bekah’s head was fractured on the lower left portion of the car's windshield. that is to say that Bekah’s head shattered the windshield directly in front of the killer's face. also please note that Bekah was murdered in front of an apartment complex, the closest units to the impact probably 50-100 feet away....I’m estimating. point being that the witness who heard Bekah’s last scream was considerably further away from its source than Rambo was. and Rambo didn't hear it? didn't know Bekah was a person?

she testified at the deposition that she thought "something" hit her car. that she did not look at her car after she killed Bekah, which supposedly explains why she didn’t realize that a person was involved. Oh please. she could never have made it to her house from where she killed bekah if these statements were true, because she would have been driving blindfolded!

this photo was saved from kabc channel 7's webpage in July 2001. If anyone who looks at this picture believes that bekah's killer told the truth at her deposition ... or has ever, since the night she killed an intelligent, hard-working, beautiful, healthy woman 32 years younger than herself, don't tell me. i'm stressing as it is. i don't think i am stupid.

I will also reiterate that Rambo was driving on the wrong side of the street when she killed Bekah. That she dragged my daughter’s body down the street 80-100 feet before she dumped it in the median so far from her shoes we didn’t find the spot until we’d been there three times. that bekah lost so much blood in that median the stain was visible six months later. that Bekah’s jacket was recovered in two pieces. her jacket was torn in two!

There was not a single skid mark left by the killer's car at the scene. but car accidents always leave skid marks! Right? Pretty much. No skid marks, no accident. Bekah was not killed by accident. This detail should have been regarded as evidence for the prosecution, but what did the DA say to me? “I hired an accident reconstructionist, but he can’t reconstruct the accident because there aren’t any skid marks.” Telling me this as part of his rationalization for abandoning the murder case.

As if I’m not in enough of a lather right now, I suddenly realize that Nicholas Rini must think we're stupid as well as ignorant [of things only lawyers know] and gullible as well as trusting [putting our faith in the man who called me up saying, “Ms. Bales, I’m calling to discuss your daughter’s murder,” and, “My job is to get justice for your girl.”]

oh, yeah! yeah. here's a good one. [Rambo testified under oath on Wednesday] she was not drunk when she killed Bekah. she had one half of a salty dog at the first bar and "thinks" she had one at the second bar. but didn't hear Bekah scream? didn't notice Bekah's head shattering her windshield and being so badly fractured that blood sprayed the entire car and brain matter was recovered from the car as well as from at least two different places in the street?

ok. so excuse me while I go sprint down the street imitating Bekah’s last sound. I can only hope that for Bekah it was pure reflex and not horror, not pain, not fear. i do know that the witness who heard it described it as "blood curdling."

if I let myself really go with a primal loud scream [i save them for the freeway], it would be packed with so much horror, so much pain, and more, and more. frustration. rage. grief, disbelief.

now I believe that bekah is dead and that belief was some time coming. but what I’m having a really hard time believing these days is that her murderer will keep on evading consequences, and will be protected and pandered to and just fucking allowed to get away with it.

i could fill another book with more of the myriad reasons i know my girl was murdered by this creature called rambo. but i'm tired. grief can be a monster and when it consorts with unanswered rage omigod. did i say i was tired? try exhausted, inside out exhausted.

i be working my way to the sunny side of the street real soon, and remembering Bekah with smiles, smiles, smiles. til then, i'll try to be glad that i was spared suicide bones. amen
- posted by barbara @ 11/22/2002 05:53:00 PM  0 comments

 
An Everyday Tragedy

the novel i began yesterday, all four thousand three hundred eighty words of it.

NOTE: this book is a work of fiction - any similarities to any person place thing or occurrence is simply because people should NOT be allowed to get away with murder.

Disclaimer Numero Dos: the author, Rebecca Dearpart [not her real name snick snicker], has not imparted to me that she considers this budding piece of work a potential book, per se. not at this time. at this time it is about numbers and catharsis, peace of mind and whipping the blank off the page, a diversion if you will, a challenge, an exercise...an excuse not to do the report I should be doing! I make no warranty express implied denied desired as to the quality of the writing contained in, so far, 4,380 words.

well, actually, there is at least one sentence that i like, one image that satisfies...ha ha. now i see how peeps got obsessed with this here idea.

i don't have to make it good. you don't have to read it. promise. but if you do, there's the link...:)
- posted by barbara @ 11/21/2002 01:01:00 PM

 
changed 3-18-07 graphic no longer available...

So I started my novel and got to 2,081 words in one day. i call it catharsis, or hope to. it's pure trash but the point is the word count, the word count, no?

i just cannot blog about rambo's specialness and how she's too fucking special to be deposed while the mother of the young woman she murdered is present. get me to the trial please.

my mantra re: bekah: Her presence is more vital to me than her absence. amen; bekah i love you xxx000
bekah takes her first steps
- posted by barbara @ 11/20/2002 10:20:00 PM

 
didn't happen. the first call i got this morning was from my lawyer's office informing me that because it is my case i will not be allowed into the prison.

too upset to go on.
- posted by barbara @ 11/19/2002 09:37:00 PM  0 comments

 
Northern California Women's Facility (NCWF)
this evening i will leave for morro bay, where my brother lives.
tomorrow at 4 am we will leave morro bay for stockton, where bekah's
killer is imprisoned, and john will kick around lovely stockton while
i enter the prison to be present [with bekah on my shoulder] at the
deposition of her murderer.

according to a mcdonald's commercial i saw the other day, 11-20
is "international children's day"? think that was it.

cross your fingers for me that i can maintain my stone face
regardless of how many lies she tells. my hope is that my presence
will shame her into telling the truth. but i cannot count on that.
- posted by barbara @ 11/19/2002 05:35:00 AM  0 comments

 
The Research Kitchen of the Virtual Man
Tom, the virtual man, posted about white-trash cooking, sending me on a trip down memory lane. ugh. creamed tuna on toast. hated it! and some gawdawful concoction my mother [who was not known for her cooking] invented, called "goup." i recall it as catsup and macaroni. yuck. last and least, tamale pie. yak.

tom wrote back to say he enjoyed his mom's chipped beef with peas on toast for breakfast, and "goop," with the variant spelling. maybe it tasted better without the "u." who knows? goup is goop - not good.

as i recall chipped beef on toast is popularly known as "shit on a shingle" and i like that as much as i like creamed tuna on toast...and goop? ok, goop, goup, either way, i imagine it came about during the depression. i know my mother was raised during the depression [born 1925]. my dad was born in 1919 and made a show of "wiping his plate" with a slice of bread every night, a habit i believe was also fostered during the depression. my dad wanted for more growing up than my mom. no matter how bad the food was, we could not get up without reciting, "Thank you for the nice lovely dinner may I please be excused?" which eventually we could say in a split second without a breath, let alone any real gratitude.
we had to eat everything set before us before we could leave the table, and i have carried the memory of sitting alone with a pile of disgusting mashed potatoes and gravy long after they'd gone cold and congealed grease. this is why my kids were never made to finish their dinner if they did not want to. but if they wanted desert bad enough they would finish their dinner; that was my catch.

- posted by barbara @ 11/15/2002 05:20:00 PM  0 comments

 
i love this picture of bekah with her head back and her shades on her head. it was taken by joe, i believe, a few years ago.
after i talked to bekah's father about the DA's lies and what we might be able to do about it, i went to the cemetery and told bekah we were going for it. she kicked up a strong wind and blew it at me, and i felt she was saying, "good. go for it mom."
when i walked up to her grave on her 22nd birthday it was july 6, the height of summer, 11 am...as i approached her grave to see her headstone for the first time [sobbing], a wind came up and blew on everyone there, about 30 of us, i suppose. i said, "Bekah's here."
after she died the first thing i said to her father when he showed at my door with andy in tow was, "we can't do anything for bekah anymore." i was wrong. i will pursue the wrong the DA did for bekah, for myself, for my surviving children [that they know right from wrong and that we should stand for right, even if we lose], and for another victim as yet unnamed. cross my fingers hope to die and live my days with my head held high. amen


- posted by barbara @ 11/13/2002 12:50:00 PM  0 comments

 
Grieving Parents Candle Memorials

i've lit a virtual candle for my girl...remember our children
- posted by barbara @ 11/12/2002 10:59:00 AM  0 comments

 
a quick note for any who might be interested: i spoke with bekah's father today, and we are going for it. We will file a formal complaint and request an independent investigation into Bekah's case, and once that has been done, inform the press, and hopefully, get some press.

and hopefully, there will be a smidge more justice for another victim.

amen
- posted by barbara @ 11/10/2002 07:18:00 PM  0 comments

 
High Water

read this
- posted by barbara @ 11/08/2002 01:42:00 PM  0 comments

 
AlterNet: Drug War Corruption in Colombia and Mexico
US anti-drug money is being squandered in Mexico and Columbia - and stolen there, too, by supposed "anti-narcotics police."

i like AlterNet.org, because it assures me that i am not insane. the world is, the president may be, but i am not. that old self-referral ... gets lost, or is in danger of getting lost, if i cannot touch base with people of like minds or hop over to AlterNet.org. Obviously the mainstream media is being directed like a play by the powers that be.

Vive la alternative media

i love this picture of bekah and her brother andy, and i'll never forget that day. the same day i took this picture, i brushed bekah's never-cut hair til it shone all the way to her waist and took a picture of it from the back. good thing, since within days it would be cut off after their day care informed me that andy had head lice.

I had dealt with it before, with John, even Bekah and I had it when she was a baby. grrrrrrrrrrrrr. When i was told that andy had it, i went straight to get Bekah and when i said "Andy has head lice," she barely took a breath before admitting, "I think I do, too."

Oh why oh why hadn't she told me her head was itching unbearably?! The infestation revealed when we got home was so extensive she must have been miserable; but not a word of complaint until it was identified by her brother's caregiver. [this was typical of Bekah: when she was 4 she had repeated ear infections, but never complained, never ran a fever...instead she went deaf. It was only at the specialist's office while arranging to have tubes put in her ears that we learned of the presence of infection]

I put Bekah in the shower and lice were falling out of her hair. There was simply no way to save it. I treated her, washed her hair, combed through as well as i could in the waning hours of the evening, swallowed, and took Bekah to a
Fantastic Sam's for her first haircut.

Okay i'm ashamed to admit this. But i was afraid if i told them Bekah had a hellacious case of head lice they would refuse to cut her hair. The person cutting her hair did not identify them - not immediately, any way. She could tell it was Bekah's first haircut and generously offered to save some of Bekah's hair for me as a memento. I declined, with thanks.

By and by, she said, "Mom? can you come here?" and discreetly notified me that my daughter had head lice. I admitted that i knew already and hadn't been forthright because i was afraid they would not cut her hair, and was assured that they prefer to be told so that the proper procedures can be followed.

I never had head lice once growing up, but in manhattan beach, my children were subject to it repeatedly. what an exhausting bitch of a scourge...anyhow. that's how bekah ended up with short hair at the age of 7 when her silly mother thought she'd just let it grow until the girl was 18 and old enough to make up her own mind about how long she wanted it....
- posted by barbara @ 11/06/2002 02:28:00 AM  0 comments

 

Bekah and her baby brother Rory, 1992, and one of her favorite little ways to play [or was it just my favorite way for her to play?] at any rate, she had a strawberry shortcake christmas, i think it was 1983. good ol' strawberry shortcake. do you remember? the little dolls all smelled like whatever fruit they were named after? are they still around?


Title suggestions invited.

thanks

okay i did it but i don't know if i will really participate. i figger signing up makes it about 2 percent more likely than if i just look at the sign up page. so i signed up and if i do write a 50,000 page novel between now and the end of this month you'll be the first to know and i'll never ask you to read a word of it.

unless i like it. fat chance! lol

anyhow, here goes. or not.
- posted by barbara @ 11/05/2002 04:46:00 AM  0 comments

 
MADD Online: Home

i just sent this as a special notice to my yahoo group, bekah:

well, it's been awhile...i've been lazy about this group, not transcribed much of bekah's writing in recent months and all of my own writing been going to my blog:

http://barbtries.blogspot.com

if any one is still reading: if you get a blog i'll read it. it's a cool way to vent, keep up on things, and keep in touch with people. so far all my blogging buddies but one are people i've never met in real life. but it would be cool if i could just tune in to about all of my loved ones and see how they be that day. how they really be.

so. it's 9:30 the night after halloween [someone tell joe rooks happy birthday for me], and i got the paperwork from MADD to begin volunteering for them.

the first thing i pull out of the envelope is a anti-drunk driving brochure. it includes a breakdown of the possible penalties if you cause injury or death while intoxicated, and next to both felony hit and run and manslaughter, it is noted, "...may be charged as a strike."

i am so pissed i feel as if i could explode, but instead [and that is the other really good thing about blogging], i'll write it down. lies lies lies

nicholas rini looked at us knowing we depended upon him to achieve justice for our murdered girl, and lied directly to our faces. the lies:


"She'll be going away on 80 percent time." Ben, Denise, and I all heard him say this. I left the spin session on 11-28-01 [where we were informed of the plea bargain and enlisted as partners in that travesty by our silence] knowing that rambo would serve 3.2 years for murdering bekah.

in fact i left that meeting devastated that rambo would serve ONLY 3.2 years. it meant she got away with murder. and i was there, in that room, and did not save my girl nor garner her justice. that was a low point in my life, that day.

a couple months later i learned from my cousin that it was fifty percent time. he got the information directly from nicholas rini. i called my other cousin, a probation officer for the state, who assured me that no state prisoner in CA goes away for more than 55 percent of the time sentenced.

it was not until the date of the sentencing that nicholas rini confirmed that rambo would do only 50 percent of her four-year sentence. Then out came another bald-faced lie:

"I didn't tell you she would go away for 80 percent of her time."

right, i pulled the number straight out of the air. the same number ben pulled out of the air, and denise pulled out of the air. we were all experiencing the same hallucination when nicholas rini lied to us and said that rambo would do 80 percent of her time.

Ben and i discussed the bargain. i was devastated; i think he was, too. he said, "i just want to make sure she pleads guilty." we had not thought to ask about that during the spin session.

[well how could we even think when we'd just been told that our daughter's murderer would get off with a much lesser conviction and an obscenely short prison sentence?]

so i called nicholas rini with that question, using ben's words. "We want to know that she will cop to her guilt even if it's not the crime we know she did."

and nicholas rini said, "I can't do anything about how she pleads. whether it's guilty or no contest, she will be convicted. legally it's the same plea."

lies. He could OBJECT to the no contest plea [not to mention the bullshit rambo's lawyer read into the record prior to the recording of that plea, making certain that the record reflected his client's denial of ANY BLAME OR FAULT IN BEKAH'S DEATH]. He could argue to the judge, "you've seen the evidence your honor. for the sake of justice the people request that you refuse the no contest plea in this case."

we did not know that until after the pleading, when another criminal whose case was covered in the Daily Breeze was forced to plead guilty after the DA objected to the no contest plea. Because when we ASKED, Nicholas Rini lied. Straight-faced as if he was telling the truth.

on 02-15-02 Rambo was sentenced and taken away. for only two years, not 3.2 as we were told by nicholas rini and not for the rest of her life as we believed justice demanded. I wanted to make certain that, at least, if after her release she killed someone else the way she did Bekah she would get 25 years to life for a third strike crime. So i asked nicholas rini.

he pretended he did not know, went away to look at paperwork, came back to me and lied, straight-faced directly to my face:

"These crimes don't count as strikes because they are vehicular in nature."

lies. lies. lies. you hate to hear them from the other side, but part of you knows they will happen. but from your side? the good guy, the man i designated "Bekah's defender" rather than "Rambo's prosecutor," who ultimately turned out to be "Rambo's defender," leaving bekah's memory chopped liver and justice in the dust?

i want to send this to newspapers. nicholas rini. i will put it on my blog and post it here and who knows where else? and i ask, whoever reads this, please advise me. help me know the right thing to do even if you believe it is nothing. and if you are thinking barbara's got to let that go! - tell me how.

thank you and love to you all
bekah's mom barbara
- posted by barbara @ 11/01/2002 10:08:00 PM  0 comments

 
MOMSAVESJOBS.org
I cannot speak for her cause, but i do know that she is the mother of a "special needs" child, one i believe is the victim of tuberous sclerosis. i got this link in my email through my sister's stepdaughter, whose son also has tuberous sclerosis. Susan's son's "special needs" are many, and expensive as well as time-consuming. Good luck Heidi Neal; i hope you save your husband's job.
- posted by barbara @ 11/01/2002 11:18:00 AM  0 comments

 
CDC Facts

note that the cost to house my daughter's murderer for one year is more than i earned last year - or will earn this year.
it makes me sick, is all. no biggie. let it run off our backs now and get on with life. no, wait...we'll do that momentarily

"CHARACTERISTICS: Race: 29.2% white; 30.0% black; 35.4% hispanic; 5.4% other

that this is even reported verifies the institutionalization of racism in our society. i do not recognize these "races"; these days i subscribe solely to the human race. if anything i might concede that there are 2 races, male and female. but even there i tend to believe we are ALL just human beans, more alike than we are different. this counting of color and eye shape should have stopped generations ago, and it really ought to be over with NOW.

Offense: 47.7% persons; 21.2% property;2306% drugs; 7.5% other

so i take it bekah's death is "persons"? what? murders, strong-arm robbery, simple assault, etc., do they all get banded together with "persons"? and how about those drugs eh?! gee. seems if "drugs" were made legal [like, for instance, "booze" and "cigarettes"], they'd have to stop sprouting prisons all along the countryside.

but:
Since the early 1980s, Corrections has been involved in the largest prison building program in the United States. The Department of Corrections' Master Plan predicts that the growing inmate population will exceed maximum operating prison capacity of 177,197 in April, 2004.
Cost: $5.27 billion Total Beds Completed: 113,904

prison is a growth industry...who is getting rich from the prison industry? i've heard the former governor pete wilson, but do not KNOW that to be true....i believe it, but i could be wrong.

these statistics make me sick. why then did i go there? it was to find out where bekah's murderer is as of today. her deposition is scheduled for 11-13-02 and if it is in Stockton i may not be able to attend. and i really want to go. but all i got from the CDC's webpage was statistics.

anyway. Halloween was more good than bad so don't think this blip is systemic. :)
- posted by barbara @ 11/01/2002 05:45:00 AM  0 comments