Prelude Lyndon La Rouche has died. The stories about him and his uber-weird political career are legion. This is a summary version of mine; it has a lot to do with Quakers. It wasn’t meant to, but that’s how it turned out. I First, though, I need to make what will seem like a pointless … Continue reading Lyndon La Rouche and me — Part I
In the version of this report published in the Charlotte NC News, additional details were included:
Sheriff Story [sic] and his six assistants started with Jeffress to the courthouse one block away. Arriving at the spot where Ray was killed, a mob formed around the Officers and their prisoner. There was a sudden surge forward and in the twinkling of an eye, according to the sheriff, the prisoner had been taken from the officers and was placed in an automobile and rushed away. There was not a shot fired: not even a gun drawn during the minute scuffle between the mob and officers.
Sheriff Storey said tonight that resistance would have been folly as the mob was made up of between 25 and 50 determined men. There were at least 150 additional men nearby whose sympathies were with the- mob, he stated tonight. Answering a. direct question, Sheriff Story declared that he did not know anyone in the mob. The man who led the mob and took the prisoner away, the sheriff said, must have just moved into the county and was not known to him.
Still Boston-based, she was coming to Washington to work on a book. It was to be about abortion, now legal everywhere — or rather, the book was about the right-to-life movement, which was determined to make abortion illegal again.
She’d be there in a few days, and wanted to catch up. Which was great, but left me wondering. I was the Washington reporter of the two of us: Washington, the nation’s premier center of media, power and glamour. I wanted to show her something of that, but the truth was I was still a rookie there: I didn’t know any powerful people. I wasn’t invited to the parties the local glitterati kept throwing for the powerful and glamorous, plus some media hangers-on. So I’d have to find something else to show her, something offbeat. What could it be?
The Star, which was on its last legs when I saw the story about General Loan.
The Washington Star came to my rescue. It had recently run a story about area Vietnamese refugees, one of whom was a former general, who had come to America after his army (and ours) lost the war to their Communist enemies. He was, it said, now running a restaurant in northern Virginia called the Three Continents.
The man’s name seemed familiar. So I did some checking– and yes, it was General Ngoc Loan, the one from the world-famous front page execution photo. I got the exact address in the phone book, and drove past it to be sure I knew the way.
Mike snapped me out of one of my dreams. ”Hey,” he said. “Phone’s for you.” To my inquiring stare he whispered, “Judy Drake. The Phoenix.”
My stomach went cold. “Err, hi Judy,” I croaked.
“Chuck,” she said. “Interesting review. But I’ve got a few questions.”
“Interesting”? I knew that “interesting” was Judy’s word for copy that didn’t qualify for her usual adjective of “great.”
A few questions? My throat went dry. “Okay,” I croaked again. “I mean, Fine! Shoot.”
“Well,” she said, “here’s three: First, what is it you didn’t like about the bass player?”
“Ummm, sure,” I said. “And, uh, the second one?”
“What was it,” she asked, “about Sly’s singing that you said was ‘off-center’?”
“Right. Uh, yeah. Got it. And third?”
“The new song,” she said, “the one they did in the encore. What was the name of it?”
New song? What new song??
“Okay,” I said again. Then cleared my throat. And coughed. I thought maybe I had forgotten how to breathe.
“Chuck? You still there?”
Oh, I was there. And I was so, so busted. ”Um, Judy,” I said slowly, “there’s something I need to explain.”
On perceiving that he was armed with a rifle, the first sight of him startled me, and I endeavoured to elude his sight, by stopping my pace, and keeping large trees between us; but he espied me, and turning short about, sat spurs to his horse, and came up on full gallop.
I never before this was afraid at the sight of an Indian, but at this time, I must own that my spirits were very much agitated: I saw at once, that being unarmed, I was in his power, and having now but a few moments to prepare, I resigned myself entirely to the will of the Almighty, trusting to his mercies for my preservation; my mind then became tranquil, and I resolved to meet the dreaded foe with resolution and chearful confidence.