Sparsely, Sage and Timely
‘There but for fortune go you or I...’
We newspapers are sometimes the court of last resort for people feeling abused but ignored. Occasionally, we can bring to light something that should not be ignored. When the people feeling abused are from West Marin, we typically talk over the problem with them and – when appropriate – write news stories.
Many calls for help, however, come from far away, and there is usually nothing I can do for the "wronged" callers. Because The Light over the years has developed a reputation for investigative reporting, we get more than our share of such calls. Two months ago, I received a painful call from a man in Key West named Harry ("although everyone calls me ‘Harry the Hat."). He wanted help in getting a book published; no publisher was interested. I suggested he try print-on-demand publishing, which isn’t too expensive. If he Goggled self-publishing, he’d find lots of websites on how to do it. When Harry said he didn’t have a computer, I suggested he use one at a public library. "I can’t do that," he said. "You don’t understand; I’m living in a tent."
Harry wanted to publish a book about corruption in the casino industry. He stressed that he had newspaper clippings to back up everything he planned he had to say. It was then I realized Harry wasn’t looking for a publisher as much as a ghost writer. I told him the newspaper I edit is very small and only deals with local news. There was no way I could take on his story. "I hoped you might have a little sympathy for me," Harry said forlornly.
Harry revealed he had spent time in prison for robbing a casino. A significant revelation. Harry’d had a rough time with alcohol after getting out of prison, which probably explained his whiskey voice. He told me he’d been sober for several years and had spent the last five of them "helping the homeless." I gathered that this required living among them.
At one point, Harry had to interrupt his phone call and tell someone to leave him alone; he still had some time coming for the coins he’d deposited in the payphone. Harry had spent part of what little he had to call me, and I could offer only consolation. I told Harry I’d had no success when I tried to interest a publisher in a prospective book awhile back, but "I couldn’t get it published, so I’m really not the person to tell you how to do it."
"I understand," Harry said quietly. Apparently, I was a fellow traveler down on my luck. "Goodbye, he said with resignation. "Thanks for listening."
Equally painful was a handwritten letter Brian F. Stagl (07570-52, FMC 2E PO Box 1600, Butner, NC 27509-1600) sent me from his prison cell last month:
"I was a student at Pacific Marine Station in 1978, you remember," he wrote. "You did a story on that station, which was in Dillon Beach. My picture was in the story." The following year, Stagl said, he was living in an apartment house "where J--- M----- on a cocaine-induced ego trip tried to murder me twice. Well, my life hasn’t been the same since.
"I was back in Marin, Sonoma and elsewhere in 1980 where the welfare and the law treated me to hell." At that time, he wrote, he was trying to market a "solar-fluid-transport mechanism... Yes, I was in Marin County Jail where fellow inmates slammed my head against the bars, and I was in Sonoma County Jail where inmates pelted me with food while guards watched and did nothing."
Police didn’t arrest J---M----- for "dealing cocaine" and trying to "murder" him, Stagl said, because J--- M----- "got the backing of some number of quack psychiatrists who believe I am delusional about an hallucinated incident...
"I didn’t finish the master’s degree I was working on in 1979. Marin County garbage collectors threw away my data (on clams) that they stole off a porch ‘by accident’.... Without a master’s and the PhD I was to get from Berkeley, I haven’t been able to clean up the environment... In fact, I’ve been unemployed [and] single for 26 years while numerous senators, governors, and presidents ignored my attempts to solve your water-shortage problems with [a] solar-fluid transport mechanism...
"And, you who left me on the road in 1980, begging food and shelter (at $60 and Food Stamps, welfare allotment per month from Marin County)," Stagl warned, "will pay.
"P.S. You might want to hire an attorney to get me out of here. No freedom, no solution to California’s water-shortage problems."
After reading Stagl’s letter, I looked through our back issues, and on Page 8 of the Feb. 2, 1978, edition, I found a photograph of a young man at a lab table. The picture is captioned: "RESEARCH – Graduate student Brian Stagl inspects a Transennella clam through a microscope."