Hey Paul, Lynn would like to visit his brother. Along with all the stuff you grabbed from our condo under the guise of helping us: Where in Derry, NH’s landfill did Dan Shackelford’s ashes end up resting?
Was seemingly non-existent this time around. During check-in I didn’t notice much because I was more focused on getting Lynn properly documented and in the chute. I sat with Lynn during as much of the pre-operative preparation as I could. He was pretty stoned from the medication and I wanted to make sure all of the important information was communicated without error.
But during surgery I had moment to pause and think.
When they wheeled Lynn away for the final prep and surgery I went looking for the waiting room. I had errands to run and I knew when he should be waking up and all I really wanted to do was see if there were any good magazines. I stopped for a moment when I stepped into the waiting room. I couldn’t remember when was the last time I was there but nothing had changed, well, the magazines were fresh. The elderly volunteer keeping track of waiting family members asked for my name and the patients name and then “Are you Family?” Now I’ve gotten used to this question and I don’t stumble when I need to tell this lie and I said “Yes.”
And she said “Husband?”
For the first time in a long time I had to stop and think before I could answer with a simple “Yes.”
Felony Conviction and Conflict of Interest.
Felony Convictions and Conflict of Interest by Officers of the Court
I found out the hard way that it ain’t too difficult to be convicted of a serious felony in the state of New Hampshire. All you really need are three people testifying against you, no witnesses on your side and you’re gone. You don’t need to commit a crime, no physical proof is required only good witnesses. Living in a state that is perpetually strapped for cash I found out that the Public Defenders Office can bill the client after the client (me) is found guilty. That ain’t
an incentive to bring your “A” game to the table. I think it’s more of a disincentive to do your best. As a lawyer you can choose to get paid out of the tiny shrinking state budget or convince your client to plead guilty and bill your client for your time.
It’s been a decade and a half and I’ve kept my mouth shut but JP Morgan Chase is taking everything I worked and I don’t have the kind of money it takes to fight them so I
feel I have nothing to lose by telling the truth here in open sunshine.
The other side of the coin is illustrated by the letter on the right but you’ll need some background information first.
We be O-Kay! No Harm, No Foul.
At the time I was fully employed, and in my free time I was working as president of the condo board for my home, King Richards Condominium. The condominium association had problems I should have found before I bought in, but my due diligence consisted of taking the real estate salesman at his word. I wish I had sued the real estate agent for lying to me and moved elsewhere. The condo association was bankrupt, and the buildings infested with termites and in need
of capital improvements, new roofs, siding, and drainage issues. And there was no money set aside for repairs. Heck the condo board couldn’t even pay the utility bills. I tackled all the major problems, solved those problems and made enemies along the way. The management company Evergreen Management was created and owned by the Ducharme family, wasn’t happy that I insisted on quotes from outside contractors and I didn’t rely on the Ducharme’s short list of approved vendors.
Evergreen Realty was William, Tom and Robert Ducharme with legal advice coming from Robert Ducharme. While I was sitting in the county jail with time on my hands I started asking around and I found out that the Rockingham County prosecuting attorney, was Robert Ducharme the brother of William and Tom, a pair of men that I had regular financial battles with as president of King Richard Condominium. I was costing the Ducharme brothers profit with my insistence on quotes from outside contractors as I fulfilled my fiduciary duties to the owners of King Richard Condominium. What a great way to discredit me and get me out of the picture!
I filed a complaint with the professional conduct committee and they wrote telling me they found nothing wrong with Robert Ducharme’s actions and included the warning that I’d be held in contempt of court if I told anyone of their decision. I was saddened but not surprised by this point. We have the best justice system that money can buy in this country.
This is a rough first draft and will be re-written and edited for clarity. This is a true account of events.
Now, I’m going to get myself in trouble for this but I think one of the reasons that it is so easy to lie is that no one seems to want to call out the liar. I mean, there’s no upside because the liar is simply going to try and lie his way out.
But I have a lifetime so far of tilting at windmills, adopting stray people and sticking my neck out for causes that I think are just.
My husband spent the week of the 14th of April having his good knee replaced. Now he’s been waiting for time and technology to advance so that he can have his bad knee replaced and drive his Challenger 440 6-Pack. Well, now he’s old enough, 55 years and technology has advanced to a possible 30 year lifetime for a prosthetic knee so he’s not too worried about wearing out the prosthetic and he’s gone ahead and had it installed. Unfortunately it’s not his bad knee but the good knee that wore out and his 70 Challenger is missing, stolen from him by Paul Doolittle, Sun Point Farm, Derry, NH.We live in a motor home, a derelict 32 foot Rockwood.
Our full time home, a slowly coming back to life 32' 1987 Rockwood.
My partner resting on the second day after total joint replacement surgery.
Now the rv was parked about as far from the Hospital as we could get, and I kept a low profile id est I didn’t set out the Tiki torches and lawn furniture. I ate breakfast there, made my lunch and supper to eat with Lynn in an attempt to keep as normal a routine as possible while Lynn got his strength back. Keep in mind, this antique land yacht is fully self contained and before moving it to the Elliot, parking lot 14 I drained the holding tanks, filled the water and propane tanks and charged the batteries. I didn’t even plan to run the Onan generator. So here I am
Our 1987 Rockwood and motorcycle in the far corner of Elliot Hospital parking lot 14 with my motorcycle parked in a stripped off area right where the security officer told me to park it,
My first parking ticket from the Elliot Hospital Manchester, NH
I was flabbergasted but I went in and showed it to Lynn and we talked about a course of action. I called the number on the bottom of the ticket and was told that security had been out to talk to me about a complaint. It seems that someone inside the RV made a catcall to a female in the parking lot. Now I’m a 55 year old gay mail happily married and my husband has just undergone major surgery. I barely acknowledge women must less leer at them So this doesn’t pass the sniff test. I ask for the name of the woman and I’m told that it’s none of my business. I ask for the name of this guys superior and he tells me that he’ll call his boss for me. Men in Black indeed. Jeebus guy, you’re a rent a cop patrolling a parking lot. So I run my errands and near the end this wannbee cop but a full fledged bully calls me and tell me that I can’t have my motorcycle parked in the lot because it’s leaking oil. Funny, on the paper is says parked in a no parking zone. Make up your mind guy.
Now Lynn likes diplomatic solutions but I got a guy that isn’t even granting me the courtesy of a believable lie, Lynn’s not dong well in recovery so I let him try his way first. Talk to the nurse. Talk to the social worker. Social worker talks to security and arranges a meeting. Meeting comes. Man in Black isn’t lying,he’s just telling me information I didn’t know. Man in Black still doesn’t know the mystery woman’s name but he does know that we can’t have the RV in the parking lot and its got to be gone by the end of visiting hours.
This just gets better and better. A carefully arranged, fully above-board plan changed after I’m fully committed. To top it off, there’s a parking ticket on the RV when I’m getting ready to run around in my $1/mile ride.
Parking Ticket for Parking in Restricted Lot
This is where this whole Kafkaesque comedy becomes pitiful. This is the entrance from auburn Street to Elliot Hospital’s parking lot 14.
Street entrance to Parking Lot 14 Elliot Hospital Manchester, NH
Now if you want to be a bully and harass the gay guys you really should be smart enough not to put it in writing cause there’s no signage saying that parking lot 14 is for employees only.
Sign saying that the Elliot Hospital Campus is a No Smoking Campus.
I’m surprised the Elliot hospital has a policy forbidding people with relatives undergoing surgery from staying in a self contained RV on the hospital property. I’m astounded that after agreeing to a stay the hospital used this chain of unbelievable lies to encourage me to move and in addition made it almost impossible for me to visit my husband in the recovery ward. You would think that a big for-profit hospital would … I just don’t have words right now.
Lynn’s new knee is paid for by the Manchester Community Health Center and Elliot Charitable Care. Maybe if we had rolled up in a 2007 Holiday Rambler and paid cash on the barrel-head we would have been allowed to park in the parking lot during Lynn’s stay and not been given the bum’s rush.
Lynn’s missing car has finally surfaced. I knew it would as there aren’t too many of these around and this is the nicest, cleanest original one of the lot.
Just like it says here:
And this is the page I made up the day Lynn was told by a potential buyer that he Lynn didn’t really own the car and was nothing but a scammer.
Lynn’s beloved all original Dodge Challenger 440 6-Pack Convertible was stolen from him and he wants it back.
Well, at least we’ve changed the clocks to daylight saving time. The furnace is no longer needed at night. There’s real warmth to the sun light. And it’s time to fill the water system. All winter long we’ve been flushing the toilet with RV anti-freeze. Using gallon jugs of water for cooking and cleaning and now we’re faced with the task bringing all that damn plumbing back to life. I’m planning on opening up both bunks in the master bedroom to expose the fresh water tank, water pump, system drains and the hot water heater
(Time passes)
And I’ve moved all the eBay stuff and the clean clothes from the master bedroom and removed all of the screws holding down the bunks. I examined all the plumbing that I could see certain that I’d find the water pump and hot water heater cracked from frozen water. Nothing obvious appeared so I broke out potable water hose and ended up a few feet short of the water. So I broke out the non-potable water hose, flushed it and connected it to the brand new potable water hose. What the hell, I still need to sterilize the RV’s water system.
I started the water into the gravity fill — remember I expect something to dramatically fail in the RV water system. I went inside and checked the plastic tank and saw orange water so I went out and stopped the fill and drained the tank into the gutter. Add water and drain and this time the water is more or less clear. Add enough water so I can run the pump. I turn on the pump and listen as the water system pressurizes for the first time in a decade. And the pump runs and runs and runs. Nothing leaking in here so it’s time to walk away and observe the situation. There’s water leaking underneath the hot water heater. I knew It! The heater’s toast and I need to come up with $600! So where is the hot water heater leaking from? The drain. So I close the drain and run water through all of the taps. Wow, this is anticlimatic. The hot water heater fired us as though it had been run yesterday. Twice. It won’t run today but yesterday it was fine. But I have running non-potable water so I can flush my toilet and wash my hands. If you haven’t lived without running water you won’t understand what that means. With a little liquid bleach I’ll have potable water and after cleaning a couple of switches I’ll have potable hot water. If you can’t imagine living without running water you can’t imagine how I feel with the prospect of a working shower bath!
A long time ago, especially in this world of sound bites I looked into my past and presented my memories of what it was like with AIDS in the 1980s and presented this as a sermon for World Aids Day at the Unitarian Universalist church of Manchester, NH. Here it is if you want to see what I remembered. A Dark Time
As much as I want things to be better change isn’t happening fast enough. When I was younger and my friends began wot die it was a shock when the “real” family, the blood relatives, would come in after the death to reap what they could from their dear departed beloved’s holdings. And to hell with the man that really was a apart of his life. the man that had just spent agonizing months watching the man he loved waste away and die.
Then I tripped over this on Advocate.com.
I’ve been there on the sidelines and even sitting there it’s difficult to watch and there’s damn little support to offer. Rarely I was able to help. Kenny Raksin and I ran up horrendous telephone bills planning Kenny’s funeral. I didn’t go because the affair was for Kenny’s close family and besides, he was already gone. To this day I know a bit about Jewish funerary procedures. After the funeral, Sandy Marcus an older friend told me that he was glad I hadn’t gone because the Act Up! crowd had shown up in costume to make a political statement turning a solemn dignified affair into a circus. I miss Kenny.
Marion Frazer asked for my advice and support and blessing on his plans. Because I was “practical.” Marion was a successful businessman and artist and chose to focus on living. For medical treatment he turned to a macrobiotic diet — that was as good a guess as any at the time as the public and the medical profession treated AIDS as a gay disease that would solve two problems at once by getting rid of the homosexuals. Marion enjoyed life too much to focus on the end or a possible afterlife so Marion found a kindred soul in Antonio Castelanez a man who agreed to care for Marion all the way to the end and as payment inherit Marion’s estate. Lawyer’s were involved to protect all parties and the plan was successfully executed even after Marion was gone. Marion’s family tried to break the contracts and found that couldn’t be done. One of the few times that the important people in a gay man’s life were treated fairly.
And I’ve made changes to the battery pack.
The new Dinosaur Fan 50 Plus Pins control board works as advertised until the voltage gets too low. So if the furnace fails to fire, it now tries again and usually lights. But if the batteries get low and the furnace faults out on the sail switch sometimes the furnace shuts off and sometimes it doesn’t. I can live with that.
My solution to the lack of power issue has been to change out the batteries. I started with a brand new pair of WalMart deep-cycle group 27 batteries. I changed out my vintage converter and put aside my manual battery charger for a brand new Progressive Dynamics 9260C Intelli-Power converter and smart charger. And I’ve added four used GC-15 6V deep cycle batteries that when new delivered 75A of current into a load for 120 minutes (2-hours for the math challenged.) When I read the fine print on the WalMart batteries I saw them rated at 1A for 115 hours. In the beginning I said 115 time 2 equals 230 amp/hours. At 7.5 amps, the furnace running for 10 hours draws 75 amp hours. I’m good to go! When I started waking up cold and running outside at 0 dark :30 to start the generator well, then I did the research I should have done in the beginning.
I’m an old toolmaker and I should know better to trust what someone says without checking it out myself. Two group 27 batteries were for the intended purpose of this RV — providing housing on the road and for a couple weeks a year while plugged into the utilities at a campground. The original converter wasn’t a charger and was only designed to keep the batteries from discharging at the campground, while plugged into utilities. The group 27 batteries were meant to be charged by the main engine while en-route to the campground and to provide power for a quick lunch while on the road.e
The new GC-15 golf cart batteries (GC – Golf Cart do you get it?) wired in series for 12V and in parallel for capacity along with the still in place group 27s soak up the entire output of the power converter when charging with 28A going into the group 27s and 10A into each pair of GC-15s. Well, I took the measurements after installing my new 100A-100mv shunt from Best Converter the same place I sourced my 9260C. I installed the shunt into the line from the converter since I have batteries at both ends of the RV for the time being and took my measurements before I bought the second pair of GC-15s. My original measurements were 28A into the group 27s and a total of 38A with one pair of GC-15s added. I don’t think the second pair of batteries was in as good a state of charge as the first and I inferred that the converter was at full 60A output by voltage measurements. I still need to run three wires out from the shunt so that I can measure the current flowing through the shunt without digging out the bunk where all of this power stuff is installed before I’ll measure current flow again. I only wanted to confirm that there was enough capacity in the converter to charge all four of the GC-15s. Posted with the intent to revise.
I think, I hope, that we’ve finally won the battle of the furnace. Our home has a 34K BTU Suburban. It’s quiet, seems to be economical on fuel and isn’t a budget buster on electricity drawing 7.5 amps @ 12 VDC. The downside of its simple safe design was Suburban’s one try to lite then quit, leaving the fans blowing cold air at a current draw of 7.5A out of the batteries until the batteries die or you intervene.
After cleaning everything, soldering some bad connections and replacing the gas solenoid the furnace still refused to operate reliably about 1/3 of the time. The next guess was that the relay on the logic board was failing but Suburban epoxy coats their boards and that makes component replacement difficult, after much research we ordered a Dinosaur Electronics Fan 50 Plus Pins instead of the available Suburban logic board. Why? Because the Dinosaur board offers a try three times as does the Suburban, but also fan control so the fan won’t deplete the batteries if we sleep through the night. When you’re tired enough sleep does happen.
In addition the Fan 50 will also wait one hour and try again before waiting for help, giving the batteries a chance to recover and maybe give you a little more heat before the batteries go completely flat.
So far all is well. We had a good nights sleep and as I sit here writing the furnace continues to cycle on and off keeping things at sweater temperature.
1965 Dayton generator running outside our 1987 Rockwood house.
Trial run of the 40 Amp Century to see if it really works.
Or maybe I should say winter weather. We’ve had a pretty good run this winter with no snow on the ground until the morning of 12 JAN. Now its Friday the 13th and we have freezing rain.
Earlier in the week the forecast was for rain and warmer.
What we’ve learned about out Suburban furnace is this: Fully disassemble and clean every year is a necessary thing. If only to confirm that the furnace is clean. Had we done this at the start we wouldn’t have pulled the furnace out four times in as many days cleaning further into the workings each time until we had cleaned everything.
