Old Man and the Sea

The year I graduated from college, 1952, Ernest Hemingway wrote one of his greatest novels, The Old Man and the Sea. I had promised myself, as a hard-working student, years before, that eventually I would own a house on my favorite beach, Wrightsville Beach, NC. So, in my real estate adventures and misadventures, in which, thank God, I have managed to make more money than I have lost, and now have a nice income from rentals, I own a nice home on the beach. And, like Hemingway, I feel like an old man by the sea.

I was not always an old man and I did enjoy the beach when I was younger and more energetic. I would walk at least three miles on the beach each day. But, as the beaches changed, and as the people who are on the beach have drastically changed, it is no longer safe for a totally blind, disabled person to navigate the beach anymore. Young people, these days, will run over you and not even say one thing. Thanks to Doctor Spock, political correctness, and atheist teachers and leaders, the youth of today, and I hate to say parents of tomorrow, are callous in their attitudes and actions. One former school teacher told me recently that the third time she was hit by a student, she had had enough. In the socialist society in which we are living, it will become as difficult to hire school teachers, as well as healthcare caregivers, including doctors.

The greatest problem with blindness is that the general public thinks that you have not only lost your eyes, but your brain. I hear more, than most people will ever see. A few years ago, I had walked out to the beach just a few yards, and on returning to my house, went under my house instead of up the steps and I heard some drug activity which I felt should be reported to the authorities. A male, which later turned out to be a police officer, was instructing a female in transporting some illegal drugs to the town of Jacksonville, where the Marine base is located. She was evidently transporting the drugs in a “cooler,” which is used by the fishermen. He told her the drugs were in the bottom of the cooler, that fish and ice were on top of the drugs, so that if she was stopped by law authorities, she had been fishing and she had the fishing equipment and the fish in the cooler.

I knew there was much activity going on in that particular house. I actually was concerned enough and stupid enough that I took one of my very small cameras, which could hardly be seen in my hand, and who notices an old blind man with a cane wandering around a house anyway? I made pictures of the license numbers on cars coming to that house and actually went to the expense of having them developed. I sent the pictures to the police department and told them what was going on. I further told them that I had been told that uniformed police officers frequented that house. Once before, when I had made such a report concerning officers, my tires had been slashed, so I rode to my beach house by cab for a few weeks. Nothing whatsoever was done about this situation.

Sometime before that, I owned a large nightclub building on Oleander Avenue, and I received word from several sources that my building was being used as a “drugstore”--that much illegal drug activity was going on in the building (now I have told this on the radio, so I am not disclosing anything new). Since I had keys to the building, I always have the same security code on all the buildings I own, including both residential houses, I had called the club ahead of time and there was no answer, but I knew the employees went to the gym in the afternoon.

My driver was hesitant to take me out on this mission, but he was not scared enough to want to lose his job, so we drove to the back of the building, I unlocked the back door, I turned off the alarm, I unlocked the office in which my furniture, my desk, etc. were located. I owned every nail in the building; I had a right to be in the building. The middle top drawer of the desk was full of money. The side drawers were full of packets of dope. At least this non-dope user assumed that. I knew the combination to the safe and a blind man can open a safe. All the cash register drawers were in the safe. I told my driver to bring me two garbage bags from the kitchen. I put all the money from the top desk drawer in one garbage bag. I put all the packets in another garbage bag. I closed up the office, armed the security system again, locked the door, and had him drive home a different way. He helped me count out all the money on my return, which I later put in my lock box at the bank. I put the bag of dope in a dumpster at another building. And then I went down to visit the head of Vice, who is now the sheriff of the county.

I told this man that I did not want anyone in the room except the two of us. I told him I had reason to believe that illegal drug activity was going on in the nightclub, in this building which I owned on Oleander Avenue. He said, “Oh, Dr. Morris. There’s nothing going on at your building.” I told him nothing else, but the manager and other employees were terminated.

Now, unless the sighted people of the world cannot become concerned enough and bring enough pressure on law enforcement, the illegal drug activity, which is taking over this country and has already filled the prisons, will only get worse. I am totally blind, 100% disabled, service-connected veteran. I thought enough of my country to go to a war, I love my country enough to support it with my tax dollars, warts and all. Gilbert Holland, American poet, wrote a poem some years ago, which goes as follows:
 
GOD, give us men! A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office can not buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty, and in private thinking;
For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,
Wrong rules the land and waiting Justice sleeps.

Manhood is more than physical plumbing. God always called a man, not a committee. In this day of corrupt politicians, pansy preachers, and spineless fathers, it will take a real man or group of men, not only to alert, but to avert the complete destruction of this nation by illegal drug activity.