Category: Life with Pratts

A DogRat Repost – Volunteers for America

Amy Coney Barrett being a Supreme Court Justice has me thinking that Roe v. Wade just might be reversed. This post was first published on July 9, 2011.

When I was in high school, my girlfriend and I were volunteers at a hotline for teens. The crisis center was funded based upon it being an anti-drug program. I had never taken any drugs, or even tasted alcohol, but most of the calls weren’t about drugs. We got our share of cranks, but there were legitimate calls, including suicide attempts. Some of the “crises” were minor, like the drunk kid who had been kicked out of his friend’s car for getting sick. He was on a pay phone and had no idea where he was. There were a lot of upset, sometimes distraught, girls who had been dumped by their boyfriend. And then….. there were…. the terrified girls…. who thought… they might… be pregnant. There were no home pregnancy test kits in those days, and all of the girls who called wanted to know how they could get tested without their parents knowing.

Roe v. Wade was decided right in the middle my senior year of high school, and I remember Betsy, the center’s director, holding a “very important meeting” to explain what it meant to us, as volunteers. Prior to Roe v. Wade we worked with a consulting physician who had an association with a Catholic service for girls in trouble looking for help. After Roe v. Wade we were introduced to another doctor, who said that abortion wouldn’t be the first option, but from now on it would be an option. Our job as teen peer volunteers was to get the caller talking on the phone with one of the adult counselors.

Most of my time at the hotline I spent just hanging around, talking with other kids and listening to records. A friend of mine who I met at the center, named Tom, attended the prestigious Groton School. He went on to Yale and then Harvard Law School.

[2020 note: Tom once dated Caroline Kennedy, who attended Concord Academy. There’s a story behind this, involving me and, in turn, my twin sister.]

For some reason, prep school kids were known for being into the Grateful Dead, and Tom was no exception. I bought their live “Europe ’72” album on his recommendation. But the records that are most indelibly associated in my memory with that time and place in my life are The Doors’ L.A. Woman…

… and Jefferson Airplane’s Volunteers.

Getting Back to Getting Rid of

Yesterday I received my copy of Atlas at War!, an excellent collection of pre-Marvel war comics. The book includes six stories illustrated by Joe Sinnott, whose passing continues to sadden me.

I am enjoying the Atlas war book, and the recently released Marvel mini-comics book, and the new CD compilation of psychedelic singles from the defunct White Whale record label. I am looking forward to an upcoming graphic novel illustrated by Colleen Doran and, most of all, a companion book to Peter Jackson’s long-anticipated re-release of Let It Be in a greatly expanded edition.

But I have a problem with all of this enjoyment by acquisition. It goes back to everything I had to do after my father’s death, nearly three years ago. One part of that was the monumental amount of work clearing everything out of the house. It was a painful process, from first shipping the items that were wanted by my siblings, through making the threat of legal action to get money from the company that ran the estate sale. Dealing with the Kia dealership in Peoria, Arizona that bought my father’s 2014 Soul was a comparable nightmare.

My point is that, being an old retired guy, I want to begin the process of de-cluttering my possessions and, in turn, my life. Buying more stuff isn’t the way to do that.