Pardon My French

Finally finished my grad school application for City University in London.
There’s not a deadline for prospective international students, so I took my time ensuring that I would be able to do a decent job on the required 250 word piece about a local person.
The story, at over 600 words, is entitled “Leaving His Post Mark”, and was first published on last week’s cover of Lifeline.
It was tough at first to make cuts, especially such drastic ones. I was afraid that I was going to completely kill the spirit of this story. But, I think it turned out alright. After I print out the modified version, it’s off to the post office and then we’ll see what happens. Cross your fingers for me.

Last Tuesday, I learned that an event that played a major role in shaping who I am, never actually happened. The story of Rachel Joy Scott, the girl who was supposedly targeted and killed for her religious beliefs, was a complete fabrication. It turns out that lots of the stories we heard about what happened during the Columbine shootings 10 years ago were not true.
Scott’s story, as it was reported, said that one of the gunmen, after he shot her in the leg, asked Scott if she still believed in God, and that she simply answered “You know I do,” which provoked a second, fatal shot to her head at point-blank range.
She died for her beliefs, and at just 12 years old, this was a new idea for me. She had a reason to live and something to die for. It led me to read the book about her life. Her passion was admirable and made me want to have something powerful like that in my life. I am a journalist, obviously not because of the salary or for any other similar incentive, but because it’s what I love. This girl’s story laid a foundation for that philosophy.
For the record, I don’t blame anyone for this.
I’ve had some time to mull over this throughout the last week or so and I’ve come to accept that I guess in a way, it’s good that I was told this story. But, I do still feel lied to and cheated. My column, from the day I found out these truths, still reads a little angry, though.

It’s a beautiful day out there. Some ridiculous temperature, in the 70s somewhere. So I should probably go enjoy it.

I was at work, in the middle of happily writing my Facebook’s Birthday story when I received an excited call from my sister.
My mom, who was in town for the night, had just hit for $1,500 on a two cent slot machine at Soaring Eagle Casino.

When I talked to my mom moments later, she said the entire casino came to a complete stop when the machine’s bells started ringing and the lights began to flash. A manager and a few other staff members walked over to her, checked her identification and one by one, counted out 15 $100 bills into her hand.
For as far back as I can remember, my mom has always held the philosophy that when she wins, we (my sister and I) win, too. She said each of is were going to receive a $100 bill. It was a promise that she filled the next morning after some coffee and breakfast at IHOP.

We made a quick stop to pick up Court and mine’s paychecks at Warriner Hall before heading to 5/3 bank. Apparently, last year, I made arrangements to have my CM Life checks direct deposit. My business at the bank was to confirm that funds had in fact been deposited into my checking account. But since I was at the counter anyway, I decided to break my $100 into $20s. The teller stared at the bill for what was probably a solid 30 seconds before telling me he’d “be right back.”

At first, I assumed that perhaps it was protocol. All banks seem to become paranoid when they are given large bills. But after a few minutes had passed, I knew something as up.

A woman came through one of the side doors, extended her hand, introduced herself and then asked for me to come into her office.
Immediately, my mom piped up from behind me. “Is this about the $100.” She probably looked like a nosy customer and they ignored her. It took a moment to explain to these people the origin of the bills and to verify that this woman was not a complete random.

As we were shuffled into this lady’s office, she immediately explained that the money was suspicious, but also that she didn’t think that we had a printed these bills out of our basement.

As she laid my $100 out on her desk, I immediately saw what she was referring to. Benjamin Franklin’s face, the watermark that can usually only be seen when it is raised to light, was clear on the surface of the money.

Another one of the bills seemed disproportionate. The rectangular shaped frame that encased the green coloring, Franklin’s face and information (like the serial number) had very little paper on it’s outside toward the top, but much more toward the bottom.

Five of the 100’s were suspicious.
At this point we were told that it was a possibility that they were counterfeit bills that had already been reported that were accidentally still in circulation. If this were to be the case, then my mom would still be given the $500 and the teller would be out the money.
We moved offices where a woman dialed The Secret Service to check the serial numbers of the bills. It turned out that none of the bills had been reported to the offices as suspicious.

This is my $100 bill:


Notice how the sides of this one are uneven:

You can see Benjamin Franklin’s face on the surface of the money:

That’s when the woman told us that they would be sent to the Secret Service for investigation. If they were found to be fraudulent, the Secret Service would destroy them and my mom would be out $500. It was a chance my mom didn’t want to take. She told this woman she was going back to the casino. I was surprised when she looked relieved. It was something the bank no longer had to deal with.

So we go back to the casino. I’m thinking we’re going to go show someone a receipt and they’re going to exchange the money. Nope. My mom goes straight to a cash machine, puts in the hundreds and swaps them for $20s. The only one the machine wouldn’t take was my $100, the one with the Franklin face visible on the surface.

To resolve this problem, my mom went over to a slot machine and slid in the money. To my surprise, it was accepted. My mom hit the “cash out” button the second it lit up and a receipt popped out. She exchanged her receipt for $20s, then we walked out.

Now that I think about it, there probably wouldn’t be an incentive for my mom if she were to have taken the money to the management. Because she didn’t address the problem the moment the money was handed to her, because she didn’t notice that there was anything wrong with the money, she probably would have lost her money. I’ve heard stories about people being screwed out of $20 and $50. They came back to the local businesses where they received the bogus bucks and weren’t given an exchange.

Because there’s no incentive to saying anything, I wouldn’t be surprised if this wasn’t the first time this has happened. And I have to wonder just how much counterfeit money is floating around in Mount Pleasant.

We did a story a couple of weeks back about counterfeit money, but not about how people that are unlucky enough to be handed one of these bills are screwed out of money. I talked to the Lifers about. We want to have someone interview my mom. It will be interesting to see if anyone else has had a problem in the last year.

Washington, D.C. was basically a proverbial punch in the face.
I watched a drug dealer get violent, a man get mugged, another have a heart attack and a police officer shove a middle aged woman. All within 48 hours.

The inauguration attracted people of all walks of life. From all over the country they came to play a role in the beginning of what is such a profound chapter in American History.
Never in my entire life have I seen so many people, millions of people in the same 2 mile radius. It was an experience that even now I am having trouble describing with words.

For the most part, things went well. I got to see a good amount of the city. I was a part of a major historic event. I got to see Frank.

I came to D.C. knowing I wasn’t going to see Barack Obama. Everyone on staff knew this. We didn’t have the media credentials that could get us up close beside The Associated Press, The Washington Post, CNN or The New York Times. This didn’t matter because we came for a different story– the culture of this event.

My story immediately jumped out at me the second I wandered out The National Mall last Tuesday. Hundreds of thousands came to see this man speak and so few of them actually did. People stood on the tops of the great wall of portajohns, bending this way and that so that just maybe, possibly they could get a glimpse of what was happening on a giant TV screen a quarter of a mile away. If you came to watch him actually swear to god and give his speech, you were better off going back to your hotel and watching it on CNN.

The photos and story aligned perfectly. But, our Editor in Chief still wanted a short piece on the inaugural speech, so I wrote it up, intending for it to stand as a sidebar. It made sense, that is after all why all of those people were there.
Imagine my disappointment when I visited CM-Life.com the next day to a huge AP photo of Barack Obama at the Capitol. You know, the same photo, alongside the same story that ran on the front page of every other newspaper in the country.

I was upset. At that time I felt like it was a waste that we even went– why bother sending reporters if you’re just going to yoink your material from the web? Why did I even bother trying to get a unique perspective?
Not to mention there were a few really stupid typos that got through that should have been easily caught by the staff as well as some some really terrible headlines.
My least favorite was the line that was plopped atop my column: “A Witness to History: Glad I brought a notebook.”

1.) If this was an attempt at cute, it failed miserably.
2.) I am pretty sure I went to D.C. with the intention of doing reporting while I was there.
3.) I always carry a notebook. Always.

I don’t know, I just found it demeaning. We addressed my concerns and got everything out in the open.

Here’s my coverage if you’re interested. None of it got 4-stars even though I think it’s probably the best work I’ve ever done. It is worth noting though that some people–Garret, our Managing Editor–did argue on my behalf. It’s also the most page space I’ve ever covered– both the front page and the front of Lifeline.

Here is what I considered to be the top story (Ran on A1)
Here is what actually ran above the fold (Ran on A1)
Here is my culture piece (Ran on B1)
Here is my column–the one with the demeaning headline (Ran on B1)