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I had been so caught up in my life and work that...
Posted on Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 9:40 AM
I had been so caught up in my life and work that Id missed all the signsShortly after Roger went to college in 1974, he formed a rock band that was good enough to make a living from playing clubs in Hot Springs and Little RockI went to hear him several times and thought that with Rogers distinctive voice and the bands musical ability, they had real promiseHe clearly loved doing it, and though he went back to Hendrix College a couple of times, he would soon drop out again to return to the bandWhen he was working, he stayed up all night and slept lateDuring the racing season, he played the horses heavilyHe also bet on football gamesI never knew how much he won or lost, but I never askedWhen our family gathered for holiday meals, he invariably came late, seemed on edge, and got up a time or two during dinner to make phone callsThe warning signs were all thereI was just too preoccupied to see them
When Roger was finally arrested, it was big news in ArkansasI made a louis vuitton demin bags for sale in the uk brief statement to the press, saying that I loved my brother but expected the law to take its course, and asking for prayers and privacy for my familyThen I told my brother and Mother the truth about how long Id knownMother was in shock, and Im not sure the reality registered on herRoger was angry, though he got over it later when he came to terms with his addictionWe all went to counselingI learned that Rogers cocaine habit, about four grams a day, was so bad it might have killed him if he hadnt had the constitution of an ox, and that his addiction was rooted, in part, in the scars of his childhood and perhaps a genetic predisposition to addiction he shared with his father
From the time he was arrested until almost the date of his court appearance, Roger couldnt admit that he was an addictFinally one day, as we were sitting at the breakfast table, I told him that if he wasnt an addict, I wanted him to go to jail for a very long time, because he had been selling new omega watches poison to other people for moneySomehow, that got through to himAfter he admitted his problem, he began the long road back
The case had been taken over by the Uattorney, Asa HutchinsonRoger gave up his supplier, an immigrant even younger than he was, who got cocaine from family or friends in his home countryRoger pleaded guilty to two federal offenses before Judge Oren Harris, who had been chairman of the Commerce Committee in the House of Representatives before going to the benchJudge Harris was in his early eighties but still sharp and very wiseHe sentenced Roger to three years on one charge and two years on the other, and suspended the three-year sentence because of his cooperationRoger served fourteen months, most of it in a federal facility for nonviolent offenders, which was hard on him but probably saved his life
Hillary and I were in court with Mother when he was sentencedI was impressed by the way the whole thing was handled by Judge Harris, and by the cheap chanel bags for sale UAsa Hutchinson was professional, fair, and sensitive to the agony my family was experiencingI wasnt at all surprised when later he was elected to Congress from the Third District
In the summer, I led the Arkansas delegation to the Democratic convention in San Francisco to see Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro nominated and to give a five-minute tribute to Harry TrumanWe were in trouble to start with, and it was all over when Mondale said he would propose a hefty tax increase to reduce the budget deficitIt was a remarkable act of candor, but he might as well have proposed a federal car-tag feeStill, the city put on a great conventionSan Francisco had lots of pleasant small hotels within walking distance of the convention center, and well-organized traffic, so we avoided the crushing traffic jams that characterize many conventionsThe Arkansas host, DrRichard Sanchez, was heavily invested in the efforts to treat and prevent the relatively new disease of AIDS, which gucci coin wallet was sweeping the cityI asked Richard about the problem and what could be done about itThat was my first real exposure to a battle that would claim a lot of my attention in the White House and afterward
I had to leave San Francisco early to return to Arkansas to recruit a high-tech industry for our stateIn the end it didnt pan out, but I couldnt have done any good staying in California anywayWe were headed for defeatThe economy was rebounding and the President told us it was morning again in America, while his surrogates sneered at those of us on the other side as San Francisco Democrats, a not-so-veiled allusion to our ties to the citys large gay populationEven Vice President Bush fell into the macho mode, saying he was going to kick a little ass
In the November election, Reagan defeated Mondale 59 to 41 percentThe President won 62 percent of the vote in ArkansasI received 63 percent in my race against Woody Freeman, an appealing young businessman from chanel leather shopping bag Jonesboro
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