What Price Justice

1. SEEKING JUSTICE

Although Don Quixote was determined in his fool’s quest against the windmills of his world he was not an Irishman. Those who would suggest Don Quixote and a hardheaded Irishman are cut from the same bolt of fool’s cloth, fail to understand what motivates a determined Irishman.

The essence of an Irishman’s determination is borne out in his belief when he knows he is right, he is right in front of God and everyone. He believes there is a higher moral purpose in fighting a righteous cause, even when he fights this cause alone. He believes those who are in the position to expose and correct a serious injustice, have a duty to make it right regardless of the personal cost to him.

However, being right is not enough to win an almost impossible fight and it is never enough to rely on blind luck or the natural course of events to shed a new light on the truth. It is only by the continuous efforts and the relentless pursuit of the truth can there be any hope of correcting an injustice or a grievous wrong.

I am an Irishman who is in such a fight. I am not only fighting as if the rest of my life depends on it, I have this overwhelming need to expose and correct the plain errors which continues to exist in my case in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina Western Division. The use of the polite legal term Plain Error is an oxymoron for the blatant abuse of power known as a Fraud on the Court. There is nothing Plain about a fraud on the court and it is not just a simple Error such as when a baseball player does his best to catch the ball but somehow he ends up dropping it.

A fraud on the court is the most serious violation that can occur in any court of law as it makes the entire legal proceeding invalid. It is therefore understandable why there are no statues of limitations to correct this injustice.

The continuing criminal acts committed by the members of this court are not only a fraud on the Court; their acts became a Conspiracy to defraud the United States of its rightful function. We sometimes forget our courts are just as much a part of the United States as any other branch of the government. When the Officers of our Courts commit a fraud on the court, they are not exempt from the law or the punishments for committing a Federal crime to defraud the United States.

I hope by sharing my story with you, we can help each other reestablish the original function of the Judicial Branch of the United States Government, rather than what has become a mockery of misusing the Court’s Administrative Procedures to protect the criminal actions of the officers of the courts and allow them to preserve their illegal convictions.

I believe we can all agree justice in court does not always mean a fair trial. My case is not unique. Time and time again, we hear news stories about someone who was illegally convicted and set free when the truth came out.

Although the innocent victim is compensated by large sums of money for the time he unjustly spent in prison, the money is never enough to balance the scales of true justice when nothing is done to the officers of the court who committed this horrendous crime of a fraud on the court on him. Their crime of a fraud on the court is the most hideous of all criminal acts as they are the trusted guardians of our justice system. There is no acceptable excuse for knowingly abusing their legal authority or violating their legal positions of trust, responsibility and duty to insure truth, justice and fairness prevails in our Courts. Although there are no statues of limitations on a fraud on the court, have you ever heard of any Judge or Prosecutor going to jail for their most serious offense against their victim? Either we are a country where there is equal justice for all, or we have become a nation where our courts will protect the clearly illegal and Constitutional violations by their fellow judges and prosecutors at all cost.

We in the United States have been raised on the myth that our justice system of using qualified legal counsel to present the truth to an impartial jury trial of our peers, is the best and the fairest legal justice system in the world. In theory, it may be true if you have access to a qualified and prepared legal counsel to defend you. However, even then the scales of justice in the Federal courtroom are not in balance. The government Prosecutor has the clear advantage in the use of unlimited financial resources, the ultimate power to compromise and coerce witnesses into providing the story the Prosecutor wants the jury to hear, and the truth be damned.

Our legal system of Justice is only as good as the people who sit in judgment, prosecute the case and manage the affairs of our Courts. When the Officers of the Court can be influenced by those in high office then the actual guilt or innocence of the accused does not matter as long as the outcome of the trial is achieved and justice be damned.

I would like to believe that the first 10 Amendments of our Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights still protect us from the abuse of power from any branch of the United States Government. These basic human rights were so importance to the people that without them there would not be a United States of America. Our founding fathers established the Judicial Branch of the Government to protect the people from any abuse of Federal Power. However, when the integrity of the court itself is involved in that abuse, the Bill of Rights be damned. When the Court will not police itself or correct its errors the future of our country is also damned.

The integrity of our justice system is based on the false assumption that all the actions in a court of law are honestly preserved in the court’s records and transcripts, when they are not. When a Judge who has violated our fundamental constitutional rights criminally alters the official court records, he cannot objectively rule on his own criminal acts when we appeal his actions. When this is allowed to happen in any court, the integrity of all our courts is lost and our entire system of justice has violated the basic trust of the American people.

The biggest break down in the courts to correcting this clear fraud on the court has been the Court of Appeals who have become so engrossed in using their own administrative procedural rules that they fail to address the merits of the legal claims made by Pro Se Appellants untrained in the law.

Anyone making an appeal who is not a licensed attorney is considered by the courts to be untrained in the law and anyone untrained in the law who represents himself, is called a Pro se Appellant.

Being a Pro se Appellant is like a Little League baseball pitcher trying to strike out a Major League home run hitter in the bottom of the 9th inning with the bases loaded and with the Appellate Court Judges as the umpires who are also members of the same Major League team.

To take this analogy one-step further, our Appellate Court judges have a built in bias against the legal actions brought by Pro se appellants as being frivolous claims. These Judges automatically assume once a defendant has been convicted, he had received a fair trial and after a lawyer filed his Direct Appeal all possible, legal errors have been resolved. They believe they have the right to use all the Appellate Court’s Rules to protect the actions of the trial court to maintain its conviction, thereby ending all further appeals.

These judges will dismiss the Pro se appeal as quickly as possible clearly taking advantage of the Pro se appellant’s lack of legal knowledge and the court’s administrative procedures usually contained in the court’s own local rules. This practice eliminated my legitimate appeals based on a Fraud on the Court when after six years I produced a copy of the criminally deleted May 14, 1997 Pretrial’s transcript that was withheld from the Court of Appeals that established the constitutional errors made by my Trial Court.

If an attorney who represents himself, has a fool for a client, than anyone untrained in the law, would not willingly place himself in that position either. Unfortunately, having an appeal actually heard on its merits by the court requires hiring of the best legal counsel money can buy.

Removing the access to my money was the first thing the court and the prosecutor did to remove a fair challenge to overturning my conviction based upon the plain errors that occurred before, during and after my criminal trial.

By writing this book, I am fighting for what I still believe exists in my country. Although I am only one man fighting this battle now, it only takes one man standing his ground at the point of attack to turn the tide of battle and change the outcome of the war. If I am this man standing his ground to turn the tide in this battle to restore the integrity of our courts, I need your active support and your understanding of what happened in my case. I am asking you to make your own judgment about what the courts have done to your basic freedoms once guaranteed by our constitution and then decide what you would do, if this had happened to you.

This is a true story about what happened to me in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Western Division under what appears to be the less than Honorable Judge Malcolm J. Howard. It deals with my more than 17-year battle to correct the deliberate disregard of Judge Howard to preserve the basic fundamental principles of justice and fairness in his Court. I am challenging the ultimate integrity of that Court in its continuing efforts to conceal its criminal acts to preserve my illegal conviction.

2. WHEN JUSTICE BECOMES A FLEETING CONCEPT

The statue of Lady Justice is the most recognized symbol representing truth, justice and fairness in the United States Courts. She has a set of scales suspended from her right hand, upon which she measures the innocence or guilt without bias or prejudice. In her left hand, she carries a double-edged sword symbolizing the power of Reason and Justice she can wield for or against any party. However perhaps the most important aspect of Lady Justice is, she has a blindfold to represent her complete objectivity to rule, without fear or favor.

If Lady Justice is blind, the altered Docket Sheet and the missing transcript from my criminal trial are no longer hidden from your eyes. It took me over 6 years after my trial to get a copy of this May 14, 1997 Pre-trial Hearing. What took place at this Pretrial Hearing represents the beginning of a Conspiracy to Defraud the United States under 18 USC Section 371 by using a Fraud on the Court under the Federal Rules Of Civil Procedures, 60 (b)3. Although Rule 60 (b)3 clearly states there are no statues of limitations to make an Appeal when there is a Fraud on the Court, you will see how a dishonest Judge circumvented both the spirit and the intent of the law.

I filed my Pro se IN RE Petition as an Independent Action in the US District Court Eastern District of North Carolina Western Division on the 13th day of January 2012. This filing date is somewhat ironic, as this US District Court sentenced me to 188 months in Federal Prison on the 13th Day of January 1998 and the US Marshals immediately took me into Federal Custody.

When the US District Court and the US Attorney failed to respond to this Appeal after more than 11 months, I filed a Motion for Summary Judgment on December 3, 2012 under FRCP 56 claiming there was no dispute over the Material Facts in my Appeal. After nine more months without a response from the US District Court, I was convinced I was dealing with a continuing Fraud on the Court to cover up and preserve the reputation of my Trial Court Judge.

A very dear friend convinced me I needed an Attorney to represent me, as the Court was not taking my Pro se Action seriously. Although I have always believed when you are right, you are right in front of God and everyone; it does not mean I had the legal knowledge to force the Court to timely act on my appeal.

Being right did not mean I could find an attorney who would be willing to challenge the integrity of a long term sitting US District Court Judge in the Federal Court system unless you had a lot of money and that attorney was about to retire. I must have talked with 50 attorneys before and after I filed this appeal. These attorneys fell into two basic categories. Those who demanded large fees just to study my case and those who feared retaliation from the courts against their other clients if they represented me.

Since I have never been a quitter and I could not see any reason why I should not try again to find an attorney who might be willing to help me as a significant part of me as a person and what I worked for in my life was illegally taken away from me.

For years, I prayed through the intercession of Pope John Paul II for Gods help, as I knew it would take a miracle to overcome this injustice. Quiet Miracles is one of books I wrote while I was a guest of the government. In researching the requirements for establishing a true miracle to write this book I confirmed my understanding it would take at least two miracles verified by the Catholic Church before someone could be considered for Sainthood.

I have always admired what Pope John Paul accomplished in his life and he already had one verified miracle. If God helped me overcome my impossible situation through the intercession of Pope John Paul, it would be the second miracle Pope John Paul needed to become a Saint.

When I wrote my last appeal I knew Pope John Paul was helping me find the right case laws, structure the correct legal claims and choose the right words in my IN RE Petition. As I filed the additional motions to overcome the almost impossible obstacles created by the Officers of my Trial Court, Pope John Paul continued to inspire me, as I knew I did not have the legal training to know how to do it otherwise.

Not all miracles happen in an instant. In my situation, it would seem there were a series of minor miracles and none of them came easy. I prayed for a minor miracle to get the District Court to act. As long as the Trial Court refused to act, my IN RE Appeal was dead in the water. Sometimes when you are beating your head against a brick wall, the Good Lord takes pity on you and He taps you on the shoulder to show you where the open door is located in the wall.

I had just come from a young attorney’s office after seeking his legal advice on how to deal with a US District Court’s failure to respond or act on my Pro Se IN RE Appeal or my Motion for Summary Judgment. This young attorney had the opportunity to read my Appeal and my Motion for Summary Judgment before our meeting. He gave me the curtsey of listening to the history behind my Appeal but he was not sure if he could help me.

"I can see you have a well documented claim with the Court’s own records and although you are right and you have been screwed, the courts will not do anything about it. The Court Justices’ will not turn on one of their own, and any attorney who attempts to help you will be committing professional suicide.

I would suggest you consider writing a book, as this story would make one hell of a movie. There is more than one jury in this world and the jury of public opinion can become the ultimate decision maker in your case. I realize after talking with you that revenge is not your motive. However, it could become very sweet when they are asked about the truth of the Movie and the part they played in it." He stated.

"That’s almost funny, as I wrote 40 manuscripts while I was a guest of the Government, and I have published 16 of them on my own Publishing Company’s Website hosted by Go-daddy. I wrote a book called Back to Granville in 2008 when I thought I had an Appeal in the 4th Circuit Court that would overturn my conviction. I wrote it as if I had won my Appeal and I was returning home to where I grew up in Milwaukee Wisconsin to put my life back together.

As you know, we can never really undo what was done to us just as we can never actually return home. In the book, I used the fact the Town of Granville no longer existed, to reinforce the concept life continues to go on just as you cannot step back into a river in the same place twice, as the water is constantly flowing and forever changing with or without you.

Although the book itself was a Romantic Fiction, I could tell the story of what happened to me. I could use the book as a vehicle to inform the public, about the abuses and undo influences on the Federal Courts to illegally convict me and hold me prisoner to achieve an International political agenda, of the President of the United States.

The book turned out well as I was able to weave in actual events in my life before I left Wisconsin and took a Regular Army Commission when I graduated from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. In the book, the Courts had ultimately corrected the gross miscarriage of Justice and I was able to start rebuilding part of my life that had been illegally ripped away from me.

I received a number of favorable comments from those who had bought the book. The only problem was my Website I Mark Publishing Inc was so small few people could find it. You know yourself if your Website is on page 200 of E-books and Audio Books on Google’s listings, few people will look past the first three pages if they are looking for something new to read.

I tried buying front page listings using Google’s Adwords internet marketing service but I was competing with Kentucky Fried Chicken and Auto Insurance Companies who had bought the prime space, but had nothing to do with direct downloadable E-Books or Audio Books " I told the attorney.

Let me say this, if you do write this book I would like a copy as I may have a friend who might be interested in making a true life Movie out of it. The Attorney quickly responded.

Hell I might need an attorney to represent me when this book hits the streets. I found myself saying and I was thinking, I’m not sure, if he is just being nice in his legal brush off or if he was being honest about the value of my published life’s story.

Just a word of caution, make sure everything is well documented and simply tell the truth. He advised me in a positive way." You might just need a good lawyer if they are foolish enough to try to sue you and your publisher. I may not be able to help you with your Appeal, but I sure can help the book and the movie, become an overnight success as the harder they yell, the more free publicity you will get. That type of revenge puts money in your pocket and with the exposure; you might just help some other poor soul who has suffered the same fate you did to win his appeal.

Let me read your Appeal and the Motion for Summary Judgment again to make sure I have not over looked something. However, I do not think I have. I am sorry I could not be more helpful." The Attorney said as he walked me to the door of his office.

Perhaps you already have. I only asked for your honest opinion, and that is what you gave me. I have come to believe everything happens for a reason and we just need to be patient enough to find out what the Good Lord has in mind. Thank you very much. I found myself saying, as everything he told me, was the way things were and not how I wanted them to be, no matter how right these things were.

As I drove my brown and silver vintage 1986 El Comino towards home, I knew I had to write this book if for nothing else to put an end to my efforts to be Don Quixote and attempt to right the windmills of this world.

When I sat down to write this book, my fingers typed a Motion for a Hearing on my IN RE Petition. The District Court might have been able to take advantage of my ignorance of the law and sit on my IN RE Petition until hell froze over but the court could not ignore a Motion for a Hearing which had to be docketed within the next 3 months of the court’s next calendar quarter. Once the Motion was in the mail, the words flowed on the pages in my computer as if someone else was writing this book.

3. IN THE BEGINNING

There was light, hope and the belief in the American Dream where if you worked hard and played by the rules you could become anything you wanted to be. No one ever mentioned someone else could be playing by a different set of rules when they could not stop you any other way.

It started at the 1989 Spring National Matches of the North South Skirmish Association in Winchester Virginia. A shooting friend I had shot with while I was a member of the 5th Virginia Cavalry before I joined the 66th North Carolina approached me about the idea of selling tobacco overseas.

He knew I had been in International Business since I started Harpers Ferry Arms Company back in 1972 and he was wondering if I had any business contacts who might be interested in buying US Tobacco.

I was honest with him when I stated I did not know anything about tobacco other than I smoked a pipe for years. I listen as he told me how he was making 50,000 dollars a week as a Registered Tobacco Dealer, buying and selling tobacco in the Tobacco Auction Market established by the United States Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service.

The Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS) was an agency of the US Department of Agriculture established in 1961 to administer programs concerning farm products and agricultural conservation. It granted loans to farmers; purchased farm products from farmers and processors; administered land allotments and quota programs; shared the cost of resource conservation and environmental protection measures with farmers and ranchers; and supervised civil defense activities relating to food and food production. Every county in the United States has a local ASCS Office under their State’s ASCS Office. Their function is to assist the farmers and manage the controlled quotas of farm products such as the growing of tobacco in allotments issued to the Tobacco Farmers.

Jim went on to explain how the Tobacco Auction Market worked and how much money I could make if I was interested.

But the serious money is in the overseas markets and if you had a contract buyer you could fill the order by buying Tobacco at Auction and make even more money. Jim explained and he had a ready answer to each question I raised, especially about the unfair competition from the major Tobacco Companies.

"The overseas market buyers are looking for independent Tobacco Sellers as the big boys think they have this market all wrapped up. In fact, although they will deny it, the big boys have divided-up the World and they have agreed not to compete against each other. Their main business is selling cigarettes, which has a huge profit margin. They do not want to sell bulk tobacco overseas, as then someone else will be making cigarettes and cutting into their profits.

Did you know Philip Morse is making Marlboro cigarettes for less than a nickel a pack? There are 50 cartons of 10 packs of 20 cigarettes to a pack. That is 10,000 cigarettes in a Master Case and it takes just over two pounds of tobacco to make a Master Case.

With tobacco selling for a dollar 70 cents a pound at Auction, the most expensive thing in a cigarette is the filter. You can see why they do not want to sell bulk tobacco at those prices overseas when they can make millions selling their cigarettes." Jim explained.

So why don’t you go into the cigarette business? I asked him.

We could once we establish ourselves. Jim quickly replied but went on to explain what makes a cigarette taste good. "Tobacco is grown around the world but there is only one problem, most of it has no flavor. It takes a special soil and the right kind of water to produce flavored tobacco.

Did you ever wonder why Cuban Cigars are so popular? It is because they have the right combination of soil and water to produce that taste. Since Castro took over, people have tried to grow Cuban Tobacco from Cuban seeds that they smuggled out of the country but they do not have the same soil or water so their cigars do not taste as good as the Cuban Cigars.

I am going to let you in on a secret. 70% of all the flavored cigarette tobacco in the world is grown in the golden triangle between Kinston, Goldsboro and Wilson, North Carolina and this is the Flue Curd Tobacco market, I am working in." Jim told me and explained how Flue cured tobacco was grown and processed for the Tobacco Auction Market.

Now you only need to make a cigarette with about 10% of this Flue Cured tobacco to make it taste good. You could mix it with horseshit and the cigarette would still taste good. Philip Morris has an agreement with Standard Commercial in Wilson North Carolina to buy all their Flue Cured Tobacco from this golden flavored tobacco triangle. They do not want to compete directly with them, as that would drive up the price on this special type of Tobacco in the Auction Market.

The Tobacco Auction system was established by the USDA through the ASCS to insure the farmers got a fair price for their Tobacco, but that is nothing but a scam to make the Politicians look good to their farmers while the big tobacco companies fill the Politician’s pockets with the real money.

Now if we can find an overseas buyer, who already knows he is going to get the special North Carolina Flue Cured Tobacco, they will welcome the opportunity to buy it at a more reasonable price.

How can we do that? First, we are buying the tobacco at the Auction price. That minimum price per pound of tobacco is fixed by the subsidy the ASCS puts on a particular Grade of Tobacco. There are 173 ASCS Tobacco Grades and each Grade has a support price attached to it.

When a farmer brings in his tobacco, it is weighed by the pound and the leaves of tobacco are loosely wrapped in burlap sheets. The tobacco is inspected by the ASCS Government Inspectors before the Auction and based on that Grade the tobacco is worth a minimum amount per pound. All this sounds fair until you realize if the Auction price is not equal to the ASCS Support price the Government must buy it. However if someone bids just one cent more than the Support price the farmer must either sell it or take it back home.

The farmer cannot take it home as his tobacco barns are full producing more tobacco he needs to take to the Auction Warehouse to sell. Now some Warehouse men will try to run up the bid for his farmers, but the big tobacco companies know this and they can force the Warehouse to buy the tobacco until he has all his money tied up. Then he will need to put the tobacco back on the Sales Floor if he is to get his money back. He is now competing with the Farmers who have agreed to sell their tobacco at his Warehouse. The price of tobacco like any other commodity it is governed by supply and demand, and the more tobacco that comes on the market the lower the selling price will be.

Where I have been making my money, is buying my tobacco at the Warehouses that opened their tobacco season first. The 12 week, Tobacco Auction Market starts out in Florida and southern Georgia on the Monday after the 4th of July. The North Carolina Market opens the middle of August and the last tobacco market in Virginia opens on the Monday after Labor Day. The Virginia tobacco market closes the first week of November.

What happens, as the farmers start bringing in more tobacco to the Warehouses, the prices continue to fall and most of the tobacco, is either bought by the Government or sold at a penny or two above the ASCS Support prices for that Grade of Tobacco.

What I have done is make agreements with Tobacco Dealers from down south and when the big Tobacco Companies do not bid, they buy the tobacco for a penny more than the Support price, let’s say at a dollar and 61 cents a pound for BK4 Graded Tobacco. Since the Tobacco Market in North Carolina is just opened and the farmers are just starting to bring in their tobacco, the price of that same BK4 Grade of tobacco could sell as high as a dollar 87 cents a pound. This gives me more than 25 cents a pound profit as it usually cost 5 cents a pound to ship it here.

Each Tobacco Warehouse can only sell so many pounds of tobacco on a specific Sale day, based upon the total amount of tobacco allotments of the farmers who have designated that Warehouse to sell their tobacco. If the Tobacco Warehouse was authorized to sell a 100,000 pounds but his farmers have only brought in 60,000 the Warehouse is losing that 40,000 pounds it could have sold. I have arranged with several Warehouse men in North Carolina, who will sell my tobacco as high as a dollar 87 cents, a pound when their farmers fail to bring in enough tobacco to meet the Warehouse’s daily-authorized sales so it is a good deal for them and me.

Now if we had an overseas buyer, we would save the right Grade of Tobacco to fill the overseas buyer’s order and after spending 5 cents for processing the tobacco, we are selling it to them for $3.50 a pound and they think they are getting a deal. The Big Tobacco Companies sell processed bulk tobacco for more than 4 dollars a pound. Do you see what I am telling you?" Jim asked.

I think so but I am usually better with numbers when I see them on paper. I told him. Let me ask you something. You say if no one bids for the tobacco at the ASCS Support price, the Government has to buy it. What does the Government do with it?

That is the biggest scam of them all. The Government pays the tobacco processing companies like Monk and Standard Commercial to haul it and process it and then the Government pays them to store it. Then guess what? The Big Tobacco Companies buy it, as there isn’t anyone else in the Bulk Tobacco market. I wish I could have the Government buy all my tobacco, haul it, process it and store it until I wanted to sell it. Jim told me.

All right Jim, I will look into it and see if I can contact some of my old international business friends to see if they can put me in touch with the right people who would be buying this tobacco. I told him and I put it out of my mind as I was confused by all the information Jim had thrown at me.

I was also very involved in a number of business ventures since we moved back to Virginia. In 1985, Carol and I formed Virginia American Management Corporation, VAMCO. One of our principle client’s was a company called American Rehabilitation Inc out of Charlotte North Carolina. VAMCO managed American Rehabilitation’s Vocational Rehabilitation Division, which had sky rocketed into becoming a leader in providing injured workers and Workman’s Compensation Claimants new employment within their work restrictions in 3 States and Washington DC.

On top of that, Carol and I had found a mutual interest in raising American Quarter Horses. We had carved out a niche in the horse industry by breeding World Class Broodmares to AQHA Stallions on the Leading Sires list to produce exceptional foals. Each of our baby horses was given the best possible start in life, through the process of desensitizing them within hours after they were born. This process made our baby horses a dream to handle and a pleasure to train.

BOOK ONE

BACK GROUND TO GETTING HERE

1. THE MAIN PLAYERS

When I first met Jim, he was managing a Volkswagen Dealership in Norfolk and the way he talked, it always sounded like he was trying to sell me, a used car. He had joined the 5th Virginia Cavalry shooting Team the year we won the NSSA Nationals in Winchester Virginia. Jim was the paternal twin brother of Henry, who was our Unit Commander at the time.

Jim was a truly competitive type of person and he was a natural shooter who quickly earned a spot on our 8 man Musket A Team. He and I became shooting partners as we could read each other’s mind during a Team Match. We just knew which target each of us would be shooting at next and then shoot at another target, unless it was the last target and then it became a race to see which one of us could hit it first.

In 1980, I had gone broke trying to keep my International Businesses of James River Imports and Development Corporation and Harpers Ferry Arms Company going. By that time, the full impact of President Carter’s failed economic policies, double-digit inflation, 22% Interest-rates and the 100% increase in the cost of oil had put so many people out of work that they were not buying anything beyond what was necessary to stay alive.

James River Imports could not import things cheap enough for its clients to sell and the South Korean Company who was making Harpers Ferry Arms Company’s Reproduction 1861 Springfield Muskets could not afford to heat his factory much less manufacturer my reproduction Civil War guns.

With no economic recovery in sight and after I became a political threat to a major Chemical Company who manufactured Kepone, I was forced to sell the Chesterfield Hotel with its Landmark Restaurant and the Three Doors Down Bar to pay off my bills.

Carol my high school sweetheart had come back into my life for a third time two years before. She called me one Saturday afternoon after tracking me down based on the information I own a Reproduction Civil War Gun Company called Harpers Ferry Arms Company. They say the third time is a charm and it must be true as she quit her job with the State of Ohio’s Rehabilitation Services and moved to Virginia with everything she owned and this included her dog Sugar Bear. Carol had her Masters Degree in Rehabilitation and she had worked for the State of Ohio helping the deaf, blind and profoundly disabled find work. She was legally blind herself, as she had suffered from macular degeneration in both eyes as a teen ager.

We had met in 1961 while she was dating a member of our Civil War Rifle Team who lived in Michigan. Our Musket team had members scattered from Milwaukee and throughout most of the upper mid-western States. I still remember seeing her, for the first time in a well filled out orange blouse and plaid shorts looking at me on the Courthouse Green in the Henry Ford Museum of Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan.

Every year the Henry Ford Museum held their living history Muzzleloaders Festival, where individuals dressed in period costumes from the days of the French and Indian War, our American Revolution and the Civil War period who shot muzzle-loading firearms at breakable targets where thousands of paid spectators watch the competition. On Saturday evening, a formal Dressed Ball was held in Lafayette Hall where an orchestra played music for period dancing. On Sunday morning after a formal parade lead by a Civil War period Military Marching Band from the Village Green, the recreated Civil War Unit Musket Teams representing the North and the South held a shooting event called a Skirmish.

This was a spectator sport where the audience of over 20 thousand people could see their favorite Team hit bust-able targets in competition with all the other 8-man Civil War Musket Teams. There were 5-Team events in the competition that were shot in relays. In the first event, each team shot 32 clay pigeons mounted on a cardboard backer. The second event had 16 clay pigeons hung on a string. The third event had 16 colored powder filled clay pots hung on a wire and the fourth event had 16 soda cans hung on a string.

This shooting was a spectacular demonstration of the accuracy of the Civil War Rifled Muskets that killed more Americans than in all the other wars our country fought. The highlight of this competition came when each team shot Minnie Balls to cut off a vertical 2 by 8 wooden stake put in the ground.

Once a team cut off their stake they where allow to shoot the 4-explosive targets mounted on short wooden stakes next to the 2 by 8 stake. When the team hit the explosive targets, there was a loud explosion and a lot of smoke simulating Cannon fire that created the feeling this was a real battle that could have occurred during the Civil War.

In between these timed team events, there would be Cannon shooting and Gatling Gun demonstrations, along with shooting contests by individuals using the various historical weapons such as Indians using their bows and arrows to destroy the same number of targets shot by individuals using a Kentucky rifle, the Revolutionary Brown Bess Musket and the Civil War Musket. One demonstration had 8-men Musket teams shoot 32 Cay Pigeons mounted on a cardboard backer and two US Army Marksmen shot the same number of clay Pigeons using the Army’s M-1 Rifle but the Army never won.

My team the 5th Virginia Cavalry was one of the favorites in the competition and we usually shot next to our Northwest Territory Regional Team’s rivals the 6th Wisconsin Infantry as one of us would end up taking the Regional Championship Trophy at the end of the Skirmish shooting season.

However there I was grinning at her, leaning on my 3-band mint conditioned original 1863 Colt 58 caliber rifled musket and I was star struck. I could not take my eyes off Carol’s bright red hair, big blue eyes as she had literally took my breath away, and I knew I had to find out who she was.

When Bob introduced us, he made the comment she should be careful around me, as I was known to break little girls hearts. Throughout the day, I had a red headed audience watch me shoot in the individual matches and I was able to win the Revolver Competition beating the current National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association Champion for the third straight year here at Greenfield Village. Much to my surprise, I also won a victory kiss, from Carol.

That evening Carol came in a Civil War period Ball Gown that left no doubt as to her womanly charms. Bob did not dance and I took advantage of the situation as I loved to dance and so did Carol. Bob made several comments about our dancing too close and suggested he might have to challenge me to a duel to protect her honor. However, he was afraid I would choose pistols for this dual and he was not ready to die.

Throughout the rest of the shooting season, Bob continued to bring Carol to the Skirmishes held in Michigan. We would flirt and tease each other, as her chest was bigger than mine was as I wrestled in the 138-pound Weight Class throughout high school.

We started writing during the off-season of the shooting matches and we became quite serious. It was during Carol’s junior year in High School when she started to go blind and the doctors did not know what was causing it. Carol spent a year at the Ann Arbor Michigan Medical Research Center and learned how to deal with being blind. She was diagnosed as having Macular Degeneration that destroyed her central vision of both eyes and there was no known cure.

It was a rough year emotionally for both of us. We continue to write and I would block print my letters to Carol, as my hand writing and spelling was never very good. She did not want anyone reading my letters and her parents encouraged our relationship, as I was one of a few outside contacts she had. My letters were forcing Carol to use the special experimentally designed reading glasses to see what I wrote.

We wrote about everything and shared our inner most feelings as our relationship deepened and it was blossoming into love. I did not care that she may be blind for the rest of her life even though my mother cautioned me that marriage was hard enough when two people are physically normal. I was just not interested in other girls and I did not even go to my High School’s Senior Prom.

I was not sure what I wanted to do in life and my mother encouraged me to go to College. While my father was not as sure about the need for further education as my older brother had not gone to College and he was making good money in the Construction Trades. My father believed I should become a carpenter like he was as I had a natural talent for building things.

My mother told me an education was something no one could take away from me. She always resented not having the opportunity to go to high school or take Art Classes. My mother was a self-taught artist and she had a gift for writing poems and short stories. I would be the first one on both sides of our family to go past high school except for Aunt Regina who was a Religious Nun with the Maryknoll Mission Sisters.

My family was not rich and they could not afford to send me to College. However if I went to the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, I could live at home which would save me that major expense and I would only need to work during the summer to earn enough money for my books, tuition and gas money to get there.

When I was 7-years old, I learned to work for what I wanted. I made 43 dollars picking potatoes at a local farm that year. Half of that money bought my school clothes and books and the rest was put in the Bank. The deal my parents were offering me to go to college was like the time when I was seven years old and I wanted a bicycle. I paid half of the 7 dollars to buy a used bike and they paid the other half.

2. WHERE DID I COME FROM

Although all men are created equal, once they are born nothing remains equal. I believe who we are and what makes us who we become in life is already limited by circumstances beyond our control and the rest is what we want hard enough to overcome the obstacles placed in our path. Even then, what we are made of and the choices we continue to make, allows us to succeed or fail to reach our true potential.

Why are some men made of clay and the best they can hope to be is a clay pot while others start out as raw iron and they become highly tempered steel as it takes fire to make both a clay pot and steel. The difference is a clay pot only takes one firing to make it. While the making of steel requires the reheating of raw iron to white hot temperatures in hundreds of fires and while the iron is still soft and malleable it is pounded by a million sledgehammer blows into becoming highly tempered steel.

However, who is to say which ‘fire’ or combination of ‘fires’ has the greatest impact on us. There may be a single incident or a specific moment in time which over shadows all the rest and all those other incidents are only significant to someone else. I disagree with the concept or the idea that a part made from a mould cannot be better than the original mould. If this were true in humans, we would never have any hope of becoming any better than our parents were and we would not have progressed beyond swinging in the trees.

I also believe the Good Lord has a plan for each of us, and through God’s grace, we can excel and do better on the important things in our lives if we are just willing to try. Perhaps the hardest thing in life is not knowing, why bad things happen to us or why we have so little control over the outcome of bad things, once they start to happen even when we have honestly done our best to overcome these bad things.

I was born to a simple family of hard working parents who believed in God, honest hard work and loving their neighbor as they loved themselves would earn them a just reward in heaven. I was taught by my parents to be grateful for everything I had.

I thought I was lucky to have been born in a free country that would try to make the world a better place as the United States of America was fighting a World War against the evils of Nazi Germany and the Imperialistic expansion of the Japanese.

My family would never be rich but we were better off than many people in this World were as we always had enough to eat and we never had a mortgage on our house. Our first house was on 107th Street in the Town of Granville. The Town of Grandville was located north of the city of Milwaukee.

My dad had bought the land and a partially built shell of a house with the money he had saved after working two years in a World War Defense Plant in Milwaukee. My father was a farmer, a Carpenter and a Master Cabinet Maker and he used those skills over the next year to turn that house into our home.

My father had less than 3 years of formal education and my mother taught him how to do the mathematics he needed to work in the Falk Machine Shop turning propeller shafts for Destroyers and Battleships on the huge machine lathes.

My parents had come from the Dairy Farm country of central Wisconsin. My mother who was Polish came from a farm east of Wausau and my father who was Irish was raise on the Corrigan family Homestead farm in Amherst. The Corrigan family almost lost their farm when my great uncle Bill died owing the cost of staying in the County’s Home for the elderly. My father bought the Corrigan Homestead at public Auction when he was just a teenager and his parents, his brothers and sisters just moved in to live off him.

My father met my mother when she worked at her brother’s local Cheese Factory and the General Store near the Corrigan Homestead. When my father asked her to marry him, she told him she could consider it when he kicked out his mooching relatives. By then she had learned he was the only one who worked in that family and he was the one who owned the farm. Yet his family came into the Store and ran up the bill as if they were millionaires and they expected my father to pay it. She was firm in her belief that when she married a man she had every right to expect him to take care of her and the family they hoped they would have together.

She knew there was no reason why his father did not work. There was no physical reason why any of the rest of the members of his parents’ family did not have a job or at least contribute something to the overall welfare of the family.

My father loved my mother but he did not know how to get his parents and the rest of the family to move out. She told him to stop paying their bills at the Store and that was what he did. My father told my mother’s brother who owned the store that he would no longer be responsible for any Bills at the Store except for his own.

He told his family they could not charge anything at the Store anymore and the Store would not give them any credit. He also told them he was getting married and they would have to find somewhere else to live. I was never told what happened after that by anyone in the Corrigan side of the family.

However, when his family moved out my mother agreed to marry him. I know my parents lost their first son James and they nearly lost the farm during the depression. Somehow, they were able to keep it as the only debit they had was at the grocery store, as they did not believe in mortgaging the farm just to eat.

After my father and mother worked at her brother’s store to pay off their debt my grandparents and aunt Mary, who was my God Mother moved back on the farm, when my father and mother went to work at a Country Club in Menasha Wisconsin. My mother was a very good cook and my father took care of the greens on the Golf Course. I know my parents had supported them until my grandparents died and then Aunt Mary got married at the age of 49 and moved out.

When the War broke out after Pearl Harbor my dad was too old to join the Army and he had a family to support as my older brother Richard, Dick had been born in Menasha Wisconsin in September of 1940. My uncle Bob on my mother’s side of the family was living in Milwaukee and he encouraged my parents to come to the city where my Dad would find a better paying job working in the Defense Plants as they were hiring anyone who could get a security clearance.

Although the machines at the Defense plant were huge, my father had no trouble learning how to do this type of work as he had learned how to operate, fix and repair all types of farm equipment once he saw someone else do it. He was also a perfectionist when he built high quality wooden cabinets, turned duplicate chair and table legs on a wood lathe and when he did finish carpentry work.

With my mother’s help, my father learned to use the precision instruments to measure the close tolerances necessary to operate the huge machines that turned propeller shafts for Destroyers and Battleships. These propeller shafts had to be machined perfectly round or they might vibrate and ruin the support bearings between the Ship’s Engines and its propellers.

Even worse, the vibrations of an out of round propeller shaft could send the ship’s location to the enemy as sound travels a great distance in the water. The United States had already lost too many ships at Pearl Harbor and it could not afford to lose another one do to the lack of machining skills of the machine operator.

While my father worked at the Folk Plant in Milwaukee, he became a member of the Sabotage Watch Team for the FBI. When he did this well, he was asked to become an FBI Agent but he did not have the formal education they required. I was born in Milwaukee on June 28, 1943. I was a year old when we moved from living with uncle Bob to our new home on 107th Street.

They say when you are only that old, you do not remember things but I clearly remember walking across the three-lane highway of 107th Street and eating a big green apple, I found under the neighbor’s tree. Perhaps it was the fact I got sick and threw up all night made finding and eating that green apple the day we arrived at our new home stand out in my memory.

I remembered my first experience with a dead person as my Grandfather George Corrigan died that same year. It was the custom back then to have the dead person laid out in the family’s home rather than at a Funeral Parlor. I remember thinking how strange it was that the people who came to the house, talked very softly in whispers as they stood next to Grandpa as if they did not want to wake him from his sleep. I remembered the house full of people kneeling down and praying the rosary the night before the Funeral Mass held at Saint Patrick’s Church, which was just a mile down the road from the farm.

My mother did not let me go to Grandpa’s burial, as it was a cold and windy day. However, I do remember after Grandpa was gone, the house was again filled with people who seemed as if they were celebrating something important and my father got angry when Uncle Jim got drunk.

What little boy does not remember his first dog? I can still see Teddy our gray Scottish terrier, as he bounded into our bedroom and jumped into our bed the morning my father brought him home. Of course, Teddy was not just my dog, as he was our family’s dog. However, after that first morning when he licked my face and I hugged that wiggling creature he was my best friend, as he was always with me. Teddy’s arrival had to have been sometime after my father finished the upstairs bedroom where Dick and I slept in the same bed. I remembered when we first moved into the house, we all slept on the first floor in what would later become our living room.

I remembered when my father plastered the walls of that upstairs room after he built in our dresser into the wall. I loved to watch my father work and he let me hold his hammer rather than laying it down when he was not using it.

I was thrilled when he told me this would be Dick’s and my bedroom. Having something that belonged to me or was mine reflected a warm feeling of ownership beyond just being part of the family.

I was four years old when my sister Sue Ann was born and my Aunt Helen had come to take care of us kids while this was happening. My brother was going to the first grade at Saint Catherine’s parochial school and sometimes I would go with him but I do not remember the reason why I was allowed to do that, other than it could have been when I went with my father while he fixed something at the Church. My father was always fixing something at the school or in the church and he would continue to do that as long as he lived in the Parish.

That morning seemed exceptionally confusing to me, as everyone was going somewhere and I felt as if I was being left out of something. I decided to take my tricycle and go to school where I knew my brother would be and I knew how to get there. I had peddled a mile down the road to Granville Junction. When Mrs Logon who was the Postmaster of the Granville Post Office while her one handed husband managed the small general Store saw me, she ran out to stop me before I could go any farther.

She knew who I was and she convinced me to come into the store for a piece of candy. I had not been there very long when my father showed up with the car and took me back home. When I arrived back home I found my mother with the new baby. To this day, I have been accused of running away from home when I found out I was not the baby of the family any more.

I remembered after the War, when the Stonemasons laid the Linen stone from the local quarry over the tarpaper that covered our house. I also remembered when my father fell off the 4-story scaffolding while he was working as a Carpenter. He was out of work for a long time and my mother told us we had to be quiet if our father was to get better.

I remember working in the garden and feeding the chickens, the rabbits and our pig and my mother saying, if we didn’t do all this we would not have anything to eat. Back then, I did not realize just how true my mother’s words were.

We just did not have any money to buy anything and we never went to the store any more. I remember my mother re-sowing the hand me down clothes we got from our cousins so their clothes would fit us. The only place the car went was to Church on Sunday and somehow Mom saved enough money from selling fresh eggs to buy the gas at Mr Hacker’s Garage in Granville Junction.

I always found Mr Hacker’s Garage interesting as old Man Hacker was a Blacksmith and I loved to watch him work at his forge making plow shares and fixing broken farm equipment. I wanted to learn how he did things with the iron and steel he worked with. Later on in my life when I had any free time, I would go there and ask questions about what and how he did things. He was a kind man and he would let me make things