"Don't Worry - Be Happy": article draft by Roosevelt Fitzgerald

DON'T WORRY —BE HAPPY BY
ROOSEVELT FITZGERALD
Its about three in the morning and I'm wide awake. Its been like this for weeks. No, make that months. They say that bad news comes in bunches and, while recent events might not officially be classified as bunches they do seem, at least, to be trailing each other so closely as to be tailgating.
I'll admit, I'm quick to blow things out of proportion and, in all likelihood, that's exactly what I am now:doing. Ok. I'm paranoid, I'm given to historonics, I see conspiracies all over the place and I trust no one. Does that make me insane? Not by a long shot. I'm about as normal as a town in Oklahoma. I'm as average as Rhe mean temperature. I'm as common as a denominator of one. I'm as regular as gasoline or a bowel movement. I'm as friendly as an airline. Alright. No more. You get the picture. I'm average. I blend right in. My nickname is chameleon. You wouldn't notice me even if you were talking to me. I'm the guy that people keep looking away from when engaged in a conversation. I suppose they're trying to determine if they're talking to anyone or if they're in fact talking to themselves.
I can drift off and have a footlong chile dog and return and not be missed. In short, I'm the fellow that the world could get along without.
But, since I'm., here, I do notice things. I' notice them individually and collectively.. In both states they are important even if they seem not to be but in the latter they make a statement that might not have been part of their original intent. Consider the following scenarios.
I don't know how many courtrooms there are in this town and around the country but according to insiders there -are not enough. The court calendars are clogged and even if no more crimes are committed as of this date, there is enough of a backlog to keep the current courts busy for years to come. In some instances those trials do not involve juries. I don't know if that's
good or not. In felony cases, I think juries are always involved unless the
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defendant waives a jury trial and is willing to place his fate in the hands of a judge or judges. Whichever is the case--with or without juries—the process has always frightened me and, more and more, Kt is scaring me to death.
In our system one^fscinnocent until proven guilty. That's a good start. However, I think it goes downhill from there. I'm not talking about the system itself but those who are charged with carrying out its wishes. First there's an arrest, then an indictment, setting a trial date, selecting a jury of one's peers and shortly thereafter the trial begins. Hypothetically, I've been arrested and charged with a crime of which I ammnnocent. Because I am innocent I had no reason to establish an alibi. Mhe night and time that the crime was committed I had spent alone part of the time in my office and working until the wee hours. Afterwards I went directly home where I watched a vintage 1945 fWm on cable's AMC channel. I specify the channel because on that channel there are repeat showing of the same films throughout the day and any reasonably good prosecutor could argue that I could very well have viewed the film at a time different than that which I claimed. In any case, at about five in the morning I went out for my newspaper, went to the bathroom (that is where I like to read the newspaper—the entire paper) and sometime around seven I exited, with my legs already asleep and went to bed.
The next thing I knew there was a pounding on the front door and by the time I got to it it came crash! ngBn and three policemen entered and they placed me under arrest and off I went to jail. Was I worried? Nope. I had no reason to be. I was as innocent as an Aztec sacrifice. I was as free of guilt as the conscience of the unborn. My hands were as clean as my pockets after my last visit to the IRS. My conscience was as clear as the Amazon rain forest will soon be. I was as inculpuble as half of the "I SPY" team.
In other words; I didn't do it buddy.
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I knew that whatever the rap was I was innocent but what I failed to realize was that being innocent is not enough. How was I to know that I would need an alibi? How was I to know that the jury of my peers would not be what it was purported to be. You see, in my case, my peers would need to be other single people who understand the phenomena of not being able to prove where one was on any given day or night. Makes you wonder how many people who take the fall are single, witnessless people who cannot prove that between five and seven, when the dastardly deed was being committed, they were having a solitary BM.
Anyway, that's not the big problem. The big problem comes with the mentality of that jury, the attorney and even the judge. It would be difficult enough to find someBin all categories who are single and night people but where the trouble really begins is in finding those who appreciate high seriousness and who recognize that there us a life at stake.
Now don't get me wrong, I like to kid around. As a matter of fact I do so quite frequently. You can probably see that in some of the stuff that I write but, like it says in a book that I read once, there's a time and a place for everything. Like, one does not kid around with guns, while driving, performing brain surgery (or any other kind of surgery), while in an air traffic control tower, in emergency situations or during trials. Kidding around is fun but serious stuff should never be trivialized.
Sometimes, late at night, when my phone rings at home, if I answer it at all I might say; "Slaughter house, Ki Her speaking." I do this because I do sometimes get strange--even threaten!ng--phone calls. I don't do that when I'm on my job. ■here its business, business, business. Time and place remember?
I'm wide awake at three in the morning because I'm not only worried about the ordinary things which we all worry about but I am also worried about
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the jury at my hypothetically upcoming trial. I'm worried that I'll get someone who, on an emergency line, refers to the caller as a "BIMBO." Someone who aggrevates that by describing the caller as a "DIPSHIT." I'm worried about what that dispatcher or another, when hearing my voice or one similar, might refer to the caller as a "NIGGER." That same person might have pejoratives to describe Hispanic sounding voices or Asian sounding voices and on and on. With a disposition like that, I'm worried about what kind of evaluation of the evidence such a person might give in my case. I'm further worried because I've learned that such conversations between emergency dispatchers are commonplace. As if that were not enough to worry about, I'm also worried that there might be someone on my jury who is moreBinterested in which of the attorneys would be a good "FLI.." rather than being concerned with the evidence that shows that I'm innocent.
I'll tell you sportsfans, I'm scared to death.