China Shop

December 29, 2016

Dear Governor Holden:

There came to be a time in my life when as an adult child I said to the late Charles E. Hughes, “Dad, you ought to take a shower.” He fancied himself to be always working, and I’d like to know on what. The Local Cartage Association of Greater St. Louis ceased to be a corporation in 1970, I discovered too long ago. Nonetheless, Charles had an office on Hampton Avenue next door to the police association where I got a chilly reception during a brief 2003 lobbying visit on behalf of Chapter 632.

Dad was so unconcerned about his set of statute books, he allowed me to keep the one that covered 632. Today, I wonder if “Charlie” wrote the revised law himself. Missouri’s “modern” mental health legislation rather suspiciously passed right after my U-Haul truck went over the hill to Wisconsin. Then, thanks to two social scientists I quoted in my stolen and never published first book, homeless mentally ill people slept in my driveway as spooks just had to see what was in the Fiat 124 glovebox without taking my insurance card. This garbage, along with Carter’s Cuban “boat people” breaking down the front door is no longer puzzling.

Later in life, while steeped in great drama over our layoff during your one term in office, a state attorney by the name of Jeannie Floh Sierra came in my office, asked where I got the statute book, and she inquired about Charlie’s profession. I did not yet suspect the books were needed for a guy who attained a J.D. but did not practice law, so I simply said, “He needs them for his job.” (Whatever that really was).

Ms. Sierra then came into Dierbergs at Mackenzie point after our layoff and informed me of the DMH attorneys dislike for Dr. Rick Gowdy, who is now the #2 man at the department. Her exact quote was: “Theresa and I hate him. We’re both going to quit” and I gather they did. This is the same Dierbergs where some ass recently walked up to me and threatened to, I presume, break into my motel room and take the very last of my personal property.

Please don’t say I should have called police, because the tactics are always the same. Bang on the door and call out a name, hit Bill Hughes with a purse, knock him against the grocery store shelf, yell and insult poor Bill, make a death threat on the bus and get off at the next stop, etc. etc. etc. Now tell me I can’t run for a congressional seat and whip Clay’s black ass. He is a paralegal by training, I discovered, a mysterious real estate firm he worked for has “vanished” like my family photo albums and hard-earned degrees, plus he is overly fond of bison, in my opinion.

You see, Bill Hughes’ “delusional” camera needs to be at the St. Louis Zoo next year for an “infomercial” where the NFL Films announcer imitator asks, “Been buffaloed by Lacy Clay?” and in their own words constituents speak of the end runs and run-arounds that are so much a part of the fabric of Missouri’s totally corrupt political hierarchy. (Buffalo grazing in the background will not be harmed, PETA). I myself would like to personally operate the camera and wait for a real buffalo to snort or make whatever sound they make. Hey, this stuff costs money! If Clay spent four million, I’d better plan on at least six so he can be put out to pasture with his beloved bison.

The legislative record is poor, Rep. Clay follows the herd like a head of DNC cattle, and I am not detailing the issues his south side office does not care about (Including the rampant firing of assault rifles within the City of Saint Louis). Yes, I voted for his father more than once, and this sort of allegiance to a political party in need of serious repair has me about to sleep upon the streets in a town where some asinine law makes it a crime for “do-gooders” to hand me a tuna sandwich and/or bottle of water.

Perhaps you’d like to hear of my Don Quixote adventure in 1992 as I worked the phone to find a homeless shelter in Saint Louis County. Fact is there still isn’t such a place. Or, perhaps you’d like a walking tour near the city limits to eyeball southwest county businesses that have been shuttered for many years, tried to do the Potemkin village right thing by leaving the lights on after evacuating, or have packed it up and moved to Fenton and Jefferson County. My scorecard finds 5 businesses gone, and one new dental entrepreneur. That would be a commercial score of -4 in an area where the county council member is a union man with a high school education.

Dick Gephardt, I’ve discovered, turned on blue collar providers of his Wheaties and aided a “sellout” whereby aerospace machinists cannot strike. Labor economics fan Bill wonders, as with many things, “Is this legal?” By golly, I’d like to find Dick and ask what he was thinking. I’m not Ira Magaziner or Catherine Sibelius, but I agree with GOP ObamaCare haters that perhaps teacher Bill needs to go to the blackboard with Bernie’s socialist clowns and explain how the health care market is different than unloading cheap Korean cars on people who owe the government $250,000 on their Art History degrees. (Uncle Sam wants his money, kids!).

Did you say “policing?” This Hughes wonders why there was a look-alike Saint Louis County cop for my late dad, and perhaps someone wants to discuss why it was alleged in 2013 I had been breaking in cars to “steal car stereos.” Is this the lawman’s 1970’s joke? I don’t think it is funny at all after the torment I was subjected to in Jerry Brown’s warped paradise called California, and one of my battle cries would be about a pressing need to weed out “impaired cops,” who I would incinerate on the stump as “Cops on dope.” Sir, it is a huge problem, and you can send the latest drug screen results for the local police in an envelope that won’t arrive from a post office that needs to be abolished.

I will be leaving a voice mail at the Aboussie “chop shop,” and fully expect a reply. Circling back to the Mental Health Coordinator layoff that started my slide to briefly sleeping upon Chinatown streets in LA, it never occurred to me to focus on your office, because I incorrectly thought you can reason with Jeff City Republican legislators. Yes, I still recall the blank look on Sarah Steelman’s makeup, and I’m sure nobody has defaced the Thomas Hart Benton murals daddy lectured on extensively in 1969 after hijacking the eighth grade tour bus. The capitol marble is cracked, like Don Trump’s twisted selections for governance? I think not.

By the time dissatisfied mental health professionals got around to the governor’s office they were bluntly shown the door by Matt during his first month in office. I was busy calling Kansas City from a phone that kept cutting me off from the lobbyist that said “Keep up the pressure.” Earlier that day, I had refused to board the Disney Space Shuttle ride that later killed a man, and found my hosts post strategy session by the NASCAR ride. One of them now summarizes feminist-themed news for a New York City publication called Bustle. Why bother to call and hear, “We don’t need any new writers.” [Photo attached].

I’m always,

William Hughes, MSW

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