THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 15, 1995 TAG: 9501130236
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Susie Stoughton
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
For a long time, I thought I missed my father most at Christmas.
He loved playing Santa, wrapping unique little gifts he'd scoured the countryside to find and placing them on the tree's branches.
But last fall, I missed him even more as I waited outside the juvenile courtroom. Byron Williamson sat by my side as morning turned to afternoon, both of us wishing everyone could be lucky enough to have had dads like we had - the kind who, when he said ``jump,'' you asked how high on the way up.
His father would have killed him if he had ever disgraced the family name, said Williamson, young enough to be my son.
I often asked, ``Why do I have to?'' - but I never dared challenge, ``Because I said so.'' My brother and I obeyed our mother, too, because we knew we'd catch it when Daddy got home if we didn't.
Perhaps if youngsters today had parents like ours, Williamson and I might not have spent the better part of that fall day waiting to testify at the trial of a teenager accused of stealing our cars. And we probably would not have met at police headquarters early one morning last spring.
And yet, as we watched the endless parade of troubled young people before us, I somehow felt partly responsible, as if society had not provided strong leadership. We need more good role models like my father, who bucked peer pressure, telling me he didn't care if ``everybody else'' was doing something. ``I'm not everyone else's father,'' he would say, holding his position.
Whatever prompted this 16-year-old to go on his joy ride, he ran out of luck when he turned down my street about 1:30 a.m. A neighbor, dozing in front of the television, woke up when she heard the loud muffler. She urged her husband to call the police as she watched the strange proceedings - the unfamiliar car stopping in shadows, the youngster disappearing into the darkness.
Thankfully, Suffolk's finest - our men in blue - responded quickly, and after a chase, they apprehended the suspect. The incident would make a great movie.
The telephone jarred me awake, and the police dispatcher said someone had been seen running away from my car and the police were chasing him.
Later I learned that ``someone'' had broken into my car, started it with a screwdriver, then backed it halfway up the street before police arrived. Then ``someone'' jumped out as the car crashed into my mailbox. He ran across the yard and jumped into a lake, swimming across the cove and escaping.
The responding police officer immediately radioed for back-up, and help came hurrying, surrounding the youngster after he emerged, dripping, from the woods. The officer was relieved when he learned the teenager was in custody.
I stared at my wrecked car, trying to comprehend what had happened and why. After hours of questions, photographs and filling out forms, my husband and I drove home from the police station about 4 a.m. I wondered what my father would have done if he had been called there to pick up one of his teenage children.
Incomprehensible, I thought. It couldn't have happened.
Williamson felt the same, he said later as we squirmed in our seats - as unyielding as the judge's gavel - unable to ignore young teenagers brought in from detention in handcuffs, with chains around their waists.
I had been told the defendant in our case would plead guilty but would not likely be sent to detention because this was his first conviction, although he was charged with four felonies. But the purpose of juvenile court, I was told, is to rehabilitate rather than punish.
And so, the judge ordered him to pay for the damage he had caused and placed him on probation and sent him home. Williamson and I just looked at one another, wondering whether that would convince him of what he should already have known.
Who knows where this story and countless others will end? But solutions come easier before problems start.
And that's when I miss my father most. MEMO: PLEASE HELP US: If you are involved in a nonprofit agency that runs a
thrift shop, please let us know. We're preparing a story on charitable
thrifts. You can call 934-7555 from Suffolk or 562-3028 from the
Franklin area.
by CNB