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Authors: Wright Forbucks
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off by the nickname, but I now recognize it as a term of endearment; for over the years, I have established a long track record of taking care of my boys, who now, like real sons, look up to me and compete for my affection, usually by trying to impress me with good words and better deeds.
Being a dad, I don't want my sons to perceive a favorite so I take great care to mete out equivalent doses of affection. But the truth is, Smitty occupies a higher tier of my heart than Rodrigo because he alone provided the guidance and relentless support I needed to turn my life around. In fact, he's more like a father than a son. And without question, Smitty's a better person than Rodrigo, who remains to this day quite a piece of work…
~ ~ ~
As I previously mentioned, due to budget cuts enacted by my "hero" Ronald Reagan, to meet the needs of its patients, Leicester County Hospital was forced to employ inmates from the Leicester County Correctional Facility. Smitty was one of my initial inmate assignees. I first met him when he entered Room 302—two days into a six-month prison sentence. Being big, his assignment was to roll me.
A half-year was an exceptionally long stay for an inmate at the Leicester County Correctional Facility. But having recently killed an elderly spectator while competing at Shyshire's Annual Scottish Highland Games, Smitty's sentence was relatively light. Originally, the State intended to charge Smitty with murder, but they had to settle for manslaughter due to a lack of sober witnesses. The lesser conviction caused Smitty's frustrated prosecutor to accurately describe Shyshire's Annual Scottish Highland Games as "an excuse to drink disguised as a sporting event."
The sad fact was, like most prisoners incarcerated for violent offenses at Leicester County Correctional Facility, Smitty's crime involved alcohol. Since all of the participants and spectators at the Shyshire Highland Games were drunk, accounts of Smitty's "accident" varied. But it was generally agreed that Smitty, a participant in the festival's "heavy events," became disorientated and tossed his caber into a crowd of spectators, killing one and injuring three. Subsequent testing revealed, at the time of the "accident," Smitty had a 0.2 percent blood alcohol level, twice the legal limit for driving an automobile, thus by inference, an inappropriate level of drunkenness for tossing things about that weighed more than a Volkswagen.
For those of you unfamiliar with Scottish sports that don't involve a little white ball, the Highland Games supposedly replicate competitions held in the Scottish Highlands during the eleventh century. The core events of the "games" involve throwing heavy things such as boulders, hammers, and cabers—a caber being a tree without branches, usually pine, usually thirty feet long, and usually weighing three hundred pounds.
Smitty got sucked into the "sport" of caber tossing because he was huge and his smaller "friends" from his high school got a free keg pass for being part of his entourage. Later in life, Smitty also admitted he secretly enjoyed wearing a kilt because it let his boys dangle like the good Lord intended.
In appearance, Smitty looked like a giant Bartlett pear. Being cool, I never asked him his exact size, but I'd estimate he was six foot eight inches tall and I'm certain he weighed, at minimum, three hundred fifty pounds. I have no idea what percent of Smitty's weight was muscle, but he could pick me up and toss me around like I was a Beanie Baby.
The intimidation associated with Smitty's size was compounded by a look that could make a Hell's Angel soil his Harley. Smitty had a brown hillbilly beard, a furry back, and slots for eyes. He had a gap between his front two teeth, which I once witnessed him use to strip a wire. He had a tattoo on his arm that read "moM," so it looked like it was spelled backwards. And he often wore painter's pants à la Jason of Friday the 13th. Due to an innocuous heart
Being a dad, I don't want my sons to perceive a favorite so I take great care to mete out equivalent doses of affection. But the truth is, Smitty occupies a higher tier of my heart than Rodrigo because he alone provided the guidance and relentless support I needed to turn my life around. In fact, he's more like a father than a son. And without question, Smitty's a better person than Rodrigo, who remains to this day quite a piece of work…
~ ~ ~
As I previously mentioned, due to budget cuts enacted by my "hero" Ronald Reagan, to meet the needs of its patients, Leicester County Hospital was forced to employ inmates from the Leicester County Correctional Facility. Smitty was one of my initial inmate assignees. I first met him when he entered Room 302—two days into a six-month prison sentence. Being big, his assignment was to roll me.
A half-year was an exceptionally long stay for an inmate at the Leicester County Correctional Facility. But having recently killed an elderly spectator while competing at Shyshire's Annual Scottish Highland Games, Smitty's sentence was relatively light. Originally, the State intended to charge Smitty with murder, but they had to settle for manslaughter due to a lack of sober witnesses. The lesser conviction caused Smitty's frustrated prosecutor to accurately describe Shyshire's Annual Scottish Highland Games as "an excuse to drink disguised as a sporting event."
The sad fact was, like most prisoners incarcerated for violent offenses at Leicester County Correctional Facility, Smitty's crime involved alcohol. Since all of the participants and spectators at the Shyshire Highland Games were drunk, accounts of Smitty's "accident" varied. But it was generally agreed that Smitty, a participant in the festival's "heavy events," became disorientated and tossed his caber into a crowd of spectators, killing one and injuring three. Subsequent testing revealed, at the time of the "accident," Smitty had a 0.2 percent blood alcohol level, twice the legal limit for driving an automobile, thus by inference, an inappropriate level of drunkenness for tossing things about that weighed more than a Volkswagen.
For those of you unfamiliar with Scottish sports that don't involve a little white ball, the Highland Games supposedly replicate competitions held in the Scottish Highlands during the eleventh century. The core events of the "games" involve throwing heavy things such as boulders, hammers, and cabers—a caber being a tree without branches, usually pine, usually thirty feet long, and usually weighing three hundred pounds.
Smitty got sucked into the "sport" of caber tossing because he was huge and his smaller "friends" from his high school got a free keg pass for being part of his entourage. Later in life, Smitty also admitted he secretly enjoyed wearing a kilt because it let his boys dangle like the good Lord intended.
In appearance, Smitty looked like a giant Bartlett pear. Being cool, I never asked him his exact size, but I'd estimate he was six foot eight inches tall and I'm certain he weighed, at minimum, three hundred fifty pounds. I have no idea what percent of Smitty's weight was muscle, but he could pick me up and toss me around like I was a Beanie Baby.
The intimidation associated with Smitty's size was compounded by a look that could make a Hell's Angel soil his Harley. Smitty had a brown hillbilly beard, a furry back, and slots for eyes. He had a gap between his front two teeth, which I once witnessed him use to strip a wire. He had a tattoo on his arm that read "moM," so it looked like it was spelled backwards. And he often wore painter's pants à la Jason of Friday the 13th. Due to an innocuous heart
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