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the shredder
Good riddance to all that

Casting a backward glance at the year behind us is always fun, unless you had a really rotten year and each event becomes a signpost of remembered doom as we plod through your 12 months of agony once again, inflicting even more pain upon your wretched soul. But most people like it.

So do I, because it’s a chance to reflect, ponder, and ruminate while snacking on chips, pretzels, and Cheese Doodles. It’s also an easy column to write because everything’s already happened and I’m just stringing them all together.

The year started off with a whimper—I had a horrible hangover, and a whimper was all I could muster. Then the war in Iraq broke out and I had another good reason to get tanked.

At the end of March, the anti-war demonstrators in San Luis took to the streets, almost 2,000 of them, all hooting and hollering for the president’s head, or any other available body part to put on a pike. The pro-war gang was there, too, almost five of them. It was ugly. Then I began noticing the words “Terror Alert High” everywhere and thought they were talking about where I went to school. It was ugly, too.

Speaking of ugly, Duke Power got into hot water that it heated with fossil fuel and hubris, a deadly mixture. The FBI started looking into exactly how badly the company ripped us all off through its creative accounting and inflated rates, but doesn’t have the answer yet. The answer is simple. Throw them all in jail. Company spokesman Pat Mullen said that economics will dictate the Morro Bay plant’s future. Well, duh.

Speaking of jail, Carlton Hagmaier (Prisoner #14495-112) was let out of a federal one after serving 57 months for robbing the crème de la crème of SLO County society through a convoluted insurance scheme that I wish I understood well enough to explain or pull off. Back in the ’90s, 14495-112 was doing what I wanted to be doing—being a millionaire and flaunting it exuberantly.

The problem with 14495-112 was that he stole all his millions, thus becoming SLO County’s most notorious con artist, which had previously been held by Duke Power. He’s been ordered to pay $3,212,837.00 in restitution, which means that at the rate 14495-112 is going, he’ll have it paid off by late spring of 2097. I had a job at Burger King, too, so I should know.

Then we got a new governor. Whoop-dee-doo.

But the guy most deserving of our bile and ire in 2003 has to be Ken Freitas, who hasn’t figured out yet how to take responsibility or drive a car. One night, Freitas, with a history of driving like an idiot, hit and killed a pedestrian in Grover Beach, then got a pass from the DA’s office and went back to terrorizing the community. Then this paper finally decided to do the right thing and blew the whistle on him, so now he’s facing vehicular manslaughter charges. Boy, talk about a dismal story filled with losers. Now I remember that I actually hate “Year in Review” articles.

Speaking of hate, here’s another story from 2003 that I hate. I hate having to tell you about Anna and Gary Young, whose son, Nathan, was killed 2 1/2 years ago in a San Luis brawl at Kris Kar Townhomes, described by the court as “a notorious party house.” Last month the Youngs were awarded $6 million in damages, which isn’t nearly enough.

Uh-oh, here’s another one—didn’t anything good happen in SLO County last year? In Templeton, Jay Vestal was killed by SLO County Sheriff’s deputies. Then the Paso Police Department shot and killed a man, and then SLO County settled a police brutality lawsuit for $2 million—and what’s this? Another police brutality suit was brought, this time against the SLO Police Department for $3.48 million.

There was too much death, despair, and destruction being caused by cops and cars and morons in 2003. Then we had an earthquake and two more people were killed. I don’t know why I’ve even brought this stuff up.
But here’s something good: It’s good to remember that the bad news is the exception, not the rule. It’s easy to forget this and think otherwise, what with the media pummeling us with things exploding or crashing and people getting killed—and it’s just as easy to forget that walking down the street in the sun is good news, that so is the experience of not getting shot or blown up, or of being able to rent a video that you can turn off and go do something fun, like read this or eat a corn pie or run naked through the rain as long as you watch out for Freitas at the crosswalks.

There are other good things, I think. For one, I’ve finally stopped instinctively writing “19,” thinking it’s still the 20th century, a major breakthrough that my therapist applauds. Michael Jackson is keeping us entertained, President Bush’s poll numbers have started dropping, I sold my brother on e-Bay, and “Return of the King” was long and cool, like a super-sized beer on a hot summer day. But the best thing of all is that 2003 is finally gone. ³