Saturday

What fun it was to read the great news on Sharon's blog this afternoon! A surprise check arrived for her today from Marty Shapiro's Agency, extending producer Brittany Lovett's current option for Sharon's and my book, My Mama's Waltz, which means I will get my check on Monday. The West Coast mail always reaches Sharon first since she's geographically closer. The possibility of a made-for-t.v. movie is still kicking. Let's see: Cheryl Ladd as Ellie, Diane Lane as Sharon, Banderos as Liberto, Brad Pitt as Sharon's Esteemed Spouse. . .

This evening, L. and I went to the mall to buy a dress for Mamita. He's leaving for Venezuela next Saturday for two weeks, in lieu of a Christmas visit and will arrive laden with presents for the familia. Remembering the last excursion to find a dress for Mama, I suggested we shop on-line this time. I find it very inefficient, tiring, and boring to wander from store to store going through endless racks looking for a certain size. Mama's size is hard to find because she's petite in stature, but not petite in width, bless her heart. I told him we should go on-line, find Sears or Penney's or Macy's, filter for size and item, and have a screen full of possibilities right in front of us. We could even choose express shipping! But no, on to the Mall. We walked through Sears, Macy's, and Penney's, and could not find one dress in her size. Two hours later, we came home. I clicked onto the Sears website, scanned through available dresses in her size, selected one that seemed to be her style, got his approval, and ordered it.


Last Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Troy Davis a stay of execution two hours before he was scheduled to die. I've followed this case with great interest. We moved to Savannah in August of 1989, the same month that Davis allegedly shot Office MacPhail in the parking lot of the Savannah bus station. It was all over the news for many weeks. I read about it in the newspaper every day. I remember watching the memorial on the local news, the widow of the police officer sitting with her two-year-old and a newborn baby. Davis was charged, convicted, and sentenced to death. That was 19 years ago. A few days ago, the dead police officer's newborn baby, now a college student, gave an interview on the local news---before the Supreme Court intervened---saying how relieved he and his family are that justice will be served. Two years ago, Davis was also set to die, when the Georgia Pardons Board granted a stay. Apparently, civil rights groups had been working for years trying to get him a new trial, on the grounds that seven of the nine witnesses who testified against him have since recanted their original statements, saying they were coerced by police. There was no forensic evidence and the gun used as a murder weapon was never found.

Since I'm currently teaching Count of Monte Cristo, I've had occasion to bring up the topic of wrongful conviction in class. It's been known to happen! The Innocence Project has managed to overturn the wrongful convictions of hundreds of people, usually black men. That's why I don't think it's a stretch to think that Davis might be innocent. Maybe he's not a saint and maybe he shouldn't have been out with the homiees looking for trouble that night, but it's possible that he was not the one to pull the trigger. He has always insisted that it was another guy in the group, the one who intimidated the rest of them. When there's any doubt about someone's guilt, that person should spend life in prison but not be executed.

Troy Davis's presence in the news again has knocked me through a time warp, back to the first month in Savannah, when we lived in that little rental house on Delores Drive, when Paul was only three, when Derek and Shawn were teenagers, when my dad was still alive, when Sandy was still alive, when I was just starting at Georgia Southern, and Liberto was still working for the Savannah Housing Authority. A lifetime ago!