Sunday was the first full day with my new videographer, Jackie Zabel, a Kutztown University student of electronic media. She is an amazing find—incredibly organized, knowledgeable and enthusiastic. Despite the heavy snowfall on Saturday, we ventured down to the Pennhurst site but found it gated and locked. Took some shots and footage of what we could see from Brown Drive. The place looks very different in the blinding white snow—less decrepit and abandoned somehow.

From there, we headed to the Burger King to try to find Diane, a woman who worked at Pennhurst from 1980-84. There we got leads to several other places where we might find former workers and residents. We managed to track one resident down, but he declined to be interviewed. I asked him if that was because it was all bad and he said no, but still refused to talk about it. I looked into his eyes and he looked back at me without wavering. He did not want to talk about it. That was that.

We stopped at several diner-type restaurants in Spring City and Royersford to ask around and put up flyers. There we found one man who worked there from 1954 to 1956 as an aide in "Q" cottage. For him working at Pennhurst was more like just a job. He was fresh out of the military and the job promised free room and board on the premises. His rooms were above the old theater. We gave him a short on-the-street interview but the traffic was so loud I doubt we’ll be able to hear him at all. You could tell from listening to him that he hadn’t let the place influence him or bring him down. He agreed to a longer interview next weekend.

I put in phone calls (all went to voice mail) to all the people I'd been referred to. None returned the calls. Now is when it gets complicated. Now is when all the hackles rise up and the doors get quietly shut in your face. Even in 2010 it is still something to be hidden, to keep silent about, to keep in a locked closet. Witnesses will venture out from their shells for a few inches, then think better of it and scuttle right back into hiding. This is not a pretty subject—this is controversy, served up raw and bleeding.

Bill Baldini called Pennhurst "a hangover from the sixteenth century"—have we really progressed beyond? Should I take a survey to see if nice folks today would like a group home made up of the “intellectually challenged” to be built in their neighborhood? Would the mores have changed? Think you know the answer? E-mail me—I'd like to know.

No matter where you are about Pennhurst, it had to be excruciatingly stressful to be confined to live there. There are scars; there is PTSD—how could there not be? Imagine the noise—the screams, the moans, the shouting. Imagine the smell—feces, urine, bleach and over-steamed vegetables. Imagine the fear. I have to keep coming back to Roland Johnson’s prophetically insightful words:

“It sounded like vibrations: crazy people was going out of their heads, out of their wits.  It just sound like people that need to belong there... it sounded like -- fear; that something not right. It was just scary -- a frightened, scary place.”

The Pennhurst Project continues to be a volatile endeavor—each success brings its own corresponding failure. A wonderful visit with Greg Pirmann on Friday yielded lots of great stories and insights into the ever-unfolding microcosm of this enigmatic institution. I learn more every day, yet much of it is painfully depressing. This is another story of dreadful American failure in the shameful way we treated our disabled brothers and sisters in the 20th century. How do I portray this twisted web of a problem without showing some of the good? After all, there were caring, sympathetic people who worked there just as well as abusive and predatory ones.

I listen to the stories of the people whose lives intersected with Pennhurst and I am humbled. Some truly loved their jobs and found great satisfaction in helping those who needed them. Like Diane, who came as a teenager, a fresh-faced volunteer, and wound up getting a full-time job there in 1980, working on the same ward, C-4, that she'd earlier volunteered on. She was amazed to find that one of the women patients who'd been placed in restraints "24/7" because of her tendencies to hurt herself was now able to sit in a chair and walk about the ward unrestricted. 

Those are the success stories. They'll anger some, I know. I also know that it's important to show the horror so that the sins of institutionalization shall never be revisited, but what about those success stories? What about Roland Johnson, who overcame sexual abuse and psychological degradation to become an independent free man and an outspoken advocate for those who had no voice? Is he any different from a Frederick Douglass or a Harriet Tubman? We so tend to underestimate those we deem inferior from ourselves. Shame on us.

To work there, you had to go in positive. You had to feel you were there for the greater good. That's what separates the workers who loved their jobs and love to talk about it from the ones who now prefer not to revisit that time of their lives. I can respect both opinions. But what I can't do is tell this story as only horror. It just wouldn't be true.

Those of us who love animals will find the following story by Kenneth Petrini of the Philadelphia Examiner of special interest. And you can get involved by having dinner at Louie's Restaurant on 31st Street in Allentown. Louie B. has teamed up with Peacable Kingdom with a special fundraiser. From January 24 through January 28, Louie will donate 20% of your check (excluding alcohol, tax and tips) to Peacable Kingdom "to help save puppy mill rescues and homeless cats." You need the flyer to participate, but if you tell him that you heard about this offer on the news he will honor the donation.  

Surrounded by a dozen or more of the four-footed friends he is striving to help, Lehigh County Commissioner Glenn Eckhart held a news conference on Jan. 23 to announce the introduction of a resolution aimed at ensuring that there is “a competitive alternative to the Lehigh County Humane Society.” Eckhart made the announcement in the Whitehall Township home of Peaceable Kingdom, a no-kill animal shelter.

Eckhart was the one who started the attack on LCHS last year. As Eckhart explained, early last year, the Lehigh County Board of Commissioners considered a routine resolution to provide matching funds in the amount of $22,500 to the Lehigh County Humane Society, a non-profit agency that is not associated directly with the county. Passage seemed likely with the only issue being Eckhart’s request that the contract for animal control services contain language concerning painless euthanasia.

When the bill returned at the next meeting for final passage, Commissioner Dean Browning expressed alarm at a nearly $2 million “rainy day reserve” at LCHS. Gloria Hamm provided bi-partisan opposition when she expressed concern over the lack of transparency by LCHS as to the disposition of the several thousand animals they take in each year.

LCHS continues to refuse to say how many thousands of animals they kill in a year. They even refuse to respond to requests from townships that contracted with them to make an accounting of strays that were picked up. Lynn Township supervisor David Najarian has filed an open records request noting that LCHS is performing a government function. LCHS has refused to comply and claims it is private. Najarian, a legal bulldog when you tell him no, is pursuing the appeal.

Last year, the county funding was denied. “We decided it wasn’t in the interest of Lehigh County to be funding animal control,” Eckhart explained. There is little doubt that if LCHS would be honest about the number of animals destroyed that private contributions would dry up. I again ask anyone who loves animals to contribute somewhere else until LCHS makes its records transparent.

There are many worthy shelters, perhaps none more so than PK which jumped in with both feet when Eckhart and others looked for an alternative to LCHS.

With LCHS trying to make up its lost funding and then some, PK was able to secure contracts for animal care services with 10 municipalities and has one or two more pending, giving it a large geographic footprint in the county. In a departure from LCHS practice, PK only charges the municipalities for stray dogs.

Feral cats are taken in under a trap, neuter and return program where they are released back into the wild. Liz Jones explains that the cats are much less likely to roam at that point as they are no longer “looking for action.”

The efforts of PK were dealt a setback in December when the state denied their application to be certified as an animal shelter which could take in strays. As a result, PK would need to contact the dog warden to take away and place any animal brought to it by law enforcement officials which could not be quickly returned to the owner.

One of the grounds mentioned by the Department of Agriculture in denying PK’s application was the presence of another shelter, the LCHS, in the county. For Eckhart, the monopoly is whay he is trying to avoid as he exclaimed “It is important in Lehigh County to have competition.”

As a result, Eckhart drafted the resolution as a way of “asking the state to reconsider Peaceable Kingdom as an animal control shelter.”

“This is not just for Peaceable Kingdom,” Eckhart said. “It is the fact that there is competition.”

“Peaceable Kingdom is the only alternative that will step up and provide animal control services,” Eckhart noted. Although noting “it is always nice when people think nice of you,” Jones also called for an effort beyond PK at the press conference. She said the state’s animal control law “is starting to fray and decay.”

The PK executive director wants reform in the animal control law similar to the recent reforms concerning puppy mills. PK received and placed several dogs after recent seizures from breeders. Ironically, the success of PK in finding foster and permanent homes for dogs worked against it in the application with the state. The state’s denial letter noted the small number of dogs on hand each time they inspected and questioned if PK could handle higher volume.

Last year, PK found homes for over 1,000 animals and another 1,500 were handled under the TNR program for cats. Jones noted that “as the human population increased, so did the animal population.” She declared “There is a need for more than one shelter.”

Jones also noted that PK is continuing to look for a suitable permanent home. She continued to lobby Eckhart for use of the former juvenile detention facility in South Whitehall Township. If it was up to Glenn, he’d make the space available. Maybe County Executive Don Cunningham, who has been so kind to Pip the Mouse would step up and provide space for the cats and dogs of the county. Heck, with all the extra space available in the courthouse they could let PK relocate there. C’mon Don, what better use for that Juvenile Detention Facility? What better way to serve the animal lovers in our county?

In a perfect world, the customers of LCHS, the remaining cities and townships, would be the ones looking for a larger permanent home for PK, a non-profit where even the workers are not seeking to profit. Animal control by those who care for animals is the most humane way to go. The PK model will work and can work on a larger scale if the funds and facilities are made available.

A little humor from Shoeboxblog.com.

I heard some news about further cutbacks at The Morning Call. HR has laid off or let go of six positions in the pressroom in the last year. Sources also say there is now only one press run at night instead of two, which they say limits production. If there's a problem with the press, a shutdown means the papers will be late getting to the street, leading to more subscribers canceling the paper, on and on, ad infinitum. It's a vicious cycle.

I know the Bible says that if our brother sins against us, we are to forgive him.

“So watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him; and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, and says, I repent,' you must forgive him."

[Of course, the apostles were aghast. Who among them had that much faith?] Luke 17:3-6

I agree with the apostles. I’ve always had a problem with the patient and forgiving thing.  But if you look closely at these verses you see that there are at least two “if statements.” If he sins, if he repents, then you forgive him. But what if he doesn’t repent? What if someone professing to be your friend continually uses words that he or she knows are offensive to you, what should you do? Get mad? That’s what I used to do. Now I just hang up the phone. If I have told this friend on numerous occasions that by using those words he or she was hurting me and disrespecting me, and he or she continues to use those words anyway, how many times should  I sit back and smile placidly as if it doesn’t bother me? As I said, I’ve never been very good at the patient and forgiving thing.

I really don’t know how I could be any clearer about this. My belief in God is the core value in my life. I believe in God. I believe Jesus is who He said He is. I am a born-again Christian. I believe that God is good, all the time. I believe my God can kick your god’s butt. And my faith is not in man but in the Creator of the Universe. Sound crazy? You betcha. After all, half the world thought Jesus was a schizophrenic nutcase.

The end of the story is this: Jesus answered the apostles, saying, "If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this sycamore tree: ‘Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.”

Again I say, who among us has that much faith?

It all comes down to a matter of respect, the respect of one human being for another. The commandment was to "love one another," but it's so easy for me to find fault instead. It's not "holier than thou" for me to admit I am a Christian—it's a public "out-of-the-closet" admission. It doesn't make me good, it doesn't mean I'm better than anyone else because I'm not on either account, it just means it's a part of who I am. Can you respect that?

Bill and I shot our first footage at Pennhurst State School and Hospital this weekend, through the kindness of site co-owner Jim Barnes. This shot is of the interior of Assembly Hall, the auditorium where Pennhurst residents once watched movies and plays and performed in talent shows. As you can see, the movie screen has been vandalized and the organ and pew benches overturned and smashed. Trash, including empty beer bottles, attests to the fact that the campus is now a favorite nighttime party spot and "urban explorer" destination.

It's more than a shame to see this kind of senseless vandalism—it's shocking. What would make a person want to break into a historic building, especially one with such a tragic past, and destroy things? What sickness would make you that criminally insensible? Have we as a society become so callous that this kind of activity is considered to be "fun?" I shudder to think.

The Pennhurst Preservation & Memorial Association is working to create a memorial and museum honoring the thousands of men, women and children with developmental disabilities who spent their lives segregated from rest of society on this Spring City campus. Visit their Web site to learn more about one of America's most shameful moments. Our treatment of those members of society deemed "different" is a brutal reminder that institutions like this one should never be allowed to recur.

I'm finally at the thesis portion of my master's degree program at Rosemont College (yayyyy!!!) which will be a 30-minute video documentary about the Pennhurst State School and Hospital in Spring City, Pennsylvania. I will be working with Bill Crumlic of crumlicmedia.com a video documentary producer in New York City. 

If anyone out there has any information about Pennhurst that they would be willing to share, please contact me at: betty@bettycauler.com. Stay tuned for more updates and a link to the Web site.

My neighbors and I were the victims of a hit-and-run auto accident last night and I wanted to put out a description of the vehicle in case anyone sees it around town. We live in the 2200 block of Tilghman Street in Allentown. Both my neighbor and his wife's cars were struck by a dark red SUV, possibly a Chevy, boxy like a Jeep or a Land Rover and possibly with a black roof or a black luggage rack. After striking the vehicles, the SUV careened onto the sidewalk and ran over two trees in my front yard before coming to a stop. I saw the SUV for about two seconds while it was stopped on the sidewalk with its lights off before the driver fled the scene east on Tilghman to the traffic light, then south on 22nd Street.

The SUV will have extensive front end damage on the passenger side, including the loss of the side mirror, and will have made a high-pitched squealing sound from the damage to the wheel assembly. If you see this vehicle please call the Allentown Police at 610-437-7751. Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Merry Christmas greetings from Tilghman Street!

On this Christmas Eve remember the truth of this mystical night, that God became man in the person of a child to save us from our sins, a peace offering to all mankind.

May your Christmas be filled with wonder and joy and your New Year with hope.