Mary Jane Harper Slipped Through The Cracks...

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The following is a review I did back in 1999 of the movie Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night.  I thought it would be helpful to read what I wrote--and to, hopefully, watch the movie, read the book, or both. 


Child-abuse is a very serious problem--and, most times, the people who do it aren't "bad" people but, instead, basically-good people who have sucked up a lot of bad feelings inside of them and, finally, couldn't contain them any longer. 


We need to work towards preventing things from going this far by providing nonjudgmental places like Parents Anonymous where people can own their feelings so that they can deal with them in a positive way instead of taking it out on their kids...

Mary Jane Harper slipped through the cracks--an innocent child falling victim to the "grown-ups" around her.

Among these:

A mother who was still being mentally-tortured by the memories of her own traumatic childhood of sexual abuse by her father and physical abuse by her mother, who punished the little girl for stealing her husband by locking her in a rat-infested closet.

Grandparents (especially the mother) who were so concerned about keeping up a good appearance that they stood in the way of Mary Jane's mother's continued participation in Parents Anonymous, where she was getting help and support,

The family doctor who refused to believe that child abuse went on in affluent homes.

The psychiatrist who only went through the motions of treating Mary Jane's mother but was more concerned about seeing enough different patients to laugh all the way to the bank. When the alarm on his watch went off, indicating that it was time for their session to be over and the next one to start, it didn't matter that Mary Jane's mother was experiencing an important breakthrough. She was ushered out and the next patient ushered in. Cha-CHING! Cha-CHING!

The neighbors who were concerned about Mary Jane's constant crying but chose not to get involved.

At the beginning of the movie, Mary Jane Harper cried last night--at the end of the movie, Mary Jane Harper died last night.

This wasn't a movie meant to leave the viewer feeling complacently-comfortable--and it did what it was supposed to very well!

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Please Read!!!

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I first posted this as a Facebook Note on July 12 and was originally going to immediately post it here as well.  However, a combination of trouble with my Internet connection and having to tend to other things when life began to march on made it so that I'm just now finishing posting it here.  Please share it in hopes that Russell might be located.  If you know anything, please send me a message via Facebook.  Thanks!

If anybody knows the whereabouts of Russell T. Hartsaw, please let me know.

I've made some notes about him that I'm going to put down here.

I believe that the problem began when he decided to switch health care providers.

Details Of The Switch

Last year, he decided to switch health care providers. He really liked his doctor, but he didn't care for the hospital connected with him, so, when this company came out of nowhere promising better hospital care and a lot of other things, Russell made the decision to go with them. They weren't just basic medical care, but they would also provide dental care, eye care, psychiatric care (if needed), and had their own assisted living program should Russell get to the place where he couldn't live alone. They also had available free lunch throughout the week, social activities, and transportation to and from. A visiting nurse would come to his apartment at least a couple of times per week and would even help him with his shopping so that he could make the best choices for his diet.

However, Russell ended up having several health issues under their care. He thought that he was just getting older at first--until he was hearing the same thing from some of the others who had switched.

Could simply be circumstantial evidence, but he began wondering if, perhaps, this service might be part of a plan to decrease the population of older people living in debt-ridden California.

I don't want to lay out all of his life here, as Russell is a very private person about some things, but I know that he ended up (supposedly) having a nervous breakdown and spending some time in a hospital late last year, and he was telling me that he might have to go there again.

However, I haven't been able to find out anything for quite some time other than he was (initially) no longer at home and (sometime after that) no longer living at his apartment.

Incarcerated?

Originally, I posted that I was trying to find the whereabouts of Russell in a thread form, and one person made the comment that he might have gone back to prison.

My response was that he had stayed clean since getting out on parole back in May of 2003 and had been a model prisoner for many years before that.

Let me note here that Russell had never been sent to prison for any violent sort of crimes.  He started out in his street youth days doing survival crimes such as hustling and petty theft.  Later, he would rob banks--but never with a weapon.  He would simply hand the teller a note saying to hand over all of the money.

There came a time when he became more comfortable with the prison routine than in living on the outside.  When the outside got to be too bewildering to him, he would actually go through the motions of robbing a bank just to be caught and sent back.

However, during his last time in prison, he got to thinking of a better future for himself and decided that he wasn't going to go that route again.  One thing that helped him was getting a college degree (Bachelor's in Criminal Justice) along with teaching adult education classes on the inside and becoming a very popular teacher, as his delivery was entertaining and engaging.

Reaching Out To Street Youth

For his parole, he was placed in the city of San Diego, and it was during that time that he noticed the growing population of street youth in the area.  Looking at them, he saw a younger version of himself, and he didn't want these kids to have to go through what he'd gone through before having a possible chance of turning their lives around.

While saying on one hand that prison had been an enjoyable learning experience for him, Russell didn't want to think of these young people ending up going there.

Russell felt safe in prison--in fact, the outside life still bewilders him a lot even to this very day--but he has always realized that there had to be more than that in the future of these kids, and he was determined to get them there.

While he was able to find a handful of (at least, fairly) enthusiastic volunteers to help him in his mission of reaching out to the local street youth, he was disappointed, frustrated, and even angry that he was unable to gather up many more volunteers in this large city.

Thus, in time, he went online and Invisible Youth Network was born.

I met Russell online at a discussion site called Duno on January 15, 2007 when he was wanting people to visit his website.  Upon seeing his website, I realized that he was a really amazing person and that we were on the same page re: a lot of issues, so I sent him a message asking him if he would like to e-mail back-and-forth.

One of my 2007 Resolutions was to put together a kind of online dream team of people who were interested in addressing the issue of various parts of our society falling through the cracks without a safety net, and I knew right off that Russell would be a major asset to have on such a dream team.

In a decision we made having nothing to do with romance, Russell and I have been "married" since February 19 of that same year.  That is, we decided to have an online marriage of our dreams, and Russell even designed a marriage certificate to go with it.

Over time, we have even considered the possibility that our friendship might even end up including an actual marriage (romantic).  However, as much as I love Russell as a person and always will (not to mention being very attracted to him both physically and emotionally), I've decided that going this route might ruin our friendship, because we would probably end up having frequent and serious arguments.  He and I come from two very different worlds, and I've come to realize that this would, more likely than not, make a marriage to each other either end in divorce (likely, a messy one) or else end in two people feeling trapped in a major mistake.  I think too much of both of us to put us through something like that.

Early in 2007, Russell shared his dream of an organization to help homeless and/or otherwise at-risk kids with me.  He had just launched one a few years before but had to give it up after suffering a series of strokes.

Due to both these strokes and having Crohn's Disease at a serious enough level that complications from it almost killed him a few years before (though his flare-ups are now more rare and less serious), Russell has been on disability with his only other sources of income being donating blood plasma (which he had to give up after his strokes) and getting tipped for giving lectures about life in prison to criminal justice students from time to time.

Around half of his income goes for rent with most of the rest going for groceries, haircuts, and other necessities.

Once in awhile, Russell will be good to himself and buy something for his apartment, go out to eat, get a new clothing item, etc.  He'll also occasionally buy one or more friends a gift.

However, most of what's left of Russell's monthly paycheck after making necessary payments from it has gone to helping the street kids.   He'd pass out gift cards to fast-food restaurants and phone cards so that they could call for assistance or even call home, if there were somebody home who would like a phone call from them.  He would also do things like order a pizza and sit around with them while they ate it and opened up to them about what had gotten them to where they were.

He knew that he could do only so much alone, which is why he saw the need for getting people organized to do street outreach on a greater scale.

Although Russell is frustrated that IYN couldn't have been even more widespread by now, he and I are both happy to report that there are some very enthusiastic chapters of it with the most active to date being the one in Fulton County, Ohio.

To find out more about IYN, please check out My Helping Hand Journal, which is the blog I've created to give my take on IYN and related matters:

http://mhhj.blogspot.com/

For right now, here are the most important issues to address:

• Even with Russell missing, our mission needs to go on.  I hope that everybody reading this will think of a way to make life better for our invisible youth.  They aren't all out on the streets (though too many of them are after getting to the place that they, sadly, felt safer and more in control living this kind of life than they did living at home).  Some are still living at home in spite of the fact that they're having one or more of the following happening to them:  getting bullied at school while those who are supposed to be in charge are nodding and winking); getting abused at home (physically, emotionally, and/or sexually); are loved at home and popular at school but are part of a family who is having trouble making ends meet.  Some of them might even be homeless with their entire family living in with others, at a campground, at a shelter, or even in a vehicle).  Please do what you can to help, even if it's only letting others (who might be able to help) know about things like this.
• Please help me to find Russell.  A lot of the operations of IYN are now up in the air and needing Russell to help sort things out.  He had been telling me that he was trying to pick out some people to carry on should he no longer be able to.  He has been aware that he isn't getting any younger and that he has health issues.  However, he didn't get this all finished before he disappeared.  I believe he's alive, but is, likely, in some sort of institution.  I can't seem to get any sort of information about him.  If you live in the San Diego area and/or know somebody who does, anything you can share with me would be very helpful.

Thank you so much for reading this!

To Russell:  There's a lighthouse in my heart, and its beaming out its searchlight in hopes of finding you soon......................................

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Pointing Fingers? or Extended Hands?

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"Walk a mile another man's moccasins before you criticize him."
Native American Saying

The following is my response to this article about a young mother who went grocery shopping and left her two sons (ages 4 and 1) in the family car with the doors locked and the windows rolled up on an evening when the temperature was still in the high eighties.

Not only did this woman use bad judgment when it came to the conditions that she had left her boys unattended (this being true even if she were just running into the store for two or three items and wouldn't be gone over 15 minutes), but she also beat up the woman who tried to help her.

I see this as a case of two basically-good women.  One of them was trying to be not just helpful but, also, a lifesaver to two little boys.  The other one was trying to raise her boys while not feeling as if there were anyone she could turn to for help, and she now feared that she would lose both her boys and her job, so she lashed out at the Good Samaritan.

People who are struggling with life should never have to be afraid that somebody is going to intrude and take their kids away from them unless they were actually people who were perverted and sadistic--the type who use their kids for cheap thrills.

I find it to be a sad commentary on contemporary life that it has become fashionable to hate on others for what is even a petty reason to do so such as a person having an "unacceptable" body size or happening to be born the same nationality as one or more people who have turned out to be terrorists.

When something like this (a woman leaving her small children in a locked car with the windows rolled up on a hot day) comes along, we seem to feel even more "justified" in hating on her.

But does hating on this woman really solve the problem?  NO!!!  It only gives us a false sense of superiority, and having a false sense of superiority shouldn't be what it's all about.  What it's all about should be about addressing problems and trying to solve them in as positive of a way as possible!  It's about keeping a family together whenever possible instead of tearing them apart.

Anyway, this is what I wrote for a discussion thread for Facebook (where the article was shared):


I have some very mixed feelings here. 

For starters, this woman (the mother) did a very wrong thing by leaving her kids in a hot, locked car, and it was right for the other woman to try to help.

However, I also understand why the mother reacted the way that she did--and her reaction (not a good one in spite of being an understandable one) was one  brought on by a well-grounded fear resulting from the type of social climate that rears its ugly head today.

Believe it or not, this woman seems to love her sons and not want to lose them, and she saw this intervention as threatening.

She was trying to get her grocery shopping done and made a wrong judgment call.  It's possible that she hadn't even left the boys in the car that long (still, a wrong judgment call due to the weather) and didn't plan to at the time that the woman spotted them, as she was on her way back out to the car shortly after that.

We have two choices here: 

1.  We can strip this mother of her children based on what happened that evening; possibly, send her to jail; and, likely, deprive her of employment (to help her to support her family) at a time when jobs are hard to find.

or

2.  We can realize that this is a woman who loves her kids and is trying to keep all of their heads above water.  She's struggling.  What we need to do at this point is to ask her what can be done to help.  We don't talk down to her.  We talk to her friend-to-friend so that she realizes that we'd like to help instead of label her a bad person and throw her away.

Even if she were at a bar somewhere drinking while her kids were in the car, it's something better addressed as a cry for help.  But, in this case, the woman WASN'T at a bar.  She was, instead, trying to care for her family while feeling that there was nobody to help her.

She needs to feel safe when trying to seek help for her family.  If she feels safe--like nobody's going to respond to her requests for help by taking her kids away--she will be able to go to an agency, ask for help, and receive what she needs to help her to see her way clear.

We're all in this together, and who's to say that the time won't come when we have to reach out to social services in order to help our family and/or ourselves over a rough patch!?!

Should that time come, would we want to be met with pointing fingers or extended hands?

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Evil Era Ending At Summer's Beginning

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Good Riddance!!!

Russell was one of the boys 
who spent some time in this dreadful place!!!

Posted To Craigslist

Below is what I posted to the general community of San Diego's Craigslist on Wednesday, May 18, 2011.  I'm reposting it here (copying and pasting) in order to share it even longer and with a greater readership.  I'm very concerned about Russell, and I'm not the only one.  As my message says, please get in touch with me on Facebook if you know anything and/or have any questions...

My name is Ainsley Jo Phillips, and I'm from Anderson, Indiana.

I met a very special and beautiful person from your city online on January 15, 2007. His name is Russell T. Hartsaw. If you don't actually know him by name, you might still remember seeing him around. More times than not, black is his favorite color to wear, and he looks like a shorter version of Harrison Ford.

Shortly after moving to San Diego in 2003, he learned how big the problem of children, teens, and young adults being homeless is in your area and set out to do his part to help. After several years of reaching out to these young people on his own and with the help of various friends, he founded Invisible Youth Network.

Below, find something I wrote about him and his mission on his 70th Birthday (this past Saturday, May 14). It has been copied and pasted from my IYN blog called My Helping Hand Journal.

Sadly, things have been pretty much on-hold as far as any official business going on at headquarters, because I can't find out where Russell is. As you will read, I don't believe that this is something that Russell liked or planned. I'm guessing that he has been moved to a medical or assisted living facility, but I can't find out where due to the Hippa Act. He, likely, no longer has a computer at this time. What brought him to this place in his life might even be some kind of unsavory agenda of certain others. When you read what I wrote, you'll have more of an idea re: what I'm talking about.

If you know Russell and his whereabouts, please get in touch with me by sending me a message at Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/face.of.ainsleyjo

As I've written in my blog-entry, which I've copied and pasted below, I hope that you'll get involved in our mission.

Below are some links to IYN's website as Russell left it when he vanished (obviously, dated in places); my IYN blog; my personal blog-format website, AJville; and the blog-format website and Facebook group of one of our most active chapters, which is located in Fulton County, Ohio. Please help me to find Russell, and please read what I've written below to learn how you can help what he began...

http://invisibleyouthnetwork1.community.officelive.com/default.aspx

http://mhhj.blogspot.com/

http://ajville.blogspot.com/

http://www.fultoncountyiyn.com/

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_348348868466#!/home.php?sk=group_348348868466


About Russell On His 70th Birthday (posted on Saturday, May 14, 2011)

This is NOT how I had been planning on celebrating Russell's birthday. Hopefully, I'll soon be able to celebrate this very special milestone in his life (turning 70) the way I had planned to--with him online again.

If you live in the San Diego area and know something about Russell's whereabouts these days, please send me a message on Facebook. Here is a link to my profile page.

Let me explain. Russell was having some personal and health issues (as in being given some medicine that seemed to be having bad side-effects).

All at once, I began to hear the news that he had been taken somewhere else but nobody seemed to be at liberty to tell me just where.

I'm not going to go into a lot of details here, as I only have some limited information that Russell told me about such as getting the same medication that he had been taking for years through another (supposedly legitimate) source. He had also been prescribed some inappropriate medication (I believe, having to do with his blood-pressure) by the same place. He began to hear horror stories by other area seniors and got suspicious.

Anyway, I'm not going to say anymore here at this point, as having--and using--a small amount of information in a factual way can prove to do more harm than good.

There are people out there who have more experience and knowledge than I do, and, hopefully, at least some of the people reading this would fall under this category.

Please help if you know how!!! To anyone reading this, please keep Russell in your prayers!!!

Until he's able to get online once more (or is able to get in touch with somebody who can) and get things straightened out, the activities of IYN headquarters in San Diego have had to be put on hold.

However, any people who are part of various IYN chapters or those who want to get involved in our mission should keep on doing what you're doing or want to do.

In San Diego (and its surrounding area) alone, there are thousands of street youth, and they need to be helped!!!

First off, here's what they don't need:

1. They don't need to be rounded up and taken to juvenile hall (or something similar) and told that they will not be released until they give their real names and how to contact their parents and/or other responsible people in their hometowns. They have gone through a whole lot to get away from there, because they have reason to believe that what is back in their old lives is a bad environment. There are very few cases of kids just leaving home for the lark of it. They are generally leaving behind abusive situations, whether those situations are bullying at school that nobody seems to be able or willing to make stop or physical/verbal/emotional/sexual abuse going on right in their own homes.

2. They don't need the kind of boot-camp atmosphere that, unfortunately, seems to have become so common these days. Leave them right where they are before doing this kind of thing to them!

3. They don't need to be taken in by people with motives that are less than stellar (e.g. people wanting sexual playthings and/or slave labor at their ready).

What they do need is a growing number of people who are willing to go out to talk to them--and truly listen to what they have to say!

They also need things like food cards for places like McDonald's, phone cards (that will work with pay phones, as they rarely if ever have cell phones), personal care items (e.g. toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, sanitary napkins, shampoo, combs, brushes, nail clippers, etc.), clothing (outer wear, underwear, shoes, socks, etc.), knapsacks, wallets, notebooks, pens.

They need social interaction without strings (e.g. must go to a certain church on a regular basis; must come to live in a certain home or shelter whether ready to or not) such as cook-outs, trips to pizza parlors, holiday celebration gatherings, etc.

For those young people who are tired of living out in the elements, we need families who will take them in and treat them like visiting cousins. One church in particular has been organizing something like this with a lot of success.

As soon as we have the funding for it, one of our dreams is to create places like camps and ranches where our young people can live safely and with respect (We, obviously, have zero tolerance for the boot-camp kind of experience, even though we also have some rules such as ones concerning fighting and substance abuse) while taking whatever amount of time they need to get back into the mainstream.

Obviously, IYN is unable to pursue this kind of project at this time, but the other kinds of things mentioned above ARE things that we can do now.

Russell has invested both time and money into our kids for many years, but there is only one of him.

A couple of the most wonderful birthday presents that you could give to him at this time is to increase the number of those who are active in helping our kids and to, if you're able, help him to get back into a situation where he can, once more, direct the happenings of IYN and doing what he was planning on doing right before this situation happened: handpicking reliable and caring people to share various responsibilities that he was once doing on his own, because he realizes that he can't do it all--and that he also must be prepared for the unexpected such as what has happened to him now.

Please keep Russell in your prayers, love, and positive thoughts--and, if you have any information on him, please contact me!

About Russell On His 70th Birthday

This is NOT how I had been planning on celebrating Russell's birthday.  Hopefully, I'll soon be able to celebrate this very special milestone in his life (turning 70) the way I had planned to--with him online again.

If you live in the San Diego area and know something about Russell's whereabouts these days, please send me a message on Facebook.  Here is a link to my profile page.

Let me explain.  Russell was having some personal and health issues (as in being given some medicine that seemed to be having bad side-effects).

All at once, I began to hear the news that he had been taken somewhere else but nobody seemed to be at liberty to tell me just where.

I'm not going to go into a lot of details here, as I only have some limited information that Russell told me about such as getting the same medication that he had been taking for years through another (supposedly legitimate) source.  He had also been prescribed some inappropriate medication (I believe, having to do with his blood-pressure) by the same place.  He began to hear horror stories by other area seniors and got suspicious.

Anyway, I'm not going to say anymore here at this point, as having--and using--a small amount of information in a factual way can prove to do more harm than good.

There are people out there who have more experience and knowledge than I do, and, hopefully, at least some of the people reading this would fall under this category.

Please help if you know how!!!  To anyone reading this, please keep Russell in your prayers!!!

Until he's able to get online once more (or is able to get in touch with somebody who can) and get things straightened out, the activities of IYN headquarters in San Diego have had to be put on hold.

However, any people who are part of various IYN chapters or those who want to get involved in our mission should keep on doing what you're doing or want to do.

In San Diego (and its surrounding area) alone, there are thousands of street youth, and they need to be helped!!!

First off, here's what they don't need:

1.  They don't need to be rounded up and taken to juvenile hall (or something similar) and told that they will not be released until they give their real names and how to contact their parents and/or other responsible people in their hometowns.  They have gone through a whole lot to get away from there, because they have reason to believe that what is back in their old lives is a bad environment.  There are very few cases of kids just leaving home for the lark of it.  They are generally leaving behind abusive situations, whether those situations are bullying at school that nobody seems to be able or willing to make stop or physical/verbal/emotional/sexual abuse going on right in their own homes.

2.  They don't need the kind of boot-camp atmosphere that, unfortunately, seems to have become so common these days.  Leave them right where they are before doing this kind of thing to them!

3.   They don't need to be taken in by people with motives that are less than stellar (e.g. people wanting sexual playthings and/or slave labor at their ready).

What they do need is a growing number of people who are willing to go out to talk to them--and truly listen to what they have to say!

They also need things like food cards for places like McDonald's, phone cards (that will work with pay phones, as they rarely if ever have cell phones), personal care items (e.g. toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, sanitary napkins, shampoo, combs, brushes, nail clippers, etc.), clothing (outer wear, underwear, shoes, socks, etc.), knapsacks, wallets, notebooks, pens.

They need social interaction without strings (e.g. must go to a certain church on a regular basis; must come to live in a certain home or shelter whether ready to or not) such as cook-outs, trips to pizza parlors, holiday celebration gatherings, etc.

For those young people who are tired of living out in the elements, we need families who will take them in and treat them like visiting cousins.  One church in particular has been organizing something like this with a lot of success.

As soon as we have the funding for it, one of our dreams is to create places like camps and ranches where our young people can live safely and with respect (We, obviously, have zero tolerance for the boot-camp kind of experience, even though we also have some rules such as ones concerning fighting and substance abuse) while taking whatever amount of time they need to get back into the mainstream.

Obviously, IYN is unable to pursue this kind of project at this time, but the other kinds of things mentioned above ARE things that we can do now.

Russell has invested both time and money into our kids for many years, but there is only one of him.

A couple of the most wonderful birthday presents that you could give to him at this time is to increase the number of those who are active in helping our kids and to, if you're able, help him to get back into a situation where he can, once more, direct the happenings of IYN and doing what he was planning on doing right before this situation happened:  handpicking reliable and caring people to share various responsibilities that he was once doing on his own, because he realizes that he can't do it all--and that he also must be prepared for the unexpected such as what has happened to him now.

Please keep Russell in your prayers, love, and positive thoughts--and, if you have any information on him, please contact me!

Happy Birthday, IYN!!!

Four years ago today,

Invisible Youth Network

was launched

with

Russell T. Hartsaw

as our founder and chairman.

At this time,

Russell is dealing with some health problems

and could use your prayers, love, and positive thoughts.

If you live in the San Diego area,

he can also use you.

For even more years than IYN has been around,

Russell has been volunteering his time and resources

to reach out to the street kids

who have come from many parts of the country

(choosing San Diego due to its relatively-favorable year round climate).

He has been successful in getting several others in the area to join him in this endeavor.

However, the several others who have helped so far

make up only a portion of the population of San Diego and San Diego County.

Because Russell took ill suddenly,

there hasn't been time to put someone in charge of donations

coming into the address given,

so, the best thing to do now is to take items from our  

wish list

to either places like The Storefront or Stand Up For Kids

or else directly to where the street kids hang out.

If you don't live in the San Diego area,

why not do this for street kids who are in your own area.

It's time to show these young people that there are people out there who care about them.

Remember that you need to approach them on their terms

without judgment

and

without believing that you know what's good for them

and taking them somewhere against their will.

Thanks, in advance, for all of the help that you can give.

I'll keep you up on Russell as I find out more.

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I Know THIS Much. . .

The operation of IYN is pretty much up in the air at this time.

Russell has been experiencing some health problems, and, as soon as he's able, he will, likely, be delegating assignments to people who can best handle them according to what his vision has been.

I believe that he'll still, to one degree or another, be very much involved, but, for now, he needs to take care of himself.

At this time, I'm trying to find out more and will be passing this along.  I live almost 3000 miles away, but I'm in the process of trying to contact people who live in his area and who have worked with us on the mission of IYN.

This is all that I have to report at this time, but I'll be returning soon.

Please keep Russell in your prayers, love, and positive thoughts, and don't forget our many kids who need extended hands instead of pointing fingers.

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