Topeka, Home of the Crazies

Topeka Kansas was at one time populated by more mentally incompetent people living here than any other city. We were the home of the VA Psych ward, The Topeka State Mental Hospital and Menningers. Each hospital also had a locked down ward that was used on a regional basis. A lot of the people when released from one of those institutions would just find a small apartment and live here on their Social Security. Here if you saw someone talking to himself as herself or himself, you could bet it wasn't to some kind of a cell phone. No wait, there was one guy in an aluminum hat talking to his hand.



As you all know, the move a few years back was to medicate everyone and turn them out to survive as well as they could. That often lasted until they stopped taking their meds and then the fun began. It led to many fun visits for the local Law Enforcement personnel. One day, I was the security manager for the Adjutant Generals Office and the guys in the Armory sent one of their walk in's over to see me. They called and said he was coming and told me they also called the Police to come and pick this guy up.



When My new friend arrived in my office, he asked to go to a private room where he could show me some Military Secrets. I took him to the break room and bought him a coke and to listen to this great tale. He pulled out a sheet of Big Chief Tablet paper and showed me a list of Military Weapons I could purchase. Everything from Howitzers to Nuclear Weapons was on that list. I swear it was written with one of those big pencils on that cheap paper that wasn't bleached white. I asked him to let me photo copy the list so I could send it to the purchasing and contracting guys but he insisted it was Top Secret and the CIA had a link to all of the photo copiers. Not too long after that, the Police arrived and took him to the Jail. He left his bicycle in the bushes over at the Armory and I noticed that later on that day it was gone. That guy never darkened my door but more just like him did.



Sometime later, a Black lady came to my office and asked for my help. I asked her to sit down and tell me what she needed. She claimed that she needed documentation of the Medal of Honor her great grandfather had earned in the Civil War. He was the General that turned the tide at the first battle of Bull Run. I asked her his name and she told me that it was a Secret because he was a Confederate General. About this time my annoyance factor had maxed out and I told her that first of all, the Medal of Honor was a Union medal and to my knowledge there were no Black Generals in the Confederate Army. She stood up and yelled she wasn't black, she was an Indian. Then I informed her that Military History was one of my hobbies and that I was damned sure that there weren't any Indian Generals in the Confederate Army. Shortly after that, the Police arrived to escort her back to her Tee Pee.



A few weeks later, I was watching TV and I saw that the Police had shot a black man dressed as an Indian as he attacked them with a knife. The news cast showed his mother standing on the sidewalk and screaming at the Police to not shoot, "He is a Chief". yep, same woman, different day. I also heard a story about that woman mailing her son's lungs to the attorney Generals office to have the poison analyzed that the Police gave him to kill him. How she got his lungs was a mystery to everyone. The son wasn't poisoned, he committed Death by Police and the lead was fatal but I'm pretty sure not as a poison.



I guess I should be more sympathetic to the plight of those with mental illnesses. It runs in my family and there are days that I do wonder how far from the tree that apple falls. But as my daddy used to say, "There's nothing wrong with me, There is nothing wrong with me, There....."



MUD