Fri 13 Apr 2007
Hi Everyone! People ask us all the time what is going on with the Bob film. So here is a progress report. Heather is settling into the head editor position and as a result we are moving forward on the edit. We have parts of three chapters in a rough cut right now and the story is starting to come out of the footage we have shot. Very exciting! We are continuing to interview and do our shooting punch lists. On the technical front, Heather and I are talking about getting a new computer just to edit on. My computer - although very strong - is not quite enough for the editing software, so we have been plagued with tech problems pretty much since day one. Lisa led us on an interview with the Rev. Sawtelle over the telephone a few days ago. The Rev. Sawtelle knew Bob in the 80s, and his story of Bob is shocking at moments.
June 7th, 2007 at 7:52 am
I am glad that the this film gives Bob the audience to hear his story and feel in some part the resiliency of the human spirit in the face of adversity and injustice.
Bob has the courage to speak his truth despite the apathy of our culture and especially of our institutions.
I knew Bob when he resided at the Laconia State School in NH. I was 17 years old,uninformed in my world view, and unformed in my convictions.At that time I only knew that what was presented as normative and “theraputic”, was ugly and wrong.
My working life has been in the field of human services, as a caregiver, as a manager, as an advocate, and as a gatekeeper, not to keep people in, but to assist them with realizing the freedom of dignity. Not all of those efforts have been received gladly or graciously by the administrations that catalouge,code,and process human beings into “fundable slots” in search of federal and state funding.
I applaud Bob for scraping the icing off the cake, for declaring that not only did the emporer have no clothes, but that he sorely abused his children behind the closed doors of his institutions.
I want people to know that Bob speaks for hundreds, thousands of people who suffered as he did but have no voice to tell it.
It is tempting to say “yes,way back then people were cruel and ignorant, we are much more enlightned now”. The truth is that the same ignorances and predjudices simply wear nicer words and happen in less conspicuisly horrible places.We have replaced the huge institutions with group homes, some of which have the elements of life essential to us all, but many of which are mini gulags located in our neighborhoods.
As soon as we lable people as different than us, and then allow that differentness to allow us to treat people differently than we would our own families and friends, we are at the doorstep to inhumanity.
My Grandmother died after a 28 year stay in the State Hospital that I currently work at, few of my co workers know of what attracts me to this field, why my attention is directed toward the people who we are entrusted to care for…..I simply tell them that Ive always been attracted to “HUMAN SERVICE”