Former head of The Crazies comes to town.

My only escape from the right-wing red necked local population in Rolla was to wander around on the U. of MO, Rolla campus.  There I could find some signs of civilization.  On one of my visits, I ran across a poster advertising a coming event: a presentation by former CIA Director Stansfield Turner.  Mr. Turner was CIA director under President Carter and was coming to the heart of Naziland to deliver a speech.  The poster said that there was no charge to attend the talk, but that you needed to have tickets which could be obtained on campus the following day.  Free and CIA was enough incentive to want to make me attend.

The next day around 10:00 AM I went to the office where the tickets could be obtained.  When I asked the woman at the desk for a pair (2) of tickets, I was told that the tickets wouldn't be available until the next day.  I  said "OK" and left the office.  On the way off campus, I checked the poster again to make sure I hadn't gotten the wrong date.  The date given on the poster was the day's date.  You will see later why I am making a point of this.

The next morning around the same time as the previous day, I went to the office and asked for a pair (2) of tickets for the Stansfield Turner talk.  Again I was told that the tickets were not available and that I would have to come back later in the day.  I said "OK" and then said I would return late in the afternoon to see if I could obtain some tickets then.  The woman at the desk said she thought they would have them for sure by then.

Around 4 PM that day, I return to the university campus and headed to the office where the tickets could be obtained.  This time I was given two tickets to the talk that was to be presented about a week later.  As I left the campus I had the feeling I was being followed, but then I frequently got that sensation because I usually was being followed.  As the old saying goes, just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that there really aren't people out to get you.

That weekend was fairly normal and I was beginning to think about returning to Paducah, KY since it had been about nine months since I had left there and I figured by now the drug dealers probably would have forgotten about me.  I knew I couldn't stay in Rolla and I didn't have many alternatives.  Because of my poor physical health  I really wanted to move to a warm climate but I didn't have any specific destination in mind.  Any hope that I had would get blown away a couple of days later when the police showed up at my place.  Of course they showed up in the middle of the night like they always do in totalitarian states.  

More on my continuing fight for freedom in my next post.