Letters

I did see him one time get mad at me. This was right after I had cleaned him off with towels and calmed him after the female had thrown her tray in his face. He came to the nurses' station and wanted to see his notebook. I told him he could look at it but not keep it due to the metal spiral (not allowed on ward). He said he needed to write in it. I said he could have paper and we could later tape it in the book, but he wouldn't have the notebook due to the metal spiral. He became very angry and rude to me, took the notebook and locked himself in the bathroom where staff had to enter with keys and forcibly take the notebook away. I was very surprised at how he could show such anger toward me when I had just helped clean him off and empathized with him after the tray-throwing incident.

I think most of the staff felt sorry for him. His life seemed sad and bereft of kindness or understanding, which we tried to provide. However, one was never sure if Donald purposely did aggravating things to get beat up and get sympathy or truly lacked emotional control due to the previous head injuries. No one knows but Mr. Thweatt himself -- and sometimes I'm not sure if he knows! Maybe only God knows. But we definitely tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.

When he left our facility into the custody of police, the police would not let him take any of the many books and pamphlets and magazines he had collected while in our stay. Were they actually belonging to our library, or had visitors and his friends or parole officer or guardian brought them? We didn't know. But again, Donald had this sad, pathetic face of a child being told he would not have his toys. He didn't cry this time. But as he walked away slowly down the hall with the police officers, we almost did.
Name withheld by request
Florissant

Two Lessers
Mind your own business, Hartmann:While St. Louis continues to crumble and deteriorate around your feet, you feel the need to come to the rescue of us poor hog farmers in St. Charles County [Ray Hartmann, "Saintly in St. Chuck," RFT, March 21]. I guess that we aren't smart enough to figure out what is happening in our county without you, the Defender of All That Is Good and Decent and Fair, being our mouthpiece.

If we have a choice, there's Joe Ortwerth, a guy who has decent moral convictions even though he wants to push them on us and has taken on the job of censor for the entire county, or Ray Hartmann, a guy with the morality and convictions of a Klansman.

I'll go with Joe Ortwerth -- the lesser of two evils! Mind your own business, Hartmann -- we don't need you out here.

You have wasted another page of an otherwise great publication with your garbage.
Willy Jones
Lake St. Louis

Cool Clones
Still more enjoyable than thePost: I was shocked when I visited Dallas and saw that their "cool" paper was identical to ours. How many other cities share this format? I really don't care all that much; as a Webster University almost-grad, I've picked up many an RFT instead of the Post-Dispatch and generally enjoyed it much more.

Anyway, I was wondering if there were any thoughts on that in the office.
Dan Calicotte
via the Internet

Editor's note: Yes, all our sisters are just as pretty. Check out Dallas and the rest of the family atwww.newtimes.com