As I recall these ads used to boast of a very long unit coal train at the Hawkins hobby shop. Now however the ads have taken a sinister turn and talk about “Jack’s Mental and Physical Impairment Sale” and contain this text. “The bureau’s complaint letter is baseless … I am within walking distance of the polling place which I will crawl to if necessary.”
Yikes! What bureau? What letter? Why crawl? Anyone in the Lafayette IN area that knows what the story is here?
Dave Nelson
Yes I do!!! A few months ago Jack had his driver’s license revoked because of his “Physical and/or Mental Impairment” according to a letter from the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Now mind you, Jack does not smoke, appears to be in pretty fair shape for his age, and routinely shoots long range rifle (600 yards+) with his gun club. And aside from having a longtime love of trains and being a small business owner, he is quite fine mentally. And to top it all off, I have never seen his car with so much as a large dent in it! The cruxt of the matter is that to be declared impaired all it takes is someone else to say you are impaired. No innocent until proven guilty, no proof has to be shown, just an anonymous person’s word and you are SCREWED!!
Now, here is the real kicker, as Jack has discovered. Getting all this crap returned to normal requires an incredible amount of jumping through hoops. You have to prove to the state in multiple ways that the claims are wrong, or baseless, or whatever, and then, if you jump through the right hoops correctly, they may see fit to give you back your license. Maybe. The state will not provide the accused with any of the “evidence”, any of the heresay, or any other reasonable way to debunk or defend against the charges against you. Sounds rather draconian, outdated, and maybe unconstitutional to me, how about you?
Now, as for the ads, Jack has been fighting this through all the channels at his disposal, including having spoken directly to both the outgoing and incoming state governors regarding the whole mess. Unfortunately, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles is “special” and does not exactly fall into the realm of state agencies. I don’t understand that, but I don’t understand a lot of things. The ads have been a way to bring all of this to the attention of a larger portion of the population. The crawl reference was to the recent elections, and the proximity of his poling place. He wanted it known that he would, with absolutely no doubt, be casting his v
What a messed up state Indiana is. Joe G.
OK thanks for the information. This reminds me of an off topic story. At one time in the State of Wisconsin, you could have someone civilly committed to a mental institution on the signatures of three persons. The English Department at the University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh had some kind of internal dispute (about what I do not know. Chaucer?) Anyway three professors had another professor they disliked civilly committed to the mental institution to get him out of the way during some vote on an important departmental matter. The professor sued and I think the case went all the way to the US Supreme Court which ruled that there had to be a hearing with due process before you could take away someone’s freedom (the state’s argument had been that putting someone in the mental institution was not a “punishment” and did not deprive them of “freedom” – it was treating an illness. The Court did not buy the argument because from the standpoint of the person it is more or less like being in jail).
This was a great victory for the professor but it had the unfortunate effect that the streets are filled with people who probably should be institutionalized but it is now very difficult to do without their consent, which is unlikely.
Sounds like maybe Jack should hire a lawyer and bring a due process argument citing that Supreme Court case.
Dave Nelson
I’ll be stopping in there tomorrow, so I will mention that to him. I know that there are a number of others campaigning his cause to the powers that be, so hopefully this will all be solved soon. It is really ironic that even today in this country people can be treated in this manner with no real recourse. Hopefully this kind of thing will not happen to others, and the potential for it to happen will be eliminated.
Any web site to go to and maybe leave him some encouraging words?
Thanks for the helpful comment, Joe G. [tdn] Actually, Indiana is a great place to live, to raise a family, and to do some model railroading. Having lived in a variety of states from coast to coast and from border to border, I’d say it’s no better or worse than the others I’ve lived in. It’s really what you make of it. I’m sorry this happened to Jack. Sounds like things are being put right. Now if we can just work on Joe [#dots]
Indiana is bassackwards. No one outside the state never knows what time it is here, and people here don’t know what time it is any place else. The BMV needs to be reformed before they can reform someone else. If the only way to get your story out is in your ad in MR then so be it. Of course the taxman will be first in line at his place to collect the tax on his inventory. WHAT A PLACE TO LIVE
The unit coal train has ben changed to a 130 car unit grain train as of the Feb issue of MRR. I have to get there and see it!!! Kevin
Indiana and Arizonia are the only states that don’t go on daylight savings time. Look at all of the daylight that they loose.
I was talking to a lady at the restaruant and she tod me that Ind. was in the eastern time zone six months and in the central time zone for six months but she had no idea as to why. She didn’t know anything about daylight savings time.
But being in the tour bus business I’ve found that the Indianians are very friendly people and will go out of their way to help a stupid TEXAN with a bus load of 45 ladies.
Have a happy new year
Bob