Posted: Friday, 11 December 2009 10:39AM
Sometimes Just Listening Is Enough
Steve Corbett Reporting
Friday, December 11, 2009
We don’t always do the right thing. Some of us don’t even try. We just react without thinking about what is right or wrong.
But most of us make a conscious effort to behave properly – or even improperly, for that matter. Criminals and other dishonorable people usually make a concerted effort to cover their tracks.
I try to do the right thing and often ponder a course of action that might be best given the circumstances. But doing the right thing is often easier said that done. Ding the right thing can be downright difficult.
There’s a guy in Old Forge who has been calling my office and leaving taunting messages for more than a year. He’s clearly got issues. But as long as he doesn’t threaten me, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. I’ll listen to what he has to say no matter what it is or how much I want to call the cops and stop his harassment. In a way, his calls constitute a test of discipline for me, a way to see if I truly practice what I preach.
After all, how many times do you hear me on the air asking you to call and talk with me? That’s what I do. That’s my job. That’s the mission of news talk radio. How would it look if I asked for calls and then complained when I received responses to my request?
I have to admit that sometimes I don’t take the time to listen to my fanatic fan’s entire message as he runs out the tape on my voice mail. I just don’t have the time. But I don’t ignore his or anybody else’s calls.
People call me and leave messages at all hours of the day and night.
Sometimes I check my voice mail to find it almost full. Then I take the time to listen a bit and erase every single one. I have to admit that I sometimes don’t listen beyond the first word or two because I recognize the person’s voice as the calls come in a wave one after another.
These people all have something to say and have decided for whatever the reason that I’m the person to call.
One woman says she’s being followed, sometimes by celebrities that find their way into Northeastern Pennsylvania. Another woman shares almost daily the serious thinking that keeps her awake. A man calls relentlessly, trying hard to make sense of the bureaucracy he blames for keeping him from his children.
How can I complain?
Each day I encourage people to call me on the air so they can speak their mind and express themselves.
The right thing is for me to listen both and off the air and try to discern what I can do, if anything, to help. Sometimes all you can do is listen. Sometimes that’s enough.
Although I feel sorry for some of these serial callers, I also respect them for their choice to pick up a phone and talk about the matters that matter so much to them. In a way I’m grateful to them because I know they’re listening to me and that I’m making contact with them at some very personal level that motivates them to respond.
Except for the guy in Old Forge, the regular callers to my office line are polite, sincere and usually struggling the way most of us struggle when we’re up against the varying pressures that come with trying to get by in an increasingly insensitive world in which it’s easy to feel lost.
I commend the callers for reaching out, for releasing their thoughts and feelings that left unchecked without an outlet can explode. Emotional explosions are rarely welcome and usually dangerous. Some are violent, some fatal and forever.
Sometimes I do listen the whole way through to a call among the many from the same person left overnight. That happened yesterday when a relentless caller left me a message about how he followed my advice and called an elected state lawmaker from Luzerne County. He wanted to ask why the lawmaker has not expressed any public interest in or comment about the stunning state hearings into the Luzerne County juvenile justice scandal.
The caller has some deeply personal issues and has been charged in the past with harassing a public official. He spent time in jail. But he served his time and has not given up his rights to redress grievances with the system that lawmakers are paid well to represent.
He said the Luzerne County lawmaker called police. He said that police came to his house and ordered him to stop contacting the lawmaker. He said that he’s concerned about his freedom.
I regularly advise callers to pester elected and appointed officials. I encourage them to be polite, but to call and write and even visit to ask hard questions that hold public servants accountable.
But, frankly, the Constitution doesn’t require them to be polite.
I need to know if this man has been threatened with arrest for exercising his free speech.
Even sick people don’t relinquish their freedom of speech.
But I am talking about Luzerne County, where abuse of civil and human rights is not only possible but probable.
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Corbett
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