Page 41 - Exotic | February 2025

steak. You always had the option of choos- ing a tuna fish, egg salad, or peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wheat or white bread
some Russians at a sauna she visited with your humble column writer2.
"I often would pass the time in the unit air- court singing. I would start every morning singing The Star-Spangled Banner acapella before breakfast. Later in the afternoon, I would listen and sing along to the mu- sic provided by the MP3 players given to patients on the unit. A few times, people would drive by, honking and hollering, en- couraging me to continue singing. Other times, the geese would honk and fly by cir- cling around."
"Every day, I would take 20 minutes to pray the 'Mysteries of the Rosary' on my fingers."
“Pray for me.”
--
Apart from that, there were some fairly re- cent amendments to the mental health sys- tem.
There was a legal case, the Mink-Bowman case, specifically, which set limits on how long someone could be kept in the nut- house. The plaintiffs in the case were Mr. Mink, director of the facility at the time, and Mr. Bowman, who was kept in the cra- zyhouse for some years, as he had slipped into the cracks of the system.
There are time limits, and one must un- dergo evaluations every so often to deter- mine if one needs to be there. They forgot Mr. Bowman. He was there for years. Far be- yond the prescribed time he was supposed to have been. He should have had evalua- tions or gone to court, but they just sorta...
forgot about him. He languished beyond his time and was basically, "Oh, it's that guy. Give him his food and drug him, and all is well." All was not well.
The prior-mentioned judge, Mosman, pre- sided over the case and determined that this ought never happen again. Anyone in mental care in Oregon has rules about how long they should be there and what must happen when they ARE there. He was not necessarily mistreated, but he was certainly left there for far too long with no hearings, that he might get out if he were not a dan- ger to himself or others and found "able." If he had been accused of committing a crime that warranted him being incarcerated, MAYBE he should have been. Not left in the limbo of the nuthouse, and thus, the court case that changed the law.
*Judge Michael Mosman was a key figure in making sure that people are not committed indefinitely and functioned to make sure there was a time limit for your stay in the nuthouse.
1 ThermacareTM is a dermally-applied patch that provides relief from back pain, neck pain, joint pain, and menstrual pain.
2 I was not expecting that to happen, but hey, life is an adventure.
My source was a nice person known in the industry as Miranda Rights and lives a quiet, if mildly troublesome, life dealing with The SystemTM.
Enjoy life, and try to stay out of the crazy- house. Doesn't sound like much fun.
-Wombstretcha
Wombstretcha the Magnificent is an obligated mental health enthu- siast, non-violent offender, writer, and retired rapper from Portland, OR. He can be found at his website, wombstretcha.com, on Twitter/X/ whatever as @wombstretcha503, and on MeWe and (begrudgingly) Facebook as "Wombstretcha the Magnificent."
in lieu of the main entree. Sometimes, we would have unit pizza parties. The vegetar- ian pizza is the best kind of pizza offered at the OSH."
Well, that question got answered. Can't do much worse than jail food. Sounds far bet- ter than bologna and American so-called cheese on stale bread.
"I learned a little bit of Russian from a Ukrai- nian MHT. I learned how to say a few things, as well as write and read letters of the Rus- sian alphabet and how to say a couple salu- tations. I made flashcards. We would have these Russian language lessons in the eve- ning, about once a week.”
This would be the Cyrillic alphabet. I only know the swears in Russian.
She later used this skill to make friends with
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