The person behind the wheel: rough draft interview

It’s 10 p.m. on a Friday night. The phone is ringing off the hook because it’s raining outside and the intoxicated students don’t want to walk anywhere. The voice on the other end of the phone answers, “Wittenberg escort, how can we help you?”

No one ever stops and wonders who the voice on the other end is, but these people seem to always be there when we need them. One of many escort drivers, Mickey Murphy, who is a sophomore and has been working as an escort driver for almost a year, sure knows a lot about the service.

The 20 year old Business major is from Carmel, Indiana, and is thinking of pursing an Economics minor. Mickey was hired and trained last spring and officially started working with the escort service in the fall. With the excellent year he’s had, Mickey will become a student manager next year.

When asked about the busiest times for escorts, Mickey said, “They are when you expect them to be, Friday and Saturday nights. Wednesdays are also busy at times.” When the weather outside is nice, Wednesdays tend to be a lot more busy.

With the academic year coming to an end, students seem to be getting a little crazier. Mickey explained one of the funny stories he recently encountered, “A student once tried to give me a tip when I was dropping him off. He must have thought it was a cab or something.” Mickey said most of the time students are under the influence of alcohol and say stupid things, but he usually just ignores it.

“Once a guy called me to take him to a location, and within five minutes, he called me back to pick him up. It was just a little strange.”

Mickey’s favorite part of the job is working with the Wittenberg Police and Security. He says, “Everyone is very nice and willing to help out. I also like driving people around, especially when they are friendly.” However, on the other hand, people can be rather rude to the escort drivers.

When asked if he had ever gotten into an argument with a student, Mickey replied, “A couple of girls got very sassy with me. They were trying to fit five people into the car and I told them I could only take four at a time. They wouldn’t get out, but the guys they were with told them they had to and they ended up having to walk in the rain.” Mickey said his least favorite part of the job is dealing with people being rude and people who try to take advantage of the service.

The escort service has regulars that call almost every Friday and Saturday nights. Mickey said he can almost tell the exact time they will call. Also, he said, “I know a lot of times who I am talking to because I can remember their voice and put their name to it.” Mickey has gotten to know the regulars quite well and seems to have developed some sort of friendship with them.

Overall, Mickey is very pleased with his job. He enjoys working and it’s a time where he can get away from schoolwork. Often making Mickey laugh, the late night phone calls are a never-ending source of entertainment. He recalls one phone call he will never forget. “A women called and said her clutch was stolen and left in a car. We had recently dropped her off at a location and she must have been too intoxicated to remember.” So the next time an escort gives you a ride, make sure to be friendly and remember you don’t have to tip!

feature story rough draft

The other Crazy Cat Lady

Most people would consider the strange, non sociable lady with excessive amounts of cats to be the ‘crazy cat lady.’ A sophomore here at Wittenberg may seem strange when it comes to cats, but she has her own way of being different from the other predictable cat ladies.

Alex Pammer seems like the ordinary college girl, but once you get her started on cats there’s no turning back from there. When communicating with one of her many kitties she owns, named Jinglekit, she made up her own special language. English wasn’t enough for Alex, so she developed a language she believes jinglekit can understand and responds to.

Being away from her cats while she’s at school puts an emotional damper on Alex’s life. Instead of just missing her cats, Alex will try and play with the cats that are all over Witt’s campus. Going out of her away after a night of drinking, Alex thought it would be a good idea to steal and house one of the stray cats. After capturing the kitty and feeding it lasagna for dinner, she realized it wasn’t just a stray cat. It in fact had a collar around its neck and turned out to be someone else’s cat.

After the cat got sick in the middle of the night and Alex’s roommate woke up to a terrible stench in the room, she returned the cat back to outside. When Alex awoke to find the cat missing, she went searching for it, but it was nowhere to be found.

Having pictures of all her cats in her phone and a bumper sticker on the back of her car saying, “ I love my cats,” isn’t enough. Alex recently made a special trip home to attend a pet expo, which included events such as acro- kitties and rock cats. Alex admitted, “The pet expo was the highlight of my week, and I look forward to going to it each year.” One of the first times she attended the pet expo she saw her dream cat, the mainecoon breed. Alex hopes to fulfill her dream of buying one some day, which the sale prices start around $800.

Cats are a big part of Alex’s life and she most likely knows more about them than most people on this campus. Any odd questions about cats that need answered, just ask her. So the next time you see a person chasing after cats using a weird language, don’t be alarmed, it’s probably just Alex.

rough draft:column

A 3:00 a.m. phone call every two months, an e-mail every so often, and sometimes a Facebook message. This isn’t the relationship I would choose for my brother and me. The choice of joining the United States Air Force was one hundred percent his, but not being able to see my brother for a year at a time isn’t something I rather enjoy, especially when he couldn’t even see me graduate from high school.

For nearly a decade, U.S. military forces have been engaged in combat in two far-away lands. In Afghanistan, 949 Americans have died since military operations began there on October 7, 2001. My brother recently returned from a five month deployment to Iraq. There, 4,391 Americans have died since military operations began on March 19, 2003. Many question the wisdom of our military presence in both countries. Soldiers as young as 19 have been killed in the two wars, and it certain that more lives will be lost before our troops are brought home. For me, it’s personal.

President Obama recently announced his new war strategy to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan by more than 30,000 to a total of more than 100,000. In addition to the president’s planned 30,000 surge, NATO has pledged 7,000 new troops. By July 2011, the U.S. will begin withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, but the time table for completely ending our combat operations there remains uncertain. Regardless, long after combat troops have left the country, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has promised an ongoing civilian commitment to Afghanistan.

As the sister of an Air Force airman, sending more troops to Afghanistan sounds absurd. According to President Obama, the new goal is "a complete drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq ... to zero by December 31, 2011.” Promises of bringing the troops home are long overdue, and for the family members of those in uniform, the constant fear is that the promises of our political leaders will be broken.

The surge is causing even greater stress to U.S. forces, as many members of the Army, Marines, Air Force and Navy have faced multiple deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Having recently returned to the states, my brother may be receiving orders any day now deploying him to Afghanistan.

A childhood friend of my family recently just switched roles with my brother. Seth Large enlisted in the Army soon after graduating from high school. Having been back in the states for several months to be with his wife and young child, he recently got deployed back to Iraq. Having the chance to talk to him briefly, Seth told me, “ it sucks here, and I would give anything to be back home right now.”

My brother’s route back to the states first took him to Kuwait, where he was stuck for much longer than anticipated. While in Kuwait, he and the other members of his unit were forced to sleep in tents for a couple of weeks. From Kuwait, he was flown to Germany, and after a brief stop there, he endured the long flight to U.S. soil, landing in Maine for an overnight stay before flying to Florida for a bus ride back to his air base in southern Georgia. Although he was granted a short leave, he has not been home in nearly two years. His service and sacrifice are not unique, but I cannot help but feel that they are under-appreciated. Two wars at a price of 5,340 American lives. How many more must die?