Live at Last...

[journeyan]

PARADOXES Jason,


You have no idea how far reaching the Straight program was back then.  I was sixteen in 1986 and never had the "pleasure" of being in Straight Inc., but I think perhaps my group got the worse deal (smile).  You see, Dr. Miller Newton had just left Straight Inc and started his own baby in Hackensack, NJ called the KIDS of Begren County program with a sister program in El Paso, TX.  We were hearing stories about the hell you guys were getting and the legal stuff and being told how lucky we were.  By the way, I was never the "rebellious" type.  But I saw, tackled and baby-sat enough kids in an intake room to know what 18 days in there can do to you.  


I escaped three times, got it right just before my eighteenth birthday and as an adult, wrote a kick ass book about it.  My agent in NYC loved it, but surprise, surprise most of the publishers loved it too, but were too damn intimidated by the content to touch it.  That was three years ago.  I still think of perhaps writing a screenplay from it.  Would love to hear more about your experiences.  


And oh, Jason.  I still dream about them, too.  Wake up, crying and sweating my ass off.  I was the first black girl they'd ever had in the Program and with a strict, abusive religious family and no drug/alcohol history.  Dr. Newton and his staff decided I was anorexic.  Incredible.


Christian

[jnloar]

I was in Straight Dallas from 4-87 thru 12-88 and was on staff for over a year - one of the darker memories of my life and still causes me plenty of guilt but Jim Henderson was an executive there.  He evidently went to Sr. staff and then to college and went to Straight LA and then came to Dallas.  Last I heard, when I finally left that place, he was moving back to Michigan