Mel Sembler helped found Str8 to fill the "void" created when The Seed closed in St.Petersburg.At the time of Str8's opening,Mel Sembler didn't nearly have that kind of juice in D.C.Jimmy Carter was inaugurated and the highest contact Sembler had in the Republican Party at that time was Jack Eckerd.The tactics used in the name of therapy were atrocious but all they were doing was trying to create a ......yecch......new and improved Seed.Tom Vida,a Seed graduate now a microbiologist in Texas,was one of the earliest Sr. staff at Straight.He,after battling a motherlode of personal problems due to his real issues never being addressed,stated that he,implying nor anybody else in staff office,was not qualified to do what was being asked of him.Helen Petermann,number two to Director Hartz,was a high school dropout.These were the people whom our parents entrusted to our care.Many decisions crucial to our very lives was left in the hands of such people.As Reagan took over and Sembler's star began to rise,peons such as these took charge with the implied blessing of a Republican White House.Hartz,because he didn't have these key players running interference for him,kept things on a more even keel or it could have meant his ass.Part of staff's distrust of myself during those years came from my saying that I didn't have intentions of joining staff office after my program.I felt like a year and half of "therapy" was enough.I guess for some,like Chris Cassler and Doug Hemminger,there was never enough.Mel was too busy making his place in the world and the rest of these people were too stupid to hatch a conspiracy.
