FYI from BATR

by Todd Brendan Fahey
January 15, 2005


I have many regrets in life--a list as endless as are the moments that I spend on this Earth. A born wild-child, I've seen a few very bright highlights and lot of blackness. The entirety of my 20s was spent in a daily blur of alcohol, and I no doubt disappointed many and squandered opportunities for to serve some great men and to build a different life for myself than that which I lead presently.

One of the few men who I did not disappoint was a man who didn't expect much from me in the first place. I would arrive at 7:00am to "Procedural Criminal Justice" at Arizona State University, having woken at 5:30am to guzzle the six-pack that I needed to ingest to convince my psyche that I was not really hungover at all: it is still the night before, and I'm having a ripping good time. Somewhere around the 25th-minute of class, and always in the front row, I'd nod off and manage to collect myself when the rest of the students began filing out of the classroom. Such was the pattern as a Criminal Justice major at ASU and as an alcoholic. Mornings were the most savage, as I'm not naturally an early riser--compounded by my love of drink.

Maybe the end of the second week of class, Dr. Ivan Gayle Shuman--a decorated former FBI agent and the founder of the School of Criminal Justice at Arizona State University, with the build of a grizzly bear--in whose class I was perpetually zonked, politely asked me to move to the back of the room if I wanted to continue my night's slumber. He said it with a smile, but it was something in his eyes and wizened grin--probably it was the muscles in his jaw tightening as he gave me the advice--that made me change my morning habits. Unfortunately, the night-time refrain remained the same.

I stayed in the front row, and would arrive for better or worse (almost always for the worse) to watch Gayle Shuman stride to the podium each morning, with the usual question: "What's news in the news?"...

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