Once upon a time

Back in the dark ages Kadizzle was in college.  As part of a psychology class Kadizzle visited an actual insane asylum.  It was a very shocking experience.  Our mission as students was to take the patients out into the woods for a walk.  First we took a tour.  This was of course in West Virginia where the state did not spend much on the mentally ill. Hell most of them were walking the streets and running the state.  Some idiot had designed the building where the poor patients were housed.  The idiot had the idea that the building should be round. Every floor had a cage in the middle, and because the building was round the overseer could see into every patients room.  Brilliant idea, but it meant all the rooms were pie shaped.  Now try to put furniture in a pie shaped room.

So we walked onto one of the floors of this crazy house.  The stench of the human condition was overwhelming.  The place was kept warm because the people were in a near naked or naked state.  The floor was just bare concrete, and many of the inmates were barefoot.  People were laying around on the floor there was no furniture to speak of or the people were sitting on the floor drugged and staring into space.  Finally we got to some other area of the institution where people were slightly more normal.  This is where one of the patients was playing the piano and doing a damn good job of it.

Now to a quick side story.  Back at Marshall University which Kadizzle was attending Kadizzle had met a young woman who had spent some time incarcerated in this insane place.  She had tried to commit suicide.  She had cut her arm senseless with a razor blade in an attempt to end her life.  When she was put in this place she said she realized she had to get out quickly or she would die or become permanently insane.  As Kadizzle explored the place he realized if you were not totally insane when you got here, you soon would be.

In the course of taking the patients out there was a young boy about twelve on the bus with us.  He told an incredibly sad story which showed how bad the system was.  The young boy had been placed in the institution as part of a vendetta against his family from some small hillbilly town.  The doctors found nothing wrong with the young man, but no one would come from the town to take him home.  Imagine being twelve and stuck in this crazy place.

So off we went on the school bus full of crazy people.  We took them for a walk in the woods.   During the walk one of the patients picked up and osage orange.  This is a strange inedible fruit that grows in West Virginia.  A naive girl in the psychology class ran up to the patient shouting " Don't eat that".   Kadizzle will never forget what the patient said.  The patient said " We are in here because we are crazy, not stupid".

What got Kadizzle thinking about all this?  Reading the New York Times today Kadizzle had to laugh thinking about Donald Trump.   He is both crazy and stupid, but the Republicans love him.