A Modern Day BS Man/Liz Encounter

[sleekviper]

Wesleyan is in Bloomington, then 4 blocks or so further down is Illinois State. Used to be the only place in America with two major Universities on the same street, not sure if that still is true.
Accident had messed up things from the waist up. Spine is bent the wrong way,lol, left side of face is new now above the jaw. The laceration ran from the front clear through the base of skull, broken up all the length. There was no eye socket at all on the left. The initial thought was that I would be deaf, blind, brain damage, nerve damage, and the left arm would never function. Well, to the shock of all, nothing wrong. Well, one titanium plate is too close to the left ear, and certain high pitch notes are a nightmare, and the headaches are constant, but besides that, no issues. It was scary at first, covered in stitches and staples like the Frankenstein monster, but plastics did a great job, one doctor later even made me take a scan to prove I did in fact have titanium for a left side of the face. Appendix was in pieces, organs were jumbled, and liver had a laceration, but am fine. I hope that you never break anything either, this was not bad, never wore a cast, but have broke bones before and it is a nightmare.

[mariab]

Wow, totally unbelievable. Now you got me really scared (of accidents), to be honest. Kinda glad I don't have a car. (Can't afford it right now, plus, an unnecessary luxury in big cities in Europe.)
Glad you can move around all right, though. Clearly you had some good healing capabilities.
I'm pretty sure the place where I applied was Wesleyan.
Going to bed now, I gotta get up in an hour if I shower, and I'd rather.

Nice weekend to all.

[sleekviper]

LOL! Well that is a good thing.

[mariab]

What? Are you pulling my leg about the accident?
I really gotta chill (if not sleep) for half an hour, before I need to get up.

[sleekviper]

no, totally serious.

[mariab]

Wow, I'm really-really sorry, Sleekviper. Car crashes are the worst, and they happen much more often than plane crashes.

[sleekviper]

Thanks, it has been fine. No loss of dexterity so except for headaches, no lingering effects. Nightmares can be rather vivid, but I am sure they will end in time. With all this titanium, I now get to be Supa man.

[mariab]

Great that you haven't lost any dexterity. I really hope for you that the headaches go away eventially, along with the nightmares, as effects of post traumatic stress.
What I found really scary is when you said that there was “no eye socket“ anymore. Ouch. Perhaps you mean a very bad black eye? It's really great that you haven't lost any vision either. (I've had a couple black eyes myself, but nothing serious. And I bet I'm one of very few to claim that they got a black eye from their own piano. It's a very stupid story.)

[caz]

I got my one and only black eye playing bridge with my first husband. Does that beat a piano?

British people just don't like Americans, but want to be like us, so they tend to get a little confused sometimes. LOL.

That's right Tom. You just keep soothing yourself to sleep with this truth and you will never need to feel bruised again if a Brit doesn't accept that you solved the Stride murder. It will only be because 'we lot' don't like 'you lot' but wish we could be like you.

And my real name is Tomasina Wescott and you really should stop wanting to date your big sister.

(And I didn't even utter “stationary“. Because I didn't know it was a typo either.)

Nor did Tom, Maria. I would have put it down to an amusing typo, like the ones we all make, all the time. But Tom put me right on that. He thought it was actually spelled that way, and I remember you defending him, saying it could be.

I truly, genuinely had no idea that anyone would think of Americans as a downtrodden minority on these boards. I have always thought we shared the same qualities, the same weaknesses and strengths and, like Tom says, most of us get along famously for most of the time with most of the posters here, no matter where we were born. I don't get this 'nationality' thing, chips on shoulders, attempts to cause divisions, scratching other people's old itches, stirring up perceived grudges. I don't give a damn whether someone is British, American, Greek or anything else, as long as they can string two words together and entertain or inform me. Tom has always done that, bless him. And God bless America.

I notice you also decided to resurrect the old 'Birchwood' spectre, calling it an ugly episode. If you had the faintest whiff of what went on behind the scenes, you'd know that the public face was pretty by comparison. For this reason I would be extremely grateful if you'd just drop this one for good. Good had nothing to do with what happened away from the boards.

Thank you.

Now if we could get back to BS Man and Liz?

Love,

Caz
X

[mariab]

Caz wrote:
Originally Posted by mariab
(And I didn't even utter “stationary“. Because I didn't know it was a typo either.)
Nor did Tom, Maria. I would have put it down to an amusing typo, like the ones we all make, all the time. But Tom put me right on that. He thought it was actually spelled that way, and I remember you defending him, saying it could be.
Yes, I know. Caz, I was totally honest, and I SWEAR that in the States most people spell it with an “a“, most shops too. I remember I was in Francis Bay, South Africa this summer and we went for a snack after surfing and in the town's main square I see this “stationery shop“ spelled with an “e“ and I immediately thought of you. Very sympathetically too. I even think I mentioned it in some post. That's when I started figuring out that I had already developped an emotional connection to Ripperology, hardly one month after joining casebook. I was laughing at the “stationery shop“ and my friends were like “What's up?“ and it was too complicated and too much of an insider joke to exlain.
For the Birchwood saga I just wanted to say that I completely agree with the fact that you were all offended by her behaviour. That's what I meant by “ugly“. Her behaviour, not yours.

Caz wrote:
I got my one and only black eye playing bridge with my first husband. Does that beat a piano?
I hope he didn't give you a black eye because you won over him at bridge?! :-)
The story with the piano is that my mom keeps my piano in a bedroom next to a built-in closet which for some reason spots a ridiculously long key. As usual it was hot in Athens, Greece, I was keeping minimal lights on in the room, I was taking some stuff from my travel bag on the floor and almost got said long key in the eye, which I avoided, but while avoiding it I almost got my nose smashed against the corner of my piano, I managed to avoid that too, and instead of breaking my nose, I got a shiner and a black eye. What's funny is that later that evening I went to the movies in the old part of town and managed to roll down some poorly lit stone stairs. Nothing but some minor bleeding scratches, but I tore the knees of my pants, so I come home at night spotting the shiner, black eye, and additionally bleeding torn white pants and ask my mom if she thinks she can manage mending my pants so I can still use them, and she goes (in a serious tone but sarcastically) “Maybe we should consider calling an exorcist, if you keep doing this kind of stuff to yourself?“.

[sleekviper]

Wow Maria, that was an unlucky chain of events. Yes, the left orbital wall and floor were destroyed, just fragments remained, why they assumed I would be blind in the eye.
BS man would be the last point I would use in any of this case. The witness does not speak or understand English, and if there is only one individual able to translate, then it is just as likely the words of the interpretor, as it is the witness. Even if it were word for word, doubt still remains since there is little way to challenge anything that has been said. One would need to know that the person linking two languages is completely unbiased in all respects to the situation at hand, and I can not see that as the case here.

[mariab]

Ouch! I'm so sorry to hear that, Sleekviper. And it's totally neat that you haven't lost any vision capabilities.
The problem with BS is that there is already evidence piling up that Schwartz might have been pretty tight with the IWEC. How reliable a witness does that make him? On the other side, it's probably a Polyanna idea, but it won't kill me if I attempted to research similar incidents at the Old Bailey and the Malborough courts, trying to see if there are any physical descriptions matching BS.
I don't think that the fact that a live interpreter (possibly William Wess?) translated Schwartz's testimony is what's causing the bulk of the problem. What preoccupies me is if Schwartz partly lied or totally lied: as in, did Pipeman carry a knife and run after Schwartz vs. did Pipeman and BS EVER existed?

[sleekviper]

Hi Maria. It is nice to still have the eye, since I suppose they could have removed it with the fragments of skull.
Pollyanna principle is what one needs for this case. For BS man I have to ask myself would it have been stated if he emerged from the dark yard, grabbed Stride, and she fell to the street? I think no, and that the version by Schwartz, Wess, or whomever is really behind it is perfect! No immigration riot concerns, and this guy is so new, he won't know what to lie about, see!! He needs help with English! Schwartz was a gift; he may have been reciting his mothers chocolate cake recipe, but it was a BS man gift. It all may be 100% correct, but makes me nervous.

[lynn cates]

BS

Hello Viper.

" . . . the version by Schwartz, Wess, or whomever is really behind it is perfect! No immigration riot concerns, and this guy is so new, he won't know what to lie about, see!! He needs help with English! Schwartz was a gift; he may have been reciting his mothers chocolate cake recipe, but it was a BS man gift. It all may be 100% correct, but makes me nervous."

Precisely!

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Hi Viper,
it looks like you were lucky to have had to deal with some good doctors, which is not always a given.
It's not without reason that most people find Schwartz' testimony suspicious. Especially since there seems to be evidence piling up that Schwartz was tight with the IWEC. What's an interesting coincidence is that Pipeman's physical description matches a thug who pushed his way big time into the Stride investigation, both as a leading member of the WVC and as an informant to The Evening News, as well as a private detective with his own agency. Apart from this, it seems like the WVC was interested in cooperating with the IWEC. It also appears that foreign agencies (like the Russian Okhrana) who were interested in sabotaging the London anarchist movement were recruiting local detective agencies for local help with their agenda. Do you see now why it's imperative to research all this as deeply as possible, including the possibility of someone with BS's physical description having engaged in similar assaults prior to September 30, 1888? The night of the double event features an undeniable politicized subtext. It's our job to try to figure out how much of this is coincidence. And thankfully, there are tons of ways to research this.