[TheForge] lawyers and hold harmless ( was Re: anyone know of a disabled person wanting to take up blacksmithing?

Wed Apr 13 13:25:56 EDT 2011

Aww...  To hell with it.  If any of you know Mr. Ridder and are able to pass
this on to him, I would be grateful.  If any of you don't wish to hear about
my "sob story", please don't read any further.  Please understand I'm not
trying to portray myself as something I'm not.  I am just a soldier.  Always
have been and always will be.  Please forgive me for how this sounds.

Dear Mr. Ridder,

I do apologize for contacting you directly but as I haven’t noticed any
further posts on the e-mail service.  I just wanted an opportunity to “plead
my case” in the event you were still undecided. It’s just that an
opportunity such as you are offering is a very rare occurrence and it would
help me greatly.

As I’ve stated, I’m a 35 year old, 8 year veteran with the Army medically
discharged with a 40% disability.  I was classified disabled in 2001 due to
a tour in Kosovo where my convoy was attacked.  I fractured 3 vertebra,
compressed 12 discs, and collapsed 3 discs in my spine.  I broke my left
collarbone and had shrapnel in my neck as well during the attack.  Until
recently (February 2009) my disability was primarily one of constant pain
and the resultant pain management.  In 2009 I was “t-boned” by a drunk 19
year old girl who was traveling approximately 65mph in a 25mph zone.  Since,
I’ve been operated on 3 times to correct the resultant damage to my
spine.  Thankfully,
I am walking again but I’ll be in Physical Therapy for many years.

I do have a good job but it doesn’t afford me the ability to purchase the
materials to help me advance in my passion.  Between the high costs of
living in New Jersey (on land) and the costs that my triplet 9 year old
daughters incur, it’s next to impossible to afford a decent hammer let alone
an actual anvil.  Raising triplets is a job unto itself!

In the 8 years I served with the Army, I was Fire Direction Control for
Howitzer Units.  Once I earned my Staff Sergeant stripes I had the
responsibility of directing 9 guns on target from up to 20K away.  At 20K
.005 degree deflection could mean the difference of hitting the target or
hitting a school 1000 yards away.  I served in Saudi, Serbia, Albania &
Kosovo for almost 5 full years of my service.  During that time I had the
honor to serve with many great solders, but what I remember most about my
time served were the people my fellow soldiers and I we were able to help.  I
eagerly volunteered for any chance to get “off post” in order to
accompany/guard the doctors and Red Cross personnel whose job was one of
benefit and not destruction.  It was well known that if there were ANY
convoys or MoM’s (Missions of Mercy) that would be leaving post that I was a
volunteer. Please don’t misunderstand.  I loved my job and knew the
necessity of the damage I created.  In conflict and war you make sure first
and foremost that you and yours make it home, whatever it takes.  However I
also felt for my part necessary to contribute to the welfare of the people
we were protecting. During the times off the battlefield is when I first
started tinkering with blacksmithing making boot knives out of scrounged
leaf springs for the boys.  They looked and functioned well enough that they
became an unofficial badge of my unit to have one tucked in your boot.
 Smithing
was more as a way to wallow away the time and do something productive with
my hands, I was very much the amateur, mind you, but with the help of a few
do-it-yourself books and a lot of practice, I was finally able to produce a
decent looking skinning knife that I forged out of an old chisel I picked up
at a yard sale.  I used some willow slabs that I had laying around for the
handle and copper plate for spacing.  Overall, I was extremely pleased
although my tempering lacked somewhat.  I found that this exercise helped me
ground myself and offered a refuge from my surroundings where all that
mattered was my hammer and the piece I would be working on.  When I returned
Stateside in 2004, I found the costs of life with a family of 5 were
considerable higher than I thought.  I couldn’t afford to continue my hobby
and still keep the lights on and food on the table.  I was forced to store
my tools for many years.  I never lost sight of my dream though.  I bought
and borrowed all the books on Blacksmithing I could find.  I absorbed these
books as often as I could with the hopes of feeling the forge heat my face
again in the future.

During my years deployed it becomes common to bleed on and to be bled on by
your fellow soldiers.  Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones who bled.  I’ve
seen and done things that keep me awake at night, every night.  I wake
screaming, crying and sometimes swinging.  I have great difficulty being in
groups of more than 5 people.  I have even more difficulty going out to eat
at a restaurant and sitting with my back to people.  I’ve seen and lived
through more hatred and depravity in my 35 years than most people have to
endure during a lifetime.  I’ve held fellow soldiers while they passed from
this world and I’ve passed the enemy into the hands of God myself.  I’ve
pulled bodies of men, women and children out of mass graves and stood honor
guard over the bodies for 8 days in the fields of Albania until my unit was
released from the duty.  I can rationalize the things I’ve seen and done,
but I can’t seem to control the damage it’s left in my mind and heart.
 Sometimes,
it just won’t stop.

The reason for my ranting… 2 years ago I was successfully coping with my
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and my disability.  I had a 7 year marriage
to what I considered a wonderful woman and had three beautiful daughters who
adored me.  Then I found out that my wife was having an affair with my
father.  When I confronted her about it, she moved in with my father the
next day with the children after we decided to try to work out the situation
for the benefit of the children.  When I went to get my children away from
them my father pulled a 9mm Glock on me and threatened to fire.  The police,
courts, judges and congressmen have been unable to help me get my children
away from them.  I am awarded an amazing amount of “parenting time” as a
father in New Jersey, but I don’t feel it’s enough.  2 months later I was
struck by the 19 year old drunk girl and partially paralyzed until the
December 2010 surgery that gave me back the feeling in my left leg.

Needless to say, I regressed.  I sought various counselors and
psychologists, priests, family and friends.  I was loosing myself as well as
loosing control of myself.  The doctors prescribed meds, the priests
prescribed prayer, family offered condolences and the friends offered
support.  Ultimately, nothing was working.  I was falling further and
further into a very dark depression.

I re-opened my blacksmith “shop” in the back yard mid year 2010, as a way to
burn off some well deserved rage, and until my December surgery spent a few
hours a day annoying my neighbors due to the obnoxious ring my RR track
anvil makes, even weighted, with magnets on a hardwood log.  I would hobble
outside under a lean-to with my cane, lean against the workbench I cobbled
together and beat away at the scrap iron I got from a local scrap yard until
I couldn’t lift the hammer any longer.  On days I didn’t work, have the kids
or generally didn’t have anything purposeful to do, I would bring a cooler
of diet Coke and lunch meat out at 9 am and go in at 6-7 pm when it got too
dark.  I haven’t been able to make anything but a mess lately because I
haven’t had a specific plan, but I would generally make whatever the metal
showed me as I was forging.  A few things that I’ve sold for spare money on
e-bay or craigslist like planter stands and hooks but mostly they just ended
up back in the scrap pile.  I was laid up for a few months after the surgery
and now I have to sell my home to get a smaller, more affordable one, so
I’ve been unable to spend any quality time at the forge.

During my few months of having the pleasure of swinging my hammers again, I
felt better.  The dreams slowed to the point where I was sleeping a full 6
hours a night which gave me the ability to think clearly enough to realize
that I’m no longer in a conflict zone, regardless of how I feel.  My
children and my family were thrilled!  My inability to be surrounded didn’t
lessen, but I exhausted myself enough to take advantage of the extra hours
of sleep.  Since I’ve had to put my house on the market (at a $50,000 loss…
love this economy) my family and I find that I’m regressing again.

Ultimately, my hobby has now become my passion.  Now I feel I *need* to
learn my passion better.  I want to create beauty and function.  I’m tired
of creating destruction whether it’s in the past or just in my idle mind.

Mr. Ridder, if you are still interested in donating your equipment, I would
be honored to be a caretaker of it.  I understand the legal ramifications
that concern you and your attorney.  I would gladly sign any waver you
wished.  I would gladly pay you as much as I can afford.  I would gladly
donate to a charity of your choice.  I would gladly give you a receipt to
“take it to the dump” for you.  Whatever you needed me to, I would gladly
accomplish for the opportunity to set up a shop that I can learn and create
from but most importantly, to heal from.

I’m sorry if I sound as if I’m begging.  I don’t mean to.  I just can’t let
the opportunity that you advertised to slip past me.  The home that I’m in
process of purchasing right now has a 15x15 detached garage that I have
already assigned as my workshop, so thankfully I won’t have to be a fair-day
blacksmith any longer.

I thank you for your time and we all appreciate the generosity you have
shown by just the thought of this offer.  If you wish to speak with me, or
we can arrange a meeting, my cell phone number is 609-353-8047.  Please feel
free to call me at any time, day or night.

I wish you the best on your future with the sea.  There was a poem I read
once that I remembered and looked back up again recently.  It was written by
E.E Cummings (he always signed it lower case though... e.e. cummings)

for whatever we lose (like a you or a me)

it's always ourselves we find in the sea.

Good luck.

Sincerely and with great hope for the future,

Shawn Bennett

On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 2:45 PM, terry l. ridder <terrylr at blauedonau.com>wrote:

> On Thu, 7 Apr 2011, Andrew Vida wrote:
>
> > Well, I'm good and crazy, so you can send it all here.
> >
> > As for your lawyers, WTF?  What in god's green acre could they be all
> > nervous nellie about helping some poor bastard with some tooling?
> >
>
> they site countless frivolous lawsuits filed against donors of a vast
> list of items that the party receiving the donation was either
> alledgedly injured by or in someway harmed. many donors settle to avoid
> long drawn out legal fees. other donors battle it out and eventually win
> in the courts but lose financially because of the legal costs of
> defending themself in the courts.
>
> since many of the items i made myself or repaired myself, they are
> concerned about "product liability".
>
> the lawyers consider "hold warmless agreements" a complete and total
> waste of paper and time.
>
> they do not want to see me end up in more legal nightmares.
>
> >
> > If nothing else, you can always have the recipient sign a release/waiver.
> >
> > Jesus tapdancing christ... what a world.
> >
> > BTW, I was being somewhat facetious in asking my question.
> >
> >
>
> --
> terry l. ridder ><>
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