This guy is tough, and so is his message.(By Ruben Rosario, Pioneer
Press, St. Paul, MN August 2011. Edited for length)Like the U.S.
Postal Service, apparently nothing keeps Larry Bauer-Scandin -
foster dad to 125 - from his self-appointed rounds.Not the weather.
Not the heart ailments or the genetic neurological disorder that
robbed him of movement and rendered him legally blind. The
64-year-old Vadnais Heights resident just gets up and does it."My
life was normal for the first nine years of my life until 1957 when
my foot went to sleep, except that my foot never woke up,"
Bauer-Scandin told a group of inmates from the 3100 unit at the
Dakota County Jail.But that's not the main message that
Bauer-Scandin, a retired probation officer and jail counselor,
wants to deliver on this day. "Whom do you blame for your
problems?" he asks the group of 34 men, who are members of IMC, or
Inmates Motivated to Change. Under the program, inmates with
chemical dependency or mostly nonviolent offenses sign an agreement
to take part in several programs and pledge not to make the same
mistakes that keep landing them in lock-up."What people need to do
is stand in front of a mirror and ask: 'How much of the problem is
mine and how much is it somebody else?' "I first wrote about
Bauer-Scandin five years ago. It was centered on his life as a
foster parent. As he told the inmates, two of his former foster
kids are cops, one in St. Paul. Two are soldiers deployed to Iraq.
One's a millionaire. One's an author. Most are raising families or
staying out of trouble in spite of hardships.But "15 are dead,"
said Bauer-Scandin, author of "Faces on the Clock," an engrossing
memoir about his life. The dead include suicide victims, including
an 11-year-old, others from AIDS and "my last one, they found in
three or four pieces, as I understand."Bauer-Scandin's worth
writing about again for what he continues to do at great pain and
sacrifice without pay or fanfare. He didn't sugarcoat or pull
punches with his audience."What I'm afraid is still happening is
that the system is trying to figure out how to get tighter," he
told them. "The sentences are getting tougher."And it's not the
police, the sheriffs, the courts or even the folks in state and
county-run corrections that are responsible for the race to
incarcerate."It's the legislature," Bauer-Scandin said. "And
legislatures have been known to do very stupid things."He also
faults the media and a gullible public that forms opinions and
dehumanizes people strictly on what they watch on TV and not on
real-life experiences or knowledge."What do they see?" he said.
"They see the Charlie Mansons. They see the unusual. They see the
extreme. Most of you aren't that way. But that's what makes the
news."Yet he doesn't divert from his main message: It's up to the
inmate to take a positive step and choose the right way."Get
yourself back into a position where you can influence those people,
to be able to go to a school board or a city council or legislative
meeting and have your voice heard."You can't fight the system from
in here," he concluded. "You have to be out there."The inmates
applauded and, one by one, stood in line to shake his hand on his
way out the jail complex.His progressively debilitating disorder is
taking more of a toll these days. But he steered the scooter inside
the van and deftly wiggled his frail body into the driver's seat.
He has no complaints, he told me. He will continue to go out and
speak as long as God and his wife allow him."I hope something
stuck," he tells me before he drives off.I hope so too, Larry.
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