If a Tree Falls in the Forest, No witnesses, Did it Make a Sound? by Lori j Loesch

If a Child is Being Sexually Abused, and There are no Witnesses to See it, Did it Happen?

I live in Centre Hall, Pennsylvania.  It’s twenty minutes away from State College, Pa, home of Penn State University.  The Sandusky scandal, just won’t go away.  In the Centre Daily Times, the local newspaper, a high profile attorney, the one that represented Michael Jackson, Thomas Mesereau, has written his opinion to the opinion page, “Their View”.  Mr. Mesereau’s view is this: “Without McQueary, there appears to be no direct non-victim witness against Sandusky. That is particularly important in a case with zero physical evidence and not even one shred of pornography.”  I see where Mr. Mesereau is headed with this idea.  He’s a lawyer.  A criminal lawyer will get he’s client off if there is any human error in paperwork.  That doesn’t mean the client is innocent of a crime.  

Let me inform you that I was sexually abused.  I lived life from the age of two in an abusive home.  There is no physical evidence, no shred of pornography to show:  Except there is me.  If you want physical evidence, spend the day, in the life, with one of the victims of sandusky.  (This is my blog, and I will not print sandusky’s name with a capital letter, he doesn’t deserve that.)  You’ll see the pain, first hand, the torment that sandusky inflicted on these innocent victims.  These boys did nothing wrong.  sandusky took their lives away.  They will need to claw and scrape their way to normalcy.  Ed Stimely ripped my innocence away from me fifty-two years ago, and I am still navigating my way to normalcy.  

Mr. Mesereau goes on to say, “Miscommunication among so many people of such stature and accomplishment.”  Yes, people of stature always do the right thing, when their livelihood and reputation is about to crumble at their feet.  My family, of no stature, covered it up.  To be completely honest, I don’t feel they knew what to do with such a horrific crime against an innocent child, but to cover it up, hope it goes away.  It doesn’t go away.  It festers inside the innocent young child, to adulthood, when it will inevitably explode.  

Mr. Mesereau writes that, “credible voices say this case is at best, unproven and at worst, ludicrous.”  I’ll tell you what’s ludicrous, touching a child inappropriately, holding a child hostage, night after night, day after day.  Forcing a child to navigate through school, holding all this abuse inside, is LUDICROUS! 

Mr. Mesereau’s opinion was printed on April Fools Day.  I was thinking it could be a sick April Fools joke. Unfortunately it’s not.  

People that are hung up on football, and the late, great, Joe Paterno, are insane to think that children would make this stuff up.  Joe Paterno did a lot of good for this community.  Good people do make grave mistakes.  Joe is human, he made mistakes.  

There is a football, sports culture, where all things sports trump all things moral.  Sports matter.  An example of how highly sports are held in this community, I was in downtown Millheim, Penns Valley school district, and I noticed, in the window of the local veterinarian, a sign that read, “Proud to Support Penns Valley Athletics”  Are they also proud to support Penns Valley Academics?  I didn’t see any posters proclaiming that.  

The sandusky scandal did a lot of damage.  It destroyed so many people, and businesses.  It hurt our wonderful community.  One man destroyed it.  Many covered it up.  There are rumors that people that worked around sandusky called him jerry pedi.  No one wants to pay the consequences for this crime.  If the powers that be, would have reported this story in the beginning, it would have been devastating, waiting years later, proved to be unbelievably devastating.  

I feel that the reason the NCAA revoked the sanctions was because the people paying the consequences are the currant students and athletes, not the actors that were involved in a cover up.  As far as reinstating Joe’s wins, there’s a lot of power and money fighting for his reputation.  If there weren’t, the wins would be lost and the statue would still be in storage.  

I wish the football “crazed” people, would walk a mile in the shoes of the boys that were damaged forever by jerry sandusky, and all the people that kept his secret hidden.  Walk in those children’s shoes for one month and tell me what you feel now.  Does football really mean as much as it did?  Is that statue really the biggest deal in town, now?  

Joe Paterno was amazing.  sandusky had a talent for teaching defensive football, and together they go down in history for the most wins, they are also in history for this horrible crime against children.  My step-adopted dad was good at building race cars and he was the best mechanic in town.  He even taught a class of engineering students at Penn State to build race cars.  He had good qualities too.  One student told him that, they are book smart, they use blueprints, you have a small piece of paper with a drawing on it and turn that into a race car.  My step-adopted dad taught me much about cars, through watching and just being around him.  I hated it, but I’m an excellent, safe driver, and I have been able to forgive  him for what he did to me, it has taken years, and I remember the first time I heard a christian woman talk about how you must forgive those who have hurt you.  I didn’t think I could.  But with God in my life all things are possible.  

This scandal will never go away as long as there are people, who want to keep fighting for what they lost.  When they learned the truth, that, Joe is mortal, he made a mistake, jerry is a pedophile, and Penn State is damaged, it was more than they could handle.  

Tags: academics, athletics, child abuse, football, Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno, michael jackson, Mr. Mesereau attorney at law, Penn State, sports