Did You Hear What the Crazy Lady Did?

My sister and I call my mom "the crazy lady". It's an endearing label, one we bestowed upon her after years of her hilarious behavior. Most kids through go through a stage in their lives when their parents are an embarrassment. I never hit that stage in my life and have always loved mom's company. I think she's slightly offended by the nickname, but we've assured her repeatedly that if she actually were crazy, we'd just smile and nod rather than call her crazy to her face.

This morning I received a call from the crazy lady at work. Sadly, there was a deadly fire in the house next to my sister's place from last year. An alderman in the area went on record saying that the college kids living there should have done a better job keeping their apartment and in working order, somewhat insinuating that the kids were to blame for the blaze. Mom was so pissed about it that she sat down and wrote a letter to the alderman. She told him how wrong he was, asking where the landlord was when this was all going on. The alderman was so taken with her letter that he passed it onto the local college newspaper that had interviewed him about the fire. Last night at 11:30, she received a phone call from a reporter from the paper. He asked to reprint an excerpt from her letter and use her name in his article for today. Fearful that my sister would face repercussions from her landlord or friends depending on the tone of the article, mom asked for her name to be withheld, but agreed to the use of her letter. (This ended up being an unnecessary precaution - my sister has been sharing the article with everyone after it was printed.) Today the article was featured in the Badger Herald:

http://badgerherald.com/news/2007/11/20/bedford_street_blaze.php

The reporter dubbed the Crazy Lady, "Carolyn".

What impresses me most about this situation is not my mom's words, it's her course of action. She was angry, wrote an email, and ended up in the paper the next day. The alderman - to his credit - not only read her rant, but even passed it along to the masses. In an ideal world, this is how the political process should work. A citizen takes action and their representatives react. It's unfortunate to see its efficiency under such tragic circumstances.