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I have two brothers. One is a liberal, wealthy, gay radiologist in Atlanta (remember the recent Druid Hills Country Club brouhaha?). The other, P______ is a dirt-poor contractor (with an economics degree) who moved in with our elderly parents a year ago after he had a brush with the law. P_____'s (age 50) legal problems came to a resolution today. Two weeks ago, the DA dropped the drug charges from the 12 marijuana plants found on his farm a year ago. Illegal search, the DA agreed. Also, my brother sold the farm (shortly after his arrest a year ago, mainly to raise funds for a defense) and within several weeks the sheriff found more pot plants in the same place. My brother was avoiding that county (Lamar, in central Georgia) at all costs. The other problem was that they found a shotgun in his farm house. He claims it was not his (he ran a home for wayward drunks, rednecks, and bikers ... I would not even go down there fearing just this sort of thing, given my status as an airline pilot). Ends up he had a "prior" from 30 years ago (none of us knew about it) for growing pot in a National Forest. That conviction (with suspended sentence) forbade him from owning or keeping firearms. For that transgression, today, he was given the choice of a trial or three years on probation. He copped a plea for the latter. My 83-year old dad, a distinguished PhD college professor, sat through the day-long proceedings in Lamar County, Georgia. But he did get his $33,000 bail money back. Dad was too exhausted to talk to me tonight when I called (as I do every night).
Like the cover of Granta proclaimed, a few years back: The Family: They Fuck You Up.
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