Searching for Chelsea

When I pulled up at the bank parking lot, a volunteer came up to my car and said that there were a thousand volunteers today and that I'd have to park a ways down the road. Walking back towards the staging area, I was wondering if it really made any difference that one more person would make. The line to get registered was about 80 long and it didn't move for about thirty minutes. A volunteer yelled out that we would be processed when the latest batch left the staging area. We were offered snack bars and water, but I already had my camelbak and own food.

The line moved rapidly once it started. My ID and registration form were quickly processed, my wrist band applied and we were placed in groups of eighteen. A big, imposing gentleman asked for people with police or armed forces training, to lead the groups. I wanted to volunteer for steeper, brush terrain, but didn't want to get in the way of those processing the groups of people. There were prepared lunches supplied by local businesses and the entire operation was pretty efficient, considering it was volunteer based and quickly put together. Only short side was no toilets in evidence. After about an hour of processing, I was glad to be in a group and able to find a bathroom before we staged in cars in the Von's parking lot.

The suburban wife driving our minivan knew the family personally through her son and daughter. There were two young mothers, a middle aged female former employee of Mr. King from LA, and another young man from LA in camo pants. We were kind of quiet, but the driver made us feel comfortable. No one exchanged names, it wasn't really that kind of atmosphere. We met the leader at Von's. He was a active duty Navy pilot and had a by the book approach to the initial search. Once we got to the search area (it wasn't obvious to any of us where it was initially), I was glad that my hiking poles were at the ready. The driver shared that her dog was snake bit on the toungue in her back yard. She said the antivenom was quite expensive.

Our grid included an avocado orchard that had seen better days. After an easy part through the grove, we started hitting arroyos choked with heavy brush, nettles and the usual San Diego assortment of prickly plants. We took our time and were led well, making sure that nothing was missed if possible. After we had completed the search area (about an hour and a half), we began to look in a more promising area close to the freeway on kind of a free lance approach. My fellow searchers began making some small talk and became more of a group by our efforts and the lessening of the seriousness that dominated the first phase of the search. The area did not look promising in that it did not look disturbed in any way and it would have been a long carry by the perpetrator in any case.

On the way back from the search site, one of the mothers in my group received a text message that a body had been found. The driver and I expressed our relief at the news. It had never been anything but our commitment to the parents that motivated this turnout. Any parent could be in limbo for years, hanging on to some faint hope that they would see their loved one safe and home. So, the search had ended successfully and I was glad to have helped. You always get that smug satisfaction when you reach out to help someone and the goal you set is realized. Still, there were some voices from my past which seemed to cast a slight depression to my mood.

In the dim past I had been responsible for the lives of children. Working as a child protective social worker in the dependent children section of the juvenile court, my job was to prevent these terrible things from happening to children in my caseload. Granted, the possible victims were not the targets of damaged predators, but rather those who supposedly were related by blood family or boyfriends of same. My caseload was about 40 families and I had never lost a child. That is not to say that mistakes were not made. Mistakes in that line of work stay with you or they change your ability to feel much of anything towards those in your care.

When proposition 13 passed, things changed pretty quickly. The caseloads doubled and I no longer had the time to keep all the balls in the air at one time. My decision was an easy one. There was no way that I was going to be the fall guy for taxpayers who did not want to have the job done properly. It was retraining time.

Sure, every one identifies with the elderly couple in the 1970's that had seen their tax assessment/property value double and triple. But Proposition 13 was such a poorly written bill that it capped commercial property, had no means test, and allowed property to be inherited without reassessment. Plus, it forced the 2/3 majority vote necessary to change taxes. Schools and County government became more dependent on the State government for full funding. So, here we are today. Paralysis in government and competition between very worthy programs such as schools, caring for the sick and elderly, and protection of our children. This is no accident that everything looks like it's falling apart. In addition to the voices from the past, I feel slightly depressed that TV sound bites have come to hold more sway than rational discussion. Even more dark is the feeling that our society has become a bit selfish and the reasons to avoid "wasteful spending" are coupled with astonishment at how the system whose job it is to protect us doesn't work.