Coonridge Digest: Their plan was simple…

Greetin’s from the Ridge.

Betsy Briggs was arrested. It was one of the strangest crimes to ever hit Coonridge and frankly, we’re still not sure of the charges.

Neither’s Betsy.

It all started at a ballgame.

Betsy’s the mother of four little ones rangin’ from 2nd grade to 9th and she’s about as good a mother as the Ridge has ever produced. Like most mothers of young ones, she’s given up her previous role as an individual and has fully dedicated herself to fulltime mother. A good one. That’s why we’re still puzzled why she would have ever gone and done such a thing.

Charges are still pending since we can’t find any statutes on stealin’ your own children.

Betsy told me that she planned to plead temporary insanity. "But the trouble Freida," she told me, "is that I’m afraid it’s not temporary. I still feel the same way."

Her kids had been out of school for three weeks but her oldest daughter, Carlene, had already been to two volleyball camps. (This is for a volleyball season that’s still months distant.) Her oldest boy went to the school to lift weights to get in shape for a football team which had yet to be formed and was signed up for two different basketball camps this summer, each costing a few hundred dollars and each of which were voluntary, unless of course he wanted a chance at playing next November. Then little Benson played Jr. League baseball three nights a week all summer long and little Loretta had a summer jam-packed with Midget Rah Rah cheerleader clinics, Bible School, and church camps. The only camp Betsy had avoided was the area’s newest: "The Summer Pre-Natal If You Really Want Your Child to Be Able to Compete" camp for expectant mothers.

Betsy said she was sittin’ at this ballgame one night last week amid of hot sweaty sea of parental palm planners and she looked at her husband.

Poor Garland sat there with a numbed expression on his face. After spendin’ the month of April lookin’ forward to escapin’ the whirlwind of school and youth activities, he’d been swept headlong into a summer crammed with preparation for the next school year. His family’s summer was over before it had begun.

My friend Betsy said she sat there lookin’ at forty other anesthetized faces whose entire future had been determined by the athletic and social schedule. She turned to Garland and said, "Don’t tell the warden, but next week we’re gonna make a break for it."

She warned her husband not to breathe a word of the scheme to any of the other inmates. He stared at her in disbelief then took a sweaty oath of silence and that night as they lie in bed they began hatchin’ the plot.

Their plan was to warn no one and not even tell the kids for fear that one of the little bugger’s would let news of the breakout escape in the chow line. One cloudy mornin’ they carried the pajama-ed kids to the car and headed west. They didn’t tell the football coach, the basketball coach, the cheerleadin’ sponsor, the camp director, the Sunday School superintendent, the baseball coordinator or the pre-natal instructor.

They just took off. In short, they had stolen their own children.

Of course their greatest fear was the shame that this would bring their family. Would they lose their church membership? Would they have to forfeit their place in the Educational Booster committee? Would anyone even acknowledge them at the local Jiffy Stop? Deadly fearful that they may not have a home to return to, they headed west with a minivan full of sleepy children and a worn out Rand McNally in the glove compartment.

Their plan was simple…they wanted to reclaim their own children. They had hatched a dastardly scheme to get to know their own children before they sent them to college.

When the fugitives finally returned to Coonridge soil, Betsy called to tell me that it was one of the most wonderful weeks of her life and that when she’s released from prison, her kids want to try it again. Her husband Garland isn’t so sure. He still can’t believe he’s married to a known criminal.

When they hauled her away in a makeshift set of handcuffs made from the webbing of two ball gloves, the local deputy said, "We’re not exactly sure which law she’s broken but I think it comes under the Acts of Treason clause. We do know that her actions were un-American and maybe even immoral. We do know that the kids will have to enter therapy."

You ever in Coonridge, stop by. We may not answer the door but you’ll enjoy the trip.