Beachcombing -- Mental Illness

Mental illness is a curse in our society. We see it every day with the political assassination of Charlie Kirk and with tyrants like Vladimir Putin as he continues his senseless war against Ukraine.

On a less-serious, local level, we witnessed the hate crimes of one resident in the 3300 block of Senasac Avenue who engaged in the constant harassment of his next-door, gay neighbor. That was in the fall of 2022, and the problem was eventually resolved with some help from the LBPD.

This summer we received threats of legal action if we delivered the Beachcomber to an address in the 4100 block of Greenbrier Road. When we receive “do not deliver” requests they are honored by passing the information along to the delivery person.

Considering that we distribute 33,000 newspapers every other week or 858,000 annually, getting two or three “do not deliver” requests per year isn’t bad. Mostly it’s because the resident travels frequently or they are elderly and unable to retrieve the paper. And there are times when they dislike a story we’ve written, proving that ostriches really do like to bury their head in the sand.

But threats of legal action are bizarre, and my response is to tell our carriers to avoid delivering to the entire block. Most of them are middle-school age and they should not be subjected to any residents who make threats of any sort or otherwise demonstrate that their elevator does not reach the top floor (if you know what I mean).

It came as no surprise on Tuesday when we learned that the same resident in the 4100 block of Greenbrier Road, Jeffrey William Zabel, 50, was recently arrested by the LBPD on one count of possession of child pornography. Zabel was employed as the pastor of worship and service production at Arbor Road Church since June 2008 and was also a music teacher at Lakewood Christian School. He is no longer employed in either capacity.

Upon receiving Zabel’s threat of legal action I did some research and learned of his involvement with the church. Should his employers know about his weird behavior, especially given his leadership roles? I decided to take the “wait and see” approach versus “see something, say something.” We all experience bad days and maybe Zabel was in that space.

Hopefully Mr. Zabel will get the professional help that he needs and the residents on Greenbrier Road can once again enjoy our ramblings on local topics.

There’s a Biblical message in this as well: “People who live in glass houses should not be casting stones.”

Time to lighten things up, courtesy of Donna:

• They told me I had type A blood, but it was a type-O.
• I didn’t like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.
• A cross-eyed teacher lost her job because she couldn’t control her pupils.
• When you get a bladder infection, urine trouble.
• I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me!
• Broken pencils are pointless.
• What do you call a dinosaur with an extensive vocabulary? A thesaurus.
• England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool.
• I used to be a banker, but then I lost interest.
• I dropped out of communism class because of lousy Marx.
• I took the job at a bakery because I kneaded dough.
• Velcro – what a rip off!
• Cartoonist found dead in home. Details are sketchy.

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