To the editor:

I can cook thanks to my mother. I can cook better than expected, being a single father of two, raising them on my own a long time, doing what I can to teach them right from wrong teaching them to be polite to everyone and respectful to all.

My mother happens to be a fine Southern cook who grew up in a very, very religious home. My grandpa was a preacher who raised six kids on only his income, who moved to Edinburgh early after marrying my granny at the age of, I think, 15 or 16, maybe. They were young back then, but they believed in God, they made the best of things, got married, then started having children in Edinburgh. After my mother was born, they called her a river rat because she was born in Madison, Indiana, pretty much on the river between Kentucky and Indiana.

Anyway, my grandpa started working at Cummins engine plant with only an eighth-grade education and soon became an engineer who later retired from Cummins making $32.10 per hour. He retired from there in 1989, I think. He worked there 30 years, six months exactly, he said. While there, he became a preacher at age 22 after losing his brother who I, Rocky Mobley, resembled a lot with the mole I had on my face growing up. Anyway, Grandpa became a preacher after losing his brother due to a accident hunting rabbits. He climbed over a fence and the gun was facing the wrong way and somehow or another, the gun went off and shot his brother. When my grandpa arrived, he packed his brother back to the house with his guts hanging out and he asked my grandpa to remove the pack of smokes from his pocket because he wanted to go to heaven when he died. That happened while on his property. Soon after that, he died, making my grandpa become religious and a preacher, building a church with his money in Edinburgh on Franklin Street, where the church still stands.

I visited after charges were filed on me for intimidation. I went there after work one day asking God for help with my situation I was in and for him to guide me in the right direction and to help me help my daughter from the bullies.

At that same church I also was my grandpa’s pallbearer. My grandpa was my life savior because I always wanted to be just like him in every way, shape or form. He didn’t cuss, he didn’t drink, he didn’t do drugs. He was an American idol, in my opinion. I looked up to him.

Now let’s backtrack a little bit. Before sixth grade I had a hard time growing up because I was bullied some, and to this day my kids don’t even know about this. A kid kicked me on the bus No. 15 on the way to school. He said there was a bee in my seat, but that was a lie so he could get away with it and so our bus driver didn’t kick him off the bus. That happened with no consequences whatsoever. So I asked for help from older kids who had the reputation of not being messed with. One time two kids were holding me down and kicking me between the legs, and it hurt bad, real bad, so bad I was crying in pain. And that’s when another kid came up and pulled them off me, thank God, and he hurt them for hurting me.

You know, I think it’s bad that after all these years of me being in the same school district, knowing everyone around town here and there, then I get bombarded with one of the biggest disappointments I have ever gone through in my entire life. Being the only parent in their life with a special-condition license limited me already to only being able to go to the school to pick my kids up if necessary, to school functions, to court, the emergency room and to work only was bad enough. Then, all of the sudden, out of the blue, I get barred from school for a threat that wasn’t even a threat, nor did it have the potential to become a threat, nor have I ever threatened any kid in my life, as I am an adult with common sense.

My daughter isn’t important to the county — maybe to a few, but not as many as someone else’s daughter is — because I haven’t donated a bunch of my money to the school. Well, you know, I’ve been thinking of ways I can help for a long time now, over two years actually, anyway. If Mr. Adams (Brown County Prosecutor Ted Adams) takes me to trial, I wonder if he could work it out to where I wouldn’t get a record, but yet any fines I am forced to pay could go to installing video cameras on that Salt Creek Trail to protect our kids from cases like this and cases like the two murders in Delphi County where there were no cameras. This way, win or lose, the county would benefit from it, our kids would benefit from it, and I would get my chance at exposing each and every single person involved in this and involved in bullying, and we could let Mr. Adams do what he thinks is right for the ones responsible for this whole entire mess my kids and I are in with no help from anyone, because I can’t call the school — I’m not allowed to — and the school board won’t answer or return my calls either. So who would I call and report any bullying that is still going on in that school or on the bus or off-campus?

Rockford A. Mobley, Brown County

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