Born With a Rusty Spoon: Episode 60
Bertie Stroup Marah tells how justice was meted out to a would-be rapist.
Mama always held accountable those who wronged her or her children. If she felt it necessary, she meted out justice of her own. After Phyllis was divorced from Bill she lived in Collbran for a while. Also living in Collbran was a sorry lout who reputedly physically abused his mother and had gotten away with committing numerous petty crimes. This piece of human garbage made the mistake of attempting to rape Phyllis. He didn't know he had chosen to offend the wrong woman's daughter.
Phyllis foolishly accepted his offer of a ride at Collbran to Mama's house. After driving out of town he pulled to the side of the road and attempted to assault her. Phyllis escaped and ran to Mama's house. Upon seeing Phyllis's torn clothes and hysteria, Mama made plans to exact revenge and serve up some justice of her own.
Mama found out he planned to go to a dance the following Saturday night at the Vega Reservoir Lodge and made it her business to be there. She watched as he sat at a table sucking on a Coors and leering at the women on the dance floor. She sauntered toward him on the way to the ladies' room. As she walked by his chair, she swung her empty beer bottle at his head, connecting with a loud thump. He fell to the floor unconscious and bleeding and was later hauled off in an ambulance for some much needed patch work.
Mama went before the judge to answer to charges of assault on the man who attempted to rape Phyllis. She was forced to spin the story in her favor. Assuming her most demure look, she spoke quietly, giving the impression that she was just a vulnerable fifty-five-year-old woman.
"Judge, as I passed his table on the way to the ladies room" she lowered her lashes and hesitated. "He reached out and squeezed my behind." She then looked directly at the judge. "I swung the bottle without thinking; it was purely a reflex action."
The case against Mama was dismissed. The little creep did sneak around later and break the windshield out of Mama's car, but she took it in stride because she had extracted "her pound of flesh."
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To buy a copy of Bertie's wonderful book please visit
http://www.amazon.com/Born-Rusty-Spoon-Artists-Memoir/dp/1935514660/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1282226141&sr=1-1-fkmr0
To see some of her pictures click on
http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=bertie+stroup+marah+pictures&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=5vpkTNykBtKR4gbsgJmWCg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQsAQwAA
