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Posted on 10/02/2003 6:26:51 AM PDT by bedolido
VAN -- Jimmie Lovett, a homeless handyman from Boone County, took a chance, bought a $5 yellow rubber duck and won $10,000.
The winner of last month's Charleston Sternwheel Regatta's Rubber Ducky Derby, the only title he's ever had, has since been sentenced to a year of home confinement for a June drunken driving arrest. In what seems like either a mocking twist of fate or a terrible case of bad judgment, Jimmie spent all his derby winnings buying his first home, a tiny ramshackle trailer in the middle of Boone County. He now says he can't afford to pay his county's home confinement fees and has resigned himself to spending a year in jail.
While he's behind bars, he won't be able to work, won't be able to finish paying off his mortgage and ultimately could end up losing his home.
"I'm going to be right back where I started," he says.
This is the cycle of Jimmie Lovett's life.
The 42-year-old Cleveland native thought things were going to turn around after he found out his rubber duck floated the fastest in the annual charity event.
He laughs a little bit when he talks about it.
"I really thought my prayers had been answered," Jimmie says.
He wound up at Regatta after receiving a pretty good chunk of change for helping out with repairs from this summer's Boone County floods. He used his pay to book a weekend at a Charleston Holiday Inn, borrowed a friend's car and brought his two teenage sons to the festival.
"It was supposed to be a last blast before they went back to school," Jimmie says, beaming with pride and bragging about his boys, ages 14 and 16. He says they're straight-A students destined for success.
One of them persuaded Jimmie to buy a ticket for the Rubber Ducky Derby to help out the United Way because, he told his father, "There are people who are in worse shape than we are."
At the time, Jimmie was wandering the streets of Van, living either in abandoned houses, vacant motor homes or makeshift shacks in the woods. Sometimes he crashed on a friend's sofa. Other times he slept on the street.
Jimmie's sons live with his estranged wife, from whom he separated about eight years ago. He's considered himself homeless since then.
He still thinks of his wife, a woman nearly bedridden with kidney problems, as a good friend. Jimmie claims he had more trouble with his in-laws than he did with her and would rather live on the streets than in the house the whole family shares in Van.
Boone County sheriff's deputies recall having been called to the home in the past for domestic violence complaints.
"There's been some trouble with his family, but (Jimmie's) not the type you consider a violent offender," Chief Deputy Rodney Miller says. "Mostly, his problems stem from alcohol."
Jimmie doesn't think he drinks "much more than the next person," but still considers himself an alcoholic.
"Anytime somebody drinks to calm their nerves or to get unstressed, they're an alcoholic," he says. "I don't smoke cigarettes, I don't do pot, but everybody has a vice. I drink."
Jimmie left home at the age of 13 because, "Dad was dead and Mom was an alcoholic." He says it quietly and simply and doesn't seem to want to elaborate.
He raised himself on Cleveland's streets, taught himself to do odd jobs and home repairs and, after meeting his wife in a pizza parlor when he was 21, moved to Boone County with her and her family.
Today, he doesn't look like someone who has been homeless most of his life. He doesn't sound like someone who quit school before the eighth grade. And he doesn't act like a man who's ready to go to jail.
With his thick head of dark hair, bright intelligent eyes and the tanned physique you usually see on men who spend long days working on hot rooftops, Jimmie looks a lot like somebody who just needs a break.
It was late one night in June when Jimmie had been drinking, borrowed a friend's car and spun out on some railroad tracks. He was arrested then, for the second time, for driving drunk.
"I'm only human," Jimmie said, sitting on a sofa in a cluttered house in a swampy Boone County neighborhood. "I've made mistakes and I've done something wrong and I feel like I've got to pay a debt."
Last week, Jimmie was staying at a friend's house while having the utilities turned on at his new trailer. His hands shook a little bit as he talked and he frequently ran his fingers through his hair as though he was worn out, exasperated or both.
At the time of his Regatta win, Jimmie was free on bond and expected to be sentenced to probation.
He didn't think he would need any of his $10,000 to pay for home confinement. After buying the trailer, he spent the rest of his winnings buying furniture, groceries for his new refrigerator and, "a couple CDs for the kids."
Phyllis Dillon, an older lady who lives right outside Van and often lets Jimmie sleep on her couch, shakes her head with a sad smile when she talks about his predicament.
"He's had a rough time," she says. "But he's a good worker. He helps me out here all the time, mows the lawn, takes care of things.
"Sometimes I don't know what I would do without him."
Miller said Boone County's court system usually doesn't waive home confinement fees ($50 for enrollment and $8 a day after that) and would expect someone like Jimmie to find a way to pay.
"If somebody can afford to buy cigarettes or buy alcohol, they can afford to pay home confinement fees," he said.
When Jimmie talks about his legal drama, it seems like more than just financial strains led him to choose jail time over home confinement. He talks about the temptations he has on the streets and the opportunity a one-year jail sentence actually might give him.
"They've got a 28-day (alcohol addiction) program, and I want to do that," he says. "I'm thinking about a GED or something. If I'm on home confinement, I'm not going to be able to get ahead."
He also doesn't know how he'll be able to find odd jobs if he's confined to his house. Work is lean during the fall and winter. It would be hard for him to finish making his trailer payments (he's got about $1,500 left to pay) and cover the home confinement costs.
Jimmie planned to hitch a ride today to the Boone County courthouse "to turn myself in," he says.
"I just want to get it over with. I want to do the time and get out and start over."
Writer Kris Wise can be reached at 348-1244.
Because he's in detox at a "whites only" rehab facility.
Where female clinical staff, no make that male clinical staff claim he tried to grope them.
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