I rarely chime in on these Croslin/Cummings threads, but I gotta say this:
Those Croslin kids NEVER had a chance. The grandmother Flo is insane; she raised Lisa who, too, never had a chance, never learned to read or write, uses the f word in everyday conversation with all of her children (hope the grandchildren aren't exposed to that too!).
But then there's Hank Croslin Sr. He lays up in a bed all day while Lisa goes out and puts in applications at least TRYING to find a job. Hank just says, "Ain't nobody gonna give me a job here. All I know is drywall. Can't even read. How am i gonna work at a restaurant?"
In EVERY ONE of these tapes, when the kids ask him how he's doing, he moans about "just laying up in bed all day."
Then he has the cajones to dispense this advice: "Only you can help yourself now, Misty."
Hank. Be the man. Get up out of your filthy bed and go look for a job. You can't find a ride? Walk. You're not too good to flip burgers, scrub toilets, do maintenance at a low-rent hotel.
You steal from your daughter-in-law and your grandchildren just so you can have pills to "handle the stress." You wait on checks to come from your children and probably are eating on the state's dollar. Who pays for your and your wife's pills??
Tommy Croslin. Sure he's a liar. He also has no empathy for other people. All he cares about in all of these phone calls is himself. Thank god that his wife had the good sense to take the children away from this clan.
Sure they tell each other that they "love you" all the time, but if you listen when they say it, it's at awkward times, when they want to change the direction of the conversation, or when they're feeling guilty or feeling self-pity.
These people don't love each other. They co-depend on each other. They do NOTHING to show love for each other. When you love someone, you try to make yourself a better person. But this family... they encourage each other to steal, lie, deny. Sure Hank tells Misty and Tommy to come clean, but it's only because finally he's feeling the pressure of the investigation and his kids being in jail. Hard to borrow money from or live with (i.e. sponge off of) your son when he's in jail.
Now... I do feel sorry for this family. But they do nothing to help themselves. They stumble blindly through life, and, whether or not they would have eventually found themselves the subject of a murder investigation, they all were in some kind of trouble anyway.
The only one with a tidbit of sense is Timmy, and that's only because he got the hell out of dodge and took his wife and kids with him. Oh, and Lindsy, too, but she won't be free of them until she's out of Florida.
It's sad. It's tragic. But it was inevitable. Until these people do something to change the trajectory of their lives, they'll always be penniless and in trouble.
Also...one other thing... in one of the tapes between Timmy and Tommy. Timmy said that he would write a letter to Ronald (to express sympathy about Haleigh), but Tommy ALMOST slipped and told him not to. When I heard that, I knew that Tommy's story is not true.
Sorry to write such a long message. I'm going to go back to reading and listening now.
