Being Multi-faceted in a Two-Dimensional Society, part 2, with R. H. Phillips, Author of "Witness to a Crime"

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By Joan Brunwasser (about the author) Page 2 of 2 page(s)

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I already knew how to search chains of title. I had taught myself to do it in county court houses as a graduate student in Oklahoma, where I investigated large-scale land frauds on the American frontier. Sometimes the government had stolen land from the Indians. Sometimes the railroads and the timber companies had stolen land from the government. The deeds, statutes, and treaties told the tale. A search of the chains of title revealed the present land holders. Chains of title tend to be complete. There are not supposed to be any breaks in the chain. In this way they are almost unique among historical records.

In my new job as a title searcher in New Mexico, I learned to match up five different survey systems, to find surveyors’ monuments in the field, to read legal documents in two languages, to cure defects in chains of title, and to examine title abstracts for insurability – the only thing I have ever been licensed to do.

Eventually, I grew homesick and returned to the Adirondack Mountains, where I resumed my “career” as a performing musician during the summer tourist season. I moonlighted as a geologic consultant in New Mexico during the winter months, serving as an expert witness in a case involving the same nuclear dump site on which I had written my doctoral dissertation. And I began restoring long-neglected hiking trails in the Lake Placid watershed, as I had done elsewhere in the Adirondacks during my youth.

One day on the Gothics summit, I met a hiker with an ATIS logo on his clothing. He worked for the Adirondack Trail Improvement Society, clearing and maintaining hiking trails in the Ausable Lakes watershed. I had been hiking in the Adirondacks since I was four years old, but I had never known that you can get paid for clearing the trails. I have worked with ATIS ever since, for thirteen years, on a seasonal basis.

On the morning of my interview with ATIS Executive Director Tony Goodwin, I was camped in a lean-to in the pouring rain. I hiked out to the Town Hall at Lake Placid, washed my face and hands, and walked into Tony’s office with my clothes all covered with mud, thus proving I was up to the job.

I have also worked on a freelance basis as a trail blazer in the Lake George watershed of New York and the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, scouting the wilderness, flagging the route, and cutting the trail with bow saw, axe, and clippers. Trail blazers are a rare breed. You can’t look us up in the yellow pages.

House musician, title searcher, trail blazer. Yes, I am all of these things. I am also a retired college professor, an erstwhile field geologist, and an election fraud investigator.

As I write these words I am sitting on the mossy banks of Johns Brook, watching the whitewater rapids which flow to the Ausable River, thence to Lake Champlain, and ultimately to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. I hop from rock to boulder to have a closer look as the water rushes by like time itself. Time is endless, but our lives are very short. We are here a little while and then are gone, and nothing but our legacy lives on. I have made my mark in a quest for truth and beauty. All other motivations are unworthy in comparison.
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Witness to a Crime: A Citizens’ Audit of an American Election is not available in bookstores. Click on the link above for information on how to get a copy for yourself and/or your local library.

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Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which exists for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election (more...)

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
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