CopyWronged Episode VI: Return of Johnny Pockets

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(Note: Copywronged is a 13 part blog of the backstory behind the 2019 Orphan Works Trial. You have come in the middle of story. Click back to beginning for the FULL story )

2014 was a seriously whacked year. The economy in my opinion was still in the dumpster, the Edge Video stores were struggling and I caught some kind of Avian Flu. I went into the hospital around the end of January, and fell into a coma that lasted for several weeks. When I woke up around the beginning of March, one of the first things I asked Heidi was …”How are the stores doing?’
She replied: “They’re gone.” 

At first I was really crushed, mainly because I never give up on anything and sometimes to my own detriment, I never give on Anyone. But after a fashion I felt this incredible relief and freedom to explore new ventures and my mind was already off to the races on what those things could be. 

The only store that remained was the downtown store, which was only still open because my mother contacted the landlord and paid the rent while I was knocking on heaven’s door or the warmer place depending on who you ask. And so, with a small group of very loyal employees we tried to rebuild the EDGE “Empire”. While I did have a long recovery period, we were having some success. Because one of the profitable aspects of the downtown EDGE was taking in trades and reselling them on-line and other places We came up with this idea: EDGE Mobile Trading or EMT. My plan was to buy old ambulances and by using the Internet to advertise and locate items I started to travel the state buying and reselling. It was quite fun and had a lot of potential. 

Then out of the blue in September of 2014, the downtown landlord asked us to move out. We weren’t behind on the rent, causing any problems (that we knew of) and actually, he wouldn’t even tell us the reason. Which is fine, it’s his building, blah. Blah, blah. Just another thing to adapt to. 

We brushed it off and tried to focus on growing the EMT project. Then in October there was an interesting article in the newspaper, there had been a huge multiple law enforcement agency bust in Bucksport, which is just 20 minutes from Bangor/Brewer towards the coast. According to the article, it was a major theft ring that had targeted Walmart, Hannaford and many other corporate stores. Some lines from the news story like “a Frankfort woman, Jane Tardiff was arrested Thursday after she brandished a handgun at state troopers and federal agents who were serving the search warrant”  and “Tardiff wasn’t involved in the theft ring but related to someone who was..” really made me think. The more I read the article the more I realized, “This is Johnny Pockets!”

To Be Continued….

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