As the Year Winds Down...
There are many of us out there that believe that time speeds UP as we grow older, and I have to say I'm among them.
What seemed like a few years ago turns into DECADES before we seem to have time to catch our breath.
It's very hard to believe I've been out of high school for 41 years...that blows me away.
So many memories are still so damn vivid in nature.
And then there's all the years after THAT, with every assorted up and down life could toss at a person.
It's a wonder the human brain can store SO MUCH STUFF, and still function normally in an everyday environment.
I mean, what happens to your computer when the memory gets pretty full?
It slows down, has errors, hangs up, or even crashes altogether...but NOT our good old brain.
We take a licking and keep on ticking (as the old Timex ads used to say).
Now, I want you to hold that thought, because I'll come back to it soon enough.
I want to first do some followup stuff and some statistics that might open your eyes just a bit WIDER.
*** Here are two stories regarding the brutal murder of Aliahna Lemmon.
The first one describes the feelings around the trailer park:
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20111229/LOCAL/312299981
Now, I will grant you that there are trailer parks and then there are TRAILER PARKS. Some are good, while others...not so much.
And not everyone that lives in one is the dregs of society (THEY all somehow manage to get housing vouchers and move to MY part of the ghettohood).
MY grandmother and uncle moved to a great trailer park up in Melody Lakes along rt 309 near Quakertown, PA in the 1970s.
It even had it's own GOLF COURSE, and was beautifully landscaped.
It was more a retirement community than anything else, and it's still going strong (and the trees are a LOT taller).
Other trailer parks become havens for criminals of all sorts, and as can be the case with a roller coaster economy, a place for those who don't always have two nickels to rub against one another to live.
It can become a place to the disenfranchised of society.
But a house is a "house" even if it has wheels, right?
Some of these people don't even want to be there, but they simply have no choice at this point in their lives.
Still, it should be up to the management to review the people living there or wanting to move there.
(when they're not taking government money to place people there, that is).
It's not always the BEST place to "settle down", but it is a roof over your head.
The NEXT story deals with the biological FATHER of little Aliahna, who lives in Iowa and his returning to Fort Wayne for his daughter's funeral.
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20111229/LOCAL07/312299982
Dawayne Maroney, of Centreville, Iowa was provided with funds from the sheriff's department to return here, The sheriff and reserve deputies ponied up the costs so Maroney could come to Indiana, while other donations came from the community for food and lodging while here.
(that's a pretty tight-knit community, imho)
Contributions for a Aliahna Lemmon benefit fund can be made at three locations mentioned in this article.
But wait, there still more crime elsewhere in the Summit city...
*** Here's a link to yet another pizza deliveryman robbery:
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20111229/LOCAL07/111229511
At least in this case, the driver was relatively unharmed and his car wasn't stolen.
Nice to know the FWPD tracked the two perps down fast enough.
There was a gun involved, so the charges just went up a notch (or two).
Deantione (you figure out HOW to say it) Harris, 21 of the 6200 block of Downingtown Drive was arrested and charged with robbery (that should be ARMED robbery). Micheal Eldridge, 26, of the 7600 block of Mill Run Drive (located in Willow Crack...I mean CREEK Crossing Apartments), was also arrested and charged with robbery and being held without bail due to an outstanding warrant (yep, that's outstanding!), while Harris is also being held without bail.
Good thing that crime on the (...all together, gang...) SOUTHEAST SIDE is going DOWN, right?
But wait, we've still more...
*** This story goes to show that you're NEVER too old to deal drugs down on the (...all together, gang...) SOUTHEAST SIDE of Fort Wayne:
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20111229/LOCAL07/111229508/1002/LOCAL
Seems that possession (and possible distribution) of methodone, MDMA, cocaine, ecstasy, and heroin WILL STILL net you a nice holiday stay in the Allen County lockup (yay...bologna sandwiches again).
Norman Caldwell, Sr., 66, of the 4600 block of Spatz Ave and Sharon Hood, 49, of the 300 block of E. Creighton Ave are now BOTH "guests" of the city & county, with Caldwell (who has a rap sheet for drugs going back to 1993 - and he's STILL on our streets with kids in the house) looking at a $5000 bond, while Hood faces a $102,500 bond (nasty girl).
EST assisted in both "visits" to the appropriate addresses in question.
*** And another "baby-boomer" goes bye-bye...
Here's the link:
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20111229/LOCAL07/312299934/1002/LOCAL
One Jerry L. Miars, age 61, of the 1200 block of Vance Ave. was arrested on fours counts of felony dealing a controlled substance, four counts of possession and one for paraphernalia.
Police found FIVE pounds of pilocybin "shrooms" in his house (uh, oh...that ain't good) with a street value of $6000, EIGHT lbs of pot worth $3000, and EIGHT lbs of salvia worth $4000, (what. no partridge is a pear tree?) along with other assorted pills, cash and a HANDGUN (oops - BIG uh-oh, there).
His bail WINS with a total of $223, 250 bucks! (wtg, Jerry...you finally won something)
*** Next up, some sobering statistics about our LEOs out there.
From the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/report-shows-us-police-fatalities-rose-13-percent-in-2011-as-firearms-related-killings-soared/2011/12/28/gIQA7ZNDMP_story.html
(yeah, it IS a long link, but worth the read)
Police officers were killed at a rate THIRTEEN PERCENT HIGHER than last year.
Last year, 153 officers died in the line of duty - THIS year, it rose to 173.
What is really startling is that the FIREARMS-RELATED deaths rose FIFTEEN PERCENT.
Sixty-eight (68) federal, state, and local officers were killed in 2011, and that's up from last year when 59 were killed.
This is the first time in 14 years that deaths by firearms topped traffic-related deaths.
That should make us all appreciate the job these men and women perform on our streets a little bit more, and remember what they do daily.
*** And that brings us back to where this post started...our memories.
We recall good times, bad times, and everything in between.
I think of events as mile-markers in one's life...guideposts if you will, meant to show us not only how far we've COME, but how far we've YET TO GO.
Happy events evoke times in our lives that allow us to kick back, and enjoy the trip, while tragic events serve to steel our resolve to do something...to make things right again.
And each of us manages to store all this "stuff" in something the size of a small grapefruit...that's not too shabby.
I suppose we should all be happy such information is not kept on some desktop, and I most certainly am.
Tomorrow, a brief look back at some of the things that made 2011 stand out.
Be well, make a difference to someone today, and...
Stay SAFE out there, America.