Oddities

We attended a citizens' committee on crime tonight. Our little town, Superior, our newly adopted little town that I think is so quaint and unique has a grimy little underside. It is Crime. It isn't any sort of shoot-you-dead-crime like in the big cities. But it is undeniably crime-ridden. There's some folks in town who don't have a lot of money. And that's fine. Nobody is holding any of that against anybody. But there's some folks who don't have a lot of money and who don't work either and who have a penchant for meth and other illegal drugs. They also seem to have a knack for helping themselves to other people's stuff, like stealing their cars, breaking into their houses and stealing anything that might appeal to other folks. So, that's why this crime meeting came about.

See, we were broken into last Memorial Day. Our house was. We were up in Dillon Beach then but our little house was victimized by some Have-Nots who shinnied up the deck posts and broke out our sliding glass door and entered the living room and then tried to steal the television set. I say, try to, since they didn't get out of the house before the burglar alarm went off and the police finally came. They did succeed in getting the big heavy TV off the shelf and they did succeed in splintering the door all to heck. So that is why we were particularly interested in this citizen's committee on crime.

Bill attended a town council meeting in August and voiced his concern that businesses weren't going to move into Superior if they had to worry about a rising crime rate. Folks wouldn't be crazy about moving here and raising a family if they had to keep worrying about theft of their possessions. And the many retired folks looking for a quaint town to retire in would look elsewhere with an out of control crime rate. So maybe his little speech in August did some good, for in September a citizens' committee on crime was started and tonight they had members of the police department, the mayor, the sheriff's department, the district attorney, the probation department and the local justice of the peace and a superior court judge come to talk to folks to tell us what is what.

Family is a big deal in this little town which I applaud. Isn't that the foundation of Small Town Life, raising one's family and being proud of them and living one's life surrounded by one's family? That's the way it 'should be'. But what also is, and maybe not so laudable, is that in this town when some member of one's family messes up, the family members protect them and don't make them 'fess up. It has undermined numerous crimes in this town that should have taken people to court and did not. That, in turn, has turned a lot of law abiding citizens against the police for 'screwing up' and not prosecuting So 'n So's son because there wasn't enough evidence. Inevitably, as the mayor put it with a huge dismaying sigh, "there's too much finger pointing and not much else". Well, finger pointing isn't going to do it, so that's why the different groups of law enforcement were there.

What it looks like will happen is that there's a good group through the sheriff's office already working in the schools and a citizen's group maybe trying to get another youth group started outside of school. There's a movement within the city police department to have citizens groups do some patrolling, do some clerical work in the department itself and have a neighborhood crime watch program started. The mayor urged folks to step forward and not be afraid of retribution. The town council has begun abatement proceedings for neglected properties which breed criminal activities. It's all positive and it will all take work, but it appears the town is on the right track.

It wasn't all a Love Fest however. There were some folks there who were resentful at the police department for past mistakes. They wanted to air their gripes. It's a small town, they're entitled to it. Old grudges aren't easily forgotten by some, even if maybe this wasn't the place to air real old Dirty Laundry.

But there is one old fellow who has just worn out his welcome in this town. He claims there is a lawless faction of druggies on his block and he airs his complaints at every town council meeting about the useless police department until you want to jump out of your chair and gag him with a dirty sock. The man wouldn't know how to win folks over with constructive remarks. He only knows how to complain and make a great fool of himself. More than once, we have heard the mayor remind him he may only talk for three minutes while he drones on about his problems and those of the police department and those of the town council endlessly.

When I saw he was sitting in the front row tonight, I groaned inwardly. But for the most part, he appeared to be minding his manners and only interrupted a few times. Until the end. Then he started spouting off and interrupting the speakers. I watched the chief of police and the mayor at the podium and noticed that their eyes weren't looking at the man at all. It was as though he weren't there. Bill and I were sitting to one side but in the second row so we could see this man's face sideways. And when I slid my eyes over at him, I did a double take. Was that a ring in his nose? A blue plastic ring?

Quickly, I looked at Bill's face, who was watching the current speaker talking. Mentally, I urged him to take a look at the Bothersome Man's face. It seemed to work. In a few moments, Bill's eyes flicked over that way and then looked down at me.

I dug my elbow into his side. "Is that for real?" I whispered.

"No shit!" Bill slid me a quick grin and turned his attention back to the speaker.

I looked again. No shit, for certain. The Town Agitator was sucking on a blue plastic pacifier. But he kept popping it out of his mouth when he was vexed and had to interrupt a speaker with a question.

I was mortified with embarassment by the man. What in the world were the representatives from the county and the law enforcement agencies wondering by the likes of that man in our meeting? Would they think Superior was a joke? Would they think the rest of us law abiding citizens were a bunch of ninnies too? Or would they just think, well, Superior is just a little town with a big problem: You gotta take the Soup with the Nuts!