not a gun but a social behavioral problem

Predicting a murder in the City of St. Louis is easier and more accurate than forecasting the weather. If I could place a bet down in Vegas, or one of our local casinos here in St. Charles County, Missouri, I’d be a richer man. My accuracy on a murder forecast would be a 100% probability, and I’d be 100% accurate each and every night.

Blaming killings on the gun is an old, tired excuse. God forbid it could not be a person problem, a behavioral problem if you will. Many of these murders happen in the very late night or early AM morning hours. I remember in the day, we had curfews in our small town of Union, MO. If a police officer saw me and my friends walking the streets after midnight (or maybe it was 11:00PM) they’d stop, roll down their window and say “boys time to get home, do it on your own or I’ll take you”! My mother would often say “…..nothing of any good happens after midnight when you are out and about, so get you’re tail home.” Mom wasn’t always right but she was right about that. Now mind you, my mom and dad (and my friend’s parents) didn’t just let us leave the house late at night to roam around. If we left for some kind of event or activity earlier in the day, they told us when they expected us to be home, and we usually got home on time, or our dads would come looking for us. However, occasionally my friends and I camped out for the night, and yes we might risk an officer pull over. We’d sometimes walk to the nearby laundry mat and get some candy and a soda (some of you may call it pop) from the vending machine. If an officer saw us, he’d see our innocent behavior, confirmed by the purchase we carried in our hands. He’d also see we were walking in the direction of our homes. No harm, no foul! “Just hurry along boys!” I’m not saying we were perfect little angels. Once in awhile we’d raid veggie gardens at night. Some of our neighbors had nice tomatoes, carrots and potatoes. They made for nice midnight snacks. We only did that a couple of times and always from someones garden we knew, so as not to get into too much trouble if we got caught, which we never did. That was pretty much the extent of our juvenile bad behavior. We didn’t carry guns looking for someone to kill for the thrill or because it was a requirement from our little neighborhood gang. If anything, if we saw something that shouldn’t happen, we said something; aside from our few and in between potato and tomato thefts of course. (oh and by the way, we never took that many that could be noticed, you couldn’t even tell any had been taken from the vine).

Back when I was a kid growing up, we more resembled “The Little Rascals” or “Our Gang” TV classics than today’s late night/early morning news. We were more likely to be pulled by the ears and drug home by mom, dad or an adult neighbor/friend, for breaking out a window from a baseball than shooting someone (and certainly not raiding a garden).

Growing up is sure different today than it once was! Our store merchants let us soap their windows on Halloween (they had them prepped for easy cleaning), just don’t throw eggs and you won’t get into trouble. What has happened? Broken homes, low church attendance……….poverty, education system issues (high school drop outs). Could it be we have some really serious social problems, which nobody wants to discuss. Its easier to blame something materialistic or manufactured, than to blame the MIND (individually and collective whole of society). Let’s just continue to blame rather than solve, that way we can still have those news broadcast the media loves to report on. Bad news carries more attention and a greater audience. Bad stuff sells, along with stupidity. Isn’t there a behavioral issue there? I see one.

https://kplr11.com/2019/08/24/father-of-latest-child-killed-in-the-city-of-st-louis-calls-on-suspect-to-turn-themselves-in/

IF OUR MOMS ONLY KNEW (WE WERE “OUR GANG”)

Part 1

Pear fights were common in our neighborhood.    There was this one old pear tree in the back yard of the home of the neighborhood bully, Jack Roberts.   The tree was quite productive, always full of this firm, golden fruit.   During the fall pears covered the ground across most of the yard.   We ate the ones we picked from the trees……but those we lifted from the ground were our weapons of choice.    Jack was especially an ass on this one particular day, this is when the pear wars began.  I don’t recall what he did, but it ticked me off, I grabbed a pear and threw a dart that caught him square to the forehead, bullseye!  Jack predictably returned fire.   This first battle began in anger, I don’t recall how it ended, his mother I suppose came out.   Other pear fights between about 4 of us boys took place occasionally from then on, but “usually” just in fun.  The only other incident I really had with the bully was when I tossed his fishing pole in the city lake, after I threatened him I would if he didn’t quit picking on my brother Gary and Russell a neighbor friend.   Jack couldn’t reach his pole, so it was lost and I got a whipping shortly after I got home.   Yep, a whipping, parents gave those back in the 60s.  It was probably good for my behind that Jack’s family moved away before long.

There was ground down the hill from our house on the other side of the creek, filled with scattered trees, thick brush, high grass and plenty of weeds that left evidence on our clothing where we’d been all day.   It was a great playground, no swing sets or monkey bars but ground where we could dig our fox holes.   Yes fox holes, another battle ground for our war games.  We divided up sides each team about 50 yards apart, then we hid and snuck (you say sneaked, back then it was snuck) up on the other team.  New weapon choice, this big stem of a weed that was like a tree.   It was stiff like a stick…..and when you pulled it up by the roots it had this pointed tip.   It could have put an eye out……50 years later I am amazed it didn’t.   OMG if our mothers knew!  Yes we threw them at each other……if hit you lost a life.  We each had 3 lives.  Game over with the first team that ran out lives.

War games as a youngster would probably be politically incorrect now.  Family Services may even come and take us from our parents today.  You’ll be happy to know, we used that same ground to dig for our fishing worms, actually huge, juicy Nightcrawlers.  Bass and Catfish loved them.  The ground was fertile from the Flat Creek floods.  We fished often, not all my childhood involved spearing my best friends on our battlefield.  We were never sure who owned this property.   Some of my friends said our families did, that our property lines crossed the creek up to the edge of our battlefield or the tree line……..to a cornfield and the Union Saddle Club’s horse arena.  Regardless, no one ever gave us any trouble digging our holes and making hideouts from brush.

I was between the age of 11 to 14 during this period (1963-66).  Looking back it was a great time.   It is rare for kids to be outdoors engaging with nature using their creative minds like we did in those good old days.    We didn’t need computers or WI for war games like todays kids as they sit on their behinds.  Our games got physical, it is called natural exercise.   I wouldn’t trade a minute of it for todays.