There is news of social breakdown from around the United States and the world, so why should my ‘Hood be any different? Quick answer, it isn’t.
Let’s start with bad doings elsewhere. Today I read that hippy-dippy Whole Foods is closing its flagship San Francisco store due to street crime and drug issues making it unsafe for workers. Repeat after me: Defund the police!
This is in San Francisco, which has had several prominent types attacked or murdered in recent months, including the hammer attack on Mr. Nancy Pelosi last October.
Other stores are fleeing Woke cities, and their defund-the-police policies, a trend amplified by those cities decriminalizing things such as shoplifting and drug use, which tend to affect negatively stores trying to turn a profit there.
Move across the country to Baltimore, where chaos reigned in the city’s showplace Inner Harbor area with shooting and fighting over the weekend. The mayor will institute a curfew. Sure, that will fix things.
Miami Beach was a war zone during spring break
Los Angeles finally got around to ending the COVID “crisis” and replaced it by declaring a homeless crisis.
In France, workers are in the streets protesting increased age to collect pensions even as their leader Macron is too busy kissing up to the Chinese to notice.
Back in the USA, news comes that our soiled FBI still is looking to paint with a criminal brush anyone on the political right, sentencing them to watchlists for using words such as “based,” “Chad,” or “Stacy.” These conservatives ought to just begin stealing up to $1,000 a shopping trip in California because that’s no problem.
Don’t you feel safer now?
My ‘Hood had been relatively quiet until a couple of weeks back when guys in windbreakers and, eventually, the police showed up on the street.
The wife’s phone rang then and since, seeking details because she is an oft-time listener of the police scanner. Alas, not this time.
In intervening days, speculation and rumors flew. Confirmation of sorts came via social media. While doing my routine searching for cars I came across a 47-minute video posted by some people who dedicate their lives to trying to ferret out underage sex talk, or worse, on the internet and, to use their words “hold accountable” those adults participating. They were the guys in the windbreakers
My front porch, brightly illuminated as it is nightly, can be seen in the background of the video as they shot their video from an upstreet angle. According to the video, these people had 75 pages or so of interaction via computer between this middle-aged guy, married and father of two, and a supposed girl who identified herself as being 15 years of age despite a profile listing her as 18.
It was painful to watch the video, especially when the guy’s wife came home.
Was there a crime here? Sounds like it.
Not that it matters, but this is the home of a government employee and high-profile supporter of Democrats. The yard and/or house, for months if not years, sported Biden and Fetterman campaign signs along with Black Lives Matter and various rainbow gender commentary.
All seem to be gone now
Since this happened, I’ve heard of an incident on the street alleging that a visitor had, while parking, backed into someone’s car repeatedly. This act supposedly was witnessed by someone in the family of the car owner, but denied by people in the parking car and by a third-party witness.
Discussion ensued.
These are the highlights (lowlights?) although the usual symphony of loud vehicle exhausts, loud home and vehicle stereos and barking dogs has been a consistent backdrop.
This is the sort of thing I had hoped to escape by moving to this small borough.
I have experience with Johnstown neighborhoods, both seemingly idyllic and noticeably checkered. My early years were spent in Oakland. Since then I’d lived in Walnut Grove, Hornerstown and Oakhurst before landing in Southmont.
Hopefully, things will calm down to the sort of neighborhood we had when I first moved here 30-plus years back. But, given societal trends, I’m not optimistic.
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