RRN Online Volume 19

October 06 '96

Volume 19

Vandelism An Alarming Situation

I spent Friday night in Greenville, rather than drive to Pontotoc for the weekend. Since I would be leaving Sunday afternoon for Atlanta, Barbara did not wish to go to Pontotoc and drive back to Greenville alone on Sunday evening. For this reason, I decided I should at least spend an extra night in Greenville and drive to Pontotoc on Saturday morning. The nice part about traveling on Saturday morning is twofold. I find the traffic less hectic than the pre-football game traffic of Friday evenings, and on Saturday mornings I get to listen to Car Talk, the absolutely, positively, most entertaining, and comical broadcast on Public Radio. The two brothers on the show, Tom and Ray Magliozzi, respond to questions from callers with not only good-sense solutions to car problems, but also lace some excellent humor amid the correct answers.

Our Greenville residence (Whoops, Uncle Lamar, I almost typed home.) is located on a corner lot at the intersection of Arnold Avenue and Robertshaw Street. Along Robertshaw approximately 2 blocks East of our house, is Greenville High School. Friday night was homecoming night for the football game at Greenville High. Barbara and I were just going to bed as the game ended. It was easy to tell when the game was over, by hearing the loud language (unintelligible, as it may be) of those who traveled afoot along our street, as well as the zooming automobiles resonating with megawatts of "Soul Power" music.

Early after we purchased this residence, Barbara remarked that she did not like to walk into a dark house, particularly in a part of the city that is difficult to define along color lines, and particularly in a city noted for a high rate of crime among the African-American citizenry. I installed a sound activated device in a wall lamp just inside the kitchen door that serves as our principle point of entry. The idea was to have the light come on as we entered the door, triggered by a 30 second tone that warns us to deactivate the alarm system. In practice the light responds to sounds both outside and inside the house. Street traffic and our air conditioning system are a couple of examples of things that cause the light to come on.

A loud bang prompted me to get out of bed and peek from the blinds of our bedroom window, to seek the source of the noise. I saw perhaps 25 black students walking home from the ball game. At about the same time, a car with a high powered stereo system, drove by with bass tones driven to the maximum. It was plenty of noise to trigger the kitchen light. In the next instant I heard the breaking glass followed immediately by our burglar alarm. I hurried to the kitchen area, seeking the source of the disturbance, and I noticed that our dining room drapes were open along the wall that faces the heavier traffic. I could see that the upper half of the storm window had been shattered, and a biscuit sized hole in the inside pane had been created by an, as yet, unknown object. After disabling the alarm I put on my pants and slippers (Okay, they were shoes. I do not have slippers, at least none like those worn by Fred MacMurray, Ozzie Nelson, or Robert Young in the TV shows of the 50’s. Sis, I hope this is not too long a parenthetical expression.) to further investigate the damage to our house.

A few seconds later the alarm service called to check on the alarm. Barbara answered the phone, as I noticed our street was now entirely clear of pedestrians. Since it appeared to be vandalism, the alarm service dispatched a couple of police cars to our house. I found a large rock about a foot away from the base of the wall with the broken window. The rock is one formed from crushed gray rock, used as a gravel substitute and also by road repair/ resurfacing contractors. I mention this because its size (1x1x2) does not seem to fit its weight (lighter than expected), at least in proportion to common gravel rock.

The police arrived and inspected the relatively minor damage to our dwelling, drew the same conclusions that I had, as to the perpetrator’s (that’s a police word that I learned watching Dragnet or some detective show) action, being vandalism. After asking for my Social Security number, height, age, and weight, I was asked to sign their official report of the incident. By this time, all desire for sleep had left my body.

I later reasoned this random act of vandalism was caused by the light, abruptly shining through the dining room window, as if to signify to the kids on the street that someone was checking on their activities. I cannot recall the last time Barbara or I failed to close the drapes in that room before retiring for the evening. I doubt we shall neglect to do so again, or at least, in the near future.

After taping over the hole in our inside window, we reset our alarm and went to bed. On Saturday morning Barbara secured the services of Greenville Paint and Glass to repair our windows. We were both surprised to get the work done on a Saturday. I slept better in Pontotoc, Saturday night, knowing that Barbara felt more secure with our residence in Greenville, in a repaired state.

Hermit Crabs and Puppy Dog Tales

Anna Lynn Butler has a new puppy. It is a female Dalmatian, that now answers, to the name Oreo. Anna had first chosen Precious for the name, but later decided to change it. On Saturday, the 19th of October, her family went canoeing at Tombigbee State Park in Tishomingo. It would not be my idea of a good time, past or present, to take a puppy along on a river float trip. The puppy got motion sickness, either from the car ride or boat ride, but the evidence of sickness was revealed in the boat. The puppy also had a bowel control problem while in the boat. Fortunately, the unwanted contents of the boat were easily rinsed away, and the family enjoyed the canoe trip.

Alladin, Anna’s largest hermit crab that she has had for about 2 years, died last week. She told her Nana that before a funeral could be arranged, Anson flushed poor Alladin down the toilet. Perhaps, Alladin is now buried at sea, or to paraphrase Wordsworth’s Ode: Intimations of Immortality, Sea thou art, to sea returneth.

I will have to tell Anna about the startling experience I had with a hermit crab in the boathouse in Chauvin, LA. In the dim light of early morning I was reaching for the rope that fastened the inside door to the slip where our boat was tied, when a shadowy figure quickly moved along a timber as I reached to untie the rope. Quickly, I drew back my hand, thinking that I had encountered a large spider, possibly a tarantula. Not until I heard its feet producing a clicking sound, as it scurried away, did I realize it was a crab. It was then that my heart rate began its return to normal from its stroke-stage heights. Jim Hess identified it as a hermit crab without a shell. It was my first time to see one without a shell.

Hermit crabs use the discarded shell of other creatures or any other device that suits their need for a home on their back. These crabs are born in the ocean but, once they emerge from the sea and begin life on land, they cannot return to live in the sea again. Just a little crab trivia, I thought you might find interesting.

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