On
my daily bike ride yesterday . . .
. . . an elderly lady insisted on passing your dear
dedicated blogger while he was negotiating a narrow road with zero shoulder. She, in her wisdom, also decided to pass
while said blogger was peddling up a slight hill that sat squat on a blind curve. She was also speeding. Well, at that precise moment, guess
what? A motorcycle was coming in the
opposite direction down said slight hill and around said curve. Could it get more interesting? Yes. Add
to this situation not one, not two, but three sex-crazed squirrels who chose
that exact moment to dash right in front of all of us, all in a row. This could have, and perhaps should have, ended
very badly for all concerned but, because all of us—with the exception of the squirrels—kept our wits,
did not panic, did not swerve—it passed without notice. Truly, this island road is a perilous place
to pursue my passion of pumping pedals for phun and phitness.
_____________________________________________________________________
Manatees
are breeding on the Lemon Bay side of this little island. Now, unlike squirrels, I would hate to get
between these great beasts and the object of their pursuit. They seem very gentle and passive most of the
time but I suspect when love is in the air, or rather, when love is in the
water, that one will end up looking like a day-old beer can looks after a day on a
busy street should one get between two manatees and their mating mania.
_____________________________________________________________________
A
seventeen-year old kid lost his arm to a gator this week while swimming in some
nearby Indian-named river that is hard to pronounce and impossible to spell
(Castahatahoochee?). Unlike the rest of
the country, kids down here seem oblivious to the gators in fresh water and the
sharks in salt. Right here on a little
bridge spanning our key and Sandpiper Key, and tho it’s against the law, teens—male
and female-- line up to jump into the deep green water below. Since that water is “brackish,” or half
freshwater and half salt, that means it has both gators and sharks! Kids from
anywhere else in the States would say, “Not me!
Nooooo Way! Like, are you kidding?”
But having lived around these perils all their lives, these kids here seem
utterly indifferent. Alas, like the
young chap above, every so often one of these bold teens pays the price. As my old grandma might say, “Heal up and hair
over, young feller!”
_____________________________________________________________________
Michelle
and I watched a two-hour program the other night on the abduction, rape and
enslavement of an eleven-year-old girl. She was held not for a day or a week,
but for eighteen years. The individual that held her had been let out
on parole and seemingly only received some once-over-lightlys by probation
monitors. Hence, he was almost free as a
bird to go about his deviltry and this child grew to womanhood while acting as
his virtual sex slave (which included having 2 babies by this creature).
Yesterday,
on the same beach where I take my daily plunge, a 37-year-old registered pedo
was caught by an alert deputy sheriff just sauntering along with his "toy," a 15-year-old
boy. He was, of course, arrested and
jailed. Today, however, this fellow is
out and free-as-bird to continue what he does best. His bond: A whopping $1,000. Really, what kind of civilization has “laws”
like that? What kind of civilization
just turns these predators loose after they are caught? The answer is, of course, no kind of strong, decent, healthy
“civilization” does this.
These
crimes are so ruinous, so despicable, so pervasive, and seemingly so incurable
that, rather than thousand-dollar bonds, I propose we involve some serious risk
element to the game: Three strikes and you are REALLY out; First strike--ten years in lockup, minimum;
second strike—castration; third strike--bye-bye.
Or
maybe, since nothing else is working and since judges let them go the minute
they are caught and since they seem to outnumber the rest of us anyway, maybe
we should just surrender and say, “Okay, you win. We give up.
You are free to do your worst. The
rest of us are moving to Greenland where you can’t get our kids. Should you follow us there we will kill every
one of you the very instant you step off the boat!”
_____________________________________________________________________
Despite
little more than reruns over the past decade, Cops remains one of my all time favorite TV programs. Well, tomorrow night I get to play out my
role of caped crusader when I do a ride-along with the North Port Police
Department. Since North Port seems to be
ground zero for the majority of violent crime in this here region, the evening
should be an eventful one. A full report
coming. Stay tuned.
_____________________________________________________________________
Phuny for the Day
