Post by puppie96 on Feb 8, 2008 12:19:10 GMT -5
I have to talk about this for a minute. Last night they broke into TV about 7:20 with the first reports about the city hall shootings. I was just home from my office, which is about a mile south of there. I don't think I've stopped crying since then....
Kirkwood is a pretty, older burb that has long been a friendly place with a small town feel. I don't live in Kirkwood but just a couple minutes outside of their boundaries and it really has become the place I think of as my neighborhood. That aerial shot you probably have seen of the city hall lawn is where I had my tent set up back when I was doing art and craft shows. They used to have a show there annually. About 2 blocks west is the big city park and rec center. They have a big festival there each fall and for probably 15 years or so I've had a set up there. My tie dyed apparel is all over Kirkwood. People would come to me year after year -- some of the kids I've outfitted from infancy to near adulthood! Since I am self employed and can self schedule, and my office is so close, I keep mid afternoons open and skate at the rink at the rec center almost every day. From there I head over to those store fronts you can see going down the block south of city hall to grab a cup of coffee before I go back to the office. This place is home. I don't know many names of people, but I know a lot of faces and there's no doubt in my mind that the kids I see around the rink are family and friends of the deceased.
I don't know whether your news reports included the part about their other police officer who was killed in 2005 -- the killer just got a death sentence and people thought the sentence might have been one of the triggers that got this shooter over the edge. In yet another ironic twist, at that time the officer's name sounded familiar and when I looked in my files, I found that sure enough, he was the officer that investigated the accident when I got rearended a few months before on the way to my office. He was a young, nice looking and very professional cop who it turns out had a young family. That, too, was just awful.
Meanwhile, on the home front, Joe and I had a long running feud with our own city council and zoning board. We live in another very small but incorporated "city" with a lot of zoning officials with an attitude and we fought them tooth and nail to get permission to build our screen porch out back, even though this wasn't a crappy prefab job or anything, it was designed by me and built by a contractor who is a real craftsman and does beautiful work. With the rage we experienced over this nonsense, it is so easy to relate to the shooter's frustration and anger over his inability to deal with the police and city hall about his parking tickets. After our eventual success with the zoning board, we have half jokingly talked about my running for city council or taking a vacant spot on the zoning board so that maybe some common sense and reason would be exercised. Our town meetings are held at an adjoining larger town's city hall since we are way too small to have our own. That one is also in a nice suburb and metal detectors there or security? NO way. Like Kirkwood, it feels safe. Who would ever think that city officials would be at risk. It is just way too easy to imagine Joe or myself sitting at the table in front of the room.
I don't know exactly why I am writing this, but thank you for listening.
Kirkwood is a pretty, older burb that has long been a friendly place with a small town feel. I don't live in Kirkwood but just a couple minutes outside of their boundaries and it really has become the place I think of as my neighborhood. That aerial shot you probably have seen of the city hall lawn is where I had my tent set up back when I was doing art and craft shows. They used to have a show there annually. About 2 blocks west is the big city park and rec center. They have a big festival there each fall and for probably 15 years or so I've had a set up there. My tie dyed apparel is all over Kirkwood. People would come to me year after year -- some of the kids I've outfitted from infancy to near adulthood! Since I am self employed and can self schedule, and my office is so close, I keep mid afternoons open and skate at the rink at the rec center almost every day. From there I head over to those store fronts you can see going down the block south of city hall to grab a cup of coffee before I go back to the office. This place is home. I don't know many names of people, but I know a lot of faces and there's no doubt in my mind that the kids I see around the rink are family and friends of the deceased.
I don't know whether your news reports included the part about their other police officer who was killed in 2005 -- the killer just got a death sentence and people thought the sentence might have been one of the triggers that got this shooter over the edge. In yet another ironic twist, at that time the officer's name sounded familiar and when I looked in my files, I found that sure enough, he was the officer that investigated the accident when I got rearended a few months before on the way to my office. He was a young, nice looking and very professional cop who it turns out had a young family. That, too, was just awful.
Meanwhile, on the home front, Joe and I had a long running feud with our own city council and zoning board. We live in another very small but incorporated "city" with a lot of zoning officials with an attitude and we fought them tooth and nail to get permission to build our screen porch out back, even though this wasn't a crappy prefab job or anything, it was designed by me and built by a contractor who is a real craftsman and does beautiful work. With the rage we experienced over this nonsense, it is so easy to relate to the shooter's frustration and anger over his inability to deal with the police and city hall about his parking tickets. After our eventual success with the zoning board, we have half jokingly talked about my running for city council or taking a vacant spot on the zoning board so that maybe some common sense and reason would be exercised. Our town meetings are held at an adjoining larger town's city hall since we are way too small to have our own. That one is also in a nice suburb and metal detectors there or security? NO way. Like Kirkwood, it feels safe. Who would ever think that city officials would be at risk. It is just way too easy to imagine Joe or myself sitting at the table in front of the room.
I don't know exactly why I am writing this, but thank you for listening.
