So my wife had a few downtown Cleveland appointments today and being the Uber driver I am we went downtown and all in all things went OK. I decided on the way home we would stop at the Giant Eagle supermarket one small town over from where we live. I left Kathy in the truck, engine running and windows up as it is cold up here.

I leave the market with my cart and load my groceries in the truck and as we are exiting the parking lot. all of a sudden, there are all these police cars all over the place. Looked at Kathy quizzically and said "what the heck is going on"? Never gave it much thought and away we went. Then I read the evening paper online. Check this out!

I have tremendous respect for guns and am hard pressed wondering how, even an idiot can manage to shoot his own child in a car. The only way a gun, for the most part, will discharge is when someone is playing with it, handling it and manages to pull the trigger.

So I asked Kathy if while she waited she heard a gunshot and she said she did hear a "pop" but assumed it was passing traffic. Well now we know why all those police cars were showing up. Maple Heights was once a nice little community of mostly bungalow style homes and well manicured lawns. That was 32 years ago when I met my wife. Today it is broke financially and actually a few homicides have moved south from Cleveland along with robbery and other crime. I still can't believe handling a loaded gun in a vehicle with a child present. Go figure huh? On the bright side we live a town over.

Ron

 

So my wife had a few downtown Cleveland appointments today and being the Uber driver I am we went downtown and all in all things went OK. I decided on the way home we would stop at the Giant Eagle supermarket one small town over from where we live. I left Kathy in the truck, engine running and windows up as it is cold up here.

I leave the market with my cart and load my groceries in the truck and as we are exiting the parking lot. all of a sudden, there are all these police cars all over the place. Looked at Kathy quizzically and said "what the heck is going on"? Never gave it much thought and away we went. Then I read the evening paper online. Check this out!

I have tremendous respect for guns and am hard pressed wondering how, even an idiot can manage to shoot his own child in a car. The only way a gun, for the most part, will discharge is when someone is playing with it, handling it and manages to pull the trigger.

So I asked Kathy if while she waited she heard a gunshot and she said she did hear a "pop" but assumed it was passing traffic. Well now we know why all those police cars were showing up. Maple Heights was once a nice little community of mostly bungalow style homes and well manicured lawns. That was 32 years ago when I met my wife. Today it is broke financially and actually a few homicides have moved south from Cleveland along with robbery and other crime. I still can't believe handling a loaded gun in a vehicle with a child present. Go figure huh? On the bright side we live a town over.

Ron

You may have already seen this as it is old. I gave up trying to understand the limits of poor/non thinking long ago.

 

So my wife had a few downtown Cleveland appointments today and being the Uber driver I am we went downtown and all in all things went OK. I decided on the way home we would stop at the Giant Eagle supermarket one small town over from where we live. I left Kathy in the truck, engine running and windows up as it is cold up here.

I leave the market with my cart and load my groceries in the truck and as we are exiting the parking lot. all of a sudden, there are all these police cars all over the place. Looked at Kathy quizzically and said "what the heck is going on"? Never gave it much thought and away we went. Then I read the evening paper online. Check this out!

I have tremendous respect for guns and am hard pressed wondering how, even an idiot can manage to shoot his own child in a car. The only way a gun, for the most part, will discharge is when someone is playing with it, handling it and manages to pull the trigger.

So I asked Kathy if while she waited she heard a gunshot and she said she did hear a "pop" but assumed it was passing traffic. Well now we know why all those police cars were showing up. Maple Heights was once a nice little community of mostly bungalow style homes and well manicured lawns. That was 32 years ago when I met my wife. Today it is broke financially and actually a few homicides have moved south from Cleveland along with robbery and other crime. I still can't believe handling a loaded gun in a vehicle with a child present. Go figure huh? On the bright side we live a town over.

Ron

I want to cry every time I drive through the old town where I grew up. I would not exactly say it was a Normal Rockwell kind of town but it still was very nice. Neighbors watched out for one another, all the shop keepers knew my name. I would run errands for my mom and if I did not have enough money the shop keepers would usually put it on my mom's bill. One of the shop keepers would never take my mom's money when she went to pay. He knew we did not have much money.

We had 2 drugstores, 2 hardware stores. A butcher, 2 bakeries. We even had 2 shoe stores one with a shoe maker. A couple of pizza shops and a few restaurants. We had an egg store where you could get fresh eggs and fresh slaughter chickens that were raised in the basement . During Thanksgiving you could order a turkey. At Easter Sarah had peeps and ducklings in the front window.

This was all in a town that could not have been more than a half mile long business district.

I don't ever remember a murder while growing up. Someone may have murdered is wife maybe. Certainly no street murders. A fist fight would break out once in a while. If someone pulled a knife it was big news.

Now murders occur almost monthly. Most of the stores have gone to be replaced by illegal gambling parlors. Most everything is in disrepair. It is very sad to know what it once was.

 

We're all educated now.