I Did A Trick!

Beaming son Grant.  He would soon announce, "I did a trick!".

Some 19 years ago, the young man shown above was tucked into his crib in his upstairs room on warm Spring evening.  As a vigilant young parent, I sat and watched him for awhile until I felt I could tip toe from the room without raising alarm from my 2 year old son.  I made it downstairs and settled into some grown up task in the living room, when his mother and I heard a clatter, a rattle and a serious thump [apparently he nailed the landing!].  The next sound was a triumphant and very pleased voice announcing to the world; "I did a trick!".

We jogged back up the stairs to find Grant standing on the floor, beaming.  He had just earned the right to take us shopping for a "big boy bed".  The crib was history.  Those baby crib bars could not hold him any longer. Indeed, he had done a trick.

Desert Tortoise cooling off in the kitchen
after "doing a trick".

The comparisons between my son and my two Desert Tortoises is limited - but in this one case I do see a similarity.  The end of July finds a multitude of things on Sue's to-do list, yet only a single item on Chomper's to-do list.  For Sue, one of the items is to get the 2003 Toyota Camry spiffed up and detailed and ready to sell.  For Chomper, the only item is to prowl the perimeter of the backyard iron picket fence and look for a loose picket or weak spot and make it to the outside.  Freedom!

We had recently swapped cars with son Grant, attending the University of Missouri.  He got Mom's 2009 Camry. Mom chose to keep and drive the 2006 Hyundai Azera (picked up at a good price by my Dad).  I swung by MIzzou driving the 2009 Camry after attending the wedding of Sue's cousin in Nashville, TN.  I drove the older 2003 Camry back to Texas with plans to sell it.  While Sue was toiling away in the drive way to remove the deposits of desiccated french fries and numerous soda stains on the seats - a testament to who knows what Spring Break adventures that took this Camry from Missouri to Florida and back, along with a couple of roommates the past two years.  AS Sue toiled on the interior of the car, Chomper was toiling away at a loose fence picket near the gate.

Sue watched him for a while and thought, "Mark needs to make sure that part of the fence is secure."  But, she felt confident that Chomper's shell was wider than the space between the 2 secure pickets.  It is a surprising but true fact about Desert Tortoises: They love to climb, and will go out of their way to mount and todder atop objects such as stacks of lumber left in the yard.  Also, they are quite curious creatures and can be persistent.  Even though Chomper, and his brother Isaac, are but plodding reptiles, these tort traits should not be underestimated.  In fact, we did underestimate Chomper's persistence and will to go beyond the wire.

Shortly after arriving home for the evening, Sue confronted me with the fear that Chomper had escaped.  I did not believe it.  I search the usual hiding spots in the yard, and did a second loop.  No Chomper.  Sue told me about her observations of his efforts to push aside the picket that afternoon.  I then had to agree with her fears after finding the broken weld at the base of the picket.  Chomper had found a loose picket, confirmed to his satisfaction that this was a viable escape route, managed to hook his front legs through the opening and pull himself up and over the 18" of hog wire I had placed at the base of the fence to prevent just such shenanigans.  He had to turn himself 90 degrees on edge in order to fit his shell through the open space and land onto the drive way and mosey his way across the alley and stroll between two houses.

Realizing we had a runner, Sue and I split up in the twilight to hunt for Chomper.  I was sickened at the idea of loosing him.  I crossed paths with out neighbors behind us and told 7-year old Jayden that Chomper had escaped and we were looking for him.  Jayden immediately began calling out, "Chomper!  Chomper!"  His mother (a native of Germany) tried to reason with her son Jayden; "Da, Chomper ost just un toor-tell, he does not haave eears like un dog.  A toor-tell well not come to your voice Jayden".  Jayden persisted.  They saw an AC repair man working next door and told him they were looking for a big turtle.  The AC guy said, "I saw a big turtle right over there about a half hour ago - I was thinking of taking him home myself."  Jayden checked under some nearby bushes and found the wayward tort.  

When I returned from my search, empty handed and heavy hearted, Angie said that they had found Chomper, and had him in the back yard.  I thanked them profusely and asked for the details of the hunt.  Jayden spelled it all out for me, and then asked, "Do I get a reward?"  I though, yeah, you sure do.  I pulled out a $20 bill and handed it to the kid.  His mother was mortified, but I reasoned with her, that when Jayen is my age, he will still remember the night that he successfully hunted down the wandering tortoise and got 20 bucks for the effort.  Well worth it, all around.

I quickly quadruple wrapped electrical tape around the base of the loose picked and with a song in my grateful heart.  I returned the tortoise back into his rightful pasture.  But I have to admit; man did he ever do a trick.    

The Blog I Didn't Write & The Blog I Wish I Didn't Write

The Blog I Did Not Write

I was going to get around to posting a blog, maybe titled, "The Fall of the House of Crack".

We live on a quiet street.  Tucked in an out-of-the-way quadrant of a middle class subdivision.  We have neighbors that are Indian, Vietnamese, Hispanic, black and of European descent.  This is America.  The house next door we referred to as 'the crack house' - though in all honesty I can only vouch for the use of cannabis on the premises.  It was a Section 8 house, rent subsidized by the tax payer so low income people can live in places they otherwise could not afford.  The landlords are Nigerian and I only saw them once when they bought the house.  The house was not physically maintained. People came and went at all hours. If I could feel the bass of a car stereo on the street, it was always a car going to the crack house.  At some point felonious Robert moved into the house.  It was at about this time that the place slid into our reference as "the crack house".  I was never really certain of who else was supposed to be there, as I could never keep track of who actually lived there and who was just staying "for awhile".  I called 911 one time when I heard the sound of kicking and breaking glass.  The 911 operator told me they had already had a call from that address, and police were on the way.  Felonious Robert was drunk/high and a teenage girl alone in the house called for help when Robert decided he did not cotton to being being locked out.  There were numerous times when police appeared at the crack house.  Mrs. Phillips who lived at the crack house seemed to have a job - no one else there seemed to be employed.  Thus allowing people to pull up at 1:20 AM and continuously honk the horn waiting for Kendrick to come out.  I'd sometimes get out of bed and go out and confront these indecent noise makers and tell them that sounding the horn at this hour in this neighborhood was not acceptable.  They shouted back at me, "Don't touch my car!"  Their ghetto sensibilities did not belong in our neighborhood.  

For awhile, I frequently found empty hard cider and liquor bottles sitting on my back lawn as I would go out to mow the lawn.  For awhile I would dutifully recycle these empties.  But I got tired of cleaning up trash tossed onto my property from the back porch of the crack house; so one Saturday, I picked up yet another bottle of Mike's Hard Lemonade and tossed it back onto the patio from whence it came.  It landed with a satisfying shattering whomp.  I did not ever clean up another empty from the crack house.

Steve, who lives behind me, says that felonious Robert broke into an house that was between owners at the end of the block and did about $10,000 worth of damage to get $15 worth of copper pipes for salvage.  Felonious Robert would be seen pedaling his bike up the alley mid-morning with one hand on the handle bars and other gripping a brown paper bag containing a cylindrical object that would hold maybe 8 to 12 fluid oz.  He'd see me and say "Hey neighbor".  I'd way wave him on as he peddled on by me.

On several occasions my heart would lift as I'd seen a large delivery type truck parked in the driveway of the crack house.  I hoped they were moving out.  But the truck would eventually leave and the smell of weed and the loud visitors would remain.

Early this year the lights of the crack house went dark.  Were they gone at last?  Alas, no. Felonious Robert and others were spotted at times coming or going from the crack house.  I learned that the power had been shut off for non-payment, but some were still living there without power or water.  Sue went out front one late winter's evening to fetch the mail and thought that the crack house was on fire.  Thick noxious greasy smoke billowed from the side of the house, but upon closer examination, she saw it was coming from the chimney.  Felonious Robert was standing in the shadows and noticed her staring at the house, so he explained it was his fire.  When she reported what she had seen to me, I figured felonious Robert had gathered some trash and lit it on fire in order to provide some heat.

At some point in the Spring, the Nigerian landlords changed the locks and moved felonious Robert out of Camp Crack House.  They repainted the exterior, gutted the interior, including appliances, and put the refurbished crack house on the market.  As of late August, despite a red hot real estate market in North Texas, the house remains unsold.  At least the sketchy characters and small hour visitors have been moved out of our neighborhood --- or so I had believed... (to be continued)

The Blog I Wish I Didn't Write

Over there is the refurbished 'crack house'.  For Sale.
Here is the defurbished 'cracked house'.  Forsaken. 

July 22, 2014.  Sue was off on her roadtrip, somewhere between LA freeways and Brother Mike's Phoenix place refuge from scorched earth of the Sonoran Desert.  I stayed home a bit late in the morning, wrapping up a few household business items.  I walked into the garage and gave Strider a solid look as he laid splayed out on the cool wood floor between kitchen and living room, and reminded him, "I'll see you tonight.  Hold down the fort while I'm gone big fuzzy guy."  With a solid slam of the tight-fitting door into the garage, I backed out of the garage and drove to work.  I thought about coming home for lunch, but decided to work through lunch instead and have an early dinner.

About six I gave the usual hard right turn out of the alley while simultaneously hitting the automatic garage door button.  As I coasted into the garage, I was embarrassed to see that I had left the iron gate between driveway and backyard ajar.  With two adventurous tortoises dwelling in our backyard, I have a second level of security to prevent escapes; I have a couple of "tort boards" secured across the base of the two gates with access to backyard just in case I happened to leave a gate unlatched.  I was thinking, "how could I have left that gate open?  I am always very mindful making sure the gates are latched, I'd hate for a tortoise or two to wander away.  Despite the gate being open, the tort boards were in place and a quick checked showed so were the reptiles.

I began to walk through the garage to enter the house when I noticed the door into the house was not closed tightly.  I knew I had slammed it completely shut around 10 that morning.  My mind then clicked and released a 50 pound weight that fell right to the pit of my loins.  I then knew what I would see when I pushed open the door.  

The back patio door had been kicked hard enough to force the double deadbolt through the interior side of door jamb.  Allowing access to $4000 worth of mostly small and sentimental items of moderate monetary value but irreplaceable heirlooms.

Split door frame on back patio door.
Thieves kicked double dead bolt door
until they forced the bolt through
the back of the wood door frame

A sickening feeling enveloped me as I looked around the inside of the house.  
The flatscreen TV gone.  
Sound system gone.  
Our master bedroom, trashed.
He/They had taken a pillow case off the bed pillow in our room and used it to stuff Sue's two jewelry boxes from her dresser top into the sack.  They emptied her dresser drawers onto the floor and taken a few other items.  The same for my dresser top boxes of tie tacs and treasured sentimental items plus my passport.  They also got Inga's jewelry box (inherited from Sue's mother) and a guitar amplifier from Grant's room.  I called the police and they came by in about 50 minutes to write the report and call out the forensics unit to dust for prints.  They got some good ones from a DVD case that had been thrown to the floor while stealing the TV.  

Officer May said that bad guys will continue to do bad things until they are caught.  Then if the prints match, they can be tied to this crime.  Or, maybe they'll find a match on record (or maybe those prints belong to me and we have no link to who did this).  I did a check of the nearest pawn shop the next day and found nothing.  Others searched Craig's List and ebay on our behalf for some of the distinctive jewelry that had been passed down to Sue from her great grandfather.  Just despicable.

I removed the shattered door jamb and grabbed a scrap 2x4 and nailed it to the stud framing the patio door, drilling two holes and remounting the strike plates so that the door could be closed and secured (minimally) until full repairs could be made.

I know many of the neighbors around me, and of course the PD squad car and forensics van was noted by many that evening.  So, I told my story of woe to Jane, Michael and Donna, Steve, Angie and her son Jayden, Jim and Shea, Dorothy and Sam, the Scotts and the Bishops.  Many of these folks are around most of the day, so I am surprised and sorry that no one noticed the nefarious intruders.  But perhaps my greatest disappointment is with Strider.

Strider is 70 lbs and not all that friendly.  In May the UPS delivery guy delivered a package and to the doorstep, rang the bell and beat a retreat back to his doorless truck.  I opened my door and picked up my package just before he got inside his brown machine and he smiled at me and said, "I remember this house and your dog from a few years ago!" as he sped away.  That was then - this is now.  Strider in his younger days would hear something at the front door and he would hurl his body into the door, rearing on his back legs to show his fanged face out the door window as he barked vociferously.  That was then - this is now.  Now his back legs are atrophied and feeble and more often than not, he is not roused by noises around his premises. I trusted him as the ultimate line of defense.

So, I had to sit down to have a hard talk with old Strider amid the jetsam of our strewn-about possessions that were dumped by the thieve(s) onto his doggy bed next to Sue's dresser.  He looked back at me and said, "Well you would not believe the kind of of unsettling day I had today - some guys threw a bunch of people stuff onto my bed".  Though he was inwardly quite chagrined to admit that he had not really done his job as a trusted watch dog with a mean countenance. Yes, I had counted on him to scare away anybody that rang the bell or showed up with black hearts at our back door.  I am hurt and disappointed that he was not such a deterrent after all.  I have to ask what is he good for, other than shedding copious amounts of "Strider down" - fine black fur onto floor and furnishings.  Well, I told him, "I am afraid after this big let-down, I am going to have to award the 'Good Pet' ribbon to the tortoises".  He was sad, but understood.

Steve and Michael both told me that they had seen felonious Robert still hanging around in the neighborhood.  They said he was now driving a small red pickup truck.  He no longer has a place to stay since he was removed from the 'crack house' in early March.  So why was he hanging around the neighborhood.  Michael is adamant that it was felonious Robert who knew the rhythm of the block and he was waiting for an opportunity to steal from us.  Steve and Michael could be wrong - but they are not.  

I would rather rejoice that the 'crack house' was filled with good neighbors, but instead I write that the crack house remains empty and the lawless and debauchery that I thought had left the block was only waiting for the opportunity to do what they had probably contemplated for a long time.

This is the blog post I wish I did not have to write.