A-Z 2013 the letter C

Who do you envision when you think of the word courage?

Maybe for you its a soldier, a police officer, advocates of civil rights or the local volunteer in your community? For everyone it's different that's what's so interesting about this subject; the stories of the people we see as courageous are as diverse as the people.

COURAGE: mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.

Do you think courage can come in small packages?

Here's a true story of something that happened to my grandson when he was in first grade. I proves you don't have to be a grown up to have courage; my "c" word.


The call came from my daughter and I knew something was wrong because she never calls mid morning.

There was an incident on the bus.

Here's what happened.
He was in first grade and took the bus to school every day. They had assigned seats.

On this day his regular seat mate told him he had a gun in his school bag. 

My grandson at some point excused himself and reported this to the bus driver who called ahead to the school. They had communicated to the bus driver not to take any action and to bring the kids in as if nothing was wrong. And that's what she did.

By the time the bus arrived at the school, the authorities, the school principle, the school guidance counselor, school psychologist were waiting. All of the other kids were removed from the bus and the child with the supposed gun's bag was searched and thank goodness there was no gun in his bag.

The school counselor questioned him (my grandson's seatmate) and he confessed that he indeed did tell my grandson he had a gun in his bag even though he didn't. I'm not sure if they ever did find an adequate explanation for this.

By now things had calmed down somewhat and the parents had arrived at the scene which had moved inside the school building.

The young boy turned to my grandson Adam and voiced his displeasure for "telling" on him.

What was interesting was my grandsons response which was so strong for someone so young.

He said, " last year the DARE officer that came to our classroom told us that if anyone ever told us they had a gun to tell a grown up remember?""And that's what I did because it was what he said cause someone might get hurt by a gun, remember?"

The little boy responded. " I'm still mad at you; you got me in trouble."

Then my grandson turned to his friend and said. " Well then you better get over it by lunch and meet me on the playground  at recess to play?" "OK?"

Boy's response. "Ohh K see you later."

Let me just say that it is my opinion that in today's society many adult's take the I don't want to get involved attitude.' I also think that many children today 'are afraid to tell' for fear of reprisals from their peers. I learned something from my grandson, he's a good kid who did the right thing. The right thing as we know isn't always the easy thing.

Sometimes it just takes courage to do it.

'

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Neighborhood Watch-watching doesn't mean killing

Both my kids, son and daughter are doing their in service training, one this week, one next, it's a yearly event. Both in law enforcement, one State, one Federal and like clockwork the have to train, be re-certified in certain aspects of their fields; for their safety and for the safety of the public, make sense doesn't it?

Got me to thinking about this other thing......

Trayvon Martin- victim

It's all over the news, a man belonging to a neighborhood watch in Florida shot and killed a child in a gated community. A gated community with gun toting neighborhood watch personnel, damn! I don't know about any of you but for me watching doesn't mean killing, watching doesn't mean carrying a gun.  Watching means if you see or come upon something suspicious you get on your cell or phone and call the police.Watchers should just darn well watch, guns in the hands of untrained people pretty much always result in tragedy.

I just can't wrap my head around what this guy was thinking! If he thought the child was breaking the law then he should have called the police. What was he doing that was so bad that couldn't wait for the police to respond to the scene?  What a fool to think that he could do a cops job. It's my guess is he's going to be brought up on charges for this child's death.

Police have a function in our society. They wear uniform and have a badge a car that is identifiable.  In most cases respect their authority, they are trained on how to talk to the public in the most tense and violent situations, they have firearms training and renew their training yearly as I said earlier. They have the authority to investigate search and arrest.  They most certainly do not shoot unarmed people especially children, nobody should be allowed to shoot an unarmed person.

Think about this. What would you do? What would your child do if a man without a uniform in possession of a gun confronted either of you  or all of you and pointed a firearm one night...... have you ever had a loaded gun pointed in your face? I'd fight for my life, what about you? And I bet that's exactly what this kid did because that man had no authority over him, no badge no uniform.

My thoughts on this;  I'm thinking this guy is just a bully with a gun, I bet maybe even a cop wanna-be and now a he's  murderer... just sayin!

Now that precious child is dead and his parents are living the nightmare no parent should EVER have to live, you can take that from me as a damn fact, the rest is just my opinion.

my neighbor with the gun- a Christmas story

The day before Christmas the neighbors that live next door came over for a visit. We thought it was the typical Christmas visit but it turned out to be that and more, much more!

They're a nice couple, she works as a produce manager in a local grocery chain store and he's disabled due to an injury and they come and visit fairly frequently since they moved in about a year ago. Their house is a small modest house and from what I've seen their furnishings are simple but the house is clean and neat. They have six cats with the most original names like tool box and velcro, their cats and our cats are buddies and play frequently . And although I would guess them to be somewhere in the forty range, they each have grown kids from previous marriages so they may be older.

Anyway they went on to tell and then show us how some truck had damaged their car (hit and run) in a parking lot just days before and spoke about how anxious they were to get estimates for the cost of the repairs. I was picking up undertones of emotions in the conversation and could tell that something other than the accident was on their minds. So I poured them each a tall glass of tea and we sat back for a visit to see whether my intuition was right.

He seemed a bit shaky and emotional  to me so I guessed whatever the reason for the visit would soon be revealed and it was soon after when he asked my husband to step outside for a minute.

They both came back into the house and tearfully he ask for money, as it turns out they needed money for unpaid bills. His plan was to bring over something to sell my husband, something he thought my husband would want to buy; a gun.( hubby's a collector) The sad thing was this particular gun was dear to him, given to him by someone special, and he was still willing to sell it, he needed money so badly.

My husband and I exchanged glances, that's all you need after thirty plus years of marriage. Bill pulled out his wallet took out the money and offered to give him the money he needed outright, but he refused.The fact of the matter is the mans pride was so heavily involved that we suggested that we'd hold the gun and he pay back the money, no time limit and this he agreed to. He was quite emotional, it was really very sad.

The people right next door were living without electric and here we are in our cozy house, you just never know do you?