Random Thoughts December 15th

I'm changing my blog and what it's all about. For a couple of years now since I finished my biography, posted on this blog, I've tried to start a regimen of writing thoughtful essays, columns as it were on weighty subjects. I was going to write something about Feguson. But it just seems too difficult to get started, all the things I think about don't coalesce when I try to put them down in an essay.

And about Feguson. When it first happened I was pretty much on the side of the cop, though the town and local police forces didn't do themselves any honor. More information came in and it looked confusing. Feguson became a national cause. Did I say I'm a retired cop – I've been there when I don't know what the suspect is going to do, my gun drawn, and the wrong move and I'm going to fire. Yes, to do the job, we tell ourselves it's important to be willing to be in situations like that and we tell ourselves returning home is important to our families and if that means making a life and death decision quickly and then being wrong, well that's the risk of the job.

I know cops don't go out looking for people to shoot and they don't shoot people because of their race. But I do know that there are some cops that make bad decisions out there. Sometimes they don't know when to back off or they don't know how to approach a suspect without jacking them up or getting jacked up themselves. Maybe they stereotype too much forget that everyone is an individual.

And I know that black kids are more likely to get shot than white kids. Feguson definitely could use some Black cops, but who voted for an all white city council? In my opinion exercising voting rights is the best way to protest injustice.

And then I think about the recent elections in Richmond. Because they were off year elections turnout was low. Chevron tried to buy the election, funding a slate of candidates favorable to their agenda. They lost. They lost because turnout was low and the African American precincts with majorities for the Chevron candidates were overwhelmed by the other voters. The head of the Chevron slate was a well known Black councilmember. In America we have democracy and the mess that we have in Federal and state governments is what we voted for.

So today I was driving up San Pablo Avenue and just before Miller Drive saw the flashing lights of a fire truck in the middle of the street, a Sheriff's car was coming up beside the traffic and it was obvious there had been an accident at the intersection of Miller and San Pablo, It was raining heavily. This is our second series of storms in a few days, the roads were slick and wet, running with water. More fire engines and paramedics were pulling up as we crawled up the hill, two Richmond Police were coming down the hill Code 3, lights flashing, sirens screaming.

The accident was only one car, a Volvo straddling the center parkway, its front axle broken and the car was dented and banged up as if it had rolled. There was a woman sitting in the driver's seat and on the other side someone was holding an umbrella over the passenger side. The firefighters were moving with that deliberate slowness that indicated the situation was serious. In the distance I could hear the wail of an ambulance on its way to the scene.

We're getting ready for Christmas, the tree is up. I've bought gifts for Suzette and still have to buy Paloma gifts. She got a big girl's bicycle for her birthday, so Christmas will be a nail painting set, puzzles, and probably I'll relent and get a Barbie doll.

“How many Barbie dolls do you have?”

“Six.”

“You need another one?”

“Yes.”

Later Paloma informed us that Emily has 15 Barbie dolls. We countered that maybe she got some of them from her older sister, a freshman at Cal. That argument didn't impress Paloma. I think she thought she needed an older sister who would go to Cal and leave Barbies behind.

And I think about that Volvo and the woman in the front seat who was probably on her way down the hill on an errand like we were coming back from. And I think about the passenger shielded from the rain and what their injuries might have been. How old are they? Was it a child?

Instead of dinner and VCR recordings of Wild Kratts, the background noise to writing this, they're probably at a hospital or maybe worse.

Life is fragile. In a moment it can be turned upside down or even ended. And the rest of us go on.