January 12, 2024

College Hunks came and hauled away the old sofa. The last of Maud’s hair lay under it. 

Bitter wind-driven rain returns, and the rivers not yet settled from the last time. Power has gone out three times, annihilating work. 

Traffic was stopped on River Road the other morning by a wreck. Eventually I learned that two cars had collided just south of Woodfin Riverside Park. But the immediate sight was of SEVEN police vehicles strewn about, blocking every possible route around the wreck, blocking the ambulance which had to thread its way among parked-on-the-roadway cars at the pace of a snail. I hope nobody was bleeding or in pain. The last three times I called the police (someone stealing mail from my mailbox; getting hit-and-run sideswiped on Biltmore Ave; a prowler creeping around the vacant house next door)I was told that there wasn’t sufficient personnel to investigate, but if I got the name of the perp they might be able to do something. Do we not see the practical (as opposed to the philosophical) reasoning behind “Defund the Police”? There’s nobody to solve crimes, but plenty to cluster around a point of excitement, getting in the way of people with an actual mission. How many cops in seven cruisers? How many therefore unavailable to take a call? I remember when you’d drive down Merrimon past the lake and there’s be a police cruiser, from various districts, parked on every available bit of grass, both sides of the street, twenty or thirty anyhow, in what I suppose was meant as a terrorizing gesture. Thank God you don’t see that anymore. But you do see a throng in blue where they are not (or no longer) needed, and empty air when something real comes up. Who can forget the videos of Uvalde, where a hundred beefy cops stood around with their hands on their pistols, managing only to prevent parents from rescuing their children. We do not have a shortage of police. We have bad practice in marshaling those we have. 

Lord, give me what You have made me want.