Today and 1982 - An Instant Replay

Monday evening Ginny & I attended a Neighborhood Crime Watch meeting where the group discussed the usual problems.

Our neighborhood made the tv news recently because a young man a few houses down from Ginny & me killed his baby son.

Shook it to death to shut it up.

Poor bastard. (I’m referring to the dad, not the kid here).

I’m sure every parent in the world has been tempted to use such a direct means to quite a screaming baby; the wonder of it is that so few of us give in to that temptation. But we are the adults and should learn how to endure kids.

Of course this dad was not exactly an adult; late teens, early 20s I think, hardly more than a baby himself.

The family had moved in just a few weeks ago.

Now the house stands abandoned.

The landlord put all their furniture and stuff at the curb. Brand new baby crib, stroller, playpen, changing table, a new giant-screen tv — and a used ratty sofa, cheap dinette, some adult bedroom fixtures that has the look of rented furniture…. All the stuff you’d expect to see in the home of a young couple just starting out and trying to make a life for themselves — new stuff for baby, make-do stuff for the couple.

Anyhow, the dad’s in jail, the baby’s dead, the mom’s disappeared.

Three lives shot to Hell in one flash of frustration.

Not a whole lot Neighborhood Watch can do there.

Instead of working on the fire department history yesterday, because of the depression welling up inside me (and because of pure laziness) I decided that reading was better for me than writing.

I finished the Dave Barry book and I also finally finished the Diaries of John Bright. John Bright, a Quaker and a member of British Parliament, kept a diary from 1837 to 1887, a span of 50 years. As a young man, he considered entering the ministry but decided that he would be of more service to Christ by fighting poverty, war and slavery by serving in the government.

I enjoy reading the journals and diaries of other people. For one thing, a person who keeps a diary seeks to discover pattern and meaning in his own life, as I do.

I’d have to unpack boxes in the closet to see just how far back my own diaries go, not nearly 50 years, but close to 30 I guess.

This morning, just for fun, I pulled down my 1982 journal to see what I was doing on this day (April 11^th) that year. My entry started:

“Patricia (then age 4) woke me this morning as she struggled with the cat in our bed. She was vigorously brushing its teeth with my toothbrush — an omen of how this day was to go…”

The entry goes on to describe how I was trying to repair an old clunker of a car while a drunk guy from next door told me a better way he’d do it, and how a counselor suggested that Ginny and I get a divorce!

Until I looked at my old journal, I have forgotten all about cat and car and counselor!

I think keeping a daily journal (such as this blog) helps me see what are some of the important things in my life because on the day while they are actually happening, I have no idea of what is important and what is not!

I don’t understand life as she is lived.

Here’s something odd, a quote from my next 1982 posting reads:

“I wonder if Jesus would have been a Christian if He’d had a car to fix & a drunk to kibitz? …but still, as Job says, “Though He slay me; yet will I trust Him” but that doesn’t mean I have to like it”.

That’s the very same Scripture I comforted myself with yesterday!

Do I detect a pattern here?

Oh, I should hasten to add that even with a member of Parliament, 50 years of journal rambling of an old man can get boring as hell!

Enough of mine for today.

(Darn, I read the hand-written 1982 dates wrong above but you get the idea.)