Curmudgeon's Corner
cur-mud-geon: anyone who hates hypocrisy and pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habit of pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorous manner
Just Another Sunday Afternoon...
It was, we thought, just another Sunday afternoon. Football, relaxation, finish the outdoor clean-up, and prepare for the new week ahead.
We were wrong. It was anything but another Sunday afternoon; it was the last day in the life of a 14 year-old young man who lived in Grafton and who would be murdered in Germantown; in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart facility...in broad daylight...in the back of a van with heavily darkened windows.
It was the day that the boy's mother finally found the nerve to report her husband for hitting her repeatedly with a hammer the Sunday before. It was the day her husband drove past the Grafton Police Department and saw her car in the parking lot and went to their home and gathered up his step-son and drove away in the van.
It was the day that the step-father, by his own admission, strangled the boy with a necktie in the back of that van, in the parking lot of the Germantown Wal-Mart, in the late afternoon on a Sunday to teach his wife a lesson.
I have not been able to remove these images from my mind's eye since learning of this tragedy. I see the young teenager's picture in the newspaper and I pray that he is at peace with his savior. Then, I wonder how the step-father and the boy's mother got to the point they were at, and I wonder how many attempts at intervention may've been taken and apparently failed. I wonder how many other marriages are at similar stages; how many other youngsters are on the ragged edge of raw terror for things they have no control over and from people they think love them and from whom they fear nothing of this sort.
I have no answers. I am thankful that I am involved only tangentially, and yet I feel some personal responsibility simply because I am part of the community. I wonder if I might have driven past that scene oblivious to what was occurring or had already occurred. I wonder how these tragedies can be prevented, and recognize there is probably no way they can be prevented. I wonder what drives a human being to take such a horrific action ?
I wonder how our society creates animals among us that seemingly have no feelings for life or any sense of right and wrong? I wonder how our law enforcement and emergency response people ever get over the images to which they're exposed?
It was just another Sunday afternoon.
This site uses Facebook comments to make it easier for you to contribute. If you see a comment you would like to flag for spam or abuse, click the "x" in the upper right of it. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use.