BLOG WORTHY vs NOT BLOG WORTHY? THE THIN BOOMERPDX LINE

I asked my kid the ‘blog worthy’ question this week.

He had a slew of law enforcement gathered across the street from him.

Me: Is it blog worthy?

Kid: If it’s interesting.

The kid obviously doesn’t read boomerpdx. When has interesting mattered?

We talking about interesting, or interesting to me?

 

Who is interested in the police gathering near your kids?

Father says, “Everyone,” unless they’re in jail, which is a police gathering by definition, with invited guests.

While I don’t believe it was a routine traffic stop by three unmarked cars full of deputies, I’m comforted none were wearing masks and carrying an array of combat weaponry.

While we texted back and forth I couldn’t help wondering how many police gatherings have gone off the rails.

Rodney King got more than a ticket way back in 1991.

 

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Struck as many as 56 times with the batons, he suffered a fractured leg, multiple facial fractures, and numerous bruises and contusions.

Unaware that the arrest was videotaped, the officers downplayed the level of violence used to arrest King and filed official reports in which they claimed he suffered only cuts and bruises “of a minor nature.”

 

Then things took a bad turn in 1992.

 

 

Baby boomers are the right age to remember the Rodney King riots?

I remember a lot of fires, and a truck driver getting pummeled for being in the wrong place at the wrong time when the riot started.

 

Ultimately, four officers were charged with excessive use of force.

A year later, on April 29, 1992, a jury consisting of 12 residents from the distant suburbs of Ventura County — nine white, one Latino, one biracial, one Asian — found the four officers not guilty.

 

Not Blog Worthy?

This isn’t a blog trying to explain the motivations of people driven to extremes.

Maybe you haven’t been there?

If you haven’t been driven to the extremes somewhere along the way to gathering as many years as you have, you’re kidding yourself.

Just because you didn’t pack up a bag of chicken and drive thirty-six hours in a diaper to be with your brethren for a big event, doesn’t mean you haven’t experienced the same feelings.

Who hasn’t gotten the urge to put their better judgement aside to respond to an invitation to tour a national treasure kind of building.

With good judgement I did a tour after contacting my local Representative’s office.

My wife and I arrived at the set time and date and walked with an intern from one end to another.

To be honest and little corny, the tour gave me a special feeling, an American feeling, like I’d just licked the glue and sealed my citizenship envelope holding my credentials: Husband, Father, Army Veteran, College Graduate, Champion Wrestler, Home Owner and Dog Man.

I mailed the envelope to myself after I hounded my wife into going to the National Archives instead of wandering around before we left for the airport.

I heard something that sounded like sobbing while I stood in line. It was sobbing from people passing the documents that define America.

Happy sobs?

A lot of folks in the top picture probably had the same feeling?

 

Not Blog Worthy?

 

 

 

The Thin BoomerPdx Line

 

There is no failure in communications in the bottom picture.

Headphones translating, guards guarding, shades down.

 

 

Everyone seated in this picture knew something special was happening when they first stood with their guy.

At the end, their guy disappointed them and left them to their own devices, which ranged from suicide, to execution, to jail time.

If we live in a world of constant change, and we do, don’t join a group with the potential future of suicide, execution, or prison.

Your group formed to pick people up and send them away without the usual American process?

You join a group of mask wearing members who swarm jewelry stores?

The group you’re in gets orders you know to be wrong?

The last group you want to belong to is a hanging group.

You don’t want to hang with them.

 

 

PS: Even with a blog of peace, love, and understanding, it’s important to know where to draw the line.

 

PS: My parents used to say, “You’re judged by the company you keep.” If the company you keep ignores the guard rails keeping them from flying off the road toward parts unknown, like the gallows, maybe you ought to take the wheel.

If how you feel about the company you keep doesn’t change based on evidence brought forward that would condemn normal people, go ahead and check history.

There’s nothing worse than being the last to say, “I had no idea,”