Surprise, Boston Bombers Broke the Law

The Associated Press reported this week that the two brothers who set off the deadly Boston Marathon bombs and later engaged in a full scale shoot-out with authorities (after killing an M.I.T. security guard execution style while he sat in his patrol car) did not have permits for their weapons.

Color me gobsmacked.

Even less surprising is that this all happened in Massachusetts, a state that takes significant pride in having the toughest gun laws in the country. Why, it’s almost as if the brothers Tsarnaev – highly educated individuals whose criminal acts included murder, setting off high-powered explosive devices with the intent to kill and/or maim, carjacking and other felonies – it’s as if they had absolutely no respect for gun laws and city/state regulations.

Who’d a-thunk it? If only the Boston City Council had had the foresight to ban the placement of improvised explosive devices near the finish line of marathons.

As the two domestic terrorists were being hunted throughout the city of Boston, I couldn’t help but wonder how many decent, law-abiding Bostonians would have given their Red Socks season tickets to have had an AR-15 with a 30-round magazine at home. Ah, but no. Law-abiding citizens, by their very nature, abide by laws. Whether or not said laws are dangerous, harmful, misguided, ineffective or just plain foolish. At least somebody DID SOMETHING and passed a law.

Here’s hoping that the civic sentinels of Boston will now quickly vote to ban backpacks and pressure cookers, because, well, because somebody should do something to make sure this never happens again.

Closer to my own backyard in Southern California where peace, tolerance and co-existence are a way of life, I wonder if the city of Glendale’s ever-vigilant council members realize that just anybody can walk right into Bed, Bath & Beyond, or Best Buy, or Costco, for heaven’s sake, and buy themselves a potentially lethal pressure cooker. I mean, how can we be certain that that 6-quart, stainless steel Presto just bought by the grandmotherly lady will be used to make ham hocks and beans and not a homemade bomb? After buying a pressure cooker, the same person could just mosey on over to Sport Chalet and willy nilly, without anyone checking his motives purchase a backpack. Think of it council members, this could happen today, right here in Glendale, without anyone ever having to submit to even a cursory background check. For the love of Pete. Somebody do something!

Okay, I’m being a sarcastic jerk. Just a little. But the week after my column was published ridiculing the Glendale Council members who voted to approve a ban on gun shows (Shooting Down City Council Decision, CV Weekly, March 21, 2013) despite not a single shred of evidence connecting the long-held, popular events to any crimes – one dear reader wrote to this paper decrying my column. This person disagreed fervently with my mockery of “do something” politicians and chastised me for offering no suggestions of my own for reducing gun violence in our country.

Okay, sir, since you asked, here’s where I would start. Rather than further infringements on the rights of law abiding citizens, let’s begin a serious, nationwide conversation about how to better recognize and treat mentally disturbed people in our society. Let’s also start talking honestly about the hundreds of thousands of young boys growing up without fathers in their lives. Let’s dialogue about the frightening number of desensitizing, ultra-violent video games that are sold to and used habitually by children and young adults. Let’s shed light on the despicable culture of anti-Americanism that permeates American high schools and universities. And let’s talk at length about the effects of violence-saturated films and TV shows which feature bombings, decapitations, torture, rape, mutilation and every imaginable depravity while making very rich people out those who produce and star in this trash – many of whom then shamelessly and sanctimoniously lecture the great unwashed masses about the need for more gun control.

Let’s start with these ‘somethings’ and see what happens. I’ll see you ‘round town.

Of Mountain Lions and Whirlybirds

Look, up in the sky, it’s a ... slow news day! You know there aren’t a whole heckuva lot of newsworthy things happening when the skies above my Crescenta Valley home fill with helicopters. Typically, it’s due to yet another traffic nightmare on the section of the 210 Freeway that bisects our sleepy suburb. Sometimes, however, the hordes of hovering helos flock to our verdant valley because we are again being visited by wildlife from the mountains on either side of our valley. The past few years the critters have been of the ursine persuasion and have visited so often they were given names like “Rosie” or “Meatball.” Last week, however, our guest from the nearby wilds was a rather large feline who, for now at least, remains nameless in spite of his brief celebrity.

As a growing number of choppers from both Southland broadcasters and local law enforcement swarmed overhead, social media also began to buzz with people posting on Facebook and Twitter asking if anyone knew what was happening in the Foothills. About an hour after I first noticed the gathering squadron of helicopters, I channel surfed until I found a live broadcast showing video shot from the KCAL 9 copter hovering over a neighborhood off New York Avenue just above Foothill. The anchor was explaining that a mountain lion had been reported prowling around a neighborhood dangerously near Clark Magnet High School.

Well, no wonder. Such excitement couldn’t have been due solely to the nature of the beast visiting our fair foothills. I mean, we’ve often had mountain lions roaming our neighborhoods. (Which begs the question; if there are mountain lions and sea lions, why aren’t there desert lions or beach lions? But I digress, as I often do.) I’m thinking that because this big kitty was so close to a school, well, that explains the hullabaloo. I mean, wildlife and educators both being volatile, unpredictable creatures, and all.

But seriously, it’s no wonder every authority figure within driving or flying distance was summoned to the scene. We wouldn’t want a cat that size to wander its way into a school full of tender vittles, after all.

And so, for several hours the skies above our normally nap-happy valley were abuzz with helicopters chopping at the air – the news copters taking their allotted position high above all the official aircraft who are allowed to fly lower and much closer to where the action is.

From what I could see on TV and hear from radio reports, almost every state, county and city agency was represented, including L.A. County Sheriffs, Glendale Police, the California Department of Fish & Game and even the Pasadena Humane Society. I’m not sure if PETA perps made an appearance, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were there on behalf of the mountain lion. I don’t think the Navy Seals or Army Rangers were deployed, but I could be wrong.

So how do you catch a Mountain Lion? With a ginormous can of Friskies? A big ol’ bag of cat nip and a scratching post the size of a telephone pole? Not hardly. It turns out you shoot not one, but three tranq darts into the colossal kitty and wait until the drugs take effect to haul the critter back up into the forest.

Speaking of tranquilizing things, they may just have to dart me if I hear one more broadcaster refer to any location here in our Crescenta Valley as “Glendale.” Yes, I realize that – technically – there is a narrow strip of Glendale that pokes up into La Crescenta right where the big cat was prowling around last week, but give me a break. I don’t know one person who lives here who says their home is in Glendale. So, get the sedatives ready, broadcasters. You’ve been warned. Then again, if it’s a slow news day I might be doing you a favor.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Memories Set In Stone

During a recent evening walk-against-aging-and-larger-pants-size, my wife and I included Two Strike Park on our multi-

Photo: www.cvweekly.com

mile route through our hilly neighborhood. It was the first time either of us had been through the popular park in our hometown of La Crescenta since they began replacing the War Memorial Wall at the south end of the grounds last month.

I had, of course, read several news items the past few months about the efforts of a coalition of community groups to replace the old, chest-high, rock wall monument with something larger because there simply (and sadly) wasn’t any room left to accommodate additional names of local fallen heroes. I knew it was happening, but even so, it was a shock to walk past the site of the former wall the other night and see only empty space where the old wall had stood for so many decades.

You see, my childhood home was only a few houses up the street from Two Strike. It’s safe to say I spent many of the best days of my youth there. So walking past the empty space marked only by a scab of recently backhoed dirt left me more than a little melancholy.

As a kid, I only had to grab my skateboard or hop on my metal-flake green Schwinn Sting Ray (with faux-leather banana seat and cheater slick back tire, no less) and I’d be at Two-Strike in less than a minute. Whether I went there to just hang with some friends (I’m pretty sure it was called “loitering” back then), to watch whatever baseball team was playing on the upper field or to fly a U-control airplane until I was too dizzy to stand up – most trips to the park would inevitably feature time spent climbing on top of the old rock War Memorial Wall with the thick bronze plaque mounted to its front.

For years, however, I was too young and short to climb that wall. But it never stopped me from trying. I vividly remember the day I was finally tall enough to actually scramble up on top of the thing, skinning knees and elbows on its rocky facade in the process. What a triumph – and from that day on I never missed the opportunity to climb up on top like Sir Edmund Percival Hillary summiting Everest. (Apparently I had a writer’s imagination even then.)

Fast forward to my own child-raising years and the many hundreds of hours spent with our kids at Two Strike. Often, playing on the basketball court near the Memorial Wall or throwing a Frisbee in the tall grass on the sloping hill it rested on, I would watch other generations of too-young, too-short kids try to scale that very same wall. I would silently cheer them on while remembering my own conquest so very long ago.

I should probably get all touchy feely and metaphoric at this point and talk about how – all this time later – I now see that the wall of my youth is like so many other walls I’ve encountered over the course of a lifetime. How something so seemingly tall and insurmountable becomes not-so-intimidating and less of a barrier with time, patience and effort. Whoa. Deep stuff.

But, no. I’ll leave that level of squishiness for Oprah, Ellen or Depak and simply wrap up by saying that – while I’m sad to see the old wall gone, I’m happy to know that an even larger memorial will soon rise in its place as a worthy tribute to local soldiers who have paid the ultimate price for their service to our country. I have no idea what the new wall will look like or how tall it will be. But I’m kinda thinking that when it’s all finished, I may just have to sneak over there some evening and try to climb up on top of the thing. 

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Puppy Pandemonium!

photo credit: www.vetwest.com.au

I apologize for writing yet another column about canines, but great Danes-a-dancing – what was I thinking?!? I’m up to my eyeballs these days in puppy pee, poop, ruined carpeting and gnawed-on furniture. Right now as I’m writing there is an explosion of brown fur over, under and all around the legs of my office chair and under my desk. There’s gnashing and growling and yelping and whimpering and panting – and that’s just the noise I make trying to keep my feet from being shredded by what I affectionately call my two land piranhas. Yes, two. Three weeks ago we purposely brought a second puppy into our household to “keep the first one company.” At least that’s how I sold the idea to my wife.

If you remember, we brought home an eight-week-old boy Labradoodle in February after being dog-less for much of last year. Then four weeks later, we picked up girl chocolate Lab. Honestly, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

For those of you keeping score, that’s two brand spankin’ new puppies at the same time. Two house-wrecking hounds with needle sharp teeth and seemingly zero bladder control. I should have my head examined. And our carpets replaced. And furniture reupholstered.

Now that we’ve had “Oakley” seven weeks and “Scout” three weeks, I need to ask a favor. If you happen to run into me somewhere, please remind me how much of a dog person I am at heart. No, seriously. Get right in my face and, in the most sincere way you can, tell me that I really, really wanted two dogs and that it will all be worth it in a few more weeks. Or, maybe months. Definitely by this time next year. Okay?

I’m ready to admit that I could have been wrong about all this. To get through this stage I’m even considering evoking higher powers; like the Rug Doctor and Cesar Millan. Speaking of which, I’ve read more articles lately written by whispering experts about how to simply and easily (HA!!) house train new puppies and about crate training and teaching dogs not to chew or dig or bark or otherwise disrupt life as we once knew it. But I’m pretty sure these well-meaning folks don’t work with dogs from this planet. I’ve had trainers and vets tell me without the slightest hint of sarcasm that dogs should be completely trained to do their business outside within two weeks. You’d be proud of me. I haven’t decked a single one of these silly people. Yet.

Not to get too graphic, but we’re at the point where we don’t dare walk around our house in stocking feet. Hip waders would be more practical. You just never know what gift one of the puppies has left for us in the 30 seconds they weren’t being watched.

I mean, we used to buy a case of Costco paper towels once every six or seven months. But in the short time our diminutive defecating duo has lived here, we’ve already been to the discount warehouse three times and bought rolls of super-absorbent 2-ply by the pallet. I’m expecting a thank you card from the Costco board of directors any day now.

Lately I’ve spent more time on my hands and knees scrubbing our floors than Cinderella did at the hands of her evil stepsisters. In addition to all the paper towels, we’ve gone from buying carpet stain and odor-eliminator in the jumbo spray bottle to the 2-liter refill size. Lately I’ve been searching the internet to see if anyone sells 55-gallon drums of the stuff. By late Spring I anticipate we’ll need to pull up our carpets and flooring and just pour concrete throughout the entire house. I’m thinking of installing industrial-sized drains and high-pressure hose bibs in every room.

Until then, I just noticed a new dark spot on the carpet. (No lie.) I’ll see you ‘round town.