ahh, the quiet little town

    That's what I believed. I jumped right in, walking joyfully to the store with my children skipping alongside me, so relieved I did not have to "helicopter parent" my children. Oh, sweet country living where everyone called me by name long before I knew any of theirs.....um, wait. that is not a good thing. Look a wee bit more closely. There is no helicopter parenting, not because it's safe but because the children are neglected, unsupervised by parents too busy on Facebook, watching TV and/or drinking. O.K. some of those parents are actually off working and the caregivers are busy on Facebook, watching TV or drinking. But then the parents come home and do the same thing. Oh, and they're sharing the pot with the kids all under the age of sixteen.
     Oh, but now I'm making enemies. I should worry, right? None of these people would have ever been friends. They do not know how to be anything but enemies to anybody. And I'm not being judgmental or overly critical. Case in point number one: "friend" and her family are guests for Easter dinner, she thinks. Oh, she's all relaxed, playfully posing for pictures, affectionately interacting with her husband.....who the week before was at that very same house telling the hostess, the "friend", how abusive this young mother, his wife, is to himself and their children. Her "friend", the hostess to this scenic small town Easter event, was advising him he should leave his wife and take the children. Meanwhile the wife all confident and unaware that she is surrounded by her worst enemies, critically examines me about how my daughter should be in kindergarten or something. My child's education is the least of her worries, but if I told her? Well, I'm just the trouble making outsider who doesn't know anything, they'll vehemently and convincingly argue against me, lulling the mother back into a comfortable sleep after they've provoked her into attacking me. Then they'll do it to her anyways and she'll be alone crying, wondering "How did this happen to me?". Been there myself, darlin' and seen this community do it time and again to other people. I'm not bitter, I'm realistic. These are normal relations in this area between friends and family members. Oh, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, did you think being family made it any safer? Did you think your teen niece would have at least been honest and told you? No, darlin', it's a small town and it's not quiet, she's been raised true to character and "keeps it in the family". Small towns aren't quiet, they just know how to keep their secrets.
      The "upper crust", "non-addicts" aren't any better. Did I think the town clerk was doing me a favor and being "small town generous" when I went for general assistance and she told me "no, don't show me that paperwork! I wont be able to do THIS for you". Oh, O.K., leery but not knowing if I should say anything. Nope, she was making sure I never got general assistance again. Because now she gets to say I was dishonest about my income and then she even lied to an outside agency who wanted to investigate. Oh, yes, the conniving runs deep, like being on a Survivor island. And what does she do with all that free time now that she has undermined everyone who would be going to her office for help? She calls her boyfriend the animal control officer to take bolt cutters to the padlock on her sister's dog yard fence, hauling his niece's dog off to Bangor Humane society where "heroic" auntie, (oh no, that's right: married father after marrying brother...) big sister rushes off to rescue it. Criminal activity in this town isn't limited to 4 drug addicts as one commenter posted on the news website.
     Then there's the local "righteous" and "upstanding" citizen postal worker. She's a real doozy. On her good side? Official post office policy is a casual thing. She doesn't like the rumors about you or has a bit of gossip she doesn't want to apply the federal regulations about privacy towards? She's all loose lips and robbery. Yes, robbery. Is it any less destructive to withhold important social security mail and a heater from a mother of minors in the middle of winter, depriving her of money to buy food and the ability to heat her home for her children than if a drug addict stole these things? And when an abused mother leaves town and is counting on privacy giving her time to accomplish the escape of herself and her minor children, is not the gossip of the postal worker informing the grandmother, one of the chief abusers of the intended mover, endangering the minors in question?! Is our  "upstanding citizen" and influential member of the community any less destructive and detrimental to the community than a drug dealer? The answer is no, obviously.
      If you ask the local preacher's wife why they have their church here she'll say it's because this area is plagued with evils like wife-swapping and these out-of-town attendees are bringing the Lord to this much in need community. O.K. Sex, drugs and rock and roll fought off with charismatic music, ornate hairdos to seduce angels into possession for speaking in tongues.....aren't they both just groups of people equally defiling their bodies? And while the town presents a pretty New England small town surface picture the church is doing a lot of surface renovating yet neither it nor the preacher are paying their property taxes....all looks the same to me. These outside church-goers fit right in! Welcome to the community! Don't know why the locals don't embrace them. They're all kin spiritually.
     There are also comments referring to police not looking into other killings. Other killings? Wasn't this recent event a rare thing in this "quiet" community and all due to only 4 newly arrived drug addicts? Like I said..... And yes, police are skeptical about anyone in these communities being "innocent victims". Shoot, my last name alone implicates me. One can safely assume I'm an alcoholic if not a drug addict and scam artist if not outright thief, right? And it must be true because I don't have custody of three of my kids, correct? There's no way I was just like that unwary mother in the first paragraph, right? Does not matter I was never investigated or found unfit. It absolutely could NEVER be small town corruption and politics, could it! Oh, no, I'm just a loose, lying, thieving addict like all the rest. Something different would never exist in such a community, would it? But because I am not any of those things, lies have to be fabricated and anything I do indeed do must be interpreted in the worst light possible.
     Meanwhile, we went all winter with no storm-caused power outages, but let those warm summer holidays come where everyone's drinking and so far we've had two power outages. Both due to poles being taken out. And there has been at least one death linked to drinking and driving in the year and a half since I've been here. And last year the man who lived across the road, adjacent to the property that was scene to the latest crime, killed his own father. No, this town is anything but quiet.....it just does what it does quietly so the news reporters, themselves addicted to "sensationalism" and dramatization, don't catch wind of it.
   And some may say "one less addict" or "fine, a bunch of drunks" don't matter to anyone and good riddance when it happens. But honey, I ask you honestly, "Is your position any different?". Would any of our deaths mean anything more to anyone than a reason to get the heart pumping as we spout off our opinions about it, feeding our various addictions to drama, self-righteousness, etc? Sure, there's an occasional heart that is touched, like me naively thinking "That was somebody's mother, father, brother, sister, son or daughter. They were loved and meant something to someone!". Did they really? Because if they really meant something to somebody, they wouldn't been allowed to get into that condition to begin with. any predisposal would have been nipped in the bud in childhood. No, those of us with sensitive hearts and even a passion for honesty are a rare thing and even we often don't know how to truly love and care about somebody. We are raised in the dark concerning discipline, righteousness, integrity, honesty, and all those truly good qualities. These are truly dark days for humanity.
    The days are gone where you might have been able to flee into the wilderness far from it all. The wilderness is home to drug plantations and monitored by federal agents who definitely won't let anyone settle down out there. No, we're all kinda trapped on this planet like animals in a cage just trying to find a safe enough corner that is not out there.
     Rumor has it that the people who frequented the property which served as the latest crime scene were those who were trying to get their lives clean up a bit. So why would this thing happen to such a one, one trying to clean himself up and should have been gaining a better reputation? Either he was a good-hearted person who spent a life misled and God saw fit to allow him to pay the price for his sins. We'll see him in some form of resurrection. Or his sins were too great for God to want to allow him any sort of redemption. An eerie thought to imagine, that a man's sins be so great that God would allow him to be put to death before he could work toward redemption. But the community is no less merciless in their judgment of him, are they? Even in a gruesome death, they still condemn him for his sins.

Ticked at my community!

   A little over 10 years ago some members of the community came to me about a corrupt animal control officer. So, I went to bat for them. I did the research on what was required to get her removed. I stuck my neck out talking to town officials about the process and neighbors. When it was time to produce written statements, every one backed out. "Oh, I'll lose clients". "Oh, no, she'll come take my dogs". Fine. Thanks a lot, but it's your town and your animals she's messing with. If you don't care enough, screw you too. You don't want to clean up your own bed, take responsibility for your circumstances, don't ask me to. I left you all to yourselves then came back at someone's behest only to find things worse instead of improved. Fine, again: it's your bed.
   But this latest cover up placed my children in  mortal danger! And THAT I won't take lying down. By Thursday afternoon I knew all the gruesome details of the crime committed on Main street. And that is saying something because no one in this community particularly likes me and I have no regular interactions with the people involved, if not due to personal differences than simply because of my family name. So, if I knew, the cops should have. But no. This animal was being protected, covered up and allowed to run loose. What if he imagined YOU were holding something out on him? Would it have  been so cool to have done him a favor as a friend? You let him get away with it! What would stop him from doing it again to his other friends? The people who picked him up at the cemetery should have knocked him on the head, trussed him up like a pig and driven straight to the police with his story. You saw the evidence through the windows, you knew he did what he said. You yourself called the police to do a "wellness check" with the murderer sitting right next to you! This wasn't a quick bullet to the head, it took up close, slow and methodical.....a bit more consideration.
   And this guy had already tried to kill his victim at least once. That victim told everyone he was afraid this was going to happen. You knew it was coming and did nothing to stop it. That blood is on the hands of this entire community which fostered and nourished this and constantly just turns their heads to things, trying so desperately to keep their own hands clean trying to play "politics", chopping off the heads who are actually brave enough to stick their necks out.
  There's a deep festering rot in this community and I'm not afraid to say it!

   I am editing to add: another thing to be leery and aware of about this community is their bad habit of making those who are leaving the "normal" ways of this community behind them to walk a different, straighter, road the community scapegoats. So, if you start getting clean or attempt to become a better parent, you suddenly find yourself under a magnifying glass and get the state and cops called on  you for any minute offense that can be presented in an ugly fashion. And when I say community, I include Plymouth and Palmyra, not just Detroit because everyone is related in one way or another, sharing the same mentality and problems. Trust me, you won't get support in this community for going straight or doing right by anyone, especially yourself and your children. You'll just be spit on and beat down like the Israelite scapegoat.