Negative Railroad

I haven’t written much about it on NRR, but a big part of my life over the past few years has been spent walking around my neighborhood as a volunteer crimefighter. It’s not as tough-guy and vigiliante as that sounds. We more or less just find ne’er-do-wells and stand where they can see us until they leave.

It’s not dramatic. Not very often, anyway. We’ve been so successful that there haven’t been many bad guys to annoy. Tonight, we found some. And we pushed them off their our corner.

We had several new people out in our group, and this was the first time they got to see what a handful of dedicated people can do. Even if our presence was short-lived, we were noticed, and we made a difference.

It”s the kind of thing that makes me smile while it makes me cry. It’s not hard to defend our way of life. At least not on a block-by-block scale. I am grateful that others are holding the real front line, where violence is unavoidable and there’s no warm bed waiting.

But all it takes is for each of us to do what we can. Today, I did. And I remembered why.

A favorite memory of my time walking the 55418 with the Northeast Citizen Patrol is a conversation with a couple of cops. The officers were telling us true stories of dumb criminals. After several laughable tales, one of the cops joked, “We don’t catch ‘em because we’re smart.”

Well, TJIC pointed to the sad truth of that wisecrack:

A long-blighted property in the 55418 is no more.

May this be the first step toward major redevelopment in the Audubon Park neighborhood.

On Tyler Street we came across a boy who I now know was 9 years old. He was arguing with his little sister at the edge of a parking lot. As this child finished cussing out a baby girl, he flipped her the finger and stomped away. One of us, “The Shirts”, called over to scold the boy.