My warm endings worthily advice
Liberal Logic
I really enjoy reading columns of the other writers who appear in this newspaper, especially Johnny and Connie’s where they tell anecdotes from memories of their past lives and draw them up into nice warm endings or worthy advice.
Let’s see if my anecdotes have the same warm endings or worthy advice as theirs. Back in the early 80s in Houston, while we had an untrained cat that would perfectly position himself on the toilet seat and do his business into the bowl (I’m not kidding!) the crack epidemic was roaring through nearby neighborhoods, and soon crackheads started branching out to middle-class subdivisions to steal anything for money to get their fix. We lived on the very last street of our subdivision, having to drive all the way through it to get to our house making us the most exposed to those crackhead areas.
In cooler weather we liked to watch TV under our deck outside by the pool. One day the TV was gone, later so was the tailgate of my pickup.
While soundly sleeping in our bedroom one night, my wife woke me up screaming. There was a pair of hands on her legs that weren’t’ mine. Apparently, this robber was a pervert as well as a thief. I woke up seeing a black shadowy figure standing at the end of the bed. I was scared for my life. I thought he was going to kill us. He started running. I reached into my bed-stand and fumbled with the Saturday night special I traded a pair of jeans for or something of equal value.
With adrenaline flowing, I chased him through the house ready to shoot, but every time I got a good look at him, he always ran around a corner. Finally he ran through the kitchen, under the open garage door, and down the street. I fired two shots at him and missed both times.
When the sheriff came to fill out the crime report, he gave me some worthy advice “because he (the thief/pervert) was running down the street away from you, he posed no immediate threat, therefore , you’d could’ve been in big trouble if you’d hit him. At worst it could’ve been some kind of degree, (I forgot which one), of murder, or assault with a deadly weapon, or at best, a $70K lawyer to get you off. Not to mention the civil suit the family would bring on you.”
Obviously, we moved to a nice subdivision across town. We have many warm memories from living there. We keep in touch with our former neighbors. Hint, hint: “warm memories.”
When we first moved to Grimes County, I met a lot of people who told me they have a handgun in every room of their house. Some said that they’re never more than 10 feet away from a loaded gun. All this talk about guns made me think Grimes County was a dangerous place, so I bought three. At gun stores I was never FBI approved on the spot. They gave me background checks, not ones who really need them.
With the idea we moved to a dangerous county, I pull out guns every time the dogs bark. One night was different. We go to bed around 10 p.m. so we were sleeping when someone knocked loudly on our door around 11 p.m. We live out in the country, so this is very unusual. When I got out of bed, I made sure my .357 was in my hand. It was a young guy looking for directions. I gave him some worthy advice. Don’t knock on doors at 11 p.m. out here in the country.
Hey, I did it! That’s my worthy advice!
Steven Seymour is a Vietnam veteran who lives in Navasota and writes a biweekly opinion column. The opinions expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions and viewpoints of The Examiner.