Author: Dick

A photo depiction of a wreck and not from the real event.
Photo courtesy of Stock.xchng

Gosh, it’s been two days in a row that I have come across a little excitement in my Old Town neighborhood of Beaumont, Texas. Yesterday, of course, I walked up to a residence on McFaddin Avenue where a homicide had taken place several hours earlier. A few minutes ago I came across a two-vehicle accident that was in the final stages of being cleared.

Two pickup trucks had collided at the intersection of North and Ninth Street. It appeared one of the pickups had rolled over. An old guy on a bicycle (OGOB) told me he didn’t see it, but said at least one person was taken away by ambulance. The OGOB said, in his opinion, that perhaps one of the pickups that was apparently traveling south on Ninth Street may have run the stop sign at North Street. The impact “knocked the other pickup over,” OGOB said.

Please remember that the statements here are those I have reported from an old guy on a bicycle and are not meant to be official statements from official persons. At least, officially.

A suspect has allegedly confessed to the murder this morning in my neighborhood, according to KFDM-TV.

Despite what people who live where the murder took place told me this morning as I was walking by, it appears the 22-year-old victim (and not 17) was bludgeoned with a baseball bat (not shot)in front of the house where he was found(not dumped). So much of what you hear early is wrong. I still await to read my local newspaper in the morning. Hopefully, they will have separated wheat from chaff.

Lest we all forget, Vivi the whippet show dog is still missing. But I found this intriguing development in which 1/33 of the psychics on the Vivi case thinks the pooch is steaming across the Big Ditch to France. Mon Dieu!

A nation still holds its collective breath for its favorite missing whippet.

A Kia Optima is struck by a gigantic powder puff.

Kia, South Korea’s second largest automobile manufacturer, is building its first American plant. I am sure that is good news for West Point, Ga., the site of the new assembly plant. But I am not so sure what that means for the rest of us.

I’ve driven a Kia before. It was kind of tight, as in a tight fit. They may be perfectly sound automobiles. Kias may be the reincarnation of white bread. But the name bothers me. Kia. In the military KIA is an acroynm for killed in action. I never felt attracted to an automobile that reminded me of violent death. I guess I’m just funny that way.

Of course, if you can get past Kia there are always the plethora of Kia models with spiffy names like the Optima or the Rio. It seems like automobile manufacturers just grab any old name out of the air these days to name a new model. Really weird stuff like the Depletionairre, or the Snuffster, or the Lucifera, or the Loser. Hey Loser! What ya drivin’? I’m driving a Loser.

If you are what you drive, then I don’t think I am quite ready to connect with a new Kia.

My morning walk bore a little more excitement than usual. Just awhile ago I was walking west on McFaddin Avenue and saw the police blocking off a street ahead. By the time I had walked up to the scene, the cops had already left. Neighbors there said a 17-year-old boy was found shot to death on the sidewalk around 5:30 a.m.

The lady who discovered the body said the victim, identified as being either Hispanic or Asian, may have been dumped out at the location about two hours before. Another neighbor said the victim’s face “was real messed up” and he initially thought the young man may have been beaten. But police said he had been shot.

That area of Beaumont, Texas, is all part of the Old Town area in which I live. Just down the street is the historic McFaddin-Ward mansion. This particular section of Old Town could be described as a “working-class” neighborhood. Still it’s normally pretty quiet.

Like I told the dude before leaving: “It’s a hell of a way to start a Monday.”