Category: Orphans

A reminder on Fourth Street in Beaumont, Texas, that mean Miss Rita came calling.

You kind of get used to roofers everywhere and the still present blue FEMA tarps covering the roofs the roofers have yet to fix. But outright signs that Hurricane Rita hit here almost six months ago are not as easy to find these days. Walking just down the street from where I used to live on Fourth Street, I saw this house on which a huge tree still rests. If we could be anthropomorphic for a second with this house, it would seem to say: “Fix me please. I do so want this big tree off of me!” This would be followed by a low, mournful groan.

It’s not easy getting over a hurricane.

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.