The Excitement Level is Quite Palable
September 18, 2015
Let Them Party to Relieve the Pain (Haunted Party House Short Story)
October 16, 2015
Lindsay Nyquist, the owner/operator of Raven’s Eye Press, the small publishing firm that’s helping me to put the book of essays together now officially has everything for the book. That includes all essays for the interior-which have been edited and re-edited four times, all the photos for the book, cover shot, acknowledgments blurb; basically the entire shooting match as they say. Now its just a matter of her putting it together and contacting the Library of Congress to get an ISBN number for the book to get published. This week’s essay is an earlier one posted to the blog. It got the most votes of everything I gave to the readers last winter so it’s theoretically the most popular one, right? You be the judge.
Word Count: 829
Stealth Robbery
Silverton Style
So I’m sure some of you are thinking to yourself, Silverton is such a small, isolated mountain community, there’s no possible way anyone could commit a heinous crime in this place. If they did, does the perpetrator actually think they can get way with it? No way, and as we all know everyone is familiar with everyone else’s personal business in this town, whether you want them to know about it or not. Definitely one of the beauties (or curses depending upon your perspective) of a small rural town when one thinks about it.
Believe it or not at one time I firmly dipped my feet into the realm of stealth thievery, and it was actually a good thing for my character development. Really? Really. Nobodies perfect especially me. Nowadays most political parties wish they could find a candidate who’s within that realm of perfection. Just so they can nominate them to run for political office.
First off, let me clarify something, the crimes myself and my buddies committed weren’t very shocking. If they were, you probably wouldn’t be seeing me casually whistling as I ride my bike down the street these days. More like the type of wrongdoing certain twelve-year-old boys commit when bored and wishing they had additional funds for incidental toy purchases.
During the summer and into the fall of my 12th year of existence on this planet, me and three other lads got a little bit too curious during our daily bike rides around town. Back in the early 70s, you could still access a large percentage of the buildings in Silverton via coal shoots off the back alley. Figuring nobody would notice one day, two of us decided to pry open the shoot doors of one of them and wormed our way into the building. Then using our trusty flashlights, we managed to find the basement stairs and climbed up into the main part of the structure.
Let’s meet the perpetrators. Beside the grandson of the local grocery store owner (me), you also had the son of the high school English teacher, the son of the school superintendent, and the son of a long time Silverton native. A pack of vicious, criminal pre-teens you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley-even in your worst nightmares.
At first it was just an innocent game and we made our way into a number of edifices just to see if we could do it. Then a lethal combination of too many cops-n-robbers movies, massive television viewing off of Silverton’s one and only TV station, and juvenile delinquency run amuck resulted in the four of us absconding with all sorts of items from our nightly raids.
One of the buildings we broke into had us stealing all sorts of items we didn’t really need off the store shelves. Then we got really brave (or stupid) and broke into the register of one store and made off with some extra cash. Not much though as all four of us were afraid of getting caught. Enough for the religious guilt to kick in big time the next day when I discovered an extra $5.00 burning a hole in my wallet.
We finally did get caught when one of us inadvertently told his older sister that he had access to anything and everything off the shelves of a local hardware store. Additionally, have you ever tried to crawl into a building through a coal shoot then back out without looking like a Charles Dickens street urchin come to life after you’ve pulled it off? Didn’t think so, and sooner or later all or one of us were bound to get caught. Luckily it was sooner in this case.
The end result of our forays into the throes of juvenile misbehavior was the four of us attending a series of counseling sessions with the local sheriff. Sort of like an early version of the scared straight program, Silverton style.
This was followed by each of us being forcibly separated from the other three in addition to a few other punishments: Some were idle threatens such as one set of parental units threatening to send their son to a combination youth detention center/boarding school in New Hampshire – prohibitive costs putting an end to that plan. Neither did my own parent’s intention to ground me till I reached the age of thirty-five. They softened their stance by the time Christmas rolled around.
We can pinpoint me being grounded for multiple months as the beginning of my obsession with comic book reading and collecting. Has this been a good or bad sign in my case? You be the judge.
So what did I learn from this childhood experience? Fortunately this and a few other adventures (and misadventures) have resulted in me possessing a very high set of moral standards now that I’m an adult. All thanks to some cat burglar plundering during my youth, Silverton style.
