I — we — missed the opportunity to use photos in the header. Problem solved.
And I promise: no more neon anything, ever again.
Uncle Crappy
words. pictures. beer.
Tagged with uncategorizable …
i’m walkin’.
I am surrounded by babies.
This isn’t new. My friends from college had their baby explosion a few years ago. My sister and Mrs. Crappy’s cousins joined them, but I think they’re all about done by now. Now, my Pittsburgh friends and their families — as well as a few co-workers — are doing their best right now to ensure the propagation of the species.
I’m thrilled for all of them, whether they have newborns or whether they’re watching their kids grow up before their eyes.
I have another reason to be thrilled. All those kids? They’ve all been healthy. I’ve had a couple good friends who’ve had to deal with the surprise of a premature birth — and fortunately for them, all they’ve had to deal is the surprise itself.
In that regard, I’ve been lucky.
Not everyone is. Take the Spohrs. They lost their daughter Maddie earlier this month, when she was just 17 months old. Maddie was born prematurely. The Spohrs didn’t want flowers in Maddie’s memory; they asked their friends to make donations to the March of Dimes, and their friends have responded.
You’ve heard me say over and over and over how remarkable my Pittsburgh friends are. They responded as well. Burgh Baby started up a team that will walk on May 9; there are now more than 20 — including the Crappys — signed up for the team. She set a goal of $2,000; the team now has raised more than $2,600, and $3,000 should be pretty easy to reach.
Y’all know we don’t have kids. But it’s still not hard for the childless among us to look around and see how fortunate our friends and families have been. And it’s not hard for us to imagine the horror we all would have experienced if what happened to the Spohrs had happened with one of our friends.
Or, even worse, to my niece or one of my nephews.
We shouldn’t have to worry about this stuff. The March of Dimes is working to make sure we don’t. If you can pitch in a few bucks towards my $200 goal, you can help make sure it won’t happen to your family or friends either.
my neighbor.
I’ve come to know a pretty good number of cops because of work.
It’s not something you think about when you’ve been pulled over and the guy is walking up to your car window, but the ones I know? They’re just regular people.
And they’ve chosen to work an extraordinarily difficult and dangerous job.
On Saturday morning, while watching the coverage of the standoff in Stanton Heights, it occurred to me that I should take a look out the front window. The city cop who lives across the street has been one of our favorite neighbors, and I wanted to see whether his truck was outside, an indication that he was home — and not involved with the standoff.
His truck wasn’t there.
We had a very busy day on Saturday, and I kept looking for his pickup each time we returned home. We didn’t see it until early Sunday morning, when we returned for good. A small bit of relief.
I saw him on Tuesday, when he arrived home after taking his German Shepherd for a romp in Riverview Park. We talked just for a couple minutes; he said he wasn’t working Saturday morning, but he knew Eric Kelly, the off-duty officer who drove to help with the standoff because he lived nearby.
He had seen the story in that day’s P-G, the one that said dispatchers failed to warn the responding officers about the potential that there were weapons in the house. He said that didn’t matter: “The guy started firing as soon as they opened the door. They didn’t have a chance.”
He was sad about the loss of the guy he knew and the other two cops who died with him. But he was also matter-of-fact about what happened, and the knowledge that it could happen at any time.
The cops I know say it could happen on a random traffic stop. It could happen while they investigate a triggered security system. It could happen on a domestic call.
It could happen any time. They know it. They go to work anyway.
When my neighbor and I were done chatting, I told him we were thinking about him on Saturday morning, and we would be thinking about him this week. He shook my hand and said he appreciated it. I walked back across the street and he took his happy, barking dog inside.
He had to get ready for work.
red carpet.
“Tonight, Uncle Crappy is wearing a lively ensemble — a wrinkled shirt from Old Navy, stunning Eddie Bauer cargo pants and ravishing work boots from Target. Doesn’t he look fabulous?”
I can’t wait to hear what Kojo has to say tomorrow.
hi.
Things are better. You might even say I’m cautiously optimistic.
OK. I gotta go buy a new vacuum.
