We got a serial thief in the neighborhood, known pretty much to all of us and the sheriff. Like most of our thieves, he\u2019s got an opioid problem, meaning, he\u2019s graduated from oxycontin to heroin . Since he doesn\u2019t work, money to buy his drugs is a constant concern. So he decided on a life of crime here on the fiscally troubled South End.<\/p>\n
When he first embarked on robbery as a career track, he broke into the next door neighbor\u2019s house, kicked in the front door and lugged out a safe. A few days later and a few doors down, he kicked in the front door and hauled out their safe. Then, a few more days later\u2026. well, you know the modus operandi by now. If you were a wily detective in the sheriff\u2019s crack crimestopping force, you could just about follow the crumbs that led back to Bobby\u2019s lair where he lived with his grandmother. All of us could. <\/p>\n
He was eventually pulled over for a moving violation and lo and behold, he was found carrying all manner of stolen goods. He went to jail a few months, then recently was released. His grandma, bless her understanding heart, took him back in. He promised he would quit the needle, get some help, maybe even get a job. She believed him; after all, he was blood. <\/p>\n
Well, maybe you\u2019ve never known a junkie. Maybe you think they\u2019re a lot like you only a little down on their luck. Maybe you think if they only caught a break. Or a grandma who\u2019d give them a hand up, they\u2019d be okay. They\u2019d become good citizens, get a job, pay taxes, go straight. I\u2019m a bleeding heart liberal but I\u2019ve know a few junkies. I lived with one for awhile down in Seattle and Gomorrah. And she ended up stealing from me. Not because she disliked me. Just because she needed drugs more than she needed friendship. <\/p>\n
So last week grandma\u2019s safe turned up missing, back window broken into, her jewelry and coin collections hauled out the front door. I asked if anyone thought it was Bobby and no, it must\u2019ve been that other addict down the road, the one whose brother just got out of prison, a junkie too. Great, an ever increasing number of suspects. <\/p>\n
Grandma, though, found some of her coins that were in the purloined safe on Bobby\u2019s floor when she came in to vacuum, pretty irrefutable evidence, and so she confronted her ward and of course he hit the front door running and lit out down the highway. Grandma called the Law. I suppose a Philadelphia lawyer might ask why she didn\u2019t call the Law first, maybe let them question Bobby, but that never occurred to her apparently. So her loot and jewels are gone along with her grandson. I give it about a year, Bobby\u2019ll be back with another chance to turn his life around, all forgiven once again, this will make it about the fourth or fifth time. I don\u2019t know if inbreeding is to blame, but the South End\u2019s getting a sad reputation, you ask me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We got a serial thief in the neighborhood, known pretty much to all of us and the sheriff. Like most of our thieves, he\u2019s got an opioid problem, meaning, he\u2019s graduated from oxycontin to heroin . Since he doesn\u2019t work, money to buy his drugs is a constant concern. So he decided on a life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7464,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7463\/revisions\/7464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}