When I was in the States for a brief period in January 2009, I planned to take a trip to Chicago, Grand Rapids, and Detroit. I wanted to visit my friends the Hunefelds in Chicago, then fellow board members from the Association for a More Just Society in Grand Rapids, and then my college roommate Mark Hakim outside Detroit. Mark and I got tickets for a Michigan basketball game.
I postponed the departure date for the trip because of bad weater in the midwest. Bad weather in the midwest in January means temperatures of minus 38 degrees F with wind chills bringing the feel down to minus 60. The cold temperatures also bring on ice storms, and difficult driving conditions. My grandmother, aunt, uncle, and sister prevailed on me to leave later to avoid the worst of the storms. Meanwhile, the weather in Oklahoma was up into the 80s.
Driving a rental car from rural Oklahoma to Chicago is not easy. The nearest car rental agency to my grandmother's house is two hours away at the airport in Oklahoma City. As my grandmother was 89 at the time, she doesn't like to drive, and we don't like her to drive, that far by herself. When she drives to Norman (outside of Oklahoma City and home of my aunt and uncle), her neighbor Catherine, age 77, often accompanies her, on the theory that they will keep each other alert and aware. My grandmother used to drive up to Norman fairly often for doctor's appointments, but she has found doctors in Ardmore (it is debatable whether or not this is a good thing). So her trips to Norman now are for the used book store, the Golden Corral, Dillard's, and my aunt and uncle.
To get to Oklahoma City, I planned a trip up to Norman, where my grandmother would pass me off to my aunt and uncle. They, in turn, would drive me to the airport to pick up my rental car. From there I would drive fourteen hours to Chicago.
My grandmother, Catherine, and I drove up to Norman to eat at the Golden Corral, a favorite for both of them. It is a treat for Catherine and grams to get to eat at Golden Corral because there is none in Ardmore, and my aunt and uncle do not like eating there. Oklahoma is a fat state and the customers at Golden Corral can remind my aunt and uncle of that fact. Trying to eat healthily at the Corral can prove challenging, but it can be done. Notwithstanding their preferences against the Golden Corral, my aunt and uncle met us there to enjoy lunch and then my grandmother and Catherine made their way back to Ardmore.
The next morning my aunt and uncle took me to the Oklahoma City airport. I had made a reservation for unlimited miles for a bit over a week for about $250. Though I use this agency often, there were some unexpected charges and terms with the rental. The most significant change was that I was not permitted to take a rental car outside a state that bordered Oklahoma. While Missouri borders Oklahoma, and I could get to St. Louis, that still isn't close enough to Chicago. The consequences of driving out of the approved territory were paying 75 cents per mile and getting put on the "do not rent" list. Knowing that the odometer and the GPS in the car would make it abundantly clear if I went over the state lines, I started calculating the real cost of the rental. With the out-of-territory costs, and the additional fees, the rental would cost me about $1000, plus gas.
$1000 for a rental is not an option for someone who is unemployed and homeless, who was renting a car to save money on the trip. So I declined the rental and checked down the aisle at the other agencies. Because it was a same-day rental, none of the other agencies were able to give a much better rate.
I went upstairs to the airline counters. I stopped at American Airlines to ask if I could use miles to fly to Chicago.
"I don't know - can you use miles?"
"Can you check to see if I can book an awards ticket for me?"
"We can't do that here. You need to call the AAdvantage number."
"Can you call that number for me."
"We don't have that number. You'll have to find it yourself."
"Can you check to see how much the fare is to fly to Chicago today?"
"That's $313."
"Thanks. Have a good one."
After this representatively unsatisfactory encounter with American Airlines, I walked down the aisle to Southwest, the other airline with direct flights to Chicago. Southwest had similar prices for flights to Chicago. Representatives from both airlines seemed quite surprised that I was interested in buying a same-day ticket. Apparently it is uncommon in Oklahoma City.
I went downstairs to the baggage claim area and called my sister to check online about redeeming my miles. As I was giving my information to my sister, the following announcement came over the speakers: "Please evacuate the airport. The airport is on fire. Evacuate the airport immediately." I continued to speak with my ssiter and paid little mind to the announcement as no one else seemed to be minding it. As my sister looked through the listings, an alarm continued to sound and airport officials started streaming out. The car rental counters emptied. Passengers flowed out of the airport. There were no airport officials directing anyone where to go or asking anyone to leave. There were just the announcements directing people to leave: "The airport is on fire." I told my sister that I would need to leave the airport. Outside I found out from my sister that it would cost $200 plus 25,000 miles to book the ticket. I decided to pass . . .
Although there were never any announcements, the airport apparently re-opened because people flowed back into the airport. The airport did not burn down. I smelled no smoke. But the airport had been evacuated - I don't know what happened.
At this point I called my aunt and uncle to pick me up. I figured that these were signs that I was not supposed to go to Chicago. The ultimate sign to me was the announcement: "the airport is on fire."
My aunt rarely brings her cell phone with her. My uncle brings his with him, but doesn't always turn it on, and even when it is on, he doesn't always hear it. I left a message on my uncle's cell and at their house. Then I got on the phone to let my friends know I wasn't coming. I called my grandmother to let her know I would be back - she was so happy because she was worried about me traveling in the bad weather, and she would also miss me. I rang back my uncle, who answered the phone, probably the first and only time that he has answered the phone. He and my aunt came and picked me up. Otherwise I would have spent all day at the aiport, until they got home at 5 pm. So I spent the night in Norman - and did not go to Chicago.
domingo, 31 de mayo de 2009
miércoles, 6 de mayo de 2009
The Shooting at 4th and G SW
My grandmother's favorite movie series is Death Wish. In these movies, Charles Bronson plays a vigilante out to avenge the death of his family or girlfriends, or to rid the neighborhood of thugs. My grandmother appreciates the "justice" achieved when Bronson takes out the bad guys. She wishes that there were more vigilantes in the world today; it would be a safer place.
In the first Death Wish movie, the murderers follow Bronson's wife and daughter back to their apartment on New York City's Upper West Side and murder the wife and rape the daughter. Bronson's apartment is in 33 Riverside Drive, on the corner of West 75th Street, across from Riverside Park. When we first watched the attackers go into the building I thought it looked familiar. As the plot unfolded and we saw more shots of the block, I realized that I had been in that building - many times before. My Bible Study met there for several years and I went there every Friday night. When I told my Grandmother that I lived about half a block from that building and that I had been there many times she told me that she was so relieved that I was no longer in New York. Obviously I was living in a very unsafe place since Bronson's family was attacked a short distance from my house. I assured her that New York was very different now as opposed to 35 years ago when the first Death Wish movie came out. I had never been shot or seen a shooting in New York.
A few days after we watched a Death Wish marathon, my grandmother and I were sitting in her den in the small town of Ardmore, Oklahoma. It was evening and I heard voices in the front yard and looked out the windows. My grandmother lives on a corner lot and can get a large volume of foot traffic. I initially thought maybe children were playing in the yard, but I couldn't see anyone. I listened more closely and determined the voices were fighting men's. After some time the voices disappeared. My sister called and my grandmother and I got into a conversation with her.
Two loud bangs interrupted our conversation. I got up to look out the windows again. We both realized that the bangs were gunshots. I told my grandmother I was calling the police, but as I prepared to do so, we heard the first responders arrive. Out the window I saw two ambulances, two fire trucks, and about five squad cars descend upon our corner, lights whirling. I described the activities to my grandmother, who remained in her armchair, and to my sister, who was still on the phone. I watched neighbors walk from all directions toward the intersection. As is often the case at of accident sites or crime scenes, there is often a lot of activity, but little substance. The lights on the vehicles continued to turn, the neighbors moved back and forth to try to get more information, but at the actual site nothing much was happening, at least from our vantage point. From time to time a vehicle would leave. The fire trucks were gone. One of the ambulances left. Some of the squad cars departed. In the remaining ambulance I saw them load up something and peel away. But I could not see inside. A few police cars remained until late in the night.
Information was slow to be released. We learned from a neighbor that the shooting took place a few houses down. Though we don't know those neighbors, we believe that the women there were prostitutes and/or drug dealers. Apparently, two men came to the house and had a dispute with each other. That dispute carried over into our yard. One left (we had heard the quiet after the argument ceased). He then came back with a friend, and a gun. They shot the other man and then fled. The police got descriptions of both men, as well as their names and photos.
One of the assailants looked, according to my grandmother, like "a fine young man with his whole life in front of him." He was 19 years old, clean cut, white, and wholesomely attractive. She was disappointed that instead of getting a job and making something of himself, he was going and doing something like this. As far as we know, he has been on the run since the shooting occured in January. According to another source in town, he came from Texas. The local socio-political theory goes as follows: all problems in Oklahoma come from Texas. (As my grandmother's town is near the Texas border it often encounters these problems first.) In turn, all problems in Texas first come from Mexico. The exception is drugs. It is not fair to blame the influx of drugs from Mexico on the Mexicans because if there were no demand in the US, the Mexicans would not traffic the drugs.
The other assailant was a black man in his early 20s. We don't know if it was him or his friend the "fine young man" who was arguing in our yard. He fled the scene and the cops could not find him right away. However, a few days after the shooting, this assailant went to the Carter County courthouse for a hearing in an unrelated case. The court officials recognized him and thought that maybe he was the guy they were looking for - the one who fled the scene. He acknowledged that he was the suspect and they placed him under arrest. I guess he showed up to court with the optimistic hope that no one would recognize him. As it happened, no one in the court had made the connection beforehand; they were not waiting to bring him into custody. It seems almost by chance that the court officer recognized him, or otherwise he would have eluded detection. In a town of 25,000 people, it seems the police should be able to recognize people with prior arrests, and check to see if there are any current cases pending against them.
The victim of the shooting went to the hospital and the reports in the following days revealed that he was in stable condition. No other information was released - we don't know if he was a "fine young man," or his age, or why he was at the home of the suspected prostitutes. We also don't know if or when the hospital released him, but we never saw a death announcement in the news - we take that as a good sign.
The suspected prostitutes have moved out of the house. The owners have started renovations after they inspected the house and discovered that the toilet had fallen through the floor and the roof was not intact.
After all of this I pointed out to my grandmother that the only time in my life I had experienced a shooting outside my home was in Oklahoma - never in New York or anywhere else. So maybe Bronson's character had the misfortune 35 years ago to lose his family to violence in Manhattan. But my violent spot was Oklahoma. I do not plan on becoming a vigilante, though.
In the first Death Wish movie, the murderers follow Bronson's wife and daughter back to their apartment on New York City's Upper West Side and murder the wife and rape the daughter. Bronson's apartment is in 33 Riverside Drive, on the corner of West 75th Street, across from Riverside Park. When we first watched the attackers go into the building I thought it looked familiar. As the plot unfolded and we saw more shots of the block, I realized that I had been in that building - many times before. My Bible Study met there for several years and I went there every Friday night. When I told my Grandmother that I lived about half a block from that building and that I had been there many times she told me that she was so relieved that I was no longer in New York. Obviously I was living in a very unsafe place since Bronson's family was attacked a short distance from my house. I assured her that New York was very different now as opposed to 35 years ago when the first Death Wish movie came out. I had never been shot or seen a shooting in New York.
A few days after we watched a Death Wish marathon, my grandmother and I were sitting in her den in the small town of Ardmore, Oklahoma. It was evening and I heard voices in the front yard and looked out the windows. My grandmother lives on a corner lot and can get a large volume of foot traffic. I initially thought maybe children were playing in the yard, but I couldn't see anyone. I listened more closely and determined the voices were fighting men's. After some time the voices disappeared. My sister called and my grandmother and I got into a conversation with her.
Two loud bangs interrupted our conversation. I got up to look out the windows again. We both realized that the bangs were gunshots. I told my grandmother I was calling the police, but as I prepared to do so, we heard the first responders arrive. Out the window I saw two ambulances, two fire trucks, and about five squad cars descend upon our corner, lights whirling. I described the activities to my grandmother, who remained in her armchair, and to my sister, who was still on the phone. I watched neighbors walk from all directions toward the intersection. As is often the case at of accident sites or crime scenes, there is often a lot of activity, but little substance. The lights on the vehicles continued to turn, the neighbors moved back and forth to try to get more information, but at the actual site nothing much was happening, at least from our vantage point. From time to time a vehicle would leave. The fire trucks were gone. One of the ambulances left. Some of the squad cars departed. In the remaining ambulance I saw them load up something and peel away. But I could not see inside. A few police cars remained until late in the night.
Information was slow to be released. We learned from a neighbor that the shooting took place a few houses down. Though we don't know those neighbors, we believe that the women there were prostitutes and/or drug dealers. Apparently, two men came to the house and had a dispute with each other. That dispute carried over into our yard. One left (we had heard the quiet after the argument ceased). He then came back with a friend, and a gun. They shot the other man and then fled. The police got descriptions of both men, as well as their names and photos.
One of the assailants looked, according to my grandmother, like "a fine young man with his whole life in front of him." He was 19 years old, clean cut, white, and wholesomely attractive. She was disappointed that instead of getting a job and making something of himself, he was going and doing something like this. As far as we know, he has been on the run since the shooting occured in January. According to another source in town, he came from Texas. The local socio-political theory goes as follows: all problems in Oklahoma come from Texas. (As my grandmother's town is near the Texas border it often encounters these problems first.) In turn, all problems in Texas first come from Mexico. The exception is drugs. It is not fair to blame the influx of drugs from Mexico on the Mexicans because if there were no demand in the US, the Mexicans would not traffic the drugs.
The other assailant was a black man in his early 20s. We don't know if it was him or his friend the "fine young man" who was arguing in our yard. He fled the scene and the cops could not find him right away. However, a few days after the shooting, this assailant went to the Carter County courthouse for a hearing in an unrelated case. The court officials recognized him and thought that maybe he was the guy they were looking for - the one who fled the scene. He acknowledged that he was the suspect and they placed him under arrest. I guess he showed up to court with the optimistic hope that no one would recognize him. As it happened, no one in the court had made the connection beforehand; they were not waiting to bring him into custody. It seems almost by chance that the court officer recognized him, or otherwise he would have eluded detection. In a town of 25,000 people, it seems the police should be able to recognize people with prior arrests, and check to see if there are any current cases pending against them.
The victim of the shooting went to the hospital and the reports in the following days revealed that he was in stable condition. No other information was released - we don't know if he was a "fine young man," or his age, or why he was at the home of the suspected prostitutes. We also don't know if or when the hospital released him, but we never saw a death announcement in the news - we take that as a good sign.
The suspected prostitutes have moved out of the house. The owners have started renovations after they inspected the house and discovered that the toilet had fallen through the floor and the roof was not intact.
After all of this I pointed out to my grandmother that the only time in my life I had experienced a shooting outside my home was in Oklahoma - never in New York or anywhere else. So maybe Bronson's character had the misfortune 35 years ago to lose his family to violence in Manhattan. But my violent spot was Oklahoma. I do not plan on becoming a vigilante, though.
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