It is hard to be upbeat about the neighborhood when crap happens. It is even harder when crap happens right after some other crap. Stoner dog’s dad got mugged. A bunch of kids, not the usual crew that usually hangs around, knocked him down and when they discovered he only had $1 in his wallet, threw it back at him. Afterwards, this stoic man of a man, just comes on over to the BACA party after we have done a round robin of introductions and saying what we liked about our block/street/ neighborhood. His wife, who’d gotten there before him, mentioned something that really needs to be said. She said after they were robbed they got a lot of support from their neighbors, some brought over food, flowers, and one loaned them his car. She said if they lived in a big faceless condo they wouldn’t have gotten that.
There is no way to smoothly segway back to the corner….
But other news related to our crime ridden corner is that the usual crowd of dealers have apparently taken seasonal jobs indoors. If you haven’t noticed it is too cold to hang out waiting for crack heads and other druggies to pass by for a buy. According to the grapevine one of the dealers has taken a temporary job at a large store and is reselling some items on the street obtained with the 5-finger employee discount.