Happenings In the Neighborhood

If your entire world is on West 8th Street then it's been a rather boring week. But we all are part of a bigger "neighborhood" and in our neighborhood there's been some happenings.

One very sad event took place 4 blocks away from West 8th Street on W. 4th St.
A 17 year old girl was walking with her friend behind the Save A Lot grocery store when her 27 year old ex-boyfriend appeared with a gun and shot her three times. It didn't take long for Davenports finest to track the would be murderer down and put him where he couldn't hurt anyone else.
The girl, although in critical condition at first is recovering and will survive.
Lucky for her and also lucky for those of us in the neighborhood that her so called ex will no doubt not be attending any social events for quite some time.
Of course the question begs to be asked as to why a 17 year old girl was even allowed to have an "ex" boyfriend who was 10 years older?
You could also take the ages and bring them down by one year reasonably since he is an ex-boyfriend. That would leave a 16 year old girl with a 26 year old boyfriend!
Incredible.....

Moving on, a few days ago the wife and I were leaving our home for dinner at Kelly's when as we were pulling out we noticed a large amount of brush clippings that someone had unceremoniously dumped in the middle of our alley. It was such a large amount that it blocked traffic in both directions. I would imagine someone was "making a statement" about our cities garbage and recycling fees.
It could have been taken 3 miles away down to the compost site and for probably less than $2 been dumped there but obviously whoever did this was in a hurry or just didn't have the cash on hand.

It used to be long ago that our "sewer" fees were all part of our water bill that arrived every 3 months. The "fees" were split and suddenly it seemed that we were paying almost twice as much for our water/sewer service and we were receiving two bills every 3 months.
Of course through the years the costs for both have gone up and our leaders have added to the sewer portion of our bill what they call "fees" for various city services. We now have a "garbage" fee, a "recycling" fee and a "storm water runoff" fee all tacked onto the sewer bill. And of course, our property taxes haven't decreased but have in fact increased on average over the years.

I haven't seen much of our allegedly drug dealing neighbor lately but stay tuned.....it's Saturday and things tend to "go down" more on the weekends.

The weather here on West 8th Street was almost balmy Friday. I believe Terry Swails on channel 6 said it got up to 47 degrees! The snow and ice was melting at a rapid pace. The South facing sides of our yards on West 8th Street have very little snow left in place.
We are promised though that the temps will fall and stay pretty much steady for the foreseeable future. Right now at my trusty weather station it is 32.2 degrees. That number is probably askew since the transmitter is in the bright sunlight right now.
All in all, things keep clicking along here on West 8th Street. I hope you have had a good week! Stay warm and remember, spring is only 2 more house/rent payments away!