So call me a hard-hearted capitalist pig

From the Miami Herald:

Poverty in U.S. might get worse.

Yeah - and the sky might fall and global warming might melt all the polar bears into the ocean and flood Miami Beach. Oops - back to the MH:

If you were shocked by this week's U.S. Census figures showing that there are more than 36.5 million people living in poverty in the United States, get ready: It may get much worse in coming years!

Before I tell you why I fear that the gap between America's rich and poor is going to widen even more -- courtesy of a majority of Republicans and some Democrats in the Senate who voted against an immigration reform bill what would have given a merit-based path to citizenship to many of the estimated 12 million undocumented U.S. residents -- let's take a look at the alarming figures released Wednesday.

• The percentage of U.S. residents living below the poverty line dropped slightly last year....

• The U.S. poverty rate is at 12.3 percent, a slight decrease from last year's....

• A sizable part of the U.S. population living below the poverty line or lacking medical insurance is Hispanic....

That slurping sound you hear is the Miami Herald sucking up to "Hispanics."

Of course, in Miami, most of the "Hispanics" are Cuban and have enough gumption to help themselves. What the MH really means by "Hispanics" is illegal aliens. Tough titty - as the cavewoman said to her 17th child.

The rest of the article is so laughably Marxist/John Lennonist that I can't be bothered to quote from it. Its breathless outrage is such obvious emotional manipulation and faux "concern" that it makes me want to puke.

Even if there is real poverty in America, the poverty and race victimologists are so transparently insincere that I automatically harden my heart to their whining. Their creepy fake compassion gives me the shudders. If they are so concerned, they can always volunteer and donate as most civilized adults do. But no - they insist that everybody except themselves must give via taxes. Boy, I despise bleeding hearts.

So call me a hard-hearted capitalist pig. I confess: I am. I was thinking about this yesterday after deleting a comment under my Poverty (and obesity) post. I didn't delete it because it criticized me for being a selfish greedy Republican capitalist pig (I am) but because every second word was an obscenity. But it got me wondering about why I don't care about "the poor" in that abstract airy-fairy way that bleeding hearts do.

When my sister and I were kids, (when my dad was still healthy and we were rich) she and I used to bring home kids of all colors to feed them. My mom used to joke that we brought home starving kids the way other kids brought home stray dogs but she also enjoyed watching the kids wolf down food like hungry puppies.

There was no welfare in South Africa and there was real poverty. Word got round about my mom's generosity and soon beggars were coming to our kitchen door regularly for handouts. Most of them were black and barely surviving. They didn't have food stamps (and cellphones.) They had nothing. So I saw real poverty up close from a very early age.

Seeing all this suffering turned me into a bleeding heart and was probably the main reason that I joined the anti-apartheid movement. I swallowed the liberal line that it was the white peoples' fault that blacks were suffering. The poverty and suffering in Africa used to weigh down my youthful heart with guilt and sorrow.

I thought like that until well into my late 20s when I started to see that it was not as simple as that. I don't remember exactly when it happened but it probably had to do with realizing that food alone could not alleviate the poverty and suffering in this world; that "man shall not live by bread alone." I saw that poor people needed more than handouts.

I didn't stop caring but I did stop torturing myself with guilt. I stopped obsessing about "the poor." It was too big a problem for me to deal with alone and, by that time, I had stopped trusting socialists. I did not think that they were sincere. They seemed to use the poor to further their own socialist agenda.

I saw how most of the money sent as "aid" to Africa from the West ended up in the pockets of corrupt government officials, tinpot tyrants, dictators, despots and other assorted crooks and scoundrels. I saw that the only real help ordinary Africans got was from Christian missionaries who didn't just throw money at the problem but lived among the poor and taught them to help themselves.

I'm not a Christian but to me money given to private charities does far more good than any government handouts. So, when I read nonsense like that crap in the Miami Herald, I tune it out. It's not sincere and government "aid" is actually not only bad for the poor; it's bad for society as a whole.

Just look at socialist Europe. They don't give as much money to charity as we do. They don't volunteer as much as we do. They've grown cold and uncaring while pretending to be bleeding hearts. Socialism is simply a way to avoid guilt; a way to avoid the personal responsibility of heartfelt charity. Handouts given without love can never feed the real needs of "the poor."

That's why I despise modern "liberalism." So call me a hard-hearted capitalist pig.

Boys' toys

Talking about my Viewmaster yesterday got me tripping down memory lane thinking about my early childhood. When I was a toddler, we were rich and I had lots of toys but, no matter how many toys I got, I loved my teddy bear, "Fred," the most. It probably looked the one below when I first got it but, after a few years of too much loving, "Fred" was pretty ratty-looking. The dog had eaten its nose and both glass eyes had fallen out and been replaced with buttons that my mom sewed on.























We moved to another town when I was about 4 and scruffy "Fred" was left behind. "I forgot to pack it" said my mom. I was unconvinced and inconsolable. I "adopted" one of my sister's dolls as a substitute for "Fred" to sleep with at night but my dad was worried that I was going to grow up to be a pansy and insisted that I was too old to sleep with toys. When he realized that I missed "Fred" and could not fall asleep easily without a cuddly toy, he relented somewhat and bought me a Gollywog which were regarded as "okay for boys" because they were male dolls. Of course nowadays Gollywogs are no longer made as they are not PC.

From Wikipedia:

The "Golliwogg" (later "Golliwog") is a rag doll-like, children's literary character created by Florence Kate Upton in the late 19th century. The Golliwogg was inspired by a blackface minstrel doll Upton had as a child in America. At one point it was very popular in Europe and as a result has become a collector's item. However, the image of the doll has become the subject of heated debate. One aspect of the debate in its favour argues that it should be preserved and passed on as a cherished cultural artifact and childhood tradition, while opponents argue it should be retired as a relic of an earlier time when racism against black people was blatant.

Gollywogs were used in advertisements like this one.























As I grew older and went to school, I lost interest in dolls and, when I was 7, I got my Viewmaster. From then on all I wanted was gadgets and other "boys' toys" and every self-respecting boy at that time had a "chemistry set." I got one for my 8th birthday and used to love doing "experiments." I decided that I wanted to be a chemist.





















But then I got a Meccano set for my 9th birthday and would spend hours building things with it. By that time I was really hooked on Popular Mechanics magazine and I decided that I wanted to be an engineer or an architect. I forgot about being a chemist but my dream of being an architect persisted. (Ironically, by the time I was old enough for college, I could not afford to study architecture but got financial help to study pharmacy.)















From Wikipedia:

Meccano is a model construction kit comprising re-usable metal strips, plates, angle girders, wheels, axles and gears, with nuts and bolts to connect the pieces. It is a versatile constructional medium enabling the building of a variety of working models and mechanical devices.

Meccano was invented in 1901 in England by Frank Hornby and manufactured by the British company, Meccano Ltd, between 1908 and 1980. Currently it is manufactured in France and China.

(I think Meccano sets are similar to what are called Erector sets in the USA.)

Hornby not only invented the Meccano set but went on to make the Hornby Model Railways and Dinky Toys.

From Wikipedia:

Dinky Toys are die-cast miniature model cars and trucks. They first appeared in early 1934 when Meccano Ltd of Liverpool, England introduced a new line of "modelled miniatures" under the trade mark "Meccano Dinky Toys". The first announcement for the new line was made in the April 1934 issue of Meccano Magazine.

My dad gave me my first Dinky car on my 10th birthday. I don't remember what model it was. This is a Dinky of the British Ford, the Anglia.

















My dad promised to give me a new Dinky car for every birthday after that. I can't remember what Dinky car he gave me for my 11th but I did not get one for my 12th birthday because, by that time, my dad had become sick and was unable to work and Dinky toys were not cheap. We were dirt poor and had to move to a house with no electricity.

Fortunately my best friend, Ernest, had loads of Dinkys. He was an only child and lived with his doting mother, aunt and grandparents. His room was like a toy-store. Ernest and I used to play with his Dinky toys for hours on end. He had all sorts of tanks and armored cars and Jeeps. He also had a Lego set with which we made buildings and a huge collection of toy soldiers. We played war games. Luckily he didn't mind being the German army because I could not bring myself to fight against the Allies.







































But of all these toys the two that gave me the greatest pleasure for the most years were my fishing-rod and my bicycle. I can't remember not having a fishing rod. It seems I always had one but I do remember getting a fancy reel one Christmas when I was about 8 or 9. And, when I was 10, I got a bicycle for Christmas.

The bicycle gave me independence and freedom. On Saturday and Sunday morning I would grab a sandwich and my fishing-rod, jump on my bike and head off with my friends to fish for the day.





















This is a painting by Jeanne Brenneman.



I had a wonderful childhood. It didn't last long because, after my dad got sick, I had to work every weekend to help buy food for the family. I had to take on the responsibilities of an adult at the age of 12. But it sure was fun while it lasted.

I have no idea what pre-teen boys play with nowadays. I suspect most of them play video games by themselves or something equally sad and lonely - especially city kids. The only way to play on-line games is to have high-speed Net access and, out here in the boonies, the only high-speed access is by satellite which very few people have so the kids here still ride their bikes down to the country store or go fishing in the lake.

Popular Mechanics and the Viewmaster

I'm a bit bored with politics right now so here's something completely different for a change.

Popular Mechanics was first published on January 11th 1902. Fifty years later, when I was about 6 or 7, my father started letting me read his copies as soon as he was finished with them but I had to promise not to damage them because he collected them. I can remember getting almost as enraptured by these magazines as I was by my father's science fiction novels that he also let me read.

This has taken me on quite a little trip down memory lane. The 1950s sure was an exciting time to be a boy. The world was poised on the brink of a technological revolution. It seemed that every problem could be solved. No wonder that I've never had time for doom and gloom pessimists. I was raised in an era when the possibilities were endless and America was busy enthusiastically inventing the future. I blame Technicolor movies, Popular Mechanics and sci-fi for making me think like an American decades before becoming one.

The cover of a 1945 edition:























The cover of a 1951 issue which is round about the time I discovered the magazine:




















The cover from a 1957 edition:






















The cover from a 1959 edition:























And a picture from a 1954 issue.

















The caption reads:

Scientists from the RAND Corporation have created this model to illustrate how a "home computer" could look like in the year 2004. However the needed technology will not be economically feasible for the average home. Also the scientists readily admit that the cpmputer will require not yet invented technology to actually work. But 50 years from now scientific progress is expected to solve these problems. With teletype interface and the Fortran language, the computer will be easy to use.

I said that I blame Technicolor movies, Popular Mechanics and sci-fi for making me think like an American decades before becoming one. There was one other thing that helped: a 3D Viewmaster. You put a disc of photographic slides into it and watched - mouth agape - 3D pictures.

















I was given one for my 7th birthday. It came with 5 slide shows: the Grand Canyon, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and (my favorite) scenery of the mountains, forests and wildlife of Oregon and California. So, by the time that I came to the USA, I already felt like I was at home. I still have my Viewmaster to this day.

From Wikipedia:

The View-Master system was invented by William Gruber, an organ maker and avid photographer who lived in Portland, Oregon. He had the idea of updating the old-fashioned stereoscope by using the new Kodachrome color film that had recently become available. While a View-Master reel holds 14 film slides, there are really only seven stereoscopic images; two film slides are viewed simultaneously - one for each eye - thus simulating binocular depth perception.

When on vacation with his wife in 1938, Gruber literally almost ran into Harold Graves, the president of Sawyer's, Inc.(a company that specialized in picture postcards), and the two men struck up a conversation about Mr. Gruber’s invention that lasted well into the night. Shortly thereafter, Gruber and Graves formed a partnership in 1939 which lead to the retail sales of View-Master viewers and reels. Within a very short time, the View-Master quickly took over the postcard business at Sawyer's.

Later that year, View-Master was first introduced at the New York World's Fair. It was intended as an alternative to the scenic postcard, and was originally sold at photography shops, stationery stores and scenic attraction gift shops. The main subjects of View-Master reels were Carlsbad Caverns and the Grand Canyon.

In the 1940s, the U.S. military recognized the potential for using View-Master products for personnel training, purchasing 100,000 viewers and nearly six million reels between 1942 and the end of World War II in 1945.

Now, I've gone on another trip down memory lane and I can feel another post about being a lucky and happy boy in the 1950s starting to bubble up in my brain.

Summer rain

It's been raining steadily since about 9pm last night. I sat on the veranda till about 11pm listening to the raindrops. It was 63F, windless and balmy. This morning it's cooler (55F) but still calm and mild. It's not a heavy rain like our winter rains. It's a steady gentle soaker which every gardener loves.

So what's the big deal about summer rain? Well, during the 26 years that I lived in California it never rained in summer - not once - and even here in Oregon it seldom rains in July and August so, by this time of the year, the lawn is usually dead and brown and the air is dusty. Not this year. With the two weeks of rain that we had in July and the rain today, the lawn is still green and the air is clean and sweet.

It's forecast to rain on and off until tomorrow. It's perfect gardening weather - perfect for transplanting and for putting in new plants so that's what I'll be doing today. I've got a bunch of plants to move that I planted in the wrong places and I'm going to plant my new babies: a fatsia japonica, a spiraea bumalda, three new mahonia aquifoliums (Oregon grapes) and a hibiscus syriacus known as the rose of Sharon from the Song of Solomon.

I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.
As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.

Fatsia is grown as a houseplant nearly everywhere else but thrives in the garden here. Heavy frosts will damage it but it soon grows back.






















Spiraea attracts butterflies.

















Here you can see why mahonia is called Oregon grape. The berries are edible but a bit bland.























A mahonia in flower.























A pink rose of Sharon. This hibiscus is deciduous and the only hibiscus that will survive our winters.

Actions speak louder than words

I wondered why I was getting so many hits from Little Green Footballs. It's because my buddy Andy's article "Actions speak louder than words" was linked to. Andy does not have a public blog so he posted that on my blog. Here's Andy's article.

Drugs are dangerous

I don't mean illegal street drugs. I mean over-the-counter (OTC) pharmaceutical drugs and prescription drugs.

I was in the pharmacy biz for nearly 30 years and will not take most pharmaceutical drugs unless I am at death's door. Why? Just heed the warnings of side-effects. Have you seen the TV ads for the anti-cholesterol drugs (commonly known as "statins") where they warn you of damage to the liver. The statins have at most a 40% "success rate" in preventing heart attacks and strokes. So 60% of people who take them still have MIs and strokes.

The "statins" lower cholesterol but cholesterol is not the only factor causing the plaque build-up that leads to MIs and strokes. Homocysteine is a much greater factor in causing artery disease but the industry has not yet invented a drug to control homocysteine so it never mentions it. Yep, I have high cholesterol (it runs in the family) but I won't take statins. Maybe I would if they if they had a higher than 40% success rate. Maybe I'll die of a heart attack but at least I will not have pissed my rotting liver out through my kidneys. (Okay, that's hyperbole meant to shock.)

Have you seen the TV ads for allergy nasal sprays. They warn of nose-bleeds and upper respiratory viral infections? I think I'll take a stuffy nose over nose-bleeds and viral infections anyday.

When it comes to drugs, it's a trade-off. If your illness is life-threatening, then it makes sense to try a dangerous drug that may kill you but it also may cure you. It's simply a matter of keeping things in proportion. Take chemotherapy for instance. It will kill the bad neoplasms that are causing your cancer but it will also kill your good cells. You weigh the odds and take your chances.

But why would I take chances with dangerous drugs for conditions that are not life-threatening? Look at the latest drugs for "restless leg syndrome" or RLS. I've suffered from RLS for the past ten years. It causes misery for lots of people but no one knows exactly what causes it other than it is hereditary. It's extremely annoying and sometimes excrutiating. At best it's the equivalent of the horrible sensation that you experience when someone runs their finger-nails down a chalk-board. At worst it feels like electric shocks and is so agonizing that it prevents you from sleeping. The "cure" is a drug that makes it dangerous to drive or operate machinery and may even cause you to have obsessive compulsive behavior. Why would I take such a drug when the "side effects" are more dangerous than the disease? As far as I know RLS is not lethal but driving a car under the influence of mind-boggling drugs is.

I've been thinking of doing some posts about pharmaceutical drugs because I see that the industry is increasing direct marketing of prescription drugs. Like all businesses, they're out to make money but buyer beware. All drugs are two-edged swords.

Another perfect day in paradise #1,644

The driveway lined with wild oxeye daisies.

















A close-up of the oxeyes.

















Yarrow.

















South African Crocosmia lilies.

















South African fairy-wand lilies.



Yep, another perfect day in paradise.



Chas took these photos.

A blast from my past

A few days ago I found a file that I had not looked at in years. It's all the emails that I sent to friends that I had in the UK as well as comments that I wrote for a forum that we all participated on.

I lived in the UK in my 20s which is a time when you make very close friends and I had remained in contact with about a dozen British friends over the following 35 years.

Then 9/11 happened and my British friends started criticizing me for my political views. First they bashed Bush and then later condemned the war in Iraq. I tried to politely debate with them but about five years ago I realized that I could no longer call them "friends." In fact they were more like my enemies. This is the last thing that I wrote to them:

I'm giving up debating all of you. Have you any idea how embarassingly childish your knee-jerk anti-Americanism is?

It all seems to start from the notion that the nasty "right-wing capitalist USA" is evil and therefore everything that any idiotic kneejerk anti-American says after that must be the truth.

You have been totally brainwashed by the Beeb and you don't even know it. Your icons are Chomsky, Gore Vidal and Michael Moore. How you can't see how phony and dishonest these guys are, I don't know.

Of course, to you, I have been brainwashed by the evil American capitalists. What you don't seem to understand is that I am not an American by birth but by choice. I came to my POV through learning. You have simply been brainwashed from birth.

Us new Americans have got our priorities straight. We came from vastly less free cultures and can see how that, while the US may not be perfect, it's the best the world's got.

I lived in the UK long enough to know that the European model has nothing to offer. If international arms sales to tinpot dictators in Africa and other "Third World" hell-holes were outlawed tomorrow, your socialist dreams would run out of funds.

I'm becoming more convinced every day that socialism (and Nazism, Fascism, militant Muslimism and all other isms and ideologies) appeal to manipulative people who hunger for power and dread losing control. It's a character flaw turned into an ideology.

You leftists seem to be composed entirely of angry, pessimistic people who hate liberal democracy.

Goodbye. It was nice knowing you once upon a time but you have become (or always were and I simply didn't notice it) insular and narrow-minded.

I have not communicated with any of them since then.

Another perfect day in paradise

Here are some pics from the garden tour that we did yesterday. This is the view from the first garden that we visited. That's the McCullough Bridge over the bay which I have to cross twice a day to and from my office in town. It was built in 1936 but is still sturdy and reliable. However, if it ever does collapse, I will have to take a forty mile detour around the bay to and from work.

















This is a gunnera (aka "dinosaur food") in one of the gardens. I stood next to it to give an idea of its size. I'm going to get one for my garden.

















This pic is of a garden owned by a doctor whom we found out is the brother of our dentist. We were given quite a few plants yesterday by generous gardeners. Here is the doctor's wife is giving Andy and me a small off-shoot of that large fatsia.

















The six gardens on the tour were not as spectacular as those that we saw last year. Last year the tour was of vast country gardens. This year it was a tour of smaller suburban gardens. Many had "water features" such as fish-ponds, waterfalls and fountains but none of those pics are good enough to post.

So here are some pics of Robin's Wood. The first three are of our driveway that leads down to the house. The half-mile long driveway is lined with oxeye daisies.
















































This is our sole surviving cat, Smudgie, lying in the driveway where she hunts for rabbits. She eats the whole rabbit except for the head but cats also get eaten here quite a lot. Swanky, our tom-cat, disappeared a few months ago and three of our neighbors' cats have been eaten by bobcats since we've been here.

















This is Daffy, the drake, posing among the oxeye daisies at the edge of the meadow. His feathers are a bit ragged because he is molting.

















Here are my South African crocosmia lilies. They love this climate. I brought a couple of bulbs from San Francisco and now there are hundreds. They will bloom from now until the first frost at the end of October;

















Another perfect day in paradise winds down. This is the view from our meadow. You can just see the fog sitting along the coast waiting to come in.

















Now it's time to get ready for guests who are spending the day here.

PS Chas also posted some pics of the garden tour.

The County Garden Club tour

It's that time of year already. Today we are going on the tour again. Last year I did two posts about the tour with pretty pics: here and here. I'll take some more pics today and post them later. Here's one of the pics from last year.

Water - bottled vs tap

I started drinking bottled water a few years after moving to San Francisco because the tap water was too heavily chlorinated. I didn't buy fancy bottled water. I just bought Safeways filtered stuff in 2 gal. plastic containers. At first I tried simply filtering the tap water with a Brita filter but it was more expensive and more of a fuss than just buying 2 gals for less than a dollar.

When I first opened my restaurant in San Francisco, I served tap-water but had so many complaints that I switched to bottled water - the kind that fits into a water-cooler. I also sold sparkling bottled waters like Perrier. I had gotten to like sparkling waters ever since my first trip 30 years ago to Italy where the restaurants ask you as soon as you sit down whether you want sparkling or still water.

When I moved here to Oregon I found the water at my office (which is in a town and gets "city water") not only over-chlorinated but slightly muddy-tasting. At first I used one of my apartments as my office. It had a filtering system installed into the plumbing and that improved the taste. Then I rented out the apartment and moved my office into a trailer and went back to using a Brita filter.

Up here on my farm, we have well-water. At first it tasted fine but, as summer wore on, it became salty and finally the well dried up. We discovered that the well was not the best in the world and it had dried up a couple of times before we bought the farm. Fortunately winter rains replenished the water-table and, since then, we have been pumping water up from a creek to irrigate the gardens and using the well-water only for the house. But the well-water still did not taste very nice so it was back to buying 2 gal jugs of filtered water.

So, yes, I'm a bottled-water user - just for drinking. I use tap-water for cooking. It's fine as long as it gets boiled to drive off the chlorine. The well-water of course is not chlorinated but it does have a funky taste and I enjoy drinking water too much to have to tolerate an "off" taste.

This post was inspired by a story that I just read about what city in the USA has the best tap-water. Salt Lake City’s is the winner, followed by Boston and Columbia, S.C.

Just as well that Salt Lake City has good tap-water because Mayor Rocky Anderson issued a proclamation earlier this year telling "all of our department heads not to spend any more taxpayers’ dollars on bottled water."

And last month San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered all city departments and agencies to stop buying bottled water effective July 1.

Americans spend $30 billion a year on bottled water, and according to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, 47 million gallons of oil are consumed annually to produce the bottles it comes in.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has also told his agencies to stop spending tax dollars on bottled water.

Meanwhile the bottled-water industry has taken a knock over claims that its product is bad for the environment. Now it’s fighting back.

On Friday, NEWSWEEK has learned, The New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle will each carry a full-page ad containing a message from the International Bottled Water Association. This week’s campaign will be the first industrywide advertising since 1999. In the ads, the industry pushes the notion that “calorie-free, refreshing water” is a healthy choice in a country where diabetes, obesity and heart disease afflict so many people. But beyond touting those healthy virtues, the ad also seeks to subtly reframe the debate. “Whether it comes from a faucet or a bottle, drinking water is an easy step people can take to lead a healthier lifestyle,” the ad says.

Much of this message is not new: the industry has spent years promoting the notion that Americans are better off drinking bottled water than soda or beer, and from a health standpoint, it’s hard to argue with them. But lately more people—like the U.S. mayors—are comparing bottled water not to Coke or Budweiser, but instead to the free, clean stuff flowing out of taps. Since bottled water requires petroleum to create its containers, is often trucked across the country to supermarkets, and leaves millions of plastic shells behind in landfills after it’s guzzled, that’s a comparison that’s necessarily less flattering.

Oops! I guess I'm not very green.

Murder

I first heard the word "murder" when I was about 6 years old. At that time we were living in an apartment building abutting a trailer park in a small seaside resort town. One of the tenants in the trailer park was man in his 30s who kept to himself and had no friends. I only vaguely remember him.

One day the small town was abuzz with talk of a murder. The corpse of a young woman in her 20s who had disappeared a few weeks before had been discovered in a culvert under the main highway along the coast. The police arrested the man who lived in the trailer park and charged him with murder. I remember clearly that us kids were fascinated by that culvert for months afterwards but I was too young to realize exactly what "murder" meant other than it was really bad.

As I grew older and began to read the newspaper, I found that murder happened quite a lot in big cities and I began to understand what it meant. When I was about 10 years old there was another murder that touched my life. Our Zulu servant's little son was kidnapped and murdered by an inyanga (witchdoctor) and his heart was cut out and used for muthi (voodoo.) I've written about it before.

For the next 20 years the only murders that I was aware of were those that I read about in the newspaper. As I grew older and realized the full horror of what murder is, I stopped reading about it. Then I moved to the USA and lived in the hippie Haight-Ashbury. In the 4 years that I lived there, three people whom I knew were murdered.

The first was a friend's room-mate. I had not know him well but I was horrified. It was too close to home. Then the mother of a child who was in the class that I taught in kindergarten was found hanged. The mother was a Nigerian. At first the police thought it was suicide but it was later found that it was murder made to look like suicide. Then the mentally handicapped woman who lived in the house next door to me was murdered by some "homeless" street-person whom she had befriended.

Those were the three that I knew but there were many murders in the Haight-Ashbury. Corpses were found regularly in the bushes in the adjacent Golden Gate Park. I knew I had to get out of the area and decided to move as far from the city center as I could to the Richmond District. About 8 years later I bought a house in the adjacent Sunset District which had the lowest crime rate in San Francisco. During the next 15 years after leaving the Haight-Ashbury, murder was simply something that I read in the newspapers or saw on TV news.

The only "fly in the ointment" in my otherwise peaceful Sunset District neighborhood was the man, Kevin, who lived next door. He was married to a Phillipino woman, Ellie. He claimed to be a "writer" and stayed at home and took care of their little boy, Grant, who was about a year old when I first moved there. Ellie worked to bring home the bacon. A few months after first buying the house, I had a run-in with Kevin because a guest of his had parked her car in my driveway and I could not get into my own property.

During my confrontation with Kevin, I saw a look of such hatred in his eyes that I felt that he wanted to kill me. After that I would have nothing to do with him. As his son, Grant, got older, Kevin used to play ball with him on the side-walk and I would have to pass them every day. I ignored Kevin. Grant grew up and went to school. He was a cute kid but there was something very troubled about him. He seemed to be too unhappy for a little kid. By the time he was 10 years old, he seemed like a chip off the old block and became as dour and unfriendly as his father.

I remained on friendly terms with Ellie. One night early in June of 2003, when I was returning home from working in my restaurant, Ellie was standing outside her house. A police car was just driving off. I greeted her but she was distracted and not her usual friendly self. I knew something was wrong but hesitated to poke my nose into her business. A few weeks later Ellie moved out and took Grant with her. She had decided to leave Kevin.

The day after Ellie moved out I had to have surgery on my left foot. My restaurant was closed on Mondays so I scheduled the surgery for a Monday. Here is what I wrote to my friends and family about that night. My blood runs cold as I re-read it.

Last night I was sitting on my bed (resting my foot as I just had foot surgery) and surfing the TV channels. Chas was in the shower and Andy was cooking dinner - or so I thought. Chas got out of the shower and came into my room and said that there was a cop car outside and Andy was probably outside checking out what was up.

I got up and limped to the front door to see. Andy came back in through the front door. He was trembling and pale, with tears welling up in his eyes. Andy very seldom gets rattled. He was in the navy for ten years and saw enough horrors to remain calm through most dramas. I immediately knew that something was very wrong and grabbed him and hugged him. Then he told Chas and me that Kevin had killed his son, Grant, and then shot himself.

My immediate thought was the wife, Ellie. I ran out as fast as I could, hobbled really. The bodies were lying in the entry hallway. Ellie was standing outside her house. A cop was patting her shoulder. Ellie's hands were covered in blood and there were brains and scalp and hair on her clothes. I took her in my arms and said, "Hold on to me tight." She clung to me and sobbed, "Why did he kill my baby?"

The other neighbors gathered round. More cop cars arrived. Then the medical examiner and an ambulance came. I asked another neighbor, Jill, to watch Ellie while I went back into my house to get a chair and a blanket for Ellie. Another neighbor, Lydia, got some hot tea. Then I stayed with Ellie just holding her tight. She wanted to see to make sure that her son was not really dead but the cops would not allow her back into her house.

Apparently two weeks ago Ellie had called the cops because her husband, Kevin, had become violent. All the neighbors hated Kevin and loved Ellie. None of us could do anything lest we seemed intrusive. We all knew that he mistreated her but Ellie never complained or asked for help.

We had watched Grant grow up over the past ten years. We had also watched as this sweetest little boy became as surly and dark as his father. What can you do if someone doesn't ask for help? It was the first time Ellie had ever called the cops. Ellie finally moved out. Yesterday she brought Grant to spend the day with his father. Last night she came back to pick up her son.

I have pieced together the story from Ellie's words and Andy's statement to the police. As Ellie was leaving with her son she opened the front door. Her husband called the son and said, "Come and kiss me goodbye." Then he pulled out a pistol and shot his son in the head. Then he killed himself. Ellie began to scream, "Please somebody help."

I heard nothing because my bedroom is at the back, away from the street. Andy, who was in the front of the house, heard the screams and rushed to help. He saw Ellie holding her son's head in her arms and screaming. He felt the boy's throat for a pulse. The child was dead. Another neighbor arrived. He had a cell phone and called the cops.

I was worried about Andy as he came upon the scene moments after it happened. He has seen people killed and injured in the military but never a murdered child.

The ridiculous thing is that the newspaper says that all the neighbors loved Kevin, the husband. We all depised him. Well, the reporter didn't know the whole story and he certainly didn't ask me. I would have told him that Kevin was a creepy, cruel, cold man who had obviously plotted and planned this in his sick mind. It was not a spur of the moment decision as he had concealed the gun. And, as shocking as it was, not one neighbor was really surprised.

At first Ellie would not leave him as she is a very old-fashioned Phillipino Catholic and stuck it out. As vicious as her husband was, she loved him and cannot believe that he hated her so much as to kill her son in front of her.

When I first arrived on the scene, I just blurted out to Ellie, "May his soul rot in hell for all eternity." My neighbor Lydia said, "Don't say that. She's Catholic." I said, "Sorry, Lydia, but I mean it." All the other neighbors nodded in agreement.

It is awful that none of us were surprised because that implies that we could all see it coming. Well, not really, it only looks inevitable with hindsight.

It is difficult to interfere in spousal fights. I have done so before and have had both spouses turn on me.

I had one run in with the murderer when we first bought the house and never spoke to him again. After I had seen in his eyes that he wanted to kill me, I could not bring myself to look at him again.

Also, although we suspected something, none of us really knew for sure what was going on as the houses are far enough apart that you don't know what goes on behind closed doors. But the neighbors have really rallied around Ellie. Our block is a bit like a village in that we all know each other.

Everybody's kind of numb. It seems very unreal. I guess it will only become real to me when I don't have to shout at Grant to stop playing ball or skateboarding on the sidewalk everyday when I reverse the car out of the driveway.

A few weeks later I had a stroke and could no longer work in my restaurant. That's when I decided to sell everything and get out of San Francisco. Six months later I moved to this quiet little backwater in Oregon where there have only been two murders in the past ten years - and they happened a day apart two years after I moved here. I'll write about that one day.