Put the White Shoes Up

Trying to get on track this morning. My alarm went off at 6:00 this morning instead of my normal 5:00 and I have been playing catch up ever since. I forgot to reset it from the weekend. I don't like to be rushed as I'm starting the day so I get up with lots of time to let my brain warm up. And I really love the early morning quiet.

Time to put up the white shoes and purse. Living in Texas, though, the former lines of fashion faux pas are somewhat blurred due to almost year round warm weather.

I noticed lots of police cars this morning as I was taking son to school. I was very happy to notice this development. As I have mentioned previously in posts, our part of town is experiencing an increase in crime. About a month ago, a man was murdered in a robbery attempt as he was washing his truck early one morning, pre-dawn, at a self-service car wash on the busy major street bordering our subdivision. The man was a Guatemalan immigrant who thought it would be safer to wash his truck at 5:00 in the morning rather than after work. His wife was in the truck watching him. He only had a few dollars in his wallet, yet the 18 year old decided to kill this regular, working man as he robbed him, in front of the man's wife. This thug's accomplices were referred to as juveniles. All four have since been caught. They were caught due to the neighborhood watch style of security in this subdivision, not due to help from Houston Police Department. This murder was a tipping point for many who live here. Finally, after a year of escalating crime and uneasiness, the homeowners were granted a town hall style meeting with city council members and city police. After two of those meetings, the citizens demanded a meeting with the mayor and police chief when the murder victim's story made the nightly news and front page news. This meeting happened last week. The crowd was so large that the very big church hosting this meeting had to turn people away. About 2,000 attended by news accounts.

Well, since that meeting our section of town has been royally chastised by the local press, particularly the newspaper. You see, the journalists who think we are overreacting and demanding too much, don't live here. They live in other sections of town, much more chic and artsy than our area. I know this as a columnist was a guest speaker at a woman's club I belong to and he told us where he lived as part of a story he shared with us. We are being told we are uncaring and mean to expect more from the new residents of this community. Yes, the crimes are directly traced to Katrina evacuees living in the large apartment complexes bordering this subdivision and neighboring subdivisions. The evacuees are black and we are called racist and uncompassionate.

A parking lot, vacant after business hours, is a gathering place for the young males from the apartment complex neighboring my subdivision at night. They hang around for lack of anything else to do, I suppose. This is a source of problems that just now the police department is correcting, after repeated requests for extra patrols, etc from the city.

I don't think race has anything to do with wanting to be safe in your own home. Residents have been robbed at gunpoint during regular daylight hours. One man was robbed by a gun welding thug at 9:00 in the morning on Saturday as he was cleaning his garage. Then the guy walked on into the home and robbed the wife inside of her purse and jewelry. Just a regular Saturday morning, homeowners doing normal chores.

This subdivision and surrounding ones are typically upper middle class areas. We have a diverse population and age groups from young marrieds to retired folks. Many have lived here for years and years. The subdivision we live in was built in the late '60's and our neighbors have lived here from the beginning. That says something when people live in a spot for so long. We chose this area for many reasons. We like older neighborhoods with trees and firm roots in the city. We like a wide range of ages of residents and we like the convenience of this area. We are not all the way into the inner city yet not too far out. We are in a family friendly, active spot.

Of particular interest to me was a column in the Sunday newspaper here written by a reporter who had gone to the Astrodome last year to help with the Katrina evacuees as they arrived from New Orleans. She told some stories of how she helped. Then she begins her condescending piece on the lack of compassion now a year later by the residents at the town hall meeting with the mayor. This young, black woman journalist hasn't a clue. I don't know why she feels free to judge us as she talks of the shame of us and our perceived judgement of others less fortunate.

Our neighborhood is great. We are, on our block alone, a group of families who are white, black, Indian, middle eastern, and hispanic, and Asian. That is Houston. That is why we like living here. Our son is blessed to grow up knowing people from all over the world.

This is why our community is fighting back.