Monday, July 31, 2006

Mad Dog

If you have a few minutes or a few hours, I recommend you spend some time with Bob "Mad Dog" Rogers and his wife Claire.

I wrote about Bob, a native of St. Albans, and his adventures with his wife as they ride their tandem bicycle all over the world in my Daily Mail Column. They have recorded their adventures on their Web site.

The most amazing trip they took was in 2005 when they traversed the Silk Road from Beijing to Insanbul, most of it on their two-wheeler. They stories they tell and the pictures they took are amazing.

Bob is as complex as the places he has been and the people he has met. He has a lover's quarrel with his home state and I can understand that. So do I. He decided to take a different approach to life than I, however.

He has been trekking for 20 years. I have lived in the same house for 57 years.

But we are friends.

Go figure.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Huntington's South Side :Where the money is...

"Slick Willie" Sutton, an infamous thief in America during the 1930s, was asked why he robbed banks.

"Because that's where the money i," he replied.

I was reminded of that
this morning when BREAKING NEWS on WSAZ reported that Julian's Market on Huntington's southside was apparently the victim of an armed robbery. Shots were fired.

My goodness! On Huntington's southside?

When I was a kid, the southside of Huntington was known as the "silk stocking district." There was no crime there because important people lived there. My mother, God rest her soul, didn't believe she was important enough to shop at the predecessor to Julian's market.

And now drug dealers dwell on the southside, living next to the remnants of Huntington's children of the silk stocking folk. Druggies in search of money to support their habit steal from southside folks. And sometimes they even attempt armed robberies in board daylight.

Used to be these crimes happened in other parts of town. As long as there was black-on-black crimes, the drug problem was largely ignored. Crime in the black neighborhood was "expected."

And now THE market in the heart of the former silk stocking district has been "hit."

Many rich folks have moved out of their Huntington homes to the suburbs. They don't care.

Well, I have news for them. The druggies have them targeted and, if they haven't already, they'll soon be targets to.

No one is safe from this affliction.

No one, especially the affluent, because that's where the money is.