almost forgot

this is worth mentioning: yesterday on my way home from the second trip to the courthouse i saw a teenager on the roof of the single-story at the end of my building, with a skateboard....a couple other teenagers were hanging around watching him, and one was taking his picture. don't know whether the kid on the roof was about to try something stupid, or just posing for a picture up there, and i didn't wait to find out. just stopped my truck in the middle of the road, got out and boomed, "That ain't your house, get off the roof now or I call the cops." took about 10 seconds for the kid to get down and another 10 for them all to disappear quickly. i'm sure i was young and stupid like that once, but i'd have disappeared quickly too. should've taken his picture myself, with the cell phone....might be one of the troublemakers who kicked in one of the doors of the basketball court here, or spray painted graffiti on the building & sidewalk around it, or trashed the once-racquetball-court-which-is-no-more. no one seems to ever catch anybody doing these things. we need security cameras or something, but no one's willing to cough up the collective money it would cost.

and the managers of the apartment buildings in the neighborhood (which are owned by companies which allow those managers to represent their interest in the homeowners' association) want things like a $6000 chain link fence to gaurd against little (presumably unwatched) kids drowning in a tiny stream behind their building. no money for that either....actually, just enough money for that and nothing else. rather see the security cameras in the common areas than pay through the nose for something that might not work to protect children who's parents aren't watching them. not that i don't care about the kids, but that's what parents are for, in my book. don't want your toddler to drown? don't let them wander around unsupervised- that's a good start.

but the buildings are the Section 8 housing (low income housing, think "projects" on a small scale) in the neighborhood, and the kids run around unsupervised much of the time. hate to make generalizations, but in all honesty, a lot of those generalizations exist because they're based on some kind of fact. i know i haven't been impressed with the parenting skills of some of the few parents i've met there (through their children, whom Loren's hung out with from time to time when he's here) though i'm sure there are better ones.

i'm in the position of being judged at the moment myself, and i consider myself to buck the stereotype of many in this position.