[The-Local] OK, I signed up. Now what?

[Mark J Bradakis]

On 5/11/20 11:02 AM, andrew uprichard via The-local wrote:
>
> Mark suggested we sign up for “the local”.
>
> He said it was a site for stuff which didn’t exactly fit into any 
> other forum, but I still need an idea of what y’all talk about.
>
> Given there are millions of us (ok, maybe a dozen on this list) stuck 
> at home during a pandemic, there must be a topic which interests us.
>
You're close, there are actually 15 subscribers.  Not very many, sad to say.

> Want me to tell you about the time I was doing house calls in Belfast 
> (in the days when doctors did house calls) and the IRA “borrowed” my 
> car to go shoot someone?
>

Reminds me of two incidents.

One night I come home and there's this car sort of, but not quite parked 
in my driveway.  I park on the street, go in the house and call the 
police station, thinking maybe they'll come round and give the jerk a 
ticket, maybe even tow it away.  I'm telling the woman who answered 
about the car, she's sounding like she's perturbed because I interrupted 
her fingernail filing or some such.  I give the facts, blah blah blah 
white Lincoln - and all of a sudden she got REAL interested.  And within 
20 - 30 seconds there were 3 -4 patrol cars at my house.  Seems this 
white Lincoln was reported as the vehicle in a drive by shooting at an 
apartment building about a block or two away.  And indeed, the back seat 
floor was littered with brass casings.

The second incident was a few years back when I was working a job doing 
auto parts delivery. The drivers would hang out waiting for shops to 
order parts, then zoom off and deliver them.  It was a slow afternoon, 
we were all there just killing time. Herman gets a call on his cell 
phone from the Salt Lake City police.  It seems that before he headed 
into work that morning, his neighbor asked him if he could borrow 
Herman's old station wagon to "run some errands" later.  The guy was out 
of work, obviously having financial issues, so Herman felt sorry for him 
and gave him the keys.  Turns out the "errand" he had in mind was 
robbing a bank in the neighborhood, witnesses saw Herman's car, got the 
plate number and easily traced the car to Herman.  And obviously it 
wasn't Herman who robbed the bank.

Ain't life grand?

Stay healthy,

mjb.