So few indictments.
If any of us had the merest hint of a "maybe" in any of these crimes, we'd be dumped in a very deep cell and held incommunicado.
Which simply tells us life goes on as normal ...
It would be less effort to list the not-guilty.
Continue reading →On this date one year ago, one of this site's earliest posts was about my childhood friend and his untimely - perhaps - death on this date in 1988. By common consensus, Joe was a f*up. I can't/won't deny it but we'd been friends for more than 20 years and I'm biased. He got himself into something ugly and didn't survive. Suicide? Murder? At this point, what difference does it make?
But that was the past - water long under the bridge.
Fast forward about 10 years.
I was sitting in a bar with a friend - the Ace High in Golden, Colorado. The Ace High was as close to a dive bar as would be allowed on Washington St in downtown Golden. Many if not most of its clientele were Coors workers - the brewery was just a few blocks away. Coors was not a big seller there. Did I mention that I had once lived in an apartment above the bar? That's OK, it's not part of this story anyway.
Just as an aside, it appears downtown Golden has been highly gentrified since I lived there. Including the Ace High.
Ron and I were sitting back in a booth BS'ing about something not important when over by the pool tables, I swear I saw Joe doing his Joe thing around the table: taking on all comers, clearing the table, getting free beers as a result, and working his bedroom eyes on the waitresses.
Joe had died about 10 years earlier ...
I swear it was Joe. I'll swear it to my dying day. It looked like him, same hair, same face, same body. He was dressed like Joe, he acted liked Joe, he played pool like Joe. He flirted with the girls like Joe.
The girls reacted to him like it was Joe. We'd go into a place together and the girls would come to me asking how to meet him.
But this Joe didn't know me and it was the first time ever I watched him as a stranger. I'd known the original since he was 13.
I couldn't follow the conversation with Ron I was so distracted.
I swear I was watching Joe in action.
There's not much to this tale. I didn't walk up to see him up close - the pool table was maybe 10 feet away - but I watched him for about 20 minutes or so.
Ron & I finished our beers and left.
Of course I can rationalize this.
Maybe.
There's more to this world than what rationalization can explain ...