Hollywood Rant

I so wish I could move away from here with my family-away from Hollywood, away from South Florida, maybe even away from Florida in general. It's probably not good that I'm in this frame of mind right now, since we're trying to buy a house here, but I've felt this way for a long time. I just try to make the best of wherever I am and since we can't leave due to my husband's business being established here (and I'm grateful that we're doing well at the moment) I try to find the best of where we are, rather than always looking at the worst. Yesterday morning it was difficult for me to deny the reality of our violent world, however. My husband received a phone call in the early morning hours from a friend who he drives to work, advising him to come from a different direction when traveling to his house. It turned out that a 36 year old man was shot to death during a robbery at the Hess gas station. Our friend lives near the Hess located on US 1, where this horrible crime took place and yesterday morning it was an area best avoided due to the activity that was going on there. I was saddened to hear about this incident, partly because I'm human, partly because I used to work at such a gas station and so understand the vulnerability of the clerks employed at such establishments, partly because these sorts of offenses are so senseless. There is absolutely no need to shoot someone, to kill someone, because you want to break the law. The people robbing this gas station could have worn masks; they could have gone in, taken the money, and left without hurting anyone. It's not like the surveillance camera didn't get a good picture of them-hello!!!! Leaving the clerk alive would not have lessened the chances of them getting caught; the video camera tells the tale. I understand that we live in difficult times. People are losing jobs or having hours cut back, prices at the grocery store seem to climb higher with each visit, most of us live with some fear of what the coming year will bring economically. The sad truth, however, is that most of these violent crimes are perpetuated by people looking for money for drugs. That said, South Florida is a hotbed for drug activity; I've had the pleasure of being offered crack cocaine for sale while riding my bicycle up 19th Avenue (I'm being deeply sarcastic in my use of the word "pleasure" here). Where I grew up, this would never happen. Hell, you can't even buy alcohol in the town where I grew up.

I understand that crimes, violent and otherwise, happen all over the country. It just seems that we have more than our share of it here in South Florida. This state has become a dumping ground for child molestors, drug dealers, perverts of every shade, transients and on and on into the night. A sex offender search in my immediate area alone turned up HUNDREDS of people. When I conducted the same online search in my hometown, I turned up 0. A search in the neighboring town revealed a few, but nowhere near the staggering number of offenders who live here. For those who feel that just moving northward in Florida will help the situation, the crime is just as bad in Palm Beach County, in part due to gangs running rampant in that area (a former boyfriend of mine and I actually had a gun pulled on us during a traffic altercation-thankfully the light changed and the people in the car drove away without shooting us), and a sex offender search for Boca Raton, which tends to be known as a more upscale city, revealed that even there many such offenders find haven.

Seeing as how it isn't possible for us to pull up roots and blow out of Dodge, I'm thinking that maybe I should invest in a good can of bear repellant, the kind of stuff that will knock a grizzly off his feet. As long as I'm not accosted by someone supercharged on PCP, that should help to protect my daughter and me. Ain't South Florida grand? They call this heaven.