Thursday, December 17, 2009

Three Degrees Below Zero

So I told you about last week when the cops were hanging out down the street and we just assumed another one of the sex offenders escaped. I haven't even bothered to confirm it. When you have 94 convicted sex offenders living in an unlocked institution in your back yard, and with Nexus' hefty track record of escapes, you are always on guard.

I live on a dead end road. Except for the mailman, we don't get much traffic. Last night two vehicles parked in front of my neighbor's house, leaving their headlights on. Eventually Poncho and I saddled up the old pickup truck and mosied up that-a-way to see what was what. We found a car with one headlight and an SUV. There were a couple of teenage boys from the car standing in the road talking to the people in the other vehicle. It was hard to see in the dark.

"You need help?" Poncho asked through the open window.
"No. No. We're fine. We're just talking," the blond boy answered. "We just came from the basketball game and...."
"Drugs," Poncho interupted. I didn't know if he was talking to me or the young man.
"No! No drugs!" the young man said. 'We were just talking! Can't we talk?"

Technically, they can. Its a public road after all. But we asked them to leave anyway and they suddenly seemed quite anxious to go. Perhaps they were all talked out. I didn't think they'd complain to the sheriff about Poncho and me. It would seem a trifle hard to explain why they chose to meet in front of a darkened house at night just to stand in the road and talk when it was three degrees below zero. (sigh)

We didn't know these guys. For all we knew, they planned to burglarize my neighbor. They could indeed be local drug dealers. Possibly, they were get-away vehicles waiting for escaping sex offenders. Or ... they could have just needed someone to talk to...

"WE WILL LEAVE A SMALL FOOTPRINT," Jim D'Angelo once said. Yeah. After metaphorically kicking us in the teeth and considering how much our lives have been ruined, I'd say Nexus wears a damn big shoe.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Another Day in Paradise

Well, it used to be "Paradise". Now its "Nexusville" or better yet - "Dahmerville". Just another fine day in Dahmerville.

There was a sheriff's SUV parked down my road for about an hour this morning - parked by the day care place, but on the road, not in the driveway. The officer was in and out of the vehicle as if he was searching for something (or someone) and then perhaps the cold drove him inside to warm up. Its all conjecture. I don't know what he was doing there.

My conclusions were: 1. One of the sex offenders has again escaped from Mille Lacs Academy, an unlocked sex offender facility the Onamia city government helped Nexus build in our residential neighborhood; or 2. the deputy is here to serve me yet more papers for yet another Nexus lawsuit and can't find my house. hmmm. Well, let's put it this way - no papers were served here today. So what do YOU think?

You see, whether or not one of the sex offenders has escaped - (I have not verified that one has, and certainly nobody would bother to call to warn us if one or more did indeed escape) - those of us who have been forced to live with this clear and ever-present danger can only wonder WHEN something disasterous will happen. Its just a matter of time.

We don't know who is currently spending time at the Mille Lacs Academy. What we do know is that every inmate has been convicted of a sexual crime that has harmed someone. What we do know is that we have not been told the truth. We have been lied to. And our neighborhood is no longer safe. We will never be able to feel safe again.

In the thirty years that I've lived here, I've only seen the sheriff's deputy here in my neighborhood a handful of times. Once he was was searching in this vicinity when a Nexus sex offender escaped from the old sex offender facility - when it was still at Crosier in town. Twice he has been here to serve Nexus lawsuits upon me.

Why do you think he parked his vehicle next to the day care for at least an hour today?

You know, I think SOMEONE owes me an apology.