Geron Kees

Another great chapter, CG. I have to admit that there is enough going on with all these characters, and enough time between chapters, that I sometimes forget who is doing what. I may have to start going back and reading the previous chapter before getting into the new one! Still, plenty of interesting things going on. Glad that Finn and Lee seemed to have a successful night. Smiled at the mention of Mechogodzilla (saw this once at age ten and vowed never to watch it again!). Interesting development that Mikey has a phobia of pools and deep water. Five years old is the age when fears can become permanent. Laughed at Jay showing Gulliver how to travel! Where's that picture?!? Enjoyed spending time with everyone again. Now get to work on the next one!

Thanks you for taking the time to say hello. Yes, cameras are the most literal eyes we have. They don't miss a single thing, ever. As preservers of the moments of our lives, they are hard to beat. I like that they can also instruct - teach us - and that they can be enchantingly sweet in doing so. That they can be just as mercilessly honest is the price we sometimes pay for having the ability to take a second look at the world around us. But I am sure we are better off with them, than without them.

Pictures of the past really are worth having. New babies are particularly at risk of developing 'flash' burns! I know that feeling, myself. As much as being hounded by a camera bugged me growing up, all I have to do is look at the memories, and it's all worth the angst I thought I was feeling over it. Something I always enjoyed while my own son was growing up was showing him pictures that corresponded with his age at the time. "This is me, when I was your age." "Really? Your hair was long!" "It was the style back then. All the guys had long hair." (Grinning) "You look like a girl!" Ah, memories!

A very, very serious chapter. I have never been here, never felt the kind of things Josh was feeling. It's in a person's make-up, or it isn't. It's not in mine to go this route, ever. But I understand it, I think, a little, because I can imagine it, and, well, empathy is not missing from my family's gene pool. Good job here. This is more than just a story now. Can't wait to see where it winds up.

Man, if you are late to the party around here, you are coming in at the end of a long line! There has to be a bonehead gene that runs in Kyle's/Jason's family. For Jason to assault Adam NOW, in the middle of a police investigation into a crime committed against Adam and Troy by his brother, is a solid request to occupy the jail cell NEXT to his brother. Some people just can't see the world around them for STUPID. But then, having forced his own brother to do the things he had him do, is there any question about the stupid factor? At least the amazing strength of the relationship between Adam and Troy can keep them going through every new trouble that comes their way. I already feel like this story has a happy ending somewhere down the road.

Grandparents can be pretty special. I sort of viewed Luke's as thinking that Luke needed to give the world a really GOOD look, in the hopes that he might find what he was looking FOR. I based this a little on my own youth, where cameras played a large part. My parents are both photographer-hobbyists, and drove us NUTS growing up, pointing cameras at us. I got so I saw one of them with a camera in-hand, I RAN! But...as a consequence...or perhaps as a result, might be a better term...we kids now have a treasure trove of photos of family life covering every aspect of our lives growing up. Birthdays are there. Christmases, there. Every holiday you can imagine, there. My school trips, the activities I engaged in, my friends, my ups, my downs, my discoveries, my successes...even a few of my failures. All moments captured in time. To be reviewed, and smiled over, and remembered. These days I do not run when one of them has a camera. My perspective has changed. I really do believe in the idea that a camera can be used as the eye of the heart. It depends on who is holding the camera, I think, and how much they care about where it is being pointed.

That's what I mean!

Aha! I knew you could do drama as well as humor and cynicism. And wit. And charm. I like this ride. Why didn't you open this park sooner?

There is an awful lot going on here, and multiple directions in which it all seems to be traveling. I have to hope that your real life is even half as much fun, and twice as fulfilling!

Funny, warm, and witty. Did I say funny? This has to be one of the best first chapters I've read in some time. Damn, I love to smile!

The "RR" stands for 'Really Restless", in this case!

At a guess i would say you are correct. Teens in schools where frightful things occur have counselors right there the next time they meet; but therapy for the group is the only real public concession our society seems to make to tragedy. Loners are still left alone with many of life's problems. Ironically, it is these loners that sometimes come back and act out against society, and initiate these group therapies in the first place. Help for someone in pain is so easy to give, too. But the American mind always seems to view the quantity of anything first, and responds well to mass interruptions of the flow of life, but almost scoffs at the individual stranded by the wayside. The saddest thing is that the only difference at all between a single person with a problem and a group with a problem are the number of caring people it takes to address things. Every life saved is worth the effort. Just ask the lifeguard at any pool or beach, or any EMT at the scene of an accident. That we care so much for the welfare of the physical body, and often so little for the soul that resides within, is really the true tragedy here.

This is one of my favorite chapters in this story. Brian and Jeff needed some time for themselves, with so much going on. I felt it needed to be something special, just for them. Thank you for saying it worked.

Are all my other stories so predictable? I'd be lying if I said I don't remember Scooby-Doo. And, everything is kind of derivative these days, when so much has come before. I have a great fondness for old dark house mysteries, and they always have some humor in them, and a lot going on. In fact, I always intended to write an old dark house mystery. I guess I'll have to add that to my to-do list!

Actually, the Halloween house is (or was) a real place. We attended a Halloween party there much like the one in the story. Some friends of my older sister were caretakers of the place, and the land had been sold to developers, and the caretakers, who lived in a trailer on the property, were leaving. They decided to throw one last big party and dispose of their, uh, crop. An auto theft ring had run out of the old house in the 1960's, and the cellar was full of car parts from 40's, 50's, and early 60's cars. It was considered so dangerous down there that the caretakers physically removed the stairs to the cellar to keep anyone form going exploring. Some months after the party, my sister told me that the developers that had purchased the property had put everything on hold, and that her friends, the caretakers, were lamenting that they had jumped the gun and moved out. But all was not lost. My friends and I adopted the house, and used it as a 'party place' for two more years before the bulldozers finally came. The tunnel and the printing press and the underground railroad were, as you say, 'artistic license'. But much of the rest of it - the feel of the place - is as I remembered it from sixteen.

I surprised you? That's rare! I never intended for so much time to pass between the end of this story and getting out part three. I have so many different projects in the works I just haven't had time to get this one moving again. Hopefully, by the time it happens, it will still be of interest.

Yeah! What he said!

Hell, I write about people's junk! But I don't think the comments section is the place to start considering how Ivor looks in his birthday suit. Now...if he wants to give me a call, we can discuss it more privately on the phone. But I'm not peeking! Whatd'ya think I am, a voyeur!

Haha. Good luck with that. I have a feeling your eyes already see a lot of things your heart is in tune with, even without the camera. Nice to hear from you, as always!

I've heard about this type of plan working in other areas, too. I have to agree that knowing someone tends to demystify them, and therefore to drop the level of wariness one feels towards them. That works both ways. I know the beat deputy in my area, though he doesn't walk a beat, he drives one. When he passes through, he waves, and sometimes even stops and talks to people. I know his name, and he knows mine. I live in a zero crime area - just a long street of widely-separated homes in the woods, not close to much of anything. The last thing that was stolen around here were acorns off the trees, and it was a gang of squirrels that were the culprits! That said, I lived in Manhattan for six years back in the nineties, and was more familiar with city life and crime. I didn't know a single cop by name there - they were just faces behind windshields. And the only hand motions I ever saw them give were not friendly waves. I much prefer what I have now. Security is one of those intangible things built on a collection of ideas and perceptions, and I can only say that the ideas and perceptions I have about life where I live now are far more comfortable than the ones I had while living in the city. Where you live with police also matters. Cities are trouble spots, simply because there are so many ideas and perceptions in so small an area, and so many of them are at war with others. The police need to be as comfortable with us as we wish to be with them. Only that way can we both survive the encounter with anything like fairness.

Haha. No spoilers from me!

I think the police of every modern era have been much the same. What has changed, as you have pointed out, is the level of scrutiny they operate under today, and the level of awareness among the population that things happen that need to be addressed. In the eighties, we simply did not know any of the things people know today, and so we had little fear of the police. And, for the most part, the police had no reason to fear of the average citizen. Guns, especially, were not common among teens at all. Fear is one of the problems today, on both sides. People know enough now to fear the police, which can lead them into stupid or irrational acts, and the police fear this sort of confrontation, which can cause them to act first - and wrongly. We have a dangerous situation going on in this country, both due to this fear on both sides, and because there is not enough responsibility and accountability built into the system. People that feel they will not get treated with fairness and justice by the law will only become harder to deal with in the long run. Our police today already traipse about in battle armor and carry military-grade weapons. Where do we go from there?

I agree that Annabelle needed to reach the point she did, if for no other reason than to be able to move on from it later. I also agree that we have progressed, as a nation, from the mindset of the last century, despite the portion of our society that strives to keep those prejudices in place. Today's kids are aware of the many flavors of 'family', and don't find it odd that others have different lives. That should lead to a generation of adults that are far more tolerant than any that have come before them. But it does take a generation to adopt these new ways of seeing and thinking, and we may have to progress through several more before the acceptance of the state of being 'human' finally takes into account all of its many variations.

Thank you for the nice comment. Hope your eyes will always stay connected to your heart!

No question there. But I didn't know much about these things back in 1984. I had friends of every description, but I just did not know that things could be very different for some of them. I also lived in the sticks - an area without a lot of cops. Most of our experiences with them were mild. The county deputies were laid back in the extreme. The State Boys we were wary of, but you only saw them very seldom. That was why that drive by was so nerve wracking for the guys in the story. And, for real, people were just not afraid of cops much back then. The feeling that one might shoot you for no reason was outlandish. Not like today, where it can happen in the blink of an eye, to anyone, of any background.