Pica Pole : Kid does bad thing, then the right thing
Posted on Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Reading about a granite decorative cannonball from Bentonville's Confederate statue ending up in the fountain around it, I was shocked to learn that the young man who did the deed didn't flee the scene. The young man - somewhere between the ages of 10 and 14 - was climbing on the statue when the cannonball came off. Scared, he called his mom, who settled him down and did the right thing: called the police. Police say he won't be charged because it isn't vandalism. While climbing on the statue isn't the smartest thing, it's not a crime. This newspaper recently reported that chips have been found in the statue's base and that even more recently, someone dumped soap into the fountain, creating piles of foam. I am not accusing the young man of those acts; rather, I'm simply pointing out that one thing can lead to another. For instance, what if the young man's actions had broken off an arm of the statue, or the granite rifle ? What if the granite cannonball had fallen on him, or a friend ? I wonder what in the heck he was doing clambering on the statue in such a manner as to dislodge one of the four cannonballs, which are 6 feet off the ground. The answer, of course, is being a kid.
• • • My spider's OK. How's yours ? Seems that I'm not the only person around the county who's enjoying the blessing of having an orb web spider take up residence at the front door. Numerous e-mails, including one with a beautiful photo, as well as maybe a dozen people who have talked to me about their spiders, prove that we're not odd birds for noticing such things. Well, maybe we are odd birds, but turns out, there are a lot of us who find pleasure, wonder and beauty in letting spiders span our doorways. David W. Friede, who sent the accompanying photo, wrote: "I read your article today in the paper and wanted to share the picture of our lady. It was all my kids could do to leave it alone, but we really enjoyed watching it work !! We are new to AR, so when we first saw it, it really scared us. Spiders don't get that big in NM !"Joe Strack wrote: "We enjoyed your spider column, we have several on our front porch. I have noted that when a leg or support of the web is damaged they do not re-attach it in the same place, and after one or two collisions by the human porch users, the webs no longer blocked our path. That is my idea of intelligent design."
• • • Joe also took me to task for leaving my porch light on. "You noted," he wrote," leaving on your porch light to keep the spiders fed. I haven't found that to be necessary; our spiders seem to be feeding quite well, judging by the quiet shrieking of my spider-wary niece when she visits. "Now I don't care if you leave your front porch light on or not; that is between you, the spiders and their victims, unless - and surely this is not the case since you seem to be quite aware of poor lighting - unless your porch light is unshielded like most and blasts the surrounding area into infinity and beyond with its bright glare. I must confess that my own porch lights are not shielded either, but unlike several of my neighbors whose lights are on all night, every night, even though all are blasted by the innumerable unshielded street lights perched everywhere for criminals and other miscreants so that they do not need flashlights, my lights are only on briefly on occasion. Porch lights are as big an offender as any, mostly bare incandescents."
• • • This week, I award the Bad Light of the Week award to myself - and to everyone else who has a porch light that is unshielded. As Joe wrote those lights certainly do cause light pollution and create glare. Shame on me for not fixing my own porch light.
• • • Kent Marts is editor / general manager of The Benton County Daily Record. His column appears on Wednesdays. He can be reached at kentm @ nwanews. com.
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