Like everyone else I have my pet peeves. You don’t put in 60 years on this Earth without acquiring them. I despise those who lurk in the interstate’s far left lane and don’t approach the speed limit. Conversely, I can’t stand those who tailgate – especially the jerk in the BMW who rode my bumper in the slow lane while my 15-yearold was driving for the first time on a divided highway. I’d like to get my hands on those of Lyndon Baines Johnson’s ilk who felt people would be better off crowded into housing projects living off government assistance programs than they were working down on the farm. Now many won’t work at all. Enter illegal immigration problem! There is also a particularly hot place in purgatory for Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed who wastes money on Ferris wheels and streetcars to nowhere and fires Christians for statements that, if made by a Muslim, would have earned him or her a promotion. Add in those who preach the false sermon of global warming and claim Islam is a religion of peace when Muslims average killing five people a day in the name of Mohamed, according to one account. And, let’s not forget disability cheats and those who beg me to play Facebook games. Get a life already! Other than these and a few thousand other pet peeves, I am pretty much a live and let live sort. Think what you want and do what you want but don’t force your views on me and demand my acceptance of them. (Hello, Islam?) That said, I was at my desk last week when dispatchers summoned firefighters to a blazing old home on Atlanta Street. I got there quickly and shot a few photos from the south side. I circled around a neighbor’s house and shot the rear of the house where the fire had originated from an exploding water heater on a porch. I had arrived ahead of most of the volunteers who fight fires for us. When I made my way back to the street, those brave men and women were arriving in force. They knocked the fire down quickly but the old heart pine had burned hot and fast and the home was a goner. They knew that but they still did their best. I felt for a man who had lived there as he struggled to calm his dog in the front yard while watching the home go up. He had gotten his mother and the dog out and then looked on helplessly as they and a nephew lost everything. Typically, the firefighters roll up on a scene in their personal vehicles. They kick off their outer garments, don protective gear and go to their dangerous work. One firefighter shucked a pair of nice tennis shoes – Air Jordans or something similar. When he returned exhausted to his vehicle, the expensive tennis shoes were gone – stolen by one of the denizens of the less than stellar neighborhood. The thief also stole his iPhone. That heartless act, no doubt committed by one of the entitlement set, infuriated me at the time and I am still mad about it. Perhaps the perp can work in Kasim’s public relations department before he joins the mayor in a little gluteus warming down under. Useless. Just plain useless. Walter Geiger is editor and publisher of The Herald Gazette.
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