It's 9AM
It is a problem.
I call it The Pine Bluff Problem.
I was thinking about it again this weekend.
Listening to a call from the Mayor for the youth to stop violence.
Her offer of prayers and thoughts.
It’s what we give when young people kill each other.
A lot of thought, some prayers for the family.
I’m not sure what more we can give?
Hope, maybe?
But hope feels short in supply for some people in some situations.
It’s part of the Pine Bluff Problem.
Except it’s not just in PB.
There are towns all over where there is a shortage of hope.
But that particular feeling isn’t something truckers refuse to haul in to a city center.
Or trapped in a port in a storage container back up.
Hope comes from the community, and when it’s lost, or wandering, it creates a vacuum.
In a lot of spots, violence is what rushes in to fill that void.
We can blame drugs.
A lot of hot headed and heavy handed responses come from drug interactions.
But outlawing drugs doesn’t work.
We’ve tried it for the past fifty years and drugs are still here.
And legalizing drugs doesn’t work.
We did that for medicinal weed and violence still occurs.
Only now I’ve got to drive behind Cheech and Chong and get a contact high at every red light.
Even thought Driving Under the Influence is illegal too.
Maybe it’s a culture problem.
Just a little too much glorification of “gang” life and blunts and hoes combined with a lack of hope.
Except I’ve seen war culture guys who glorify the revolution against the new world order, and while they almost pray for violence the way some citizens pray for peace, it hasn’t spilled over into the streets.
Yet.
So I wonder, what kind of hope would help.
Even mine probably wouldn’t work.
What would 1000 new families do in a city so plagued by all the things that make a city “not so great.”
Where would they work? What would they do? Would it import problems?
Shutting down Main Street to create an attraction (Pedestrian Promenade Mall) wouldn’t draw enough people downtown to make a difference, I’m told.
Converting the dead mall into a Retirement Village wouldn’t either.
I asked about teaching more better internet skills in eCommerce and helping people learn how to build/grow and start internet businesses.
But I was told they “tried it” and it didn’t work because no one showed up to learn it.
No hope.
It made me think about what was so different about growing up when I did, the way I did.
How did hope become so ingrained in my life.
Hope for getting out and up and away and seeing and doing.
Hope for learning, and experiencing and making a better life.
However that might be defined, because better is different depending on perspective.
I still have hope every day.
Hope for a better run, hope for more stories, and more ideas and more finishes in the W column.
There’s hope for a good summer and better weather, hope for a great baseball season.
Hope for a big local boost to the economy when the solar eclipse in April brings almost two million visitors to Arkansas.
And hope that Pine Bluff capitalizes on their small part of it, even though they are on the edge of Totality.
I don’t think an astronomical event will make much difference in the lives of citizens who just want to go to the store and be safe.
But we have to start somewhere.
How can we teach and train hope?
Or what if that’s not the missing ingredient at all?
Here’s hoping I finish formatting three new books this week. I’ve been head down working on them, and now it’s just a matter of ass in seat editing to get them done and up.
The upgrade team gets them free, and you’ll be able to pick one up on Amazon for a promo; the other two will be ready for sale this week. (I hope).
BELLY UP
IN A HUFF
VENGEFUL Z
Plus a couple of shorts that are going up.
While we wait: go GRAB
Battlefield Z Complete Boxset – Massive collection of over 20 books
Or go grab:
THE SHADOWBOXER FILES BOXSET COLLECTION
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AND
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Hard Place: An International Crime Thriller (Ratso Book 1)