fbpx
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Print Edition
    • Get Home Delivery
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Submit Your Event
    • Customer Support
    • Submit A News Tip
    • Send Letter to the Editor
    • Where’s My Paper?
  • Our Newsletters
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
Hudson Valley One
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s UP
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Subscribe to the What’s UP newsletter
  • Opinion
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Log Out
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s UP
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Subscribe to the What’s UP newsletter
  • Opinion
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Log Out
No Result
View All Result
Hudson Valley One
No Result
View All Result

The hard stories keep coming 

by Paul Smart
June 30, 2020
in Village Voices
0
The hard stories keep coming 

I was sitting by a window at my library job, early afternoon, and heard a half dozen fast pops in a row, then a half dozen more. Then sirens. I later read that a Jeep had chased down a rented truck a block away. The driver of the first car was shot twice in the back while running from his truck, then shot another half-dozen times point blank as he lay on the sidewalk.

Two days later a 17-year old was arrested for the murder. He was also fingered for three other shootings in the past week, plus a shooting last summer where a three-year-old got a bullet through the arm as he napped in a daycare apartment.

Was the 17-year-old one of the kids I knew from my library work? No, he wasn’t the library sort. He’d been lost on the streets for most of his life.

A co-worker tells me, the next day, how his 18-year old son has slipped a cog. He was a perfect boy all through high school. Then his parents split. The teenager was quarantined with his dad. Something snapped. The father had to ask for help when his son started punching him in the face. Did it in front of the police.

The boy got sent away, and seemed to straighten out as the rest of us hunkered down. But then he had to leave the facility he was in early, because of Covid protocols. He stopped taking his new meds and stole his dad’s laptop and phone. Broke his ankle trying to run away, but refused help and chose to be homeless.

The son of my wife’s co-worker started hearing voices, facing down hallucinations. An intervention was needed to keep him safe. My co-worker spoke about how certain mental-health problems arise at a certain age. It’s the luck of the draw. My wife’s co-worker wasn’t ready to look into cause-and-effect. She’d been dealing with enough this year, including a parent’s death and a daughter’s impending divorce.

What happens to us? How fragile are our minds, our sense of morality? How hard have the upheavals of the past year, on top of lifetimes of upheaval, hurt us all? There are a multitude of ways, singular and societal, in which all of us need to care for ourselves and for ours.

 

Read more installments of Village Voices by Paul Smart.

Tags: Paul Smart Village Voices
Join the family! Grab a free month of HV1 from the folks who have brought you substantive local news since 1972. We made it 50 years thanks to support from readers like you. Help us keep real journalism alive.
- Geddy Sveikauskas, Publisher

Paul Smart

Related Posts

Village Voices are on hold
Village Voices

Village Voices are on hold

November 17, 2020
A liberal education
Village Voices

Keeping it all together

August 24, 2020
Writing about oneself
Village Voices

I need a day off

August 24, 2020
Saugerties initiative combating addiction and suicide adds more events
Village Voices

Time travel

August 24, 2020
Where to buy face masks locally
Village Voices

A story of three states

September 2, 2020
The kids talk politics
Village Voices

Stories on the ballot

August 23, 2020
Next Post
New Paltz holds drive-in style graduation celebration with pre-recorded videos, music and speakers

New Paltz holds drive-in style graduation celebration with pre-recorded videos, music and speakers

Weather

Kingston, NY
73°
Cloudy
5:18 am8:35 pm EDT
Feels like: 73°F
Wind: 6mph S
Humidity: 57%
Pressure: 30.13"Hg
UV index: 4
TueWedThu
72°F / 64°F
82°F / 68°F
88°F / 63°F
powered by Weather Atlas

Subscribe

Independent. Local. Substantive. Subscribe now.

  • Subscribe & Support
  • Print Edition
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
  • Our Newsletters
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial

© 2022 Ulster Publishing

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Art
    • Books
    • Kids
    • Lifestyle & Wellness
    • Food & Drink
    • Music
    • Nature
    • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Contact Us
    • Customer Support
    • Advertise
    • Submit A News Tip
  • Print Edition
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
    • Where’s My Paper
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Log In
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Subscribe to Our Newsletters
    • Hey Kingston
    • New Paltz Times
    • Woodstock Times
    • Week in Review

© 2022 Ulster Publishing