The Inner City — Excerpts from the Random Thoughts of a Kansas Housewife
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X8906200411 |
| Date | 01 October 1989 |
| Author | Dorothy King Koutnik |
| Published date | 01 October 1989 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
DOROTHY KING KOUTNIK
The Inner City -Excerpts from
the random thoughts of a Kansas
housewife
There are very few fringe benefits associated with living in the Inner
City. One,however, is that InnerCity people really
don't
need a television
set. Generally,there is much more going on outside -complete with police
cars and helicopters, gunshots, fire-trucks and immigration agents.
I would not have believed the following except that I live directly
across the street from where it happened.
The
young woman over there
had gone to the expenseof buying several flowering trees, each about eight
feet
tall-
and hired a man to plant them in her front yard. Two weeks later,
she lookedout
of
a window one morning to discoverthat every one of those
trees had been dug up and stolen.
Not long after that, a neighbor down the street called to tell me of an
equallybizarre experience. She and her husband, both retired, had driven
to Waco (about93 miles from Dallas) to visit relatives. This neighbor has
a white, two-story frame house that she - and her parents before her -
occupied for halfacentury.
It
is beautifully maintained and the setting is
as pretty as a picture postcard, with tall trees, neatly trimmed lawn, and a
lovely rock-garden. But the really outstanding feature consisted of two
huge, heavy, flower-pots made
of
concrete - one on each side
of
the
stairway to the front entrance and always filled with flowers.
Whatmy neighbor told me, as she struggled to retain her composure,
was that they had returned from Waco to find that those flower-pots had
been stolen. Someone told her that, on Sunday morning, a neatly dressed
coupledriving a late-model truck had been seen backing their truck across
the lawn and upto the front entrance(some forty feet from the front street).
Then, with the aid of a hydraulic hoist, the middle-aged thieves had stolen
those heavy concrete flower-pots.
Another neighbor - a young man who repairs church organs - was
more fortunate. When he moved into our blocka few years ago, he asked
arelative to stay in the cottage
he'd
recently purchased until the movers
had delivered all his possessions. Those possessions included oriental
rugs, priceless antiques, a grand piano and other items seldom seen being
moved into our neighbourhood. They were valued, he said, in excess of
$100,000. But, prior to the burglary, no-one knew that except the mover
and the insurance company. At any rate, two or three hours after the
relative and the first mover had left, another mover arrived and stole
everything. When the young man arrived home he could not believe his
eyes; and the policewere sympathetic but
didn't
offer much hope that the
stolen items would be recovered.
Two or three weeks went by. Then something strange happened.
October 1989 325
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