Lifestyles of the People Among Whom I Was Raised
-- or, when "talking about their marriage" went terribly wrong.

This is a choice article clipped from the Watertown Daily Times this past summer by my parents and sent to me as part of a pre-Easter care package which included striped bunny socks that say "Make the stupid people shut up." As far as local Crime News clippings go, my parents specialize in husband-beatings, 25-cent petit larcenies, and "refused to stop yelling outside" charges.

Woman Faces Charge of Hitting Her Husband

DEXTER* [i.e. Northern New York, see my note] -- A woman who allegedly backhanded her husband in the chest was charged July 8 by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department with second-degree harassment.

Deputies said Deborah J. Gross, 41, of 21018 Stone Road**, struck her husband, Allen L., 44, while at home at about 6:30 p.m. July 8.

Two days earlier, Mr. Gross accused his wife of trying to threaten him with a hammer and beating him with a pair of jeans. He said the two were talking about their marriage when she grabbed a hammer. He said he "lovingly" took the hammer away from her.

He told deputies that she then grabbed a pair of jeans and hit him about the head and arms with them.

* These touching events took place in Dexter, New York, about an hour's drive north of "Upstate," -- and
** at an address
10 minutes' drive west of where I'm from, which I affectionately call North Nosebleed

...Per City-data.com: the Dexter area is significantly lower than the state average in percent of people with more than a high school diploma, and even that is only 80%. As I sit here waiting anxiously to find out if I got into UC Berkeley's public policy institute, I'm enjoying a rousing/ vertiginous look back (down) at whence I've come. (Russians ask "otkuda ty?" -- "whence you?" -- and I say "neotkuda" -- "no-whence.")

Pretty much keeping out of jail puts me on par with some of our highest achievers. Like our journalists.

You gotta love 'em, they give the perp's full name and address. I mean, look at the place on the yahoo-maps link! It's got to be the only house for miles. I'm surprised they don't add the house color and significant lawn ornaments you might recognize. "Oh yeah, that's that pig-silhouette house!"