Terrific letter and wonderful outcome for the future life of that 15-year-old girl [“Close to home,” Letters, emails and website comments, Feb. 28, 2014]. “Where there is a will there is a way” was something I learned many years ago, and I truly hope there is a way to close the gap between predators and victims. I am truly proud of my Long Beach Police Department and the knowledge that they are there to do all they can to help everyone in those circumstances and many others.
I know it is no secret that drugs are behind many, if not all, of the horror stories we hear about, read about and see on television. I watch the foreign crime shows on TV, and 90 percent of them involve drugs. So we are not alone in that category of a civilized failure. My mother never told me why, but she did tell me to never accept gum or candy from a stranger. Back even that many years ago, about 80, it was a problem for parents to think about.
I never knew or heard about anyone in my family or circle of friends that had contact with anyone having a problem, but we were a much simpler country then. Money was not as easy to come by as it is now because parents didn’t have to work and give the children money to keep them entertained. Welfare wasn’t even a word you heard [or] thought about. During the Depression, you might have heard about some poor family going on “home relief,” but it was “shameful” for the family that was dependent on that help, so it was never discussed.
If there was a way to rid this country of ours of all addictive drugs, that add misery and pain to so many lives, I would certainly applaud that way, but I’m a realist, and I see which way my country is going. It makes me happy that my time on this planet is limited so I will never have to see the end of a generation that had promise ending up with nothing but pain.
Lecture complete.
Vivian C. Nelson
Long Beach
