Preoccupied

You must have thought we were down to seeds and stems this past week, but there were reasons for the less frequent posting.

Item: I had a real job for five days, working temporarily as an editor at Baltimore’s Daily Record for my old Sun colleague Tom Linthicum. He and his staff were both professional and cordial, a delight to work with, but an 11 a.m.-8 p.m. shift cuts a little into the day.

Item: There was also the event that finally marked me as a true Baltimorean: A man was shot to death half a block from my house on Tuesday night.

Just as I had turned the corner from Roselawn and headed down Plymouth to pick up my son from the train station, Kathleen heard half a dozen gunshots in rapid succession. By the time J.P. and I got back, the ambulance had gone and police officers were stretching crime scene tape around the area.

What emerged over the next couple of days was that a 22-year-old man in a sedan service car, parked on Roselawn halfway between Plymouth and Pioneer, had been shot in the head, through the window of his car. Neighbors reported seeing two other cars drive away rapidly but could furnish no details.

A truck carrying floodlights drove up, and police officers combed the street for evidence. The next morning, homicide detectives were examining the area and questioning neighbors, and a fire truck appeared to wash the blood off the street.

Neighborhood speculation is that the drug trade, which can been seen operating in the area as two cars rendezvous for a brief exchange and then drive off, was involved, though some personal revenge is also possible. We will almost certainly never know.

Item: A certain amount of time was also taken up with a developing matter that I am not yet free to disclose but hope to bring to light within the next few days.

All in all, an eventful week, but not on the blog. I’ll be back to posting this week.