Missing Pleasanton teen found dead in Newark, California

I skimmed yesterday’s online Tri-Valley Times but didn’t read the article about two people found dead in a Newark, California hotel. Why? Not my neighborhood. Today’s online article in Contra Costa Times “Missing Pleasanton TeenFound Dead in Newark” invaded my comfort zone. This teen, thought to be an endangered Village High student in Pleasanton, was discovered along with a Livermore man. That brought this tragedy to my home turf.

Call me a futurist, a visionary, or whatever term you deem proper, but as I began this blog post, I felt the dispair from another individual who thinks suicide is the answer. It isn’t. There’s hope for you. Call the toll-free suicide help line now. 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255). Or, go online to chat at http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/.

 

http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_21545932/two-bodies-found-inside-newark-motel-room-cause

Red Vines black licorice recall

Red Vines black licorice twists one-pound package proclaims “No preservatives and are always fat free.” These treats are certified kosher and preservative free. Perhaps American Licorice Co. in Union City, California should add “Warning: may contain lead” after batches packaged with the expiration of February 4, 2013. I suggest telling the truth on the ingredients label. “Children or pregnant women who have consumed this treat should consult their physicians” sounds good.

Although my childhood was long, long ago, one thing I remember with clarity. I hated the taste of black or red licorice. Any candies I consumed (politically correct word for gobbled) during my early years were licorice free. I tried a taste many years later when my foster children swore by Red Vines red licorice. My tastebuds held true. A taste test confirmed no licorice for me.

If you’re a Red Vines consumer, maybe it’s time to get the lead out.

Andy Griffith laid to rest

On this Independence Day, I have set aside bad news of missing children to honor a man described as a father to all.

Andrew Samuel Griffith

June 1, 1926 – July 3, 2012

Andy Griffith is best known for his homespun wit and wisdom as Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry. He was a great example of a widower, a single father to Opie (Ron Howard), who lived with Aunt Bee. A sheriff who shunned guns, he tolerated his gun-toting sidekick Barney Fife (Don Knotts).  All the Mayberry characters, in jail and out, were familiar faces. Griffith made millions happy, transporting families into a make believe world of peace and contentment where he diffused situations with common sense.

But that was fiction, you say. What was he really like? I never met him, but I’ve followed his real life efforts of putting others first. On July 3, 2012 Griffith achieved another milestone in his humble journey when he departed this life about seven a.m. Before noon he was laid to rest in an undisclosed location on Roanoke Island in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. No paparazzi, no CNN coverage, no fans walking a marked trail to say goodbye to their hometown hero. He left a legacy of letting others shine.

The life of Andy Griffith is displayed by his friend, Emmett Forrest, in the Andy Griffith Museum in Mount Airy, North Carolina.

http://andygriffithmuseum.com/

  

Amber Alert Canceled – Three Santa Rosa California sisters safe

June 14, 2012--Jose Albert Rojo-Bolorquez, age 25, has been apprehended and jailed for abducting his three daughters from Santa Rosa, California earlier today. Good work!

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2012/06/14/3-santa-rosa-kids-reportedly-taken-by-father-amber-alert-issued/

AMBER ALERT – Three Santa Rosa California sisters abducted

BOLO – Be on the lookout for Jose Albert Rojo-Bolorquez, age 25, and his three daughters he abducted today in Santa Rosa, California. Believed to be driving a 2005 black Chevrolet Tahoe SUV, California license plate 6TXA253.

Watch and pray for the safety of Alyna Rojo, 7, Maraya Rojo, 6, and Sofia Rojo, 3. All have brown hair and brown eyes. Here’s the link to News 10 that provides photos.

http://www.news10.net/rss/article/196960/2/AMBER-ALERT-issued-for-3-sisters

Best places to look: Anywhere, but maybe in a fast-food drive through or a roadside rest.

Where are the children?

More than 2,000 children are reported missing every day in the U.S., an annual estimate of more than 750,000 minors. About 200,000 are abducted by family members. Of the 58,000 abducted by strangers, 115 children are murdered, held for ransom, or held hostage with an intent to keep. The disappearance of Etan Patz, a six-year old student who vanished between his New York home and the one-block walk to the school bus stop in 1979, prompted President Ronald Regan four years later to proclaim May 25 as National Missing Children’s Day. The following year, congress designated the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a nonprofit organization, as the main source of information.

Fast forward more than a quarter-century to March 16, 2012. Sierra LaMar, 15, disappeared on her way to a rural school bus stop in Morgan Hill, California. A tip about a red Volkswagen Jetta with black hood and Sierra's clothes in a Juicy Couture bag sparked the arrest of Antolin Garcia-Torres two months later. Volunteers still search for Sierra.

On the eve of National Missing Children’s Day, May 24, 2012, Pedro Hernandez, a former Manhattan stock clerk who once lived in the same neighborhood as Etan Patz, confessed and was arrested.  

In all the positive results from Ethan’s disappearance, from his face on milk cartons to a 24-hour toll free number to report missing children, to an arrest more than three decades after he went missing, one vital deterrent remains untouched—unsupervised bus stops. If parents or neighbors had formed a volunteer watch group to watch for Etan Patz, he might have been found. If Sierra LaMar’s bus stop had a monitor, her morning absence would have been questioned and an amber alert issued. The red Volkswagen Jetta with a black hood would have been traced sooner. Volunteers wouldn't be searching for her today. 

We cannot turn back the clock, but we can change the future.

Chowchilla Kidnapped Bus Driver Dies

Chowchilla Memorial

Ed Ray, 91, died almost 36 years after he assisted twenty six children to safety from a quarry in Livermore, kidnapped by James and Richard Schoenfield and Fred Woods. The kidnap occurred when Ray stopped on a country road near Chowchilla, California for a disabled vehicle. That event propelled him into the limelight which he refused.

Sure, I knew him—or at least I knew of him. Chowchilla was a small town when I lived there when Ed Ray was younger, years before this incident. Students in town walked to school. Country kids rode the bus. At school, at church, at parades and fairs, around town, everybody knew everybody. All by sight. Most by name. Some by reputation. A few by character.

Goodbye Mr. Ray. May your humble character shine through the ages.

Here are great photos from the Huffington Post. 

A Real Mother

My annual protest the second Sunday in May began the day after my wedding when some unknowing person wished me “Happy Mother’s Day.” Someday, I thought, but thankfully not today. Every year since then, I’ve dodged questions and declined the single long-stem rose handed to mothers during Sunday worship service. I’ve shunned the long lines at restaurants for a quick lunch at home. If I skipped church, my friends asked “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not a real mother,” I replied. “I’ve never birthed a child.”

A Chicken Soup for the Soul call for devotional stories made me reconsider my motherhood role.  Five years of foster parenting when I was old enough to be a grandmother plus seven years as a devotional writer signaled the right combination to submit to the contest.  The result, “A Real Mother,” was published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Devotional Stories for Mothers (Simon & Schuster, 2010).  Click here to read it in Chicken Soup online newsletter.

To all real mothers, Happy Mother’s Day.

©Copyright Violet Carr Moore 2010

Not a betting woman

May 5, 2012. Curiosity made me do it—check out the horses for the 138^th Kentucky Derby. I clicked “Meet the Horses” and scrolled down the list. We’ve had a couple of horses. One beautiful, but high strung palomino and one sorrel, but not at the same time.  I stayed out of the palomino’s way, but I feed the sorrel. With that little experience, I’m no judge of horseflesh, so I chose a different route to the pick the winner--the distinctive jokey shirts.

Pink? No way! I skipped red and green and other clashing colors. Turquoise? Nope. I threw out the whites, yellows and blues. Then I trashed the checkerboard aqua and yellow. Wait! That’s Bodemeister, #6 with 4-1 odds. Nah. Maybe second place, but definitely not first with that ugly look on jockey Mike Smith’s face.  Then I saw an omen—jockey Mario Gutierrez wearing a purple and white shirt, the saddle atop a yellow horse blanket. A tee-totaler, the name I’ll have Another made me take a second look. Determination on the jockey’s face and the “don’t worry” look in the horse’s eyes made me choose #19.

Couldn’t make it to the Derby, but I watched the replay as Gutierrez overtook Smith in the last seconds of the fastest two minutes on horse’s hooves. I won! I won!

If I’d been a betting woman, I’d be raking in my windfall right now. Instead I can only say my hunch was right. Watch the purple shirt. That jockey rides a winner.

http://www.kentuckyderby.com/horses

http://www.kentuckyderby.com/news/videos/kentucky-derby-2012-replay

Chowchilla Kidnapper vs. Parole Board

I awoke this morning, a Leap Day post for my writer’s blog twirling in my head. Then I read that Richard Schoenfeld, the youngest of the Chowchilla kidnappers must be paroled. Leap Day thoughts took thirty-six giant steps backwards to the 1976 summer kidnapping of bus driver Ed Ray and the school children. I can’t imagine their fear as they were transported from the quiet atmosphere of their hometown—and mine—to a rock quarry in Livermore, now my hometown.

The Parole Board made a mistake adding to his sentence, says Justice Robert Dondero writing for the First Court of Appeals in San Francisco. We all make mistakes, but this is a big one. They should have released him in 2008. Not that I wanted him paroled then or now. A life-sentence would have been my choice. But, rules are rules. Since the Board stepped over the line, those twenty-six children, now adults, who escaped without physical harm, will face another round of emotional trauma upon his release.

When Schoenfeld files—and wins—a lawsuit for emotional distress while receiving an additional four years of free medical and educational benefits during this unlawful extension, we will all become his victims.


Click here to view my writer's blog.

Anniversary Shadows

Time doesn't erase the sorrow from the kidnapping of Juliani Cardenas by Jose Esteban Rodriguez. The first anniversary of this tragedy, an adult suicide and a child murdered, when the vehicle plunged into the Delta-Mendota Canal, is a tragic reminder that Juliani was denied the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.   

 I've deleted Amber Alerts posts more than a year old with the click of computer keys.  Death of innocents leaves anniversary shadows that haunt family and friends.

Taylor Vo safe - abductor dead

To the individual San Jose Swat team member who killed Tri Truong Le, although not your first choice of action, your expertise released Taylor Vo from her captor. To the San Jose Swat Team, Police Department and others who assisted in the safe return of Taylor Vo, THANK YOU!


http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2012/01/20/amber-alert-issued-for-missing-11-year-old-san-jose-girl/

Taylor Vo Amber Alert San Jose California

No matter how often I say this is my last post to blogger, don’t believe me! Something stirs a wave of fear for the endangered child and a near-hated for the abductor with each new local Amber alert. It’s been hours since Tri Le abducted Taylor Vo from her San Jose home. This South Bay city of more than a million people is an easy freeway commute to Nevada, Oregon, Arizona—maybe on to Mexico. Part premonition, part mystery-writer syndrome, I feel an overwhelming fear for this child I’ve never met. The abductor is also a stranger to me, but somehow I visualize him pumping gas at a quick stop with this twelve-year old girl partially hidden or buying fast food from a smiling, unsuspecting drive-through attendant.

Look at the website pictures. If you’re driving, don’t be afraid to report a look-alike driver who’s staying within the posted speed limits when everyone else is speeding. When you gas up this weekend, focus on the vehicles near you. Help find Taylor before it’s too late.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/20/BA4L1MS7KU.DTL&feed=rss.news