A Sad Day in our Neighborhood

I know it's hard to see the helicopter in the photo but I took this from my front yard.  I've had to hear the sound of this helicopter as well as others for the past few days.  Considering the situation in my neighborhood, it's a small price to pay compared to what happened to the Sikhs this last Sunday.  On August 5, 2012, a mass shooting took place at the Sikh Temple here in Oak Creek with a single gunman killing six people and wounding four others. (I actually took that sentence from the Wikipedia page regarding the subject.)

The temple is very close to our house, when I take my granddaughter for walks, we get pretty close to it. That Sunday morning, the neighbor went house to house telling people to turn on the news.  The first reports that came in said they didn't know how many gunmen were on the loose so we were all locked down in our homes.  It was terrifying and somewhat surreal.  We are in a neighborhood where the sounds of children playing and people walking by is so common, especially on such a beautiful summer's day.  And now there was no movement on the streets, not even a car going by.  It was a type of fear I never knew before.

 

As the day went on, we would learn about a single, sick person who did this horrible thing. These quite, gentle people who never bother anybody do not deserve such hate, no one does. This is not the Oak Creek that I know and love. And not the kind of thing that anyone could have anticipated happening to a group of people just going about their business.