| Thank you for all the kind notes after my last update. (As well as the ones that weren't so kind - hey, at least you're reading my emails, so thanks for that part. *wink*)
First, let me be clear that my family and I WERE NOT AT the protest that resulted in the macing of children, and I don't have any little kids. This was information that I received from local folks who did attend what was advertised as a "family march for unity." Some folks seem to think I took my own 7-year-old, but it's been almost 13 years since I had one of those. :)
The protests in our city have calmed down to some degree but daily there is some new issue that crops up, in a different part of town each time. Apparently now
"protesters" are dropping bricks on cars from overpasses. This is not a unique thing to southern Virginia, as I've learned that the same thing is occurring in communities in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. What a cowardly, horrifying act it is to do such a thing. I guess this is another thing we all need to watch out for - we need to be alert to people standing on the sidewalks of overpasses because ideas like this tend to spread.
My 19-year-old daughter had a real scare at her place of work yesterday. They got word that there were shots fired at a shopping center nearby and then a few minutes later the parking lot of the shopping center where her store is was filled with people on foot, marching around the lot. She's not a manager and is by 3 decades the youngest person employed there, but immediately took the initiative to lock the door and encouraged the other staff members to retreat to the back of the store, where they weren't
directly in front of the giant wall of glass. I was proud of her quick thinking. The protesters left with no violence or destruction, but with gunfire having just occurred at the shopping center less than a quarter-mile away, it was a very tense half-hour for her and her co-workers.
There was another of those Twitter rumors that the groups that set fire to buildings and monuments in another Southern Virginia town over the weekend was headed our way to burn down the large mall here and cause chaos. Due to that, many stores and businesses closed early yesterday and will not be open today. This is certainly not what we need as our businesses are all struggling to stay afloat after being closed due to the pandemic. If things don't settle down soon, this unrest could be the last nail in our economic coffin.
Thankfully, nothing occurred last night that I have heard about, and here's hoping today is peaceful. I'm
deliberately altering my routes to avoid the highway and overpasses though, and it's something others might also want to consider. This isn't fear - it's avoiding trouble, and that to me is always a more intelligent move than surviving the trouble.
I hope you're finding these little updates of interest. They're ONLY for subscribers and I'm not publishing them elsewhere. Please take care of yourselves - I want only the best for every single one of you.
Love,
Daisy
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