what happened now?

Local and national mass media have been quick to describe the death of a short-stature young woman at Yale University and the suspect surnamed 'Clark'. In my hometown of Bradford, PA, the outlying township features a 'Clark Lane' and Clarks were invariably athletes. When a Clark crashed into an Oakland woman years ago in his car and she died, the 'Clark Bar' (a candy bar invariably seen in movie theatres) was lost for the family and he the driver was convicted of a negligence crime and sent into San Quentin, CA, to do prison time.

The 1/17/2009 issue of the Palm Beach Post (FL) newspaper describes, 'Scooter rider hit by car not buying driver's explanation', "...50+ years of driving...never stopped...77-year old seasonal resident...grandmother of eight and cancer survivor...living Hunters Run subdivision...hit Matthew Clark, 25...riding along Congress Avenue...". Bradford, PA, has a 'Congress Street' located within city limits.

Now a younger Clark is the suspect in a different kind of female death, the victim said to be strangled and stuffed into a wall. We can suspect that 'a laboratory technician in Yale' as a word combination is also code for sentiments about 'a way' to spring Clark from prison in CA, where at least once the prison population was sufficiently bonded to perform a rock concert (the word 'jail' is pronounced with a soft or silent 'j' in some language, resembling the pronunciation of the word 'Yale'). A music group calling themselves 'The Clarks' have also banded together to perform in Pittsburgh, PA, environs.

Which is background enough to relay an account of today's almost-hit encounter: While walking from Kcc along SE Ocean Boulevard southside towards Ocean East Mall, two young men riding bicycles approached from the opposite direction moving east, one on the sidewalk and the other in the bicycle lane as a stream of traffic also approached the Crary Bridge over the St. Lucie River. This meant that the only choice for a pedestrian -- only me -- was to walk at the rough-edge of the sidewalk near the curb between the bikers; the one in the bike lane then elected to join his fellow on the sidewalk which put me still at the curb but nearby then-empty bike lane.

The serious expressions of their faces said a lot. The outside-edge of the sidewalk is artistically rough as a sort of concrete basket-weave pattern that affords a good grip on the pavement at the curve of the roadway. They had to propel themselves alongside the heavy-metal barrier between scrublands private property and sidewalk without slaying me, and succeeded.

As previously reported, a middle-aged Japanese woman for some reason died in the region within the past few years after her daughter and I trashed a storm-weakened metal handrail beside some steps leading into/from Cedar Pointe Plaza, also nearby a former Japanese restaurant (that was two hurricanes plus Tropical Storm Fay). The character of the restaurant has also changed, from solely Japanese to Japanese-Thai. I suppose it was easy for mobsters to blame them for the crumpled handrail, but in reality I already had a previous, similar experience in a supermarket parking lot in San Francisco, CA, near the University of San Francisco when I alone ripped off a metal entry/exit gate which had rusted hinges.

"To keep the peace" -- a favorite telephone-terrorism phrase oft used to demand specific actions from those deemed miscreant -- I was almost run down today or was almost horribly ground-up between relentlessly-moving metal-frame vehicles?