Generation, upbringing can affect one’s style and use of language

Merry Christmas Boulder City and friends. I hope you are enjoying the holiday season in whatever way fits your particular style best.

I was musing the other day about the meaning of friendship and how it has progressed through the years. I chuckled at a commercial playing recently with an older lady talking about posting (real photos) on her (real) wall and unfriending someone. Mom lives with me now and she sometimes gives me that curious dog look when I talk about someone’s status or following them.

In my business, one of those can result in a restraining order and the other just might mean a call to the coroner’s office. Each of us has our own language that is derived from our upbringing, generation, occupation, affiliation or any of a thousand other veins of our collective selves.

I was lucky (and sometimes unlucky) enough to grow up with my grandmother two doors away. She was a Depression-era baby and more than once I got my ears cuffed for throwing away aluminum foil or wasting a few spoons of food. After my grandfather passed, we gifted her with a microwave for Christmas.

You would have thought we put hazardous waste in the kitchen. She covered it with a doily, put a flower arrangement on it, and told us how much she appreciated our kindness. We finally convinced her it would make her life easier. I can still remember being flattened like a snowplow on the Jackson Hole streets after she put something in to heat. After I recovered my footing and dignity, she advised me that the rays put out by that thing were deadly. The combination of those and the computer viruses had shortened her life by several years.

Ah, memories! I hope you enjoy your tofu turkey, FedEx-delivered Bavarian chocolates, and yack burger stuffing. I hope your gift cards are loaded, your relatives aren’t, and no one unfriends you on Facebook. I’ll save my selfie Christmas cards for next year and, yet again, avoid Black Friday, Orange Thursday and Red Monday shopping.

Seriously folks. Carpe diem. Don’t take yourself so darn seriously. Seize the day and have some fun.

Here we go …

Dec. 11. Animal call: Report of a lame duck (and not a political one) at the fish ponds at 10:24 a.m. in the area of Veterans Memorial Park. It was disabled and fine.

Destruction of property: A report came in from a distraught female who states that several face-painted juveniles came into her house and trashed it. She requests that officers be dispatched to clean it at 3:19 p.m. in the 600 block of Avenue L. Fraud: A subject calls to report that a relative who has been forging checks for a long time has now crossed the line and started forging his at 5:53 p.m. in the 1000 block of Nevada Way. A report was taken.

Theme for the day: If you are going to request a badged cleaning crew, it’s best to make sure they haven’t responded to your residence multiple times when it appeared in the same condition.

Arrests 2; medical 5.

Dec. 12. Reckless driver: There was a report of a semitruck unable to maintain its lane and forcing other vehicles off the road at 10:12 a.m. near the intersection of Adams and Buchanan boulevards. It was a distracted driver.

Vagrancy: There was a report of a subject soliciting money from people at 12:09 p.m. in the 1000 block of Nevada Way. The person was arrested on warrants.

Traffic stop: A driver was stopped for possible impaired driving. Peace pipe, narcotics and warrants were located at 9:09 p.m. near the overpass. The driver was arrested.

Theme for the day: You can never have enough peace. Enough said.

Arrests 2; medical 3

Dec. 13. Suspicious: An officer spotted a vehicle parked in the driveway of an unoccupied house at 9:36 a.m. in the 700 block of Fifth Street.

Assist: A subject arrives at the station with an elderly female, who reports an unfamiliar male in her house at 3:59 p.m. in the 1000 block Arizona Street. It turned out to be her husband.

Suspicious: A resident reports someone knocking on her door and running off at 10:19 p.m. in the 1300 block of Kelpwood Street.

Theme for the day: Perhaps 10 p.m. might be just a little late for delivering the 12 Days of Christmas cookies.

Arrests 1; medical 5

Dec. 14. Soliciting: There was a report of a subject selling jewelry outside a local business at 11:34 a.m. in the 500 block of Nevada Way. The person was warned to move along.

Assist: Officers helped with a sofa on fire in the desert area at 12:36 p.m. in the area of Adams Boulevard and Del Prado Drive. The fire was extinguished.

Noise: There was a report of a subject who appears to be under the influence yelling and banging on the front door at 10:43 p.m. in the 1600 block of Foothill Drive. The subject was arrested.

Theme for the day: When the nice officer warns you to go home multiple times, you just may want to listen.

Arrests 1; medical 4.

Dec. 15. Suspicious: There was a report of two people going door to door trying to clean carpets for free at 10:53 a.m. in the area of Avenue K and Utah Street.

Suspicious: There was a report of a subject who rode a bike up to a block wall, stopped, and then threw the bike over the wall. He then hopped over and went into a sliding door of the house at 9:38 p.m. in the 800 block of Joy Lane. That is not the usual way an interior paint crew accesses a job site.

Trespass: A request was made to formally cite a subject for trespassing at 11:04 p.m. in the 1700 block of Red

Mountain Drive.

Theme for the day: How many times can your cellphone call 911 from your pants pocket before you move it?

Arrests 1; medical 7.

Dec. 16. Destruction of property: There was a report of an angry man damaging a vehicle in the parking lot yelling “Don’t ever pass me again” at 7:56 a.m. in the 1600 block of Nevada Way.

Suspicious: A patron reported someone pulled a gun on him and then speeding away at 6:12 p.m. in the 800 block of Nevada Way. It happened in Henderson and the subject came here to be safe.

Civil: Parents report their son is being defiant because he won’t allow them to cut his hair in the 500 block of Bender Court.

Theme for the day: Been there, done that kid. I don’t blame you for not wanting to sport the parental cut.

Arrests 3; medical 5.

Dec. 17. Noise: A complaint was received that the neighbor was playing the organ so loud they can’t hear the TV at 5:33 a.m. in the 1300 block of Marwood Street. A warning was issued.

Accident: A report came in about a one-vehicle rollover without injuries except to the vehicle at 3:03 p.m. in the 1000 block of Yucca Street. The driver was cited.

Protective order: There was a report about a subject to be served a protective order who is at the location, drunk and trashing the place at 10:08 p.m. in the 700 Block of Elm St. The order was served but no trashing was seen.

Arrests 1; medical 6.

Call of the week: While on foot patrol downtown one evening about midnight, a subject was warned to go home or he would be arrested. The subject said he will take his whip and go home. (We don’t make this stuff up.)

See you next week.

Tina Ransom is a dispatcher with Boulder City Police Department. She is coordinator of the Boulder City Citizen’s Academy.