Picture this: It’s a hot summer day in early September, and you’re ten-years-old. It’s finally Friday afternoon, and you have the whole weekend to look forward to. You jump off the school bus, grab your bike, and race to the nearby playground where you can hear your friends already laughing.
Or, how about this: You’re sixty-years-old, and you’re enjoying your retirement years. As the last heat wave of the summer makes its final appearance, you try to take advantage of the warmth before yet another brutal Maine winter. To soak up as much of the sunshine as possible, you stand out on your front lawn making small-talk with the neighbors, cold beverage in hand.
This is what Violetta Avenue appears to look like any stranger who is passing through. Clearly not a rich neighborhood, but a decent one, with freshly mowed lawns, maintained gardens, and miscellaneous trampolines, basketball hoops, and slides scattered throughout backyards.
The first word that comes to mind to describe this area is safe. Certainly not a place where a crime was committed. As I jogged down the streets close to Violette Avenue, I took notice of the large playground and school buses.
As we discussed in class, I was able to infer that this was an area populated mainly by families with children. This was based off of the simple observations I made while trying to get a feel for the area. The first two paragraphs of this blog describe real events I watched unfold as I wandered down the streets. I saw young children walking by themselves, which made me believe that the parents of the youngsters had the same thought that I did; that the neighborhood was a safe one.
After seeing the members of the community interact the way they did while I was there, it made me wonder what the severity of the crime was like that unfolded at 29 Violetta Avenue. This is a street where I would feel comfortable walking around by myself, and it was pretty clear that the people who lived there felt comfortable as well. If I could draw any kind of conclusion from this experience, it would be that crime scenes do not have a standard way of looking. They won’t all immediately give you goosebumps and send shivers racing down your spine, but can rather be in areas that could otherwise be deemed as uneventful. (Word Count: 399).
Street view of 29 Violetta Avenue, Waterville, Maine.
I blogged about a residential neighborhood but hadn’t considered the factor of safety in the “crime scene” looking unlikely to have had a significant event happen there. I wonder if the neighborhood has changed over time and become this way in light of past events, namely the crime. I was also on a run when I saw this. I think it makes you appreciate neighborhoods and their dynamics more than other forms of transportation!