Scene Of The Crime
story and photo of 24 Hour Fitness by Reviewer Rob
“I remember once Darrell and I were at some surf shop in San Clemente, Herbie Fletcher’s I think it was, and while I was talking to the guy Darrell got into the office and into the safe!” Tony laughed and continued, “Soon after that I think the shop went out of business.”
Tony was a high school buddy of mine and now, 35 years later, he’s telling me about one of the ‘scams’ he and Darrell pulled during our teenage years. Scamming was what they called minor thefts of money and property often conducted through car break-ins, although apparently there was more. I was familiar with the crime sprees they’d go on. They were kind of legendary, actually. But it was one of the reasons why I broke off the friendships I had with them back then in my late-teens, if not the main reason — but it was still funny to hear about in a strange and from-a-distance way now.
I hadn’t yet told him about how my van was ransacked while I was working out at the gym a couple of months ago, but I know he saw my post about it on Facebook. When I tweeted a post about the robbery I had been victimized by Tony posted a reply to the Facebook thread my tweet appeared on and jokingly said he had seen “Darrell lurking near” my house. Haha.
I think I half-heartedly replied something like, “Good old Darrellict”. That’s what we used to call him, affectionately nicknamed by others in our group, “Darrellict”.
In hindsight that whole crowd was an accomplishment for me to live through knowing. Out of seven close buddies in high school, three are dead, one is an ex-con, two are divorced and in various recovery stages of misery because of their exes, three are churchgoing Jesus-following bible thumpers, at least two and maybe three of them have political leanings so far towards the far right that the Tea Party seems too liberal for them (that’s middle-class North County San Diego for you), and most ALL are former stoner druggies who don’t really like being reminded from whence they came. I don’t blame them.
I just found out yesterday that Ron Hall died in 2007 in Costa Rica. Ron was a guy I went to junior high with at Black Mountain Middle School in PQ and he was over 6 foot in eighth grade. His parents built a nice custom home in San Pasqual so he changed high schools, but we kept in touch. We’d get construction workers to buy us six packs of beer when we were 15 as we hitchhiked to the beach learning to surf. Our whole crew were surfers and sneered at the jocks. But Ron was always being approached by his school’s coach to come and try out. His senior year he played varsity, eventually transferred to The University Of Hawaii from Pomona on a full scholarship to, surfed his brains out and then played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as a tight end. apparently he had a pretty good record. The sports card trading message board had plenty of good things to say about his nine-year pro football career.
Anyway, why am I telling you all this? I guess the reason is because most of the ones that were really into the crimey lifestyle like Dennis and Darrell (two brothers who dealt drugs and scammed extensively) are respectively dead or fucked up and on federal relief. Dennis overdosed on something in 2010 after he pissed off a member of SD law enforcement by dating his daughter and had to leave town, becoming a bronco busting cowboy in a Mormon town in Northern Arizona. His brother Darrel overdosed on crystal while working construction with his step-dad and now is on disability because it severely damaged his mind.
After high school Doug became a pot dealer in the 1980’s. He tried to collect on a husband and his wife who he gave money to, to buy. They got ripped off and told Doug they couldn’t pay him back, that’s when it turned violent. I think Doug did two years for that.
Ron Hall played tight end for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and then the Detroit Loins before retiring in the mid-90’s because of injuries. He moved to Costa Rica, perhaps for the easy access to painkillers like Demerol in pharmacies there as well as all the other recreational drugs. He died in 2007, at 43, “of natural causes” said his Wikipedia page.
So why am I telling you this?
Probably because despite anyone you may have known in the past you don’t deserve to get your car ransacked like mine was in front of the 24 Hour Fitness gym in Kearny Mesa early in the evening of August 25th, 2014. Here’s the list of strange numbers that showed up on my Verizon bill later on in the night of the robbery and before I had service to phone that was stolen disconnected: 858-874-1910858-874-1910, 858-625-1106858-625-1106, 619-288-3633619-288-3633, and 619-600-7159619-600-7159. One of these assholes probably knows the thief or thieves very well.
Some guy called back after 10 p.m. and I answered on my Android because the phone that was stolen was a backup regular phone and forwarded to the smartphone I had with me. When I answered he asked for “Rene”.
The helpful SDPD dispatcher said I could go online and fill out a report myself on the city website. They only come out for thefts over $5K, she said. Such bullshit.
Crime sucks.