Bits And Pieces

Well, let's see.....    Nyquist spiked a temperature the other day, and then his white cell count was elevated, so he has been scratched from running in the Belmont Stakes in New York.
   The news around here has been kind of weird...  A man was seen shooting a handgun into Boulder Creek where it runs by the Public Library on Sunday.  He fired multiple times and was approached by a police team who told him to put the gun down on the ground, several times.  He didn't.  He was shot by the officers and died in the hospital a few hours later.  While the police team were giving the shooter medical assistance, more shots were fired into Boulder Creek, more than a block further east, in Central Park.  That shooter was not caught.  Beatrice and I showed up at the library at 2:45, and were puzzled by the crime scene tape that was in place by the Creek.  We learned later that we had missed the commotion by 30 minutes.
  We've had several traffic accidents that have ended with deaths - including an 8-year-old girl riding her bike in front of her house, with her Dad on the sidewalk.  A 20-year-old under the influence of drugs ran into two cars stopped at an intersection, and killed two well-known Boulderites.  The driver never touched the brakes, according to police investigations.
  We've had at least 10 raccoons killed by cars in the neighborhood recently, with at least two more having canine distemper.  And a young, but adult, bobcat was found in a nearby park with injuries from an automobile - he didn't survive.
  On the plus side, there are more cute foals on Assateague... in both Maryland and Virginia.  And my cousin asked about our Native American background - we've had rumors running through the family for several generations, but I've never been able to produce anything as proof positive.  I finally, this afternoon, found that a distant great grandmother was identified in the Shawnee Nation Register as an Arrohatok-Powhatan Native American.  The family rumors were that this lady was a relative of Pocohantas - but she would have been from a later generation, I think (one or two), unless the older men took young wives...   Then, there's a tale of my great-grandmother being 1/2 or 1/4 Cherokee, which I have yet to prove; and the tales of Whealtons and older Chincoteague families having taken local Natives as wives - from among the Accawmacke.   Time will tell, I guess.