Hometown Heroes

Two pieces about Monmouth in the news the past two days. It makes me proud.

This one is about the former police chief, who I disliked intensely. He was one of those cops who walked around like his gun stuck out six feet in front of him, if you know what I mean. So this article from the Kennebec Journal was, sadly, was not much of a surprise:

AUGUSTA -- A former Monmouth police chief began serving eight years in prison Monday for sexually assaulting a young girl who is related to him.

Kenneth E. Latulippe, 43, of Winthrop was in Kennebec County Superior Court briefly to hear a judge impose a sentence recommended Feb. 27 by the prosecutor and Latulippe's attorney.

...Latulippe, who had been Monmouth police chief until 1998, had pleaded guilty Feb. 27 to two counts of gross sexual assault. The offenses occurred in October 2005 and November 2005 and involved a victim who was 8 at the time. The child first told her mother about the abuse this year, the mother indicated.

more here

Yuck, yuck, yuck.

And then, I saw this piece, which is about the folks who used to live across the street from me:

MONMOUTH — Police and fire crews responded to a house fire on Wilson Pond Road shortly before 8 a.m., this morning.

The home at 659 Wilson Pond Road is owned by Sterling Smith. The home, however, was believed to be a total loss. Firefighters were able to save a nearby barn that housed many animals.

Smith was not injured in the fire and was able to get his three cats and dog out of the home safely.

Fire officials said the blaze ignited in the home's chimney above the woodstove.

There is also no love lost between me and these folks (who are the ones I have sometimes described as perhaps the model for the original Beans, except not as nice).

Although when I was little we used to get milk from them in exchange for driving one of the sons to work, by the time I was an adolescent things had changed--in large part because one of the sons exposed himself to me when I was 9. Also because their doberman bit me in the head, and also the patriarch of the family got really, really upset when we left our house at anytime past 10 pm because the headlights shone into his bedroom. So upset that he had been known to shoot a shotgun, although I still don't know if he was shooting into the air or at the car.

Nothing like a little rural drama to make you really proud of where you come from, yuh?

(EDIT: I added the photo after my dad tipped me off about it. Thx, dad!)