From the
Amherst Bulletin Police blotter--starting off the new year with the last of the old (
26 December), and the first of the new (the
Jan. 2 paper is out today):
As in
Nottingham, public urination remains forbidden, but public gestures of friendship to strangers, strange mating rituals, and public flinging of food all "checked out OK" (as we say around here).
Taking the pee out of public:SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY
SATURDAY, DEC. 6
* 12:06 a.m. - Police issued a warning to a man urinating in the area of St. Brigid's Church.
FRIDAY, DEC. 12
* 1:24 a.m. - Police issued a warning to a man urinating on North Pleasant Street near the downtown bars.
SUNDAY, DEC. 21
* 1:53 a.m. - A man urinating near an East Pleasant Street business was issued a warning and sent on his way.[A little passive voice for elegant variation?]
Interesting that this always seems to happen in the wee, wee hours. Perhaps an enterprising entrepreneur could invent clothing equipped with a device similar to "
Mail Goggles."
Of course, one could imagine various unpleasant and unintended consequences, and one always needs to balance the needs of the public with the health and safety of the individual. Already in the Renaissance, newfangled books of manners grappled with such dilemmas.
In 1530, the great humanist scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam
declared, “To hold back urine is harmful to health”—but added, “to pass it in secret betokens modesty.” Numerous authorities were coming to agree on the impropriety of public urination, though they seemed to allow rather more leeway for public flatulence—on health grounds and because it could more easily be disguised ("let a cough hide the sound")—which occasioned lengthy and complex discussions.
As Norbert Elias pointed out in his classic
Civilizing Process (from which the examples here are taken), although
the sense of shame was growing in that transitional era, what is striking is
(1) “how commonplace it is to meet someone ‘qui urinam reddit aut alvum exonerat’ (urinating or defecating)” and
(2) “The unabashed care and seriousness with which questions are publicly discussed here that have subsequently become highly private and strictly prohibited in society.”
In any event, do our brave men and women in blue, in attempting to preserve public decorum by stopping the urinator, risk committing a grave etiquette faux-pas of their own?
Erasmus
advised, “It is impolite to greet someone who is urinating or defecating,” advice echoed for generations in other sources, such as
The Gallant Ethic of Johann Christian Barth (1731): “If you pass a person who is relieving himself you should act as if you had not seen him, and so it is impolite to greet him.”
Problems to ponder in 2009.
Other behaviors were stranger but are not described as having occasioned warnings:
SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY
MONDAY, DEC. 8
* 4:27 p.m. - A man who was described as waving frantically at a train on Bridge Street was located by police. The man was not in distress and told police he was just trying to be friendly to passengers on board.
[Just what sort--motion, speed--of waving constitutes frantic, and who reported him: residents or passengers?]
SATURDAY, DEC. 13
* 12:47 a.m. - A woman being dragged up the stairs of an Olympia Drive home told police she was just goofing off with her boyfriend.
[must be some weird sort of reindeer games]
SUNDAY, DEC. 14
* 4:35 a.m. - Police determined a man banging on the door to a Puffton Village home was just at the wrong location.
[like public urination, this sort of confusion occurs regularly in Amherst--and mainly early in the morning; any connection?]
MONDAY, DEC. 15
* 11:25 p.m. - Police determined people throwing food on cars at a College Street parking lot were determined to be members of a college lacrosse team goofing off.
[Presumably, they first feared it was the debate team cutting loose again.]
:
CITIZEN ASSISTANCE
MONDAY, DEC. 22
* 9:21 a.m. - A North Amherst woman reported getting a letter from a former tenant who wrote that karma would pay her back for what she had done to him. She refused to obtain a restraining order and told police she would be leaving the country for about two months.
DISTURBANCES
* 10:49 p.m. - Police determined a woman screaming at Aspen Chase Apartments was just having difficulties with the holidays.
[For insights into bad karma and trouble with holidays, I refer you to an old favorite and a new posting.]
Stylistic slippage:Scott has kept up heroically with the flood of incidents, major and minor. Perhaps it was the stress of the holiday pace (or just bad karma) that prompted him to relapse into his
awkward old locution. What it lacks in logic, it makes up for in unintended humor:
TUESDAY, DEC. 23
NOISE COMPLAINTS
* 11:38 p.m. - Loud music playing at Mill Hollow Apartments was quiet when police got there.
My guess would be bad karma rather than stress, because we find disturbing oscillations in the pattern way back in the
October 3 issue:
NOISE COMPLAINTS
Right:
SUNDAY, SEPT. 14
* 12:25 a.m. - A dog barking on Wildflower Drive was quiet when police got there.
* 2:47 a.m. - People talking loudly on Edgehill Place were quiet when police got there.
MONDAY, SEPT. 15
* 1:17 a.m. - A loud guitar was reported playing at a West Street home, but all was quiet when police got there.
Wrong:
WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 17
* 1:45 a.m. - Screeching tires and loud voices on Fearing Street were quiet when police got there.
* 5:09 p.m. - Loud music playing at Southpoint Apartments was quiet when police got there.
And, in a class by itself:
WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 17
* 2:07 a.m. - A baby crying at a Grantwood Drive home was later determined to be the sound of a family cat that got into a fight with another cat. The baby checked out OK.
[so, a baby=a sound?]
That's why we call it surreal Amherst.
