Did any of you see Comet McNaught yet? I was up all night writing a paper on school violence for my community relations class so I stayed up to see if I could check it out. Dad said it would be out at about 3am, near the moon. I didn't see the moon at all last night but at about 3:30 I found what I thought was McNaught. It was right over the hills to the right of our balcony. It was pretty bright and flickering rapidly but not quite like the picture shows. So I don't know.
Speaking of my paper and being up all night, between scouring Mt. Sac's online article database and the internet, my A.D.D. kicked into fifth gear while I was looking through wikipedia. I found an article about the Symbionese Liberation Army and the SLA shootout dad was in back in Newton Division. Dad has told me the story about a hundred times but I've never really grasped how MASSIVE an ordeal that shootout was. It beat Waco, the UT Clocktower sniper and even the North Hollywood Shootout in terms of number of rounds fired. So I spent about a good two hours researching the different members and what happened instead of doing homework. Tonight dad took me out to dinner and I asked him all about it, this time actually understanding the story for what it truly is. I dont know how much you know about it but I'll expand on it a little.
The Symbionese Liberation Army
[Pictured left to right, top to bottom:]
Kathleen Soliah, Nancy Ling Perry, Patricia Soltysik, William Harris, Patricia Hearst, Donald Defreeze, Emily Harris, Angela Atwood, Camilla Hall
Basically(in condensed form), a group of political radicals from the San Francisco area who did a lot of acid, robbed a few banks, shot a school's superintendent, thought they were this revolutionary army and were crazy. They took over a house in Newton Division of Los Angeles and began shooting through the windows. 9,000 rounds were fired, 400 LAPD officers were called in, the house burned down and where was Dad during all of this? Under fire in the backyard hidden in a patch of weeds. When two of the gunwomen charged him and the SWAT officers staged out back, he opened fire with a shotgun.
Camilla Hall
This big momma came out first, with a carbine. She was hit in the forehead and died immediately.
Nancy Ling Perry
She followed Hall, providing suppresive fire throughout the backyard. Upon trying to pull Hall's body back into the crawlspace, she was hit in the lung and spine.
I got a kick out of reading that story and listening to dad talk about it. It really was something. Can you believe that? 9,000 rounds of high powered rifle ammunition fired through a residential neighborhood and no one injured? I don't know. That's something to write home about I think. Made me proud of Dad. Who else has a father who plugged two psychotic, lesbian terrorists in the middle of quite possibly the largest shootout in American history? You've really gotta hear him tell it himself. I think it might be one of his best.
I pinched a nerve or a muscle or something behind my left shoulder while I was sleeping a couple nights ago and it's killing me. I can barely move. It's reminding me of a certain time I twisted my neck when I was younger and was made fun of to no end by my older sister and the Alvarez family.
Good night to you all!
