When did they first come to our neighborhood? I couldn't tell you although I remember the event and my chagrin for I knew instantly what they implied. It was a long time ago. I also remember my elation a few years ago when they were removed and disappointment when they were promptly replaced after some road re-surface work (which was not necessary).

Just one block over from my old home. I have since moved away, and I don't miss them at all. I live in another community where the "need" for them has not been discovered yet, although they can be found in the parking lot of one of our supermarkets. I even continue to patronize this business despite my disdain for them. I must add that these are the smaller versions, the "junior size;" annoying, but not as imposing.

Please, go look at them if you are in the area. They are in Bellevue, Washington, USA ("land of the free, home of the brave"), on 126th Avenue NE, between 24th Avenue NE and, say, 30th Avenue NE. In six blocks there are four of them! Asphalt monuments to cowardice; black visual mound evidence of our decline.

I once had my boys help me measure them. I don't know what happened to the measurements. I did not follow through at the time on my plans for their use, and they have disappeared. Oh, well. This is not a scientific piece. I am not an archaeologist describing ancient burial mounds. (Despite the solid form, something was buried with them). Roughly, from memory then. I am not going back to measure them once more. No.

They rose about four and one half inches in height and were more than three feet wide. Monsters of their species.

And, I suppose they accomplished their avowed ostensible purpose. They changed my behavior. The speed limit, this being a residential neighborhood, was 25 miles per hour. I never went above that there. When they came, I was forced to go much slower. You didn't negotiate the bumps at 25 mph unless you were looking for a thrill or felt like hitting your head against the headliner. I always slowed to less than 10 mph for them. Both my car and body thanked me.

As a matter of fact, I believe I used to take them at 5 mph or less. The speed indicator resting on its peg. Even then, there were unnatural forces exerted upon the body. The car did not then complain.

Then, there is THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES, but not yet.

I guess kids riding their bicycles (and perhaps skateboards) in the street could have fun with them. On second thought, I don't think so. The leading edges are too abrupt. Too much like hitting a curb. No taper. Anyway I didn't see any kids riding their bicycles there. No kids played in the street. In fact, there were no kids playing at all, at all anywhere thereabouts, (except in my yard).

We used to play in the street. One block over behind my childhood home was a wonderful paved street to play on. We made skate crates. Two roller skates attached to one side on each end of a 2"x4" board about three or four feet long. We would nail a wooden apple box (crate) to the opposite side on one end and then nail a board across the top of the crate for handle bars. We would race these up and down the street or just coast down to the bottom. It had a nice slope. (At this juncture, I feel compelled to eat some of my previous words. Indeed, I do occasionally see kids playing on their skateboards. However, they are rare, and the ones brave enough to venture out must be among the most despised, hounded and oppressed humans on the face of the earth).

In the winter, we would sled down this street when it snowed. We were constantly riding our bikes on it, playing some form of ball, "kick the can," whatever. One of my friends even had a rough-made go-cart powered by a lawn mower engine. We used to build soap box racers. Anything with wheels. The street was a gathering place for the neighborhood. Morning, noon, and night we were there, conditions permitting, and playing.

Were there cars and traffic? Yes, but not really many. There would be more traveling my Bellevue street. But, once streets with even more traffic did not need speed bumps. So why?

The answer, I would assert, was that we had real men and real women then. More of them at least. Today, there are far too few.

There was a man who lived in our neighborhood. His home was on our play street, and he used to sit out on the rock wall that he built and watch us play. He was a tall man with large forearms. He worked with his hands. He always had a smile and thoroughly enjoyed watching our fun.

It may have been in the evening, but I recall it as being "high noon." Summertime, no school. He was probably home on his lunch hour. He did not work far from there.

We were on the lookout for cars. We were well disciplined in this area. Any dangerous moves, any hesitation in getting out of the street when a car would come would be reported to our mothers and upward to our fathers. We knew the drill. We knew the consequences.

We had spotted the car and were bailing for the curb. All of us except that adult with the huge forearms. Instead, he walked into the street and put his hand up for the car to stop! Stood directly in front of the oncoming car, and he waited for it to halt. When it did, he walked to the driver's window and told him that he had been watching him of late, and he wanted him to slow down a bit and be more cautious because kids played in this street.

I am not sure of what happened next. I suspect the young male driver answered in a disrespectful manner. Our protector immediately had the kid by the front of his shirt and was lifting him out of his seat. "Now do you understand what I said?" he uttered calmly. "Yessir," the kid stammered. "Do you want me to repeat it?" he asked. "No, sir," the kid managed. "Good," said our friend, "then it won't happen again, will it?"

"No, sir," again the kid repeated. The big neighbor stepped back from the window and waved the kid on his way. He told us to keep watching for cars and to let him know if that kid with the car caused any problems.

We did, and the kid never did.

While discussing world problems with a friend of mine one day, I repeated this story. He told me of his friend who was involved in an identical situation recently and ended getting arrested for his efforts. Assault. The police told this adult that they really didn't want to arrest him, but they had no choice. Oh, really? Who says?

Really? Is that just a rationalization? When we hired our first policeman, was he to augment us or supplant us? Ditto for judges. Who serves whom? If you understand, then you know why most people these days cower in fear and/or turn their backs when they are confronted with a situation that requires their intervention. It explains why a Kitty Genovese can be brutally murdered in front of a bunch a people and no one steps forward. The system is more scary than the perpetrator and his mayhem.

When neighbors are afraid to jump in, let me assert that you will not be able to hire enough police to protect us. Sorry, that's just the way it is. If the authorities are so protective of their function that they will turn on anyone who does what they do when they are not around, then they will lose respect of decent people. You won't be able to afford them. And, they will find new ways to prey on you, and they will let the "bad guys" loose on you (The system can only keep collecting on them through the "revolving door." "Pass 'go,' collect $200). Sorry, just the way it is.

That's one of the unintended consequences. (For you. It is intended by them).

My evidence? You can't afford to hire enough cops to police neighborhood streets. Citizens cannot do it anymore. So, you build speed bumps. There's your evidence.

But, there are other consequences also. Suppose you are an elderly gentleman with a degenerative spine condition. What does it feel like negotiating those speed bumps? What is your attitude toward your community when you realize that the only reason your spine must undergo this torture is that your neighbors are indeed spineless!

And, I have a question for you.

Suppose that you are now an elderly lady with another problem. And, suppose you are going downtown to do some shopping and meet your friends for lunch. Make a day of it. You are all cleaned up. You are wearing your new outfit, and you have just put on a fresh pair of "Depends." In six blocks, you must traverse four speed bumps.

My question: How much extra urine leaks out with each speed bump?

You may not like my question. Fair enough. I don't like the fact that innocent people have to suffer because we are prevented from doing what is right; because we are prevented from doing what is our right (at least it used to be. Who says otherwise?).

Recent events have prompted me to keep going with this. Let's suppose now that the nice old lady in "Depends" now wants to travel across country to see her new three-week old granddaughter. She still has to negotiate those four speed bumps before getting on the bumpy highway (which is in disrepair because the powers have spent the highway money somewhere else) to the airport where she will be forced to wait longer than before, assaulted with a metal detecting wand, and forced to strip because we no longer know what is right. She may then get on board an airliner with an enhanced carbon dioxide atmosphere and have her diapered bottom blown out of the sky by one of the missiles fired from a United States warplane by an anonymous jet-jockey all of which her tax dollars have purchased, because the airliner's captain and decent men on board are not permitted to carry weapons.

Would you rather your mother were shot aboard an airliner by the captain's errant bullet or in some cross-fire in the cabin or be vaporized by a missile you helped pay for? Would you trust the captain who would be protecting his aircraft or someone hundreds or thousands of miles away safe and sound telling another pilot to shoot the airliner out of the sky? What if the terrorists on board had been subdued just before that order were given? How would the pilot about to unleash the missile know?

Is it true that airliners must be able to safely land with a large hole in the fuselage in order to be certified? What are the chances of a bullet fired inside the cabin bringing an airliner down? Whatever they are, they must be less than the chances of a missile fired from outside doing the job. Remember, if the first one doesn't do it, another one will be fired until the likelihood is 100 percent.

If that little old lady were your mother, sister, grandmother, aunt, or friend, which would she choose? What would you choose for her? What would you choose for yourself if you were aboard such an airliner? Who is this minnow-mind Minetta and why hasn't he been replaced already?

The jet airliner is a tribute to modern technology, that is before they were over-endowed with carbon dioxide to breathe and turned into railway cattle cars with wings (can't call them flying ashtrays anymore as I used to kid my stewardess girlfriend, but that is another story and I digress) because of the diminishing of passenger (and crew) rights. My neighborhood protector was a bit policeman. Our parents were a bit judge and a bit jury, the first echelon (which no longer exists), if you will, in the court system. They served also as part-time cop, first in case of necessity. Heaven help the citizens who now take that role too seriously. Sure there was potential for abuse, but it worked. And, it worked at a smaller cost compared to the out of control criminal-justice behemoth we now have, which is not working, and which itself is corrupting our society while bleeding us white.

The same bureaucrats and job holders who won't let kids be kids or parents be parents are the same ones who won't let pilots and air crews defend themselves as they see fit. Calling in a missile strike on an airliner full of innocents to protect the greater good is evil. It is evil, not because of what it is. It is evil because of what it isn't. It isn't necessary. I have a feeling that someone is afraid to allow pilots to be armed because it might actually work, some individuals might start to remember how things used to work, and we might have some new heroes in direct competition with those who would rule us as cattle.

Perhaps the most important reason is that we would no longer be cattle, and "they" can't permit that. Had we not been so bovinized, September 11th would never have happened. Not only would the perpetrators have thought it impossible, they would have known they could not get away with it. Bleat all you want about there being a failure in the intelligence community that allowed the events to occur. You are wrong. They happened because we relinquished our rights and grew these agencies as a cop out, just like speed bumps. You are the "Captain of Your Fate." Act like it.