Warning: Bingo can be deadly. Like “under G” for “gone…”
As if the headlines weren’t increasingly shocking enough — with stories about deaths due to road rage, schools where bullet-proof vests should become part of teachers’ uniforms, and sports events where parents and kids wind up being jailed for murder — now we find out that there is a new danger as you approach your senior years. Even if you’re a World War II veteran. ABC News:
A 79-year-old member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars was shot to death by the post’s bookkeeper, who feared the organization would find out he was skimming money from the weekly bingo game, authorities said.
David Edward Goldstick, 57, was arraigned on murder charges Thursday and jailed without bail.
World War II veteran Hubert William Brady was killed Tuesday in his daughter’s garage, which the post had used as an office since December, when its building burned down.
People are shocked in Charlevoix, Michigan. Who would have ever thought it?? The AP:
David Edward Goldstick, 57, was charged Thursday with open murder in the slaying.
Especially shaken were members of VFW Post 1153, who described Brady and Goldstick’s friendship.
“It’s baffled everybody,” said Charles Butcher, the post commander, adding that he knew of no bad blood between the two. “It’s mind-boggling what could have triggered such a violent outburst.”
The slaying, discovered Tuesday, has prompted the Charlevoix County Sheriff’s Department to reopen an investigation of a fire that destroyed the post headquarters in December. A state fire marshal ruled the cause an accidental electrical problem, but a detective said Goldstick made a cryptic reference to the fire when he confessed to killing Brady.
“It’s just good business to take another look at it,” Sheriff George Lasater said in an interview with The Associated Press.
The fact is: no one of any age is safe, particularly in a world where watching films of people being killed in creative ways is considered terrific entertainment. YES: I watch (and like) the Sopranos and violent movies….just like any 12 year old these days. And, yes, violence has been around for as long as man has been around. But some of the headlines we’re seeing now are shocking.
Is there something in the planet’s water these days?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.