Cazual Conversation

It is hard to fathom what good could come out of the arrest of a prosecutor on hit-and-run charges following what appears to be a series of bad decisions by the defendant and the investigating police.

That is not to say the possibility does not exist.

What we know is that Richard Albritton III was downtown with some fellow prosecutors the night of Sept. 27 and apparently had been drinking. At least one person saw him leave in his vehicle, which struck a parked vehicle in the 200 block of Harrison Avenue and left the scene.

Did Albritton even realize he hit anything? Maybe not. Initial reports made it sound as if the carnage included an entire rear bumper. It didn’t. It was more like a piece of plastic off the bumper.

We now know what someone else said Albritton nearly hit another car near Beck Avenue.

As one set of Panama City police investigated the Harrison Avenue wreck, another officer was called to Taco Bell on 23^rd Street in reference to an impaired driver at the drive-through.

Officer David Williams found Albritton passed out behind the wheel of his idling vehicle in the drive through lane. In a report he was ordered to write some nine days after the incident, Williams said what police are known to say in such circumstances: “I smelled a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from within the vehicle. I also noted that the driver’s eyes appeared to be bloodshot red.”

Williams’ contacted his sergeant, Ric MacKinnon, and while we don’t know what was said, we know the  result. Williams parked Albritton’s SUV for him and called his girlfriend to pick him up.

It was only later the next morning that MacKinnon, reviewing the evening’s reports, saw the hit-and-run and put two-and-two together. To his credit, MacKinnon notified the officer working the wreck of the incident at Taco Bell and police matched the pieces of plastic in the road to Albritton’s bumper.

But when police later contacted Albritton, they said he “did not volunteer if he was driving at the time of the accident.” That might have been the end of it had The News Herald not inquired.

In response to media questions a police captain — apparently not kept up to speed by his own officers about events at Taco Bell — stated the wreck investigation was stalled since no one knew who was driving.

It went downhill from there.

Subsequently, Albritton was charged with leaving the scene of an accident but not DUI. The damage is done for him. While you can understand why someone would take the easy way out, we’ll never know what would have happened had Albritton just remained at the scene of a very minor wreck.

His career as a prosecutor is over for now, not so much for the wreck as for the events following it.

The three officers involved in the incident received suspensions and the kind of black marks on their records that tend to linger, potentially affecting their careers for some time to come.

A department that prides itself on professionalism can only continue to do the right thing and wait for the shine to wear off the black eye.

Like many things in life, the repercussions of our decision making often outlast the actual event itself. And that is some of the good that can come out of this.

You can rest assured members of the Panama City Police Department will take this as a refresher course in why every call has to be handled is if the world were watching and why a prosecutor passed out at Taco Bell deserves the same treatment as anyone else would get.

Albritton has the most to say about whether anything good happens to him as a result. Sometimes it takes what it takes to get your attention that maybe your decision making needs some fine-tuning, and such inward inspections often bear fruit down the road.

Every one watching the situation should bear that in mind as well and give all involved a chance.

For the real test in life is not what happens to us as it is how we react to it.

The DOW plummeted Monday and for some reason this seemed more serious than past debacles.

Maybe it is because it follows so much uncertainty in our economic future. Maybe it is because the TV happened to be on as it moved from 490 points down to more than 700 points down in an hour or so.

The reality is it seems more real because I did, for the first time, exactly what I knew not to do: I looked at my 401-K retirement plan online.

It has lost nearly one-fifth of its value this year.

That makes it personal. When the Real estate market is bad, it hurts but not everyone suffers. When AIG fails, and it’s not even the biggest failure of the week, there is some hurting going on.

I jokingly told folks, before Monday, that I am the ostrich with its head in the sand as it goes to the bank failures and stock market fluctuations. I have no control over it, so I’d rather not know.

My head came out for a short time today and I’m having trouble getting it back under cover.

Yes, the plan is for the long haul. Things change. It’s not the first time the market has done this.

For the first time in years, since 9-11 really, I’ll be watching the opening tomorrow. I’d of been better off keeping my head in the sand another 20 years, but it is too late for that.

One of the first questions we are supposed to ask as journalists is: “How does this story affect you, the reader?”

Surely the Squallers were jesting.

There was absolutely no way on God’s green earth that synchronized diving was an Olympic Sport. Heck, we can barely accept synchronized swimming.

But there they were last night, the loneliest people on the earth paired off like siamese twins separated at birth to perform for the masses.

There’s certainly nothing goofy about synchronized diving 

 I say lonely because there is no other explanation for what would drive someone to pursue that as a sport.

And I say lonely because as a youth, I could hang out with football players, soccer players, chess players and maybe even the math team, but you would never, ever, ever, ever, ever catch me hanging with the synchronized divers.

But what do I know about it? Not much, frankly, because about five minutes into the show the two Chinese divers embraced in their speedos and I was done.

It at least made it a bit clearer why they all insist on showering after each dive.

The newspaper today told me me three people have drowned in separate incidents in turbulent waters stirred up by storms despite officials’ warnings to use caution.

Yet no one is alarmed, no one is calling for government intervention, and no one seems to be blaming anyone but the unfortunate swimmers’ choices.

This could be because I’m in New Hampshire at the moment and the drownings above happened here. While I don’t give Yankees credit for much, they get credit for this: they are pragmatic. The general consensus is the three folks who drowned in rivers swollen from recent rain were there despite warnings, and no one is looking to parcel out blame.

Reading the News Herald online at www.newsherald.com, I see three people drowned off our beaches, making it about 10 for the year. Almost all went in during red or double-red flag conditions, and some were verbally warned as well.

Yet when their persistence or lack of awareness leads to a drowning, the cries rise for the government to levy taxes of pull money out the sky and provide lifeguards.

Sadly, it won’t prove effective even if lifeguards were in place, I’m afraid. Panama City Beach’s offshore conditions appear unique, from the dual-sandbar system to the affects of dredging to wave action.

At what price do we decide to save people from themselves?

We on one hand demand law enforcement do something about it, then complain when they ask for the ordinances they need to force people out of the water. We accuse them of doing nothing, or of being too intrusive.

Lifeguards, presumably, would have no more authority to force people out of rough waters than the cops do now. If they are going to be given that authority via ordinance, why not give it now to the existing beach and surf patrols?

Here in New Hampshire, it seems that the fact that people drown or fall off rocks is a matter of course.

The three New Hampshire drownings - one involved an out-of-state visitor - involved people slipping off rocks at popular swimming spots. There is no talk of dynamiting the rocks, closing them to the public, or militarizing them with police.

While I still hold them responsible for the War of Northern Aggression, the fierce independence and self-accountability of New Englanders is something from which we can learn.

LAKE WINNIPESAUKEE, N.H. - The thermometer on the porch overlooking the lake reads 78 degrees, the humidity is about minus 7, it is one of the busiest tourism weekends here, and there are only six boats on the water.

Two of those are kayaks.

It’s refreshing to have the lake to ourselves. And it’s refreshing to know the economic woes (but let’s not call it a recession) we face in Florida are not isolated.

It’s not to wish problems upon others, though there is company in misery.

This time last year on our annual vacation to New Hampshire, we could barely cross the lake for the plethora of boats and Waverunners. It’s 10:30 a.m., and the boat count isnow down to three from our vantage point on the front porch.

The conversation at the breakfast table last year as we gathered - my uncle and aunt, my mother, my sister and brother-in-law and their three children, and the boy and I - centered around whether we were boating, skiing or going to the Weirs if the weather was poor.

This morning our host, Uncle Bob, a retired developer who got out when the getting out was good and did well enough to be able to host all of us again this year, talked about indictments. He talked about the developer and attorneys and bankers facing prison in Sarasota, where my uncle keeps his winter home, for real estate fraud involving property flipping.

On the porch, as I write this, we are debating the price of gas and drilling in Anwar and off the coast of Florida. A year ago, this would have been an even argument. Today, my mother the staunch democrat is the lone vocal dissenter, though her husband is putting on a show of agreeing.

The house next to my uncles on the lake is up for sale for $12 million or so. It will sell, he says.

“The people living on this island are affected differently than most people,” he said.

The rich get richer, which is great if you are the rich, or related to them.

It’s a pretend week for us. Pretending we could afford to fly here (the tickets were a gift), pretending we have a waverunner so new and big that it can hold me while I pull a skier, pretending that we have the means to hop onto my uncle’s expensive, gas-guzzling boat and motor over to the Weirs for ice cream each night.

For this week, at least, we have the means. We’ll worry about next week later.

Meanwhile, we’ve moved the debate to nuclear power plants.