Safety or What?

Safety or What?

How many times have you seen a sign that said "Safety First?" Do they really mean it or is it just a bunch of words? I ran across this sign in the picture at a local factory. The fact that this sign, which says nothing of itself, covers over a sign important to safety shows a questionable attitude that some businesses have toward safety. It appears that safety is only the employee's concern.

Whenever I worked as an engineer, we had many safety classes and were informed of the dangers in the plants and other work environments. Sometimes that safety lesson was in the form of films which showed gruesome injuries to people. Since then industry has learned that showing such films does not do that much good. People are de-sensitized by all the horror in films.

Some companies claim that there is no such thing as an accident and that all accidents can be prevented. A friend of mine once told me that if there were an accident in his unit, then he would feel it in his paycheck. Those people obviously had a greater concern for safety than those in the picture above.

Murder Along the Blue Ridge Published on Amazon

Murder Along the Blue Ridge Published on Amazon

I have published my sixth book in the Rachel Christie Murder Mystery series on Amazon. Murder Along the Blue Ridge finds Rachel Christie torn between her dislike for Deputy Skyler and believing he is innocent of killing people. Her dislike prompts her to say no to his asking her for help in clearing him. Several pleas from Skyler and her friend Ron cannot sway her. However, the plea from Skyler's eleven-year-old daughter does the trick.

Rachel has grown from her novice days into a relentless hardboiled private investigator who will stop at nothing and reveal the truth at all costs. In this book, she finds out things about her lover Ron that happened years before they met. It doesn't sway her in her search for the truth.

An excerpt from Murder Along the Blue Ridge follows:

We switched off our lights and hustled down the stairs as quickly as we could. I felt for my PPK, making sure it was ready, then we ran to the last place we had seen the men. Smart. Probably not. I was operating on pure adrenalin. The outside door opened again. I rushed out and was grabbed by a strong arm and slammed up against the outside wall. My reflexes didn't wait for me to think what had happened. I immediately grabbed the hand with both hands and bent the thumb back until it snapped. I stomped the man's foot as hard as I could, bringing down all my weight. He screamed and released his grip. I whirled around and planted my knee in his crotch. Another scream. I retracted my leg and then kicked his shin with all the force I could muster. He fell screaming to the ground when another man jumped me. I kicked him in the stomach and he fell backward. Lights flooded the area. Headlights from several cars.

"Who are you?" came a gruff voice.

I didn't say a word and thought about going for my gun, but decided against it. I had no idea who this was. I hoped Cody would keep quiet as he came out of the door. The first man I had laid out on the ground grabbed my ankle and pulled. I fell to the ground and he shoved me face down into the cold concrete. Next, I felt his heavy weight on my buttocks as he twisted my arm behind my back. I shouldn't have hesitated. I should have gone for my gun.

My head throbbed where I had hit the building hard. I tasted the iron from my own blood as it hit the corner of my mouth. Smelling the dirt from the ground, I tried to wiggle free, but a set of boots appeared near me. One boot lifted and I felt another pain in the small of my back. I was squashed into the concrete as if I were nothing more than a bug. A strong hand twisted my other arm behind my back. Cuffs snapped around my wrists. It was the police. I had suspected that when the headlights came on, but they had not identified themselves as such.

Which Blueberries to Buy

Which Blueberries to Buy

To me, blueberries are the perfect berry. They are full of antioxidants and are, usually, juicy and flavorful. However, in the winter, few options are available as to which countries to buy from. In the spring, summer and fall, blueberries can be obtained from the United States and Canada. Call me prejudiced, but from the fruits and vegetables reported in the news, those from Mexico are not the ones from which I wish to choose. Too many times have vegetables from Mexico been tainted with salmonella.

In the winter, when I buy blueberries, the only options I have are those from Argentina or Chile. The tops of these are from Chile. The ones I have bought from Argentina are full of bug bites and are not flavorful. Maybe, because I have been to Chile and know that the people are wonderful, I have no qualms about buying my blueberries from Chile. The berries are flavorful and lack the bug bites as those from Argentina or even Canada in the summer months.

This week I bought some blueberries from Chile, which had a sticker which said Easter Island. First, I must say that the sticker itself brought back pleasant memories of Easter Island. This is a wonderful place and, if my readers have never been there, it is a place that should not be missed, not only from the sites, but from the people themselves. But I digress. The blueberries I bought are large, juicy and flavorful.