Outrage in Cos Cob

Cos Cob, CT- A disgraceful act of vandalism left this 9/11 memorial bench looking like it was hit by a bomb. This bench is a dedication to Joseph Lenihan, a town resident who died in the September 11th, 2001 attacks.

The bench faces Cos Cob Pond in Pomerance Park, off of Orchard Street.  Pomerance borders Pinetum and the entrance is near Central Middle School.

My mother took my little sister for a walk today and stumbled upon this mess. My mom posted these pictures on her facebook and called the perputrator a hideous beast. I think she's right.

More police patroling needs to be done, as this is a public town park.  It is so disgusting that someone would do such a thing.  What a sick person.

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For a while, there was one small chip in the top beam of the bench, and that was enough to upset my family and friends when we walk through Pomerance, which is very often.

I hold out hope that they may be able to figure out who did such a thing, but it looks like it would be hard.

A family portait of Joe Lenihan an his family, courtesy of Connectict Post.

Before the vandalism:

Courtesy of 9/11 Living Memorials on Voices of September 11th website.

The plaque reads:

"In loving memory

JOE LENIHAN

9-11-01

He loved coming here with his family

'Some people come into our lives, touch our hearts, and we are never, ever the same' "

 According to the Living Memorial site, his family were the ones to donate this bench in the first place. God forbid his family sees this bench now.

I'm seriously considering starting a collection for a reward for information, or at least enough money to help rebuild this bench.




If anyone has any information, please contact the Greenwich Police Department. 

If it was a group of stupid teenagers who did this, and I think that is a strong possibility, then all it takes is just ONE person to come forward.  It takes just one person to let the proper people know who's responsible for such a disgusting act, and it would clear his or her conscience. 

Or just live with it.  But don't forget, karma's a b*tch.

Shared Birthdays Via Find A Grave.com

Find a grave is awesome. I did a search for people who shared my birthday, and a few famous people popped up I didn't know about:

Natalee Ann Holloway
We share the same birthday, and same middle name... She was a year younger and sadly taken away... But she's an angel.
Birth: Oct. 21, 1986
Clinton
Hinds County
Mississippi, USA
Death: Presumed
2005

-memorial here -


Lillian Gertrud Asplund
Birth: Oct. 21, 1906
Worcester
Worcester County
Massachusetts, USA
Death: May 6, 2006
Shrewsbury
Worcester County
Massachusetts, USA

RMS Titanic Disaster Survivor. At her death, she was the last American survivor of the sinking of the famed "RMS Titanic".

- memorial here -



Mel "King Malachi" Street

Birth: Oct. 21, 1933
Death: Oct. 21, 1978

Country music singer.

Cause of death: Suicide by self-inflicted gunshot wound

Not good... And on his/my birthday! =[

- memorial here -


Alfred Nobel
Birth: Oct. 21, 1833
Stockholm
Jamtlands Lan, Sweden
Death: Dec. 10, 1896

Inventor. He was the inventor of dynamite, and the founder of the Nobel Prize. As a young man working in his father's munitions factory, he became fascinated with the newly invented substance called nitroglycerin.


- memorial here -



Then there are those who died on my birthday... =[


Shannon Hoon
Birth: Sep. 26, 1967
Lafayette
Tippecanoe County
Indiana, USA
Death: Oct. 21, 1995
New Orleans
Orleans Parish
Louisiana, USA

Musician. Born Richard Shannon Hoon in Lafayette, Indiana, son of Richard and Nel Hoon.
...Formed a band calling themselves Blind Melon

- memorial here -



Harry Griffith Cramer, Jr
Birth: May 24, 1926
Johnstown
Cambria County
Pennsylvania, USA
Death: Oct. 21, 1957, Vietnam

First United States military casualty in Vietnam, Southeast Asia. Name added to Vietnam Memorial in November 1983, one year after it was dedicated.
- memorial here -

- Find people who share YOUR birthday! -

Tree in Kenner Park Lives On in Sandra Cantu's Name

Yards away from where 8-year-old Sandra Cantu used to attend school, a crepe myrtle now stands in her memory.

The family of the slain Tracy girl met at Kenner Park this morning to watch the city plant the 8-foot-tall sapling, which should sprout pink blossoms every spring for decades to come. Pink was Sandra’s favorite color.

“A tree is representative of life and strength and hope,” said Tracy police chaplain Dan Higgins before Sandra’s mother and grandmother scooped the first shovelfuls of dirt around the young tree.

Children peeked through the fence from Sandra’s old campus, Jacobson Elementary School, during the brief ceremony. Sandra’s mother, Maria Chavez, smiled. Sandra’s older brother Thomas Fortin, sister Miranda Chavez and grandparents Dolores and José Chavez held hands with Higgins and prayed.

The tree is planted by some picnic tables in the neighborhood park, a couple blocks south of where Sandra’s family lives in Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park.

The now-slender myrtle should reach about 20 feet and live for about 30 years. On the ground by the tree lies a brass plaque inscribed with the words “In remembrance of Sandra Cantu” and the girl’s birth and death dates.

A tree symbolizes new beginnings, said Tracy Unified School District trustee Walter Gouveia. He said he hopes that Sandra’s tree will offer shade for children and families who visit the park.

The tree is Sandra’s second memorial in Tracy. A third one should get built the summer in the form of a $46,500 school playground donated by Landscape Structures Inc. In late May, a Southern California couple donated a hand-built pink-and-purple playhouse to Jacobson School in Sandra’s memory.

Sandra went missing on March 27, prompting a massive citywide search. Ten days later, her body turned up in a black suitcase in a dairy lagoon north of Tracy. Police accused a neighbor woman — 28-year-old Melissa Chantel Huckaby — of kidnapping, raping and murdering the girl.

Huckaby is due back in court in September for a preliminary hearing after pleading not guilty last week to the charges. She remains in solitary confinement at San Joaquin County Jail in French Camp.

Somber Memorial Marks Anniversary

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) - A memorial has been held to mark the anniversary of the collapse of L'Ambiance Plaza in Bridgeport in 1987 that killed 28 construction workers.

Fifty people marched behind a bagpiper to a memorial Thursday to honor the memory of the workers who died when the apartment structure they were building collapsed and buried them under tons of steel and concrete.

In front of a memorial that bears an engraved image of a man holding a construction hat, event organizers said a prayer and read aloud all the victims' names as a bell pealed 28 times.

The procession followed a short service where state and city officials, labor workers and the public shared memories of the tragic events of April 23, 1987.