And then "nothing" happened

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by this sort of thing (given our current locale), but I thought this was a somewhat remarkable news story. It's not that nothing of import happened in West Tennessee that amazes me; it's that there's a news story that serves to remind locals that no incidents have occurred.

I want to advance a theory here (which is what I was educated to do--advance theories on things whether you want to read them or not). When I read this story it made me immediately think of an interaction I had at a furniture store last Saturday. I think this news story (that no incidents occurred) IS a story because "incidents" here is a sort of code for crime. While other locations like to tout their economic opportunities and cultural mystique, it seems like West Tennessee is very proud of its lack of reported crime. (I use "reported" here deliberately.)

Which brings me to the furniture store. My wife and I journeyed into the Slightly Larger Town (S.L.T.) nine miles down the state highway from our diminutive burg to see the sights, rub elbows with our betters, and check out the retail options for furnishing our largely empty home. The S.L.T. is not big enough to rate a Wal-Mart (...yet) and there are many locally owned shops and businesses still operating. One of the more impressive was a four-level / warehouse-style furniture store looming over the town square. After lunch, we decided to check it out because most other businesses were closed on Saturday afternoon (why?). Inside loud country music competed with the cheers and squeaks of the UT women's basketball game on the tube. A few people were browsing the rooms crowded with desks, dinette sets, and sectional couches while a cadre of locals were chatting with the white-haired owner.

Eventually, the owner--noting that we were strangers in the store--tracked us down and started explaining how great all the furniture was. I asked what I thought were a few discerning questions and then assured him that though we were in no financial position to buy anything today, we'd return at some point with our fists and pockets overflowing with greenbacks. He asked us, quite warmly, where we were from and just what we were doing in town. At first, he went through same routine about the culture shock and assured us of the milder weather. He then regaled us with a story about delivering furniture to Chicago and getting lost. This must have been a while ago because he looked too old and seemed too important (as owner) to stoop to delivering his own merchandise. The gist of this story was that after searching fruitlessly for some address to deliver a dining room table or couch or something, he called the customer and declared that if she were more than ten blocks away from his current location, he'd just leave the damn furniture there at the gas station and she could worry about getting it to her house. He ended the story happily; she was only three blocks away, and he delivered the stuff. I wasn't sure what point I was supposed to take away from this story: that we can only expect so much from delivery drivers? That Chicago is a big, confusing place (which he already knew we knew)?

Anyway, this story segued into a laundry list of the attributes of West TN. It seems like the people who want something from us--to rent their house, to take a particular job, to buy furniture in their store--continuously try to sell us on the idea of West Tennessee. Like the furniture store owner did, these boosters acknowledge reality. They say, "We don't have all the things Chicago has, sure. But we have ..." and the list continues. One of the more troubling things they often mention, which the owner did last weekend, is that there's almost no crime in this part of the state. We'd heard this before, but we'd also heard from an appliance delivery man that the S.L.T. was a depressing place because people routinely steal from each other. Anyway the owner said that if we ever forgot to lock our house or car here in West TN that we could be confident that all our stuff (including, possibly, this bitchin' dinette set) would still be there when we returned.

I said that where we lived in Chicago was quite safe (unless you were a parked car and I was wheeling around the neighborhood in a 24-foot diesel truck), and that many times I'd neglected to lock my car door and still found it (and all the worthless crap in it) still there when I went back out. My wife and I never felt threatened or unsure when we were out late at night (perhaps we should have, but we didn't). I found myself getting sort of defensive. I mean, did he assume that we were too stupid to know that (on average) it's safer here than there? He'd never lived in Chicago; what did he know? Why was he telling us this? We'd already moved.

So I was about get all sarcastic and ask him, "Are you the mayor or on the welcoming committee or what?"
I thought he would, embarrassed, realize that he'd been droning on unnecessarily and apologize for wasting our valuable time telling us things we already knew. But before I could smart off, he explained that he WAS the mayor of this itty-bitty town right beside ours and had been the mayor for over a decade. He WAS on the welcoming committee and it was really important to him that we appreciate where we had moved. I felt glad I'd kept my fat mouth shut and said, "Oh, we do appreciate it."

I could say lots of good things about West TN, but I wouldn't put the nominal crime rate among its top characteristics. I guess so many people assume that in Chicago we were besieged by muggers, gangsters, and sex predators on a daily basis because of the news media. We weren't, which makes me wonder about this "no incidents reported" story. If the reality of crime in Chicago is being distorted (to make it seem menacing), could it be that there is an active effort to suppress knowledge about the crimes that are occurring in order to maintain the
illusion that no significant crime occurs. Would law enforcement be reluctant to disclose the numbers of violent crimes to media? Would media be reluctant to disseminate these reports? Could the victims of crime themselves be so invested in the construction of a seemingly "safe" neighborhood that they self-censor?

Or, could this place truly be as safe as it seems?