“Big Full Moons, Car Keys by the Nightstand, Ornery Neighborhood Boys, Car Break Ins and a Good Autumn Night’s Sleep!”
Dear Bank of Prairie Village Shareholders and Clients ~
I love this time of year. These are days we used to call “Indian Summers” as the temperatures can shoot up to the high 70s and low 80s. Then the next day it can be rainy and cold with a blizzard of leaves falling.
I am sure I am a little bi-polar as I do most enjoy the weather contrasts. This is also the time of “Harvest Moons.” I am never sure if the “Official Harvest Moon” is October or November~ but in any case, they are Big, Orange and Brilliant. (Perhaps because I watched the original Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin Movie when it first aired back in 1966, all decked in pajamas with Brother Ed and Sister Anne at my sides and a homemade popcorn bowl in my lap ~ I am continually addicted to staring at the Big, Orange Moons remembering fond memories.)
This time of year also seems when people are constantly walking at night. Halloween trick or treaters, people who are trying to keep their evening dog walk time (even though it is now pitch dark), young kids “Tee Peeing” houses before or after football games~ there simply is a great deal of merriment on the neighborhood autumn night sidewalks.
Accordingly, and even though I have mentioned this before, this is also the time when you should keep your car keys on your nightstand next to your bed.
Now this is a most curious suggestion~ is it not? We have all been drilled we should change our smoke alarms’ batteries when the clock is set back. However, no one but Bolen ever mentions keeping your car keys on your bedroom nightstand.
I can hear it now ~ what could Bolen possibly be talking about? Here is my reasoning. As there is great activity in the neighborhood, and given with the clocks being turned back, it is now darker by an hour. This combined with Halloween decorations make this a most Spooky, or least slightly unsettling, time of year. Neighbors (including me) often think they hear “unfamiliar” noises in their yards, in their driveway, and even on their patios.
Of course, the noise may be falling leaves, fallen branches, cold rain hitting the windows, and howling cold fronts coming through during the night making the old trees moan. However, it is just enough to make you wonder if you should jump out of bed and “check out the unfamiliar noise.”
Once up it is hard to go to sleep. Just because you can’t see anything untoward, does not necessarily convince you something is “not out there!” (Yes, we all have a little kid in us, concerned about what does bump in the dark.)
You tell yourself the unfamiliar noise is probably just the neighborhood boys jumping and running through backyards being ornery, playing tag or trying to visit their newfound puppy love “girlfriends.” (Think of those Norman Rockwell Autumn Evening prints.)
However, despite the Norman Rockwell Autumn Evening Prints, there is also the cold reality that crime does go up when the nights become drastically longer.
Yes, it is not only the season when neighborhood boys engage in sophomoric junior high type pranks. This is also the time we hear of professional car break-ins and car stealing crews’ attempts to make their crew’s end-of-year quotas!
Thus, the conundrum. Is the noise you hear outside, the neighbor boys playing games? Is it the wind rustling dying leaves to fall from trees? Or is someone trying to jack your car?? (Trust me, before I derived my car key solution, this question kept me up many autumn nights.)
Hence the simple solution. Most car keys now have the panic alarm built into the remote key. If your car keys are by your bed, you can simply roll over, hit the panic alarm for a second or so~ and roll back over.
Neither the benign neighborhood boys, nor the most nefarious carjacking crews are going to stick around with a blaring car alarm and flashing lights suddenly going off ~ even for a few seconds. The sudden shock is simply too great. They will scatter and not come back. The same occurs if you think someone is in your garage, patio or side door.
The hardened criminal does not want to get caught and will retreat at the surprise of an alarm sounding. Moreover, the sudden alarm surprise will mark your house as one they should always skip going forward.
Hitting the car alarm, is far better than activating your home security alarm which blares and wakes up the entire block.
Moreover, the old home alarms generally require you to run downstairs and punch in a code to silence it. (Trust me, running downstairs with adrenaline coursing through your veins to swiftly silence a blaring outside security alarm is not a good idea. I’ve found it a very good way to trip and fall down the stairs~ which often results in a real medical emergency.)
No. Better to roll over, hit the car key chain panic alarm for a few seconds ~and then drift back to nether land.
Yes, I know by writing this many, if not most, of my alpha male friends, will tell me all about their “home protection handguns they keep near their bed stand.”
It is almost a rite of passage for us alpha guys to discuss and argue whose home security gun is the biggest~ the most powerful.
However, a car panic alarm blaring in your garage or driveway, or in the street in front of your house, will probably address any danger much faster, quicker and more efficiently than even the biggest home security handgun. (Even the most steel-nerved hitmen don’t prefer to stick around with a blaring alarm in the vicinity.)
Now one can always call the police if you are certain a crime is being committed on your property or within view.
However, calling the police in-and-of-itself may be nerve-racking. You must tell the police what you actually saw and heard, or what you thought you saw and heard, or what you imagined you saw and heard.
The police dispatchers are always polite and always encourage you to call. However, as you try to “say out loud” what you actually saw and heard versus what you thought or imagined you saw and heard, sometimes you feel a bit silly. (Trust me on this from actual experience.)
There is also the issue of whether really you want to call the police, if the rascals creating the noise are really just the little neighborhood boys up to their silly autumn pranks.
Do you really want to be that neighbor who called the police on the little guys who ran the neighborhood driveway lemonade stand just last July?
As I said above, it is sometimes fortunate I am a bit bi-polar. I generally do not get enmeshed with the same conundrums which often drive most clear-thinking people crazy.
My simple solution whenever I hear an unfamiliar Autumn evening noise which may or may not be something significant ~is to rollover grab my car keys, hit my panic alarm for a few seconds and then roll back over
Whether, ornery neighborhood boys, a ruthless carjacking team, or just the sudden autumn night wind shifting directions and making the old trees moan, ~ I hit the button and go back to blissful sleep.
Yours in enjoying longer nights, autumn evenings~ with rustling of trees and falling leaves~ and sleeping soundly through these increasingly chilly Fall nights.
Together let’s enjoy this autumn and coming Thanksgiving Season and take in all its colors and wonders. Thank you for letting us be your Bank and Bankers.
Dan Bolen ~ Chairman
Bank of Prairie Village
“The Bank of Prairie Village ~ Home of Blue Lion Banking” ~ cited March 2020, April 2021, April 2022, April 2023 and April 2024 by the by the Kansas City Business Journal as one of the “Safest Banks in Kansas City for Your Money.”
Small Batch Banking ~ Once Client at a Time.
