2010ish Tracy Harmon, investigative journalist and Juliana Aragon Fatula, private eye
The truth. I learned life's lessons the hard way; life kicked my ass.
But I learned to tell the truth and not hide things from friends and family,
I feel no shame for my past; only revelation for my future.
I'm a candle lighting the way for other writers to follow.
Tracy and I met in college about a gazillion years ago.
We were younger.
Jams with wild prints were in style.
We have been friends thirty years, three decades.
That's history; excuse me, herstory.
We shared many stories about life and love and sadness;
I don't know how I'd survive this world without her.
She's a comadre; she's a mujer muy mujer. A Chingona. A badass.
More to come...stay tuned for my next post the 4th Thursday of the month.
September 6, 2017
My BFF, the infamous,
incomparable, glorious, generous, unjudgmental journalist and professional
photographer; Tracy Harmon of the Pueblo Chieftain, writes the stories that we
read in the newspaper every day. Some of them are boring, some funny, some
recipes. But once a year it’s a homicide.
In
twenty-five years, she’s written about twenty-five homicide stories. Sometimes it
was one victim, sometimes two or three, not by the same person, not the same
year, but dead none the less; she’s the one who investigates and writes about
these stories, so we’ll know what’s out there. And there’s some crazy mofos out
there.
I
feel blessed to have her in my life. I
write about fiction; I write about murder, mysteries, car chases; but she lives
them: shoot-outs with the gunmen and the police, the murderers, crime scenes, coroner’s
reports, and court testimonies.
She
writes about the suicides; the people who jump off the Royal Gorge Bridge, or
the drowned victims that go rafting in the Arkansas River every summer. She
writes about toddlers playing in their backyard unsupervised and drowning in
their swimming pool. She writes about inmates murdered by other inmates, that
is her life.
And
how she maintains such a rosy outlook on life I would have to contribute to
Prozac or some anti-depressant; just thinking about those people murdered in my
small town, people hung from trees by the KKK because they were not white
Christians; my little town is cursed. So what better place to write about
murder.
There
is a bright spot though; the police did capture the person who murdered an
eighteen-year-old boy at Brush Hollow Reservoir. He was assassinated by a kid
with a shotgun and left to bleed to death. A senseless violence. There was a shoot-out
and a police car chase and car crash on Highway 50. They caught the suspect,
his girlfriend confessed to what she had witnessed. Let’s hope the sheriff’s
department doesn’t take the evidence from the homicide home, forget about it
for a decade, and f-up the case like they did with Candace’s murder ten years
ago, and screw up the chain of evidence to prosecute.
The
clouds are massing, wind is blowing, chimes are ringing, birds are taking cover,
and the sun is getting blotted out by clouds. I’m in my sunroom protected from
the elements and writing about homicides, cold cases, missing persons. Tracy,
mi comadre, visits and we have a cup of tea and discuss cold cases. We like to
analyze the evidence and try to figure out who done it. Sometimes she vents in
my sunroom on my couch about the horrific scenes she has covered. Death,
murder, homicide, rape, kidnapping…
Tracy
Harmon, investigative sleuth, I salute you for your undercover skills, you
rock. And I love you; thanks for writing the stories we read in the Pueblo
Chieftain about our town, Cañon City, Colorado. And thanks for dragging me
along occasionally on landfill digs, to collect evidence before it’s destroyed.
You help put the bad guys in prison. You are my s-hero. I hope we grow old
together and write these stories, these unsolved murders and never forget the
victims. Never.
part II
ReplyDeleteSeptember 6, 2017
My BFF, the infamous, incomparable, glorious, generous, unjudgmental journalist and professional photographer; Tracy Harmon of the Pueblo Chieftain, writes the stories that we read in the newspaper every day. Some of them are boring, some funny, some recipes. But once a year it’s a homicide.
In twenty-five years, she’s written about twenty-five homicide stories. Sometimes it was one victim, sometimes two or three, not by the same person, not the same year, but dead none the less; she’s the one who investigates and writes about these stories, so we’ll know what’s out there. And there’s some crazy mofos out there.
I feel blessed to have her in my life. I write about fiction; I write about murder, mysteries, car chases; but she lives them: shoot-outs with the gunmen and the police, the murderers, crime scenes, coroner’s reports, and court testimonies.
She writes about the suicides; the people who jump off the Royal Gorge Bridge, or the drowned victims that go rafting in the Arkansas River every summer. She writes about toddlers playing in their backyard unsupervised and drowning in their swimming pool. She writes about inmates murdered by other inmates, that is her life.
And how she maintains such a rosy outlook on life I would have to contribute to Prozac or some anti-depressant; just thinking about those people murdered in my small town, people hung from trees by the KKK because they were not white Christians; my little town is cursed. So what better place to write about murder.
There is a bright spot though; the police did capture the person who murdered an eighteen-year-old boy at Brush Hollow Reservoir. He was assassinated by a kid with a shotgun and left to bleed to death. A senseless violence. There was a shoot-out and a police car chase and car crash on Highway 50. They caught the suspect, his girlfriend confessed to what she had witnessed. Let’s hope the sheriff’s department doesn’t take the evidence from the homicide home, forget about it for a decade, and f-up the case like they did with Candace’s murder ten years ago, and screw up the chain of evidence to prosecute.
The clouds are massing, wind is blowing, chimes are ringing, birds are taking cover, and the sun is getting blotted out by clouds. I’m in my sunroom protected from the elements and writing about homicides, cold cases, missing persons. Tracy, mi comadre, visits and we have a cup of tea and discuss cold cases. We like to analyze the evidence and try to figure out who done it. Sometimes she vents in my sunroom on my couch about the horrific scenes she has covered. Death, murder, homicide, rape, kidnapping…
Tracy Harmon, investigative sleuth, I salute you for your undercover skills, you rock. And I love you; thanks for writing the stories we read in the Pueblo Chieftain about our town, Cañon City, Colorado. And thanks for dragging me along occasionally on landfill digs, to collect evidence before it’s destroyed. You help put the bad guys in prison. You are my s-hero. I hope we grow old together and write these stories, these unsolved murders and never forget the victims. Never.