The "safe" side of town

James and I are enjoying reading the Miller brothers book. Part III of their book "Desert Shoot-Out" takes place in Tucson, Arizona, where we lived for four year in the early 1990s. Reid Park is a municipal park where spring training takes place for the Colorado Rockies. (I think when we lived there it was the Cleveland Indians training camp). It is also home to the minor league team, the Tucson, Toros. Writing about filming the Rockies during their spring training gave James and me an opportunity to take a nostalgia trip. Their description of the "transitional housing" on East Twenty-Second street reminded us of a visit from my father. We told him we would make a reservation for him at a hotel, and he told us to make sure that it was not on the south of Twenty-second street, which he had heard was dangerous the dangerous part of town. We booked a room in an efficiency apartment that had weekly rates which was one block south of Twenty-second street. We assured my father that it was really on the East end of town (safe) and not the south side at all. After his first night there we went pick him up and found the parking lot full of police cars. He reported to us that there had been a shooting there. It turned out to be a suicide attempt, but it was no less distressing for my father who woke to find the hotel surrounded by police cars. I swear, it really was the safe side of town.