With two golf courses and a dozen tennis courts, 2 pools and a large club house Raintree is a young parent magnet. Small children, school buses and kids on bikes are everywhere.
Sadly, Raintree Lane is also a popular cut trough for Charlotte's most impatient drivers.
One of the first streets created in the mid 1970's was Smokerise Hill Drive. My parents have lived on this street for nearly 45 years and I have driven past these two homes 100 times just in the last year.
Nearly every time I venture down Smokerise Hill Drive reaching the two homes which are across from each other the kids are in the street.
And frankly I'm stunned at how unaware millennial parents are and clueless they have become.
So here's my open letter to Stupid Parents #1 and Stupid Parents #2.
To The Parents At 3709 and 3724 Smokerise Hill Drive:
I suspect your kids are well mannered and very well behaved.
I further suspect you are very good parents, well at least in your eyes. Frankly your repeated mantra "Treavor, Natalie" does little to teach them life skills.
My brothers and Sisters and I grew up on Smokerise Hill Drive, we played
football on the golf course, rode our bikes in the street to the club house and
nearby friend's homes, and we were generally free range kids. We were also young teens
13-15 years of age when our parents let us venture out of the back yard and into the street, and not 6 and 8 year old mirco kids.
I have no idea why your kids and the ones the live across from you are in the street or playing within a few feet of the street all the time.
The other night I drove down the street well after hard dark and saw 3 tiny silhouettes dart across the street into the shadows. I saw only a glimpse of
them, until I passed your house.
Few weeks ago with the sun setting, I came over the hill blinded by the sun unable to see very well, I spotted one, then another then a 3rd running across
the street.
It is only a matter of time.
Years ago the family that lived on the corner of Eagles Nest
and Smokerise bought their young son a very small dirt bike. The 50 cc Honda minibike was not all that fast, he may have had it about 3 weeks when he hit a car that had stopped on Raintree Lane. He died the
following night. The family who lost their young child regrouped and recovered, and life went on, but the woman who he hit had to live with that horror the rest of her life even
though it was not her fault.
My parents who live at the end of the street as well as other
neighbors are well aware that your kids play in the street and while unlawful (yes
it is illegal to impede traffic and there are several city ordinances against it) no neighbor is going to call the police, but
that’s not the point.
What is the point, is that you, sadly, are incredibly stupid.
When one of your kids is hit by a car you’ll be able to say it was the driver’s
fault, but your son or daughter won’t be any less dead.
The choice is yours. Choose wisely.
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