September 14, 1957 — the day we packed up all our worldly possessions into a big truck and moved from the Palo farm to South Minneapolis.

Mind you, I was a naïve little farm kid with a heart of sadness for leaving what I’d always known but, yet, a spirit of adventure about the future. That quickly changed.

Nearing the cities we slowed down for roadblocks, and I looked agog at policemen with rifles crouching along the roadside.

A month earlier in South Minneapolis, the O’Kasick brothers, notorious stick-up men intent on robbing a Red Owl, were spotted in a stolen car. The ensuing chase led to a street shootout resulting in one officer killed and one wounded. Back in their metal-shield-reinforced car, the brothers ran over and dragged that wounded office several blocks before escaping the scene.

After hiding out in the northwoods for a month, that fateful September day they returned to the area; and late that afternoon they were cornered near the Carlos Avery Game Preserve. A hostage and two of the brothers were ultimately killed and the other brother arrested. With no Geraldo or 24/7 news in those days, we didn’t know that until later.

Arriving too late to unload and set up beds in our new house, we stayed overnight at my aunt’s nearby. My sister and I were tucked in bed in her basement — with windows. Very little sleep came that night as I kept vigil fearing the O’Kasick brothers would come sneaking in one of those windows at any moment.

Policemen, guns, killers on the loose! The beginning of the end of innocence for little farm girl.

Here are six things God hates, and one more that he loathes with a passion: eyes that are arrogant, a tongue that lies, hands that murder the innocent, a heart that hatches evil plots, feet that race down a wicked track, a mouth that lies under oath, a troublemaker in the family. Proverbs 6:16-19