As we approach the 20th anniversary of the untimely death of my brother, Maynard Bloomer, he would want me to write this.
He was killed on July 22, 1991, when teenagers, in the 1 a.m. darkness, dropped a rock from an overpass onto his motor home near Eau Claire on Interstate 94 as he was traveling home to Minneapolis.
Two of his three children, who had participated in a swim meet in Milwaukee, and his wife accompanied him. As a dedicated middle school math teacher and coach, he was frustrated with parents who didn't take enough interest in their children's education and well-being.
Were he living, he would also be frustrated with our juvenile court system for sentencing the perpetrators to only six months at the Lincoln Hills corrections school and for providing social workers to comfort the assailants but providing no comfort for his teenage children who witnessed his death.
My letter can't fix what's now water over the dam. But, on behalf of a dedicated teacher, devoted father and loving brother, I simply ask all parents of juveniles: Know where they are; care what they're doing.
LOIS MIDTVEDT, GREEN BAY, WIS.
