If A Tree Falls....Part Two

So there was this carnival in the street, the road was blocked, the tree fire had died out and the electric lines were live. The various system people had been called and the street was filled with people. Parents were carefully watching the kids so they wouldn’t be fried by the electric wires. Lots were running for cameras because this giant, 150 year old tree had fallen over and it was huge!


I eventually went into the house to call the Electric Company, the police etc. when a man came driving up our little street with a car full of kids. He stopped, looked at the mess in front of him, and with everyone yelling at him he proceeded to try and make a U turn in the street because he could not go forward. As he did this, in turning, he hit my car parked in the street and dented the side. At this point, with at least 25 witnesses and a car full of kids, he hightailed it out of the neighborhood.

In the crowd was my neighbor who was a member of the Auxiliary Police Force and gung- ho to get his man. He chased the guy down the street yelling at him to stop, and in doing so memorized his license plate number. I ran back in and called the police and a policewoman was there in a few minutes. She was amazed by everything that was going on. We had electric workers, guys with chain saws and families out to see the sights. As well, I had a dented car and an unknown assailant.

She took the number from my volunteer cop and called it in to discover the criminal (alleged) lived a very few blocks away. She went off to find the guy. When she arrived at the house (she came back to fill us in) his wife said he was in bed. The policewoman suggested that perhaps he had been out but his wife didn’t think so. The policewoman went out to the garage and felt the car hood to determine the car had just been used. The wife suggested that was possible.

The case was laid out for the wife who did not go and get her husband, but who thought about it for a minute or two. She said they would call the policewoman asap.

The policewoman assumed the guy must have been over the limit on booze and didn’t stop because of that He also was a lawyer and didn’t need any trouble for himself. It turned out he also was a friend of my uncle.

In any case, in the end, the man sheepishly came by and paid us in cash for the damage, which wasn’t very much anyway.