Summer vacation/staycation 2014 is past. Yes, it was last week. The Husband went again to Louisiana on
a fishing trip while I chose to stay home. Many of my regular blog readers might recall that I look
forward to my staycation and a pajama day during that time. This year I factored in two pajama days
in my staycation itinerary.
Neither happened. I got
maybe slightly less than half a pajama day. It was one of those staycations that had problems every
single day. Yes. Every. Single. Day. When it was over, I needed a
vacation. I won’t bore you with
what happened every day but do want to tell you about the most memorable of the
days.
A week ago yesterday, Tuesday, was the day. I’ll backtrack just a bit by saying
that on Saturday night, I locked my front storm door as I always do when alone
for the night. For some reason, I
needed to go onto the porch after that and alas, the door would NOT
unlock. Ahh. I go in and out my front porch
storm door on a regular basis so this was a problem. I tried and tried.
The Girl and The Son-in-law came and tried and tried. I did WD-40, I tried the key on the
outside, but nothing opened the door.
On Sunday when I talked to The Husband on the phone, he told me various
things to do and I had already tried them all. Actually I felt very smart that I had tried them all as
quite honestly, I’m not a storm door lock fixer on most days. I will admit to consulting the internet
for repair techniques. One knows
if it’s on the internet, it has to be true. Yeah.
Right. Final advice
from The Husband was to wait until he got home on Friday…almost a week away…
and he would fix it.
Fast forward to Tuesday. The fact that this storm door would not open was still
weighing heavily on my mind…almost burdening my mind. I had errands to do on that morning and kept thinking that I
might try to fix the door. I made
stops at neighborhood hardware stores to ask advice. I arrived home after lunch and about 2 p.m. started
gathering up tools I needed from the garage. As I was doing this, I received a call from my mother asking
if I was home as mega policemen had went by her house towards mine with sirens
screaming. I assured her I was
fine and that thousands of people lived between her and me and not to worry, it
could be anything. Around that
time I began to hear sirens as well and wondered what might be happening but
carried on with the possibility of a storm door that would unlock upmost in my
mind.
After many
trips from my back porch to my front porch to the garage and about 50 minutes
later, that storm door was open. I
would love to tell you everything I did but that’s not the main point of my
story and you will become bored. I
will say I felt very empowered after the repair—“I am woman, hear me
roar.” Here are photos of the door
as it was and as it is now. A
picture is worth a thousand words.
So as I was using my little wrench to reapply the door
handle, I heard LOUD helicopter sounds above my house. Huh. That helicopter sounded serious and was flying very
low. I went out into the front
yard to try to see but couldn’t see through the trees. I came in, locked the front door, went
out the back to look out the back yard and couldn’t see there either. Keep in mind, both doors had been
unlocked for an hour. This is
important in my story. Being the
Gladys Kravitz (nosey neighbor from Bewitched for those of you who remember
her) that I was, I locked both doors, got in my car, and went out my driveway to
the right to see if I could determine why the helicopter was there. I went up the hill and around the curve
and saw police stationed at the end of my road. I stopped and was told that they were searching for a
fugitive in my neighborhood. The
policeman told me I could go on through, but I explained that I was just
nosey and would head back home. As I start to be headed
back home, he told me to go in the house and lock the doors. One doesn’t have to tell me that
twice….back home I went and locked all my doors. I also looked in all my closets and bathtubs to be
sure no one was there who shouldn’t be there. I called my neighbor to the left (a member of my church
family) and she told me that the police, US marshals, and swat team were parked
in her driveway looking for a guy who tried to run over a marshal who had run
down behind her house in the woods….she lives on the opposite side of the
street to me and down a way. We
agreed to keep in touch during the afternoon’s activities and I sent an email
to The Girl to tell her what was going on.
About five minutes later, The Girl called and sounded
worried. She had found the police
scanner online and had just heard them say they were in The Neighbor’s yard, the another neighbor’s yard, and
now were in my driveway. I looked
out my window and it looked like something from a movie. There was a car diagonally at the head
of my driveway halfway blocking entrance.
There were what looked to be 25-30 various kinds of law enforcement men
carrying long guns….oh, and there was a bloodhound sniffing in the front of the
group. As they got closer to the
house in my long driveway, I opened the front door AND the storm door. Remember the one that burdened me so
much that it wouldn’t open? Uh
huh. That one. I wanted them to know I was
in my house for one thing and I wanted to know information. Two of them immediately put up their
hands for me to stay quiet and still.
Two of them came on my porch to ask if I was alone, tell me to stay
inside, lock ALL my doors, and don’t come out. Uh…I don’t have to be told that more than once. In a bit, they came back around the
other side of my house, and a dozen of them stayed at the end of my porch by the
woods with the dog while the others went back to the head of my driveway. They all got their exercise on that hot
day as I have a long driveway and big yard. By this time, The Neighbor and I had talked many times
and my phone had begun to ring for information from friends who had heard the
story on the television news. Both house and cell phones rang and rang and rang and rang.....
I just watched from the windows as they meandered around my
yard and at my woods. After about
half an hour, I got to thinking that I might not have locked back the
garage. I opened my front door AND
cracked my storm door to motion to a policeman who immediately came to the
porch and door. I told him that I
had been outside with my doors all open and the garage as well during the time
I was hearing sirens in the neighborhood.
His eyes got big, he asked for a garage key, took it, motioned for
others to follow him. Some came
from the head of my driveway and they searched the garage. It was locked but they searched
anyways. As he came back with my
key, he asked if I had looked under my beds and I told him no, just my closets
and bathtubs. He suggested he wait
there while I looked. I don’t know
why I didn’t suggest I wait there while HE looked but I did know that under my
beds are storage boxes and no 200 lb fugitive could fit. So I looked. As he began to walk away I did ask why they were
concentrated there at my house and he said that the bloodhounds had tracked the
fugitive there to my yard and woods.
That was NOT comforting.
Nor was the phone call from The Friend telling me the television news
said he was armed and dangerous.
No one had told me that.
They should have.
After another hour or so of watching the activity in my yard
and around my woods, I did move
from the window as my sister said that was not the safest place to be. I hadn’t thought of that. In my movie watching, there’s not
violence but I had to be reminded this was not a movie. And the long guns were real. As were the ones strapped to legs in
holsters. The Neighbor warned me
that these kinds of bullets would go through my house walls and maybe I should
find an inside wall. These
conversations made me a tad jumpy.
I watched as four more agents and a bloodhound walked to the
beginning of my driveway and the dog sniffed down the middle of my yard, made a
right past the blueberry bushes, sniffed down the edge of the woods, around the
wood shed, and then off into the woods. It wasn’t too long after that the
agents all loaded up and left out the driveway to the left toward The
Neighbor’s house. It was 7:15 p.m. by then.
I did spend the night with The Girl and The Son-in-Law that
night, returning to my house the next morning. All the police were gone and they were certain the fugitive,
while not caught, was not in our county.
They were right as he was sighted in a southern county a few hours away
and captured the next night. He
had somehow crossed the main road to the left and stolen a truck. On the tv news, he got out of a four door
truck that was familiar to me as were the faces of some of the agents…the truck
was at my garage door for a while the day before as were the agents in my
yard.
I never really was afraid until the agents vacated my
property and I was alone. Later, too, when I watched the news video and saw the guy after he was captured and
got out of the truck handcuffed, he seemed very large to me, much larger than
the photo they were posting the day before. As The Husband said later on, it could have ended much
differently. My doors being opened
could have allowed him entrance to our house….my being in the yard could have
gotten me as a hostage….yes, it could have been a really bad ending. Thankfully, though, it was not. I was jumpy for a day or two but
I have gotten stronger as the days have passed.
Looking back at the experience, I see Romans 8:28 in action
yet again in my life. I needed
that storm door fixed. I was given
knowledge from within to do it.
The Lord watched over me and kept me safe. I knew He was and found comfort in that. It’s an experience I will most likely
never forget and most likely will give thanks each time I recall it to
memory. I will be encouraged that
the Lord is always here, watching, and keeping me. I will know, too, that should danger come, He will be there
still helping and watching and keeping.
I am reminded of verses from one of my favorite
Psalms—Psalms 91:
“He that dwelleth in the secret
place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, He is my
refuge and my fortress: my God, in him will I trust.
Surely he shall deliver thee
from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.
He shall cover thee with his
feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield
and buckler.
Thou shall not be afraid for the
terror by night: nor for the arrow that flieth by day.
……
There shall no evil befall thee,
neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
For he shall give his angels
charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.”
Someone remarked that it was a good thing that day was not a planned pajama day for me. And they were right. I actually kept on my good errand clothes in case the tv folks came to interview me, but they did not...just filmed my driveway instead. Oh well....
As for my repairing skills, lest The Husband think I was going to become a repairwoman
in our house, I assured him that I was not. It was hopefully a one time deal. My sense of empowerment, however, still
remains. Just sayin’…..
