Ruth and I took Brady to Houston to see the Astros play last week-end. That’s “our thing”. We visit different ball parks. Last year we went to California to see games at Dodger Stadium and Angel Stadium. The year before we visited Chicago’s Comiskey Park.
This year we saw two games at Houston’s Minute Maid Park. Sunday’s featured the Boston Red Sox and Monday’s the Chicago Cubs. It was kind of cool seeing the World Series Champions from the past three years over our two-day visit.
Getting out of town was eventful. We had a bit of excitement before we got off our street. Ruth and I noticed a single man sitting with a dog near the dam about 300 yards from our house. He had a backpack and a bed roll. He was leaning up against a large decorative rock that defines one of our neighbor’s lots from the access to the dam.
Ruth was driving. As we passed him I started having this little inside of my brain conversation with myself. A series of thoughts machine gunned through my head.
“I wonder what he’s doing here?”
“I’ve never seen this guy before.”
“This is no where near a hiking path.”
“Could he be homeless?”
“We’ve never had a homeless person near here before.”
“Maybe he’s casing out the neighborhood.”
“Holy crap Elizabeth is home alone. We better tell her to lock the door.”
I called Elizabeth on my cell phone – no answer – it went to voicemail. I knew she was in the house because we just left, so I hung up and called again. Voicemail again.
We turned the car around and headed back to the house. (We’d only traveled about a quarter mile.)
As we drove down our street we saw the man still seated by the rock. My phone rang as we drove into our driveway. It was Elizabeth.
I didn’t get out of the car. We spoke briefly. I told her about the man by the rock, told her to lock the door, and “Don’t take Jonesy for a walk until Sutton gets home.”
“Ok. Have a good time. I’ll be fine.”
We pulled out and, once again, headed out to pick up Brady. About five minutes later, Chad, the repairman that has been working on our flood damaged house, called to tell us that he was headed over to put in a new dimmer switch on our screened-in-porch.
“No problem. Elizabeth is there.”
A few minutes later, Elizabeth called.
“Dad, when you tell me to lock the door because of possible intruders, and then tell Chad that it’s OK to come to work at the house, you gotta call me. I heard a knock at the door and didn’t answer. Jonesy was going nuts, but I just hid. A couple of minutes later I heard the screen door open downstairs. Jonesy went down and was barking his head off, so I called 911. The police are on their way. After I called, I looked out of my bedroom window and saw Chad’s truck. I went down to talk to him, and we’re both waiting for the police to arrive.”
Ruth and I had begun our trip at 1:00. At 1:42 I received the following text from Elizabeth.
“Officer Eric was just here. I told him what happened. He didn’t see the guy out there walking around. When he left, he told me to have a drink.”
TBC