Escaped Prisoners in an Unknown Wooded Area

When you live in the country things are different. They can be different in many ways both good and not so good and usually the different things are rather odd and memorable. This blog entry could fall under the weird things category or the once in a lifetime. Either way it was indeed memorable.

My home was located just off of a main highway. The driveway/road was about a city block in length and only led to my home although there was a business located right at the end next to the highway, one that caused both consternation but also a bit of security - we can go there later. The main thing to know is that my road (this is what I always called it – not my drive or my entrance, just ‘my road’) led straight to my home. One could see my house from the highway so there was really no mistaking that my road ended with me. But for some odd reason various persons just could not understand what their eyes were telling them. Over and over, especially in the dark hours, there would be knocks on my door and lost drivers on the other side, sometimes angry, sometimes surprised, sometimes embarrassed, and sometimes just plain confused at the ungodly fact that my road ended. It didn’t go anywhere else and people just could not fathom that. I however, could not fathom the people who couldn’t figure out a simple thing like a gravel road that ended.

Oftentimes these unfortunate wanderers were stuck halfway up their wheels in mud or snow – my road was tricky that way. One time a semi was the victim! You’d think a semi driver would have sense enough not to drive down a questionable road in bad condition. (The driver might have been in bad condition)! In the spring as the ground thawed and the rains came I parked at the highway end and walked the railroad tracks to my house. Oh, yes, forgot to mention, the west side of my property was bordered by the Great Northern railway line. The south side by the Sheyenne river, the north and north east side by the highway and a housing development (which is another item on the blog agenda and will have to wait till later – they had their own road). So in the sloppy months and before I had a washer/dryer on the premises it became quite the ordeal when trudging down the tracks with baskets of laundry. One of those railway handcars would have been useful but it was a busy railway so probably would not have gone over well with the authorities.

Anyway, this event occurred during the summer while I was visiting my neighbor (the same neighbor whose house in which I took refuge during the tornado episode) whose backyard abutted my road. I had a clear view to my road and my house and at some point in our visiting I glanced out my neighbor’s patio door to see a vehicle stopped in front of my house, its doors flung wide open, which I was well acquainted with as a lost soul wondering where the road had gone, but, and this is an important but, there were also two police vehicles and two other plain vehicles parked along the road – my road – all in a very nice single file. I had not expected visitors and had not issued any invitations for an afternoon soiree.

Further investigation pointed out the fact that there were 5 policemen and 3 or 4 plain clothed persons lined up across the front of my property fully armed for Armageddon! WTF! My brain, which is notorious for leaving me in the lurch whenever it perceives situations with unlikely outcomes, frantically flew through my past history for cases of possible criminal activity on my part and all it could come up with was the access to a lovely and harmless herb that was sometimes found in the vicinity of my home and kitchen…but how could that require this official, gun toting plain clothed as well as uniformed entourage?  

If I wanted an explanation I would have to inquire. So I bid farewell to my neighbor and ventured out toward the closest armed human, speaking loudly, ‘Hello? That is my house! What are you doing? Please don’t shoot my house!” This bit of communication took place as I approached the armed man so as not to alarm him. 

And you know? There were no armed women! But that’s another side…

So the plain clothed armed human inquired of me ‘is this your house’ apparently not having heard what I had just said. He explained that there was a possibility that two escaped prisoners could be hiding within. “Oh,” I said, “well I’ll just go check!” (No brain waves silently explaining the danger.) The armed man gave me a rather peculiar look as though trying to ascertain whether he  heard me right and if so whether I was a lunatic. Of course the man was not going to let me go into my house and as I held my breath he and another of his party entered my house to search it. 

Several of the other policemen fanned out to search my property. I stood on the road and waited to be arrested for the harmless herb that just might be laying on the counter in the kitchen or growing by happenstance in my garden. It was a long and contemplative wait as I questioned all of my life decisions up to the present day. An arrest would surely disrupt all future plans. But that did not occur. 

What did occur was another vehicle. This time a rather large and clumsy milk truck rumbling down my road. I do not order milk deliveries so this was a new conundrum added to the already curious conundrum taking place. By now the armed persons had made their searches with nothing to show for it and the entire said party, along with their rifles and sidearms, had congregated in front of my house to plan their next move. The milk man put it in motion – literally. He mentioned to the officers that while he was delivering his milk on the other side of the river he had noticed a man struggling up the bank who, he emphasized with great incredulity, was soaking wet and so he had come to the conclusion that this person had indeed, for whatever reason, been fully immersed voluntarily or otherwise. 

 

I’m thinking that the milkman must have delivered milk to the café on the corner (conveniently called the Corner Café) where all gossip is consolidated over coffee and donuts, jelly rolls (yuck), and cinnamon rolls the size of your head covered with copious amounts of slimy white icing. This is where he must have heard of the armed activities at the end of my road and so found it his duty to inform on the soaking wet man.

Well! As I said, this delivery milkman’s information had an instantaneous effect. All of the armed men fled to their cars, revved them into high gear and frantically waited for the milk man to back his rather large rumbling milk truck down my road which of course was narrow being that it was simply a gravel road to my house. I could feel the blood pressure rising as they probably wished instant evaporation of the milktruck, its driver and contents as well. Then, accomplishing the length of gravel to tarmac and thence free to flee, they proceeded to speed like crazy people down the highway to the road on the other side of the river – a distance of approximately one city block.

I felt as I watched this that it must have been similar to a film writer who dreams up fantastic episodes of action intense scenes. Drama. Drama indeed. And excitement to say the least!

Then as things became quiet I again became contemplative. Now I am standing alone in front of my house next to the abandoned getaway car thinking hmmmm… there is really no guarantee that the search of home and yard, although their efforts were unsuccessful, was simply not thorough and the two escapees could very well be right around the next tree or hiding in the root cellar - the opening to which is cleverly disguised on my kitchen floor. Although the armed crusaders were well dressed in their official gear and three piece suits and very well armed it did not conclude that they were equally well endowed with intelligence. 

Considering this and the fact that all of my weapons were inside my house possibly with the escaped prisoners and that all officials had exited the scene, I sorted out my options and thought the best idea would be to leave. So I walked down my road in the warmth of a lovely summer afternoon to the café to await the outcome. 

Inside, much to my initial disbelief (I soon decided it was not quite as unbelievable given the ways of country life), were seated almost all of the armed police – only the plain clothed ones were missing. These officials, along with their weapons, had decided to take a seemingly  perceived true necessity to weather their ongoing stress and since they believed that at least one soaking wet prisoner was being apprehended by their well dressed counterparts, a coffee/donut/cinnamon roll break was well deserved before tackling the second missing person. 

WTF? Perhaps because the second person was still handcuffed they thought that they had some leisure time available as the handcuffed one couldn’t get far? He was not foot cuffed! He was handcuffed. I didn’t even try to figure out the reasoning behind their behavior. I just grabbed a seat at the counter next to a heart attack inducing cinnamon roll and its policeman and began to converse.

 

I should mention that from my stool I had an uninterrupted view through a large window that afforded me a clear visual perspective of the parking lot, the railway, and the countryside beyond.

An inquiry of the nature of the remaining escapee was met with his full description and of course the fact that he was wearing handcuffs. And so I proceeded to reiterate the description as I glanced now and then toward the window. 

“Did you say he was wearing a yellow T-shirt?”

“Yes, yes ma’am, that’s what he had on.”

“And is reported to be in his late 20’s?”

“Yes, that’s what they say.”

“Dark brown hair?”

“Yup.”

“And handcuffed? How odd that he should be handcuffed don’t you think?”

“Well I suppose it IS rather odd but that’s right ma’am, he was purported to be handcuffed.”

And of course being the analytical grammar Nazi, I commented, “Purported? You mean probably not?”

“No ma’am, he was definitely handcuffed”. (I don’t think he got my point.)

I let him take a breath and a rather disgusting and huge chaw from his cinnamon doomsday roll while I took in the view. After a moment or two while the chewing slowed to a sloppy sopping up of icing from his chin I looked at him with a serious but innocent expression.

“Sooooooo,” I said pointing to the window, (kind of drawing it out like Columbo used to do) “You’re on the lookout for a man wearing a yellow garment, fairly young and with dark hair, and, for the sake of argument, also wearing a pair of handcuffs, correct?”

 “Yes ma’am!” (At this point the officer was becoming a bit agitated with me).

“Well sir. I was just wondering, (still playing Columbo) if that description is indeed accurate given that it has to be third party by now and who knows how embellished it might or might not be at this point (huge sigh from the cinnamon rolled officer), might that just be the very individual you would be looking for?” This individual, (of course the very escapee himself), was slowly shuffling, handcuffed, down the tracks - looking fairly miserable I must say. I supposed he was going to give himself up.

With an exclamation of “Oh Shit!” the uniformed policeman abandoned his sticky pastry, which I thought was a good decision given that the highly intensive activity in which they were about to engage could easily result in heart failure, hollered to his comrades, and they all jumped up, raced out to their vehicles, and tore out of the parking lot a full 30 yards, spewing gravel and swerving madly to apprehend their quarry. It was not immediately clear to me why they had to motorize that short distance unless perhaps their vehicles made them more confident and of course it gave them the opportunity to some reckless driving fun even for only a short distance. I think that it might be one of the only perks a police person has given the seriousness of his/her job. A quick bout of crazy racecar speedway executions of wild tight turns and flying debris in between the harrowing realities of duty.

And that was it. They had someone from the gas station next door to the café tow the abandoned vehicle away from my road and that was it. It was a good story that would last at least a week in the café until the next adventure happened along. In the newspaper article it was stated that the two were apprehended in an ‘unknown wooded area’. My unknown wooded area.

I walked back home in the warm sunshine, and because of all of the daring do that I had experienced that afternoon in my unknown wooded area, awarded myself a well-deserved but not too generous serving of the healthy herb supplement (laying out in full view on my counter), sat down to my little spinet and began to play a lovely sonatina.

Just another day in the country.

Dancing the Highland Fling

Dancing the Highland Fling

 Another Catholic school girl saga.

One thing that was certain in Catholic school was that one had to OBEY the Nunners. There were several types of nunners. Our nunners were Presentation sisters, mostly from Germany and Ireland who came here highly educated and highly set in their ways to teach all of us wayward Catholic children. One obeyed them. One initially feared them (as is mentioned in episode one of the Catholic Schoolgirl sagas regarding rolling towel dispensers in the girls’ bathroom). After prolonged subjection to their eccentricities one learned to tolerate, obey, and wait for the school bus to free ones spirit back into the real world.

When I was older, maybe 7^th or 8^th grade I had determined that I would join the ‘grey nuns’. They wore grey robes with long veils and emanated a sort of glowing love for naughty girls. These nuns came to speak to us about their work with seriously wayward girls, the kind whose waywardness one didn’t specify openly but it was clearly understood. I think I just wanted to join the wayward girls and the only way I could do that was to be a grey nunner. (I obviously hadn’t devised a plan of any sort and never did follow up on the whole thing.)

As a young 6^th grade girl – I think it was 6^th grade but it could have been 4^th grade, I’m pretty sure it was an even number  – I was treated to a stint under Sister Mathilda, an Irish nun who to me seemed rather old. She had a heavy accent and was stern for the most part. One of her more outgoing habits (pun) each year was to gather up two groups of girls – 6 in one and 4 in another or maybe it was 8 in one and 6 in the other, more even numbers – and put them through training to become Irish dancers…maybe she had always aspired to it herself but ended up in the nunnery where dancing was probably prohibited. So she projected her dream on other unlikely and completely innocent young girls in Catholic school who she knew would have to do her bidding and so she could be nothing short of successful in achieving her goal. A rather selfish and egotistical thing to be sure.

This was way back when there was a local television show called Party Line, a sort of talk show with newsy community items and typically little performances by untalented talents within the viewing area. It was quite popular, much like bridge parties, PTA, and church events. It was considered quite the privilege to be featured in the entertainment segments and Sister Mathilda strove to accomplish the chosen placement every year. And yes, we had to dance on Party Line.

I was one of the chosen few of the group of 4 (or 6) and our job was to dance the Highland Fling and another little ditty that Sister made up to the tune of ‘I’m a Little T-pot”. We had costumes too.  The costume thing was probably the reason I was included because one had to be a particular size as the costumes were used each year and never replaced or altered. We wore funny little plaid hats, box pleated skirts, and plaid banners that fell from one shoulder across our bodies. White shirts and white knee socks filled out the ensemble.

Being rather shy about appearing in any type of performance (maybe not shy but more nervous that I’d screw up and look stupid), I was a little taken aback when picked for this questionable performance but soon became aware of the advantages. Often times during the school day Sister would excuse us from class and take us to another room, I think it was the library, where we would practice our dance steps. I didn’t like being in the classroom so I thought this was a fair trade.

The other girls (6 or 8) had to learn the Virginia Reel (I think that was it, it was the Virginia something, and I don’t know how that had anything to do with being Irish – which none of us were). They wore white outfits and were much more sophisticated. Their dance steps were more complicated though so I wasn’t too envious of their higher status. Fewer mistakes to make in the Highland Fling especially if one had to make them in front of however many hundred people watched Party Line in the middle of the day. Fargo was a small town then and I suppose it was mostly the housewives who watched but it was still disconcerting.

As we continued our practice I soon tired of the whole thing. It seemed silly to me and I conveyed my sentiments to one of the other girls in the group who must have snitched on me to the Sister because as we came closer to the date of our debut Sister became more agitated and at one point took us all into the cloak room (a favorite terrorist spot for nuns and lay teachers alike) and proceeded to ‘dress us down’ about ‘someone’ who didn’t appreciate her efforts and who denigrated the entire group by making fun of the whole venture. That was me of course. So after pressing her point she excused all but myself from the cloakroom. Doom.

Sister was in a tight spot. She wanted to fire me and then probably punish me in some outlandish Irish tradition but we were too close to deadline and she didn’t have time to train anyone new. So instead she threatened me with angry words and pointed finger and tried to instill the utmost in guilt which didn’t really work as I was used to being hauled into the cloakroom or the principal’s office for various misdeeds and anyway I was now preoccupied with going through the likely tattle tale suspects in my head at the time and I think I know who it was. She was one of the Virginia Reel dancers. She was a sort of snobby girl who thought that the whole episode of being selected to perform on TV was a boost to her popularity level. I on the other hand knew the whole thing was silly.

Most of all I felt bad for the other girls who probably didn’t want to perform either but weren’t brash enough (or foolish enough) to make it known. I don’t know if it was brash actually. I just always seemed to voice my opinion at the wrong time and always seemed to have one. Honesty. That was it. Or maybe precocious is what I’m looking for here.

Anyway, in the end we did appear on Party Line and as far as I could tell it was a resounding success but we were not treated to any reviews of any sort and didn’t win awards. It was simply a filler in a timeslot and Sister Matilda took all the credit anyway stating how difficult it was to create dancers within a short time frame and with girls of little or no talent whatsoever.

After that I appeared on Party Line several more times, once with the school choir which was another interesting episode. We were in high school (Catholic) and one of the boys had a driver’s license and an old hearse which we all loved to ride in and so we packed in on the way to the TV studio. Since there were so many of us it was a tight squeeze and my position was on the lap of a boy in the front seat. After we got situated he reached out and grabbed the door handle and slammed it shut. This was a problem as I had not completed the balancing act on the boy’s lap and my hand was still on the outside of the top of the car. The car door was slammed shut. I winced and turned to the boy underneath me and said, ‘Bobby (not his real name) I believe my hand is still outside’ whereupon he freaked out. Indeed my hand was clutching the top of the car between the door and the frame. He was mortified and kind of in awe that I wasn’t screaming bloody murder. I think the weather stripping on the old hearse had long since dissolved and that’s what saved me. There was space enough between the door and the frame so that my fingers weren’t broken. Only badly bruised and swelling. What’s more it was my job to indicate the specific keys each part of the choir were to use by playing the chords on the piano in the studio before each song. It was an A Capella choir. I did manage and both the nunner and the boy were quite amazed at my courageous attitude. (It really wasn’t all that bad, just looked terrible and I made the most of it for sympathy).

One other time, probably when I was around the age of the dance routine, I appeared on Party Line when I saved up a whole bunch of money going door to door collecting spare change for some sort of charity. I think it was food for the poor or some such thing. It was probably illegal going door to door like that without a permit but I wasn’t chastised or arrested and I have no idea how I managed to make an appearance on Party Line with my little canister of coins but I was very proud of myself for my ingenuity – more so for that than the actual charity deed. I was a weird kid. Now I suppose I’m a weird old lady. Oh well. Life gives you what you get.

Here I am in my cute little costume - front on the left is me. Cute huh? You can see the more sophisticated Virginia Reeler costume on the girl in back on the left. Good Grief!

(And I'm pretty sure the girl peeking out on the far right is the snitcher!)