Bill, maybe this is the thread you were asking about?

[Indigo Blue]

 

Is this it, @Spy Car? The topic is different, but within the thread is a short description of how you rescued a girl. 
 

Oh my, I don’t remember your posting about saving your neighbor’s life. That was way back in 2015! Incredible!
 

Oh, Dh and I found the Brillo box story very endearing. A small child pushing around Andy Warhol’s Brillo box is a sweet mental image! 

[Indigo Blue]

While I’m at it, here is the story about the paperboy:

 

ETA: This story is by @Spy Car , dragged up from an old thread:

 

Had this happen to me once.

Noises in the back, dog starts barking. Then noises and footsteps on the side of the house. 

Pop my head out the window and a guy is trying to climb over our front fence. I go after him.

I run out in front of the house--naked as a jaybird. I hear a VW Bug fire up. I'm in hot pursuit.

Just as he starts to take off I dive half-way into the window as the car pulls out.

I look it the backseat. Lot of newspapers. "That's weird."

Have a split second to decide if I'm in or out. What to do? Decide to jump off and call the police.

They come. I give a report. They return in a half hour. They found the guy a couple blocks away.

Turns out the neighborhood had a new paperboy and he got lost in the dark

Cops said, "You really scared the $%^& out of him." LOL

Bill

 

Edited May 26, 2023 by Indigo Blue

[Spy Car]

3 minutes ago, Indigo Blue said:

 

While I’m at it, here is the story about the paperboy:

 

Had this happen to me once.

Noises in the back, dog starts barking. Then noises and footsteps on the side of the house. 

Pop my head out the window and a guy is trying to climb over our front fence. I go after him.

I run out in front of the house--naked as a jaybird. I hear a VW Bug fire up. I'm in hot pursuit.

Just as he starts to take off I dive half-way into the window as the car pulls out.

I look it the backseat. Lot of newspapers. "That's weird."

Have a split second to decide if I'm in or out. What to do? Decide to jump off and call the police.

They come. I give a report. They return in a half hour. They found the guy a couple blocks away.

Turns out the neighborhood had a new paperboy and he got lost in the dark

Cops said, "You really scared the $%^& out of him." LOL

Bill

 

There was a time when I could tell a story in a compact fashion. LOL

Bill

[Katy]

I just snorted so loud my DH asked what was funny from the next room. Had to read him @Indigo Blue’s paperboy story. 

Edited May 26, 2023 by Katy

[Faith-manor]

9 minutes ago, Indigo Blue said:

 

While I’m at it, here is the story about the paperboy:

 

Had this happen to me once.

Noises in the back, dog starts barking. Then noises and footsteps on the side of the house. 

Pop my head out the window and a guy is trying to climb over our front fence. I go after him.

I run out in front of the house--naked as a jaybird. I hear a VW Bug fire up. I'm in hot pursuit.

Just as he starts to take off I dive half-way into the window as the car pulls out.

I look it the backseat. Lot of newspapers. "That's weird."

Have a split second to decide if I'm in or out. What to do? Decide to jump off and call the police.

They come. I give a report. They return in a half hour. They found the guy a couple blocks away.

Turns out the neighborhood had a new paperboy and he got lost in the dark

Cops said, "You really scared the $%^& out of him." LOL

Bill

 

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[Indigo Blue]

3 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Told ya it was funny. 😁

[Indigo Blue]

Also….just the other day, some friends of ours were hanging out at home and their toddler was playing and all was fine. Suddenly and weirdly, the toddler had a sudden onset high fever, began having seizures, and began turning blue. Her mom, an anesthesiologist, began CPR as the dad called 911. That lady totally saved her daughter’s life, and they have no idea what caused those things to happen to their daughter. She later tested out just fine. 

[Faith-manor]

2 minutes ago, Indigo Blue said:

Also….just the other day, some friends of ours were hanging out at home and their toddler was playing and all was fine. Suddenly and weirdly, the toddler had a sudden onset high fever, began having seizures, and began turning blue. Her mom, an anesthesiologist, began CPR as the dad called 911. That lady totally saved her daughter’s life, and they have no idea what caused those things to happen to their daughter. She later tested out just fine. 

That is frightening!

[Spy Car]

Wow, the story of helping my dear sweet neighbor when she was choking brought back a flood of memories.

In more recent years she developed Parkinson's. And she started falling. Especially in the middle of the night, when she hoped to use the restroom without disturbing her elderly husband. If/when she fell, they were not physically able to get her up.

I may be getting old, and everything else (especially my mind) is going, but I'm still unnaturally strong.

One of my greatest joys--if one can call it that--over recent years has been being "on call" to go over any time to get my dear friend up if she'd fallen. They hated to call me, but I always insisted that helping her was one of my greatest pleasures that I had in my life. And that was something I meant. 

She was probably the most vital person I ever knew. She kept her home beautifully and her garden was an inspiration for me (and a constant source of cuttings and "babies" that I propagated for my own garden).

Some months back, she once again fell in the middle of the night. This time she had a small fracture in her hip. Not bad enough to require a hip replacement, but bad enough that they decided it was time to sell the home that they'd live in for 50 years, and one that served as a hub for their large family and our circle of friends. They recently moved out to a very nice assisted living situation. Their house, which is gorgeous, will be bulldozed and a much (much) larger home will be built in its place. Breaks my heart.

I've been working on salvaging as many of her plants as I can. A way to keep her spirit and gardening efforts alive.

I saw her a couple days ago at her daughter's home. Again helping her do some transfers from bed to wheelchair.

Damn Parkinson's!

Bill

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2023 by Spy Car

[Indigo Blue]

That is SO sad, Bill.😔 How lucky you all were/are to be such good life long friends with so many good memories to look back on. 

[Spy Car]

4 minutes ago, Indigo Blue said:

That is SO sad, Bill.😔 How lucky you all were/are to be such good life long friends with so many good memories to look back on. 

Blessed indeed. They have been somewhere between very good friends and nearly surrogate parents. People I consider family. Kind, and decent, and ethical. Good people.

I miss just being able to wander over and saying hello. 

My friend was always a good eater, and has proud Mexican ancestry (family from Guadalajara), while her husband is a secular Jewish former professor of Psychiatry at UCLA, and whenever my wife took vacations with our son (while I held down the fort and looked after the animals) I'd cook up a big batch of tripe (in some form, from menudo to North African style), which is about the only culinary item my adventurous  family of eaters would not touch, and she and I would have a "tripe festival." LOL

Bill

[Spy Car]

3 hours ago, Indigo Blue said:

 

Is this it, @Spy Car? The topic is different, but within the thread is a short description of how you rescued a girl. 
 

That post alludes to a story I once told here, but I was never able to find the original post. I do recall the telling was so "cinematic" that perhaps some people where skeptical that it really happened. But it did.

In the mid-90s I was living in West LA in a very cute little Spanish style house that I was renting from a nice old guy who'd grown up in the neighborhood and had acquired a bunch of properties over the decades, starting after WWII, when he purchased a corner lot on Santa Monica and Barrington and set up (and still ran) a business that rented out tools and trucks (U-Hauls and then Ryder trucks). In his own way, he'd done very well for himself, and was certainly a multi-millionaire based on the value of all his land holdings. He was also one of those people who resisted development and many (most) of his properties still have the original (and well kept) charming  little homes and compounds on them from the pre-war era. I was so fortunate. The place was so cute, affordable, and had all the charm of hardwood floors and real plaster walls that speak to my soul.

We were not yet married, but Mrs Spy Car was living with me in our little Casasita. Life was grand.

Our neighborhood was bustling. We had nearby movie theatres, such as the arthouse Royal theater and another famous arthouse theatre NuArt a few blocks further. Great restaurants. I helped friends open a tiny cafe called "Cacao" that is still there. Many people might think it was Santa Monica, but we were just over the border, sandwiched between Santa Monica, Brentwood to the north and Westwood to the east. Not a "dangerous" place ordinarily. 

Then a gang of very scary guys took up residence in my landlord's trucks, sleeping in them at night in the storage lot. I asked him at the time why he didn't have the police clear them out? He said he was a afraid. I could see why. These were very bad guys.

I grew up in LA. My experiences with Mexican migrants has been almost entirely positive. Good people, who work hard, and will, always help people in a jam. When I drove an old and unreliable car in my youth, I always knew that anyone who helped me push that car out of traffic was likely to be a Mexican migrant. Let's say, I greatly admire the people and the culture.

This gang was the aberration. Dangerous men. Bad guys. Very scary.

They sort of hassled my future wife one day while she was heading off to work in her top-down little Suzuki Samurai, which put them immediately on my radar.

Then, as few days later, I was shopping at the local Von's market, where the "security guard" was a frail old man who reminded me a bit of Don Knott's character Barney Fife on the Andy Griffith television show, only much older. This guy wasn't in the right job for his physical gifts, but people need to work to survive and I always felt for him. So I'm checking out after making a small purchase, and I see the security guard try to stop the leader of this gang. The bad guy was sort of dashing, in his own way. A bit like a Mexican Elvis. Young (younger than I) and handsome. But had the look in his eyes of a killer. No joke.

So "Barney Fife" tries to stop this guy, who had been shoplifting, and "Elvis" wallops him with a hard punch to the head. I'm within 15 feet, and my brain snaps. I charge toward the guy, who sees me coming and runs. I follow in hot pursuit. I resent his relative youth and athleticism, but my adrenaline is pumping and I'm neither gain or losing ground. We run blocks down Barrington, until he cuts onto a side street, and then into an alley and back towards the truck rental yard near where it all started.

Just as we hit the rental yard alley, I finally overtake him. I locked him up in bearhug. I'm exhausted, but I've got him. There are people across the boulevard (where the supermarket was) who are taking in the scene, but no one crosses over to offer support. Just then "Elvis" calls out to his hombres, who start piling of  the trucks. I start getting surrounded. I hold this guy tight, pinning him with my left arm, while preparing to fight using my right. But, there were enough of them (7 or 8), that my rational mind started telling myself that fighting them all at the same time was going to be tough. And still no one was crossing over the street to offer support. So I pushed Elvis away, and slowly backed out. I was none too happy about that.

The precise time frame blurs, but a day or two later I took my machete to be sharpened by this crazy old coot who did such things. 

I'd planted a few banana trees in my little patio and they were wildly successful. We got great bunches of a delicious variety of bananas that tasted much more "tropical" than the supermarket types, and had an almost peach-like color. Anyway, they grew like crazy and my trusty machete was just the thing to keep them trimmed, if it was sharp. Cleaning up this grove dulled the blade.

I can't remember in all honesty if I was most driven to have the machete sharpened to clean up the banana trees, which need it, or the previous day's incident, or a combination of both (which is most likely).

Anyway, I'm in my Isuzu Trooper (a lightweight four-door Jeep-like vehicle) driving home from having that machete sharpened, when I drive past the alley where things had gone down the day (or two) before. Out of the corner of my eye I see a young woman walking down that alley and in the split second I see the gang jump her and knock her to the ground.

My mind once again snaps. "Oh no you don't," is what I'm thinking. I look at the "traffic" on this ordinarily very busy street and here is none, so I put the Trooper into a powerslide 180, slam the accelerator,and then do a hard turn into the alley. The Trooper was so light and had leaf-spring suspension (which are very "bouncy) so when I hit the driveway doing into that alley the truck launched up into the air. It truly looked (and felt like a "movie stunt"). When the Trooper landed I see the gang all looking slack jawed, like "what the hell is going on here?"

I jumped up of the Trooper with machete in hand. Ready to use it is need be, but my main goal was to extricate this young woman.

She is in a state of shock. I yell at her, "get in the car!" She is paralyzed with fear and can't move. The gang (once again) tries to start surrounding me, but I must have seemed certifiably insane in that moment and I wasn't fucking around. I was (again) outnumbered 7 or 8 to one, but they were the ones who seemed scared. I was not. 

Again, I told her to get in the car, that I was getting her out of there. This time she complied. I held the bad guys off with my machete until she was inside, then I sped out of there.

Turned out she was a college student at UCLA. Our neighborhood was popular with university students and was on an easy bus route to campus. She was quite pretty. Jet black skin. African American. Had a look of nobility. I'm fairly certain they would have raped her if they'd had the time, but mercifully they did not.

This poor girl was shaking like a leaf. In my life I've never seen a person tremble like that. Seeing her shaking in terror was the most upsetting part of the whole thing. I said, "we are going to the police department" (which was close by). She said, " I can't, they know where I live and I'm afraid." I did mention that these were scary people?

I said I would take her home (and did), but I informed her that I would be going to see the police myself. She said "Okay."

Met with higher ups at the police department after telling the story several times. Was advised by the police (on the downlow) that I ought to consider an aluminum baseball bat for purposes of "plausible deniability" rather than a machete, in case I needed to use it. Less likely to result in felony charges, while at the same time receiving kudos for my quick actions.

Over the next short period I worked with the police, all the local merchants, security people and neighbors to drop a dime on these guys if/when they were spotted and things became so hot for this gang that they moved on.

I was one of those moments were--in retrospect--I understood how crazily dangerous it was. I could easily have died in that alley, I suppose. But not acting was never a consideration. Had to do it. Not a moment of hesitation. And glad of it.

I never saw or heard from that young woman again. I don't even know her name. I suppose she's never forgotten that day? I certainly have not.

Bill

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2023 by Spy Car

[Indigo Blue]

Bill, thanks for retelling the story! 
 

Yes, you are lucky you weren’t hurt or worse. That poor girl, though. I’m sure she will NEVER forget what you did. I hope the Barney Fife guy was ok, too. 

[Spy Car]

Just now, Indigo Blue said:

Bill, thanks for retelling the story! 
 

Yes, you are lucky you weren’t hurt or worse. That poor girl, though. I’m sure she will NEVER forget what you did. I hope the Barney Fife guy was ok, too. 

The weirdest part of that incident for me was that--despite the obvious danger that I did have to admit after the fact was exceeding real--I quite honestly didn't not give it a thought in the moment.

It was as if instinct took over. This young woman need to be saved, and that was it. No "thinking," all "action."

Later, i've read stories about people who have done similar things, run into burning buildings or other crazily dangerous things without thinking about it. Seems like a common response.

And I realize it isn't "courage."Courage, to my way of thinking, is doing something even when you are scared or terrified. I was not.

Just going on instinct.

Sometimes I guess it is better for people not to think too much.

 

Bill

 

 

 

 

[Indigo Blue]

I pulled a huge, giant bullfrog out of one of those suction hole things in a pool wall. The water was being sucked in and the currant was keeping him from being able to swim out. A friend and I were the only ones there, and I wasn’t even dressed for swimming. My friend wouldn’t do it. So, I took off my shoes and and got in with my pants on. I was terrified to stick my arm in and pull out that giant frog. I did, though, and plopped him up onto the cement pool deck. Then we took him to the nearby pond where he most likely came from. I had never seen a frog that big. That’s nothing compared to what you’ve done. I DO think you had courage. 

[Indigo Blue]

DP

Edited May 26, 2023 by Indigo Blue

[Indigo Blue]

And…I should tell you the story of when the snake got into my car. I’m going to go have dinner, and I’ll be back later to tell you about that. 

[Harriet Vane]

Bill, I lived in a genuinely dangerous neighborhood for fourteen years. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for working to root out the bad guys before they became entrenched. I know exactly what that means to a neighborhood. 

And thank you for saving that woman. Thank you. 

And I mean it when I say may God bless you. 

[Spy Car]

2 minutes ago, Harriet Vane said:

Bill, I lived in a genuinely dangerous neighborhood for fourteen years. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for working to root out the bad guys before they became entrenched. I know exactly what that means to a neighborhood. 

And thank you for saving that woman. Thank you. 

And I mean it when I say may God bless you. 

Thank you for your kind words.

I feel that I have been very blessed.

There have been moments in this life that--despite my being a lifelong secularist--when I wonder.

For example, had I a driven past that alleyway just a split second later, or a minute earlier, I would not have seen that young woman get knocked down.

Where she landed would have been out of my line of sight, and I barely caught it anyway. I literally caught the incident out of the corner of my eye as i was whizzing past.

Almost felt like it was "guided."

I shudder to think what might have happened otherwise. I suspect that (then young woman) who must be in her early 50s now must have replayed that surreal experience over in her mind more than once over the decades.

Sometimes in one's life it's nice to know one has done something good. That day I got to do a mitzvah.

Bill

 

[Spy Car]

29 minutes ago, Indigo Blue said:

I pulled a huge, giant bullfrog out of one of those suction hole things in a pool wall. The water was being sucked in and the currant was keeping him from being able to swim out. A friend and I were the only ones there, and I wasn’t even dressed for swimming. My friend wouldn’t do it. So, I took off my shoes and and got in with my pants on. I was terrified to stick my arm in and pull out that giant frog. I did, though, and plopped him up onto the cement pool deck. Then we took him to the nearby pond where he most likely came from. I had never seen a frog that big. That’s nothing compared to what you’ve done. I DO think you had courage. 

Good job with the frog!

I personally think it takes more courage to do something you know is terrifying--like sticking one's arm into a suction hole to pull out a frog--that it is to do something that you later realize was crazy dangerous w/o thinking about it in the moment.

But whatever gets the good deeds done works for me.

Bill

 

[Indigo Blue]

One time I was getting ready to do some yard work at my mom’s. I took a folded tarp from the building, along with a knee pad and tools. I drove an hour to her house in my CRV with my son, who was then probably 15 or so and about 6’ tall. I did the yard work, and I drove my mom somewhere afterward, again in my CRV, which had very dark, black interior.

We then loaded up and headed home. We hadn’t gotten five miles down the road when ds yelled, “Snake!” 

I didn’t see a snake. He pointed, and there it was crawling up on HIS side, right where the door and dashboard meet. It was a large black snake, and it blended in with the dark interior of the car. Almost invisible. 

Ds moved from the front seat, all six feet of him, in one motion, to the back seat in a single second. 

I pulled over to a side road. We jumped out and flung all doors open. It was nowhere to be seen. I wasn’t getting back in the car. Finally a man walked out from the back of his house to help us find the snake. He pulled all the mats out and took everything out of the trunk. We just could not find it in that black car. 

I called Dh. He tried to talk me into driving home. I wanted him to come get me. He was 45 minutes away. He told me that he was driving the work van, and I would have a really hard time driving the rickety old thing. (It was soon to be replaced as it had seen its better days). I wasn’t driving the car home. Dh insisted it would be really more difficult to drive the van home than I realized. He said “It’s just a black snake. Just drive home. He’s probably not even in the car now.” By now, it was dark outside. 

I’m not terrified of snakes normally. I don’t mind black snakes. But I was not getting in that dark car at night with a large snake in it and driving home. 

“No.” I said. 

He arrived an hour later. Driving the van home WAS difficult. It was rickety with very loose steering. Dh was behind me the whole way. 

The next day, he took it to our friend who is a mechanic. (The same guy whose wife saved their daughter’s life a few days ago). They searched the car with a fine-tooth comb and no snake. They pronounced it snake free and I trusted it, so I resumed driving it. 

Three days later, I was driving home from somewhere. I was alone and just 2 miles from home. I felt something lightly brush my pants, but it was ever so slight. I didn’t think “snake”. I just kept driving. A few minutes later, there it was. Crawling up MY side, exactly where the door and dashboard meet. 

There was a large chicken farm to my immediate right. I swerved into the gravel lot and threw it in park. I jumped out, door open, engine running. 

I called Dh to tell him where he could find the car, that I was walking home, and that I would not be getting back in that car so we might as well get ready to go pick out a new one. As I was telling him this, the snake crawled across the dashboard to the passenger side. It spanned across the entire dashboard. I watched as it dropped down to the gravel lot, went under the car, across the lot, across the road, and into the woods. 

I said to Dh, “Nevermind.”

He said, “Is it out?”

”Yes.” 
 

As I drove home, I thought of several things:

1)How relieved I was.

2)The poor snake had been trapped in there a long time without food or water and must have been so desperate to get out. 

3)I had driven my mom around in that car with a large snake in it. I couldn’t imagine the panic and chaos that would have ensued if that snake had crawled up the door on her side.

4)The snake must have been inside the layers of the folded tarp, and I must have transported him from the building to the trunk of my car.

5)I’m glad I didn’t have to buy a new car. (Half kidding about buying a new car).

6) My son bailed on me! 😂

 

So there is a story for you, although not told nearly as well as yours.😁