An Adventure or Two

I never thought about whether I was brave or not. It never entered my mind to think about it. Sometimes bravery can seem a little like stupidity. One particular event comes to mind.

Through a friend I met another lady in the midst of a divorce. She lived in the apartment a block or so from my apartment. She was a nice lady who became interested in a fellow. She called me one Saturday morning to ask if I would pick her up at her friend's place because her ex-husband was sitting in his car outside.

So I got in my little red car and drove to where she was. I pulled in the driveway and her "ex" pulled in behind me. My friend came out and got in the car. Her "ex" didn't move but he got out of the car and headed up the driveway.

I got out of the car and told him he needed to move his car so we could leave. I was 5'4" and 125 pounds then - and he was 6'4" or 6'5" and probably 200 pounds. He wasn't about to move and said so. I told him to get out of my way or I'd call the cops and beyond that I would testify against him in court. He finally left.

An interesting sidelight was this man was a repairman for the telephone company. He came in the following Monday to work on the telephone system. It was my job to meet him at the front desk and take him where he needed to go. It was as if he had never seen me before.

I lived in my little apartment from Nov. 1981 thru Dec. 18, 1989. The building had eight apartments, four on the ground floor and floor up one level.

Sometime after I moved there, an ex-military man about 30 moved in upstairs with his much younger girlfriend. I heard the late at nights - he yelled at her a lot.

The yelling started abou 2 a.m. one weekend - it woke me up. The yelling progressed to hitting and I could hear him beating her. Those little apartments were not soundproofed! This seemed to go on a long time.

Finally I dialled 9-1-1 and reported what was going on. The police called the landlord and met him at the apartment. Things settled down after that.

Several days later the landlord stopped by and asked how everything was - no more noise, etc.

I told him if the couple stayed upstairs I would be moving! He didn't like it much but he evicted the couple.

Later I found out the teen aged girl was the daughter of a co-worker.