Three doors down…

Ok… So this marks the first time I’ve written started an entry on my Palm (an old one) on the way to work (I take the public transit ferry). I was going to wait but I wanted to start this post right away…

We had a “Happy Belated Birthday” party for Little “L” yesterday. It went really well… Probably 25 people total, including adults and kids. Little “L” got all kinds of cool stuff and he seemed to have a really great time… Family, friends, food, presents, fun. Yeah, it was a good time. Hectic. But good.

So, around seven o’clock (or at least I think it was seven o’clock… maybe a bit earlier) the last wave of our guests had left for the comforts of their homes, full bellies and tottlers in tow. At this point we had a lot of clean-up to do… there was wrapping paper and gift bags all over the place. Baby “X” was a tad “emotional” from the event. He’s pretty sensitive to (over-) stimulation but did way better than we expected… we think all of the noise and yelling had eventually became a “white-noise” blanket because he fell asleep for most of the time. Thanks, little guy… but now it was time for bed.

Eventually, “T” got Baby “X” settle down, asleep, and came downstairs to where Little “X” (still a bit hopped-up on sugar) and I, were playing with some new trains he got as gifts. All was well and quiet… which was nice because peace and quiet seems rare these days…

Then we hear a loud noise outside… “T” and I looked at each other… I said, “Sound like something got hit [by a car or something] or like a [full] moving truck hit a bump.” “T” thought it sounded more like a car pulling a trailer with a bunch of loose “stuff” in it had hit a bump… either way, I got up and looked out of the window, as far as I could see in either direction, but could see nothing. I just assumed it was that noisy trailer… “T” decided to go outside and look…

A mini-van had plowed into the front of the house four doors down.

Little “L” was still awake so I went out just onto my front porch with him. We could only see a part of the van from where we stood. We were only out for a short while because it was pretty cold and I decided I didn’t want Little “L” too get to distracted and wound-up before bed. So, we went back inside to play with his trains and the police cruisers started to arrive.

After about an hour, it was Little “L’s” turn to be off to bed… we let him stay up a bit later for his belated Big Day… All was calm and quiet inside the house… Curiosity got the better of me. I had to take some garbage out anyway, so to go down a few houses and get the scoop was no real extra effort. My across-the-street-neighbours were among the first on the scene and actually helped get the driver out of the van so they seemed to be the best ones to get the story from…

The driver was INTOXICATED (upper-case as in VERY). He came zooming by our house and crashed into / along-the-side-of the car in front of the house immediately to the right of ours, which had caused the driver’s van to veer off to the right but slowing it very little. From here, the van drove through the front steps of and crashed into the front porch of house four doors down.

Nobody was injured… other than the driver who reportedly hit his head on the windshield (there was a crack in the glass) but seemed — health-wise — no worse for wear. The woman who lived at the “drive-in” house (a man and two children also lived there) was sitting by the window right next to where the van impacted. The base of the front porch was shifted a foot to a foot-and-a-half, skewing the structure. Apparently the plaster walls inside have cracks all the way up to the roof. A local radio station  reported that there was $5,000 worth of damage done to the house… that estimate seems low… not from what I could see from the outside, more from the fact that I’m pretty sure that the house is from the same era mine is (1917) and that the internal damage is probably way worse.

The driver of the van didn’t have any vehicle insurance… I’ll let you know how that plays out.

This whole thing seems eery to me… selfishly speaking, if this catastrophe had to happen at all, the timing couldn’t be better… an hour earlier, this driver and his “deadly” van would have struck (and likely killed) numerous children between the ages of six months and 2 1/2 years, and their parents, who had all left Little “L’s” party at the same time.

Part of me feels like crying.
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steelie

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