Innertube Man Spells Trouble

My sister and I have lived around each other during our married years for short stints of time and have wonderful, happy, funny memories together. One of my latter posts about sirens here in Oklahoma reminded me of the fire alarm or sirens that called the local volunteer firefighters together, in a small town in Oregon. It would go off once a week as a practice drill . Well, I was only married a few years and already had 2 children, 13 months apart and she had her first son too. We were always bored back then, go figure, I am overwhelmed now. And we were always needing something fun to do with the little ones in tow. So we decided to go down to the local river under neath the bridge in town. I drove my old car down this old dirt road with many a pot holes, not sure what the end of the road was like. The kids were unloaded and a big bag of supplies were too, in anticipation of water and fun. We maneuvered down a twisted path of earth and weeds taller than our children, and stopped when we could see the small pebbled beach. We put our bags down and looked ahead and saw a fully dressed man with cowboy boots on, in an inner tube, jabbering to himself. We were kinda unsettled, and just looked at each other with the knowing sister look, thinking this doesn't look good. The gentleman floating in full attire, holding a beer, started speaking more aggressively and paddled with his one, free, hand towards us. He was aggressively yelling and seemed fired up! We were like, we are out of here! He was an angry intoxicated man venting it at us. We had a big problem with the three little children with us, we could only run while holding one each. About the time we either said this out loud or just knew it, the tall drink of water, drunk, cowboy man, started running slowly in the water, like a bad dream. We probably both called on the Lord in our heads and right at the moment the fire siren went off. I mean the Sirens were blaring like a bad movie from the 60's , when they were warning the citizens that the end of the world was approaching. The volume was over the top LOUD and intense, and my 3 year old son who had moments earlier, wanted to play in the water was Now all on bored to get out town. And to make things worse for him I was playing right into his bad nightmare. He looked at me to comfort him and I was like, yes SON, run it is as bad as it seems. So he ran with no discussion about why we didn't swim or play with his pail and shovel. He ran like I had never seen my 3 year old run before. I know my dear sister Trina was holding her little one and running too. There is nothing like running for your life women, you really should try it sometime. When I finally arrived to my old car, I looked back quickly and there he was walking slowly and furiously up the trial. He was still angry about something and you could tell he thought we were BAD women. Angry, drunk type I guess. My husband and I laughed so hard the other night when I told him this story again, because I opened the door all out of breath and just tossed my dear 2 year old daughter in like a football. And I backed out of that dirt road much less carefully, than I proceeded in. We were seriously scared to death. And my little son was so upset and he didn't understand. So as the day progressed and we counted our blessings that we were all safe, and now bored again, we went to our local market to probably buy chocolate to soothe our nerves over our horrific experience. And low and behold there was the drunk,innertube man muttering and pointing at me. I nervously smiled and checked out the looks on my fellow customers faces, you know the locals and no one seemed to care. I must have looked anxiously at the clerk because he responded with a, "He's harmless, no need to worry about that one." I really can't remember everything he said, but he was letting me know, his bark was bigger than his bite. Trina and I laughed so hard that we ran for our lives and hurdled our babies in the car over this man. It definitely was an adrenaline rush! I think about that day sometimes when I watch a scary movie and the woman is running for her life. I really feel her pain.Hehe

And my oldest son really hated those sirens after that, even though from my house the sirens were barely audible. I really don't remember what we said to him to make it all better in his little mind, but he did get over it and doesn't remember it to this day.