I thought this was going to be a peaceful evening here at The Compound. I had just gotten home at about 8:00 from a 7 mile bike ride, and was relaxing on the couch watching today's episode of my beloved "All My Children". Out of my periphreal vision, I noticed some commotion two houses up, and turned to see some firemen, clad in their official coats, pants and helmets, walking very fast up our neighbors' driveway to their back field. I got up to look out the door toward the street, and the picture above was the view from our side door.
At first, I wasn't alarmed; this weekend is the annual Crusade For Children, and this week, volunteer firemen from all over the area will be going door-to-door collecting money for this very worthy cause. But I didn't see them carrying the rubber firemen's boots that they use to collect the money; they were carrying axes. Mom and Dad went outside to see what was going on, and imagine our surprise when we saw a pretty good sized fire in the back of our neighbors' property where the husband was burning pieces of what used to be their little red barn (that my father helped him tear down today, I might add.) To make matters worse, one of the firemen was the neighbors' son. And did I forget to add that the fire chief (aka the son's boss) was back there, too? Note: there was a second firetruck, out of range in the above photo, and the chief's SUV.
Of course, the first thing I did was grab my camera so I could document the drama. As I was out on our side porch taking pictures, our neighbor's wife came down, cussing her husband with every step she took, and grabbed our extra long garden hose and lugged it up to their house so they could connect it to their hose and be able to get some water back to put out the fire. The fact that our neighbor was illegally burning didn't bother me near as bad as the fact that the firemen didn't have a hose long enough to put out the fire.
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