Alive and kicking

Upon hearing I would be retiring to the state of Maine for the last gasp of summer (unofficially and increasingly known in these parts as the season when you can only buy swimwear from a big box Halloween store that has just taken up residence, albeit temporarily, in one of the many unoccupied warehouses that sold groceries for a generation before it up and split) a friend drew my attention from the cool-down portion of our mid-week run to an amazing news item out of the aforementioned Vacationland.

“It's the craziest story: a woman from Brunswick, Maine, awoke in the wee hours of the morning to find a teenager standing in her bedroom with a knife, saying he was going to cut her.”

Blink. Blink. 

Now, I must say, I believe my eyes may have widened and protruded from their sockets as confusion clouded them when the delightful story I was expecting pushed sideways and teetered over a rabbit hole of horror. when

 

My friend assured me that the take she was about to tell would forever endear me to the land in the upper-east corner of our mainland where women only grow more powerful as we age. 

And I listened raptly in the middle of the street as she recounted from memory: “The victim, an 87-year-old woman, said to herself, ‘Well if you're going to cut me then I'm going to kick you,’ and she jumped out of her bed and into her shoes, grabbed a chair as a shield and the two battled for so long  the boy became weary and wandered into the kitchen where he announced he was starving.”

So, according to this retelling, our lady hero made the attacker a snack of cheese and crackers and said he could have the whole box if he'd leave, which he did, and which somehow helped police and search dogs find him later for a resistless arrest. 

My friend marveled at the pluck of this woman saying she'd do it all again if, for some unfortunate reason, history were to repeat itself. And before I headed for home I agreed salt water must run through her veins. 

And just a little honey, too, as the woman said she hoped the kid got the help he needed to turn his life around.

It wasn't until later on when I searched for the news article that I learned how truly bonkers the story was: in addition to the chilling discovery and violent attack, the half-dressed intruder turned out to be a teenager who had mowed the lady’s lawn a few years prior and by her contemporaneous accounts “had done a darn good job, too.”

And that he had gained entrance to her home through a window by shifting the accordion slats of air conditioning to create an opening through which he could wriggle past.

In addition to providing safety tips for other central-airless homeowners to beef up security for these vulnerable window conditions, she also noted how having a rotary phone slowed her ability to contact police, 

“I dialed as fast as I could,” she told the reporter as the memory of the mechanical sounds of the carousel rotating and releasing came flooding back. 

As did a reminder that whoever wrote this story is a gem of equal luster. A reminder, perhaps, that journalism is alive and kicking. 

Turns out the most important thing she had in her time of crisis (besides ready access to shoes and a bedside chair shield) was having her wits about her. 

For this and so many other reasons, I hope to be a Mainer when I grow up