When I first got married to Barb, my son Drew's mother, we lived in an apartment over a camera shop in downtown Mt. Pleasant. One dark and snowy night we got a phone call. I looked at the alarm clock. It said 5 o'clock in the morning. Who could this be I thought. Well I'm already awake so I thought I 'd answer. It was the Police! "Mr. Karl, do you know a Donnie *****". Why yes I do officer, is there anything wrong?, I said. Well, he said, it seems he parked his car in the middle of the street. If he doesn't move the car in 1 hour it will be towed away. Alright, I said, I'll let him know.
So Barb and I got dressed to go get Donnie. You see while Donnie lived only 2 blocks from us over a movie theater, he had no telephone. So we walked in the snowy, freezing cold early morning down to his place. It must have snowed a foot overnight. It looked nice in the lamplight downtown. We got to Donnie's but the door up to his apartment was locked so we walked around to the back where his bedroom window was. We tried calling his name to no avail. The clock was ticking. So we started to throw little stones up at his window. Once in a while we would hit it hopefully not too hard. Finally we see a little light go on and he came to the window. What do you want? he said. We told him -the police called us and said your car is parked in the middle of the street. You have less than an hour to move it or they will tow it. Say where is your car anyway? Normally he parked it right where we were standing. He said he was coming home late from some party and ran out of gas a couple miles away on the main drag out of town. He had to push his car up a hill in the foot of snow and when he came to a side street he turned it and pushed it to the curb and then walked the rest of the way home. He said his car definitely was not in the middle of the street. Well it doesn't matter I said they will tow you car if it isn't moved and now we only have half an hour to go. So we ran back down the block all the while trying to think of a gas station that would be open this time. By the time we got to our car we had it all planned out. We flew down the street to a gas station we knew was open. Got a couple gallon can of gas and drove down the slippery streets to where his car was parked. Believe it or not we had 10 minutes to spare.
When we got to where he had parked his car -it was gone! I looked at the street where it had been sitting and could see by the tire tracks that it had been no more than 2 feet at the most from the curb! Pretty good considering he pushed the car a half mile up a hill and turned into the side street and parked it in the snow who knew where the curb was anyway. We were upset to say the least. Where did the car go? Well they must have just towed it before we got there. So we went to the Police Station to find out where his car was. Sure enough they had the car towed and it was at car pound at the north end of town. I'm curious I said to the Policeman in charge. It was only 2 feet from the curb so why was it towed? Well he said it was in the middle of the street blocking traffic. In the middle of the street blocking traffic at five o'clock in the morning? It was only 2 feet away. There was no traffic it was a side street and it was 2 feet from the curb! Well he said it got towed. I'm also curious I said what time was the car towed? Let's see , he said looking at the report, it looks like it got towed at five o'clock this morning. WHAT!! That's when you guys called me and woke me up to tell me we had an hour to move the car or it would be towed! Sorry was all he could say. Believe me it took everything I had from leaping over the counter to get at him. I'm sure glad I didn't though. That would have ruined an otherwise glorious start to a cold winter's morning.
Just one thing before I go. How did the Police know that I knew Donnie? And how did they know my name? Just wondering.
P.S. We went to the pound to find his car right after we talked to the Police. The lot had a fence in front that was locked. Oddly enough there was no fence in the back! So we walked the couple blocks to the back filled his car with gas and away he drove. So I guess there was some kind of happy ending after all. By the way he never heard from them again. Neither did we. We moved to Lansing.
Stay tuned.
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