Two weeks ago my parents and I headed to Manhattan
for a nephew’s wedding. We left the farm
Friday morning and ate lunch in Beloit.
We traveled on to Delphos for Dad to look at a couple of air
conditioning units at the Catholic Church that is going to be torn down this
fall. The church is giving away items
from the church that can be salvaged for a donation before the demolition. After
looking at them we traveled on to Manhattan to my aunt’s home where we planned
to stay for the weekend.
While we were out for dinner I missed a call from my niece,
Dana, at the farm asking if I had received a call from the sheriff. No, I hadn’t.
She told me that the Sheridan County Sheriff came to the farm looking
for me because my car was involved in a burglary in Ottawa County today. A photograph was taken of my license plate. I went out to my car and checked the
plate. It was there and was
correct. I did not even know where Ottawa
County was and pulled out a Kansas map.
Isn’t it in eastern Kansas by the town of Ottawa out by Kansas City? Nope. Delphos
is just into Ottawa County south of Mitchell County. I guessed if they wanted me bad enough they would
get in touch as Dana did give them my cell phone number.
Within 15 minutes I received a call from an unfamiliar number. I answered and it was the Ottawa County
sheriff. He asked me if I had been in Delphos
today. I told him we had been there and
that I pulled down the alley beside the church, that Dad had gotten out and
looked at the a/c units beside the church building, that Mom and I waited in
the car and when he was done looking we drove to the street and I put Manhattan
into the GPS app on my cell phone and we left town. He asked what I did at the garage. What
garage? We were just in the alley straight across from the a/c units by the
church. Oh, I think there might have
been a garage on the other side of the alley but I had not paid any attention
as we were watching Dad to see if he motioned for help. Well, the sheriff department received a call
from a woman saying we had been in her garage but she did not think anything
was taken. She took a photo of the
license tag on the vehicle as proof. He
asked me about a young man wearing a red cap.
Dad had on a beige cap and neither Mom nor I were wearing caps. We were the only people in the car. The woman said she had seen the old man by
the church. I had a red and white mug
with a red lid that I was drinking from is the only thing I knew of that would
be red. The sheriff had my driver’s
license number but also wanted Mom and Dad’s driver’s license numbers so I
gave them to him. He said he would write
this up as an incident report but did not expect anything else to come of
this.
I guess I now look like a young man and I wear a red
cap. She definitely did not get an
accurate description of the vehicle driver, did she? Good thing she got a picture of the car tag or
she would not have gotten them correct either.
I wonder if she has a history of being an active caller to the
sheriff. . I never noticed anyone else in the alley
doing this so you can tell how much attention I was paying to anything other
than what Dad was doing.
Believe it or not, I seem to be a burglar – a bad burglar for sure.
Rose
