Okay, now this is odd.<\/p>\n
Couple of us were working in the meadow this afternoon when my youngest, loudest, and most car-chasing dog informed us of somebody coming down the road. Sure enough, along came a car, which went just past our driveway and stopped in a “where the heck am I?” sort of way.<\/p>\n
Now, we’re in the middle of nowhere, a good 12 miles from town, six of it on dirt and through washes. And once you’ve gone past our driveway, there is simply nowhere to go. Anyhow, there’s nowhere a stranger has any business going, unless he plans to burgle the neighbor’s house. We can go weeks without seeing anybody except one regular weekender driving in or out. Well, it’s Friday afternoon, and sometimes near the weekend we do get some four-wheelers out here, or some people just roaming around sightseeing. We stand on the ridge and give them our best Deliverance<\/i> stare and they go away.<\/p>\n
This vehicle reversed direction and came up our driveway. My friend climbed up to see what they wanted & came back bemused.<\/p>\n
“Harmless,” he said.<\/p>\n
“But what did they want?”<\/p>\n
“They were looking for children.”<\/p>\n
“What?” (I don’t think there’s a child within five miles of here.)<\/p>\n
“Yeah. Children. They were from the local Head Start program and they wanted to know if there are any children around here.”<\/p>\n
Head Start trolls for children now? In the middle of nowhere? What, they expect to find them left under juniper bushes by the stork?<\/i><\/p>\n
My friend told them the truth; that he didn’t know of any children in the vicinity. Later he regretted that he didn’t instead send them to the cop’s house about a mile from here. And tell them the guy has six children. Whom he’s probably hiding. And he’s a heavily armed, right-wing, anti-government wacko. And oh, by the way, I think he’s molesting them. (My friend isn’t fond of cops.)<\/p>\n
Ah well, that’s hindsight. (Anyhow, I’ve met the cop and his wife and they seem like nice folks to me.)<\/p>\n
But Head Start? Trolling for children? In the middle of nowhere? What the heck is that about? Ever happen to anybody else?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Okay, now this is odd. Couple of us were working in the meadow this afternoon when my youngest, loudest, and most car-chasing dog informed us of somebody coming down the road. Sure enough, along came a car, which went just past our driveway and stopped in a “where the heck am I?” sort of way. Now, we’re in the middle of nowhere, a good 12 miles from town, six of it on dirt and through washes. And once you’ve gone past our driveway, there is simply nowhere to go. Anyhow, there’s nowhere a stranger has any business going, unless he…<\/p>\n