Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Ford Ranger 0, Kitten Farm 1

If you look carefully at photos with the exterior of the kitten farm, you can see:
  • We're at the intersection of Summer and Summerhill Streets, and
  • We have a two foot high retaining wall around the front and side of the kitten farm.

This evening a pickup truck barreled around the bend of Summer Street leading to our intersection, bounced off a car parked in the Summer Street driveway of 1 Summerhill Street, nailed a curbside trash barrel (also the property of 1 Summerhill), careened across Summerhill Street, and hit our stone wall.

I was on the sidewalk at the foot of our Summer Street driveway as this unfolded. Actually, when I first saw the truck I was at the foot of the driveway. Having seen the results of a previous accident which nailed 1 Summerhill's fence, with the truck on final approach I ran for my [expletive] life up the driveway past the continuation of the retaining wall.

 (I didn't need to run, as it turned out. But as Katherine says, I was wise, and the original builders of the retaining wall were wiser.)

 The pickup may have impacted at the wall at 25 miles an hour or more. The vehicle has serious front end damage; it is probably mortally wounded. We have very annoyed neighbors (the truck pushed their car into their garage door and ripped off the rear bumper), but the stone wall is barely scratched.

 The cats were finishing dinner at the time, so of course they didn't do much more than have alarmed looks between bites.

 [Later: I was wrong, the wall doesn't show any scratches. However, I will need to get out and clean up broken truck remains in daylight.]

2 comments:

  1. As an aside, the driver didn't get to walk away (they had to pry the door open in fact) but did not seem too badly hurt. He was conscious and complaining about his leg. No doubt he was also bruised by the airbag.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was also wrong about the type of truck, it was a Ford. I discovered this by finding a Ford nameplate in the midst of the broken truck parts on our sidewalk in the morning light.
    I love that retaining wall.

    ReplyDelete