A Knock on the Door

At this time of year, it's dark by 4:30 p.m. And hardly anybody is around. Most of our contiguous neighbors have gone away: one for a month holiday in Hawaii, one for a visit to family in South Korea--just in time for the war-- one returned to Canada until spring comes, one to visit family in California, leaving us manning the street kind of alone, except of course for the Deputy Sheriffs who are carefully locked up at night behind their chainlink fence.

And it really is dark, because we have very few street lights around, and the auto traffic on such nights is very minimal. And it's raining a little almost all the time. And though it is no longer down to freezing temperatures, it's not far away.

And, around 9:30 p.m., there is what sounds like a knock on the door. I don't think we have ever had anyone knock on our door that late at night during the winter. It was hard at first to even figure out what the sound might be. Ed went to the front door, but there was noone there. Another knocking sound; I'm starting to think animals? And then I realize it is a knock at the back door, which is in the bedroom. I don't think anyone has ever knocked at that door at any time of day or night, at any time of year.

I went the door, greatly perplexed, and found my neighbor's brother there. The neighbor who has gone to South Korea. He had come down to check out the house because of the cold weather and had gone outside to get something and had closed the (locked) door behind him. There he was in empty, dark, cold, rainy Point Roberts, without a phone (although if he had had a cell phone, it wouldn't have worked), without a flashlight, without his car keys, and without his house key

He inquired, in his heavily accented English, whether we might have an electric drill so he could take the door lock out. In minutes, he and Ed were out in the bleak night, breaking into our neighbor's house.  And so we saved the day (or the night) for him.  And I was reminded how difficult life in a rural area can be if you are not paying attention all the time.