Grandma’s walking stick
They made her sound as big as a mule and mean as a lion.
Iguess everybody knows what a walking stick is and what it is used for. Some people use them to walk and some for looks. I use mine to help me walk. The lady that I am writing about used her stick to keep the peace. You see, she had a very unique walking stick.
Two officers had requested to see a supervisor. I pulled in and got out of the patrol car. As I remember, they had smiles on their face as they approached me. One of them started to tell what had happened.
As he talked, I had a suspicion that he was trying to pull something on me. He began to tell me about the woman on the porch. I tried to see the front porch. Roses ran across, covering it, so you could not see it from the road. He told me how she had the next door neighbor scared to death of her. They made her sound as big as a mule and mean as a lion.
I remember unsnapping the gun in my holster and starting toward the front porch. I stopped, turned and looked straight into the face of an old lady sitting in a rocking chair, holding a double barrel shotgun.
I stopped dead in my tracks as she turned the gun, pointing it at me. I began to talk, trying to get the gun turned in another direction. I will always believe that my heart skipped a beat as she lay the gun down.
She slowly moved the gun, with the stock on the porch and the two barrels sticking straight up. I moved slowly around and removed the gun out of her reach. She smiled and said it was not loaded. She held out her hand and in it was two shells. I very gently took them and sat down in a chair.
I heard a snicker from behind me. I turned and looked at the officer saying, “wipe the smile off, for you and I will have something to talk about in a few minutes.” Then I sat and talked to the old lady about what was happening to her with her neighbor.
They had just moved in next door to her. They had stolen a bunch of things from a building out back. She had caught one of them in her house. I talked to her for a few more minutes, then gave back her shotgun along with the two shells. We changed to the day shift and didn’t get to see the little old lady again. I would read reports from others officers who were still answering calls to her house. I came in one morning and picked up the reports. With a cup of coffee, I went into my office and began to read. Then a report caught my eye. It was about the little lady and how she had dusted off the seat of a man who broke into her house.
The report stated that she had gone to bed and was awakened by a noise in the bedroom next to her. She picked up her shotgun.
The man, hearing her, ran to the window that he had come though. He was about halfway through when she gave him a helping hand. She open both barrels on him. Lucky for him the shells were bird shots. If she had been loaded with 00 Buck shot, it would have been bye bye.
The moral of the story is if you are going to mess with an old woman, before you do check her walking stick.