What do you keep in your basement? The Flood, Part Three

What do you store in your basement?

I wandered back up the road saying hello to anyone who looked me in the eye as I walked past in my proper clergy collar and jeans.  Just half a block away from the church, I thought.  On the way there it was time for me to check in with the community tent, the crisis relief centre that was set up at the Tennis court in the field across the street.

There were police, city workers and, on those first days, some remarkably young looking military troops in khaki greens and berets.  It didn’t seem odd to see them there since walking through the neighbourhood after the flood looked like walking through a war zone.  In a way it made sense that they were there.

At a table sitting beside a frazzled city worker was an elderly man.  He caught my eye because he was so…so proper.  He sat erect with grey, wavy hair and a slightly unkempt mustache.   I seem to recall a tweed jacket – but I might be filling in that detail.  I may not recall the jacket exactly…because his other attire was so….alluring.

He was wearing an ascot.

A man in an ascot at the crisis centre table.

The man is in my periphery.  I’m a little glazed.  I’m walking past the table and a young soldier (12 years old, may be?) asks me if I could please cross to the other side of the road.

“We’re dealing with an incident over here” said the nearly adolescent soldier.

So I walk away from the park and make my way back to the church – back to home base.

A few minutes later in the office one of the police officers who I had met before comes in clutching to handwritten pieces of paper.  

“An incident report, can I use your copier?”

Of course.

“An old man”, he says, “showed up at the community tent with a live grenade.”

Yup.

An old man in an ascot PLUS an ‘incident’ EQUALS an ancient but live grenade being rescued/redeemed from the relative safety of a basement.

So, I ask again, what do you store in your basement?

 © Tara Livingston