The stranger in this news video lives two doors down from the house I grew up in. He dated my best friend in the late 70s/early 80s. We used to have make-out contests together with my boyfriend out in the alfalfa field. Who can kiss the longest without ruining a shirt with saliva. We won. M was a drooler.
In later years he asked all of the women in my family out, my mom included, during one of the breakup periods before she and my stepdad finally got married (after a dozen breakups and 25 years). M moved back home to help take care of his mom and tend the garden and the house. He seems like a solid everyman kind of guy. We wave across the backyards when I’m home for visits in the summer. He in his garden, me in my step dad’s.
My mom and stepdad were also home when the crash happened and they were the ones who called the police, then rushed out with blankets and pillows to hold the woman’s hand while they waited for help to arrive. Those were some Holy Shit flames and he pulled her from the car while it was seriously one fire without getting either of them hurt. I can only imagine the adrenaline rush he must have felt. I could hear it in my mom’s voice when she called me to tell the tale after the ambulance had driven away.
I probably should have let him kiss me when I was 17.
