Let It Be?

This morning Willow and I routinely went on our walk. It was about 6:15.

As we walked by a house about three blocks away I noticed the flickering of a flame on the corner of the back and side of a house.

I had just finished listening on my ipod LET IT BE from a John Lennon album and at the present LET IT BE was being played by the Beatles.

LET IT BE? Was that a message I was receiving from the heavens, to let it be? I just couldn’t let it be.

I walked up in the yard for a closer look. Sure enough, a flame was gently flickering on the side of the house. It seemed to be getting bigger. I noticed it had a blue base which told me it was a clean flame, probably gas. I think it was a gas leak.

I didn’t know what to do. I banged on the brass door knocker to wake the two women, a mother and a grown daughter, up. Nobody came to the door.

I went back to the street, mostly to walk off my nervous feeling which was developing into a hyper mode.

A pickup truck was coming down the street. I jumped out and waved him down. At first he was hesitant to stop, but he finally did. I told him the situation and he and I went and looked again at the flame. He asked me to try the door again and I did. They still didn’t come to the door. He asked did I want him to call 911. I said I did. He called. Then he drove away.

I waved him down for a second opinion and for someone to call 911. He served his purpose, I suppose he had other fish to fry.

Then a man who lives across the jeep came out with his dog. Sometimes when Willow and I walk his dog and Willow has nose to nose and ass to nose contact. He walked over and I updated him to why I was just standing there, in front of his house.

As I was talking to him I heard the wailing of a siren blocks away. It got louder and louder and then red-lights came over the hill flashing. The tree leaves seemed to be flashing as well. A fleet of two or three fire trucks and two or more other flashing emergency vehicles pulled up.

Willow started jumping and bucking, trying to break from me and run. Big vehicles rumbling always scare her.

I pointed them to the fire. One fireman, all dressed up in his fire-fighting uniform ran over with another fireman with a camcorder running close behind him. Then other fireman got out of their fire trucks and came over. They studied it and walked around the house. I think they were looking for a knob they could turn the gas source off, which they must have found. The flame stopped.

The man with the dog and I wondered about the mother and daughter inside. They had not come outside yet. He said he knew they were there because they only have one vehicle, a jeep, and it was parked around back.

I wondered if the leaking gas had done damage to them.

Then, we saw in the middle of the firemen was the mother in a robe talking to the firemen. Good! she is alive. And I think her daughter must be fine too, or she wouldn’t be standing there with her arms folded talking.

I told the man with the dog a quote my home remodeling contractor told me years ago, “There is no better security than a nosy neighbor.”

It appeared my quote unnerved the man. He seemed to have grimaced. He had probably had his fill of nosy neighbors. He and another man live together.

All’s well that ends well.