Village Stories

Shelburne Vermont is the little Village I call home.  Our house is here, my shop is here, Matthew's shop is here, friends are here, it's home.  For those that have never visited or don't know much about Shelburne, I have decided to start a series on my blog called "Village Stories".  I didn't grow up in a village, so many of the experiences here are new to me, and either make me laugh, cry, or amazed with disbelief.  The first one I am going to share, made me both amazed with disbelief and laugh at the same time.

Shelburne has a great Coffee and Wine shop called "Village Coffee and Wine", it is just a quarter mile down the road from me, so Bea and I go several mornings a week for some good coffee and delishous scones.  We are greeted when we walk in with a big "Good morning B & B!" Bea picks out her treat and grabs us a seat.  Little Village living at its finest.

This past Tuesday,  Bea jumps in her pink John Deere wagon and we head off to the coffee shop.  I park the wagon by the side door as I always do.  Just after I pick her up out of the wagon, a woman driving a large Suburban backs right over the wagon!!  her trailer hitch rips through the wood side and bends the metal frame...

Poor Wagon!!!!

I figured the woman couldn't see it in the big suburban, no big deal, she would offer to fix and or replace it, right?  NOT even close to what happened next... I walk up to the woman who at this point is trying to drive away to tell her she just ran over our wagon, and she trys to deny it?!  then I show her and she says she is sorry and drives away!

Wait a second, this is not typical of Village living, what is going on here?!  I call Matthew to share my story and am in total disbelief that this woman actually just drove away.  He asked if I had called the police?  of course not, it's just a wagon, the police can't be bothered with something so petty.  Where I grew up, people didn't use wagons as a means of transportation, the police would laugh at a report like this.

Matthew takes it into his own hands and calls Chief Warden, who sends someone over right away to get a report.  In a village you actually call the chief of police "Chief".  At this point I can't believe that the police are even taking the time to talk to me about this?!  I give the officer the report and fully disclose that I don't expect him to be able to do anything about this, I didn't even get the woman's name, let alone her license plate.

Later that day I am walking home, Bea is behind me in our now delapetated wagon, and I run into the officer who took our report.  He said "I was just heading to see you", and gave me this...

He told me he would be hanging copies of this around town and will let me know if he hears anything.  Wait a second, do we live in the Wild Wild West now!?  I didn't know that you could still hang Wanted signs!?  At this point I am refraining from laughing since the officer is dead serious about this wagon situation!

As I am writing this, it has been a few days since the incident and while I haven't heard anything yet I can't help but chuckle.  In a small Village, the police make sure justice will be served, even it's only a wagon :)