I had taken off the summer of 2006 from work to stay home and contemplate returning to Sonoma State University. Barnes and Noble bought the state run bookstore and
the staff members were being moved to other departments. I really had disliked summers at SSU because I had absolutely no work for 2 months. There were very few students taking summer classes. I was trapped inside an office inside another office with no natural light. I would use my entire salary paying for daycare. I paid folks to have fun with my kids when I had to do nothing inside all day. It made me quite sad.
This summer I took a leave to be with my kids. It was a great time for all of us. We went on adventures with kids in the neighborhood and friends from Cameron and Jillian’s classes. We also spent a lot of time in our backyard.
We have a doughboy pool with an awesome deck around it. We also had a trampoline and a cool treehouse. We were always busy doing something or going somewhere.
This one particular day, we were hanging out in the backyard. It was around 10:30 or 11am. The kids were playing and I was gardening,
or more likely pulling weeds. We have a few retired couples that live in our cul de sac. A few teachers with summers off and another father that has a flexible schedule, as he is a wine rep. People were busy in our neighborhood while we were busy in our backyard. I heard an interesting sound like a boom. It caught my attention. I could not determine what it was but it only happened once. A little bit later, I heard another strange sound. At first, I thought it was a cat. It had
a muffled cat sound. I was very intrigued and listened carefully. Then it sounded like a tiny ‘help’ and then another ‘help’. I went out the back gate toward this sound. I looked behind our house on the pathway and saw nothing. I walked down the side path by our house. This path separates my house from my neighbors, Bev and jerry. Jerry is a retired Santa Rosa city employee. He worked at the shop that repaired all the cars and trucks for the city.
I still was hearing it so I followed the sound.
It appeared to be coming from Jerry’s yard. I walked up the front and then I saw the trailer in the yard and could see Jerry was trapped underneath. I ran over and lifted the trailer up as far as I could. I was trying to get it off his chest so he could breathe. Then I yelled “Help! We have to have help over here!” Josh, the wine rep had just come home on his lunch and heard me scream. He ran over, hopped the fence and together lifted the trailer up so Jerry could slide out from underneath. He had been working on it with jack stands and had knocked one over. That is when the trailer fell on him. That was the boom I heard before the cat like ‘help’. That was the day I saved Jerry’s life with Josh’s
help. He did not even have any cracked ribs to our surprise. He was very grateful and a little embarrassed.
Jerry and I belong to the same gym. From time to time, he will tell the story of how I lifted the trailer and saved his life. Very impressive!
