Have I ever told you about the time I caught a criminal?

It was spring in the early 1970s. My husband’s mother and father were visiting. My husband’s father had had several heart attacks. We were spending a quiet afternoon.

I heard an unfamiliar sound upstairs where our little girls were taking their naps. I checked on them, and they were just waking up. I still heard the sound so I went into the garden behind our building.

A man in dark blue denim was hanging from the windowsill of the top-floor apartment. Our tenants at the time were a young couple, and they had some strange friends, so I asked him, “Can I help you?”

He scrambled back through the window into their apartment.

I reconsidered. This was no guest. This was a robber. (The correct term is actually “burglar” but robber sounds more dramatic.) Continue reading →