[PRCo] There Is Divine Intervention

[Herb Brannon]

Just an interesting Pittsburgh topic which occurred about three hours ago
in front of my apartment building.

I went to the IKEA store earlier today and had a moderately large bag full
of IKEA stuff for my apartment. I can walk in the front door of the
building and up one short flight of stairs right to the door of my
apartment or I can park in my parking space at the rear of the building and
walk up four (4) flights of stairs and two hallways to get to my front
door.

In addition to the IKEA bag I had my backpack and a carton of soda. This
was a lot of weight to carry up four flights especially considering my COPD.
So I decided to park at the front door at a spot on Brownsville and take
the stuff up then at some point come back down to take my truck to the
parking space at the rear of the building.

When I came down Brownsville Road from Stewart Avenue I noticed only the
spot I usually park in (if I park on the street) was open and this is
beside a nice tree about 30 or so feet tall which shades my front windows.
However, there were also all the children and their friends (at least six
kids) of the owner of the bodega three door south on Brownsville plus a
group of women who were on the sidewalk in front of my building and some
kids of theirs. I presumed them to be patrons of the laundromat two door
north of my building. These people were in addition  to several people just
coming and going on the sidewalk. So I decided to just avoid the congestion
and go around to Lachmann Way and park in my space then come up through the
building.

I parked, lugged my IKEA bag filled also with the soda and the backpack up
to the apartment, unlocked the door, went inside then placed the bag in the
living room and went to the front windows and looked outside.

Where Brownsville Road, just five minutes before, had been packed with
traffic, pedestrians, kids playing, women standing talking, and all parking
spaces filled except for the one I had opted out of, it was now a
completely clear parking lane all the way from Stewart Avenue to the
laundromat. The bodega owners kids and friends had vanished along with any
casual pedestrians and the women had gone back into the laundromat.

Then, in the flash of an eye there was a bumping sound, a screeching of
brakes, a loud impact sound, the 30 foot tree fell like a matchstick and
seemed to explode into several pieces and the building shook with an
impact. A car just driving down the street all of a sudden left the travel
land, came into the parking lane, knocked the tree down (splitting it into
five big pieces) and came to rest against the front door of the building.

Had all those cars, plus my truck been parked there, had all those children
been playing in that area of the sidewalk, had the women still been
standing talking and had all the other people on the sidewalk still been
there, no telling what the collateral damage may have been. Everybody and
everything moved from that area of the street and sidewalk just seconds
before the driver lost control.

It doesn't happen very often, in fact in the grand scheme of things, hardly
ever at all. There is Divine Intervention and it played out today in the
2800-block of Brownsville Road in Pittsburgh.





-- 
Herb Brannon
Back In The Burgh !
GO PENS !



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