As long as we're telling on ourselves....
(but I still feel DUMB !!!)
We drove to Lubbock Thursday to keep an appointment for another catscan on my heart. Needed to get clearance from the heart doctor before I can have some badly needed leg surgery. I knew that I could not carry in the imaging center or the hospital where the doctor's office is as there are 30.06 signs clearly posted, so when we arrived there, I put my gun and holster in the center console of the car.
When we finished the medical appointments, we decided to eat at a restaurant just one block from the hospital.
After a nice meal, we walked outside to the parking lot. It was mid afternoon and our car was the only vehicle in the lot, parked in the first handicapped space in front of the building. As we left the restaurant, we both noticed a black male about 40 years of age coming around the corner of the building in our direction, probably about 15 yards away. He was walking fast, talking to himself in a loud voice while waving his left hand and arm. His right hand was not visible because of a sweatshirt he was carrying over his forearm. His overall dirty and ragged appearance immediately triggered all my internal alarms.
I walk with the aid of a cane and am not too fast because of my bad leg, so my wife was slightly ahead of me as she started to go around to her side of the car. I stopped for a second to switch the cane to my left hand in order to bring my right hand up to have it in close proximity of my holster as the man continued right towards me. The lapse in thinking that I referred to above was that I had not put my weapon on in that one block drive between the hospital and restaurant. It only took me a second to realize that I did not have my gun on me, remembering that it was still in the center console of the car. By that time the man was only a few steps from me, so I put the metal cane back in my right hand, thinking it would at least be something I could use for defense if I had to.
I was no more than 10 feet from the building and only a few feet from the drivers side of my car. Just as the man reached me, I stepped back so I kept my back to the building and keeping him between the car and myself. He was still talking to himself while staring at me, eyeball to eyeball contact. He passed me by and as he got to the front of my car, he noticed there was a large drainage ditch there filled with water. He stopped, then turned back towards me. He seemed to notice the cane and the way I was holding it, he then turned to walk in front of the car and off through the parking lot. By that time, my wife was already back around the rear of the car and at my side.
Was the man a danger to us, or just off his rocker a little ? I sure don't know..... but what I do know without a shadow of doubt is that I was not in a position to do much about it if he did have bad intentions. A lapse in thinking on my part could have been devastating.
There might be a positive side to all this though.... after it was all over, my wife told me that she thinks it is time for her to take the CHL course. Our 21 year old son already has his CHL, and I have been suggesting to her for a while that she take the course and get her CHL also. She has always shrugged it off by saying that she would normally always be with me and if I had my gun on, why should she need one ?
This incident seems to have convinced her that I'm getting so feeble minded that she might have to depend on herself, LOL !!