Mayberry R.F.D.

If Don Knotts lived in Silver Lake (which is impossible because he is deceased...I digress) he would have been on overload this week. I don't believe one of Aunt Bee's picnic baskets would have calmed ol' Barney fife down.

We had quite a week here in the sleepy little suburban community. I've heard more sirens in the past 72 hours than I have in the three years I've lived here.

Tuesday started out as a normal day, until a domestic broke out around the corner. I guess the dweller decided he didn't want to come out of the house, which is fine and I hold nothing against the guy. Turns out, from the stories I've heard, he's a very nice man with some problems. I don't think we probably needed Shawnee County Sheriffs Office S.W.A.T armored and ready to go. Come on, my tax dollars were just wasted for what could have been labeled a training exercise. He didn't want to come out of the house, it wasn't like we had a Lansing escapee in lock down holding children at gun point. The guy was alone in the house.

The negotiator was fun to listen too, I felt like I was in some Samuel L. Jackson cop thriller and Colin Farrell was about to go apeshit in a basement full of neatly stacked blocks of narcotics. Yep, the scene of the fiasco was that close to our house folks, we could hear the bullhorn blaring. It all calmed down when he came out and they all yelled "put your hands up in the air!" and things died down and the cop lights stopped circling on the downtown building fronts. By 8:45 town was back to normal.

It wasn't normal for long.

Thursday at about 2:30 in the afternoon a motorist on highway 24 called in a fire. Keep in mind that Thursday we reached record highs in Shawnee County, 86 was the reported high. Mix high temperatures with winds out of the south blowing at a steady twenty miles per hour - a small brush fire quickly turns into burning plains. I knew something was wrong when there were sirens heard at school, more sirens than Silver Lake has emergency workers. As I left school and headed for the house it was clearly apparent that the chaos had once again ensued - in our neighborhood. It was so smokey I could barely make out street signs. This is when I got a little bit nervous. I couldn't see flames, but where there is smoke there is fire.

I pull into the drive and there are cops everywhere. I am even seeing cop cars I don't recognize so I know they've called in reinforcements. The street over from the house was completely blocked off and smoke was pouring in from behind a row of houses on the next street. This can't be good. Then I notice little charred flakes floating in the air, again, probably not a good thing. I go in and check out the local news, and they've got nothing so I hit up the next best place to find out breaking news - the post office. Joyce tells me that it's been going down for about an hour and the trucks and crazy gawkers have been out in full force. She also tells me that our neighbor is worried because she has severe asthma and isn't sure how long she'll be able to breathe the smokey air. (I added that irrelevant tidbit so you'll realize just how credible the post office is, and how current it is on the breaking news front).

I head back home and pass the neighbor sitting on his tailgate sucking down a longneck watching the chaos. It's then I realize that I live in a pretty cool place. Where else can you get this kind of quality entertainment for free? Republic, Kansas...that's where. This place feels more and more like home every day I live here.

I head home and get on the horn, I gotta tell somebody what the hell is going on and then I hear a chopper and look up. The Kansas Highway Patrol is hovering and then circling and then sits down a big helicopter yards from the house. This is getting interesting. He's down for a few minutes before returning to the sky and he circles, and circles again before he returns to the makeshift helipad. A few people and a daycare have voluntarily evacuated, but to be honest I think they were all standing in the street. I guess evacuating is leaving your house, so technically they had evacuated.

All this time I'm standing in my front yard checking out the excitement. I realize at this point, I'm not better than all the people who have started to make the 'slow drive by's' I know they are doing this because I could recognize the people driving by and they don't live in our neighborhood, nor do they have any reason to be there at three in the afternoon. They're checking out the excitement just like I am. The difference is I'm standing in my lawn and not in anybody's way.

I finally retreat when things start to calm down and dusk sets in. By now the news is around and the newness has worn off, things are getting back to normal. The only difference is there's a huge barbecue going on behind the treeline.

Turns out Silver Lake, has an actual lake - or did. The lake bed caught on fire and was burning quickly. The fire department worked the perimeter first because they feared for our neighborhood. At one point flames were fifty feet behind the row of homes. A little too close for comfort. They were still watching it burn last night and this morning when I went to get the mail they still had police stationed at the entrance to the street. By noon all was well again and town was back to normal.

Well, as normal as a small town can be.