At 12:06a on the day before Thanksgiving, I walked outside to greet Steve as he arrived from San Francisco. Not only did I find a Steve, but I also found a river of water running down the street, over the curb and into the ocean. So we went searching for the source - and we found it promptly: not 10 minutes before, someone had driven their car quite carelessly over the curb, the street sign, and finally the fire hydrant. Busted that bugger right off clean. I always pictured a lot of water coming out of a hydrant that was busted off in the middle of the night before Thanksgiving, but the reality of this one far exceeded my expectations. There was a column of water shooting easily 30 ft in the air (I remember noticing that it was twice the height of the nearby light pole, however high that is). The firemen, police officers and pajama clad onlookers were just kind of standing around doing nothing. I believe they were waiting for some utility dude to turn some valve somewhere because when we brought Dad back a few minutes later, it was dwindling rapidly......yes, I woke him up, because yes, he would have been mad if I didn't.
