UNSOLVED: THE MYSTERY OF THE THIEF

Fred Moore

© 2009 by Author

Whoever said, “truth is stranger than fiction” nailed it! Today, about noon, Carol and I were returning from having lunch in downtown Adana; we’re moving through the very disorderly haphazard traffic which runs on the local divided highway that transects our city. You know the one, I’ve mentioned it before; it's supposed to be six lanes and is actually however many that drivers decide, period.

Our drive was seemingly going well, they hadn’t irritated me too badly nor had I gotten all that frustrated by the unexpected, when just a few car lengths in front of us is a large tandem-axle stake-rack truck, on the tail of which was a young man, perched bare foot on the very thin edge of the rear deck, holding precariously to the top of the stake racks. The lip this young fellow has chosen to balance on wasn’t more than two inches wide. All the racks are in place and the truck is full with its tarp cover pulled full over the mystery load. The young man, holding on to this moving vehicle, had one arm tucked into and over the tailgate boards. With his other hand he was fishing for something.

Keep in mind we’re moving at 45 and 50 miles an hour, and there are cars and trucks all around us, and I’m sure we’re all watching this little play work itself out. We’re beginning to discover with a little deductive reasoning (we’d been debating the “what” as we drove along behind this affair) the truck had a very fresh load of watermelons. As we came to that conclusion, we too were nearing an intersection and a red light.

The melon made its appearance and the young fellow had a football like hold on it and was then making his escape. He meticulously made his way down the back of the truck and just seconds before it stopoed, he was off and running through all the slowing traffic! There was some commotion over the incident as several folks had observed the performance and were in pursuit of the thief; horns were blaring from two trucks including the one who lost the produce but the light had now changed and we had to leave without witnessing the apprehension or full escape of the watermelon man.