 Northwoods Vacationland Album |
Promoting Happier Living Through Fond Memories ... Site Map |
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Northwoods Vacationland Album |
Promoting Happier Living Through Fond Memories ... Site Map |
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Caption reads: Deer damage
Thanks to Annette Smith of Smith
Realty
Smith Realty Read
More Wonderful Memories of Hayward
|
Thanks to Annette Smith
of Smith Realty
Was she looking for that perfect wild 40 to call her own, a lovely lakeside cottage, or a rental unit in which to put a few stray bucks? Actually, she found a place to crash for a few minutes. But for Ella and Annette Smith, it was a too-close encounter of the wild kind. The Smiths are used to seeing deer near their home outside Hayward, but the large doe which came "In like a bull" through the open door of the Smith Realty office onWest Second Street in downtown Hayward about 3:30 p.m. Friday, May 20, was a happening beyond human comprehension. The deer, which had been spotted earlier behind Pastika's Sport Shop a few blocks to the south and then coming up the alley behind the Hayward Inn, left a litter of papers, blood, and ruined copy machine in the wake of its frightened rampage through the realty office. Ella was sitting at her desk and Annette was standing in front of it when the doe came running in the door. "It was lucky the door was open. Otherwise, she would have come through (the glass) at the rate she was going," Annette said. "She wouldn't have been able to get out." And "It was lucky there wasn't a bunch of people in here," Ella said. The doe leaped against the office wall near the desk and pounded on it with its hooves. Ella grabbed her white angora cat and ran up the stairs to an upper office, with the deer right behind her. The animal turned into another office, where the Smiths' small Collie-Airdale dog cowered under a desk. It leaped over the desk, leaped back, and went out, banged against the door separating the office from Swanson's Jewelry store, and ran back down the hall, as Annette shut the office door behind it. Meanwhile, her mother was phoning the sheriff's department, where the dispatcher found the story hard to believe. "It sound like somebody was fighting in there," said Sally Swanson of Swanson's Jewelry. The doe then turned into the office vault, jumping on top of the copy machine twice and knocking down a paper cutter, cutting its mouth in the process. Property listing files were left strown on the floor. The Smiths were finally able to shoo the deer out of the office with the help of someone else who came in. It was seen running past Inhoff Drugs on the corner of Second and Main and past the Fran-Mar apartments, toward Shoe's Pond. Fur and blood were left on papers, on the wall in two places and on some jackets. "It's as close as I've been to one for a long time." Ella said, "The only thing worse would have been a bear." The whole episode was missed by owner Frank Smith, who was
in the Grindstone Lake area at the time. |
