The first step to being a Town Hero is by starting right at home, as was demonstrated by The Town Heroes’ Michael Ryan last night. A late night encounter in the backyard of vocalist/guitarist’s Tantallon, NS home, which resulted in a standoff – with Ryan wielding a lead pipe against a would-be burglar and surviving to tell one heck of a tale.
In a post made by Ryan this morning, he detailed the events that unfolded in the wee hours, albeit with a few blessedly gentle euphemisms to spare our delicate sensibilities.
“Last night was fairly interesting. Just as myself and Kristen we’re heading to bed, we saw online that our neighbour had someone try to break in. I figured I should go make sure our shed was locked. I grabbed my lead pipe (a beautiful wedding present) for safety and went outside.
Something felt a little weird. I followed the path through my yard and saw fresh footprints (I watched 2 episodes of “Man Tracker” so am able to recognize this) coming from the woods. The prints led to my wood shed. I heard a crash inside and realized that the person(s) was inside.
I did the opposite of softly saying, ‘I’m glad you’re in my wood shed, would you like a cup of tea?’
He said he had an axe. I said I had a lead pipe. He stepped out of the shed. He was barefoot and looked like he was hard into the bath salts – not the kind you give your mother for Christmas.
We had a typical conversation that you have at midnight, in the dark, in the woods: ‘What did you have for supper?’, ‘Pet any nice cats today?’ etc…
He came towards me and I didn’t know if he actually had any weapons. I gave him the ol’ Port Hood ‘you-wanna-go’ shove to the chest and knocked him to the ground.
By this point I saw the cops arriving. Kristen had called 911 since I was speaking so softly and saying such nice things to the man. He got up and bolted through the woods. The cop came and we followed his footprints and found him on the neighbours deck where he was arrested.
This morning, when I went to the ‘scene’, I found $20 bucks on the ground, so definitely worth it all.”
Ryan assures us that his re-telling of the events is generally factual, though says its probably for the best that no one was there to document the colourful language that had been employed in the heat of the moment.
“There was certainly a whole lot of yelling happening from me, since I didn’t know what I was actually coming across. Kind of like if you come across a bear in the woods. You go absolutely apeshit and make as much noise as you can because you’re scared shitless yourself,” says Ryan. “If anyone had the transcripts of what I said, they’d probably arrest me.”
Ryan also notes that he will be performing a solo show tonight while celebrating an early birthday at Dartmouth’s Brightwood Brewery from 8pm- 10pm. Birthday cake will be supplied.