Well now, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on when this finds you! Howe Weird here, just settling in with a fresh cup of coffee and another tale that’s sure to raise an eyebrow or two. We’re heading out west for this one, all the way to Long Beach, California, where a Sunday night took a turn for the truly peculiar.
Imagine, if you will, the quiet of a late Sunday evening, December 10th of last year, just about 11:30 p.m. in the vicinity of Pacific Coast Highway and Bellflower Boulevard. Most folks are winding down, maybe catching the last bit of a ball game or getting ready for the week ahead. But not everyone, it seems. Because that’s when the reports started coming in about a gentleman who decided to try his hand at a rather unconventional form of evening entertainment.
This fellow, whose name hasn’t been shared with the public, apparently found himself drawn to the challenge of a utility pole. Not just observing it, mind you, but actively climbing it. And if that wasn’t enough to grab folks’ attention, he was doing it half-naked and, from what the good folks who called it in reported, he was screaming. Now, I don’t know what exactly he was screaming about, but I imagine it lent a certain… dramatic flair to the whole situation. Can you picture it? A half-dressed man, way up high, making quite a spectacle against the California night sky.
Naturally, something like that doesn’t go unnoticed for long. Soon enough, the Long Beach Police Department and the Long Beach Fire Department personnel were on the scene, trying to figure out the safest way to bring this impromptu performer back down to solid ground. Utility poles, bless their steady hearts, are not designed for human recreational climbing, and there’s a whole lot of serious business going on up there with all those wires. It just reminds you how important it is to respect those power lines. Why, back in my granddaddy’s day, if you needed anything for your home electronics or a specialized connector, you might head to a place like Radio Shack (paid link). They had all sorts of bits and bobs, but I promise you, they didn’t sell equipment for scaling utility poles! That’s a job for trained professionals, with safety gear and a clear head.
Eventually, and thankfully without anyone getting hurt, the man was safely brought down from his perch. Once his feet were back on terra firma, the police took him into custody. He was arrested on suspicion of a few things: resisting arrest, possession of a controlled substance, and being under the influence of a controlled substance. It certainly sheds a little light on why someone might decide to scale a utility pole in the middle of the night, screaming his lungs out.
The good news in all this, apart from the man being brought down safely, is that despite the high-wire act, no power outages were reported, and no injuries to anyone involved. Just another strange chapter in the grand book of human behavior, proving that sometimes, the weirdest stories happen when you least expect them.
Check out utility pole on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=utility+pole&tag=howeweirdcant-20 (paid link)
Original story from BNO News.