Thursday continued

Sadly the walk down this street led to a major problem.  As we walked west we noticed a shop where they repaired musical instruments.  Just inside the shop window were two men working away with workbenches and wallsfilled with fascinating tools and parts.  We had to watch.  Harley was fascinated with the process and I with the tools many of which resembled the multitude of tools and such that I just aquired to learn jewelry making.  It was about 6:00 PM and we had been standing at the window about ten minutes when a man, obviously deranged, made a very hard running push at me on my left side.   It felt like a footballer tackling me although i must admit I've never played football.   The next thing I knew I was on the sidewalk on top of Harley who had been standing to my right.  I was stunned and couln't figure out what hit me.  The young man from the shop rushed out and helped me up.  Then, with some difficulty, he managed to get Harley on his feet.  Harley was somewhat out of it.  I had been cushioned by Harley's body and was not physically hurt, but Harley seemed to have problems.  The young man brought a chair to the door of the shop and got Harley seated on it so we could roll him inside.  He was totally confused and when I took off his hat we saw that his hair was very bloody and there was a wound near the top of the back of his head.  The young man immediately called the French equivalent of the rescue squad while the second man in the shop ran to try to catch the pusher.

The rescue squad people arrived after 5 to 10 minutes.  There were several of them. They washed off the wound and poured some stuff, I assume antiseptic, on it.  By this time Harley was less confused and feeling a bit better so we decided not to go to the hospital right away as they suggested.

In the meantime, man number 2 returned to the shop to tell us he had caught the man and he was now in police custody.  Next the police arrived at the shop to find out the details.  They asked us if we would be willing to come to the police station to make a statement.  We agreed and we followed one of the men the four or so blocks to the station where we sat for what seemed like a long time until they were ready to tal to us.

What followed was an agonizing attempt at a recapitulation of events with one policeman typing and one helping with the questions and me trying to answer in my limited French and policeman number two trying to help with his limited English.  After more than an hour I asked if the typing policeman was writing a novel or perhaps a detective story.

Finally they were satisfied and asked me to read the report on the computer.  (The reason I was doing all the talking and stuff, Harley couln't remember what had happened and has little French language ability.). The report was in French but was in quite straight-forward language so I could follow it.  I did catch a spelling error in the report which brought forth great guffaws from policeman number two.

They then printed off about six copies of the statement all but our copy requiring Harley's signature.

By this time Harley realized that his worst problem was not the head wound but a badly bruised right shoulder which he diagnosed as some of the muscle tendons having been pulled loose based on an accident he had had about forty years earlier.  This made signing statements a painful process.  As a final horror they asked that we see a doctor to get some sort of certificate for the police records!  We said we would the next day.  Enough already.

It was now 9:30 and we were tired and hungry.  So we started to walk back to the hotel, stopping in a small restaurant for some food.  Harley had onion soup and tea while I had more substantial food and drink.  Good food takes precedence over all, especially in Lyon which is supposed to have the best food in France.

Back at the hotel we got ready for bed.  Harley's shoulder problem necessitated a good deal of help since he couldn't and still today (Sunday) can't lift his right arm from the shoulder.

Side note:  policeman number two used to be a chef and suggested a very good restaurant for us to try-lemonade from the lemons.