Story Archive

There’s a Fly, Get a Sledgehammer

According to Cheryl Crausewell, neighborhood kids “TP’d” her family’s Dora, Ala., home, throwing rolls of toilet paper into a tree in their front yard. Crausewell and her son cleaned up as well as they could, but there was still some toilet paper stuck in the tree. Crausewell decided to burn it out — lighting the toilet paper with her lighter. The wind blew a piece of burning paper into the yard. “It just popped out into a little patch and we tried to put it out and it just kept going, so I was trying to keep it from going down the front porch and came down the bank and around the back of the house,” Crausewell said. The fire spread into the backyard, where it’s believed a propane tank caught fire, and the house went up in flames. Nobody was hurt, but the house was destroyed. “I just realize life is really precious,” Crausewell said. “I mean, you know that already but it just brings it home how precious life is and all these things really don’t matter.” (MS/WBRC Birmingham) ...Brains are precious, too.