A few days before July 4, 2002, I read a Letter to the Editor written by my former husband, Tom Montoya, in which he lambasted city dwellers for coming out into the country to set off fireworks leaving a mess on the gravel roads and in the ditches.   He lived on an acreage and was very tired of cleaning up after the city dwellers.

 

On July 6th, I was searching ditches north of the airport in Sioux Falls looking for sage to cut for the Native inmates.  I didn’t find much sage, but I did find a big mess of spent fireworks debris.  I put it into sacks and took it home.  I knew Tom was out-of-town so my husband and I drove out to his place and I emptied the debris in his driveway.

 

When he returned, he was furious and accused his wife’s teenage son of shooting off fireworks in the driveway.  The more the son denied it, the angrier he became.  He ranted the next day during coffee break at his office.  Our daughter worked for him and knew what had happened.  She finally burst out laughing and his suspicion turned to me.

 

The next day he was beaming ear to ear when he arrived at work.  He told our daughter he got even with me.  She asked him what he did.  He told her he put all the debris in front of my house after dark.  She asked him if he had remembered I had recently moved.  He had not.  I wonder what the new owners of my previous house thought when they found the mess!

 

Mary Montoya