Douglas fire

Downtown Douglas was hit by an explosion and fire Wednesday morning. A man drove his car into the side of a building, striking gas lines to the apartments and business. The building blew up and caught on fire. It burned to ground, leaving six people homeless.

No one was hurt in the fire.

The building housed the Center Stage Salon. That's where my wife, her mother and the kids get their hair cut. Elspeth had an appointment there Saturday. Now, we need to find another place. Small worry compared to what all those people need to think about this morning.

On the news

The report of the explosion first came over local TV. Jayne's mom saw it and yelled from her bedroom. I called The Sentinel right away. They hadn't heard it yet, but got on it right away.

My next call was to The Respite coffee shop in Douglas -- What if that was the place that exploded? Jayne and I have been going there for more than a decade and are friends with the owners. Jayne used to work there. The person who answered told me the fire was a block away and that my sacred House Blend coffee was safe -- for now.

Here's where the humor sets in.

I turned back to WOOD-TV channel 8 to watch their coverage and they brought back the Ted Baxter of West Michigan from retirement -- Tom Van Howe. He lives just across the river from the fire site.

I think I wrote about him in a blog a few months ago. He retired in November. He stammered, coughed and missed his cues for 25 years. He just sucked. That's all I can really say.

Well, I thought maybe that, in his four-month-long absence, my memory of his ineptness had grown to mythological proportions -- maybe I was exaggerating his badness.

No. No.

As I watched him stammer, cough and miss his cues at the fire scene during the live broadcast, heard him get yelled at by the fire fighters because he was too close to the scene, and listened to him report rumors and unsubstantiated information, it all came back.

Thought: Old anchormen never die. I wish they'd just fade away.