Local family buries the hatchet

By Tracy Farr
Editor, The Daily Spittoon

The beginning of a new year is a time when we reflect on the past and look forward to brand new beginnings; when we bury old grudges and pour out forgiveness like fine wine.  That is how Ed Stevens felt when he decided his family should be reunited after 27 years of estrangement.

“We thought it was time to bury the hatchet,” said Stevens, the oldest son of the Stevens clan.  “None of us are getting any younger, and time was slipping away because of old grudges that should have been buried a long time ago.”

When Ed Stevens dreamed of bringing the family back together again, his younger siblings were all for it – but they decided not to tell their parents.  They, instead, wanted to surprise them on New Year’s Day with a family reunion – a chance to begin the year with a fresh start.

Unfortunately, things did not go quite as planned.

According to police reports, 86-year-old Raymond Stevens called 911 at 1:30 p.m. saying, “There’s a lot of people in my house, and I want them out of here.”

“Sir, do you know any of these people?” asked the 911 operator.

“Yes!  I know every one of them and they refuse to leave.  I think they’re squatters because they brought enough food to feed an army.  And if they think they’re going to eat any of my leftover turkey and dressing, then they have another thing coming to them.   I want them out now!”

Fourteen minutes later a patrol car arrived at the scene.

“The owner of the house, Mr. Raymond Stevens, was very adamant that he wanted everybody out of the house,” said Patrolman Matt Rutledge.  “We were doing our best, but then someone threw a Key Lime pie, and the situation went south from there.”

Patrolman Rutledge and his partner, Lanny Tupes, made their way back to their patrol car to call Sheriff Max Welter for additional assistance.

“All Ed wanted to do was reconcile with his father,” said Mary Stevens, Ed Steven’s wife.  “Twenty-seven years is a long time to be angry about a bumper.”

According to Mrs. Stevens, in 1980, Raymond Stevens got his new Honda Civic stuck in the mud and called his eldest son for assistance.  When Ed Stevens arrived, he laughed at his father’s predicament, implying that his father must be getting too old to drive.

“He laughed at me and then he wanted to come to my house and bury the hatchet,” Raymond Stevens told investigators.  “Well I was more than happy to bury that hatchet right through the middle of his new Lexus’s bumper – but the pie was closer.”

When Ed Stevens had stopped laughing at his father’s car being stuck in the mud, he tied a rope around the car’s front bumper and tried to pull it out.  Unfortunately, he pulled the bumper off instead.

“That Honda was the first new car he’d ever owned and his bumper was lying in the mud tied to the back of my car,” Ed Stevens recalled as he wiped pie from his shirt.  “I was a young brat, and I didn’t take into account how he felt.  He had every right to throw that pie.  Boy, that old man still has an arm.”

When Sheriff Welter arrived, he and Patrolmen Rutledge and Tupes re-entered the house and found themselves in the midst of a full-fledge food fight.

“I couldn’t believe how much food was flying across that room,” said Welter.  “It was just like being in the middle of a Three Stooges movie.  Everybody was throwing food, everybody was ducking, everybody was being hit, and everybody was laughing, having a good time.  We decided to get out of there while the getting was good.”

Thirty-seven minutes later, the whole Stevens clan – two brothers and three sisters, their respective husbands and wives and children, plus Raymond Stevens and is wife Esther – emerged from the house, their clothes and faces covered with all kinds of smashed food.  They were all hugging each other as they apologized to Sheriff Welter for causing so much trouble.

“They should have done this 27 years ago,” Esther Stevens said of her husband and oldest son.  “At least they finally got it out of their system.  But they’re never getting another Key Lime pie from me again.  I refuse to be the supplier of their ammunition.”