An elderly man is alive today thanks to quick thinking from an Auburn woman.

Auburn police say Earl Moorman, 75, was riding a motorized scooter on Washington Street and got stuck on the tracks. Ashley Aldridge, 19, who lives near the tracks, heard the man screaming for help and bolted out the door.

Aldridge pulled Moorman out in the nick of time and carried him to safety. Aldridge, by the way, weighs about 130 pounds. Moorman? About 200.

The wheelchair was destroyed.

Police told Aldridge it was an Amtrak train speeding through town at 81 mph.

Both Moorman and Aldridge were uninjured, though Aldridge says she’s shaken up by the ordeal.

In other state news, projections cited in a recent story by the Reuters news service say Houston will surpass Chicago in population within ten years: 2.7 million for Houston to 2.5 million for Chicago.

It can’t be the weather. Can it?

Experts speculate that it is caused by things from the cost of living all the way down the spectrum to economic development.
They also say it’s a state problem, not one of, say, Chicagoans moving to the suburbs.