Rough neighborhood!

A friend of mine in G-town had her grandfather living across town. R---- was a very little old man. He was probably about 5' and weighed about 130lbs. He was an immigrant and a small scrappy man. His house was falling down around him and he refused to have anyone else work on it. He patched holes in the floor with plywood and laid the carpet back down over it. He hoarded things, as a leftover from the depression era. He was an odd little man, but nice to most people. One time I went to visit my friend's mother who was dying from cancer at the time. R--- was in the kitchen, working on a light switch with the power lines still hot. As I walked in, sparks were flying everywhere! Now some electricians know how to do hot work, but R--- was not an electrician.
One night the police called my friend. They said that R----, the grandfather was in the psychiatric ward over in the hospital 25 miles away. She was shocked! What happened? How did he get there? The officer explained. "Last night your grandfather was out on his front lawn shooting a handgun. The neighbors called us. We know he's an old man and he seemed a bit confused, but he wouldn't put his gun down." they explained how when they arrived, R---- wouldn't listen to them. He kept talking about needing to shoot the bad guys. They explained that there were no bad guys. He said they were hiding behind his car. They explained that they were police officers and he really needed to lay his gun down. He refused. They begged. They argued. They negotiated. All to no avail. They didn't want to use force to disarm him. After about an hour, they convinced him to go inside his house to talk about it. As soon as they entered the house, R--- put the gun on the table and settled down. The police then, using some force if I remember right, convinced him that he needed to go get some help. They took him to the psychiatric unit and left him for evaluation. My friend called the hospital as soon as she got off the phone with the police. She talked to the nurse who explained that he appeared to have "sun downers syndrome." This is where a person becomes agitated each evening and stays agitated until sun up. R--- had been pacing the ward the entire night. In fact he was up around the clock for several days and nights until they found the right medication for him. When my friend talked to her grandfather, she asked, "Grandpa, why wouldn't you put your gun down? They could have shot you!" He paused...stood up straight... and said...." I did." She said, "No you didn't." He said, "Yes I did, as soon as we got in the house." "Well," she asked, "why didn't you do that outside?" He looked her square in the eye, paused for dramatic affect, and said like John Wayne, "Because a cowboy never lays his gun in the dirt."