Man Drives Family Home but Comes Up a Trifle Short

REDDING, Calif. — Like thousands of other people returning from a holiday trip, Kenneth Zimmer, 36, discovered when he got home that he had left something important behind.

But Zimmer’s case is more embarrassing than most. It seems he was driving from San Francisco to his home in Eugene, Ore., when he stopped 100 miles south of the California-Oregon border in Redding.

Zimmer told police that he left his wife, Pat, 36, and their five children sleeping in the back of their van while he had a cup of coffee. Then he got back in the vehicle and continued the final four to five hours of his drive home.

The children were all fine when Zimmer arrived home around dawn. But, no wife. Much to his chagrin, Zimmer realized she had gotten out of the van while he was sipping his coffee.

About six hours after Zimmer filed a missing person report with Redding police, his wife telephoned from the Eugene bus depot asking for a ride home. There were no reports of anything she may have said to her husband.