My Skirmishes With The Law
From early on, my relations with the police have been iffy. When I was a kid,
boys and cops were natural enemies. Oh, nothing dramatic, no guns or drugs;
the items under dispute were only our jackets. These we used as goal posts
when we played soccer in the street. The cops hated street soccer, and raided
our games periodically. We ran away of course, after which they confiscated
our jackets.Then we had a choice: to tell our parents what had happened, or
to go to the local police station and get hell there. We always opted for the
police station. The cops would bawl us out, give us our jackets and lock us
up. But they always left a window open for us to escape. They were our
enemies, but they were okay, too. We were not quite so sure of our parents.
As a student my skirmishes with the police shifted to the arena of morals, in
particular making out. The police hated that as much as street soccer. In a
Calvinist country like Holland, cops were the first defense against lust. We
didn't have cars for privacy, and smooching on moving bicycles required too
much agility. So, during spring break, we hitchhiked to Paris with our girl
friends for a holiday from the police. We were not entirely home free there
either, though. I remember kissing my beloved on a park bench, when a
Parisian policeman asked me politely if he should get us a bed perhaps. With
my poor French, it was a bad situation all around.
Sometimes you could argue with the police. Once I was stopped for having no
red rear light on my bike, as the lens was broken. In an excess of student
hubris, I explained that white light actually contained all colors, so red
was certainly in there somewhere. The cop let me go with a warning. I still
don't know why. Times were different then.
I had to think of that occasion the other day when I was fined forty dollars
for speeding, as I came off I-80 onto Dubuque street. The officer who gave me
the citation was a polite young man.
"You were doing 45 mph in a 35 mph zone, sir," he said.
I was going to explain to him that our brains need time for adjusting. When
you've been going 65 on the freeway for hours, you can't adjust to 35 in
seconds. "Studies have shown that, officer, trust me," I was going to say.
But suddenly I felt too old for games. And too mellow. It's time to throw in
the towel, I thought, let younger people carry on.
"I guess you're right, officer. I'm sorry," I said.
At Random - Adrian Korpel
