When we travel, Joanne and I always--well, nearly always--drive. We make an exception when we go to a foreign country like Italy, Japan, or Texas. Then we usually fly. But driving is our preferred mode of travel.
We have traveled enough in our lives to know that it's not the destination so much that satisfies one's wanderlust. It's all about the journey. As my old man always said: It's not the bein' there ... it's the gettin' there. I never knew if he meant vacation or life.
We have taken some trips over the years that could fill volumes of National Lampoon movie scripts. The Griswold adventures driving the Family Truckster to Wally World would read like some banal article in the Style section of this newspaper in comparison to some of our more frenetic misadventures. Like one of our trips to visit Joanne's folks in Florida. We always eschew the 18-wheeler parking lot (aka I-40) and travel on the roads printed in gray in our Rand McNally.
Dear reader, if you haven't opted out of the red, orange, and blue roads in your Rand McNally and ventured out on the gray roads where, as Captain Kirk so aptly put it, "... to boldly go where no man has gone before," then you haven't lived.
So there we were, heading generally east on some gray road through the bucolic Delta country of Eastern Arkansas. As we approached the city limits of some small town (which shall remain unnamed ... but most of you can guess, I'm betting), I looked over at Joanne, who was absorbed in her Kindle. I asked her, "Honey, what is it about this town that I am supposed to remember?"
Apparently she was reading a particularly titillating chapter of some Lust in the Dust and didn't hear me. Or more than likely, as is pretty much the norm anymore, she simply chose to ignore me. So I looked back at her and asked again, "Sweetie, what is it about this place? There's something I'm supposed to remember."
Before she could click her Kindle, some annoying flashing blue lights in the rearview mirror caught my attention. Lord knows how long those pesky pulses of blue had been there. Then I remembered: Speed trap. I felt like I was in a Geico commercial: "everybody knows that." One of the most notorious in the state.
Begrudgingly, I pull over. "Going kinda fast there, weren't cha, buddy?" he says as he leans over into my window. His considerable girth, no doubt the product of years and years of being a doughnut-shop aficionado, required that he lean precariously forward in order to get within normal speaking distance.
"I ... I .. didn't think I was, officer," I mumble. He smiles the knowing smile of a well-seasoned, veteran police officer. He had obviously learned his trade well. His sole reason for being there ... the only occupational responsibility that was listed on his job description was: Revenue Generator. There was no mention of public safety. Law enforcement. Or keeping the peace. Just that singular objective. The only thing he was measured by every year when his supervisor met with him over a variety pack of fresh doughnuts to review his job performance was Revenue Generator.
I can hear them now, his supervisor, the equally corpulent police chief, says: "Obie (that's not his real name. His real name is Rosco), your brother in accounting tells me you done had yourself a pretty dang good year." "Yes sir, I did," Obie replies, wiping some creamy white stuff that exploded out the side of an overstuffed long john. Performance review ... finished. After a perfunctory slap on the back and an official attaboy from the equally corpulent police chief, they get down to the real reason they were there. Six long johns and two bear claws remain in the variety pack.
So here's Obie, pulling me over in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot. Smiling that smile. Struggling to extract his well-worn, leather-bound citation book from his well-worn back pocket stretched banjo-tight across his considerable ... um ... you know.
Joanne finally looks up from her Kindle and asks, "What the heck is going on?" but in language that was several shades bluer than Obie's annoying blue lights. Joanne has never said "heck" in her life. "'Scuse me ma'am?" a wincing Obie says. Again Joanne lets go with her colorful inquiry that would have made a retired merchant mariner cringe.
He explains to her that I was about to get a citation for a litany of offenses: reckless driving, evading an officer of the law, high-speed chase, endangering the public safety, oh ... and speeding.
"How fast?" Joanne asks. "37 in a 35 speed zone," Obie answers. Joanne laughs. "Oh no! Best lock him up there, Obie, is it?" She squinted to read his red and white plastic name tag. "We all could have been killed."
Obie tells me that I best get control of the "little lady."
Well, that was all it took. She let go with a rebuttal to his sexist slur with a spiel that would have required the technician who inserts those little bleeps on the Cops television show to just keep his finger pressed on the bleep machine's little red button.
Now let me say one thing in defense of officer Obie. At least he was kind enough to give me and Joanne adjacent cells for the night.
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Bill Rausch is a freelance writer from Little Rock. Email him at williamrausch25@yahoo.com.
Editorial on 03/28/2015