After high school graduation, having never gone hardly anywhere, my buddy and I decided we'd drive down to CA, visit San Francisco, Fisherman's Wharf, Haight-Ashbury, the Boardwalk at Santa Cruz, and Monterey. So we did, camping illegally wherever we found ourselves, discovering that while the sun and beach sand were hot, the ocean was cold. I mean it's California, shouldn't the ocean be warm? Oh well, . . .

On the return trip we got off course, and must have been around Sacramento and were at a stoplight in a little town called Auburn. The Pontiac GTO in front of us had 4 teenage boys, not that that had anything to do with us. But at the green light they took off burning rubber, accelerating like they were drag racing. My buddy was driving and sped up also, not that the other car had anything to do with us. Just that we were 18, and the only reason for driving 80 mph was if conditions weren't suited to going 90, or more.

Mostly I was reading the map, looking to get us back on route, when I looked up ahead and over the slight hill crest saw a huge dust cloud and flying toothpicks. As we crested the hill, we could see that the GTO had gone off pavement on the right, over-corrected and flew off the road on the left, striking and breaking a utility pole nearly 10 feet above ground level. This was an ugly scene. My buddy thought we should leave, so we did, as other cars stopped, and other people seemed to have a better idea about what to do. After we left, I thought we should return because we were nearly eye witnesses, and maybe the police would want to talk with us. OK, so I wasn't the brightest hillbilly from south county.

We drove back to the scene of the accident, and everything proceeded to go downhill. The driver of another car reported that we had been racing the wrecked car because both our car and the GTO had passed him going over 100 mph. At 18 I was more than slightly sarcastic. I asked the driver how he could possibly know we were going over 100 mph unless he was going 100 mph, at which point the country deputy separated the other driver, me, and my buddy.

Apparently all this mattered because at least in those days, if two cars were racing and there was an accident involving only one, the drivers of both vehicles could be held responsible. We didn't know this at the time. And one of the other 4 kids died, and one other looked like he might not make it. And the deputies didn't know that it was perfectly normal for me to study a map and not pay attention to our speed as we cruised along over 90 mph, therefore being able to truthfully say I had no idea how fast we were going. And I wasn't going to mention that.

So we visited the county jail in the little town of Auburn, me driving my buddy's car following the deputies, and were interviewed, interrogated, but not waterboarded, and eventually the local district attorney came in after hours to visit us tourists and talk more with us. One of the deputies commented to me about my attitude toward the situation, and I replied I had serious attitude issues with being wrongly accused. I told him we were just tourists trying to find the right road back home, that I really didn't know how fast my buddy was driving, that I wasn't about to speculate on it either, since it didn't appear to be in our interest to do so. They gave us a hard time, because the circumstantial evidence could be interpreted as two cars with teenage drivers racing. But in the end, the DA decided we didn't need to stay the night in their jail and could leave, which we did.

As my buddy backed up his car to leave, I said we should probably wait until we were out of the jail parking lot before getting a couple well-deserved beers out of the trunk that they never asked to search.

The story didn't end because even after getting back home, weeks and months later, I was subpeoned to testify locally at my buddy's dad's attorney's office about the accident. I guess I was a hostile witness because I thought they were still trying to pin something on us, but I think there was a criminal and civil trial and lawsuit of the GTO driver.


My next police experience was with local county deputies and had a much happier ending. The next autumn four of us turned 19 and decided to have a kegger b'day party one friday night. We were getting things set up at the gravel pit as other friends drove back into town to bring more kids to the party. We got the keg pumping smoothly and sang a few traditional drinking songs. Then after a couple small beers I got in my car to drive out the railroad access road to go pick up my GF when a county mountie car drove in lights ablazin' and telling me to stay in my car, and my friends to not move. While they were putting the four of us and the confiscated keg in the back of the patrol car (yeah, quite funny) the kids who'd gone to town came back and started down the dirt road, saw the patrol car and reversed out of there, but for a friend who'd been riding on the hood of the lead car ran off across the field to the house of a good farmer friend.

Anyway we were questioned about the source of the keg, to which I replied that it doesn't matter -- Oh you tell us where you got it and it'll go a lot easier on you guys -- and on and on, so I asked if they had any cups or something so we could drink as much of the keg as possible before we got to the jail, since it was sitting in our laps. So we get to the jail, and the keg is sequestered for some upcomming deputy party we think, and we all get fingerprinted and now have criminal records to go with our high school diplomas, SAT scores, and basketball trophy, etc. Fortunately is was pay day, and between us we came up with the $25 bail apiece, and were allowed to leave.

However, my car was still out at the gravel pit. And my GF was at the high school waiting for me to pick her up, and I was very late. And by coincidence a deputy on the radio talking with the deputy at the jail drove by my GF and asked what she was doing (the event she'd been there for was long over). So I told the deputy to tell the other deputy to tell my GF what happened, so she walked downtown from the school and called her dad, and she and he drove to the county jail to pick me up. I thought this was gonna' be the end of going out with this girl, but her dad was really cool and said if this was the worst trouble I ever got it, things were gonna' be all right. I knew I liked her dad. And things were all right. But most of that keg of beer was enjoyed by someone other than the birthday boys.

Sg