I just noticed Ken’s description of our 1975 encounter with a cop on the way back from the West Coast (I think we were somewhere around Dryden) in his comment to the pic of Gabe’s grave. I tried to post this as a comment to the picture, but the system won’t allow comments with HTML tags and, as an unrepentant typographer, I hate it when I can’t use real quotation marks and paragraph breaks. So here’s another angle on that event.
Since I was the driver of the car at the time, the cop seemed to be giving me the most hassle. He found the bag of oregano in the back window and immediately asked me what I thought it was (he must have mistaken me for a botanist). I declined to be precise and replied “Garbage,” with an innocent shrug of my shoulders. It wasn’t, apparently, the answer he preferred, and he thought I’d have a better one for him if he could find a bigger sample.
Assuming there must be a whole lot more in the trunk, he demanded, impolitely, that I open it. The trunk was crammed with our stuff as well as countless precious copies of various commie rags (that’s newspapers, not our clothes) that we were retrieving for posterity. Fortunately, he wasn’t a quick reader, so didn’t arrest us for that. However, the thought of sifting through all that stuff for a bigger payload of oregano put him off a bit. Obviously trying to make things easier for us, he asked me, “Have you got any more in here?”
“What, more garbage?” I asked.
That didn’t go over too well, but fortunately, just as he was losing his temper, Gabe raced by, as Ken has pointed out. The cop, torn by conflicting obsessions (fast cars vs. drugs), dumped out our last (visible) supply of oregano and took off in pursuit.
Oh, and while that had been going on, Gary was getting grilled about the fact that the car’s back window also contained a credit card with a name on it that didn’t match any of ours. Remember that, Gary? And the name on the card?
Oh yes, I do remember that protective piece of plastic. I can't remember who gave it to us, or the name that was one it (it wasn't one of those infamous OJ Calvert or OJ Culvert cards), but it was there in case we ran into an emergency... which fortunately we had not. In those days none of us were legitimate enough to have credit cards of our own.
ReplyDeleteI think we were still west of the Ontario/Manitoba border when the RCMP pulled us over. Ed Reed was traveling with us at that point, so the trunk was really jammed.
I remember we also got pulled over somewhere just north of Oxbow, Saskatchewan by an RCMP officer who was merely curious about Steve's car. Was it a Peugot? He'd never seen one up close.
Yes, it was a more innocent and simple world in those days...
Well, you remembered the name on the card at the time (although I think you really sweated about it, because it was no one we knew) -- the cop stopped hassling you about it after your answer, if I recall correctly.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right that in the above incident we were west of the Ontario border. I think it might have been somewhere just after the Trans-Canada (that big black elastic ban that keeps the whole country together, according to Cedric Smith) narrowed from four lanes to two.
Did we really go to Oxbow? Ron and Liz were still in Bruce Mines at that time, so did we go to visit Ron's parents?
I wouldn't swear to it on a map of Batoche, but I'm pretty sure Jerry Cook invented OJ Culvert. If memory serves me correctly, OJ performed a number of functions in the Village Inquirer offices, and was known to cross media platforms on occasion, pulling a shift or two at Radio Waterloo. If it wasn't Cook, it was one of his platoon of Haggie Irregulars, who created the nom de carte, and possibly, God Help Us, was also the creator of the Arian Affairs Committee. I can see his face, but his name escapes me, fortunately.
ReplyDeleteBruce, are you implying that many other people's cards were in the name of OJ Culvert? I hope the statute of limitations applies in these cases.
ReplyDeleteI'm just trying to see how far people are willing to go in recalling events that might have legal implications for the attendees, and since you're sounding more and more like a lawyer, I think I might be on the right track.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Bruce, for some new contributions to my résumé.
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