1967. Not long after i had met my first wife ,Lavern Louise Anderson ,aka Funny :), I got in some trouble with the law.
MY buddies, Willy, Tony and I were driveing around drinking beer in my car. I did a lot of stupid things in those days, espesialy while drinking beer. I dont remember how it all started but we were heading home down a dusty gravel road when I started doing spinouts at every intersection. I stepped on the gas and the tires would spin in the gravel and the car would spin all the way around in a cloud of dust, then to the next intersection and do the same thing. After I did that 3 times when the car came to a stop I could just barely see the red lights of a copcar behind us. I stepped on the gas and kept it to the floor, came to the next intersection . which was home, tried to make the turn, spun out again and went through the landlords picket fence, through her yard and gardens, through the back picket fence, and back onto the street. There was so much dust I couldnt even see where in hell I was going. Back on the street I made a couple more turns and spun out again and this time the car stalled. because of all the dust we couldnt see the cops and they couldnt see us. I yelled"get out and run, Ill say the car was stolen"
WE bailed out of the car and each one of us ran in a different direction.
I was running full tilt down a back alley when "BANG" I ran smackdab into the front end of a copcar. They were comeing down the ally looking for us with their lights out :)
They hooked me up in handcuffs and off i went to jail. I latter found out that Tony dived into a rubarb patch and laid there as the search lights went over him and latter walked home. I dont remmber where Willy went but he did not get caught.
I was charged with dangerous driveing, and littering the streets with glass as we had thrown a chase of beer out the window when the cops were right behind us. The cops said they saw the beer come out the pasenger window so if i told them who the passenger was they would charge him with littering instead of me.
Tony and willy were both younger than me and I was 21 so i figured if I squealed I would get charged with contributeing to juviniles so I just said the pasengers were hhitchhikers and i didnt know them. They never presured me so it worked.
I went to court and was sentenced to a $300 fine or 4 months in jail. I didnt have any money so just figured I would have to do the time.
I called Funny, more to let her know what happened, cuz I knew dam well she didnt have any money. She said she would try to do something and even tho I was pretty sure she wouldnt be able to come up with the money, there was a thred of hope and i hung onto it for dear life.
I hoped against hope somebody would come and tell me my fine had been paid. Every time a guard came into the holding sell i would look into his eyes and hope he was comeing for me. It would soon be timed to be shipped off to Fort Saskatuwan Jail if nobody showed up with the money.
Finally they called my name to load on the paty wagon for transport. At this point I lost all hope. I knew there was no way out. I was cuffed to the other prisoners and loaded on the patty wagon. Fort saskatuwan was about 50 miles away and I knew nobody would be comeing for me there. WE arived at the jail,was in the holding tank for about 20 minutes when somebody called my name, "Groves, your fine has been paid"
I had been working for a drywall company at the time and i guess I was pretty good at my job. MY boss had come to bail me out in Edmonton, but had gotten to the Edmonton jail just after the patty wagon had left for Fort Saskatuwan. He told me he had already come that far so he just followed the patty wagon to the fort jail and picked me up there. I hadnt thought of him as i hadnt worked for him very long and didnt figure he would do it.
But, FUNNY had called him, He said she sure must have loved me cuz she was crying and so upset that I was in jail. He latter told me if it wasnt for her he never would have paid the fine.
Sadly I just worked for him long after that enough to get the money paid back and then quit and went on to some other job. Like most things I did in my life I never did get real good at it and i think he was ready to fire my ass anyway.
p.s. I also lost my drivers lience for 6 months. :(
No comments:
Post a Comment