Reply #58: Oh yes. [View All]

[ChazInAz]

Everybody in my lily-white, college-educated liberal family.
My first time was the trial by fire in Chicago's Grant Park in 1968. 'Nuff said.

Another time, around midnight several summers ago, my wife and I were awakened by an ungodly uproar in front of the house. Two cops had jumped my tall, skinny son and his tall, skinny best Native American buddy as they were unlocking the front gate to come home. We got outside just in time for the backup squad to arrive and join in the festivities. The two kids were on the ground, handcuffed and all four cops were whaling on them. Guess they didn't expect witnesses at that hour. Pricks.

At the beginning of this month, my wife and I went to the neighboring feudal township of Marana, Arizona. Now I'm only 5'9" and 150 pounds, walk with a limp and a cane. My wife is under 5' and, just out of the hospital and very feeble, way less than 100 pounds, couldn't walk at all at the time so we had a folded wheelchair in the back of the truck. We'd just bought the old beater of a truck two days before and were in the process of changing over insurance, title, license plates. Got pulled over by one of Marana's super troopers. Big guy, way over 6' and pushing 300 pounds. Looked like a 'roid monster. He demanded and got driver's licenses, but we couldn't produce insurance proof because it hadn't arrived yet. The scourge of malefactors went back to his growler for a while. I saw him eventually emerge from his car, sneak up behind my truck and rip the license plate off the back. I hopped out and demanded to know what the hell he was doing. Good thing I didn't hop out with cane in hand or I would have been shot. As it was, this putz immediately kicked it up to "High Crazy", put his hand on both his pistol and Tazer (Holstered right next to each other on his belt). He proceeded to get in my face, screaming that he was going to handcuff, nightclub and arrest me for threatening him and being a car thief. (Remember the extreme disparity in our sizes and the fact that I can barely walk without a cane.) So, under threat of dismemberment and being eaten or something, I got back in my truck. Ygor raged on and on that since the plates were expired, I was obviously a criminal and a dangerous one, at that. Then this over sized coward in blue turned his attention on my tiny spouse, demanding information from her and screaming that he couldn't hear her. Soft-spoken, invalid, obviously the modern reincarnation of Ma Barker or Bonny Parker.
After repeated threats of jail time, and a promise of more harassment if I ever showed my sinister self in the bustling metropolis of Marana, he wrote me a ticket for over $900.
When we got home, all the paperwork needed for the truck had arrived in the mail. A phone call, a letter to the mayor and a few faxes got the bogus ticket dropped. I just hope my upcoming official complaint to the chief of police and mayor (again), get Attila off the force and back to euthanizing animals at the pound.