When I moved out on my own at the age of seventeen I didn’t have a car, and the apartment building didn’t have laundry facilities. So when at last my dirty duds confronted me in their stinking righteousness I’d haul them to a laundromat four or five blocks away.
On one such occasion I pulled my clothes from the dryer, stuffed them into a pillowcase, threw it over my shoulder and headed home. As I walked along I noticed a man across the darkened street – he seemed to be keeping pace. I didn’t think much of it until I looked behind and saw another man in my trail.
Even then I was not overly alarmed until the other man stepped off the curb on a course that would shortly intersect with mine and the footfalls of my trailer rapidly increased.
“Oh shit!” I thought as they converged on me and a number of very unpleasant scenarios ran through my mind. Oddly, the theft of my clothes was chief among them.
Anticlimax; they were plain-clothes police responding to a report from a concerned citizen.
They dug through my laundry and finding no cash, jewels or other loot, sent me on my way.
In hindsight, I should probably not have written ‘SWAG’ on the pillowcase or worn the Zorro mask.*
Lesson learned.
Any of you ever had such encounters?
*No ‘SWAG’ written, no Zorro mask – those elements added for comedic effect – in case it wasn’t clear.
I got stopped by the local cops when I was a teenager, walking a few blocks from my home, for no good reason except I was up at night. The cops wanted to know why I was unescorted (by an adult) and walking in a residential neighborhood after curfew.
My response was, “What curfew? We have a curfew now?” “There’s a law against a citizen walking on the sidewalk after dark?” “You got a warrant?” “You have any reports of a dangerous teenager walking around?” And “your left headlight is out, dude.” (It was.)
They said they’d fix the headlight, and let me go. Too bad, I was itching for a civil-liberty fight. At that tender & young age, it never occurred to me that walking around my neighborhood at night was suspicious.
Walking home from a friend’s apartment on a weekend evening in winter. I was carrying a guitar in one hand and a banjo in the other. As I was approaching a busy street, I saw a late model (mid eighties) Camaro hit the brakes and try to turn onto my street. It forced another car onto the sidewalk without obvious damage but couldn’t make the turn in the snow and sped off. I shrugged my shoulders and continued.
Within a block the Camaro, containing two uniformed police, pulled up beside me followed by a marked police car. They all stood around me and glared and talked on their radios. after a few minutes I heard someone say something about “size 10 runners”. They took me in front of a car, looked at my size 9 cowboy boots in the headlights and sent me on my way.
As I was leaving, a middle-aged man in plain clothes asked if anyone had told me what was going on. I said “no” and he explained that a burglary had been reported and they were looking for the purp.
Bad time to be walking around in long hair carrying my own stuff.
Way back when, when I was in college, I worked the midnight to 6:00AM shift at a restaurant. One fine spring Saturday, I decided to forgo driving and instead walk from my apartment to the restaurant to pick up my paycheck. The distance was about 2 miles, but the weather was nice. After making my way almost all of the way to the restaurant, 2 cop cars screeched to a halt in front of me, each coming from a different direction. They clearly thought I was who they were looking for! I stopped and put up my hands. They jumped out, cuffed me, and put me in the back seat of one of the patrol cars and sped off. I didn’t say anything, and neither did they that I can recall. Best to let this play out, I thought.
After a few miles, they pull up into a parking area behind an apartment building where this is another cop car sitting and come cops standing around. When we stopped, they pulled me out of the car a stood me up. Just then a girl came running out from the door to the apartment building accompanied by more police. She had a very distressed look on her face. When she saw me, she shook her head and said “No!”, and ran back into the building. The cops uncuffed me and said something like, “Run along.”
So, I was now on my own. I was farther away from work than from home, and I didn’t feel like making the trip back to the restaurant, no matter how nice the weather. So, I headed home. Grrrrr.
In 1972 USS Forrestal was severely damaged by a fire set by a member of the Ship’s Company at the pier in Norfolk. I was in transient barracks awaiting orders to a new ship. For the Navy’s own reasons, all of the Electricians’ Mates and Electronics Technicians in transient status were ordered to the ship to help with the cleanup.
The first day I got to a stopping point and decided to eat lunch in the crew’s mess. Finishing my meal I headed for the scullery window to hand in my tray, etc. As I started walking I heard a signal of some kind over the 1MC or other communications circuit; I had no idea that the signal was a “Intruder Alert” warning, and just kept walking. There was a lot of movement around, but I didn’t think anything of it until I felt a left hand grabbing the neck of my shirt, followed by me being slammed into the bulkhead, and then the unmistakable feeling of an M1911 (.45-cal semiautomatic pistol) muzzle approximately one inch from my cervical spine. I heard the command, “Freeze!” (I froze, with food waste ground into my work shirt and sort of beginning to slide toward my dungaree trousers. This was a bad moment.)
Within a few seconds I heard a different signal, which it turned out was “Secure from Alert”. The pistol came down, the left hand released my shirt, and the voice ordered, “Carry on!” (I carried on.)
When I got back to my work area I asked the Petty Officer in Charge what had just happened. He explained the signals, and asked if I had received the ship’s signals briefing before coming aboard. No such briefing had been offered! Oh, well, he noticed the mess on my uniform and told me to return to the barracks and get cleaned up.
A friend and I were operating an unlicensed artillery cannon with Solanum tuberosum projectiles and isobutane propellant. Sorry–that’s a potato gun. It was around 2 am and we were on a street that divides a subdivision and a large open field.
A police car slowly rolled up the street… and went past, turning around at a cul-de-sac and then stopping near us. The officer got out, and said “Hey guys, nice potato gun. I used to make those and fire them from my boat.”
We then had a nice chat about propellants and ignition systems (helpful hint: Coleman screw-in lantern lighters work great. Homebrew spark systems kludged from disposable camera flashes do not.) The officer suggested that we conduct future experiments at some more reasonable hour, but other than that left without incident.
I was walking down to the beach carrying a stunt kite, which was folded in an approximately 3 foot long cylindrical cloth carrying case. I walked across the highway and started walking along the beach, planning to walk for about a half hour, then fly the kite. About 15 minutes later, when I was on a frontage road, a cop car pulled up and parked in front of me. The cop got out and said “what do you have there”? I said “A kite” and showed it to him. He looked at it and then explained that someone driving on the highway had called in a report of a suspicious character carrying a rifle walking towards the beach.
As a birdwatcher, I spend some time walking along country roads, driving to odd places, or even looking through binoculars at the bird-feeders in people’s yards. The police are often called about my suspicious behavior, and I’ve even been stopped ten miles further down the road after resuming my trip. So far, they have always digested my explanation as not being dangerously weird.
As a blind person, I have a white cane that telescopes into a foot-lolng baton. In Houston airplort, I was approached by a security guard, who casually asked what it was. When I showed it to him, I saw that backup had already been called, and there were several more armed men lurking around me., ready to draw ;and open fire.
At the time, I was sharing a house with my sister and mum. We were also renting a room to a co-worker of mine. My girlfriend was doing a year on a county honor farm (stealing from her employer) and I had put her cars at my house with the understanding that I could do with them what I wished.
I loaned GF’s 72 Pinto to my co-worker. 1:00am Saturday morning, CW comes in and says pinto died about 3 miles from the house. I hop in my Chevy 1500 and get the Pinto started. Driving it home when red lights in my mirror. Fuck, pulled over for expired tags. Just a warning, get the car home.
Grab my mountain bike to go get the truck. Fuck, red lights. SAME two cops. Stopped for a curfew check because why would an adult be bike riding at 2:30 in the morning? Recognized, let go.
Get to the truck, throw my bike in the bed, head home.
Tired and stressed, I make a lane change without a signal. Fuck, red lights again. Yes, SAME two cops. “Really?,” I get from him. Explain what I’m doing. He politely ask me what else I might be out in tonight so the don’t bother with me again. I tell him I’m going home and going to bed. He thanks me.
At the time, I was sharing a house with my sister and mum. We were also renting a room to a co-worker of mine. My girlfriend was doing a year on a county honor farm (stealing from her employer) and I had put her cars at my house with the understanding that I could do with them what I wished.
I loaned GF’s 72 Pinto to my co-worker. 1:00am Saturday morning, CW comes in and says pinto died about 3 miles from the house. I hop in my Chevy 1500 and get the Pinto started. Driving it home when red lights in my mirror. Fuck, pulled over for expired tags. Just a warning, get the car home.
Grab my mountain bike to go get the truck. Fuck, red lights. SAME two cops. Stopped for a curfew check because why would an adult be bike riding at 2:30 in the morning? Recognized, let go.
Get to the truck, throw my bike in the bed, head home.
Tired and stressed, I make a lane change without a signal. Fuck, red lights again. Yes, SAME two cops. “Really?,” I get from him. Explain what I’m doing. He politely ask me what else I might be out in tonight so the don’t bother with me again. I tell him I’m going home and going to bed. He thanks me.
A friend was trying to get into a photography course in college, and wanted some fancy shots for his portfolio. He had acquired some film that was particularly responsive to red and infrared light, so wanted to try something with that. We ended up way out in the countryside, on a rocky beach next to the local river, at night, so it was as dark as we could find.
He sets up a still life with some books and flowers and such, and sets up the camera for a long exposure. He’s working the camera, so I’m in charge of lighting. That is, a can of WD-40 and a Bic lighter. I’m moving around the still life, going “Fwooosh” with the flames, trying to get a flame silhouette going behind the still life.
That’s about when the spot light hits me from behind. We have to explain to the officer that we’re not random teenage hooligan arsonists, we’re artists.
He eventually decides to leave us be, but as he pulls out, he stops, rolls down his window, and says, “Oh, and guys? You need to get better drugs!”
About an hour later, we run into him and three other cops in the doughnut shop.
I’ve got half a dozen “pulled over by cops in strange situations”, but I’m going with this other because it threw me farther —
Walked into the bank when I was young and poor. Sat down at a desk and started filling out a withdrawal form. Was sitting there thinking "Shall I write $5 (all I really need), or $10 (so I’ve got some flexibility) (but if I have it in my pocket, I might spend it). So I’m sitting there, tossing it up, not doing one nor the other, and I look up and see a security guard on the mezzanine floor above and in front of me.
“That’s interesting” I think. “I’ve never seen a guard up there before”. And I glance around. And I see one there, and there, and there, and there (it was a large bank).
And they are all looking at me.
So I carefully take off my full-face motorcycle helmet (less common back in the day), and set it down on the desk, and finish the withdrawal form, and leave my helmet at the desk as I walk up to the counter.
Soon after all the banks had courtesy signs at the doors, suggesting that m/c riders should remove their helmets before entering. Got ahead of it only by a month or two. Must have become a bit of a thing.
One day in the Summer of 1995, I was waiting for a tram in poorly-lit underground station. There was a guy lying on a bench about 5 metres behind me. He wore dirty clothes and was raving in a drunken stupor. I paid him no attention.
Suddenly, he stood up and slowly walked away. Almost immediately after that, an elderly lady looked at me and said :
“What are you going to do ?”
“Excuse me ?”
“What are you going to do about what he said ?”
“I wasn’t listening. What did he say ?”
“He said you were threatening him and that he was going to fetch the police.”
“Well, I’'ll keep on waiting for my the tram, thanks.”
Sure enough, he’s back a couple of minutes later, accompanied by two policemen. The ridiculous thing is : they’re at the opposite end of the plateform and visibly in no hurry, so I see them coming towards me in comical almost-slow-motion. They part as they arrive close to me with one of them “stealthily” :rolleyes: positioning himself behind me. I slowly turn around at the same pace as he does so because the whole manoeuvre looks so silly.
They asked me for my ID, asked a couple of routine questions but with a rather unpleasant tone then mentioned my “threats” to the tramp (“Seriously :rolleyes: ?”), acted all self-important, then let me go with a “Make sure you go straight back home !”
Not to speak for the poster, but acquired blindness is a progressive continuum. Additionally, birders do not need to “see” a bird in order to enjoy birding. Hearing a bird vocalize can allow a birder to ID the species.
Also, note that people who are in a wheelchair still talk about “going for a walk”.
