Health & Fitness
Cops: Coming and Going
When I was a kid on the farms in Almaden Valley, the elders of the farming community would tell us kids that when we saw a car coming down the road with any lights on top or any insignias on the doors, to turn tail and run and climb up the nearest tree or jump in the nearest ditch and hide. Not fully understanding what was going on, we did as we were told. As it turns out, Santa Clara County had recently instituted the issuance of “work permits” for kids under the age of 16. If I remember correctly, if you were under 12, you couldn’t work at all and if you were between 12 and 16, kids needed work permits to work. Well, this was just outrageous! Our landlord farmer had me slapping labels on tomato boxes with wheat paste before I was kindergarten. To hell with work permits! Thus, the instructions to run and hide from any official looking vehicle, which we obeyed.
I was pretty much able to avoid officialdom until I got to San Jose State College. In the era of my college years, however, the enforcers of officialdom (or government bureaucracy), the cops, looked at the two major interests of us long haired, foul mouthed hippies with much prejudice, the two interests being the Viet Nam War and dope. My first several encounters with cops was a result of these interests and the encounters were never pleasant. Of course, this prejudiced me against anyone in a black or dark blue uniform. I’ve never been a smart ass to them and my main feeling regarding them is fear. I just like to avoid them. When I see a cop car, I don’t run to the nearest ditch or tree to hide, but I do look over my shoulder to find a ready escape route. In the old days we called it “flying under the radar.”
Sometimes, however, you actually do find yourself in need of the services of the local constabulary. In the late 1980s I was renting a large house on the edge of a town park above Los Gatos Boulevard. It was an ideal place for me as it was far less than a mile from the Boulevard and yet it had a totally mountain side aspect, where you could see no other houses from the place and no other houses could see it. It was like living in the mountains right in the middle of town. I loved the place. The first few months of living there was a bit rocky, . . .(to read the conclusion, click here)
