MY NIGHT IN JAIL
I bought my ’69 Firebird in the spring of 1973, my junior year at Wheaton. I was going to stay in Wheaton through the summer to work concrete construction. It was a great job opportunity and besides, the girl I wanted to marry lived nearby. We would get to spend the whole summer together and hopefully we could get engaged in September. This story isn’t about her because she decided to go to Wheaton in Israel and she wasn’t around at all!
I came back to the dorm with my brand new wheels and the only thing I wanted to do was drive out and show the car to my girlfriend who had gone home for the weekend. Her mother took the obligatory photos of us beside the car and we went for a joyride down to Chicago. It was a wonderful evening!
I stayed at her house way too late. She was always worried about me driving back to Wheaton late at night. She was afraid I would fall asleep and kill myself. So we had this arrangement. I would get back to the dorm and call her house and let it ring one time. Hopefully, the one ring wouldn’t awaken her parents and she would know I was home safely.
Well I was hurrying back to campus and I was flying through Bloomingdale, which was almost all cornfields in those days, when I noticed the flashing red lights in my rear view mirror. I pulled over and prepared to receive my first speeding ticket (first of many) in my fast new car. Instead of coming to the car and asking for my license and registration, the officer asked me to step out of the car and assume the position. Being a Wheaton student, I wasn’t really sure what “the position” was!
He put me in his car and took me in. I found I was being charged with stolen license plates. You see, it was the weekend. I had taken the plates off my old beater and put them on the Firebird, just as I was supposed to do. However, the paperwork hadn’t cleared down in Springfield, or wherever it was supposed to clear, and the radio report told the officer that the plates belonged on an old beater.
I was told that I had to post $50 bail. I had about $3 left after my wonderful evening. I asked if I could use the phone to get bail and they told me I could make one call. I was in a predicament. I really didn’t want my girlfriend’s dad to have to get out of bed and come and bail me out, but she was waiting for my call to be sure I was home safe. So I dialed her number and let it ring once and them slammed the phone back down on the receiver and said, “Oops! Wrong number!” Then I called my roommate and told him the situation. He told me that he didn’t have $50 but that he would gather it up and get there as soon as he could.
I waited and waited in the holding cell. Hours went by. I was beginning to feel like a hard-bitten con. I started looking for a tin cup to drag across the bars of the cell. My roomie didn’t show his face until about 11:00 the next morning. He posted bail and we went to get my car. I was full of questions. “What took you so long? Did you have trouble getting the money? Who do I have to pay back?” All he would say was “Don’t worry about it.” Well, I wanted to pay back the people who had helped me out. He just told me, “No way. You can’t pay them back. I didn’t keep track of who gave me what.” I wasn’t very happy about that.
By this time I was starving so we went straight to the dining hall for lunch. As I walked into the building I couldn’t believe my eyes! There, right by the entrance, was a table with a giant tag board sign with the lettering, “Donations to Bail Moorhead Out of Jail.” I didn’t live that one down for a long time!
(When the state offices opened on Monday the paperwork went through and all charges, including speeding, were dropped with an apology from the Bloomingdale police!)
You guys are great! Thanks for stopping by!
I came back to the dorm with my brand new wheels and the only thing I wanted to do was drive out and show the car to my girlfriend who had gone home for the weekend. Her mother took the obligatory photos of us beside the car and we went for a joyride down to Chicago. It was a wonderful evening!
I stayed at her house way too late. She was always worried about me driving back to Wheaton late at night. She was afraid I would fall asleep and kill myself. So we had this arrangement. I would get back to the dorm and call her house and let it ring one time. Hopefully, the one ring wouldn’t awaken her parents and she would know I was home safely.
Well I was hurrying back to campus and I was flying through Bloomingdale, which was almost all cornfields in those days, when I noticed the flashing red lights in my rear view mirror. I pulled over and prepared to receive my first speeding ticket (first of many) in my fast new car. Instead of coming to the car and asking for my license and registration, the officer asked me to step out of the car and assume the position. Being a Wheaton student, I wasn’t really sure what “the position” was!
He put me in his car and took me in. I found I was being charged with stolen license plates. You see, it was the weekend. I had taken the plates off my old beater and put them on the Firebird, just as I was supposed to do. However, the paperwork hadn’t cleared down in Springfield, or wherever it was supposed to clear, and the radio report told the officer that the plates belonged on an old beater.
I was told that I had to post $50 bail. I had about $3 left after my wonderful evening. I asked if I could use the phone to get bail and they told me I could make one call. I was in a predicament. I really didn’t want my girlfriend’s dad to have to get out of bed and come and bail me out, but she was waiting for my call to be sure I was home safe. So I dialed her number and let it ring once and them slammed the phone back down on the receiver and said, “Oops! Wrong number!” Then I called my roommate and told him the situation. He told me that he didn’t have $50 but that he would gather it up and get there as soon as he could.
I waited and waited in the holding cell. Hours went by. I was beginning to feel like a hard-bitten con. I started looking for a tin cup to drag across the bars of the cell. My roomie didn’t show his face until about 11:00 the next morning. He posted bail and we went to get my car. I was full of questions. “What took you so long? Did you have trouble getting the money? Who do I have to pay back?” All he would say was “Don’t worry about it.” Well, I wanted to pay back the people who had helped me out. He just told me, “No way. You can’t pay them back. I didn’t keep track of who gave me what.” I wasn’t very happy about that.
By this time I was starving so we went straight to the dining hall for lunch. As I walked into the building I couldn’t believe my eyes! There, right by the entrance, was a table with a giant tag board sign with the lettering, “Donations to Bail Moorhead Out of Jail.” I didn’t live that one down for a long time!
(When the state offices opened on Monday the paperwork went through and all charges, including speeding, were dropped with an apology from the Bloomingdale police!)
You guys are great! Thanks for stopping by!
10 Comments:
Great story...can't believe you never told me this before! But, it was worth waiting for.
Great story! It reminds me of the poster taped up in every campus building during the Winter quarter of 1976-77.
REWARD
For information leading to the identification of those responsible for the smell in Fischer Hall. If you have any information, please call the Dean's office at ext. 4655.
I think they extended the statute of limitations for that one. The reward is still in place. Shhhhh.....
Yak - what happened in Fisher Dorm stays in Fisher Dorm.
Now, where did I put my keys?
I only wish that "it" had stayed in Fisher Dorm...but, no, that would have been too smart! The Yak Man first had to make sure that his potion really, really stunk, so he tried it out first in his own room...the one we both shared in Washington House. I'll never get that smell out of my nose or mind. Not unlike the infamous "shoe bomber" first blowing up his own brothers and sisters just to make sure that the shoe fits.
Ha! Alerted by Mrs. Yak, I have just returned to this post.
Pardon me while I wipe the tears from my eyes.
Yes, Dean Nelson (is anyone else reminded of Dean Wormer in Animal House?) is still on the lookout for two Northwesterners and one self-styled tennis star. Then there was the YB of the Yakman and someone else... a chemist I think. Some of the details are fuzzy but the [evil] genius of it all is still sharp. It came off much better than sheepherding down the darkened streets of Wheaton; another much revered, oft-told chapter in the Book of Lore.
The time has come for someone to put his foot down. And that foot is me.
Aye, laddy, them thar scary tales in the Book of Lore need be passed down through the ages lest those heroic acts of vandalism and the mythical men who perpetrated them be lost to posterity. Arrr!
And, as of this moment, you're on DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION!
YB,
You don't have to worry about that smell anymore. I personally transferred it into the trunk of a 1979 Coupe de Ville in the parking lot of our local Old Country Buffet.
Mr. Yak
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