[DARISC]

Thinking about it now, I can't believe how brazen we were. But we were just two nine year old kids and thought it was pretty funny.

It was a lazy summer afternoon in the small Ohio town where I lived and my buddy and I were downtown at the beginning of the two block long Main St. when we heard Hoot Gibson approaching from behind. 'Hoot' was Officer Gibson (all the adults called him Hoot - we kids didn't know why), who rode around downtown on his three wheeled motorcycle, writing parking tickets.

While there were few people on the street, most of the diagonal parking spaces were filled and we could see the red flag up on the meter of one near us. Hoot stopped in the street behind the car, took up his pad and started writing a ticket.

My little buddy and I had the same idea at the same time and we pulled what change we had out of our jeans pockets and, stifling our giggles, walked up to the meter, dropped a penny in the slot, twisted the knob and, rrrratchet ching, the red flag went down and the needle jumped up to 12 minutes.

Hoot saw us do it, gave us a smirk, closed his ticket book and, giggling, we scurried away down the street as he fired up his trike to move on.

Well, we came on another red flag and, just as Hoot approached and stopped, we dropped a penny in the meter and hustled on down the street, giggling uncontrollably now.

Well, the third time was a charm and about six cars down was another red flag. In dropped another penny before Hoot got there and we scurried more rapidly away, laughing out loud by that time, then heard a loud "Hey you kids!". We stopped dead in our tracks...uh, oooh. "You want to waste your allowances that way, go right ahead!" Then Hoot drove on down the remaining block and a half of Main St. without even looking for more red flags, turned the corner and was gone.

Waste our allowance! We laughed our asses off. Then we went into a store, cashed in two nickels for ten pennies, went down to the end of Main St. putting pennies in two or three meters, crossed the street and went back down the other side, dropping pennies in the several meters with red flags as well as the first two we'd hit at first, then ducked into the dime store to watch and see if Hoot would return.

Not a few minutes passed and he did, drove slowly down the street looking for red flags, finding none, then doubling back down the other side, again finding none, passing us, hiding in the dime store peeking out at him. I remember he had a smile on his face as he turned the corner and disappeared.

A couple weeks later, on a warm summer morning, my bike was on it's kickstand in front of the drugstore on Main St where I sat on a stool at the soda fountain sipping my favorite, a lime phosphate with extra syrup please. As I sat over my phosphate with a straw in my mouth, I heard the bell on the door ring, then the sound of slow, heavy steps. Turning my head, I saw the black, knee high jack boots of Officer Hoot Gibson as he sauntered up to me, with a dead serious look on his face, then stopped, looking down on me and said "is that your bicycle outside son?"

I'd heard the expression "I almost crapped my pants". At that moment, I almost crapped my pants.

"Yes sir?" I said in a weak voice. "Well finish drinking your phosphate, then I want you to walk your bike over to the police station. I'll meet you there." "Yes sir" in a weak voice. Hoot sauntered back out of the drugstore.

So I walked (normally I would have rode) my bike, with weak knees, the block to the police station and went inside. There was Officer Hoot Gibson, the desk sergeant and another cop, looking at me, unsmiling.

Hoot says "Bring your bicycle inside son". So, knees probably visibly shaking by this time, I comply and wheel in my fenderless Schwinn. Hoot's standing there with a screwdriver, a pair of pliers and a crescent wrench in his hand, which he hands to me and says "Now take that illegal siren off your bike".

So I did, as Hoot, the desk sergeant and the other cop watched in silence. When I finished, I stood up, wondering what now? Are they going to lock me up? Hoot then handed me a brown paper grocery bag and told me to put the siren and its parts in it, which I did, then handed it to him. "No son. You take that home with you. And don't put it back on your bike. It's against tie law".

"Yes sir" I said and wheeled my bike out of the Police station. As I got on it to ride home I looked back through the open door and saw Hoot Gibson, the desk sergeant and the other cop watching me. I remember they all had smiles on their faces.

The first couple of blocks on the ride home I was light headed and giddy with relief after being 'let out'. But by the time I got home, about six blocks later, I was really pissed off. I'd saved up $5.00 from mowing lawns to buy that coveted bike siren from Western Auto just two weeks before. I'd woken up the entire neighborhood early on several mornings and, with my buddy egging me on, had actually caused one lady to pull her car over to the curb. And summer vacation was only just beginning!

When my dad got home from work, I told him what had happened. "Son of a b!tch! Don't those goddam cops have better things to do than hassle kids?!" he explodes and calls the police station. "You made my son bring his bike in and, anger anger anger... Well if they're illegal, why the hell do you let Western Auto sell them to kids?! Oh yeah?! Is that right?", hangs up the phone in disgust. "You can't put it back on your bike. Those bastards".

I couldn't take it back to Western Auto because I'd already laid my bike down several times and scratched it up. So I had to be content turning my bike upside down on its seat and handlebars, cranking the wheel up by hand, holding the knurled axle against the tire and letting it wail. That got to be pretty boring and I would have tired of it pretty quick, but my mom had my dad take it away from me and I never saw it again.

Thereafter, for a while, I noticed that the neighbors had smiles on their faces as I pedaled by them on my sirenless Schwinn.