Parking Tickets

By John Mickman

It had been a great summer evening with my girlfriend Helen. We had hung out with a bunch of our friends from the University - listening to our favorite music, telling stories and discussing current events, including the Viet Nam war which was raging. But I had to run off early; the next morning at 6 o’clock I was leaving for the Black Hills to pick pine cones with my brothers and sister. At 20 years old and being the senior brother, I would be the driver and in charge of the three week expedition from the Twin Cities to the Black Hills. I had been picking cones since I was a little kid, and was looking forward to the trip.

So, Helen and I left the group and I dropped her off at her folk’s house in Highland Park. The drive home to Fridley was a well worn trail my bright red MGB and I had made many, many times. On this beautiful warm evening, the top was down, the radio was tuned into KQRS and the ride was easy. I love to drive and my MGB was one of my all time favorite cars.

As I drove the last two blocks to my folks’ home, I noticed a car following closely which was kind of unusual, as I usually drove faster than the posted speed limit. The mystery was solved when, just as I pulled into my folk’s driveway, a police car turned on its red, bubble beacon and the landscape was filled with the swirling red strobe of the patrol car.

Bummer!

My first thought was focused on the question of just how fast over the speed limit I had been driving – and for how long. Being in residential streets for over 2 miles, I surmised that I hadn’t been going way to fast; just a little too fast. Hmmm.

Back in those days I use to get out the car and meet the policemen at the rear of the vehicle I happen to be driving when being stopped. Not an uncommon experience at this time in my life. This night was no different, and I met the policeman at the rear of the MGB. “Good evening officer”, I chirped in as amiable a manner as possible. This usually worked to set a good tone right off the bat.

“Well, good evening to you”, responded the officer. “Do you know why I stopped you?”

I had a couple of options here, but the one that usually worked the best was to admit that I had been going over the speed limit, ‘a little bit’. “Well, you know I might have been going a little too fast, being in a neighborhood and all, but one of my favorite songs was on the radio and I may have been a little distracted. Is that it?” I asked in a tone that reflected grave concern.

“That is part of it” he responded. “But the main problem is that you have only a half of a tail light lens on your right rear tail light. Where you aware of that?” the officer asked in a way that was gathering a positive tenor. Things were going well for the kid; at worst I would probably get a ‘fixit-it’ ticket, and at best I would get off with a warning and instructions to get my tail light repaired.

“Geez officer, I didn’t know that”, I said as I looked down to my left at the shattered tail light lens. “What a bummer. I wonder when that happened?” Fix-it tickets were easy ones, and I could easily put a new tail light lens on my car. I would usually just promise to take care of whatever problem the car had, e.g. headlights out, blinkers not working, etc. without actually getting a ticket.

“Yeah, that sometimes  happens with broken tail lights”, the officer said. “It’s hard to tell if a rear light isn’t working or not”. I heartily agreed with that statement and promised to get it fixed right away.

“That will probably be fine”, the officer replied. “I think I’ll let you go on that one with a warning, but I should do a license check. Can I please have your driver’s license?” So I pulled out my wallet and handed over my license and assured him there wouldn’t be any problem. After asking me to stay by my car, he went back into the squad car and I saw him pick up the microphone and start talking.

It was now about midnight in our quiet suburban neighborhood. But now, with the red flashing police car beacon turning around and around, I noticed lights being turned on in homes of the tightly packed houses around our block. Then a couple of the dads, all of whom had known me since I was in grade school, started coming out onto their front steps to see what was going on. Another bummer! I was hoping my folks wouldn’t wake up, but sure enough, the lights in our house started coming on, and then HE came out; my dad.

At just about that time, the officer came out of his car with a concerned look on his face. As he approached me, he saw my dad walking across the lawn toward us. My dad asked, “What’s going on here?”

“Sir, please go back up to your house. We have a problem and I need you to back away!” Geez, this was an unexpected turn of events. I wonder what the problem is. My dad wasn’t about to back down from the officer that easy. “This is my son and I want to know what the problem is”, my dad replied to the officer.

The police officer didn’t like my dad’s tone and obviously wanted him to move away immediately. “Sir, I’m not going to ask you again. Go back up to your house!”, he demanded. ‘Holy Smokes, this is really getting serious’ I thought to myself as my dad retreated up to our front steps. Just then my friend Judy came home from a date and parked her car in her folks’ driveway next to our house. “Hey Johnny, what’s going on?” she asked in a joking manner. But by that time, the officer was right in front of me and the whole tone of the event had changed. I didn’t respond to Judy.

“Well John, we have a pretty big problem here. Did you know you have some warrants out for your arrest?” I quickly thought about the possibilities and asked him, “Does it have anything to do with Parking Tickets officer?”

“It does John. Do you know how many warrants we’re talking about here?” he asked.

This was a loaded question for me and I had to answer in just the right way if I had any hope of getting out of this. “Well officer, I know it’s more than a couple. Maybe 10 – or 12 – or something like that?”

“No, it’s 32. You have 32 warrants out for your arrest by the Minneapolis Police Department. Tell me John, how is that possible. I’m really interested to hear how anyone could have that many unpaid Parking Tickets”. And he really did seem interested. So I told him.

“Well it isn’t that mysterious really, officer”, I began. “I’m a student at the University and I volunteer at The Whole Coffeehouse. As a matter of fact, I’m the Manager. Even though I work most of the nights we are open, some nights I just need to check in for a few minutes to make sure everyone is doing their jobs and we’re all set for the evening’s performance. So I park behind Coffman Union where there are some parking meters, but sometimes don’t have any change. But really, I’m usually down there for only 15 minutes or so, and the odds are that I won’t get a ticket. But sometimes I do.”

“Ah-ha, but when you get the tickets, why don’t you pay them? They are only $3.00?” the officer asked.

“I’m a student, putting myself through college and I really don’t have any extra money to pay these tickets. And you know, $3.00 is more than I make per hour”, I explained.

“And what was your plan John? You knew you are going to have to pay these tickets didn’t you?” he asked.

“Well, to tell you the truth officer, my plan was to gather all these tickets together pretty soon, and then go down to the police station and pay them off all at once. Maybe even get a discount ‘cause there are so many of them. I think I have almost all of them right here in my glove compartment. Do you want to see them?” I asked.

“No, that won’t be necessary, but I have to tell you that I have never heard of a volume discount on parking tickets. Anyway, now you have 32 warrants out for your arrest and I am going to have to take you to jail”, the officer stated in no uncertain terms.

This was an astounding bit of information for me; going to jail because of parking tickets. Really? I expressed my surprise to the officer and asked if there wasn’t another alternative that didn’t include going to jail. “Nope, there is not. I called in to headquarters when I did your license check and the Minneapolis Police Department is sending a Paddy Wagon to pick you up right now. You’ll have to get into my squad car John. Come on”, he said as he stepped back and pointed to his car.

Now I was really concerned. “Officer, I have to leave at 6:00 in the morning to pick pine cones in the Black Hills with my brothers. Without me, they won’t be able to get the cones; I can’t go to jail”, I implored.

“I’m sorry John, but I have no choice in the matter. This is my job. Come on, let’s get into the squad car”, he said.

“Well, can I at least tell my dad what’s going on please? He is counting on me and this is really going to be a problem for everyone. He’s just up there on the steps. Please. It’s really important. My dad is counting on me”, I asked in as sincere a tone as I could muster under the circumstances.

“Picking pine cones. What is that all about?” he asked.

So I explained: “My dad has a Christmas Wreath business and we put 9 cones on every wreath. We make about 15,000 wreaths so we need almost 50,000 pine cones – and my brothers and sister I are the ones that need to do all the pine cone picking. We are supposed to leave in the morning. Everything is all set to go, except now it sounds like I’ll be in jail”.

“Well John I know this is going to be a problem, however, you wouldn’t have this problem if you had just put a dime into those parking meters. But, I will explain to your dad what is going on. OK?”, he said. Then he yelled up to my dad, “Sir, can you come down here to the squad car?” Dad immediately walked toward us as Judy, Mr. Archibald, Micky Smith, Mr. Carlson and the rest of the neighbors looked on. Boy, this was embarrassing!

The officer explained the situation to my dad and told him where I was going to end up, in downtown Minneapolis at the police headquarters. Of course my dad expressed his massive disappointment in me while giving me one of his ‘looks’, an expression of disappointment that he had mastered over the years. Then the officer and I got into his squad car, him in the front and me behind the metal grid screen in the back seat. The door locks snapped shut. I was locked in.

After he backed out of our driveway, the officer explained that we were going to meet the Minneapolis Paddy Wagon halfway there, at the junction between the two cities. “My name is Robert”, the officer said. “Have you ever been in jail before John?” he asked me in a conversational tone.

I had a good story in answer to this question. “Well I was in prison one time in Boston, but just that once”, I responded.

“What!” Robert asked, as he twisted around in his seat to look at me. “What did you do to get into prison?” He was genuinely surprised. So I told him the story of the hitchhiking trip a couple of years before with my buddy Don. He asked a lot of questions as I related the story and we had a good laugh when I got to the part about when Don and I spent the night in prison, guests of the Boston Correctional Facility so we didn’t have to sleep in a cold rain that night in the city park. I ended the story by telling him about Joyce, the wonderful red haired girl I fell in love with in Boston – after Don and I got out of prison the next morning.

Not far from where the prisoner exchange was going to take place, I asked Robert if there wasn’t some way he could take me to the Minneapolis police station. I didn’t know these other policemen and I would feel better if he could just take me down there.

“I’m sorry John, but it doesn’t work like that”, Robert said. “This is their jurisdiction and you’ll have to go with them when we meet at Apache Plaza. But, I’ll tell you what. Before I turn you over to them, I’ll talk to these guys and explain that this is only about the Parking Tickets, and some other things. You’ll be fine. Don’t worry”.

I felt a little better, but I really was concerned about what was going to happen next. I knew that after I left Robert’s car, I would be swept up into some kind of system that I would not be able to control. At all.

End of Part I.

Check back next week for Part II of ‘Parking Tickets’