Sentinel, Memories in the Dark 210121

      The picture is Joyce and me the same year as my second story below.

      I was just a teenager when parking and necking (petting for the really old folks) was a big thing. One time I was parked with my girlfriend before Joyce. We were having a good time when a patrol car came up in the dark and suddenly flipped the headlights and its other lights on behind my car. That was a little scary. The tall patrolman came up to the window all serious and going to do whatever; I was not sure. I rolled down my steamy driver’s window to converse. He was not kind at all, but when he bent down to look at both of us I recognized him immediately. He was Tim Mahoney all grown up. He used to go fishing with me and grandpa in the summertime. I said, “Tim it’s me Bill Weber.” He looked and said, “Oh Bill, how are you doing? We had a neighbor call about a suspicious car parked on the street. You have to leave and be a little more careful next time.” That was it. I drove away and took her home, not as soon as I would have liked but the incident did break the mood.
      Now a normal person would probably learn a good lesson from the event above, but no one ever called me normal back then. The next time it happened, I was with Joyce, parked on a deadend street. It was summer so the windows were down. The patrolman approached without notice and tapped on the roof. That was another mood breaker. He started asking me questions, who I was, where I lived and so forth. I readily gave him answers. Then he started with Joyce. Joyce sat there like a statue and like a statue she did not look at him or answer his questions. He then said, “if you won’t answer my questions here, I can take you to jail, call your parents and they will have to come and get you.” That rang Joyce’s bell and she opened up like a clamshell. After that we just pulled into her driveway and had time there until the front porch light started flashing on and off (which did not take long at all).