Saturday, June 13, 2015

How about a happy story? One night I was driving my van to work the midnight shift. Warm summer night so I had my window down. I was wearing my uniform so I'm thinking I had worked an off duty job that day ( I usually didn't wear my uniform home). I worked midnights for 7 years so it was sometime between '84-'91. Crossing Snelling Ave. on Marshall I hear a loud bang sound as something hit my door, just below the open window. I kept driving so whomever threw it didn't think I would do anything about it. I drove up to the next intersection over the hill and turned north, knowing they couldn't have seen me turn there. I parked over on Carroll and walked up into the woods by the railroad bridge overpass. I spotted two guys on the bridge and they had a carton of eggs that they were throwing. I came out of the brush and shined the flashlight and yelled at them that I'm the police and they're under arrest. I handcuffed them together so they couldn't run and walked them down to the gas station at Carroll and Snelling. This was before cell phones remember. And, we didn't have radios issued to us so I had no way to communicate. I had the attendant call the police and tell them to send a squad to assist me. We tagged them for throwing objects at cars. I took a picture of the van with the egg splatter on the door. It hit about 3" below the window. I came very close to getting an egg on my uniform. If they had hit me in the face I could have easily crashed. I was rather upset with these two college boys. They had obviously had a couple of beers and thought it would be fun to pelt passing motorists, and get a little throwing practice in at the same time. I wrote a report and don't remember hearing anything about what happened after that. Well, a couple years ago I'm at a local charter middle school for wayward youth. Handling a call for some problem children. After resolving the issue the principal asks me if I have a minute to talk to him about something else. We go in his office. He says years ago he did something really stupid with a buddy when they were in college. He tells me about that incident. He said he felt so bad about it afterward and he wanted to apologize and thank me for being firm with him and catching him and treating him fairly. I almost cried (I do cry easily, but still). He said I made a profound impression on him and taught him a valuable lesson. I thanked him for thanking me. I told him no hard feelings and I'm glad everything worked out for the better. Thanks for reading.