Busted

Like a lot of events witnessed by multiple people, this story has several versions. However, the basic story is agreed upon. Just small details seem to differ depending on who you talk to. The setting is Roby High School our senior year (1964). It is late spring because the senior trip is imminent and we are saving our money for New Orleans.

The Offence

Mrs Hughs’ senior English was the first period after lunch. While waiting for class to begin, three of us…Ronnie McCormick, Tony Foreman and myself decided to take our cars out to the quarter mile strip of highway someone had marked off for what … if you got a ticket … would be called a “contest of speed”. The “55”, “56” and “64” Fords were pretty evenly matched and the outcome was something we checked regularly.

Well on his particular day, at the end of a particularly close race… a local farmer (as it turns out the principals father) pulled up on the road, no doubt on his way to the pool hall. Confronted with two cars, side-by-side and coming very fast .. he made “the bar ditch move”. There was no real accident, just dust flying and probably some profanity and we scurried back to the relative safety of Mrs Hughs’ class and our study of McBeth.

Confronted

It was then that Mr Stuart (the principal) caught Mrs Hughs’ attention and asked to see the three of us in the hall. We all three remember very well what was in the hall. Walter Woods was the 6’6″ Texas Highway Patrolman who lived right there in our home town. It was the first time I had ever seen Walter that far away from his car and never in the school. (you remember that feeling in the pit of your stomach).

As I remember he was very cool about it and I am sure that there were many witnesses because we were – in the middle of the hall – in the middle of the school – in the middle of the day. Like so many conversations the three of us had with Walter ,as it started out….he started opening his book. He wrote the statistics from our license, probably from memory, as we discussed the situation. I think it was McCormick that suggested that he was quite sure that in order for Walter to ticket us…..he had to “catch us in the act”. When Walter ignored what he said ……. he said it again. Getting no response from him and sure that was because he had not heard him…Ronny said it one more time.

Now while Walter was a patient man…..being lectured on the law by a 17-year-old while a whole generation of future offenders looked on, called for more patience than he had brought to school that day. We can’t remember exactly what he said, but it had something to do with his boot …. McCormick’s butt and the fact that Ronny’s dad would hold him while it happened.

Fallout

We had been saving money for the trip to New Orleans and now we were faced with a dilemma …….. pay our fine before or after the trip. After much discussion….. our friends telling us what they would do ….. and a trip to the JP to see how much the fine was ($16.50) we made the mature decision. We would be conservative in our spending in New Orleans and pay the fine when we got back……But that’s another story.

PS

After leaving Roby and moving to the Dallas area, I would visit home on occasion. On more than one of those occasions Walter greeted me with flashing lights. As he would walk to the car and recognize who it was he would break into a big smile and start asking about family and friends who he had not heard from in a while…all the while pulling out his book and starting the process…if anything he was consistent. He was one of the men I credit with teaching me life lessons that matter. He was a good man.