The Lighthouse, Cincinnati and The Man
Alright. You’ve all read the disclaimer from the other day. The one where I say I don’t condone a lot of the stupid things I did when I was younger. Good.
It was probably 1982 and a group of us had decided to go to a bar called The Lighthouse in faraway Cincinnati. Well, it was about a 40-mile drive. I had Flying Fred as a passenger in my VW Beetle. My buddy Joe had his orange Datsun (the color was Fawn Brown according to Datsun… now Nissan).
We made it to Cincinnati without any problem — it was a straight shot down I-75 — and were able to get really really close to The Lighthouse, which was in the University of Cincinnati area.
Anyway, we kept driving around The Lighthouse, always able to see it but never able to get near it due to the configuration of one-way streets. I’d finally had enough and told Flying Fred that I was going to hop across a small grassy area so that we’d have a better angle on the bar. It was a really stupid thing to do.
As we hit the curb going onto the grassy area Fred said, "Lookout, it’s the cops!"
"Throw all the empties out," I suggested as I continued across the grass. Fred complied.
"What are we going to do?" Fred asked.
Assuming the cops were University of Cincinnati cops and on foot, I said, "We’re going outrun them."
And then luck turned her head my way. As I came off the far curb the car died. Had it not, I would have preceded right, down the road and away from the UC police. They were not all on foot.
The Bruise (the name of the Beetle) had a problem of dying occasionally. When it died it took about 10 minutes for her to decide to start back up. I didn’t even try to turn the engine over.
I rolled down the window and waited.
A female University of Cincinnati police officer strolled up to the window. I let out and incredibly audible sigh that was heard for what it was.
"What are you so relieved about?" the policewoman asked.
"I thought you were going to be a man," I stupidly said.
Do you detect a theme?
