I'm in the Jail House Now

No, the picture isn't real. At least not real in the sense of actually being in jail. We were at a 4th of July picnic and had been jailed by the make believe sheriff. We were arrested for being teenagers and the fine was $1.00 each. With the fine you got to have your picture taken and as you can see we were having a great time. However, looking at that picture reminded me of a later event in which the real police were involved. It was Halloween 1956. My friends and I were going out to celebrate. There were five of us, Paul Jacobsen, Ray Edwards, Kay Littlefield, Dwayne Rowley and myself. We were in Kay's car, a 1949 black ford 2-door coup, lowered in the back so that it barely missed the ground. We were all only 17 but had talked someone into buying us three cases of beer. We headed for Provo to cruise Center street. We drove up and down Center street for a while and drank some beer. We were really feeling good. After a few trips up and down Center we decided to go over to Mary Ann McFaddens to see if we could get some girls. On the way to Mary Ann's we were stopped by a Provo Patrol car. He had spotted one of us throwing a beer can out the window. We all tried to hide our beer but he already knew what we were doing. He ask us to get out of the car and bring our beer with us. He made us pour all the remaining beer in the gutter. He called another patrol car and they told Kay to lock his car and they took us to the Provo Police Station. When we arrived they asked us our names and told us that we were in big trouble. They held us at the station and threatened keep us there all night. After they thought they had scared us enough they said if we could get a way home that they would let us go with a warning. However, we were not to drive. We told them that we would walk to Mary Ann's house and that someone would pick us up there. We walked out of the station giggling and laughing and happy that they had not filed any charges against us. On the way to Mary Ann's we decided that since it was Halloween we should play a few Halloween tricks. We tipped over flower pots, rang door bells and ran away. We were having a great time but unfortunately someone ( I swear it wasn't me) decided to snap the antennae off of an automobile and there was a Provo Police officer right across the street watching us. He pulled over in front of us and said "get in boys" Back to the station we went. When we walked into the station, the desk Sargent said, "are you guys back already? This may be some kind of record." This time we had to call our parents to pick us up and make arrangements to pay for the damage we caused. Needless to say we were in a lot of trouble at home, but the worst thing was that our parents called our football coach and he made sure that we got in enough running to really teach us a good lesson. His announcement to the rest of the team was very simple. "We have a few boys that need to run off the new beer belly's they have acquired. For the next two weeks we ran 10 extra laps after practice. S Beatty Feb 2009