I was writing a post about praying when I hear a siren, and it reminded me of the first time I ever rode in the back of a police squad car.
Now, that raises questions, I know. Why was I riding in the back of a squad car? And perhaps more importantly, by saying "first time" it implies there were others.
There were.
But this first time was in Panama City when I was in high school. But this wasn't some gang of ruthless juveniles out tearing up the town, or some drunken brawl on the beach, or any of the "usual" activities that wind up with someone riding in the back of a police cruiser. Oh, my life was never that ordinary.
For one, I was with a bunch of guys from my church, including the youth minister from the church.
For another, it was the dead of winter, a time when nobody - back then - when to Panama City.
(By the way, when I was a kid and I heard about friends who went to Panama City, I thought they were going to the country of Panama. I couldn't figure out how all these people from my neighborhood could afford to just up and take off to Central America for a weekend - much less why they would want to. Needless to say, when I finally learned Panama City was in the Florida panhandle, it all made a lot more sense - and a sense of embarrassment).
Going to the beach in the dead of winter was an economic decision. The kids from the north side of Atlanta - the 'rich kids' - went to the mountains for their winter retreats, and the beach for the summer. But those of us from the south side - the 'not rich kids' - learned to take advantage of off-season rates.
So we'd have these youth retreats in Gatlinburg, Tenn., in the summer, and go to the sandy white beaches of the Florida panhandle in the dead of winter. And we had great times.
But I digress ...
This one time, Dan, our youth minister, arranged for a 'guys only' weekend trip to Panama City. Dan was a great youth director, and the things we did - in retrospect - were things that if our parents had known or, certainly, Dan's bosses at the church, probably would have gotten him fired.
Like riding on the top of the big yellow church bus, holding on to the luggage rack, while rolling through downtown Panama City, dodging the traffic lights as they whizzed by our heads. What the heck were we - and Dan, our 'adult' chaperon - thinking?
Or being left in downtown Atlanta at Fulton-County Stadium after a Braves' game, because some of us refused to leave early and said we'd walk home. (We had a plan. It would have involved walking south on I-85/75 for only a few miles - I didn't say it was a good plan - to an exit where a trucking company that a friend of my family managed, where we'd call for a ride home. However, things always had a way of working out for Dan. He came back for us, and found us in the midst of all the post-game traffic right outside the stadium. Dan could find a needle in a haystack in those days).
Anyway, in Panama city, we'd stay in some near deserted Holiday Inn and, yes, we'd have Bible studies and serious times of discussion about the Bible and what it meant to follow Christ. You'd have to have known Dan to understand how he did it, but it worked.
And then we'd go off and play games - football on the beach in the freezing cold, or at night something we called "Fox and Hounds."
In "Fox and Hounds," you divided into two teams. One team went out in the night along the beach to hide, and the other team went out to capture them.
Look, we didn't have video games or laser tag or high tech stuff. We actually had to go out and do stuff like this to stay engaged.
What made Panama City so much fun was that about half the beach-side motels would close in the winter, and we'd run through them, hiding or hunting the other guys.
OK, it sounds kind of lame, now that I think about it.
Unfortunately, sometimes the motels weren't closed, completely, for the winter. Even if they looked like it.
Anyway, it was late, and a couple of us were walking along, kind of casually looking for the other guys but mostly just talking, when we saw this group of three men and one boy standing under a street light in the courtyard parking lot of this old motel that looked closed, but obviously wasn't.
The kid we recognized as one of the younger guys from our church; one of the men was talking at a pay phone in the parking lot, while another man was pointing a spear gun at our friend.
As dumb as I had once been about the location of Panama City, by this time I was a little smarter and quickly realized something was not right (Doh!) . So the guys - me and Keeve and I don't know who else - came into the courtyard to see what was going on.
The guy with the spear gun saw us and turned it on me. "Don't come any closer,'' he said. "We've called the police."
The other guys with me stopped, but I kept walking. I don't know - I guess I just didn't think he'd pull the trigger.
Fortunately, he didn't.
"Hey," I said. "that's Danny (not his real name; I remember his name, but there's no point dragging some guy into this story without his permission). He's with us."
And I proceeded to tell the guys that we were with a church group, down on the coast for a youth retreat, and we were out playing "Fox and Hounds'' on the beach, and that "Danny" was not supposed to go up into the motels (at least not if he was going to get caught). While I'm talking, a handful more of our guys strolled up to gather round, standing under a street light in the courtyard parking lot next to a pay phone and a swimming pool that was covered for the winter.
"I never heard of a church group like that!" the guy said, and I have to admit, in retrospect, he was right. (This was before the days of David Koresh and "church groups'' that holed up in compounds with heavy artillery).
While I was explaining everything, these two squad cars came flying into the parking lot, probably happy to be able to respond to something during what was the off-season for tourism and, therefore, the off-season for trouble.
This started a whole new round of explanations: the guys who ran the motel told the police what was going on, and I - why I was the spokesman, I don't know, but I guess I've always been the talker - tried to explain what we were doing was harmless fun. (Unless, I suppose, you were managing a supposedly empty motel and a bunch of teenage guys were running around, ducking and hiding).
So the police load us up into the back of their squad cars.
There were four of us in the backseat of one car - Me, my buddy Keeve, a guy I'll call Jeff, and another guy I'll call Steve (because, again, what's the point in using real names without permission? These guys know who they are.)
The squad car was the real deal. I'd never been in one before, but I'd heard about them. Sure enough, there were no handles on the inside of the back doors, so you couldn't open the doors form the inside. There was the metal screen separating the back from the front. A shotgun was hung across the opposite side of the metal screen.
The policeman pulls out, taking us - well, we weren't sure where, until he called in got on the radio.
We're kind of talking and still trying to explain what was going on to the policeman, and suddenly Steve - who has been real quiet the whole time - says in a real serious voice that sounded like he was about to cry, "Guys, I think we should pray," and he bowed his head.
I'm ashamed to admit the rest of us laughed out loud.
At that point, the policeman got his dispatcher at headquarters and said, "This is Unit (whatever), and I'm transporting four juveniles back to the Holiday Inn."
That's when this guy I'm calling Jeff said with some force, "I'm 18; I'm not a juvenile!"
We all froze. Steve bowed his head even more. Keeve and I just looked at each other in horror.
And the policeman said, "Shut up, son. Tonight you're a juvenile - unless you want to go downtown to get booked."
"Jeff,'' I said. "Shut up, man. We're going back to the motel!"
"But I'm not a juvenile!" Jeff said.
I think Keeve punched him in the ribs at that point. Jeff shut up.
Turns out, the policeman was pretty cool. He raced back down the highway and took us back to the Holiday Inn where, as we got out, he said, "Look, it's late. You guys are going back to your rooms, right? You're in for the night, right? And, look - have a good time, but understand some of these guys who manage these motels can be pretty nervous in the winter. Stay off private property, ok?"
Needless to say, we agreed. The other car pulled in right behind with the other guys, and we all went back to our rooms.
Where we found Dan.
By this time we were laughing and having a great time, retelling the adventure, full of bravado because nobody wanted to admit to being scared, and couldn't wait to tell Dan.
But much to our surprise, Dan - who did indeed look a bit shaken - told us, "I know. I was watching the whole thing. I was in the sand dunes and saw what was going on."
"Why didn't you come over and help us?" I remember asking.
"When I saw the police cars, I was afraid they were taking you guys in,'' he said. "I knew someone was going to have to come down to the station to get you out. And I was wondering how I was going to explain this to the church."
I can't speak for the rest of the guys, but I was stunned that Dan had watched the whole thing and not come out of hiding to help us out. At the time, I thought it was cowardice on his part.
Later, I realized he was probably thinking about losing his job, which could have been the end of his ministry, his reputation as a youth pastor. Heck, again in retrospect, he probably should have been fired.
But we loved him.
And it was a different time.
And it was a good time.
For me, it was the first time in the back of a police car.
Maybe some day I'll write about the others.
Sidebar: we went back to Panama City again. And again, while running through what we thought was a deserted motel (nobody said we were fast learners), we got caught by a security guard who actually had a badge, flipped it out, and told us - I swear I'm not making this up - "read it and weep."
Then he told us to line up single file and walk back to the motel office. We fell in line, and all put our hands on our heads like prisoners of war. This time it was Mitch, I think, who started explaining the rules of the game we were playing. But Barney Fife didn't care.
However, once in the motel office, he gave us a good lecture. Meanwhile, I noticed that kid Danny - the same one from the previous story - lurking outside the office, watching and trying to stay hidden.
Somehow, Barney Fife agreed to let us walk out, which we did.
And as we stepped out from the glass doors of the motel office, Danny jumped out and proudly grabbed me, screaming, "Got you! You're captured! All of you are mine!"
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