Taiwan 2024 - Calla Lily Farm, Another Strange Chicken / In a Police Car #1

Since we saw how interesting the chicken was in yesterday's post, I kept my eye out for more strange birds and captured this guy in a frame of its own.

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On several occasions I found myself on the inside of a police car.  The first time was when a friend named Doug and I were walking the streets of Orange in the wee hours of the morning.  A 13-year-old kid certainly couldn't get by with doing such a thing nowadays, but this was a time when the world was a less dangerous place for risk-takers like us.  Back then it was weekend routine for us to sneak out of the house in the middle of the night with a friend and go roaming, exploring a seemingly different world cloaked in darkness and quiet.

We'd been out for a while and, growing bolder because we'd not yet been caught, took one of the busier streets (16th) to head back to the house.  When a police car slowed down next to us we got a little nervous and adopted a more purposeful gait while trying to act nonchalant, as if it were perfectly normal for us to be walking around at two in the morning.  Having none of that, the officer stopped us and asked what we were doing out at that hour.

"We were just heading home, sir."

"What are you doing out this late, boys?"

"Just walking around, sir."

Evidently he found this to be an inadequate excuse, so told us to hop in the back of the car.  Doug and I were totally quiet on our way to the clink, not having any idea what would happen when we got there.  Would they put us in jail?  Would we be fingerprinted?  I'd gone there recently as a Boy Scout to get my fingerprinting merit badge, so knew what that was all about.  Would they take our picture?  Would this little excursion go on our permanent record somewhere?  Occasionally we glanced at each other with these questions in mind as the street lights created ominous shadows in our caged space as we rode along.

After arriving they deposited us into a little room where they called our parents.  Yes I was a little nervous but, strangely, not afraid.  OK so we're here, what's done is done.  Dad's going to get the news, and I'm in trouble.  We'll see where it goes from here.

Imagine my surprise when, after calling Dad, the desk sergeant chuckled.  Seeing my raised eyebrows, he told me that when he called to tell him that his son was at the police station after being picked up, Dad asked, "Which one?"  By then at least one of my older brothers (probably Allan) was a familiar face around there.

So Dad picked me up, and that's all there was to it.  No arrest for curfew violation (if there was one), no fingerprinting, no booking photo.  Just a couple of kids out when they shouldn't have been.  I got grounded for a couple of weeks.