Did those phrases always
keep me out of trouble ? No, but they made for an efficient, if not pleasant
interruption in whatever I was up to and I suspect that they mitigated a
head thumping or two that I ,undoubtedly, deserved. Cept for one time.
I was always polite and I was always cooperative . Whether I was a teenage
long-hair driving a counter culture van covered in bumper sticker sound
bites with strange odors emanating , a boxhead driving a muscle car at warp
speed , my easy rider days on various rice eaters complete with muttonchops
that were only a razorblades width from meeting or my drinking days in a
moving aluminum can recycling bin, I was always polite and I was always
cooperative . And more times than not, I was treated in a decent and
efficient manner. The situation might have been unpleasant, but why make
things worse with a chip on my shoulder?
There was one exception where I was polite and cooperative and still got a
baton to the gut and had my head banged on the trunk lid to the tune of
“Dixie“. At least I think it was “Dixie“, the Man definitely didn’t have any
sense of rhythm. I think he turned me loose because he thought I had learned
my lesson. That and he didn’t want to explain the overlapping Bill Heard
Chevrolet patterns on my forehead. I heard a few days later his personal car
quit running. Seems someone had poured a bag of sugar in the gas tank. A
neighbor told him they had heard someone walking down the street that night
whistling Dixie.