David Heiller
“Just don’t get stopped with this trailer, because you might not
get home with it.”
I looked at my friend, Dave Landwehr. He was lending me his
eight-foot trailer to haul a piece of newspaper equipment from Grand Marais.
“Yeah, if the police stop you, they might not let you continue.
You might end up spending the night.”
Dave is an honest guy. He speaks his mind. This was his way of
warning me, “You can use my trailer, no problem, but it doesn’t have lights, so
if you get stopped, be prepared for the worst.”
Cindy and I and our two children headed toward Grand Marais,
pulling the tail-light-less trailer Saturday morning. As we passed through
Duluth and up the North Shore, I thought about my luck with law enforcement
officers this year. First, there was that trip to Nisswa in July. Sunday
morning, on a straight stretch of Highway 18, a Crow Wing County deputy pulled
us over. “You were going 71,” he said. He looked us over. Noah and Malika
looked him over from the back seat. He checked his computer, saw no recent
tickets, and gave us a warning. I shook his hand and said “Thank You.”
Then there was Oklahoma City, coming back from vacation in Texas
in September. A state trooper pulled me over, and invited me into his car. “You
know why I stopped you?” he asked.
 |
| Perhaps Noah should have been driving. |
I’ve learned to be brief and honest with the police. “I guess I
was speeding,” I said. Noah and Malika peered at us from the rear window of the
car. They were both laughing. Their smiles looked innocent to the Oklahoman,
but to me, they were saying, “There’s Daddy in the police car again.” I was
glad he couldn’t hear them.
“I’m glad you said that,” the trooper said. “I hate guys who don’t
admit what they were doing. I had you clocked at more than 70 back there. This
is a 55-mile zone in the city. But because you were honest, I’m going to give
you a warning.”
We drove slowly through the rest of Oklahoma City.
So as we approached Grand Marais last Saturday, I was feeling
lucky, if not just a little confident. That is until we passed a state trooper
in Tofte. I looked in the rear view mirror, and saw his brake lights come on,
saw the U-turn. I slowed down, and headed for a pull-off even before his light
came on.
The trooper walked up to us. Noah and Malika grinned at him,
covered with yogurt in the back seat. “Please be quiet,” I thought to myself.
“Come back to my car, please,” he said.
Inside the car, he pulled out a form and started writing. “Let’s
see, you were going 52 miles an hour in a 40 mile zone back there,” he began.
“And you were over the center line about 20 percent of the time I saw you. Plus
you weren’t wearing your seat belt. And you know this trailer doesn’t have tail
lights?”
“Yes, I know,” I answered.
The man lectured me for several minutes, especially about the tail
lights. “I’m going to give you a written warning ticket on this,” he said. “And
if I see you on the road again today, I’m going to write you a ticket.”
We were 20 miles from our destination, so we had no choice but to
continue. We picked up the machine there, and an hour and a half later, headed
south, out of town and toward Tofte, into the Lion’s Den.
We didn’t have to go far. Before we even left Grand Marais, the
same state highway patrolman passed us, going north. I looked at him, and he
looked at me. I glanced in the rear-view mirror, saw his brake lights
come on. But he didn’t U-turn his car. I pulled over in front of a bakery and
left the car in a hurry. Cindy hadn’t seen our trooper friend. I stayed in the
bakery for five minutes, looking over the cookies, while looking out the window
for the patrol car.
There was none.
So we headed out of Grand Marais, careful to obey speed limits,
careful to stay in our lane, careful to wear our seat belts, and always
glancing in the rear-view mirror.
We made it home at 7 p.m. No ticket. “Now that was a fun trip,” I
told Cindy. “Put a little adventure into it, right?”
Cindy just looked at me. Noah and Malika laughed. And I wondered
when my luck would run out.
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