That or serial killer.
Okay I lied about the one last anecdote, but this is it for me.
I met some nice cops in Signal Hill--or at least not vicious. About the same
time as the earlier yarn--30 years ago--I used to have a motorcycle repair
shop there. It's now nothing but high-end condos where the grubby garages
for rent near the grubby oil fields used to be. I used to really blitz PCH
on my cafi-racer BMW (built from a wildly inappropriate 1972 R50/5, believe
it or not, long before the R90S. Still have the bike). One day I was coming
back from lunch at the always (and still!) spectacular Los Comadres over
near terminal island and as usual was "splitting traffic" in the center lane
(a neat trick on a two-lane road) at probably twice the legal speed. I
turned up towards signal hill, turned into the parking lot for the shop, and
as usual, intentionally locked up the back wheel, slid about 50 feet and
smashed into the trash cans. I did this every day to piss off my shop mate.
It always worked. He yelled "God DAMN it Babcock, you asshole."
I started working on a customer bike, and about ten minutes later a cop car
screeched to a halt in front of the shop. A young cop got out nearly
incoherent with rage. He finally stopped babbling and asked who the *^%$
owned that motorcycle. That would be me. He accused me of running from him,
but I said "Gee, I had no idea you were back there." And of course I didn't,
I was way too busy doing something seriously dangerous and illegal for real
purpose at all other than my daily drive back from lunch. He finally calmed
down, lectured me about not wanting to be the guy that scraped me up, and
started to leave without writing a ticket. As he got to his car he noticed
the black tire streak, followed it to the back wheel of my bike and all the
dented up garbage cans. Gave me a bleak look and left shaking his head.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-fot@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-fot@autox.team.net] On Behalf
Of Randall Young
Sent: Saturday, March 13, 2004 10:56 AM
To: fot@autox.team.net
Subject: RE: Sort of an LBC question... but not exactly.... (long answer)
Bill Babcock wrote :
> but I really don't like
> petty, vicious assholes.
And let's face it, if one did fall into that category, what better, more
rewarding job than being a cop ?
Good thing your friend wasn't black and stopped in Signal Hill ... they
probably would've killed him.
Randall
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