Run Spot Run-One Adam 12 See the Kid

Leaving Hemlock Street, we fast forward to the days of our lives on Cedar Street. I was now three years older than my Fort Hemlock days, and much smarter and wiser? Hardly. We had arrived. We now lived next door to a lawyer, a store owner, and across the street from two bankers, and one block away from two doctors. We were Cedar Street snobs.

By that time I, too, had developed the ability to throw snowballs and baseballs. I hung out mostly with my older brother and his friends, so I had to play hard and be tough.

Cedar Street was not a good street to play baseball on, but right around the corner was Third and Bank Street, and Third and Bank was a great place to play baseball because there was a wall that held the hill on High Bank from crashing down to Bank Street. The wall we used as the outfield, and of course, when we hit a ball over the wall, it was a homer.

The city fathers did not think that playing baseball in the streets was such a grand idea, and so they passed an ordinance that made it "illegal" to do so. It was to be actively enforced by Wallace's finest.
That threat did not stop our local gang of kids from daring to defy this criminal action, so one day in early June found about 6 of us playing again on Third and Bank. I was in my position in the "outfield' when I looked down the street, and to my utter horror, the unmistakable markings of a Wallace City Police car was coming straight for us. Once again, without a word, I commanded my legs to run as fast as a third grader can run. Rounding the corner of Cedar Street with a sprint that would shatter any Olympic record, I ran into the house and straight up the stairs to my bedroom. Well, here we were, Deja vu all over again.

Sure enough, I soon heard my mother's voice calling my name. " Son, please come down here, someone wants to talk to you." Down the winding staircase I came, and there, sitting in our living room was Wallace Officer, Barney Fife. OK, the name was changed to protect the innocent.
Officer Fife wanted to know where I had been about an hour earlier. I was perplexed by the question. An hour earlier I had still been in the house. He then asked me why I had sped away when I saw him coming. I told him it was because of the ordinance forbidding playing ball in the street.

Now, sometimes Divine Intervention smiles on one, and this happened to be the case here. Our pastor, who made a little money on the side painting houses, had been hired by my dad to paint our kitchen, and living and dining rooms. Rev. Philp had been listening to the conversation, and spoke up, and verified that I had, indeed, been in the house an hour before. Officer Fife then told us that about an hour ago some kids had broken the windshield of a car a few blocks away, and he was going to stop and ask us if we had seen any other kids out there. Of course, when I ran, he assumed that I was the one who had broken the windshield earlier in the afternoon. We all kind of laughed. and I was relieved that I was not going to jail that fine afternoon.

When my brother came home in a bit, he asked me why I had taken off. He said that all the officer wanted was to ask about the windshield, and it had nothing to do with playing baseball in the streets.

Ok, I am a slow learner.