CHP MEMORIES

It wasn't too long after transferring from the L.A. area to Santa Cruz, that I settled an old score from my high school days. Returning to work in Santa Cruz County, brought me back to the area where I grew up, and went through school.

Even though I only worked out of the Santa Cruz Office for approx. 2 years, it provided me an opportunity to reacquaint myself with many old friends who I hadn't seen in several years. Some of those re-introductions were by choice, and some were not.

There was one day that I was working the swing shift in the south county, around my old hometown of Watsonville, when I ran across someone who caused a lot of problems during my early high school years. This guy (I'll call him Jack) was 2 years ahead of me, so during my first year at Watsonville High, he was a junior. For lack of a better description, lets just say he was the classic bully, who liked to pick on the younger kids. I wasn't so much the brunt of his attention, but several of my friends were, and in those days, you didn't run to the adults every time something happened. One of my friends decided that enough was enough, and in the school parking lot, he took a stand against Jack, and unfortunately, took a pretty good beating. This sort of thing was fairly common, and because Jack was a pretty big kid, he not only had the reputation of being a bully, but he had the physical skills to back up his bravado. When he graduated, many of us, and I suspect the school administration as well, was very glad to see him move on down the road.

I remember the day that I unexpectedly ran across Jack while working in the Watsonville area. I was following a car on Beach Rd. when suddenly, a large brown paper bag was thrown out the passenger window onto the side of the roadway. Littering isn't exactly the crime of the century, but here it happened right in front of me. The driver and this passenger either didn't see me, or they were about the stupidest folks in the entire world. I decided that I was going to make this litterbug go back and pick it up, or he/she was getting a citation.

When I pulled the car over, and walked up to the passenger side of the car, guess who was staring back at me as I explained why they got the red light. You guessed it - Jack the high school bully. In true form, he denied throwing anything out, and started his threatening tactics that I remembered from years ago. The moment I recognized Jack, there wasn't any question that he was getting a ticket. The idea of asking his driver to take him back to pick up the bag was not even a consideration. As I wrote out the ticket, Jack continued his verbal assault, but as in the past, he wasn't in the drivers seat, I was. When he refused to sign the ticket, I silently said to myself "thank you god", and explained to Jack, that I had no choice but to handcuff him and take him to jail. I guess those words caused a sudden change of behavior, because he did sign the ticket, denying me the best opportunity for revenge. As he drove away, I thought to myself, there is justice in this world, and sometimes paybacks come in the oddest of ways.

Normally, I wouldn't have gone back for the litter, but in this case I did. Something in the back of my mind told me that this might not yet be over. I collected the bag, and it's contents, thinking that Jack might want to dispute this ticket in court. Sure enough, about a month later, I got a subpoena with Jacks name on it. When the court date came, I presented the facts to the judge, and to Jack's dismay, presented the actual evidence of littering. When Jack testified, he denied any wrongdoing, and told the judge it was his word against mine. It only took the judge about 2 seconds to find Jack guilty of littering. About 2 months after the satisfaction of giving Jack some of his own medicine, the court delivered a second dose, and my revenge was even sweeter.