Prehistoric legends: moments when time stood still

Photo by Jason Rojas used under Creative Commons license.

By Prof. Jim Wilcox, guest columnist

I was just telling the following story in class today, so I’ll begin this series of prehistoric legends with that one.

When I was a senior at one of our “brother schools” in The Great Northwest, where men are men and women are mean, my brother, four friends and I squeezed into Dusty’s Pontiac and ignored one of the Ten Commitments of our college, “I will not go to movies.” It was a drive-in double feature, so we weren’t going to an evil theater, after all.

So it’s Jerry, Dennis, Dusty, John, Ken and me watching a Lee Marvin western and “Lady Sings the Blues.” Two near Oscar winners if we’ve ever seen one. The movies were over about midnight.

(I should tell you something about that alma mater of mine that will make your head jerk back and forth until you get a massive scalp burn). Only resident females had curfew; resident males did not have a curfew. Here’s how that administration meeting probably went:

“Hey, do you think we should make the boys come in at any certain time?”

“Nah, if we put the girls in their cages early, the boys will rush to their cages, alone and dejected.”

“Sounds good. Who brought the Cokes?”

We left the dust of sin at the drive-in and began the 15-mile trip back to town. As we cruised on down the highway, we noticed that at every on-ramp, a new police car started to follow us. No lights. No sirens. By the third on-ramp, guess how many cop cars were tailing us? Yep, three.

If we had been driving a white Ford Bronco, we’d have been on national television. Just ahead was our exit.

“Let’s see if these cops exit, too.”

Sure enough. They tailed us all the way to the park near our campus. We were so glued to what was behind us, we almost slammed into what was in front of us. THREE MORE COP CARS!

Count ‘em with me: six cruisers with two cops each. (…carry your one, add two…) What’s that spell? Twelve, a dozen, policemen. This time the lights were flashing. And if I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’ — every one of them was crouched behind his car door with a bullhorn and his gun aimed right at our GPA’s. It was like a Lee Marvin western!

“GET OUT OF THE CAR WITH YOUR HANDS UP!”

My idiot savant brother said, “Let’s run!”

His idiot brother said, “Shut up, Death Wish.”

And then the Church of the Nazarene came like angels to rescue us. One of the cops was the son of the district superintendent. Two of our friends were sons of the pastor of the largest church on that district. They knew each other.

So everything got sorted out and soon were back at campus, alone and dejected, slumbering in our cages.

We learned our lesson that night: when the administration says, “You can’t go to movies,” you’d better know they mean it. They’ll bring down the law on you.