November 22, 2009 – An evening with the Rockyford, Georgia po-lice

Hilton Head Island is paradise. Sugar sand beaches. Bike pedaling at low tide on hard packed sand for mile after mile admiring the brown pelicans and dolphins diving for lunch al pesca.

Onshore, mansion after antebellum mansion peaks grandly from behind the dunes safe from the wrath of fall hurricane season.

Then there’s our trailer park. Our dear neighbors across the way are a couple of – how to put this delicately – aging queers. Each night they sit in easy chairs outside their motor home, smoking and hacking, watching Jeopardy on a cheap television propped up on a portable table, arguing passionately about Alex Trebek’s choice of necktie while they get pleasantly pissed, voices eventually reaching a lisping crescendo.

Fortunately they’re passed out and off to bed before Wheel of Fortune comes on and we are treated to a word-mincing debate over Pat Sajak’s choice of cravat.

Hilton Head beach holiday – keeping an eye on the haremIt is beginning to dawn on me that every time we meet a new couple en route – in a restaurant, at a golf course, on a tour – the wife’s response to our escapade is something like: “That is exactly what we have always wanted to do. Isn’t it dear? Jump in a small van, throw caution to the wind and really see the country. We are so jealous.”

As the wife fawns admiration upon us it is difficult to disregard the distant look on her husband’s face, lurking behind.

“Aren’t we envious honey?” she demands to know. As if unexpectedly – and publicly – asked to comment on whether his wife’s ass “looks fat in these pants”, men are inevitably rendered speechless.

An invisible cartoon bubble pops up over his head with the caption: “Are you nuts? After twelve hours you’d be begging to sign up for a timeshare sales gimmick just so you could walk into the shoe closet.”

Or “Actually honey I wouldn’t mind doing that but I suspect the novelty would quickly wear off for you after I released gas continuously in our 36 cubic foot love nest”.

Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia are both lovely. If you are ever in this neck of the woods you simply must visit. We enjoyed great hospitality right in the heart of the historic districts of each City, complete with complimentary continental breakfast and afternoon “cordials” daily, all at a very reasonable cost. We even managed to park the gas-laden love nest right outside the door at both places.

They say the green shoots of recovery are breaking through the parched earth of America’s recession. The Savannah Morning News’ 16 full pages of foreclosure notices would seem to indicate otherwise. That’s a lot of troubled homeowners for a remarkably beautiful town populated with 131,000 souls.

Sheriff Buford T. Paxton Jr. (the names have been changed to protect the innocent) does not take kindly to folks speeding in Stafford County, Georgia. Particularly if you are a “foreigner”. Hoping to arrive at Magnolia State Park before dark I was travelling “at an advanced state of speed” on lonely highway 17 through cotton fields, distracted by the splendor of Spanish moss draping centuries-old roadside oak trees.

Florence was likewise occupied, completing the final rows of her mohair/silk sweater, a task that has engaged her – like Scarlett O’Hara devoted to her beloved Tara – since our departure from Kanader. We therefore mutually neglected to notice the speed reduction zone until the lights and si-rene erupted. I pulled over, displaying a practiced, puzzled look when the sheriff approached our vehicle.

“May I please see your driver’s license?” he asked, unimpressed by my facial display.

I handed it over self-deprecatingly, inwardly assured that my gift of the gab and 27 years at Her Majesty’s Royal Canadian Bar would easily assuage the situation. He studied our license plate and then asked in a puzzled tone, “where ya’ll from?”

“Alberta” I said.

“Yeah, that’s what the plate says” he responded uncertainly before retreating to his cruiser.

He disappeared but we could hear him call in: “Tango – Alpha – Sierra – 1 9er 5. He returned to describe the gravity of the situation. “Ya’ll were clocked travellin’ 62 mph in a 45 mph zone. And since you are a foreigner you are required to appear before a judge or post a cash bond of $245 in lieu.”

Certain of my innocence and the grossly unfair situation presented, I considered the options. A glance at Sheriff Paxton’s sidearm, his suped-up Dodge Charger, our 10,000 pound van and the disapproving look on Florence’s face quickly ended the thought of fleeing the scene and engaging in a high-speed pursuit into Macon County. I pondered the next best alternative – a quick cash settlement.

“Certainly there is a way of avoiding this cash bond stuff or bothering a judge at this late hour. In Canada we prefer the plea-bargaining process” I offered.

“What are you suggesting sir?”

“I only meant that, for instance, if I didn’t have $245 in cash on my actual person that perhaps there might be some way of causing your device to recalculate the speed purportedly recorded such that, in such event, the cash bond might be reduced accordingly?” I looked at him hopefully, expectantly.

“If you don’t have the money sir, we’ll just hold you until you do or until you post bond. If you wish to contest the certainty of my radar-control device the presiding judge begins sitting at 6.

“Electing not to quibble about whether he was referring to the a.m. or the p.m., I dutifully followed him the 2 miles to the County Courthouse in Rockyford –while the locals watched the spectacle roadside in open-mouthed amusement – and forked over the large.

My $245 memento is a great photo of the convict, the Police Chief and a triumphant Sheriff posing by the po-lice car in front of the Rockyford Courthouse – recently renovated with the assistance of convict labour (probably foreigners short on cash).

Gerry and Florence

p.s. last week I hauled in a 150lb sandbar shark off the coast of Hilton Head with the help of Captain “Chip”. The fishing charter was only slighrtly more expensive than an afternoon with Buford T. Paxton but infinitely more enjoyable.