Our Day In Court
So Mark and I got arrested, charged with possession of marijuana, and spent a night in jail. It is now a couple of months later in early spring of 1986, and it is time for our big day in court in Trempealeau County, WI. We get up and nervously walk the several blocks over to my car parked in the student ramp, dreading the 2 hour car ride and then who-knows-what in court. We get in and turn the key and...nothing. My '72 Dodge Charger will not start. We frantically mess around with it for awhile before giving up and running back to our dorm-room to hurridly make some phone calls and find another car. We eventually get ahold of Mark's girlfriend Mindy...she's busy, but she said if we can make our way over to her apartment in Dinkytown we can use her car.
So we jump on our bicycles and get to her place as fast as we could, as we are now facing the possibility of being late for court. She's got an old rusty Buick with no gas, but it works so we gas up and hit the highway...me driving as fast as the thing would go while Mark looks out for cops.
Well Mark apparently was not looking good enough because before long I see the cherries flashing in my mirrors and it's a Minnesota State Trooper pulling us over for speeding on I-94 about 5 miles before we hit the Wisconsin border. Dammit! Now we're really going to be late...also...as the trooper is making the walk from his squad up to our car, I remembered that Mark had grabbed his bag of weed before we left and threw it in back. When will we learn?! I look behind me and yep there's the bag just sitting on the seat waiting for that cop. I quickly reached back and grabbed a t-shirt laying next to it and threw it over the bag. Had the cop seen that? Are we going to get busted for possession of marijuana on the way to our court-date for possession of marijuana??
The cop walked up, looked at us, took a quick look through the window at the back seat, and then thankfully turned his attention back to us. He asked why we were going so fast. I thought about telling him we were late for court, but then I was sure he would ask what for and I did not want to get into that, especially with a quarter ounce of weed sitting 3 feet behind me. So I said I didn't know why we were driving so fast, that we were stupid college kids who like to drive fast...he dutifully wrote me out a nice fat $100+ speeding ticket and sent us on our way.
We are now seriously in danger of being late for court. Do we speed and risk getting pulled over again, or go the limit and risk missing court? First of all I smacked Mark upside the head and told him to hide his damn weed better. Then we decided to speed more carefully. We raced down I-94 as fast as we could go with our heads on swivels...me watching in front and Mark looking in back. Also, whenever we would see a turn-around in an upcoming median I would mash on the breaks in case there was a cop lurking there, and then floor it as soon as we were safely past.
Before long we made it to the Osseo turn-off 88 miles into Wisconsin, but it's going to be close. We fly the 18 remaining miles south down the country roads to the courthouse, nervous as hell as we get closer and closer to the place we had spent that night in jail a couple of months ago. We get to the courthouse, park, run into the strangely quiet building and there is nobody around? Was court over? Where we that late? A quick look at the clock on the wall showed that we were only 10 minutes late. We walked around for about another 10 minutes until we finally found a clerk-type person coming out of a room at the end of a hall. We ran up and told her we have a court date but are not sure where to go and cannot find anybody.
She informs us that Ol' Joe Patterson had died a few days ago and everyone was at the funeral today. Huh? Everyone? Yep, everyone but her...she still had to work. This was a very small town and apparently when somebody dies just about everybody drops what they are doing and goes to the funeral. Court was cancelled. Well thanks for letting us know that. This was before the internet and cell phones and all that, but still a call to our dorm-room would have been nice to save us from busting our asses to get down there for nothing. This was a Friday. She said to call on Monday and get a new court date. Okay...so we get back in the car and make the 18 mile trip back up to I-94.
Part III - 'The Long Hard Journey Home' is next...
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