C is for Cops, Chicken, and Craziness

What is it about seeing those flashing red and blue lights that bring utter fear and excitement at the same time? For a kid growing up and being involved in the experience I went through, you didn’t fear to cops, you merely fear getting caught. But that was exactly what made the things you did exciting, the chance of seeing those spot lights on you as you run away. There have been many stories involving the great police force of Marshalltown, but a few stick out in my mind.

Actually to tell you the truth, the Marshalltown police were really well known in our group. We have been stopped by the police, (never ticketed or arrested), enough to know some officers by name, and they know some of ours. There was a point when in high school where the group knew exactly what time a police car would patrol past my house (1:30am) and when a police officer would get off work and head home, which would past Nate’s house every night (2:48pm). We knew this because of the many brainless stuff we did at the time these cops passed by. One thing we always seem to be in the middle of when a cop drives by is fireworks, without fail a firework would be lit just as a cop appears from around the corner.

Fireworks were a big thing in Iowa, even though it is illegal to have them let alone shoot them off in Iowa our group did it every summer. We would even drive down to Missouri, and load up on fireworks and then have enough fireworks to last until we when did it again. We would like fireworks on the street in front of people’s houses to wake them up at night (most times succeeding by the way). Or we would light fireworks and throw them out the window of our cars. It was quite amusing to light a firework in a car then throw it the window all without getting burned. I believe there is a skill to it that we perfected after years of mistakes.

Speaking of mistakes, one of the bigger mistakes came when Justin lit a bottle rocket in the back of TJ’s car, and trying to throw it out the window end up hitting the child proof part of the window where only half of it rolls down, so the bottle rocket bounced off the window and lands on the floor behind the driver’s seat. Justin begins to scream and starts smashing Ivan and I in the back seat against the other window. While TJ screams, “what the crap!” over and over again, and Nate sitting in the front seat busts out laughing. I can still here Justin’s scream/laugh while he moves as far away from the bottle rocket as he can. Justin’s laugh was like being scared of what will happen, but knowing full well whatever does happen it will be freakin’ hilarious. Well the bottle rocket spurred about and then went off, making a loud BANG and filling the car with smoke. Forcing TJ to pull over and let the smoke out while chasing Justin around the car. To this day TJ has a burn mark in his car where the bottle rocket blew up. Luckily no cops got involved with that story.

However cops did get involved in practically every time we played chicken. Now before you jump to conclusions this isn’t your normal game of chicken, it’s Iowa’s chicken. (And no this isn’t where two people hop on tractors and drive 3 miles an hour towards each other either). I am talking about a game where two or more people line up on the side of the road wearing nothing but what the good Lord gave them, that’s right completely naked (shoes and socks were ok though). And while you are standing there in flapping in the breeze you wait, the goal is to be the last person who runs away. So when you see those head lights of a car your heart starts pumping, and the hair on the back of your neck starts to stick up. And you know that the time is coming for you to run, but you force your body to stand still holding the Boy Scout solute as the car passes by. Most people run as soon as they see the car form in their eyes, but a few people stay, not mentioning names (to protect the reputation of several individuals), usually there is one clear winner, and sometimes there is a tie; it just depends on who is playing that night.

The cops get involved when a look out (someone who doesn’t play but goes down the road a ways to make sure no cops drive by) yells down to us that the next car is a cop. That is when the game is officially over and people start running. You just pick up your clothes and go; there is no time to get dressed!

There was one time (which I hear stories, I wasn’t actually there) where a game of chicken got out of hand. It all started when five people were playing a game of chicken in front of my house (I was at college at the time). As the car starts to get closer all but two people take of running. Both of these individuals stood their ground, taunting each other to run. The car drives by at a slow enough speed to get a good luck, all of sudden when the person in the car realizes what he just saw he slams on the breaks. With the sound of screeching tires both of the winners took off along with the losers who also were wearing nothing but socks and shoes at the time. The car then begins to start backing up, while the five guys take off running, clothes in hand. Now you have to realize this was at nighttime in the dead of winter so snow was everywhere on the ground. I live across the street from a park so these guys start running to the middle of the park. Well the park is kind of an island as four streets surround it so a car can simply drive around in circles waiting for the people to come out. Well these five guys are not new to this type of waiting, so the first chance they get they run through the park and through people’s yards and end up in someone’s backyard hiding behind a tool shed while the car drives up and down the road looking for them. So here they are freezing to death, naked out in the cold while some crazed driver looks to beat the snot out of them. And they hear it, GRRRR! They don’t know where it came from all they know is they can’t stay where they are, or that dog might get a mouth full of something those guys just don’t want to give.

I guess they found out how hard running full speed while putting on clothes really is; it’s actually near impossible. But some how these five guys run across the park again while putting on their clothes and end up back into my basement. Now the guy in the car never found out who those crazy kids were who showed him all their glory, but I don’t think he drove down that street at night for quite some time after that. But that night I guess the cops were called that night because there was several cop cars that would patrol the park for hours after the game of chicken. And ever since that night more and more cop cars patrolled around the park at night than ever before.

Another instance involving the cops was when Sam and I were much younger, going back to those good ol’ middle school days. Now Sam lived in a house that was very unique, he had a huge back yard that was attached to an old small car-parts junkyard.

Anyways Sam’s house was also on a hill. He was at the corner of the street right next to the railroad tracks. And just on the other side of the railroad tracks was the hill, not too steep, but steep enough to notice it was a pretty good hill. The road in front of Sam’s house went over the railroad tracks and down the hill. A favorite past time of the group was to take old wagon wheels or small tires and roll them down the street. We wouldn’t deliberately roll them in front of traffic; it just wound up happening some of the time. A car would honk and swerve off the road or to the other lane of traffic, and we think ‘here we go again’ as we all take off running. Now just to be clear no injuries or accidents happened while we did this, looking back I guess we were pretty lucky. However there were several people who got out of their cars and yelled at us, but never really chased us because they knew they couldn’t catch us with that hill between them and us. They knew by the time they even got in their car and drove up the hill we would be gone. So I guess they thought they would teach us a lesson by shaking their fists and yelling obscenities at us.

I know some of the things we did while growing up were dangerous, stupid, and irresponsible but that was life in Iowa. These are the type of memories that make you embarrassed for remembering but at the same time find it extremely hilarious to talk about. So in conclusion, I would like to officially apologize to all police officers, people who saw our backsides, and to the readers of this blog for the many things our group did over the years. I know some of the things we did weren’t right, but at the time we thought the only other option was to get drunk or high so we thought we thought we’d pick the lesser of two evils. In Iowa you had to create your own fun order to have any.

My Memories,
Kalgon