A funny thing happened
It was Thursday night around 9 to 9:30 p.m. My wife and I were coming through Rogers old Highway 71 on our way home in Pea Ridge. In front of the post office area, we got “the blue light special” given to us from behind. A nice friendly young officer approached us and informed us that we have a head light out. I thanked him and he asked for my license to check us out which I handed him. He then asked for our registration which we keep in a zip lock bag along with the insurance voucher, etc. After looking them over he said “OK, everything checks out” (or something to that effect) and handed them back to me and returned to his car.
Well fine. That went well. Now to continue home. So we slowly drove off. The nice young officer turned off the “blue light special” and as we drove east to Second Street I noticed that he followed us about two blocks back. Nice of him to make sure this old couple got headed out of town okay, right?
Well, the evening is young yet. When arriving home in Pea Ridge, I encountered three of our local police units waiting on me! We’ve been welcomed home before but nothing quite this extravagant and spectacular!
Now picture this for the full effect— This elderly couple who have lived here many years and have operated their building business here and are known quite well by a large percentage of the town occupants, returning home and three of the local police units suddely converge on them, lights on and the whole thing.
“Mr. Myrick, please step out of the car!”
“OK, what’s up guys?” “Were you just stopped in Rogers?”
“Why, yes. We were — a head light out.”
“You’ve been reported as a ‘drive off.’”
“A what?”
“You left while the officer had you stopped.”
“Well, yeah, but we were finished.”
“Well, no sir. The officer was processing your driver’s license.”
(At this point I checked and sure enough, I don’t have my driver’s license.)
Well, being a little inqusitive in my old age, I said, “Well, the officer turned his lights off as we drove off. Why didn’t he stop me and say something to the effect ‘wait a minute, Mr. Myrick, we aren’t through. I still have your license.’?”
The nice Pea Ridge officer (one of three there) said: “Well, he’s not allowed to do that.”
It seems that in the city of Rogers, there exists what is known as a “no pursuit” item where as the officers are not allowed to give chase to a car within the city limits (as I understood it). My first thought was “well, he could have chased us down on foot as slow as we were driving.”
Well, here we all stood — three local police units three nice and friendly local police officers, me lined up beside my car talking
to them with their flood lights lighting up the whole neighborhood and my wonderful wife, Miss Eva, still sitting in the car and no doubt enjoying the whole thing to the fullest!
“Well, OK guys, what do we do now?”
“Well, we wait. The Rogers Police is coming here with your license.”
OK, so two of the local officers went back to their vehicles and the third waited with me lined up beside my car with the nice bright spotlights illuminating it all well. On the brighter side of it all, the local officer, sorry I didn’t get or remember his name, was wonderful to talk to. He said that when the Rogers police made the call to the local police, one of them said: “I know Mr. Myrick; something’s not quite right here.”
He joked: “I guess you know all your neighbors are peering through their window blinds wondering what in the world you have done?”
Yeah, no doubt! Oh, well. In the meantime, my wonderful wife, Miss Eva, had gone inside and she came back out carrying a cup of coffee for our local officer. He was really taken aback! He laughed and said he had to refuse but thanked her and said that in 20 years of police duties he had never been offered coffee from someone he had stopped. (Well, after all, we had just come from church service.)
As a side note, during our 30-some minutes of enlightening conversation, the officer showed interest in the kind of buildings we sell and erect and in the process of it all, he will be asking Google about AMKO buildings. You heard it many times — “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
Well, by and by, not one, but two Rogers police units show up to join the party.
We now have five police units and five friendly police officers in the charades much to the dismay of the peering neighbors, I’m sure.
“What in the world has Bill done? He is being held by the Pea Ridge and Rogers Police Departments for something! Must be really bad!”
Well, after a bit of conferencing, the nice friendly young officer from Rogers, who dutifully obeyed his orders “not to pursue” approached me with the license in hand and proclaimed it was all just a misunderstanding. I told him I was sorry for not be more informed of the modern ways of doing things and we parted friends with no ill feelings.
All good thing must come to an end and so all said their good-byes and parted for other adventures.
On a positive note: Three of our local police officers now know us rather than just the one. We may have picked up another lead for one of our buildings and I resolve that if ever stopped again by a nice Rogers policeman, I will make absolute certain all is well before leaving, maybe even to the point of getting written permission.
Finally to all of our good neighbors on Davis Street: Miss Eva and I are doing just fine. We are not a danger or threat of any kind to the neighborhood. We are just old and from another generation where life seemed a lot simpler and are slow to understand all the ever changing ways of existence.
We apologize for all the excitement and will try to be less of a disturbance in the future.
Rather sheepishly, Bill and Eva Myrick