(The familiar Crown Victoria was one of the cruisers waiting for me outside of Culpeper yesterday. The other one was a new-issue Taurus Interceptors like this one. Image Christopher Ihara, courtesy of Virginia State Police).
So, it was a Good Friday. I did not get to you yesterday because I was responding to a lot of direct communication. By the time I got through that, and integrated the traffic of the business day, I was still in bunny slippers and the clock was headed toward eleven.
Damn- how can it be so busy doing nothing productive?
I think many people in our mutual circles are either retired or taking the day off and there was a lot of correspondence about the Constitution and some of my contentions about it two days ago. I realized by mid-morning that no story was going to happen, and I would have be content with the simple mastery of office and business correspondence.
I piled a bunch of stuff in my old-lady-cart to wheel down to the Bluesmobile for relocation to Refuge Farm for the duration. The fact that I am transporting my emergency reserves stocks of just about everything is mute testimony to my determination to get out of town. It was the middle of the day. I was current on office message traffic, and while the volume of cars was interspersed with week-day trucks, the drive was not bad.
The Bluesmobile was running well, and I was pleased I had it serviced and that it would not be a problem for another six months or so. It is a remarkable vehicle in its way, apex of the Highway Patrol package of large Panther-framed Fords. I glanced at the gas gauge and saw I was below three quarters. If the car is going to sit for a while, I prefer the fuel tank to be full, so I started looking for gas stations on the right fairly close to the farm.
There is a new one that will probably become my fuel station of choice in the future- a Southern States outlet nearing completion immediately adjacent to the light that marks the north end of the Brandy Station battlefield complex. It is not done yet, so I decided to press on to the north Culpeper city exit, Business 29 that runs through town. That would add fifteen minutes to the remainder of the journey if I stopped at the supermarket that features gas pumps, but this trip I have no need for food nor supplies from the Big Box sprawl in the developed area north of downtown.
There is a Marathon station just off the exit, and I figured it would be E-Z off, E-Z on. I put on the blinker and arced off on the gentle ramp….only to see a long line of vehicles and a flashing blue strobe ahead, all of it out of sight from the highway, concealed by the long off-ramp.
Curious thing to see on a Good Friday, I thought as I tried to see what was happening up ahead. Accident? A couple vehicles were pulled over to the sides, and what appeared to be two State Patrol cars were pointed nose-down the ramp in the median between the path of the on and off lanes that paralleled one another.
It appeared that cars were approaching a uniformed officer, and having some sort of interaction with him. Most appeared to be permitted to proceed, though not all.
(The Crown Vic P-71 is still in the inventory, though. A sister to my plain-clothes model, this one has all the bells-and-whistles. Photo Virginia Patrol).
Curious. I crept forward, and when I saw that people were producing something from the driver’s side windows. It was not a drunk driver roadblock, or at least not the sort that we occasionally see in show-of-force demonstrations around the traditional drinking holidays: if there is that sort of problem in Culpeper, VA, on a Good Friday at one-thirty in the afternoon, clearly things have gotten away from us.
I fished in the back pocket of my jeans for my wallet and slid out my driver’s license and retired military ID, something I have found (sometimes) to be useful in encounters with law enforcement. I slowly advanced up the ramp and identified one gray-clad Trooper interviewing the motorists while a younger officer remained in a more modern cruiser than the one behind it- a sister to the Bluesmobile, though it had the State paint and push-bar and lighting array on the roof.
Only then did I consider if I was doing anything illegal as I drove, aside from a couple miles an hour over the limit for the past hour. I had a gun, of course, but it was in my go-bag in the trunk. I did not have a cocktail in the cup-holder. No drugs, prescription or otherwise. I was stone sober, though there probably was something residual in my system from the night at Willow before.
I did not have any of the assault weapons, I thought with relief. Though legal, and none loaded, there was ammunition for them in the go-bag that I was transporting down to the farm for storage.
Accordingly, I proceeded without much concern, though my blood pressure and respiration did increase.
The trooper was at the upper end of his longevity. His crew cut was salt and pepper and his uniform was a crisp as a Marine, right down to the smart angle on his campaign hat. It was gray, not deep green, but was a ringer for the traditional four-dent style worn by USMC drill instructors.
The car ahead of me was waved through, and it was my turn with The Man. I held out the two laminated IDs from the driver’s window, and he did not take them. I did not address him, waiting to see what instructions he had for me. He scoped the big Ford after glancing at the credentials.
“Are you aware your inspection expired last October?” The trooper was crisp and businesslike- a pro.
Crap, I thought. I had been meaning to scrape all the Virginia compliance stickers off the windshield and had not gotten around to it. I tried at the garage where I had the car serviced, but the stickers had been baked onto the glass over the winter. In the chaos that surrounded the deaths of my parents in Michigan, I had registered the cruiser in the Wolverine state where there is no annual inspection or emissions requirement. Or personal property tax.
I realized I was an outlaw, if only for tax reasons, like Al Capone. There was an old rule-of-thumb we used to hear about when I was on active duty- two out or three forms of ID had to agree for you to be legal behind the wheel: registration, license and insurance.
“Sir, the car is registered in Michigan,” I said politely.
“Really?” He seemed skeptical, and walked to the rear quarter on the Ford to check the plates. He returned to me after a glance to see if my claim was true and my sticker was current.
“Was the vehicle registered in Virginia?” he asked. His gaze was direct.
“About a year ago, Sir. My folks died in Michigan and I have been spending a lot of time there.”
“Works,” he said, and waved me on.
I could have made a smart remark, being the cocky bastard I am, and assuaged my curiosity as to the purpose of the check-point, but I considered myself to be lucky to be allowed to pass without any of the consequences of a protracted interaction with law enforcement.
I made the right turn and drove cautiously up to the Marathon station. Don’t overthink this, I thought to myself. The State Patrol barracks is just up the road to Brandy Station. Maybe it was a training exercise. Maybe there are bad guys on the loose.
Of course, it is a function of living up North in NoVa that there are so many bad guys that the police are completely outnumbered.
As I was filling up, I contemplated my encounter with The Man. I was impressed by his professional demeanor and businesslike manner. But what were the State Troopers doing?
Perhaps this is more common in the country, where a roadblock in one place could bring the National Capital Region to its traffic knees due to saturation. Regular gas is 50-cents cheaper down here than the high-test the Panzer guzzles.
Fugitives? I wondered. Some sort of drug dragnet? The previous City Top Cop had been rumored to be protecting meth production in the gentle green hills. The police are within their rights to interview drivers as they see fit, according to court review, and the officer could have had a dog with him to see if there was an alert. A search of the vehicle would have been completely permissible under Supreme Court ruling.
Was there anything to worry about here? Was I just hyper sensitive about the Bill of Rights? I have pretty much sworn off flying due to my contempt for the TSA, but there are uniforms out there on the roadway as well.
At least the Trooper did not have the letters “DHS” stenciled on the door, and as far as I know, he works for the Governor, not the pinheads in Anacostia.
But I still don’t know what to think. “Papers, Please?”
You know the first thing I did after I turned up the thermostat and rolled up the blinds at the farmhouse.
I got a razorblade and scraped the stickers off the inside of the windshield. It is important to stay below the radar these days, or a simple commute could turn into something else.
And as far a driving into town for a drink….well, I decided to pass. Things were quiet at the farm, at least until the basketball games later, and I intended to keep them that way.
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.comRenee Lasche