SEVEN: A Night In Jail

I have spent a night in jail. Here's the story, but first some background.

In 1983, I was working at The Press-Sentinel, a twice-weekly newspaper in Jesup, GA, a great community in southeast Georgia. Vicki was a student at the University of Georgia, but her parents lived in Austin, Texas. Her grandparents lived in West Point, GA, on Georgia's western border with Alabama. Vicki often spent weekends and long breaks with her grandparents, and I would drive to West Point so I could see her. The map, pictured, shows the 5-hour drive along two-lane roads from Jesup to West Point. (Five hours is a dang long way any way you slice it.)

During the early 80s, West Point was pretty dead. I lovingly referred to it as "Fun City" because I kept hoping fun would break out somewhere. Visiting there, and going on a date, Vicki and I would have to drive exactly one mile across the state line to Lanett, Alabama, where there was a one-screen theater (not so uncommon in those days). It's at that theater where I remember seeing The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas with Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds. I have no idea why I remember that - maybe it was the charm of Lanett.

I loved visiting Vicki's grandparents. I loved them and I knew they loved me. Her granddaddy taught me to scramble eggs, which seems surprisingly simple but I've met great cooks who couldn't scramble a damn egg worth eating. Mr. Hill's scrambled eggs - just eggs and butter and cooked "very, very slow and easy" - were fantastic. I'm a master at making them today. I slept on a fold-out sofa when I visited - it was either that sofa or bunk in the attic with several squirrels. I nicknamed that fold-out sofa "The Rack" because I'm quite sure it was built in hell. Mr. Hill got up early and loved poking me in the back to wake me up. The Rack was in the middle of the living room.

When I visited Vicki in West Point, there was a McDonald's in Fort Valley. That McDonald's was a good place to pee though I usually got a Coke, which made me have to pee again 30 minutes later in someone's pasture. Driving back to Jesup from West Point was often a hazard, involving many pastures. I hated leaving Vicki. It was not unusual to start home at 9 or 10 p.m., meaning I crawled in bed about 2 or 3 a.m.

Mr. Hill would say, "If you break down this side of I-75, call me. On the other side of the freeway, call someone else." He would laugh over that.

One particular late-night, I was exhausted on that drive home. The fatigue on those lonely roads got to be so bad that coffee would not help. I began seeing things, and that's when I had the good sense to realize I was close to falling asleep at the wheel. I imagined the headline: "Young Romeo found in a ditch; State mourns with a heartbroken girlfriend." A sidebar story had this imagined headline: "Herd of cows mysteriously out of farmer's pasture."

Back to the story. 
I limped into Eastman, GA on Highway 341 - just down from the Goose Neck community and still two hours from Jesup. Weary and bleak-eyed, I pulled into a parking space in front of City Hall, which also housed the local jail. I turned off my Chevy and rested my head against the steering wheel.

I woke to a knock on the window and looked up to see an older gentleman, a policeman.

"Are you okay, son?" he asked, which was code for "Have you been drinking?"

I explained everything that you read above, and he seemed particularly interested in the part about the world's best-scrambled eggs. He held up a hand and invited me inside where I could sleep the rest of the night in an unlocked jail cell. I accepted his offer. He promised to wake me up at 6 a.m., and he did just that.

I got up, still tired but rested, brushed my teeth and combed my hair in Town Hall, and made it to work by 8:30 a.m. in Jesup.

As I left the jail, he smiled at me and said, "God loves the young and stupid. Next time leave your girl's house a little earlier. I don't want to have to scrap you off the road." He also gave me a Gideon's New Testament and said, "Keep it in your car; read it daily." Great advice that I still follow today.





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