Stories from my Youth

The Parking Meter Debacle

         My old friend, Ray Johnson, had asked me to help him pull fence posts out on his farm near Oxford. There was an aging field with approximately 60 old posts that needed to be removed. “Can we use the Army truck,” he’d asked. I was only too happy to oblige.

         Ray had come up with an ingenious way to pull these things out of the ground. He’d taken two new fence posts and created an “A” frame out of them. They joined together at the top spreading out at the bottom to resemble the letter “A.” Then it had some cross-braces nailed in place to hold this gizmo solid, and now Ray was ready to show me how it worked.

We tilted it across the top of a fence post so the feet of the “A” were on the ground and the top lay diagonally over the fence post. Then we’d hook a logging chain to the post, run it up across the top of the “A” frame, and then continue it on to attach to the Pintle hitch on the back of the truck. Then we’d move the truck forward slowly and the chain would pull the “A” frame to a standing position, and pull the fence post straight up out of the ground in the process. We worked all afternoon and removed all the posts he wanted to remove. It was a success.

         That evening I drove the Army truck down into Rochester. There was action in the pool hall for a few hours, and then I retired across the street with my old friend Harry Schemer (we’d grown up together) to spend the remaining hours in a joint called the “406 Bar.” The “Four-O,” as it was called, featured a pool table upon which many fortunes were both made and lost. Tonight was slow action, so we sat and talked.

         I was trying to explain to Harry and others how to pull fence posts, but found it wasn’t easy. It’s hard to imagine an “A” frame if you haven’t worked with one. A few other friends joined our table as I explained,

         “Yes, the chain goes over the top of the “A,” then to the bottom of the fence post, and the other end is attached to the truck…”

         Blank stares and quizzical looks were all that greeted me. Finally, after several attempts to clarify all this to these guys, I gave up.

         We left the Four-O about 2:30 in the morning and walked out onto Main Street. The pool hall across the street was closed, of course, and we all said “good night". But then I noticed that the Army truck was parked directly in front of us, and there was the “A” frame still in the back of it.

         “Harry, here’s the ‘A’ frame right here,” I excitedly suggested, but he just stared at it lying there sticking up partially over the tail gate.

         “Well, it looks like this,” I said, and ran over to pull it out of the truck. “Thump,” it landed on the ground, protruding about two feet higher than me up from the street. Harry and the gang just stood looking puzzled. I could see they still didn’t understand.

         “Well, guys, you just tilt the thing back over the top of a fence post like this…”

         I was holding it up at about a 45 degree angle to demonstrate the principle, and then noticed something right next to me that would help to illuminate the situation - of all things, it was a parking meter. I tilted the A-frame over the meter.

         “Hey, look at this, guys! See? I just tilt it back over the parking meter like this. Can’t you see how this works? When the A-frame stands up, the post comes straight up into the air…”

         They still looked confused, and that's when inspiration hit me. It was "genius," thought. It was a chance to not only demonstrate how to pull fence posts, but also the dreaded meters which were hated by all... A cloud of memories swirled through my brain...

...Main Street merchants running up and down the street putting money in the meters so customers wouldn't get ticketed...

…The time I went into City Hall and dumped a pile of nickels and pennies on the counter to pay a parking ticket...

...The countless times I'd heard "g_____m!" shouted from someone who had returned from shopping to find a ticket on their windshield...

  With the A-frame now nestled comfortably in place across the top of the parking meter, I grabbed the logging chain out of the truck, threw it over the top of the A-frame, wrapped it around the bottom of the parking meter, and looped the other end through the Pintle hook on the Army truck (the same hook used to pull tanks out of holes in the ground).

         “See?" I said. "When the truck goes forward, the whole thing straightens up and pulls the post. Watch this!”

         I jumped into the Army truck, fired up the huge engine in it, slid the transmission into 1st gear, low range,” (with which you could drive the thing through a building), and eased off the clutch. With the truck now moving forward at about 1/8th mph and completely unstoppable, I leaned out the window to see the A-frame coming to an upright position until it finally hung at 90 degrees to the sidewalk with a huge ball of cement attached to the bottom. Then I noticed that all I could see of Harry and the other guys was their backs and the bottoms of their feet as they disappeared down the street. They were running like hell. I yelled after them…

         “Do you see how it works now?”

         As I was yelling I noticed a strange light flashing on my elbow, which was protruding out the window. The light was blue. I froze. It couldn't be...

There was the police car in front of me, and I recognized the figure getting out, putting on his hat, and walking towards me. When he was fully in the headlights I knew it was Jim Hurley. He walked up to my window.

         “Hello, Bob.”

         “Uh, hi, Jim”

         “Bob, what are you doing?”

         Jim Hurley was the local small town cop in those days, and was quite a character himself. He was often to be found in the pool hall with us, shooting them in and gambling hard. He would also show up at the weekly poker games out at Harry’s (now fully disappeared down the street) house, and he wasn’t afraid to lay down the cash when he thought he had a winning hand. I knew Jim very well, but this was not good. To answer his last question, I just crashed back in the seat and threw up my hands.

         “Nothing, Jim. I, uh…”

         Hurley left me and walked to the back of the Army truck. Without turning around, I just sat there and heard him say,

         “Well, I’ll be goddammed!”

         When he got back to where I was cringing, he was furious.

         “You - IDIOT! What the hell is the matter with you?!!! Goddammit all, Bob, you know I’ve got to write this one up. Jesus Christ – you IDIOT!!!”

         He was clearly not pleased with our bullshit, and was storming around outside my window yelling and screaming. Finally, he turned to me and yelled,

         “And I’m going to start writing the ticket in sixty seconds!”

         “That’s time enough, Jim!” I yelled.

         I knew he was giving me sixty seconds to get the hell out of here. I backed the truck up so the parking meter was off the chain, leaped out, was at the back of the truck in a split second, then yanked the chain off the parking meter and heaved it into the truck. The A-frame, heavy as it was, went flying into the truck as well, its weight seemingly no problem at the moment. I glanced at the parking meter: it was rolling around on the sidewalk with this gross ball of cement attached at the bottom. A gaping hole of approximately 2-feet in diameter had been ripped out of the sidewalk, but it was too late for me to be concerned with that anymore. I was back in the truck in far less than sixty seconds, threw it into the “High Range” (for speed), jammed it into gear and blasted away from the scene of the crime. In the rear view mirror I could see Hurley wandering around out in the street in front of the “Four-O,” probably trying to figure out what the hell he was going to write on his report that night.

         Jim left us a few years ago, but he is unforgettable. He did a few favors for me, that’s for sure. Thanks, Jim. I needed that one.