Thanksgiving was a wonderful holiday for me, back in 1990, as it was this year. (2011)
I spent the weekend in Virginia with my oldest sister, her husband and daughter. My wife and I (and my stepson) traveled down from Pennsylvania and the trip down was uneventful. The weekend was spent eating, drinking and playing games. My favorite at the time was Risk
. But Sunday rolled around too quickly and it was time to hit the road and head home.
We got an early start hoping to “beat the traffic” but quickly ran into a parking lot on route 95. It was the worst I’ve ever seen it. We were literally at a complete stand-still and i put my truck in park to wait it out. I had a Ford Ranger, which is about the smallest of pick-up trucks and with us stopped my step-son Kyle fell asleep. Little guy had a long weekend and was exhausted.
Kids have an over-abundance of energy until the shut down. They go from flying high to totally out in o.7 seconds flat. Kyle was no exception, and pretty much nothing would wake him up, so when we finally got going he stayed asleep. Soon we passed a one car accident off the side of the road.
the murder weapon
Sad. Someone had lost their life. There were lots of police cars and fire trucks – although there was no fire – plus ambulances. Flashing lights all over the place, but I was just glad to be past the accident scene and finally able to continue our long drive home. We had a good four hours in front of us and I was hoping to keep a good pace.
After about a mile I noticed there was a cop car behind me. I glanced down at my speedometer and was glad my speed was only slightly over the limit, but I slowed down to match the “double nickel” that was posted. He matched my speed. This didn’t worry me especially, until another car joined him, following at a close interval.
I looked for an exit from 95 figuring that I would just take a detour and the police could go on their way. Exit speed posted was 35, but no one actually obeys that, do they? I did – that day.
They continued to follow. Once I got on the side road I told my wife I was pulling over. I was sort of freaked out by this, but was still cool. Kyle was still sleeping.
As soon as I pulled over a bunch of cop cars swarmed around me. I was surrounded by four cars – front, back and both sides. Amazingly enough, there were ever two more on the other side of the divided highway. What the fuck?
So I just turn off the engine and sit. Cops have their guns out and are coming up to my window yelling for me to get out of the truck and to keep my hands in plain sight and up in the air. I am all about following directions.
They take me to the back of the truck and frisk me. Then they allow me to take my hands down and they start questioning me. Where was I coming from? where was I going? what was my business in Virginia? These are mostly Virginia State Police, but mixed in are locals and county cops.
They pulled my wife from the car (not literally pulled, but got her out) while my son continued to sleep. She’s at the front being questioned and I’m at the back. They think I murdered someone. This is news to me.
The accident we passed was no accident. Apparently it was a road rage incident where someone in a white pickup truck forced a car off the road, the car tumbled and the driver was killed. I had a white pickup truck. I was in the area. I had scrape marks down the side of the truck. This was not looking good.
I explained that we were visiting my sister, and that we were caught up in the traffic that the accident had caused. My scrape was on the wrong side – the accident was on the left side of the road, my scrape was on the right side of my truck. The dent and scratch was a pretty good one, but it had rust in the creases and was obviously old. I said, “do you think if I had caused that accident my son would be asleep?”
So all the factors added up. I couldn’t possibly be the right guy. This wasn’t the right truck. Oh, in addition, I had a gray tailgate. I asked them if the truck identified had a gray tailgate. That would be pretty easy to notice as someone is driving away, don’t you think?
But they weren’t convinced. They had to hold me and check the story. Seriously??
They kept me on the side of the road for over an hour. Finally Kyle woke up and wondered what was going on. At last they handed me my driver’s license and insurance card and told me I could leave. That was it. No sorry. No nothing.
So we moved on down the road. Between the traffic jam and the Virginia State Police A four hour drive turned into a six and half hour ordeal.
