all through our little village in southwest Indiana. We would stand in a field when he did his rounds, waiting for him. As he made a curve, his head lights would shine on us, and we would break into a run.
He would chase us for somewhere between thirty minutes and two hours, until we slinked home in the dark, or he got bored.
Cynthiana has under a thousand population, and stretches about a mile and a half end-to-end. It is shaped like a diamond: maybe a mile deep in the middle and a half-mile deep at either end. We had two long-term marshalls, and a few short-timers. "Specs" spanned most of my younger years; "Tore" was the marshall during and after my junior high years.
The town marshall knew us all. He knew where we lived. He knew our parents and siblings. He could probably recognize any of our silhouettes in the dark.
Curfew was eleven P.M.
I guess he figured that we'd get in less trouble if he participated in our leisure time activities. He was right. We spent a lot of time "running from the cops" but we never really did anything wrong or illegal. Mostly.
My best friend's parents owned a liquor store. We pilfered the random quart of beer or bottle of Boone's Farm. We were still too young to drive cars, so we were in the pre-DUI days. My best friend Kelly always got the girl. I was the fast one, on foot or on a bike - it didn't matter.
Once, after we had been throwing shelled corn at cars all night on 68/80 on the east end of town, Tore came driving up. It was after a Cynthiana-Haubstadt football game, near Halloween. We were hiding behind a 6 foot privacy fence, lobbing corn over onto passing cars on the highway. We had a guy stationed up the street to read license plates and tell us if the car was from Haubstadt. We had been at it for over an hour, and the road was covered with an inch of corn, when Tore arrived.
"Time to go home, boys", he boomed. "But Bob, it's only 10..." "TIME TO GO HOME!"
I wonder if kids have that luxury today.
I fear that
today
they
would
get shot.
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For us it was eggs thrown down from a high ridge on the golf course that ran along Buena Vista Ave.
We only threw at the muscle cars because we knew that those drivers would give chase.
We were such idiots.
We had to buy the eggs.
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