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Sea Stories
From Anonymous
7/26/05
The Not So Great
Escape
It was about 3AM on a Sunday morning
back in 1958. I had just left my fiancee's apartment at 78th
Avenue and MacArthur Blvd. in Oakland and was headed for home
on 75th. The car I was driving belonged to her and was a 1953
Ford with an automatic transmission. I heard a siren coming
from behind and then I saw a motorcycle with red lights coming
up fast on me. I glanced at the speedometer and saw I was doing
almost 60 MPH in a 25 MPH zone. I slowed down as I came up on
75th and put on my turn indicators, then turned left down 75th.
The motorcycle went whizzing by and remained on MacArthur.
I thought to myself, 'WHEW, I was lucky, he must be on a call
to somewhere else.'
I slowly continued down 75th and came
to a stop at Hillside Street. Home was now just a half block
ahead. As I started to pull into the intersection, here came
the cop on the motorcycle on my right from 74th on Hillside.
His red light on and his siren still blaring. I did not want
my neighbors or my parents seeing me get a ticket in front of
my house, so I turned left and headed towards 76th. I was home
on a weekend pass from Marine Infantry Training, which only allowed
me to go as far as 150 miles from Camp Pendleton. I was closer
to 400 miles away.
Panic set in because I now knew he was
after me! I decided to make a run for it. I turned out the
lights and stuffed it into low gear. As I came up on 76th I
swung wide to the left, then turned right and headed down toward
Garfield Avenue. The motor cop did the same. As I came up on
Garfield, I swung wide to the left, running the stop sign there
and then continued straight toward Bancroft Avenue. This confused
the cop who also swung to the left, slowed down and was set up
to make a wide right turn, but I punched it to the floorboard
and went straight ahead to Bancroft. After running the stop
sign at Bancroft, I swung wide to the left and turned to the
right. The cop was a little further behind now as he was not
sure what I was going to do next.
I still had the peddle to the floor
and was now following the train tracks down the middle of Bancroft.
The motor cop saw his opportunity to try to gain some ground
on me as I went straight past 75th and then past 74th. (When
Bancroft reached 73rd, you had to either turn right, up 73rd
or turn left, down 73rd due to the Chevrolet Assembly Plant train
yards that started straight ahead there. To continue on Bancroft,
once you turned left onto 73rd you had to almost immediately
turn right, back onto Bancroft).
The cop was still gaining on me, as
I swerved to the left. He did the same and then I made a 90
degree turn to the left. He was overly committed to the left
and coupled with his speed he could not turn to the left without
losing his bike. The last time I saw him, in my rear view mirror,
he was heading into the dirt and gravel of the train yard. In
short order I lost sight of him in a massive cloud of dust.
I turned right, back onto Bancroft and continued on.
I decided to park the car at a distance
and walk home, now that he was no longer on my tail. I drove
up to a dead end street by the crematorium off of Havenscourt
Avenue and parked. (I remembered leaning on one of fiancee's
taillights one time and it popped off. Whoever she bought the
car from had forced 55 Olds bullet-shaped taillight lenses into
the inner ring of the 53 ford taillights giving it a slightly
modified look. It just so happened when I had popped off the
Olds lens, I noticed that the right Ford taillight had a large
piece missing.) With the preceding thought in mind, I popped
off both Olds lenses and tossed them in the trunk. Once removed,
it was obvious that every time you stepped on the brake the white
light would have shown to the rear through the break. I could
only hope that the motor cop didn't get close enough to get the
license number. If he didn't, then saw the broken lens, he'd
think that could not be the same car, because he never saw any
white lights whenever I stepped on the brakes.
I started walking slowly home. As I
approached 73rd Ave on Foothill Blvd, the place was swarming
with cops. I continued on home, shaking like a leaf and climbed
into bed, fully prepared to be awakened by one of Oakland's finest.
I woke up about 8:30 AM and called my fiancee. I told her what
had happened and said if the Police Department called, to tell
them as far as she knew, the car was parked in its normal place
outside of the apartment, and she had not given permission to
anyone to take it. Nothing ever came of this. She kept an eye
on the paper for a few days and said nothing was reported about
a motor officer being injured, so I guess he managed to throttle
down by going straight into the train yard.
Upon immediate reflection, I decided
that I would never take that kind of chance again. I'm sure
the penalty of paying for a speeding ticket and possibly being
charged with being out-of-bounds would not have been so bad as
compared to having the book thrown at me in civil court for evading
arrest, reckless driving, running stop signs, etc., and then
through the double jeopardy process of a military court-martial
being prosecuted again.
Needless to say, I've been a law-a-biding
citizen since then.
As I don't know how long the statute
of limitations runs on the above, I shall prefer to remain,
Anonymous
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