(Sorry this is so long, folks. But this is what happened, and I'm not making any of it up. I tried to omit any details that weren't necessary.)

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HARPERSVILLE MASSACREE

It was Thanksgiving break 2003, about a year and a half ago around Thanksgiving, when a friend and I were driving down Highway 280 towards Birmingham because he had a flight home to catch. Due to the route that MapQuest had given us, we ended up driving through Harpersville. Now let me tell you about the town of Harpersville, Alabama: they have maybe two stoplights, one gas station, and nothing else of interest along the main road, except that the speed limit drops from 65 mph to 35 mph in the space of about half a mile. And seeing as how there wasn’t any businesses in sight apart from that one gas station with the Subway restaurant in it, I’d say that it’s pretty obvious that they get their revenue from catching people not paying attention to the speed limit signs--a bona fide speed trap if I ever saw one.

Anyway, we get to Harpersville and I’m looking at the road signs trying to make sure I’m not missing any turns, and not really paying attention to my speedometer. Then I happen to look into my rearview mirror and I see flashing blue lights. I wonder to my friend if the cop’s trying to get past me to get to an accident or if he’s trying to get me to pull over, and next thing I know the cop’s driving beside me gesturing rather violently for me to pull over. So I did, and he didn’t even ask me if I knew what I’d been pulled over for. He said I was going 76 in a 50 zone and that he’d chased me for a mile and a half with blue lights and siren and that he was about to call the state troopers out to help chase me. So he ticketed me for excessive speeding and evading police, and my friend said I should turn on the waterworks to try to get out of it but I just couldn’t do it, because that’s just not the way I am. Now friends, I was a 22-year-old female college student, with no prior criminal record, driving a green ’95 Plymouth Voyager and so I had absolutely no reason to be running from the police and would’ve been daft to do so in that vehicle anyhow. And I wasn’t weaving in and out of traffic or anything, I was just going straight along 280 in the right-hand lane, and I pulled over as soon as I saw the lights and figured out what was going on. And he didn’t have any siren on either, because even though we had my Phantom of the Opera Highlights CD playing, it wasn’t so loud that we couldn’t comfortably talk over it and so we would’ve easily heard any siren blaring at us. Besides, my friend had looked at the speedometer just before we noticed the cop behind us and he said I wasn’t going any faster than 63. So anyway, the cop tells me that I have to show up in court in January and that I have to bring my friend with me as a witness.

I told another friend of mine, when we got back to Auburn, about what had happened, and she and her husband said, “That sounds a bit like Alice’s Restaurant.” I said, “What’s that?” They said, “You’ve never heard Alice’s Restaurant?! You know who Arlo Guthrie is?” and I didn’t so they sat me down on the couch and pulled out the Alice’s Restaurant album on vinyl and had me listen to the song, which did a lot to cheer me up, that and the beer they made me drink.

So we go back to Harpersville in January for our 8:30 AM court appearance, and I was really scared because I’d never been in court before. First thing the prosecuting attorney said was that this particular judge doesn’t let people take a driving safety course in lieu of points on one’s license, because he just doesn’t. And there was no such thing as a “no contest” plea, either. I had no idea what I was in for and I also knew that there was no way I was gonna be able to talk my way out of the speeding ticket. We had a hard time finding seats because the courthouse was absolutely packed, but we did manage to find somewhere to sit, and we saw the officer who pulled me over. He was looking a bit plumper than we’d remembered, with a very prominent double chin, and had gotten a really bad haircut, which my friend described as a “reverse mullet” and which involved a buzz-cut on top and shaved all round. It was also very obvious that he and all the other cops and the judge were in cahoots and so my friend started referring to the whole lot as “Officer Donut and the Donut Brigade.” And seeing as how the courthouse was really crowded and everybody wanted to know what everybody else was there for, the noise gradually crescendoed to a dull roar, even though everybody was trying to keep it down. It’s hard to keep it down when you have 150 people all talking at once. The judge banged his gavel a few times and demanded order, which worked for a few minutes but then it’d get loud again, and the fourth time the judge banged the gavel he threatened to throw everybody in the jail if he had to do it again. I knew I was in big trouble, but when I got up to the judge’s table he said I’d been ticketed for speeding and asked how I plead. Notice that he only said “speeding,” rather than “excessive speeding.” There’s a $100 dollar difference there. I knew I was lucky to be dealing with this lesser charge and so I plead guilty to that, seeing as how there was no way out of it, and had to pay $100 plus the court fees, which were also $100, and then they said I had to come back in February to deal with the other charge.

So my friend and I did a little research and talked to some people in the meantime and discovered that while evading the police is a felony in Georgia no matter what, it’s only a misdemeanor in Alabama (I’m guessing unless they have to run you off the road and tackle you). And this particular misdemeanor is punishable by a fine of no less than $100 and no more than $500, and/or no less than than 30 days and no more than 6 months in jail. Not as bad as it could’ve been but still pretty bad. I looked into hiring a lawyer but they were too expensive so I was going to have to just hope that explaining my side of it, and that having someone with me who was there and could also act as a character witness would be of some help. When the prosecuting attorney came looking for me I showed him both my tickets and he went off to check his records, and then he came back, and asked me if I’d been to court there before. I said “Yes sir, in January, for the speeding one.” He asked me if I was guilty of the other one, and I said, “No sir, I didn’t do what that ticket says I did.” So he said it was gonna have to go to trial, and then he went into the back room again. And when he came out this time he asked, “You were here in January and already paid off the first ticket right?” I said, “Yes sir I did,” so he said that since I’d done that, he could move to get the other charge dismissed with payment of court fees, and asked if I’d like to do that. I said, “Yes, sir!” and my friend and I were both very relieved. So when it was our turn we went up to the judge and the prosecutor presented his movement to the judge and asked if it’d be okay with him, and the judge said, “Sure” so we did the paperwork and I went to the ATM at the bank next door to get the $100 for the court fee because I had to pay it off right then and there. While we were in line waiting to pay, we were talking to the fellow behind us and asked him what he was there for and he said he’d been pulled over for going one mile over the speed limit. That’s right, friends, ONE MILE. Absolutely ridiculous. This town is definitely one of the worst speed traps in the state of Alabama. I’ve had many people, much older than me, tell me so and I believe them.

I wish I could say that was the end of it, but this past June I received a letter from the Florida DMV that said that I’d been convicted of these two charges and that I had seven points on my drivers license, and that if it went up to twelve within a year of the fact then my license would be suspended. I wanted to make three copies of the letter and mail one off to Florida DMV with a note telling them about the Harpersville Massacree in full orchestration and five-part harmony and all that, one to Montgomery to with a copy of the Massacree and a complaint, and to Harpersville asking if my paperwork had got flubbed up or something. But I was in the middle of moving at the time and had to be out in a week, and had no time to take care of the letter right then. But once I got moved and as unpacked as I was gonna get, all I ever found of that letter was the envelope it came in. So I’ve got a misdemeanor on my record and seven points on my license, but it’s been almost a year and a half since our first court appearance so I don’t have to worry about it anymore. But I still cringe when I see police cars cruising the streets, even if I’m behaving myself.

I call this incident the Harpersville Massacree after Mr. Guthrie’s song, because like the Alice’s Restaurant Massacree it was a really big deal made out of a really stupid thing, and because Alice’s Restaurant became an anthem of sorts for me because of it, and it still is to this day. The second time we appeared in court, I wanted so badly to, as I was leaving, turn around and sing, “You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant!” and walk out. But with this judge it probably would’ve been a bad move, so I didn’t.

And the only reason I’m telling you all this now is because I wanted to say, “Thank you, Mr. Guthrie, for writing that song, which helped me get through a very tough time in my life, and still cheers me up every time I hear it.” And also, I was wondering if there’s a chance that you’ll be performing anywhere near Montgomery or Atlanta any time in the near future (within the next couple of years). I’d love to see you in concert sometime, because like I said, you helped me get through some rough seas, but the Orlando-Vero Beach area is too far for me and my friend (the one who first played Alice’s Restaurant for me) to travel to.

“You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant (excepting Alice)! You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant; walk right in, it’s around the back, just a half a mile from the railroad track! You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant!”

(Wish I could come up with a jingle like that for my little incident…oh well.)

(Also, this summer my friend, the one who was with me for all this, and I are going to try to put this into comic strip/book form. I’ll have to post it online and let you all know about it when, and if, we ever get it up and running, if anybody’s interested).

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 2 times, lastly by Alani_Dracon on Apr 30, 2005 ---</FONT></center>