A Trip To the Range ~ another Kappa Phi Delta story

[Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967]

A Trip To the Range

 

     This was a party weekend.  I guess it was a good party, all in all.  A mite sedate by our standards, but we’d all been on our best behavior – after all, this was a very rare Joint Party with Bib ‘n’ Tucker Sorority.  As sororities go, these young ladies were known to be at the apex of fashion and propriety.  And as such, not terribly likely to be in alignment with our wild and woolly bunch.  So, with this in mind, the men of Kappa Phi were indeed on our best behavior. 

   

    Even me, and even Hank.  But then, we were always on our best behavior, don’tcha know!

   

     You see, Hank and I had plans.  Since this was a Saturday evening “Joint” party, neither of us had a date to drive home after the party – which meant that we had no reason to limit our libationous intake.  Toward that end, we took it upon ourselves to make a significant dent in the most recent keg liberated from the Burgermeister Brewery.  It would help us sleep, don’tcha know.  And we were gonna need a good night’s sound sleep.  Short, but sound.  

     Short, because after the party, we’d need time to get our stuff together for the next morning.  Sunday.  As mentioned, we had a plan – up early,  then off to the range.  The shooting range at Sharp Park, in Pacifica.  The range would open at 0800; we planned to be there when the gates opened.

 

     Now, Hank and I enjoyed shooting. We had both been competitive shooters earlier in our young lives.  In high school, I had been the top shooter on my Army Jr ROTC battalion’s rifle team.  Hank’s dad and brother were members of the prestigious Kingsburg Gun Club, where Hank had also won awards for marksmanship and trap shooting.

 

     Well, being the proper types they were, the girls had all gone home by 10:30 or so.  The the party finally wound down well after midnight.  Hank and I assembled our equipment and made ready, and were off to our respective beds by three a. m. 

 

     Up at oh six thirty, we packed the car, grabbed a quick something and coffee for breakfast, and were on our way by oh seven fifteen.

 

     Typical of San Francisco in late spring, it was a cool, foggy, and drippy morning.  Real foggy.  VERY foggy.  But no matter; we were used to it and knew where we were going.

 

     The route was to head west on Fell Street, then transition to John F Kennedy Drive, make our way through Golden Gate Park, then south on the Great Highway to Highway 1, and finally to and through Pacifica.  Less than 20 miles, it was normally about a half-hour drive.  But with the fog, we allowed ourselves more than double that.  Oh, little did we know!

 

     So, down Fell Street.  Not another vehicle in sight.  Just us in Hank’s compact ’62 Mercury Meteor, feeling like we were encapsulated in a cloudy bubble.  And then, something odd.  When we reached the transition to JFK drive, we were in Lane #1, the leftmost of three lanes headed into the park.  Which was fortunate, as the other two lanes were closed, for some reason.  Each of those lanes had a chain draped across it from steel posts in sockets in the roadway.

 

     Oh well – OUR lane was open, so we continued onto JFK and into the park.

 

     Not another soul in sight.  It was downright eerie, like a scene from a science fiction movie. 

 

     Soon we arrived at the stop sign at 8^th street.  Dutifully, Hank stopped.  And we discovered life!  There, perched atop a pair of horses, were two of San Francisco’s Finest.  Two mounted officers.  Looking bored and gloomy.  We looked at them.  They looked back at us.  And then we proceeded.

We’d rolled about forty yards, when suddenly Hank, looking in his outside mirror, proclaimed “Huh!  You ain’t gonna believe this!”

 

     Huh?  What?     

                                             

     “We’re being pulled over!”

 

     What the…!

 

     I looked over my shoulder, and sure ‘nuff, along came one of the officers, riding after us hell-bent-for leather.  His horse’s rubber shod hooves were fairly silent; his whistle was not:

 

     Fweeet!  Tweeeet!  TWEEEET…!!  “HALT!  Halt… HALT!!”  Fwreeeeet….!

 

     Wotinell??

 

     So, being the good citizens we were, we pulled over.  A few seconds later, Mr Do-Right pulled up and did a quick rolling dismount. 

 

     Holding his horses reins, he took a couple of steps toward Hank’s open window, glared at us, then demanded “Just WHAT in HELL do you THINK you’re DOING??”

 

     Stunned, we looked back at him, jaws slack, totally confused.

 

     His partner rode up then, and Officer Do-Right again commanded that we explain ourselves.

 

     Hank and I exchanged glances, then he looked at the Officer and simply explained “Why, Officer, we’re just driving through the park this morning.”

 

     “What??  And where the hell do you think you’re going?” he snarled.  And I must say, I was glad that he was on Hank’s side of the car.

 

     With a confused expression, Hank continued, “Well, Officer, we’re just driving through the park on our way to the Great Highway.  Then we’re gonna get on the Great Highway and drive down to Pacifica.  We’re goin’ to the shootin’ range at Sharp Park, and we’re - ”

 

     “ARE YOU CRAZY!?” Officer Do-Right inquired.

 

     Hank looked at me.  I looked back at Hank.  Then he turned to the officer, and said “Uh… I don’t think so, Officer.”

 

     “Why the HELL are you driving through Golden Gate Park??” the officer continued his demand.

 

     “Well… uh… ‘cuz this is the way to the Great Highway, and that’s the way to Pacifica and to Sharp Park and - ”

 

     “DON’T YOU TWO KNOW THE PARK IS CLOSED ON SUNDAY?!?”

 

     With his tone and volume, I recall briefly wondering if the policeman might perhaps have a hearing impairment.

 

     Hank looked at me.  I looked back at Hank.  Then he turned back to the officer, and said “Uh… it is??”

 

     By now either calmed down a mite or becoming hoarse from his yelling at us, in a more normal voice the policeman pointed out that indeed, Golden Gate Park’s roads ARE closed on Sunday – they’re reserved for pedestrians, cyclists, and skaters.

 

     “Gosh, Officer, we didn’t know that.  Honest!  If we had, we would’ve taken Stanyan and Geary!”

 

     Recovering some of his grumpiness, with a bit of a condescending sneer laced with an air of satisfaction, he reached for his ticket book and snarled “What, you didn’t see the signs?  And you didn’t notice the barricades when you drove around them??”

 

     Hank and I exchanged looks again, then Hank said simply “Nope. Well… there are three lanes coming into the park – we did notice that two of ‘em were closed, but the one we were in was open and there wasn’t no sign.  Honest – if there had been, we wouldn’t be here!”

 

     “Yeah, well, I don’t believe ya.  I think you just drove around the barricade and now I’m a-gonna write you a ticket.”

 

     Our hearts sank.  A simple, fun morning was about to become very expensive.

 

     And then, suddenly, Officer Do-Right’s partner said “Hey, Ned… You might wanna check this out,” as he gazed back in the direction we’d come from.

 

     There, following our route, came five more vehicles.

 

     “You two wait right here! And hang on to Ol’ Dobbin!” Do-Right ordered, handing Hank his reins then joining his partner as they went off to interview the other drivers.  Finally, wearing exasperated expressions, they directed those drivers to turn around and head back out of the park the way they’d come.

 

     Do-Right strode back to us.

 

     “Well,” he grumped, “I reckon you were tellin’ the truth.  Those other folk said the same thing, so we’re gonna let ya go, ‘cuz we can’t write you a ticket without writing everyone else a ticket and I don’t wanna spend my Sunday mornin’ writing all them tickets.  But you still gotta turn around and go back the way you came in and HEY!  Are those GUNS??” he exclaimed, pointing to the rifle cases in the back seat.

 

     “Uh… yessir.”

 

     “Why the HELL are they on your back seat??” he demanded.

 

     “Well… like we said – we were goin’ to the shooting range, and -” Hank began to explain.

 

     “So why are they on the back seat and not in the TRUNK?”

 

     “Uh… there ain't no room.  The trunk’s full.”

 

      "Full?  Full of what?"

 

     "Uh... the rest of the guns."

 

     His jaw dropped, then he asked “Do you have any handguns with you?”

 

     “Yessir – they’re in the trunk!”

 

     With that, Officer Do-Right shook his head and re-claimed Dobbin’s reins from Hank. 

 

     “Okay.  Git outta here.  Go back the way you came!” he said with more exasperation.

 

     “Yessir!” said Hank, and proceeded to negotiate a U-turn.  We’d driven about twenty-five yards or so, reversed along our original route, when suddenly –

Fweeet!  Tweeeet!  TWEEEET…!!

 

     “Damn.  We’re being pulled over ag’in!”

 

     This time, though, it was Do-Right’s partner. 

 

     “Hey, Fellas?  Do us a favor, would ya?  Evidently the chain across the Number 1 lane is down.  Would you be kind enough to put it back up when you exit?”

 

     “Why, we’d be happy to!”

 

     “Oh good – thanks, Fellas!” he ended with a smile.

 

     Unfortunately, our adventure was not yet over.

 

     When we exited the park, indeed we did see that the chain for Lane 1 was down, lying across the road, nearly invisible in the fog if you weren’t looking for it.

 

     So Hank pulled to the curb, and he and I got out to put the chain back up.

 

     But couldn’t.

 

     It had broken and was too short – and if there’s one thing I had learned long before, it’s purty darned difficult to stretch a chain.

 

     I studied the arrangement and pondered the issue for a moment.  Then I had a brainstorm!  Or at least a bit of a mental breeze…

 

     “Hey, Hank!  I got an idea! Look!  Both other lanes have chains across ‘em, right…?”

 

     “Yeah, they do” Hank agreed.

 

     “So one of ‘em has a chain with a sign on it, and the other one has a sawhorse AND a chain.  It don’t need a chain AND a sawhorse – so how ‘bout I take that sawhorse and put it here in Lane 1?  That oughtta work!”

 

     “It sure oughtta!” Hank concurred.

 

     Without further ado, I collected the sawhorse from Lane 3, and moved it to Lane one. 

 

     Our good deed done!

 

Feeling good about surviving our earlier brush with the law and our solution to the problem of the broken chain, we again saddled up to head off to Pacifica and Sharp Park by an alternate route.

 

     Uh… Hello – what’s this?

 

     And that's when we discovered why Lane 3 had a chain and a sawhorse.  And why Lane 2 had a small metal sign hanging from its chain.

 

     You see – Lane 3 did not have a sign.  But it did have a sawhorse.  And evidently, that sawhorse was there because there was no sign dangling from it. 

 

     And early on a foggy morning, a plain ol’ chain was not so visible.

 

     We silently watched as, sounding like an asthmatic lawn mower, a new VW Microbus came whipping along Fell Street, in Lane 3, at the foggy-day breakneck speed of about 25 to 30 miles per hour.  We saw the sleepy driver, a hippie fella who was munching a cinnamon bun as he rolled along. And it seems that he too was blissfully unaware of Golden Gate Park’s closure to motor vehicles on Sundays.  Not seeing the chain, he proceeded with his attempt to drive directly through Golden Gate Park. 

 

     He did not slow one bit before his Microbus encountered said chain. 

 

     With a sound like striking a 55 gallon drum full of marbles with a baseball bat, the VW came to a very impressive and immediate halt.  The expression on the hapless driver’s face was initially blank, then melted into a wonderful mixture of shock, sudden awaking, and utter astonishment as his rear wheels came off the ground, and then bounced back to Earth.  As the clutch was still engaged, when the spinning rear tires encountered the pavement, they chirped and killed the engine.

 

     We looked on, amazed, and marveled at the new 8-inch deep crease across the front of the still-bouncing ‘bus. Thankfully it had caught the chain below the windshield; had it been a foot or so higher and if the now dumbfounded driver had not been belted in, he would have had a far worse morning.  As it was, he gazed about, confused.  One second, he was merrily whizzing along on a foggy morning, singing along with the radio, and now he was immobile, with his breakfast squished all over the inside of his windscreen.

 

     “Uh… Hank?”

 

     “Yeah Man!  Let’s go home and take naps.  We can go shooting this afternoon!”