as told to me by a sailor I worked with from one of the Carolinas. It's also why I occasionally refer to lemonade stands. This was probably over 30 years ago.
I guess the subject of the Philly PD came up and we discussed the time they mistook the guy that was going through the trash someone dumped near where out headquarters was. He was actually scrapping metals from the pile and the cop thought he was illegally dumping. He managed to point out that his truck bed only contained the metal he had pulled out of the trash pile and escaped a big fine.
That's when Red chuckled and told me that his county sheriff down home was pretty observant and the deputies probably would have helped him load any heavy metal stuff he found.
"The sheriff's actually one of us," he said. "He's pretty good. He's really hard on serious crime and pretty good on the small stuff. He's got a good head on his shoulders and common sense which is rare."
"One time he caught a couple of my friends drag racing which is pretty serious down our way since a couple of kids got killed a few years back. Anyway, a deputy caught a couple of kids drag racing and they didn't try to fight their way out of it. The sheriff had had a quiet word with them and told them he'd make it go away if they painted the front of the office. It was a pretty good deal," he continued.
I told him it sounded like a pretty good sheriff. He replied that once every so often the sheriff gets pretty worked up and does some pretty funny $hit.
"Like what?" I asked.
He chuckled and said, "One time this nasty old woman started calling the Sheriff's office reporting little kids were running lemonade stands without Board of Health certificates. Of course they didn't do anything about it. Hell, the deputies always carry change around to buy lemonade with."
He explained that the sheriff didn't do anything about it and after a while the old bag called the State Police instead. Of course they didn't do anything, either but they did call the sheriff and tease him about it.
"That did it!" he said. "The sheriff cooked up a plot and called in just about every favor he could and called for volunteers. Almost every off duty that day cop responded and almost 75 police cars with riot gear clad uniformed officers showed up at his nephew's lemonade stand at about 11 in the morning and they raided it! Well over 100 cops of all sorts showed up for the raid, all volunteers. No overtime and it didn't cost the taxpayers a dime."
"Anyway, he had tipped off the editor of our county newspaper and when the paper came out a couple of days later there big headlines, 'Lemonade stand raided' and a big picture of the kid being led off in handcuffs by three deputies carrying shotguns and wearing helmets. The kid had a mean scowl on if face, it was funny as hell."
"Then," he continued, "The entire center sheet had pictures including one of the kid sitting in a cell with an angry look on his face and they quoted him as saying "They ain't made a jail that can hold me!"
"The sheriff was quoted as saying "Unlike the Blues Brothers, no cars were damaged in the making of this raid'"
"How did the county people look at that stunt?" I asked.
He laughed. "A couple people resented it as to be expected. The rest of us thought it was funny as hell but funny part came the next week in the local paper."
"The photographer grabbed a picture of the old hag when she was grocery shopping and the editor posted it on Page One with a headline "Citizen of the Year" and the story of how she reported the illegal lemonade stand to the Sheriff. It also mentioned that the DA was declining prosecution in the interest of justice."
I can't vouch for the accuracy of the tale but I would not be surprised it for the most part it was true. It was one of the best sea stories I heard.
Unfortunately there are many that do not know the difference between a "sea story" and a fairy tale. A fairy tale starts out "once upon a time", the sea story starts out, "Now this ain't no ----"
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