Close Encounters with LAw Enforcement

Just wait till they stop...finally. True story. Set in 1958.

I had picked up a shirtail load of Brangus calves (12 or 15 /600-800 lb/Angus/Brahma cross breeds) in Berseford, SD and hauled them gated up in the nose back to our HQ in Starkville, MS. Cattle were going to South America via me taking them to Pinelleas County Airport in St. Pete, FL for air freight on south.
I was laying over in Stkville as no rush on delivery to the airport. Cattle had to be health checked before leaving the country and planes flew everyday.
While idle,I got me a pair of "airplane landing light sealed beams" and installed in my under the front bumper fog lights. These things had thick flat face lenses and a filament that looked like a small curved barn door handle. If the engine was not running, you did not turn them on. Lit up the world like a steady flash of lightning. Made ready for Florida fog.
I load the little herd up, gate them tight up in the nose and about a third way back and sail out on US82 East thru Tuscaloosa, Centreville, and into Montgomery, AL. Here we go now
Outside Montgomery, US82 and 231 run together for a ways, then US82 splits off left going toward Valdosta and Waycross, GA. In this stretch is a lowland area with a chain (6 or 8 old creosote wood bridges with rails right there on edge. Little wisps of fog are floating around. I come up on a Fruehauf trailer labeled "Frito-Lay" on the back doors, moping along at about 40/50 mph. Action!!!!! I run up on him, lean out to look, click on the fog lights, looks clear ahead, coming off one bridge and heading in to another. He flicks his trailer lights as I am nose alongside his trailer wheels so I proceed to blow him away.
As I pass I observe it is an older trailer, being pulled by one of Dorsey's delivery C50 Chevy's and as I look ahead and side left observe an old hearse, cut off behind the driver seat with a little wooden flat bed and header on it. It's on the shoulder(fully off road) and I assume it brokedown.
I zip on past; Dorsey blacks his headlight, and I pull back over.
####, that was good. Lights work like a charm, light load, didn't lose my wind, so on to FL.
However, Dorsey is steady flicking his headlights at intervals back there. Coming up on the right is a store/staion with a big gravel pull in in front.
I'm still a little fast and have to pass the first entrance and come in the second, headed back the way I come. Dorsey comes in the first entrance and we are pulled up side by side, driver door to door, to chat.
Chat went like this: Did you see that cop there? No, where was he? He was standing by that hearse writing him a ticket when you flipped them lights on, then he went up under the edge of the bed."
Umh!! Well hell.. What to do? go on and face the music. Dorsey asks if I'm gonna stop at "The Guinea", a well known truck stop near Dothan, I say sure.
Dorsey pulls out to roadside, slows, goes on out in highway and takes off.
I pull up to the first entrance edge and stop, look up the road fefore pulling out. HERE COME THE LITTLE GRAY FORD FAIRLANE WITH RED LIGHT SIREN KIT ON TOP. Ok, we can handle this. I pull on out and take off after him. A mile later, the Dorsey/Frito-Lay is on the side, with the officer walking from his car along the trailer going to his cab. I brake down, shift down, turn on R turn signal (no 4 ways then)and start to ease off to the side to fess up.
The man was not having any interference - - He turns and with the flash
light and wild arm signals the commands me to go on... He's got his man.

A note here. Back then all Fruehauf trailers had 2 little tail/brake lights about 3 inches round and 18 inches apart in the middle of the rear bumper. A set of 3 markers up top in the middle. One marker on each top side hung outside. you only saw them as the trailer switched left to right as you followed. I was pulling a tandem Fruehauf cattle rack, Dorsey had a single axle dropped belly furniture van. But to a concerned officer they looked alike from behind, and in his haste he had not observed the configurations.
Hey, I go on. If I make it the the 82 left, 231 straight on he can wonder which way I went. The gods were not with me (THEN). Here he comes again. Shoots past me and slows, taps his brakes, I tap mine, look for a good shoulder, he scoots forward a little, taps his brakes some more, and we finally get synced and stopped.
He comes back and he is HOT. Wants to know why I "tried to run him
over" back there. Told him I didn't see him. He remarked I had "plenty of
lights". I told him I was focusing on the effect of the lights in the little fog there. Wanted to know why I came in on him with a red light flashing, I told him his red light was not visible over the head board on the hearse.
Did I just blare by every vehicle on the roadside without regard for the situation? No Sir, but if I stopped for every ragged old car on the side in Mississippi, I'd never get past a city limits. (Knock your home state-That
helps their state to be superior). Wanted to know why I kept hooching along and did not stop when he pulled in front of me. Pointed to his siren and said:Sir, your back red light is not working...
Well-Things are getting smoother now. He says: If I thought you intended to hit me, I'd take you back to Montgomery and put you in a cell and you'd never get out. I said: Truly sir, I did not see you. I passed the Dorsey and he stopped me and told me about you being there. I tried every way I could to stop with you up there to explain this.
He asked where I was going and leaving AL. I told him St. Petersburg, FL and going out thru Dothan, Malone and into Grand Ridge, FL.
He then said: You go on, and you keep that thing under 45 mph till you are out of the state of AL
Thats the only time in my 3-4 years of running to FL that I ran 45 MPH from Montgomery to Grand Ridge. He was fair and I honored his request.