A special anniversary

I was driving through Wagoner, Oklahoma, on the way to Northeastern State University where I was already late for class with less than a month to go before graduation. I knew I was going to be late and there was nothing I hated worse than walking into class after it had already started.

That doesn't seem to bother today's student as much as it did me but times change. I had just gone through the downtown area when I was stopped by a local police officer and given a ticket for speeding, which made me even later than I already was. That was 40 years ago this month and I haven't had a moving violation since. I've gotten one fix-it ticket for a headlight that was out and have never had an automobile accident that was my fault.

When I was on the Tulsa Police Department, some friends of mine and I drove over to Fayetteville, Arkansas, one weekend to revisit some of the haunts I had frequented as a student there. I carried a special packet that contained my driver's license, my police commission card and my T.P.D. badge and I somehow lost it while I was there.

Sometime later when I was changing insurance companies, a report showed up in my files that I had had an accident in western Oklahoma on a day I was at work as a police officer. I got my files from the police department and proved to the insurance agent that it couldn't have been me that had the accident. I also told him about losing my driver's license and that evidently someone had found it and was using it.

A year later, I received the lost driver's license, commission card and badge in the mail from the guy who owned the roller rink I visited that night which doubled as a dance place on the weekend. His name was Dayton Stratton, a minor celebrity in the Arkansas-Oklahoma area because he owned night clubs in Fayetteville and Norman, Oklahoma and also because of his close relationship with Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks who later went on to become one of the best bands ever, minus Ronnie, when they became known as simply The Band.

Levon Helm, the drummer for the band, mentioned Dayton often in a book he wrote about their musical experiences called This Wheel's on Fire. Dayton said in a note he included that I must have lost the packet at his club while I was dancing during one of my visits over there but he didn't admit to using my driver's license.

I grew up in a small town in Arkansas where everybody knew everybody else's business so it was hard for kids to get away with anything, especially bad driving. I remember driving straight home from school one day and my mom was standing on the front porch with her arms folded when I drove up and I already knew I was in trouble for something. I got out of the car and said "What" and she said a friend of hers had called and said I was speeding down her street again and if I ever did it again I was going to lose my driving privileges until I was out of high school. That's the scariest thing a teen-age boy who's dating different girls can hear so I promised myself that day that I was going to abide by all the traffic laws so I could keep on dating.

Although I didn't consciously think about the promise I made myself in later years, I guess my subconscious remembered it because I've been constantly aware of the traffic laws ever since. I go five miles over the speed limit on highways and Interstates because I can, but don't go over the speed limit at all when I'm inside the city limits of any jurisdiction. I always signal lane changes and I always turn into the inside lane when making a turn. It's just never made any sense to me go get a ticket for a moving violation and have to give up some of my hard-earned money as a penalty without receiving anything in return. You might as well drive down the street and throw money out the window.

So 40 years of lawful driving is my special anniversary and I plan on keeping the record going until I don't drive any more at all.

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CORRECTION: In my column last week, I reported that Kayla Sanders had been hired as an Associate Professor at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. She was hired as an Assistant Professor. I regret the error.