I got hired by the U.S. Ski Association (which was
headquartered in Brattleboro back then) right out of college to work as a
mobile ski Nordic ski coach. Bill Koch
had won a silver medal at the Innsbruck Olympics in 1976 and the Travelers
Insurance Company had sponsored the nationwide rollout of the Bill Koch Ski
League and they funded a team of traveling coaches to crisscross the country
and put on ski clinics. I was paired
with another coach, Rob, and we set out in November of 1980 and headed out on a
circuitous route that took us to Washington, Oregon and California before
Christmas then back through the Rockies (Utah, Idaho, Colorado and Montana) and
then in February through Minnesota and Wisconsin. Our typical day consisted of visit to an
elementary school in a small town somewhere in ski country where if there was
adequate snow we would pull 80 pairs of skis out of our white Ford van
emblazoned with cross country skiers and the U.S. Ski Association logo and the
Travelers Insurance logo and we would teach the physical education classes at
elementary schools how to cross country ski.
We were usually hosted by a local ski club and if we were lucky we would
get a spare bed or a couch in somebody’s house to sleep on and we could bank
our meager per diem.
 |
| Rob and me leaving VT Nov, 1980 |
In February we were nearing the end of our five month
contract and Rob and I had settled into a routine. Rob played the banjo and I was a bicycle
aficionado so in every small town we had to check to see if there was a local
music store and a local bicycle shop.
Rob was constantly trading one banjo for another and often left a small
town with a different banjo than the one he entered town with. I was constantly looking for a deal on
bicycles. I found only one, a Motobecane
tandem in Walla Walla that I bought for $450 and have until this day, a
purchase that has served me well over the years.
We entered Sheboygan Falls about two hours before dusk on a
Thursday night in February. We stopped
at a phone booth and called our local contact but there was no answer. We drove through the small downtown a couple
times and found a parking lot and parked the van. We got out and walked around town as the sun
set. There was a music shop but no
bicycle shop. Rob checked out the music
shop and I went to a drug store and bought post cards. I tried the local
contact’s phone number again to no avail.
Rob and I met back at the van around 4:30. We decided we would wait an hour and call our
contact again. We got in the van. I used what little light was left to write
post cards. Rob got his banjo out and
began playing. As it got dark I turned
on the overhead light in the van to keep writing post cards. The van windows steamed up.
After about 45 minutes there was a knock on my door of the
van. There was a knock on Rob’s
door. I was in the passenger seat while
Rob was in the driver’s seat. I rolled down the window (hand cranks back then)
and was startled to see a police officer.
Rob rolled his window down and saw the same thing on his side. Three or four police cars and at least six
officers is how I remember it. At least
one on my side had a drawn weapon. We were
asked to exit the vehicle “slowly” and put our hands up and on the van. We were frisked. Rob was on one side of the
van and I was on the other. Rob started
to protest, the officer essentially told him to shut up, Rob protested
again. I told Rob to shut up. The officer fished my wallet out of my back
pocket and began asking me questions.
Where did we come from? Where were we going? What was in the van? (umm
80 pairs of skis, a sled to pull kids around, some soccer balls, a Traveler’s
Insurance umbrella – no kidding really we had a Travelers umbrella and we would
set it up at each event because heck they paid for us to travel around- a banjo,
a bicycle, etc.). What seemed like a
long time elapsed with both of us spread eagle against each side of the van,
probably it was only five minutes? Then
the officers seemed to relax…they gave us our wallets back. They said we were free to leave. One of them said something I remember to this
day “nobody’s rights were violated here, you can leave now.” What did “nobody’s rights were violated mean?”
At the time we were just glad it was over.
I started shaking a bit later.
Later that night when we were safely ensconced with our
local contact (a fine upstanding Sheboygan Falls citizen) he called the chief
of police (in small towns everyone knows everyone) and found out that once per
month for the past several months there had been an armed robbery in Sheboygan
Falls. The M.O was always the same. A white van with out of state plates would
arrive a bit before dusk and drive back and forth around town. The occupants would leave the van and case a
location and then with a sawed off shotgun retrieved from the van they would
carry out a robbery and leave town quickly.
We were reported soon after hitting town. We were followed as we walked
around and when the police saw the banjo Rob was playing as the window’s fogged
up all they thought was that it was a sawed off shotgun and they had their
perpetrators. All’s well that ends well
and we were amused at the time when we understood the story. The story is
mildly amusing now with 33 years between us and the incident.
But in light of the events of the past few weeks I can’t
help but think one simple thing: What
might have happened if Rob and I had been black?
Cairn Cross
Banjo playing is DEFINITELY probably cause.
ReplyDeleteGood point.
ReplyDelete