The night I spent in a New York police station

The other day I was asked if I could pick my grandson up from school on Friday. Half-jokingly I replied, “Unless I'm in jail or the hospital I think so.” It’s funny how your mind (OK, my mind) works - that reminded me of the night I spent in a police station in New York.

My brother Sean and I were living with our sister on her farm in Copenhagen, NY. I went up there to work on the farm. I was 18 and lazy, and it turns out farm work is hard. So after only a few days I said, “I’m outta here.” I talked Sean into leaving with me and we left to return to Nashville, TN. We set off, hitch-hiking our way to the Canadian Border. Yes, you’re right, that was the wrong direction! But our plan was to enter Canada, hitch-hike across to north of Detroit, then head back south. We stopped at Thousand Island Park for a swim and then made our way to the border.

We got turned away.

From the Canadian Border.

I must be one of three or four people ever denied entry into Canada!

So, we headed south again and hitch-hiked our way to North Syracuse. About 95 miles. It was hard to catch a ride that day, maybe it was my shoulder length hair. By now it was night and we couldn’t go any further, so we found a grocery store that had closed for the day. We unrolled our sleeping bags on the dark side of the store and went to sleep.

In the middle of the night we were rousted by the police: “Get up! You can’t sleep here!”

We entreated him to let us stay at the police station because we had nowhere else to go. And that’s where he took us! We spent the night in our sleeping bags on the floor of the North Syracuse Police Station. Six o’clock the next morning the officer behind the desk said, “Wake up! Get outta here!”

And that’s what we did. We decided that hitch-hiking wasn’t working (and the officer may have warned us about it, as in, “And don’t let me catch you hitch-hiking”) so we bought bus tickets to Bellefontaine, OH, where another sister lived. We arrived with no money. She wasn’t expecting us and wasn’t particularly pleased to see us. But that and what followed are for another day.

So, yeah, I spent the night in the police station in North Syracuse, New York. And the funny ending to this tale is I will not be able to pick up my grandson from school because I will sorta be in the hospital that day – I will be having an MRI. They suggested I take Adavan to help me handle the close quarters of the MRI and, in the words of the lady helping me make the appointment, I “will be in la-la land all day.”