A few years ago in Toronto, Canada I was detained for about 30 minutes while “trained” agents went through my carry on searching for whatever. The center of their interest focused on my camera bag which contained a bunch of those little 35mm film cans. They were empty and they acted like they had never seen a roll of 35mm fi lm before. Plus, my 5 year old, Steve had placed some souvenir empty balloons in there which I couldn’t explain. There was much ado. The five other members of my family walked on. Never even missed me. It’s an unsettling experience (not being missed) and looking like a terrorist. Then, there is this.

A few weeks ago I was in Florida and needed a little cash. A bank in Plantation, Florida had a sidewalk ATM so I decided to give them my business. As I inserted my Farmers’ State Bank card a light came on with a message saying the ATM was out of order. Not ready to take a dumb machine’s word for it I tried again. This time a suited up employee of the bank came out and requested that I not use the machine and looked like he really meant it. It was being serviced inside. Inside I could see about six tellers goofing off and not doing anything so I went inside and went to the girl that looked more like Barbara Sanders (my own personal banker) than the others.

The Lady shrank away as I asked her if I could use my ATM card inside as I needed some cash. The suited up guy came up (again) and told me to go to the Target Store across the street and try it. He watched me till I cleared the bank. I walked down to the end of the street and it turns out Target is across an 8 lane expressway and no way in heck to cross it. I walked back to the car and waited on the rest of my party. I noticed a person walk up to the ATM. Before I could jump out and tell him it didn’t work, he pulled a wad of money out and walked off. I went back up to the machine, timidly, and withdrew some cash.

I thought of a time back in 1955, I was in the Navy and stationed in San Diego. A shipmate had a death in his family. While he waited for his emergency leave papers to be prepared, I thought it would be real nice of me to drive his special order Crestliner 1951 Ford over to “town” and have it serviced. It had been sitting on the pier on Coronado Island and was very nasty. So I did (taking along an old buddy) and when I returned to take the ferry back to Coronado things started to get weird. Unknown to me was that two sailors had just robbed a Safeway store. They shot down six people, some died. The “sailors” had escaped in a 1951 Crestliner Ford.

When the Ferry docked, my buddy and I were dragged out and rudely slung to the ground. A California Trooper put his heavy boot on my head as they removed the seats, emptied the trunk and cursed us--calling us killers. A guitar was in the trunk and it was flung out and bounced across the parking area. It was very expensive but I was more worried about my own self. Abruptly troopers told us we could get up and get out. The only thing that had saved us was that the real killers were caught just North of town. I was irate and complained to the eager TV cameras that were there about how they had trashed the car. Finally the cops relented and helped us put stuff back, we went on back to the ship and that was the end of that. Except I got on TV that night. No thanks.

Have a good weekend and try not to look like a crook. And go to church Sunday.

Wayne Bullard, DPh waynebullard@sbcglobal.net