I wrote this for Lakewood, as sort of a sign-off, and he is welcome to expand on it, if he cares to, and share the by-line. -- JD This is extremely flattering. Years ago, Joe wrote to his readers, "Please feel free to borrow any of my characters or story ideas.... As far as I'm concerned, anyone who wants to can do a sequel/prequel/re-write...or anything else inspired by my stuff.... I do...ask that you post your story under your own name or alias and not under mine."* (*See the "Editor's Note," at the end, below.) To my knowledge, he has never before offered to share a by-line. I'm not sure what I could add to this story -- but I'll certainly give it a lot of thought. -- C.L. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD SHERIFFS by Joe Doe I WROTE THIS AS A THANK YOU TO LAKEWOOD AND SEARCH'EM FOR ALL THEIR HARD WORK. MANY THANKS, GUYS -- WELL DONE! I was Sheriff at Clarksville at the same time my dad was Sheriff over at Baton. The funny part was all those smart college girls who'd heard about Dad and drove off the Interstate to get around him...and ended up driving right into my jail. He and I always got a big chuckle out of that. I don't know if Dad was proud that I was a Sheriff at the same time he was. I know I sure was. Things change, though. Back in the early sixties, young women didn't travel alone much, at least not until those stupid beach party songs and movies started coming out, and every 19-year-old with a bikini decided she just had to drive south for Spring Break to be "Where the Boys Are" or play "Beach Blanket Bingo" or whatever. It was different in those days. No ACLU, no fancy-pants lawyers, no so-called "police brutality" suits. A girl who got arrested was so embarrassed about being a jailbird that you never heard a peep from her after you let her go. Nowadays you practically have to fire off a few shots just to shut 'em up. Dad never wore a gun; he never needed to. When he told a woman to get out of the car and put her hands on the hood, it was always, "Yes, sir!" or "What did I do wrong, Officer?" Never any smart mouth. I'll tell you something else. In those days women didn't carry guns, or mace, or tasers. When you fondled their boobies, the only thing you felt was titty. Dad spent much of his career arresting women for "driving while blonde," an offense that had nothing to do with hair color and everything to do with being a hot babe driving alone without no father or boyfriend to protect her. Dad said he never understood why hot pussy was allowed to run around loose like that. Truth is, it always puzzled me, too. Those were the days. My dad squeezed so much T&A in those days, he used to brag that the term "cop a feel" came from him. You could pull a woman over, give 'er a little grope, and send 'er on 'er way, with no harm done. If she was real hot, you could take 'er down to the station and make 'er dance a little striptease to order. It was all in good fun, and Dad sent 'em home none the worse for being wiser. Back around '65, though, things started to change. We started getting a lot more sass. College girls all the time squawking about their rights to this and that...and asking what the charges were. It pissed Dad off so much that he opened up the county prison farm. Half the time Dad didn't even bother to file charges. He would just tell the judge (his brother Elroy) some sassafras about resisting arrest and disrespecting the badge. After 30 days to a year working on the chain gang and humping at the truck stop, they wasn't nearly as snooty coming out as they was going in. 1967 was the so called "summer of love" and, if you ask me, it's when the weirdos officially took over the world. If you pulled over a car load of Yankee coeds in those days, it was pretty much a miracle if one of them didn't have weed. At first it threw Dad for a loop -- the concept of sending women to jail for real crimes never occurred to him. But I helped him set up two more prison farms, and, before long, ever'body -- me and Dad and Uncle Elroy -- was raking in a pretty tidy profit. Nowadays you can't even tell a girl to put her hands on the hood and spread 'em, because some idiot will use a video camera to record the whole thing. Of course it's nice to be able to video the searches down at the station -- I've got quite the little Blockbuster going, if you know what I mean. But the old days were the days. The women we put in the prison now are mostly professionals, so we've upgraded a lot. We scan their fingerprints into the computer and digitize their mug shots. They get real trials and ever'thing, even if Uncle Elroy's son, Melroy, still finds 'em guilty. And we have a real exam table (with stainless steel stirrups), and rubber gloves, and lube, and everything. Yes, we take our jobs seriously these days, and we search 'em good, inside and out. Still, I miss the old days. Back then, old Joe Doe wrote nearly a story a week, and even if it was a pain in the backside for his editor to fix up the grammar to make it sound right...and never complained (excepting a little). And Katie wrote some good ones, too, and Ashley, and Deputy Duffy, and Lakewood, and Hildabert, and Zola, and lots of others besides. So many there was hardly time to edit 'em all. Yes, those were the days. I always like talking to one of the old timers when I get a chance, 'cause things are so different now. If you pull a woman over for speeding now she spends the whole ride to the station bitching about how she's innocent, and how she demands a lawyer...and a phone call so her daddy can bail her out. When cell phones first came out, I practically had to sprint over to the damn car to keep them from calling for help. We got a doo-hickey that jams them now, which is good, because I'm getting too old to outrun a damn cell phone. We scan them in, and strip them down, and shower and delouse them, and they blush and squirm and stare at their toes. Even after all these years, each girl is a little different. I love them all, and servicing them keeps me going, it truly does. These days Joe writes only a few stories a year. It's always nice to hear from him, 'cause it's a little like the old days then. Last night, I had a dream. I don't know dreams are of much interest, unless you're the party involved, but here it is: I was sitting in a speed trap, behind a billboard, when I saw Dad drive by. He was a young man, much younger than I am now. Although he had the siren on, and was driving fast, he sort of froze in my mind's eye, and I could see him clear as day. In the back of the prowl car were three hotties -- a redhead, a brunette, and a blonde. On the dash he had a huge stack of stories...from Joe and others. He didn't see me, just sped on past. I knew that someday soon I'd catch up with him, and the girls would be waiting for me, with that stack of new stories from Joe and the rest, waiting to be read. Someday. Soon. ****************************** *Editor's Note: For Joe's two other stipulations regarding sequels, prequels, and re-writes, see "Give 'Til It Hurts." C. Lakewood