We were working the Rodeo in Houston with popcorn and it was off and on rain outside. They always have a parade on opening day a few interesting things have happened during the parade.
One day a few years ago my friend Alex was working gas balloons when a cop grabbed him and said, " You're under arrest for peddling balloons without a license".
As it happened a guy stepped out of the onlookers and said, "I'm a lawyer and I'm going to represent your case." This Lawyer was a famous Texas attorney known as Racehorse Haines.
When the trial came up he told the Judge, " Your honor, this year there has been 133 murders in Houston and 14 arrests, there's been 98 armed robberies and 6 arrests, 77 rapes and 9 arrests and one balloon peddler without a license and one arrest. Now it seems like this police officer could be out trying to solve some of these crimes instead of molesting the court with these trivialities."
The Judge agreed and threw the case out of court. And for several years the police stopped harassing balloon peddlers.
Anyway to get back to the parade on a rainy day, my buddy Steve was loading a cart with novelties and thinking he shouldnt put on the snap and pops because of the wet weather when a fire marshall walked up and said, "You cant sell those Snaps on the parade route".
Steve said, "Ok its too rainy anyway". So he took them off the cart and started to put them in his truck.
"What's in that truck?" asked the fire marshall.
"I'll tell you what's in the truck", said Steve, "NONE OF YOUR FUCKIN' BUSINESS, THAT'S WHAT'S IN THE TRUCK !!"
The Fire Marshall called a cop over, Steve kept arguing, "Go ahead and cuff me", he said, " Show the people here what a bunch of Gestapos you are".
So they cuffed him and took him to jail. I forget what they charged him with..disturbing the peace or something.
Later that night his wife came by my popcorn joint.
She was from Colombia, she told me she went down and tried to bail him out but Steve was raging and said, This is unAmerican and he would do the time rather than pay a fine. It was two weeks.
One of the cops asked Steves wife, " You have a funny accent, Where are you from?"
She said, "The most beautiful place in the world, Bogota, Colombia."
The cop said, " Oh yeh, that's where that really good COFFEE comes from", as he put a finger up to one nostril and gave a big snort.
"The cops are a bunch of cabrones (sons of bitches)," she told me.
Yeh, I think I have to agree with that.
