My First Arrest

(Thanks to Paula Johnson for that title.)

Most people shy away from talking about being arrested, not to mention doing so publicly. I would were it not for the circumstances of the first one. The second time, no, I’ll pass, but the first? You betcha!

(This is not bragging, nothing involving being arrested should be. Kids, don’t try this at home.)

My family went on our annual vacation to Yosemite in August 1961. I was 13. No sooner did we get the tent up and my dad came down with the measles.

We had to go home after just two days.

Once home, I was hanging with Bruce, one of my buddies, and we got to talking about exciting things to do in what was left of a boring summer. Somehow out of that came the two of us camping on Catalina Island.

We told our parents we could stay at a Boy Scout camp because Bruce was, or had been, a scout. Not sure which or if I made that up to make the camp part more acceptable to my parents.

They didn’t ask a lot of questions, assuming we’d be supervised. I also think they okayed it, in part, because they felt bad my Yosemite vacay had been cut short.

In any event, we were going.

After a 2.5 hour trip on the SS Catalina, we started walking to the camp a few miles inland from Avalon. We didn’t get far before an LA Sheriff in a cruiser pulled up asking where we were going.