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.
Us: “To the Boy Scout camp.”
Him: “The camp is currently closed. Is someone 18 or older with you?”
Us: “No”
Him: “How old are you?”
Us: “13”
At that point, the officer terminated the conversation saying we would have to go back on the steamship that afternoon. We told him we would and started back toward Avalon.
While the discussion with the officer ended, the discussion between Bruce and me regarding our options had only just begun.
We had sleeping bags, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and coats if it got cold, along with money our parents gave us for meals.
All the necessary tools for going off the grid, which, in 1961, was not a thing. At least not to two 13-year-olds.
Our plan was simple. Hang out until the boat pulled away from the dock.
Avalon and the entire island The Four Preps sang about demanded we stay.
During the day, air temperature was of no concern. Mid 70’s, we were comfortable in our t-shirts and shorts.
However, having to tote our sleeping bags and coats around was a nuisance, but we had a solution for that too. One that fit the narrative of actually appearing to do as the officer said we must.
We stopped by the steamer ticket kiosk on the dock and told the lady running it we’d have to go back that afternoon. Could we leave our sleeping bags and coats with her until departure time?
She said we could. “…just make sure when you hear the steamer sound its incredibly loud horn, that you’re back. You only have 15 minutes prior to it departing. They won’t wait for you.”
Us: “Thank you, we’ll pick up our stuff and be on the ship in plenty of time.”
And with that said, we headed back to hang out in Avalon prior to (allegedly) boarding the ship, returning to Long Beach.
The afternoon was mostly about snacks, Cokes, hotdogs, and time in a pinball and game place waiting for the ship’s horn to sound. When it did, “incredibly loud” as the ticket lady said it would, we stalled a bit longer before slowly heading outside to actually see the ship back away from the dock.
Only then did we pick up the pace to recover our stuff, preparing to look surprised finding the ship left without us.
At least 50 yards before we arrived at the kiosk, my 20/20 13-year-old eyes could see the ticket lady, our sleeping bags, and coats were not there.
Did the (to us at the time) old lady steal our stuff?
Moments later we saw her approaching from where the ship had been at the end of the dock, a look of shock on her face similar to how we must have looked when we realized she and our stuff were nowhere to be found.
Her: “What are you doing here? I thought you were on the boat. I put your things on it!”
Us: “We didn’t realize it was time to leave until it was too late.” (The 100+ decibel horn still ringing in our ears.)
Her: “What will you do now, do you have someone you can stay with?”
Us: “We do, but what about our stuff?”
Her: “How long will you be here? I can have it sent back tomorrow.”
Us: “Two more nights. Great, we’ll be fine tonight and will pick it up tomorrow morning.”
At this point, none of this concerned us. We were 13 with at best one semi functioning brain between us.
We would be fine. We had been to this point, we would until our stuff returned the next day.
We’ll find some underbrush to sleep in; what could happen?
The rest of the afternoon and early evening went as had the time before the ship departed with our “off the grid” supplies. More snacks, more games, nothing to worry about.
Around 10 PM, the gaming parlor announced they were closing. Everyone, including Bruce and me, would have to leave.
Outside, nowhere to go, we immediately noticed the comfortable mid 70’s temperature earlier that day had become an uncomfortable high 50’s. Not exactly weather suitable to two skinny 13-year-olds in shorts and t-shirts.
Knowing we had to be away from town for fear of encountering our sheriff friend, we walked a few streets inland looking for somewhere to spend the night outdoors.
The best, largely only candidate was a Christian Science church (now a closed event center) with an outdoor stairway leading to the roof.
We climbed over the locked gate, went up the stairs, in a modified fetal position for warmth. Using our wallets for pillows we tried and failed to sleep.
Around 2:30 AM, very cold, we decided to head back to the pier where we hoped the public restroom would be open. The plan was to sit on toilets in separate stalls to stay warm until the sun came up.
But that was not to be. Within a short block of the pier another LA Sheriff pulled up in a patrol car.
A few questions from him, a few feeble answers from us, we were arrested for curfew violation, and because a girl had been “accosted” on the beach earlier that night.
I was 13.
Accosted?
Maybe something to do with a costume, possibly custard? 😐
The officer put us in the back seat of his cruiser for the short trip up the hill to the jail where we would spend what little was left of the night, warm if not free.
Jail was a three cell facility each with separate barred doors. The deputy on duty recorded our parents names and phone numbers while we emptied our pockets, removed our shoelaces, wallets, and belts.
That done he put each of us in separate cells with cots attached to the wall and a single army blanket. Picture most any jail/prison movie you’ve seen minus noisy inmates.
The deputy said he would call our parents, one of which would have to be in court on the island when we faced the judge later that day. I don’t know how they decided who that would be.
The next morning we discovered the third cell had another kid in it, picked up before us. We were all served scrambled eggs and bacon on styrofoam plates, no silverware, I assume, so inmates would not harm each other or themselves. We ate with our hands.
Breakfast over, around 10 AM, another deputy (if you’re keeping score, the fourth we’d encountered in less than 24 hours) came to take us to court. I asked if he knew which parent was there for us. He didn’t, but based on the description we knew it was Bruce’s dad.
Not much of an issue for me until I had to face my folks. Immediately not good for Bruce.
The courtroom looked just like the ones in movies and TV. The judge up front on a raised platform in his robe, gavel in hand. Tables for the accused and prosecution in front of him, separated by a little “fence” from seats behind for those watching.
No one was there other than Bruce’s dad who penetrated our souls with his withering, unblinking stare as we entered from a side door to stand in front of the judge.
The process was brief. Not buying our story of having accidentally missed the steamer, the judge lectured us before releasing us to Bruce’s dad, banishing us for life from “his island”.
We came over on the Catalina steamship, a 2.5 hour trip from Long Beach. Away from the sheriff, the judge, and the courtroom, Bruce’s dad wasn’t having any of that.
He flew over from the Long Beach airport on the sea plane, landing in the ocean. He made it clear that we would pay him back for his round trip and our one way airfares home.
The flight back to the LB airport was short but exciting for me regardless of the consequences I faced when dropped off at home.
My mom and dad were as you’d expect any parent to be having been woken in the middle of the night, told by a sheriff their 13-year-old son was in jail on Catalina Island. My mom, more the disciplinarian than dad, in particular.
She said we, me included, were going to a Billy Graham revival meeting at the LA Coliseum that night.
Go we did ending my adventure with Billy Graham seemingly, personally, lecturing 13-year-old Billy Matthies on the evil of being evil.
I occasionally look back on this 36 hours thinking what a great if somewhat improbable movie it would make.
Two 13-year-olds go to Catalina without adult supervision, get arrested, spend the night in jail, are released to an exasperated father, and fly home taking off from the ocean in a seaplane!
My first and to this day best flight of my life ever!
And if that weren’t enough, I’d been banished for life from Catalina Island by a real judge!
From jail to a Billy Graham revival all in little more than one day.
I couldn’t wait for school to start and all my friends asking,“What did you do this summer?”
