Something about Walnut Grove.....

On April 19, 2011 I walked all day from Attalla, Alabama to the small town of Walnut Grove. I looked forward to it for a few reasons, the least of which was that it had such a nice sounding pleasant name, the same name as the town that the Ingalls family lived in in Little House on the Prairie. It also offered an oasis in the middle of a longer journey to Snead, Alabama. And rest, and a chance to heal my feet for an hour or two.
With that thought in mind I rolled into the only gas station in town. A busy and clean place, it was full of folks getting off from work, or just gassing up, automotively AND culinarily. I parked my cart on the edge of the parking lot and walked in. I bought a pair of diet Cokes, walked back out and sat down by my cart, where I enjoyed a soda while letting my bare feet air out and loosen up.
A tall, plainly dressed guy approached me after circling the parking lot. I had seen him standing in the store and wondered about him. He worked his way over and in a southern drawl thick as good grits, said,
‘“How you doin’ there buddy?”
Said I, “I’m well, thank you”
“You know there’s a lotta folks who are nervous about ya seein’ as how you’re pushing that there cart along.”
I laughed. “Nervous? What do they thinkIm going to do? Commit a crime and walk away at 2.5 miles an hour? There are cops back in Georgia that are so fat that they couldn’t catch me, though.”
He said, puffing his chest up a little bit, “Well, I can’t run fast but I could catch you.” It was then that I noticed the gun peeking out below his shirt tail. (This was a casually dressed guy)
“Are you a cop?” I asked.
“Yup”, he said.
“So why didn’t you identify yourself?”
“I don’t have to if I’m working undercover”
“Well, if you are working undercover you must have an agenda.”
He then took a more aggressive posture. “You sure know a lot about the law. How is that?”
I told him my dad was a corrections offi cer for thirty years and I had learned a lot that way. This seemed to mollify him.
He thought for a moment and then said, “Well, let me ask you a question…….if you know so much about the law, which one are you breaking right now?”
I thought for a moment, seeing where this was going.
“None.” I told him.
He paused, and then asked me, “Well , what about vagrancy?”
Now I REALLY saw what he was trying to do, except that it was obvious that he was clueless about the law.
Wikipedia: A vagrant is a person in poverty, who wanders from place to place without a home or regular employment or income. Many towns in the Developed World have shelters for vagrants. Common terminology is a tramp or a 'gentleman of the road'. In legal terminology, a person with a source of income is not a vagrant, even if he/she is homeless.
“How am I committing vagrancy?”
“Wellll, you don’t maintain a permanent residence in this state.”
I laughed out loud at him. “I don’t maintain a permanent residence in 49 states! I live in Georgia,. Im not a vagrant---I have ID, I have money, I have a business, I have family. Im walking through here for charity and I am a writer as well back home in Georgia and for a website, and you can better believe that I will be writing a story about Walnut Grove Alabama.”
He then told me that the owners of the establishment wanted me to leave, and that my story had better be a good one.”Have you given me a reason to write a good story about Walnut Grove? Everyone I have met in this state has been lovely and kind until I met you.” I put my shoes and socks on and began to walk towards the road.
He turned and walked slowly away, saying, “Have a nice day sir.”
Later, I managed to just make it to Snead, an interstate intersection type of town, with a few restaurants and nothing much else. At the McDonalds, attached to a BP,; I met a pair of young men who were friendly and helpful. I mentioned the Walnut Grove incident to them and one of them, Mark by name, was a cop in Snead. He knew the guy at the gas station in Walnut Grove. As it turns out, the jerk really WAS a….jerk. Not a police officer at all but a rent a cop security guard known for being a turd to strangers. I felt relieved, and decided that maybe just maybe Walnut Grzove was not fairly represented by him.
Cut to the next morning. At the McDonalds, I met a man named Richard, a gregarious and informed and informative man who related an incident from a few years back. It seems that his daughter was a participant in the school marching band and when her school’s football team had a game scheduled in Walnut Grove, she went to the game to participate with the band during pregame ceremonies on the field. The visiting band would perform first, and they took the field. As they played, Richard noticed that from the lovely parents of Walnut Grove, boos, and then soda cans and bottles and all sorts of trash were being thrown onto the field at the band. He later reported the incident to the higher ups at the school and informed them that his child would NEVER return there for any reason until action was taken to make sure that the nonsense never happened again.
I wasn’t going to write about the rent a cop in Walnut Grove, wanting to keep things as positive as I could. Then I heard the story that Richard related to me and realized that life isn’t always peaches and cream and nice people and cotton candy and wax lips…sometimes people are just jerks. Apparently a lot of them live in Walnut Grove, Alabama. So, to Richard for his story and great conversation at McDonalds, I say thank you. To the rent a cop, I say…….