Probation Or Parole Alright Which Is It

Sitting here, listening to Carlos Santana, thinking, often he causes me to think, ya know, I gave up cars, 6-8 years ago, today I’m thinking good thing, with the cost of gas, my God, my bike gets me everywhere! I had to get out to the track, Santa Anita, going out to see about a job a while back, I took the Gold Line to the end of the line, the Sierra Madre Station, from there I rode the few miles more on my bike to the track. By the time I got there, the job was gone, I started heading back, mostly uphill, I really needed bad to take a wizz, I kept pedaling on, figured I’d find a jon at the station. Upon arriving, you know I was surprised, I was really in a bad way, there wasn’t one. Right next to the station was a job site, hell I’m a carpenter, I started looking for their can, a guard on the fence stopped me, I told him it was OK, that I was a carpenter, he said it wasn’t, he told me no, no public pissing on his watch! I started looking around a little, I grew up in the country, by now, almost any bush would do, I spied a spot at the back of the structure, on the outside, tucked back, up along side the freeway, I barely made it to my spot. No problems with my buttons, a quick glance, I whipped it out. Right in sync, a siren, WTF, busted, out from nowhere these guys pull out from the parking structure, swing around broadside, blocking the dirt service road, two sheriff’s get out, they go to opposite ends of their car, I’m trapped, no police chase drama here today, one says to me “probation or parole, alright, which is it”, I say neither! WTF, these guys were serious, their fingers on their triggers, christ, its about high noon, I guess me not being in bicycle shorts, and a funny little hat caused them a bit of concern, I’m subjected to their drill. Hands on the hood, I’m searched, my bike searched too, the what are you doing here questions, where do you live, where are you going out here with all these tools. In the city of LA, they figured it out, that even a bum on the street, from time to time might need to piss, unlike the County of LA, in the city you don’t face jail. These guys never lightened up, maybe it was my t-shirt, boots, and jeans, maybe the tattoo, they were telling me I’d been caught committing a sex crime, that maybe I might have to register, I told them I had looked all over the station for the head. Quick to answer, they told me there weren’t any, said having them around attracted a criminal element, I fired back, that made no sense, I asked them, wasn’t it their job to protect citizens like me from that criminal element, that had either of them ever had to badly take a piss, that really wadded them up. I have always felt good of my choice to opt out of the daily oil tax, I’m an old man, out on my bicycle, how others perceive me, I realize now, is not the way I see myself, I’m seen as not the man I am, I have a drivers license, those cops had asked me for my State Issued ID, I had been profiled, these guys were sure I was in their system, they were just downright rude! Mornings, I’ll pass at least a half dozen transvestite hookers daily, about 4;30am, on my way to the gym, more than enough action in my neighborhood to keep all those boys in black and white busy, I ride on the sidewalks, those cops, they always seem to want to talk with me, I guess they think they “must” know me! When I heard “he rides his bike everywhere”, a quote off the evening news describing the nut accused of murdering that publicist on Whittier Drive in Beverly Hills, the guy who blew his brains out in the lobby of that “flea bag Hollywood Hotel”, that “he doesn’t have a drivers license, he doesn’t have a car”, finley I understood why I am marked!