When My Mother Learned to Drive or The Wrong Arm of the Law

In 1975, my very drunk father drove his car through a doctor's waiting room and injured an old couple. Not surprisingly, he was arrested. My parents knew everybody back in those days. They were friends with everyone from politicians to gangsters to the guy who hosted “Creature Feature” on TV Saturday nights (John Jones-aka Dr. San Guinary). And cops. Boy, did they know a lot of cops. It was a necessity, of course. When you owned a business of a certain type, one where patrons and employees alike were apt to get rowdy, you better be on good terms with the local constabulary. So when two police officers drove up to the remains of the doctor's office to arrest the culprit who had demolished a waiting room and buried an old couple, they immediately recognized the man, still sitting behind the wheel of his car, as my father. They hauled him out of his car and, with each arm draped over the shoulders of a cop, he was drug to the police car. His feet dragging the ground, he didn't even make a pretext of trying to walk. The cops deposited him in the back seat, making sure he didn't bump his head getting in and ensuring the seat belt was secure so he wouldn’t go flopping around. Police weren't always so courteous back then. Here is an aside about police in the seventies. Back then, the front and back seats of police cars were often separated by a metal grill, not unlike a chain link fence. This was before plexiglass was the norm. This was also before bodycams and classes that trained law enforcement how to treat suspects with respect and dignity. Back then, ‘police brutality’ was considered less of a crime and more a perk of the job. One example regularly employed by some of the more boisterous cops was called ‘waffling.’ That was when a police car, with an un-seat belted suspect in the back seat, would accelerate and then the cop would suddenly stomp on the brakes, causing said suspect to fly forward, slamming his face into the metal barrier and leaving waffle-like marks on his cheeks and forehead. Hence the name.That is the kind of story you hear when you own a bar where cops like to drink. My father didn't have to worry about getting ‘waffled.’ He knew those cops in the front seat well. They were good friends. Those friends of my father understood what would happen to him if they took him straight to the police station. There is a difference between getting into a car accident and getting into a car accident while blind, stinking drunk. So they didn't go straight to the station. Instead, they drove around town, periodically stopping at coffee shops and cafes, buying cups of coffee and pouring them down my father's gullet, trying to sober him up.It was about five or six hours later. Their shift was ending and they couldn't wait any longer. So the cops headed back to the station to book my father. Once at the station, they gave him the breathalyzer test.After several hours and gallons of black coffee, he still blew drunk. It's nice to have cops for friends but, in the end, there is only so much they can do for you.In the end, my father was lucky. He only lost his license for two years. This left my parents with a problem. They had children to ferry back and forth to school and a bar in downtown Omaha to operate. There was no way they could get by without a car. Insurance would take care of getting a new car but there was this problem of who was going to drive the thing. My mother was terrified by the prospect of driving. She had made it more than three decades without getting behind the wheel of a car. My father begged her. He pleaded with her. He promised that, if only she would get her license, he would buy her any sort of car she wanted. In the end, she relented of course. What choice did she have? And my father kept his word. I couldn't tell you the make or model of that car my mother got out of the deal. I was 10, after all, and I don't know much about cars even today. I can tell you, it was big. I know. When you are a little kid, everything seems giant. Still, this thing was monolithic. It was, to my young eyes, very rectangular. It had none of the rounded edges you see today in modern cars. It was white, with a red top. It was long. Looooong. It should have had a pair of steer horns on the hood and horn that blew “Dixieland.” Ironically, after years of avoiding it, my mother became the single best driver I have ever known.So what about the old couple that my father sent to the hospital? Well, they eventually recovered and even got a nice little payday from the insurance company. That is not to say it was an entirely happy ending. Understand, my father felt awful about what happened. Lloyd's of London was going to cancel my folk's policy anyway, obviously. So my father wanted that old couple to soak that famous insurance company for every dime they could. So here is the story as it was told to me. I make no claims as to the accuracy.There was a lawsuit. In court, the old man got up on the stand, with apparently considerable difficulty. He proceeded to testify about all the things he couldn't do any more because of his injuries. Especially fishing. Apparently, fishing was this man's life. He claimed a chest injury messed up his breathing and he couldn't fish anymore. I just want to point out something my mother said when recounting the tale years later, “It was just sad as hell. This poor old guy is just sitting there and, through no fault of his own, some drunk runs into him.”So my parents wanted his lawsuit to succeed. Unfortunately, when you go up against a big dog like Lloyd's of London, you better be ready to back up every claim. It wasn't hard for the insurer's cadre of attorneys and investigators to learn the old man had, in fact, retired from his job early because he already had serious lung troubles that preceded the accident. Every health issue described on the stand and blamed on the accident was real but attorneys proved they existed long before that accident.The judge was not amused and made his displeasure known in his judgment. The old couple got a settlement that covered all their medical bills and even have a little left over, but it was nowhere near what it should have been. Meanwhile, my folks had to find another insurance company. Two years later, my father got his license back. That was in 1977, just in time to take me to the drive-in to see “Star Wars,” so everything worked out.

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Vernon Nieman

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