Monday, July 12, 2010

Herb Stories: Beef Sticks and Police Chases

Prologue:
My wife's cousin has a great blog. He writes about music and memories attributed to certain pieces of music. If you want to check it out, read Erik Apland's iPodobiography. I understand a lot of Erik's blog because I have meet some of the people and have been to some of the places he blogs about.

With that set up, I am working an a series of stories told by my late brother Herb. He had so many stories that sounded close to believable, but usually had some truth to them. They were intriguing stories and Herb told them well.

All details are as I recall them. Any additional information about this story would be appreciated.

Without any more ado, Here is the first story...

Beef Sticks and Police Chases


In the late 1980s, Herb moved to Virgina and worked for Tony's Pizza. He drove a Tony's Pizza Truck making frozen food deliveries to various supermarkets in the greater Richmond and Newport News area.

One night, there was a special delivery of some sort. Herb took off in his car with a load of ???, which included several boxes of frozen Beef Sticks. It was late and a long trip. Those two factors apparently got to him and he fell asleep while driving.

Herb woke up to find flashing lights in his rear view mirror. Herb pulled over and got out his license. The officer asked him "Do you know how long I have been following you?" Herb wasn't sure how long, actually he don't remember the last several miles at all.

The officer continues, "I have been following you for quite a while. You have been passing people, changing lanes, and using your blinker...all at time I was following you with my [emergency] lights on. You didn't appear to be running from me, so I just followed you."

Herb says, "I don't remember any of that. Honestly, I am pretty tired and I may have dozed off." Herb reaches in the car and grabs some semi-frozen beef sticks and starts eating some of them.

The officer asks him what he is eating. Herb says they are beef sticks. He explains that he is making a special delivery and had a few extra boxes of beef sticks, if he (the officer) would like any.

Herb continues to explain that he is from South Dakota and he moved there recently, which explains his license plates (which were still from South Dakota, almost a year after he moved there).

Herb said the had a little chat with each other, ate a few beef sticks, and he was on his way again. The only thing he was out was a couple of boxes of beef sticks.

From My Picasa Account


The other part of the story I remember is not something he told during this story, but something that happened when he called home. He asked us to pick up new tags for his car, because his were expired. It was October or November, and this was when everyone's plates expired at the end of March. So this event may have happened when his tags were actually expired. I don't think Herb ever got Virginia plates while he lived there.