Oddly enough, despite what I was originally going to write, there's not a huge difference between the two. You get good cops in both bunches, you get bad apples in both bunches. I think there's a bigger difference in small town versus big city cops, but even then you still get the same make-up. You get power tripping cops in small towns just as you get nice cops willing to lend a hand in big towns.
Growing up in a small country town in Australia my experience with the police was probably different to that of my American "small town" counterpart, but probably also not dramatically different. I think the big difference between Australia and the U.S., at least small town different (and maybe it's changed from 20 years ago, too), was how you handled the cop pulling you over.
Here, you turn off the ignition, wind down the window (maybe just a little if you're overly cautious), place your hands on the steering wheel in plain view then wait for the cop to approach your car.
In Australia, my father taught me to leave the car and meet the cop halfway, between the cars, on neutral ground so to speak. I don't know if this was a country thing, or a family thing, but I had no problem doing that the one time a Cop actually pulled me over in Australia. Of course that same act also almost got my uncle shot when he did that here in the U.S. when he got pulled over for speeding. (Being an international businessman with a lead foot that was something that happened to him with some frequency.) With his hand ready to draw his pistol the cop apparently ordered my uncle to return to his car and put his hands on the steering wheel. My uncle wisely complied.
Before we were married my wife-to-be and I got lost visiting friends in Oakland. I convinced Liz to pull up on the Freeway behind a CHP Officer writing a ticket, and before she knew what I was about to do (she probably thought I'd wave the officer over to the car) I had the door open and was out of the car, strolling along the Freeway shoulder and up to the officer.
"Good afternoon, sir," I said, by way of greeting (or something similar, although I don't think I'd yet adopted the American practice of calling everyone 'sir'.) "Are you almost finished here? We're a little lost."
The Chippie was either brand new on the Force, or just stunned that someone would actually pull up behind him, get out of their car, and ask him for directions, because he made no attempt to shoot me. He replied that he was almost done and requested that I return to our car, which I did (and I suspect Liz probably chewed me out, I can't remember :D) and when he was finished writing his ticket he came over and helped us on our way.
A year or so later we were pulled over when the officer behind us noticed our vehicle's registration sticker was overdue. I knew I'd put the new sticker on because I'd already expressed my doubts to Liz about the safety of such a system. In Australia your rego sticker goes on the inside of your car's windshield, whereas here in the U.S. it just gets stuck on your rear license plate, exposed to the elements...and the first tea leaf to come along that wants a registration sticker, and that's what had happened to us. Some bastich had peeled the sticker off. (Or it blew off in the wind, but that's doubtful.) I forget exactly what I said but I attracted the officer's attention and he leaned over to peer in at me sitting in the passenger seat, so I told him that I'd just put the new sticker on last week. He not only didn't write a ticket for not displaying our registration sticker (although we did have the current papers in the glove box) he clued me in to taking my knife and making several slices across the sticker, jig-sawing it so no thief in their right mind would try to peel it off because all they'd get would be tiny triangular pieces.
Of course we've also been pulled over a couple of times and received tickets, which we've deserved for the most part. The one I feel we didn't deserve was what I'll call a "Tailgate Trap".
The bike cop was parked on the median strip on the far side of the traffic light-controlled intersection. The light would go green and everyone would accelerate through the intersection, which crossed a 4-lane (each way) Highway with two lanes in the middle for turning traffic, so we're talking a 10-lane wide highway. The first cars would get to the other side, see the bike cop, and do what practically everyone does when they see a cop; they'd hit their brakes and slow down so the cars behind them would bunch up for no reason other than there being a bike cop sitting in the middle of the road...a bike cop who promptly pulled the last vehicle over and ticketed them (us) for tail gating. After he wrote our ticket I watched as he rode back to the intersection and parked in exactly the same spot. If they have ticket quotas (and I'm not saying they do) I'm sure he wrote his entire month's quota of tickets that day.
Many years ago, a friend and I used to ride into town on a Sunday afternoon, ride down the alley, and climb the fence into the back of the Newsagency (the very one where I'd later find myself employed) where we'd go through their dumpster looking for magazines with no covers. (I would later learn that while some magazines went back to the publisher in their entirety, other publishers required nothing more than the cover to issue credit.) Playboy and Penthouse were always top on the list but we also kept an eye out for computer magazines. On this occasion we were preparing to climb over the fence when a voice asked us what we were doing. How a V8 can creep up on you without you hearing it I have no idea. We turned around and it's a cop car. My friend quickly tells the driver we were there because he needed to take a piss. Like a cop, who is trained to be suspicious about anyone not in uniform, was going to buy that.
Now me? I was brought up that when you get busted you're better off telling the truth or you'll only make it worse for yourself, so I told my friend not to lie then turned to the cop and told him we were planning to climb over the fence to look for Playboy magazines.
My friend chimed in again. He just couldn't shut up. "He wanted to look for pornos," he says, "I'm just after computer magazines." There's petty theft and robbery, and there's grand theft auto and grand larceny (& others). But when you're stealing magazines it doesn't matter whether it's Playboy, Penthouse, or PC Gamer, it's still stealing. Despite his protests I was sure my friend was not getting on the cop's good side.
I don't know if there are similar programs here in the U.S. but back home you could take your bike into a Police Station and they'd take out their little tools, look up the latest number in their little book, then stamp the appropriate number into the bottom of the frame of your bike & record your particulars in their little book. Then if your bike ever got stolen or turned up at the Cop Shop, they could see if it had one of these numbers stamped in the frame and identify the owner. My friend and I had both just got new bikes a few weeks before and we'd had them "registered" at the Cop Shop, so when the Cop asked if they were our bikes (if we were prepared to steal magazines we'd probably steal bikes, it's a logical assumption...and true, sort of ;) so it was a simple matter to show the Cop the numbers on our bikes and for him to ID us. After receiving a stern warning we were sent on our way, and off we rode, arguing over the semantics of lying and the difference between stealing PC Gamer and Playboy.
A few years later while at the local video arcade my neighbour rode up on what I knew was a stolen bicycle. I was in the office when he came inside so I had my friend, who also worked there, keep an eye on him while I slipped outside, jumped on the stolen bike and promptly rode it around to the police station. Unlike my previous encounter with the police, this time I was not averse to lying to the Cops, and I told them I'd "found" the bike down by the river. I gave them my name & number in the event that nobody claimed it, but they never called me back so I knew it must have found its way back to its rightful owner. I did tell my parents what I'd done and they thought it was hilarious. My Mum even got to play dumb when my neighbour's Mum told her about his bike being "stolen". Mum asked if he'd gone to the police, and she said my neighbour's Mum Um'd and Ah'd before saying he couldn't do that as it wasn't actually his bike. Mum said she found it very hard to keep a straight face for the rest of their conversation.
Dad used to love to drink so Mum, who was not a big drinker, was often the designated driver while Dad got plastered. Driving home from one family gathering we got pulled over at a Random Breath Testing station. The cop asked Mum if she'd been drinking and Mum said No. Dad leaned over and practically giggled as he said, "But I have!" He was in great humor and the Cop smiled, too. He was probably very happy to see the drunk guy in the passenger seat and not behind the wheel. Mum had to blow into the bag anyway but she got the all clear then we were sent on our way, but Mum was not happy with Dad. Years later Liz would be pulled over and breathalyzed while I got to recreate yesteryear's scene from the passenger seat. Like Mum, Liz was not too happy with me, either. What can I say? Like father, like son.
When I worked for the Newsagency, the same one my friend and I used to raid for coverless magazine, my alarm was set for 3am, I'd be at the shop by 4, and when 9 o'clock rolled around it was quitting time and the rest of the day was my own. Customers just starting their day were baffled that I could greet them so cheerfully at 8:30 in the morning. When I'd explain that I'd already been up for 5 hours they'd ask how on earth I could get up that early. I'd point out what a glorious day it was outside and how in half an hour I'd be heading out to enjoy it, maybe play a round of golf, or even hit the beach. For some reason they weren't happy with this explanation, and they'd leave the shop even grumpier than when they came in. I guess some people just aren't 'morning people'.
My first duty at the shop was not to open up, but to receive and count the fresh-off-the-truck bundles of newspapers, then make up & deliver the order for the local power station. Because the newspapers were always dropped off at the front of the store I'd always pull up at the front to make it easier to load the papers into my car, and I'd parallel park to facilitate loading, even though the space were marked for angle parking.
One morning I was inside when I noticed a light outside, and no, it wasn't a UFO; it was a Police car, pulled up behind my parallel-parked car.
Thinking the cops may have thought the car was stolen and abandoned I ran outside to let them know the car was mine, and found myself arguing with the cop over parallel parking in angle parking spots at 4 o'clock in the morning. As far as the cop was concerned it didn't matter what time of the day (or night) it was; the spots were clearly marked for angle parking and I was parallel parked.
"It's 4 o'clock in the morning," I told him. "There's no other cars around."
"But it's angle parking."
"I'm only parking for a few minute and it's easier to load the papers this way."
"But it's angle parking."
I recalled a friend getting busted for Public Indecency (& whatever the formal charge is that equates to "Pissing off a Cop by being a smart arse and talking back to him") when he'd taken a leak on someone's lawn while staggering home at 4 o'clock in the morning. When the cop had asked the almost obligatory "What do you think would happen if everyone did this?" my friend, a professional Gardener & Groundskeeper, had replied, "Well, speaking from a professional point of view, the excessive amounts of nitrates would kill the lawn." For answering the Cop's question he got to spend the rest of his night in jail.
"So what if everyone parked like this?" the Cop asked me.
"It's 4 o'clock in the morning," I argued with him, "there IS nobody else. If there were, I'd have angle parked."
I don't know how many times we went back & forth but we wasted far more time than if he had just said, "Don't do it again," and let me go on my way (which he eventually did anyway after ordering me to re-park correctly). Or yes, I'll admit, if I'd just said, "You're right. I'm sorry. I won't do it again."
But it was 4 o'clock in the morning! I was the only car there!
But it's angle parking.
My final encounter with the police was when I was house sitting for a friend who lived in one of the better parts of town. Driving to work from his house I would drive down a very long straight road, and most mornings you would find me doing a little more than the posted 60kph (35mph) speed limit.
On this particular morning a car followed me out of my friend's neighbourhood. When I turned onto this long road he followed me and that was when a little voice inside me said "That's a cop."
I accelerated to just shy of 60kph and the car stayed right behind me but I wasn't going to go over the speed limit. I got to the end of the road, signaled correctly, and made the turn...and the car stayed with me. I was about two blocks from the Newsagency when flashing blue lights lit up my car from behind and finally confirmed my suspicions.
I pulled over and the cop pulled up behind me, and I did what you do NOT do here in the States.
I opened my door, hopped out, and walked back towards the cop car.
The passenger door opened and a cop got out and met me in the space between our cars.
"I'm on my way to work," I said to him, pointing down the road, "I just had two blocks to go!"
"And you almost made it," the cop said with good humor.
There was no ordering me at gun point to get back into my car. No hostilities. Just a cop and a citizen having a chat at 4 o'clock in the morning on the side of the road.
While following me down that long straight road they'd run my plates and learned that I did not live in that neighbourhood, nor did I appear to be going home, so they'd pulled me over to check me out. The cop ran my driver's license, everything checked out, and with no further reason to stick around we wished each other a good day and went our separate ways.
But that was 20 years ago, in a small country town. I suspect thing are a lot different now.
Growing up in a small country town in Australia my experience with the police was probably different to that of my American "small town" counterpart, but probably also not dramatically different. I think the big difference between Australia and the U.S., at least small town different (and maybe it's changed from 20 years ago, too), was how you handled the cop pulling you over.
Here, you turn off the ignition, wind down the window (maybe just a little if you're overly cautious), place your hands on the steering wheel in plain view then wait for the cop to approach your car.
In Australia, my father taught me to leave the car and meet the cop halfway, between the cars, on neutral ground so to speak. I don't know if this was a country thing, or a family thing, but I had no problem doing that the one time a Cop actually pulled me over in Australia. Of course that same act also almost got my uncle shot when he did that here in the U.S. when he got pulled over for speeding. (Being an international businessman with a lead foot that was something that happened to him with some frequency.) With his hand ready to draw his pistol the cop apparently ordered my uncle to return to his car and put his hands on the steering wheel. My uncle wisely complied.
Before we were married my wife-to-be and I got lost visiting friends in Oakland. I convinced Liz to pull up on the Freeway behind a CHP Officer writing a ticket, and before she knew what I was about to do (she probably thought I'd wave the officer over to the car) I had the door open and was out of the car, strolling along the Freeway shoulder and up to the officer.
"Good afternoon, sir," I said, by way of greeting (or something similar, although I don't think I'd yet adopted the American practice of calling everyone 'sir'.) "Are you almost finished here? We're a little lost."
The Chippie was either brand new on the Force, or just stunned that someone would actually pull up behind him, get out of their car, and ask him for directions, because he made no attempt to shoot me. He replied that he was almost done and requested that I return to our car, which I did (and I suspect Liz probably chewed me out, I can't remember :D) and when he was finished writing his ticket he came over and helped us on our way.
A year or so later we were pulled over when the officer behind us noticed our vehicle's registration sticker was overdue. I knew I'd put the new sticker on because I'd already expressed my doubts to Liz about the safety of such a system. In Australia your rego sticker goes on the inside of your car's windshield, whereas here in the U.S. it just gets stuck on your rear license plate, exposed to the elements...and the first tea leaf to come along that wants a registration sticker, and that's what had happened to us. Some bastich had peeled the sticker off. (Or it blew off in the wind, but that's doubtful.) I forget exactly what I said but I attracted the officer's attention and he leaned over to peer in at me sitting in the passenger seat, so I told him that I'd just put the new sticker on last week. He not only didn't write a ticket for not displaying our registration sticker (although we did have the current papers in the glove box) he clued me in to taking my knife and making several slices across the sticker, jig-sawing it so no thief in their right mind would try to peel it off because all they'd get would be tiny triangular pieces.
Of course we've also been pulled over a couple of times and received tickets, which we've deserved for the most part. The one I feel we didn't deserve was what I'll call a "Tailgate Trap".
The bike cop was parked on the median strip on the far side of the traffic light-controlled intersection. The light would go green and everyone would accelerate through the intersection, which crossed a 4-lane (each way) Highway with two lanes in the middle for turning traffic, so we're talking a 10-lane wide highway. The first cars would get to the other side, see the bike cop, and do what practically everyone does when they see a cop; they'd hit their brakes and slow down so the cars behind them would bunch up for no reason other than there being a bike cop sitting in the middle of the road...a bike cop who promptly pulled the last vehicle over and ticketed them (us) for tail gating. After he wrote our ticket I watched as he rode back to the intersection and parked in exactly the same spot. If they have ticket quotas (and I'm not saying they do) I'm sure he wrote his entire month's quota of tickets that day.
Many years ago, a friend and I used to ride into town on a Sunday afternoon, ride down the alley, and climb the fence into the back of the Newsagency (the very one where I'd later find myself employed) where we'd go through their dumpster looking for magazines with no covers. (I would later learn that while some magazines went back to the publisher in their entirety, other publishers required nothing more than the cover to issue credit.) Playboy and Penthouse were always top on the list but we also kept an eye out for computer magazines. On this occasion we were preparing to climb over the fence when a voice asked us what we were doing. How a V8 can creep up on you without you hearing it I have no idea. We turned around and it's a cop car. My friend quickly tells the driver we were there because he needed to take a piss. Like a cop, who is trained to be suspicious about anyone not in uniform, was going to buy that.
Now me? I was brought up that when you get busted you're better off telling the truth or you'll only make it worse for yourself, so I told my friend not to lie then turned to the cop and told him we were planning to climb over the fence to look for Playboy magazines.
My friend chimed in again. He just couldn't shut up. "He wanted to look for pornos," he says, "I'm just after computer magazines." There's petty theft and robbery, and there's grand theft auto and grand larceny (& others). But when you're stealing magazines it doesn't matter whether it's Playboy, Penthouse, or PC Gamer, it's still stealing. Despite his protests I was sure my friend was not getting on the cop's good side.
I don't know if there are similar programs here in the U.S. but back home you could take your bike into a Police Station and they'd take out their little tools, look up the latest number in their little book, then stamp the appropriate number into the bottom of the frame of your bike & record your particulars in their little book. Then if your bike ever got stolen or turned up at the Cop Shop, they could see if it had one of these numbers stamped in the frame and identify the owner. My friend and I had both just got new bikes a few weeks before and we'd had them "registered" at the Cop Shop, so when the Cop asked if they were our bikes (if we were prepared to steal magazines we'd probably steal bikes, it's a logical assumption...and true, sort of ;) so it was a simple matter to show the Cop the numbers on our bikes and for him to ID us. After receiving a stern warning we were sent on our way, and off we rode, arguing over the semantics of lying and the difference between stealing PC Gamer and Playboy.
A few years later while at the local video arcade my neighbour rode up on what I knew was a stolen bicycle. I was in the office when he came inside so I had my friend, who also worked there, keep an eye on him while I slipped outside, jumped on the stolen bike and promptly rode it around to the police station. Unlike my previous encounter with the police, this time I was not averse to lying to the Cops, and I told them I'd "found" the bike down by the river. I gave them my name & number in the event that nobody claimed it, but they never called me back so I knew it must have found its way back to its rightful owner. I did tell my parents what I'd done and they thought it was hilarious. My Mum even got to play dumb when my neighbour's Mum told her about his bike being "stolen". Mum asked if he'd gone to the police, and she said my neighbour's Mum Um'd and Ah'd before saying he couldn't do that as it wasn't actually his bike. Mum said she found it very hard to keep a straight face for the rest of their conversation.
Dad used to love to drink so Mum, who was not a big drinker, was often the designated driver while Dad got plastered. Driving home from one family gathering we got pulled over at a Random Breath Testing station. The cop asked Mum if she'd been drinking and Mum said No. Dad leaned over and practically giggled as he said, "But I have!" He was in great humor and the Cop smiled, too. He was probably very happy to see the drunk guy in the passenger seat and not behind the wheel. Mum had to blow into the bag anyway but she got the all clear then we were sent on our way, but Mum was not happy with Dad. Years later Liz would be pulled over and breathalyzed while I got to recreate yesteryear's scene from the passenger seat. Like Mum, Liz was not too happy with me, either. What can I say? Like father, like son.
When I worked for the Newsagency, the same one my friend and I used to raid for coverless magazine, my alarm was set for 3am, I'd be at the shop by 4, and when 9 o'clock rolled around it was quitting time and the rest of the day was my own. Customers just starting their day were baffled that I could greet them so cheerfully at 8:30 in the morning. When I'd explain that I'd already been up for 5 hours they'd ask how on earth I could get up that early. I'd point out what a glorious day it was outside and how in half an hour I'd be heading out to enjoy it, maybe play a round of golf, or even hit the beach. For some reason they weren't happy with this explanation, and they'd leave the shop even grumpier than when they came in. I guess some people just aren't 'morning people'.
My first duty at the shop was not to open up, but to receive and count the fresh-off-the-truck bundles of newspapers, then make up & deliver the order for the local power station. Because the newspapers were always dropped off at the front of the store I'd always pull up at the front to make it easier to load the papers into my car, and I'd parallel park to facilitate loading, even though the space were marked for angle parking.
One morning I was inside when I noticed a light outside, and no, it wasn't a UFO; it was a Police car, pulled up behind my parallel-parked car.
Thinking the cops may have thought the car was stolen and abandoned I ran outside to let them know the car was mine, and found myself arguing with the cop over parallel parking in angle parking spots at 4 o'clock in the morning. As far as the cop was concerned it didn't matter what time of the day (or night) it was; the spots were clearly marked for angle parking and I was parallel parked.
"It's 4 o'clock in the morning," I told him. "There's no other cars around."
"But it's angle parking."
"I'm only parking for a few minute and it's easier to load the papers this way."
"But it's angle parking."
I recalled a friend getting busted for Public Indecency (& whatever the formal charge is that equates to "Pissing off a Cop by being a smart arse and talking back to him") when he'd taken a leak on someone's lawn while staggering home at 4 o'clock in the morning. When the cop had asked the almost obligatory "What do you think would happen if everyone did this?" my friend, a professional Gardener & Groundskeeper, had replied, "Well, speaking from a professional point of view, the excessive amounts of nitrates would kill the lawn." For answering the Cop's question he got to spend the rest of his night in jail.
"So what if everyone parked like this?" the Cop asked me.
"It's 4 o'clock in the morning," I argued with him, "there IS nobody else. If there were, I'd have angle parked."
I don't know how many times we went back & forth but we wasted far more time than if he had just said, "Don't do it again," and let me go on my way (which he eventually did anyway after ordering me to re-park correctly). Or yes, I'll admit, if I'd just said, "You're right. I'm sorry. I won't do it again."
But it was 4 o'clock in the morning! I was the only car there!
But it's angle parking.
My final encounter with the police was when I was house sitting for a friend who lived in one of the better parts of town. Driving to work from his house I would drive down a very long straight road, and most mornings you would find me doing a little more than the posted 60kph (35mph) speed limit.
On this particular morning a car followed me out of my friend's neighbourhood. When I turned onto this long road he followed me and that was when a little voice inside me said "That's a cop."
I accelerated to just shy of 60kph and the car stayed right behind me but I wasn't going to go over the speed limit. I got to the end of the road, signaled correctly, and made the turn...and the car stayed with me. I was about two blocks from the Newsagency when flashing blue lights lit up my car from behind and finally confirmed my suspicions.
I pulled over and the cop pulled up behind me, and I did what you do NOT do here in the States.
I opened my door, hopped out, and walked back towards the cop car.
The passenger door opened and a cop got out and met me in the space between our cars.
"I'm on my way to work," I said to him, pointing down the road, "I just had two blocks to go!"
"And you almost made it," the cop said with good humor.
There was no ordering me at gun point to get back into my car. No hostilities. Just a cop and a citizen having a chat at 4 o'clock in the morning on the side of the road.
While following me down that long straight road they'd run my plates and learned that I did not live in that neighbourhood, nor did I appear to be going home, so they'd pulled me over to check me out. The cop ran my driver's license, everything checked out, and with no further reason to stick around we wished each other a good day and went our separate ways.
But that was 20 years ago, in a small country town. I suspect thing are a lot different now.
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5 comments:
Cops like the latter make me happy. I like it when they do their job looking out for the community, without being jerks about it. I don't even mind them taking a little of my time to do so. They are just guys doing their job, after all.
That said, the cops like the former might technically be doing their job, but not very well. Perhaps such is the difference between straining at the letter of the law vs. upholding the spirit of the law?
I've made the "get out of your car and meet them halfway" mistake myself. I guess things are too rough to risk letting people do that anymore.
I loved this post! & as an Aussie I can tell you things haven't really changed that much - it's still ok, to get out of your car & walk toward a cop, just as it is still ok, to wind down the window & rummage around in your handbag (or glovebox or whatever) for a license you know they're going to ask for :) Country cops, at least, still patrol on their own & you still have about a 9km window over the posted speed limit where you know the most you'll get is the old-age "slow down" hand movement as you pass - they do, after all, have "real" speedsters to worry about :P
Oh that 4 AM angle parking story reminds me of an incident.
I was coming home from work one night (or early morning, actually) at the last apartment complex where I lived.
I worked until 1 AM, so it was probably 1:10 or 1:15 when I got home, on a weeknight. There was a road that circled around behind the apartments where I parked. So as I pull in to park a car pulls up behind me. It's a cop. I get out, ignore the car and start walking to my front door.
He calls me over and tells me I was "going a little fast" as I pulled into the drive and that I better be careful because "what if some kids were playing out in the driveway?"
At 1:15 in the morning??!?!
Tesh, I think it was Stephen King who nailed it in (I think) The Stand. When people started to rebuild society and there were just a few people (well, more than a few, but not a lot) living in the community, their policeman had an easy job keeping the peace because he knew everybody and they all knew him. But as the town grew and more people started moving in, they hired more policemen, the close contact with the community was lost, and their police force ended up becoming "guys with a badge" rather than Sheriff Bart who everyone knew.
Thallian, I can understand the cops' apprehension and wanting to be as in control of the situation as possible. Someone standing next to you is a lot harder to control and would be a greater "potential threat" than someone still sitting in their car. I think the problem with many cops is they probably go to work every day wondering if today is going to be the day when a random traffic stop goes downhill. Living with that kind of stress every single day cannot be good for you, and probably facilitates people having a negative perception of the power-tripping cop.
Angie, I've been home a couple of times since coming to the States in '98, and while Traralgon (the town I grew up in) is still sort of the same, I no longer feel I belong. I think many people who move away and "grow out" of their small country town probably get the same feeling when they go back home. It is good to know that some things haven't changed though and you can still chat to a cop in a civil manner, especially when over here you get 4 cars, 7 cops & a K9 unit "talking" to a couple of questionably dressed teenagers...then again, being a 40-year old "old codger" myself, I think pretty much all teenagers are dressed a little questionably ;)
Bone, you never know ;) At the apartment we used to live in, it was not uncommon for kids to be playing out in the courtyard very late at night. Currently we have neighbors who have family get togethers with some frequency, and they also like to have the kids playing outside until very late in the evening. A while back Liz and I caught a movie late on a Friday night and when we got out we hit the In & Out and were shocked to see families there, with young children, at 11pm. After our (very) late dinner we went to the nearby Super Walmart to do some shopping, thinking the place would be practically empty at 1am. Surprise, surprise, there were quite a few shopper in there, including several families with young kids in tow, at 1 o'clock in the morning.
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