THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 14, 1996 TAG: 9609140528
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: 55 lines
It came about, as my car drifted 13 miles an hour along downtown Norfolk's Granby Street while I meditated on the former Smith and Welton's Tearoom now being converted into a college, that a polite patrolman on a bicycle pulled me over.
Can you imagine being stopped by an officer on a bike?
It took me back to the early 1920s, when Smith and Welton's Tearoom served lemon chess pie on Thursday.
I was whirling in the vortex of a time warp. You should have been with me.
Any time the law stops me, I wonder: ``What the deuce have I done now? Did I, in a fit of absent-mindedness, hold up a bank?''
I feel certain of appearing as none other than John Dillinger. For had FBI agents not shot Dillinger in Chicago as he left the Biograph Theater, he'd be my age. Or thereabouts.
``What the deuce now?'' I asked.
``Get out, please, and step to the rear,'' the officer requested.
What's in the trunk?, I thought. Is it loaded with ice from a heist?
My dilemma brought to mind Twenty Gun Tweenie, an innocent twerp, like myself, in a Damon Runyon story.
Tweenie was standing in a crowded speakeasy. As police raided the place, mobsters stashed all their illegal guns on Tweenie. When the law shook down Tweenie, 20 guns fell to the floor.
``You have no tags,'' the patrolman said.
But there is one, I pointed out. He pointed out that in the upper right hand corner the decal identifying the month had expired.
Not realizing he had John Dillinger in his clutches, he let me go on condition I update the tags at once at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
The kind DMV people issued me four 1998 decals, covering two years for two elderly vehicles.
I asked a young expert whether I could glue the new decals atop the old ones.
``Yes,'' he said, ``but first wash and dry the old ones. Then the new ones will stick so tight over the old decals that you can't remove them with an acetylene torch.''
It took 20 minutes to remove the backing from each decal and expose its sticky side. Then I slapped the '98 decals on the two cars' tags and stepped back to view them.
To my astonishment, in the upper left hand corner of each of the four tags was a decal stating '86.
My friends at the DMV had sold me ancient decals, I thought, which not even an acetylene torch could remove.
I called the young car expert.
``Go back and look at the decals,'' he advised. ``You put them on upside down.''
I confirmed it by standing on my head. By George, he was right.
``Next time,'' he advised, ``let your grandchildren put them on.'' by CNB