STAR WALKERS

Click in applet to activate game (if on Macintosh type a letter also)-hit return or any letter for another word--Please be patient while the Java applet loads. The game picks words at random so you may get the same word twice in a row. When you are set free for the first time there will be a delay while your freedom quote and music loads! You do not have to wait play again (hit return or click your mouse) and after you win again it will probably be loaded and ready. ENJOY!!!!!!

Cowboy Justice in Tiburon

by Arthur Jacobs

Watch your step in Tiburon, pardner...

I walk with a cane, have a paralyzed left arm, a speech impediment, long hair and a good education. I meet old friends from college in Tiburon, California on October 20,1991. We climb aboard a fast boat and cruise over to see the fire in the hills of Oakland.We race back to shore because my friends have to catch a plane . The wind blowing in my hair from the speed of the boat makes me look wild. We arrive back on shore, and my friends drop me off at a bus stop and drive off to the airport.

The bus does not leave for twenty minutes so I go to get some coffee, at Sam's Cafe. "Cafe" is a misnomer, it is actually a bar, I order a beer instead of coffee . Joking around with the bartender and a few people at the bar feels pleasant. Even with all the noise at the bar people take the time to understand my funny sounding voice. I meander out on to the back pier where people are sitting under the late afternoon sun, eating, drinking and talking. The sun is occasionally blocked off by black smoke and soot from the fire.

Walking around the pier once, I talk to people now and again. It is quieter outside so it is easier for people to understand me. Walking by one of the owners of the bar, I can tell he is curious who this wild-looking, long-haired person is. I certainly seem out of place, walking around enjoying myself, my shirt unbuttoned, my hair waving and curling every which way, limping with a staff made out of a madrone tree limb and carrying a beer bottle in my pocket.I have the bottle in my pocket because my left arm is paralyzed and can't hold anything. I use my right arm to hold the staff so if anything is going to be carried, into my pocket it goes. The owner is immediately cautious. He approaches me and says that people have been complaining about me and that I had better leave or he will call the police. "Who complained?" I ask, surprised, but he will not tell me. So I refuse to leave. He says he will call the police and I respond "you are free to".

He might as well have said, with a western drawl, "Stranger, I'll give ya 'till sundown to get out of town," because the next thing I know an officer comes in with a backup. It could have just as easily been the Sheriff and his deputy marching into the saloon with pistols on their hips (they had pistols). The officer, thinking I do not need my staff and that it might be a dangerous weapon, takes it away from me. When I tell him that I use the staff to walk, he does not believe me (personally I think he is acting like a John Wayne prototype). They order me to leave with them. When we start to leave, the officer holding the staff sees that I have a hard time walking and really do need it. He tries to give it back, but I do not take it. I am mad now! I am forced by police (John Wayne chasing the bad guy out of town) to limp out of a cafe, in Tiburon. Proudly but slowly I limp out of the bar. On the way out, a number of people tell the officers that I am innocent, and even when we get outside one of the bartenders tells the police there must be a mistake. The enforcers of the "law" do not listen however, how could they? The police are only actors in this real life movie and they only take orders from their director. I wonder who their director is?

This incident about being thrown out of the bar would have made a good story if it had ended there. Or if I had then jumped on my horse and ridden proudly off into the sunset. But there is more...

The officers give me a choice, between a de-tox center or jail. I ask them to take my alcohol level because I am not drunk, and they are persecuting the wrong man, but they refuse. If they are not going to cooperate with me and take my alcohol level, I'm certainly not going to cooperate either. I let them decide where they want to take me (I keep forgetting I'm the bad guy in this real life motion picture). They decide to take me to the de-tox center. As soon as we get there they start ordering me around, so I say "As long as I have to take orders, you had better lock me up in prison!"

They agree, but are angry because now they will have to do paper work. They bring me to the San Rafael Jail where I sit on the floor for four hours in a holding cell because supposedly I am drunk. It is humiliating. I change into a striped jump suit and sit on the floor for four hours with all the other inmates. After this, I am released with no charges filed against me and my blood was never even checked for alcohol.

What, if any, is the moral of this story? Watch your step in Tiburon, pardner, especially if you have a hitch in your get-a-long and still have the audacity to enjoy yourself. There is a good chance you will be run out of town.