View from the cop: Crime & punishment
View from the Cop is moving to a new site on Wordpress. Blogger Steve Rose of the Sandy Springs Police Department gives his take on crime, offers safety tips and give his weekly picks from the police blotter. Follow Steve Rose to the new blog site.
AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2007 > April > 23 > Entry
A Parrothead’s travels in Texas
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
HOUSTON - Welcome to Texas where they have statues of Sam Houston, Davey Crockett, and Chuck Norris. I never knew Chuck Norris was so celebrated. “Walker, Texas Ranger” was filmed not too far away and so over the years he’s become a legend. They say that he’s so tough that he doesn’t need to read books. He just stares them down until he gets the information he wants. That’s a tough guy.
Minute Maid Stadium / Saturday night
Going to see Buffett is fun. Tailgating a few hours ahead of the show is the best fun. Middle-aged guys and girls with the obligatory coconuts and plastic grass skirts look the same no matter where you are. We met a few people including A.J., from Houston, who rides a small scooter because he can’t walk too well anymore. He was decked in the traditional parrot-on-the-head hat and let us take a picture in exchange for a hamburger. His motto was that at age 78, he could still get in trouble. A.J. said he was in charge of the Mardi Gras parade in Galveston. Of course he invited all of us down as his personal guests and, of course, he would have never remembered us anyway so we absolutely agreed and off he went, never to be seen again.
Most of the crowd in the parking lot was very behaved. No fights and almost everyone’s shirts stayed on. The ones that came off should have stayed on. Beer cans and crawfish stacked up in the dumpsters. Houston PD had the horse units out working crowd and traffic control. If you’ve ever seen a horse work crowd control you know that when things get really bad, the officers back the horses up into the crowd. If you happen to be in the crowd, this is the time to put distance between you and the horse’s hoofs. They back and then kick. It’s very impressive to watch unless you’re the guy in hoof’s range. This didn’t happen beause the crowd consisted of mostly of happy suburbanites trying to relive the college days of beer and good times.
Inside Minute Maid we parked ourselves in the 30-minute line for $8 Margaritas and then sat down behind the first base dugout. The stage was set up in deep centerfield some five miles away somuch of the viewing was done on the Jumbotrons. In essence, we paid $90 a ticket to watch the Jimmy Buffett movie. No matter, Detective Sandy was on cloud nine.
Buffett concerts involved the approved use of beach balls. Throwing beach balls prior to the concerts actually involves a point system. Hit a yuppie on the head is one point. Bounce one off a yuppie’s head and onto another yuppie’s head is three points. Knock their beer out of their hands is a ten pointer. It’s sheer luck of gravity. The only incident involved me and the woman sitting behind me. It was a classic alpha male vs. alpha female fight over a beach ball. She wanted it to stay on the ground so she put her foot on it defying me to pick it up. She gave the me stare that said “try it.” Once I confirmed that she wasn’t Chuck Norris, I took this as a challange and removed her foot and threw the ball a couple of rows over, scoring no points.
What I thought was a friendly tussle over a beach ball apparently upset the alpha female who began a successive barrage of obscenities in my face. We exchanged insults ranging from gender questioning to proper celebration of Earth Day and left it with some very sharp comments about what we could each do with the beach ball. She questioned my masculinity and I questioned her social life and what she needed to do to improve it. The argument ended when the next song started and everyone did “fins to the left” which, of course, requires both hands so we bid each other farewell with our one-finger salutes and the concert went on.
My mood was dented but not changed. We packed up and headed back to the burbs all the while hearing stories from my brother about the great Chuck Norris. I didn’t know that Chuck Norris was so tough that he once slammed a revolving door.
Comments
Commenting is now closed for this entry.
By Chuckie
April 24, 2007 5:10 PM | Link to this
There was no mention in your story about your loving brother, who put you up in his house and let you sit by the pool sipping coffee. No mention of how he held your head while you vomited into the cooler. Who saved you from the dumpster fire?
I heard Chuck Norris jumps into a pool and he doesn’t get wet, the pool gets Chuck Norrised.
By Lt. Steve
April 24, 2007 10:45 PM | Link to this
So Lone Star, Me’s thinking that I better change the subject to something that that gets more response like trivia in Lilburn or poker in Roswell or throwd rolls in Humble.
By Lt. Steve
April 24, 2007 10:47 PM | Link to this
So Lone Star, Me’s thinking that I better change the subject to something that that gets more response like trivia in Lilburn or poker in Roswell or throwd rolls in Humble.
By Ann
April 25, 2007 5:10 PM | Link to this
It is difficult to comment when you are as envious as I am. Someday, I will go to a Buffet concert!
By Jezebelle
May 1, 2007 3:18 PM | Link to this
Steve you got me laughin so hard in regards to how “tough” Chuck Norris is perpetuated to be….
I have a headache as it is but you made me forget about it for a good whopping tne minutes or so !
As always..keep up with the good work-blogging that is