![]() In those days, that meant sifting through a stack of complaints at the police station - trolling for news. On Monday, I filled in for the vacationing police reporter. “But you can still lead a straight life,” she said as I walked out the door. Chicago boy,” she said, complaining about someone stealing a phone out of another room. “That’s not how we do things in Fergus Falls, Mr. I told the woman in the office I was sorry and had returned everything. Her happy hour mates were members of the county attorney’s staff and promised to put in a good word with the judge. She was yucking it up after work when I said we had to talk. I headed first to Mabel Murphy’s bar to confess my sin to my editor, Pat Walkup. I panicked and decided on a no-coverup strategy. I was charged with misdemeanor theft and ordered to appear in Otter Tail County court before the honorable Judge Elliott Boe. The detective, glancing at his small notebook, asked if I had a pillow, a pillow case and a towel removed from the Lakeland Motel. “You have the right to remain silent,” the deputy said, reading my Miranda rights, all the while looking like Dudley Do-Right with his big hat and gun. “What can I do for you, fellows?” I asked, wondering what they might have spied me doing through the window. Instead, I opened the door to a uniformed Otter Tail County deputy and a plain-clothed detective who reminded me of Columbo. I figured it was either James Garcia, the photographer I’d befriended, or the Welcome Wagon. I was pumped and ready for my first weekend in small-town America. In a little box next to the story, editors included a blurb about the Chicago boy joining the news crew for the summer. The story ran on the front page, along with my photo of the cop on his dock. And I had my first story: A profile of a retired Chicago cop who’d bought a fishing resort on one of the countless lakes punctuating Otter Tail County. Charlie Manson’s women probably said the same thing.Ī week went by. “You shouldn’t do that,” Adele said as we tossed the pillow in the truck. He would become the subject of one of my stories that summer. The town pot dealer, I would learn, lived in an adjoining room. I had rented a room in an old house in town near Lake Alice. When it was time to check out, I said, “Hey, grab the pillow.” I think we paid $18 for single occupancy. We found the last room in Fergus at the Lakeland Motel. Every hotel and motel was booked for weddings, graduations, christenings, you name it. She had a job dissecting mice at a University of Minnesota lab, so this would be our romantic fling before a summer apart. Riding shotgun: my girlfriend, Adele - now my wife of 33 years and the mother of my three kids. On Memorial Day weekend, I loaded my pickup and headed west 180 miles on Interstate 94. I landed my first newspaper reporting job in 1981 at the Fergus Falls Daily Journal during the summer before my senior year at Macalester College. This summer marks the 35th anniversary of my arrest. ![]()
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