Larceny in my heart

Larceny in my heart

It is a known fact that we all have larceny in our hearts, at least I’ve heard it said somewhere.  The rumor, if that is all it is, sounds good enough to me for the purpose and title of this posting.

The year was 1963, and summer was the season. A perfect summer day for a drive; I never missed an opportunity to go for a drive in my 1956 Ford Victoria.  I swear I would have lived in that car if only my mother would allow it.  I regularly would ask my mother if she had any errands for me to run, or if she needed to go somewhere so I could drive her there.  The family car was 1962 Plymouth Belvedere Station Wagon with automatic transmission, air condition the whole nine yards as the saying goes.  I enjoyed driving my mother around in it, that is, until I acquired my Ford.

Teenagers didn’t make fun of each other back then for driving the family car even if it was a station wagon.  Besides, this station wagon had a 383 cu. in. V-8 engine that could outrun most anything in town, and I should know.  You could say I was ungrateful to prefer my Ford without air condition during the hot summer days, but trust me when I say that the Glass-Pak Cherry mufflers, more than made up for it.  People could hear me approaching a country mile away, especial that I loved down shifting as I approached stop signs.

But I digress, back to the subject of larceny in my heart.  Before you go off conjuring pictures in your mind of me robbing banks or even gas stations, here is how it went down.  I had a step-brother two years younger than me, and he loved riding around with me.  You can bet that my mother influenced his love for riding around with me.  He was supposed to keep me out of trouble, not to mention tell on me if I didn’t do everything by the rules.

On a beautiful day in June a week prior to the start of cherry harvest my brother and I drove into town to get haircuts.  We also stopped at Western Auto buy leather gloves and couple of straw hats, to ward of the hot summer sun while working outdoors.  Of course we also made a stop at A & W for a grilled ham and cheese sandwich with a frosted large glass of root beer (still my all-time favorite).  On the drive home (we lived 15 miles out of town) is when the dastardly deed took place.

We were driving along the beautiful country roads among the open fields of alfalfa, mint and cherry orchards, admiring the ready to be picked plump purplish red cherries.  I suddenly decided that we should pick a few to eat as we drove home.  My little brother and I pulled to the shoulder of the road and went a few yards into the orchard to pick a handful of cherries.  As we came out of the orchard with my brother holding as many cherries, as he could put in his tee-shirt, which he folded up like a pouch in front of him, we were apprehended. 

Apprehended is an exaggeration; we actually came into the open to find a Sherriff’s Patrol Unit parked behind my car.  We were ready to drop the loot but he told us there was no sense in wasting the fruit, so he allowed us to keep it.  He continued to lecture us about how the farmer wouldn’t be able to make a living if everyone that drove by could just stop and pick some fruit.  As he instructed us to get in our car and go home, he mentioned that he knew our older brother, and would tell him about the incident the next time he saw him.

We learned our lesson, and never again took anything that didn’t belong to us.  We became very appreciative of law enforcement, and probably kept us from bigger jobs like robbing banks.  Our older brother never mentioned it to us, so it was probably just a scare tactic (that worked well).  The best is yet to come…..