Brothers of the Gun

My friend Jerry and I were coming back to South Dakota from a martial arts training camp in California in 1974. Jerry had an old beater of a car with no air conditioning. As we crossed the desert, the temperatures soared. We didn't care. We were pretty happy with our training camp experience, plus we had a bottle of tequila we kept under the seat, sipping on it occasionally to wash down the food we had brought along. Eventually though, our clothes became too much. The heat was stifling, even with the windows down. Soon we were riding along naked, sitting on towels.

We topped a rise and there were two Highway Patrolmen with a speed gun. They pulled us over. One came to my passenger window, the other to Jerry's, as we were pulling on our pants, then shirts. "Are you his father?" the one said to me (I have had white in my hair and beard for some time). "No." Jerry told me later that the other one asked, "Are you his son?" We got out of the car and talked a bit. Soon we were standing on the side of the road and they were showing us how to use the speed gun. No ticket. Just a friendly warning and we were on our way.