CALLING FOR BACKUP
© 2003, Tina L. Curtis
Having grown up in Wattsburg with a father who had his hands in everything, I saw and heard things that most people may not have. Stories and rumors have always circulated around town but I was one of the first to know what was really going on, especially if it concerned Dad.
My father owned the Wattsburg Laundromat for about twenty years or more. That business was always having trouble. It was open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week with no constant supervision. It seemed to be easy prey for many a teenager to get some easy money.
Dad had his devices to protect the place from these thieves. Any time a machine coin box was opened without a key, a silent alarm would sound. Well, it was silent at the laundromat anyway. At our house it nearly blew the roof off! It was a high shrill alarm that could be heard all the way across the street to the Johnson’s house. To make things worse, it usually went off in the middle of the night! Dad would jump up and head for the door to go see if he could catch the thieves. I was always assigned the duty of turning off that alarm.
That alarm was difficult for a number of reasons. First, it was so loud that to approach it I had to keep my hands firmly over my ears. Second, I had to unplug one ear so that I could get a chair to reach it. It was located on a wall in the utility room up next to the ceiling. I got so I could get that chair moved and hit that button in record time!
There was one time that we went through the normal routine and Dad headed out the door. When he arrived at the laundromat he was able to corner the two young boys. They had been prying open the coin boxes on the washing machines. He ordered them to sit against a wall until the police arrived. They quickly obeyed. You must understand, Dad has always been a large muscular man. Having done construction and carried cement blocks for a living he was rather nicely developed. When he was angry, you simply didn’t cross him.
The two boys and Dad waited patiently for the police. A single squad car finally arrived. Dad watched as the two policemen remained in the car. Finally, his patience ran out. With a threat to the boys if they moved, he went outside to see what was keeping them. Apparently Dad was the only one they could see in the building through the large plate glass windows. They had remained in the car talking to Dad through a slightly cracked window because they had called for back-up. They had thought that Dad was the thief and weren’t prepared to face him alone!
The policemen put the two boys into the police car. After getting the story from Dad they realized that there was not enough evidence against them. Dad had not caught the boys with money in their hands. They had thrown the baggie full of quarters into a washer. So Dad explained to the officers to let the boys go and he would "take care of them himself". The boys refused to get out of the car knowing what might happen. They were taken into custody at their own request.
