Cow County Chip
T. R. “Ticket Ted” Shannon # 4409 California Highway Patrol Officer (retired)
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From “Three Strikes”: The “angry hornets” buzz from the black machine as it flashed by could only come from a high-revving Japanese four-cylinder motorcycle, a fast and powerful type of bike derisively referred to as a “rice rocket” or “crotch rocket” by probably jealous Harley riders, hamstrung as they were by their bikes’ antiquated 1950s level of performance. The helmetless, white male rider leaned the machine way over as he disappeared from sight in a left curve on Highway 26, about two miles west of Mokelumne Hill. I braked hard, dived into a wide gravel shoulder, made a spinning U-turn, “mashed” the big CHP Dodge Polara’s accelerator pedal, and took off in pursuit. …. Previous pursuits had taught me a car that handles well can take curves faster than a motorcycle, and I knew the roads, so it was a rare occurrence for me to lose a chase. However, I was beginning to think this might be the exception. But it was not. While cornering my car hard through a limited-vision, downhill left curve at Paloma Road, the bike and rider reappeared…directly ahead and down in my westbound lane!.... From “The Quiet One”: ….The tragedy in this collision was the death of the baby boy and the eternal sorrow and self-blame of the mother. However, my most haunting memory is of the teenage girl’s outstretched arms and anguished wail as I walked past her…. From “I Ain’t Goin”: ….”I ain’t goin’.” Given the odds against him, this seemed a poor decision, especially since he was all of five feet, eight inches or so with an average build. “There’s three of us and one of you and you’re telling me you ain’t going?” “I ain’t goin’!” he repeated, more forcefully. Always preferring persuasion to fighting, I would have spent more time trying to convince him of the folly of his declaration, but no sooner did the second refusal leave his lips than the deputies jumped him. All three were immediately on the ground, bodies thrashing about, grunting, cursing, arms flailing. It was an impressive sight to behold, resembling a fight scene from a movie…. From “Road Kill”: Road kill was the least of our problems. Road kill in this case referred to the two mangled deer in the back of the decrepit 1967 Dodge station wagon. The deer had obviously been struck by motor vehicles, a cause of death far exceeding the puny number killed by hunters. While it was illegal to transport deer without a tag, and it was not hunting season anyway, we could have easily overlooked those trivialities. These obviously poor people had acquired food for the table and saved a public agency the bother of picking up the carcasses to boot. ….the driver was obviously intoxicated. The usual solution was simple enough…arrest the driver. There were complications. While there was another male with a driving license in the vehicle, he was drunk, too. Again, normally no problem…arrest the passenger too. The real dilemma was the two youngsters in the back seat….Normal procedure would be to release them to juvenile authorities, but that, while not impossible, was easier said than done. Calaveras County did not have a juvenile holding facility at that time; if the on-call juvenile officer could not be contacted, we would have to transport the youths to another county….
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About the Book
T.R. Shannon joined the San Jose California Highway Patrol in July 1966, and transferred to the San Andreas Area CHP office two years later, where he’d stay for the next twenty-one years. During that time, he drove about 750,000 miles on state highways and county roads, patrolling the most varied climate and terrain in California. Through hot summers, freezing winters, in the mountains, and in the grasslands, he thought fast, navigated ethical quandaries, and believed in and always strived to enforce the law without fear or favor. In this collection of 128 short stories, he looks back at high-speed pursuits, heart-breaking traffic accidents, physical confrontations, unsolved murders, and other events—from the routine to the unbelievable. Some of the people he arrested—and some of the people he saw die—he shed no tears for, but others—like the first person he arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol, earned his sympathy. An officer’s job involves much more than writing tickets, investigating sometimes minor—but too often tragic—traffic accidents, and helping disabled motorists—although all those things are critical parts of the job highlighted in Cow County Chip.
About the Author
The third of five children, Theodore (Ted) Shannon’s values were influenced by a rural lifestyle, as a result of his father being a logging contractor. During the early years, wood stoves for cooking and heating were the norm, lighting was by kerosene lamps, and sanitary needs necessitated a walk to an outhouse. The children had chores: bringing in firewood and weeding the garden were assigned to Ted and his two brothers, while helping with household duties such as washing dishes and scrubbing clothes by hand were the responsibilities of his two sisters. Spare time activities included exploring rivers and forested hills, and unorganized team sports when there were enough “kids” available. Unlike his older brother, who seldom cracked a book unless it involved something mechanical, Ted loved to read, mostly adventure stories . . . and school homework assignments in his earlier years. T. R. “Ticket Ted” Shannon followed an erratic life’s path prior to becoming a California Highway Patrol officer at thirty-one years of age: some college, seven years as a logger, one year as an apprentice mechanic, and five years as a City of Eureka firefighter. Almost all of the 128 short stories in “Cow County Chip” were gleaned from his twenty-three and one-half year CHP career, twenty-one of which were served in rural Calaveras County in California’s Sierra Nevada foothills. Ted and Rosalie were married in 1956, have four children, four grandchildren and two great grandsons. They still live in the Mokelumne Hill house they purchased in 1968, and remain active in local organizations. T. R. Shannon Email: tsuj12@yahoo.com