Tribute banned
SOUTH TURKEY CREEK — The dispatcher’s deadpan description didn’t do justice to the glorious shrieking meteors the deputy saw streaking up from the canyon floor on the night of July 4. Pulling up at the launch base, the officer counted maybe 20 patriots gathered around the pad where a pint-sized ground crew was gleefully applying smoldering punks to pop bottle rockets. Becoming aware of a uniformed party crasher in their midst, Steve and Sandy Sparks strolled over to greet the unexpected guest. The deputy reminded the Sparks that aerial fireworks are illegal in the 38th state at all times and that the terrestrial kind are proscribed by the county’s Stage 1 fire ban. Steve assured the deputy that he had “a hose close by” and was “shooting the fireworks safely.” Pointing out that the question before him was more one of legality than of safety, the officer issued the Sparks a summons for the unlawful possession and discharge of illegal fireworks and asked that they surrender their remaining munitions. Steve advised the deputy that he’d arrived late to the show, and they’d already burned through the entire arsenal.

Tit for tat
EVERGREEN — Just to be neighborly, Ben Cartwright agreed to allow Jarrod Barkley temporary use of a rutted track crossing the Ponderosa to access his own spread in the big valley. On the afternoon of July 1, Ben decided that Jarrod was abusing the famous Cartwright hospitality by bringing strangers across his land and told Jarrod that he should henceforth regard the rutted track as terra prohibitus. Jarrod immediately called JCSO to complain that, in giving him the boot, Ben had “lifted up his shirt” to reveal a gun tucked into his waistband, which Jarrod took for a none-too-subtle threat of deadly violence. Confronted by deputies, Ben denied flashing a gun, lifting his shirt to reveal not a revolver, but a lavishly tattooed tummy. Confronted by the deputies’ observations, Jarrod thought it not impossible that he’d mistaken body art for a shootin’ iron and withdrew his complaint.

Infectious enthusiasm
EVERGREEN — No good deed goes unpunished, and Prudence called JCSO on the evening of July 1 to report that a selfless act of humanity had just been rewarded with attempted murder. The way Prudence told it to deputies, she’d walked into the gas station to find neither staff nor patrons wearing masks. Her great heart overflowing with compassionate concern, Prudence had immediately “tried to educate them on why it’s important to wear a mask during COVID-19.” To her dismay, a pair of teenage girls “weren’t interested in listening” and showed their contempt for Prudence’s earnest exhortations by “almost hitting me with their car” on the way out of the parking lot and “spitting in my hair.” Perhaps hoping that officers could reach the feckless females where she had failed, Prudence handed over their license plate number and asked deputies to do their civic duty. Approached for comment, the teens were more than happy to recount the encounter, saying that Prudence had no sooner stepped through door than she began “cussing and swearing that nobody else was wearing masks.” Prudence had loudly denounced all assembled as “idiots,” which was easily the nicest thing she’d called them and then continued “lecturing” the girls all the way out to their car. The young ladies said if they’d made a hasty exit from the parking lot, they definitely hadn’t tried to run anyone over and certainly didn’t spit on Prudence’s hair. Hoping to corroborate one account or the other, officers spoke to a gas station employee who described Prudence’s language as profane, her demeanor as combative, and who recalled that, after the girls had driven away, Prudence “spent several more minutes” outside the store forcefully “lecturing” every unmasked face within reach of her wrath. Asked if she could reconcile the two very different perspectives, Prudence insisted that she’d used no coarse language, hadn’t been “belligerent or rude to anyone,” and had most assuredly and most criminally been spat upon. Based on the weight of testimony, deputies determined that no crime could be proven, unless it was the crime of caring too much.