Once the cops beat dad black and blue and threw him in jail but he wasn’t messed up so bad that he couldn’t pry the damn door of the cell and escape. He had him a test to take . . . he had to get outta there. He was part timin’ it on the G.I. bill and needed a good grade in zoology.
So he showed up bruised and half drunk and sat there with those college kids and took that exam. He answered all the questions and then he went back downtown and turned himself in. The desk sargent kind of laughed when he found out where dad had been and why he’d gone. I don’t think they even kept him over night at that point . . . it was just a drunk and disorderly charge anyway. The local paper ran an article in the arrest section and then some reporter from out at New York City called him up. He was a novelty item to them. “Man who escapes jail to take test . . . turns himself back in.” Dad told that guy yeah he did get an A on that exam and NO he wasn’t interested in no radio show. The reporter explained to dad that the trip would be free of charge. Dad just told the guy that he wouldn’t go out to New York fer Love ner Money and that maybe they had time for that kind of foolishness out there but by god he didn’t have time for it here. And that was that.