DAD’S BEER

Corporal Sandy McKechnie
Red Deer, Alberta

In Spruce Grove, Alberta the saying was, “It is so quiet that dead dogs bark at strangers.” In the 1980s, Spruce Grove was pretty slow. As a posting, there was lots of time to make your own work.

I was on patrol one slow night trying to drum up any kind of action I could. With any luck I’d come across a drug deal or see a wanted person on the street and be able to make an arrest.

Rolling up to the intersection of King Street and Brookwood Drive, I noticed a couple of figures in the shadows lurking beside the corner store. I wheeled into the parking lot, being sure to keep an eye on them.

I saw one person place an item behind a dumpster while the other approached the car. Initially, these two seemed pretty street-wise. It is a common tactic; one person distracts the cop while the other drops the evidence. They weren’t quite quick enough that night; I saw the second subject try to ditch the evidence.

“Hello constable,” said the approaching subject. I could see that he was just a kid, maybe sixteen- or seventeen-years-old. I noticed that he was carrying a long necked, brown bottle. Still concerned about the apparent “distract and ditch” technique, I kept an eye on the other kid as I talked with the first kid through the open window of the police car.

“Hello there,” I said. “That must be Dad’s.” I was referring to Dad’s Root Beer that comes in long, brown, beer-style bottles. Seeing how he was outside a corner store, I figured he just bought the soft drink. I engaged him in trivial conversation to see what explanation, if any, he was going to offer up on his own as to why they were skulking in the shadows.

“No, it’s mine,” he said.

I looked at him for a long moment, confused by his answer. Then I saw that it was in fact a beer. I burst out laughing. I was so used to the lies that people tell when caught in such circumstances that his outright honesty caught me totally off-guard.

The kid didn’t know that he couldn’t just walk around town with a beer, let alone up to a marked police car.

But honesty goes a long way with me. I had the other kid retrieve his beer from behind the dumpster and rather than ticket them for a liquor offence, I just had them pour out their beer. I didn’t have the heart to charge them.

For Spruce Grove, that is what had to pass for action and adventure that night. I found it pretty funny, and after thousands of investigations through my career, this is a story that I still enjoy telling.