Thomas Udell Udell

Yes

Short History of my Arrests
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Although I was only arrested twice the whole time I was in High School, I was arrested four times in the first four years after high school.

The first two arrests after highschool both occurred during the trip that Larry Koplin and I took to Woodstock, and the first of those two arrests was for "contributing to the delinquency of TWO minors".

We had heard that "the big one" was going to shake Los Angeles that summer. And though we were both sophisticated enough to know that you can't predict earthquakes, just the same it seemed like a good excuse to go on a trip.

On the way east, we stopped in Denver to pick up a girl we knew named Linda, who wanted a ride to New York. We next stopped in Columbus Ohio to visit a friend who lived in a "Weatherman" collective, and who shall remain nameless in this narrative although, in real life, she very much has a name. In any case, she wasn't there, but the "weather people" who were there, that being the age of a more naive form of terrorism, invited us to spend the night.

In the morning, we were woken by the sound of the entire Weatherman collective doing calisthenics (calisthenics being what they did before they discovered aerobics, pilates, etc.). We drove away (in my 1964 VW Camper, by the way), and about a half hour later the engine kind of disintegrated. We have always suspected some cop-vigilante drained the oil from the car in a despicable act of vigilantism, as it seemed more romantic than facing the fact that it was just an old VW camper.

So, we were stuck in Heath, Ohio, until we could get the engine replaced. The first night, a Sunday, Larry, and Linda slept on the bed in the camper while I, being the shortest, had to sleep across the front seat. This seemed doubly unfair because I always thought that Linda was shorter than me, but she and Larry were somehow both convinced that she was taller.

Between the discomfort of my "bed", and the hayfever that I was developing on a warm and humid midwestern night, I simply could not sleep, so I got up and went out to look for a place to sit down and read. It being late on a Sunday night in Heath, Ohio, there just wasn't much open. But I did find a wonderful treasure--a newspaper vending machine with a Sunday edition of the local newspaper, back in the day when Sunday newspapers really meant something.

But where could I sit down and READ this newspaper? Finally, I found the one establishment that was open late in Heath--a gas station. It was being run by guys, younger than me, probably still in high school. I asked them if it would be OK to sit down in the office and read the newspaper, and they didn't have a problem with it.

So I'm sitting and reading the "Heath Herald" (name changed for illustrative purposes) when I see a cop car pull up. The cop gets out and starts talking to the two guys. After a while he walks over to where I am and asks me what I doing there. So I explain that I'm waiting to get my car fixed, and I've got hay fever and I can't sleep, so I came there to read the Sunday paper.

"Well, you're going to have to come with me down to the station".
"What for?"
"Contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Two minors, actually."
"What are you talking about?"
"These two young men are both under 18. We have a curfew here, and minors are not allowed out after 10 PM. And you didn't stop them from breaking the law, so you're contributing to their delinquency."

And so we drove off to the Heath jail. I don't know if somehow the cops in Columbus had radioed ahead to be on the lookout for a bunch of hippie-terrorists, or if he was just lonely and wanted someone to talk to, but it was just him and me alone at the jail, and we talked until about 6 in the morning.

We talked about the stuff we were all talking about in those days--drugs, politics, rock and roll, drugs, a little sports, and then he took me to the camper and dropped me off. I got back in the front seat and curled up and went back to sleep the best I could, at least until Heath VW opened about an hour later.

[Stay tuned for the story of the alligator-man and the next arrest]

I was only arrested twice while still in high school but, interestingly enough, both arrests were the same night.

During Easter break in our Senior year I went on a "road trip" with Steve Weingarten and Howard Stone. We stopped and visited UCSC (where there were enough hippie girls that I was enticed to go to school there for OVER A YEAR!)

Then we stopped in San Francisco and a cousin of mine took us to the Filmore and some of us probably took some drugs and had fun, but not me. Really. (My cousin died a couple of years later, presumably when the airplane that he had built crashed into the bay. But neither the body nor the airplane were ever found).

The next day (and still many years before the plane crash), Steve and Howard and I continued up to Lake Tahoe to go skiing. We checked into the Sahara Tahoe and then went down to the coffees shop for dinner.

We asked the waitress in the coffee shop what they would do if they caught us gambling (on a slot machine). She told us they would just tell us to stop. So after dinner, we started playing the slots. I had just won a small jackpot when a security guard approached and asked how old I was.

"Seventeen", I told him.
"Let me see your ID"
"Why do you need to see my ID?"
"Let me see your ID"
So I showed him my ID and he grabbed it and led me over to an office where a sheriff slapped handcuffs on me and took me away to the Lake Tahoe jail.

With my one phone call, I called my parents. My father, who was a lawyer, called an attorney in Lake Tahoe who came and got me out. He dropped me off at the Sahara Tahoe (where I was staying AND where I had been arrested).

Of course, the hotel is designed so that you have to go through the casino to get anywhere, so I had to walk through it to get to the elevator to my room. Another security guard approaches me and says "Weren't you just arrested here a little while ago?"
"Yes"
"OK, come with me."

So I was arrested a second time the same night. This time they sent me to the county jail in Carson City and insisted that a parent fly up to get me out.

I didn't do any skiing that week. We did sue the hotel and the settled for $2500 (which seemed like a lot of money back then). Sometimes, though, I suspect that my father didn't think it was worth suing them, and just paid the $2500 himself to shut me up. It worked.