Most people consider themselves “normal” right? I think of myself as being normal as well.
Maybe it’s just me but I’m a bit concerned with the “unusual” things that seem to happen to me. Are drug busts and breaking and entering and transporting minors across state lines a part of your life? I’m asking for a friend. I don’t make any of this stuff up. I don’t need to. What’s happens to me is just like my newsletter title says. It’s my everyday life.
I’m sharing some excerpts from this past weekend’s trip down to Atlanta and Charlotte. I had no idea I would be linked to a major drug bust. I certainly didn’t intend to be liable for criminal breaking and entering. Finally, did I really transport minors across state lines in my previous life? Why do these things keep happening to me? I’m just a normal person. This is my world. People know me here.
BREAKING AND ENTERING?
Honestly, I don’t know how I find myself in situations like this. I had already been to my favorite New Orleans eateries and seen racing in both Florida and Alabama. Wasn’t that enough of a weekend trip?
Nope. No, it was not. Since I was already in the “area” I wanted to stop and see the NASCAR Cup race, the top NASCAR series, at the Atlanta Motor Speedway.
There were a couple of obstacles in the way of my getting to do this. I had already ignored the CDC’s warnings not to travel. I am fully vaccinated. I consider the CDC stance to be for “other people”. Truth be told even before I was fully vaccinated I flew somewhere some 34 different weeks from March to March of the pandemic.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not a believer in conspiracy theories. I fully accepted the danger of Covid-19. I also believed in the effectiveness of airplane HEPA filters. I social distance, wash my hands, wear a mask…and travel.
The main problem with today’s race was that I didn’t have a ticket. The Atlanta Motor Speedway seating capacity is 71,000. For the past year, NASCAR has not allowed any fans to watch their events in the grandstands because of Covid.
Only recently have they been allowing fans in the stands at dramatically reduced capacity. For the Atlanta race, the promoter was allowed to sell 15,000 tickets. All of those tickets were sold in advance. There were no “paper” tickets. Every fan had their ticket on their phone. This was just one of the “contactless” features of today’s race event. The race was SOLD OUT as signs all over the property shouted to all within viewing distance.
I did not have a ticket to the race. That did not bother me in the least. I did have a clear plastic bag. Carol had given me this bag to stuff my “racing gear” in so as to meet the requirements of the track.
What was in the plastic bag? I had my racing radio and Bose noise-canceling headset. There was a McDonald’s double cheeseburger from a morning stop at Mickey D’s. I had a large bottle of Gatorade ZERO.
This was not going to be my first visit to the Atlanta Motor Speedway. I first went there all the way back in 1971. The famous A.J. Foyt won the Atlanta 500 that day.
TRANSPORTING A MINOR ACROSS STATE LINES
I was down in Georgia on spring break for that trip. I had convinced a young girl I met in college to make the trip with me. We would also be going down to Florida as part of our spring break plan.
I remember something that seems sort of funny some 50 years later. Society’s mores were just a bit different back then as I am sure they were 100 years ago as well.
Is that your wife?
My girlfriend and I stopped at a mom-and-pop small hotel. My “friend” stayed in the car while I went in to secure a room. In the course of the conversation with the hotel proprietor, a woman about the age of my mother at the time asked me a question. “Is that your wife in the car?”
Before I tell you how I answered that question let’s think about a few things. I’m a college kid. I’m on spring break. I want to get a hotel room for my “friend” and me. How many people in that situation are going to answer that question honestly?
I am almost embarrassed to say this. I answered that question honestly. I told the hotel owner that was not my wife in the car but my sports trainer. O.K., I didn’t say that but in today’s world, that answer might have worked. I told the lady my friend in the car was not my wife. We didn’t get the room.
What would Jesus do?
I had another experience with this girl from college. You’re getting all of my most deep-seated memories now. One time we were traveling back to college and we were caught in a midwestern snowstorm. The roads were nearly impassable. Traffic was crawling. It was nearly midnight. Just up ahead was a Holiday Inn in LaSalle, Illinois.
I looked over at my friend. She was looking to me for direction. What should we do? Could we make it safely through this snowstorm…should we get a hotel room? She asked me what I thought.
One voice seemed to say to me, “I think we can make it. We have class tomorrow. We need to make it”. Then another voice coming from the other shoulder seemed to be saying. “Your friend is really good-looking. You’re in a snowstorm. There is a Holiday Inn just up ahead. Are you crazy? What are you waiting for? Get the room!”
Truth be told could we have made it through that snowstorm? We will never know. I got the room!
What about Carol?
People sometimes ask me “What does your wife Carol say when she reads these reports?” Well…I do share some intimate details don’t I? I think Carol can fully appreciate that college kids go on spring break and sometimes they bring along a “friend” right? Snowstorms happen. College kids are always on a budget. If two college kids find themselves in the middle of a raging snowstorm and a hotel is their only option you don’t expect them to blow their pizza money on two hotel rooms do you?
Just the facts.
As a 100% honest guy, I feel a requirement to only share factual details from each of my experiences. Carol has come to appreciate and value my honesty. When she reads this don’t you think I’m in line for a pat on the back simply because I told the story honestly? Would this situation fly in your household?
Just one more thing about that snowstorm story and the ma and pa hotel story in Florida for that matter. The girl from college…my friend…yes the really good-looking one was in point of fact the woman who would become my wife for the last 49+ years…Carol. And now as Paul Harvey would say, “You know the rest of the story”.
However, you only know half of today’s Atlanta Motor Speedway story. I was here today. I didn’t have a ticket. The event was sold out.
I have a problem talking to strangers.
Yes, I have a problem talking to strangers. The problem is that I love talking to strangers! Today I needed to meet a stranger who would give me or sell me a ticket to today’s race. As I walked onto the grounds of the AMS property everyone I saw was a stranger!
I have a system for situations like this. I need to advertise my situation to as many eyeballs as I can. Someone once said that you can wink at your girlfriend “but if you don’t advertise what you’re doing no one but you will know”. I needed to let people know that I needed a ticket.
It pays to be discreet.
However, I couldn’t let EVERYONE in the place know I needed a ticket. The police don’t like people like me. We’re sometimes called “scalpers”. I prefer the term “promotional wholesaler”.
Back at home, I had taken a light yellow piece of paper and in large block letters printed “Need One” on one side and “Need 1” on the other side. I thought this made my sign bi-lingual.
I have used this method literally hundreds of times at all kinds of stick and ball sports, auto races and concerts. It works every time…and it works quickly.
Today’s situation was a bit different. No one had a “hard” ticket. That’s a paper ticket in my world. Everyone’s ticket that they would use for admission today was on their phone.
I went about my work. First I passed by a couple of police cars. My sign stayed under my jacket until I was clear of them. Then when the cops were in my rearview mirror out came the sign!
Some strangers are just weird.
I must tell you this. My sign does attract a unique clientele. There’s always the young jokester who can’t resist telling me he has a ticket and he will sell it to me for $2,000.
Then there is another person who will read my sign that clearly states, “Need One” and ask, “Do you have any tickets to sell?” Folks I can’t explain other people’s behavior. I can only report it.
Oh! There’s one more “typical” response. This happens a lot at stick and ball sports. Let’s say I’m at a major college football game. An elderly couple will always pass by and the wife will grab her husband’s arm just a little bit tighter. I can almost read her lips. She will be whispering, “Look at that man, he needs a ticket, he doesn’t have a ticket. Poor guy”. This is not a dissimilar response than when passing a homeless person lying on the ground with only one shoe, a week-old beard and a tattered Philadelphia Flyers jacket.
When that happens I simply want to grab the elderly woman by the nap of her fur coat and yell, “No I don’t have a ticket. I didn’t buy my tickets nine months ago as you did. I didn’t pay the full price plus a donor’s fee like you did. I’ll end up with a better seat location than you and pay one-third the price at the last minute!”
Somebody always bails.
Once I wade through this riff-raff I get to the people who DO have an extra ticket. Maybe they were a group of four and the brother-in-law bailed at the last minute. Maybe they got some promotional tickets and have an extra. The point is there are a lot of extra tickets just sitting in pockets or in today’s case on phones.
I don’t deal with professionals.
I almost forgot. There’s one more group of folks who have “extras”. These people are true ticket scalpers. These guys (almost all the scalpers are guys but not every time) are buying and selling tickets to make a profit.
Their business is really easy. Everyone who has an extra ticket thinks its resale value is small. Everyone who needs an extra ticket to the simplest sporting event you can imagine thinks the demand for that ticket is akin to buying a ticket to the Super Bowl.
Selling high; buying low.
People with extra tickets are willing to sell low. People who want a ticket are willing to buy high. The ticket scalper buys low and sells high.
I don’t buy from ticket scalpers. They are trying to do exactly the opposite of what I am trying to do. I want to buy low and they want to sell high. I commonly tell them that I don’t buy from professionals…because I am a professional.
Today I didn’t see a single ticket scalper in sight. That is rarely the case and certainly not at a NASCAR race. I attributed that to the fact that all tickets were electronic and on people’s phones. I think that made it easier for me.
Would you enjoy meeting strangers with me?
I wish you could come with me when I go out to “meet strangers”. I would bet you a Coke that I will be in active negotiations within just five minutes over the price and availability of a ticket…after I share my sign.
By the way, I must adhere to a dress code when I’m on the prowl for that elusive ticket. I don’t wear a Trump MAGA hat or a Biden/Harris t-shirt. I can’t be wearing a UCLA shirt when I need a ticket in the south. Lots of civilian sellers would just as soon eat their extra ticket than sell to the enemy.
This is what happened today. I met a man named, “Richard”. I’ll go with that name because that’s what he told me his name was and I believed him.
Richard had some extra tickets. He was with his brother Sam. Richard wasn’t a race fan. Sam was. They live near Atlanta and come to the races every year. In order to make sure that Sam got to come to the race, Richard paid $500 on StubHub (an online ticket broker) for two tickets in total! Wow! I wasn’t expecting to pay that much.
However, Richard told me a local car dealer friend had given him four tickets for free. He was willing to sell me one of those tickets.
I don’t pay retail.
Richard asked me what the retail price was for tickets to the race. Earlier today another stranger I met told me face value for the ticket he had was $66. I told Richard that. His face seemed to light up.
Although Richard was a nice guy and he likely would have been a good friend of mine in real life this was not real life. This was “stranger” life. There is a difference.
I could not pay Richard the full price of a ticket at $66. His ticket was “damaged”. Damaged? Yes. We were just shortly before race time. There was almost no one willing to buy his ticket and prospective buyers didn’t even know he had a ticket to sell. His ticket effectively had an expiration date.
I don’t mind that some people think I’m homeless.
For the last dozen NASCAR races I have attended I have bought my ticket at just two price points. In half of those situations, I was given a ticket for free. I told you some people think I’m homeless in this situation. On the other six occasions, I paid just twenty dollars for each of my tickets. In all of those situations the retail value of the tickets I was buying ranged from $60-100 or more.
Richard’s story of paying $500 for two tickets was pretty effective in getting me to raise my initial offer. Offering twenty bucks to a person who had just paid more than ten times my offering price seemed a bit rude. I offered $40. Richard accepted. We were still friends.
It was still an hour and a half before race time. Richard had MY ticket on his phone. Rather than try to hook up later and because Richard didn’t know if he could send his ticket to my phone we went up to the ticket taker. The ticket taker scanned Richard’s phone for my ticket and I was in.
Any questions? This is how it is done in my world.
Folks, that is how it is done in the Covid buying world. However…once I was inside I realized I had not taken the time to have my racing radio programmed. This is a process, that when completed, will allow me to listen in on each driver’s radio communication to his (sorry only guys racing this year) pit crew.
I would have to go back “outside” to get that done. There was just one minor problem. I didn’t have any proof that I had a ticket because my ticket was on Richard’s phone and Richard was long gone.
Randy from California
Not a problem. I like to talk to strangers. I walked up to a young man who was scanning tickets for fans coming into the stands. I explained my situation. I told the young man that I was “Randy from California”. He told me he would remember and let me back in when I returned from my radio programming errand. I asked for his name. Gabe. I smiled and told “Gabe” I would see him soon.
Off I went and who did I run into? Richard! I never expected to know so many people by their first name today. I felt obligated to explain what I was doing “outside”. Richard understood. The radio programming went smoothly and I returned in search of “Gabe”.
Gabe? Where did Gabe go?
If life was simple everyone would succeed right? I went back to where Gabe, the ticket scanner, had been standing and there was no Gabe. There was no Gabe anywhere. I asked around. No one even knew who Gabe was.
O.K. then, I had no ticket. I had no Gabe. I was outside of security and needed to get back into the track. What could I do?
Was this really ‘breaking and entering’?
While all of the other ticket takers were busy trying to scan tickets in bright sunlight I simply walked in. I had the facts on my side even though at that point I had no official ticket.
I grabbed a seat in my most preferred location. I was high up near the start/finish line. I could see everything really well, although at a distance, at today’s 1.54-mile asphalt oval.
Thanks for the recommendation.
You might note that I never asked Richard what the seat location was for his ticket. It didn’t matter in the least to me. I think of seat locations printed on sports tickets as “recommendations”. I consider those recommendations and sit where I want.
How was the race? Not that great. The fun and challenge of the adventure had been in the ticket acquisition process. The race was actually almost a letdown.
I hate long pants.
I got a little screwed up with the weather. The forecast called for 59 degrees, clouds and wind. In reality, it was nearly 70 degrees with lots of sun and no wind.
I wear shorts 99.45% of the year. Today I wore long pants. I even had my ultra-thin upper long underwear under a long-sleeved lightweight t-shirt. At the ready was a light jacket. I didn’t need any of this!
If I were president.
Personally, I don’t think anyone should wear long pants or live in a climate where long pants might be considered. If I were elected president the first thing I would do is make long pants illegal…but then that’s just me.
When the race had finished I headed up to Charlotte, North Carolina. I did make the obligatory stop at Waffle House to redeem my free waffle couple. I’ve eaten at WH well over 1,000 times. Today was a first. I guess they were out of plates. My waffle was served in what I call a “cake pan”. I love firsts in life.
In Charlotte, I checked into my Sheraton hotel. I bought it on Priceline for 51 bucks. Then when I checked in I reminded the desk clerk of my Titanium Elite frequent stay status. I was upgraded to a king suite at a Sheraton for 51 bucks. I love talking to strangers.
BUSTED FOR DRUGS!
Busted for drugs! How did being busted for drugs influence my airplane ride back to Los Angeles from Charlotte? I know what you’re saying. “Of course, airlines are not going to be very receptive to someone using, abusing and trafficking illegal drugs. What were you thinking Randy?”
First, I want to clear up anything that needs to be cleared up. I was not busted for drugs. I have never used an illegal drug in my life and I grew up in the 60s. Never. Ever.
21st and last on the standby list.
Here’s what came down today. I was flying standby. I would be able to get on the plane from Charlotte to Los Angeles if the airlines had an unsold seat. Unfortunately, I was 21st on the standby list. There was no way I was going to make this flight. I was already developing backup plans.
However…they kept calling standby passengers one by one and giving them a seat on the plane. Soon they were down to standby passengers #19, #20 and #21, which was me. There was ONE seat left on the plane.
Will you split?
It looked as if my luck has run out. However…passengers #19 and #20 were a couple. There was only one seat. I began to lick my chops. I had been in this situation before. Would the couple split up? Would one of these folks take the final available seat and leave the remaining person behind? No!! They would not split. I was golden. I was going to Los Angeles.
That being the case I was going to get that very last seat. Not only was that the situation but that last seat was in first class! Ya, I know. Pretty lucky huh?
Now the drama began.
However…in the world of standby flying, things are never final until the plane’s wheels leave the ground. While all of this standby drama was going on another type of drama was happening as well.
When I first arrived I noticed a young man in a black golf shirt and black pants standing near where passengers were boarding the plane. His golf shirt did share the letters P-O-L-I-C-E in small font. He was packing heat as well. This man gave the evil eye to each passenger as they approached the plane.
Over the course of time, four different passengers were “detained”. Each time the perps were moved to a remote spot about 50 feet away. There four uniformed officers went through these passenger’s bags.
Copper! Undercover no less.
I noticed another guy standing about five feet from me. He had long scraggly hair, a backpack and jeans. I pegged him as a copper right off the bat. He was eyeing each boarding passenger as closely as the police officer in the Tiger Woods golf shirt. Yep. He turned out to be undercover as well. Then came another fellow with a police dog! This was the equivalent of six squad cars surrounding a speeding vehicle on the interstate. Somebody tipped off somebody! Don’t worry. That’s detective talk.
So how did this drug bust affect me? Well…there had been one open seat. When the couple flying standby ahead of me refused to split up I was going to get that last seat.
Drugs were going to keep me out of first class.
However…when one of the drug bust detainees was going to be permanently detained that now created two open seats. I already had my first class boarding pass in my hand. I was trying to scan my boarding pass as quickly as I could when the boarding pass was snatched from my hush puppy greased fingers!
An alert agent, way to alert for my tastes, saw the opportunity to give the two open seats to the couple who were rightfully ahead of me on the standby list. Truthfully, that was some pretty unusual behavior on the agent’s part but I couldn’t complain.
The couple, who had refused to split up, were now off to Los Angeles. The drug detained passenger was off to jail. The tipster was likely in line for a reward. I was destined to attempt to take the next already full flight to Los Angeles.
No! Not the drug-sniffing dog.
At this point, I began assessing alternatives to the sold-out flights I was trying to get on during spring break. Just as I began to walk away the police officer with the canine had his dog sniff my bag. No! The dog let me slide today. Maybe that had something to go with the hush puppy I dropped at his feet.
Good afternoon, good evening and good afternoon from first Pensacola, Florida then Cottonwood, Alabama and finally Atlanta, Georgia with a stop-off in New Orleans.
Randy Lewis
San Clemente, California