I learned a long time ago not to judge someone as to having more hair than I have, so I decided to cut this cat a little slack. I think it was an old wooden boat with a small cabin and outboard. The operator drew lots of attention to himself at Higgins Ferry—no shirt, cut-off jeans, shoulder length hair and a heavy, full-faced beard. Do you get the picture? Seemed like a nice enough fellow—just an old hippie that got lost in the 60’s, I thought.

If that didn’t get your attention, he always had two attractive ladies with him, dressed like most ladies going out on a boat—you know, a swim suit and one of those cover-up things. We’ll get back to the cover-ups!

For two or three Sunday afternoons they would launch their boat and mostly drift over on the Coosa side from the park (sunbathing?). I had noticed several boats going over, but he seemed to know lots of people and he had told me that he had a “club” in Birmingham. From this profile, you can see why some folks were whispering, “dope-boat,” but I had checked him a couple of times and there was no reason to believe.

One afternoon, I received a call from my favorite police dispatcher. She was excited and gave me a description of a boat: they had come into Dixie Camp “indecently dressed,” or undressed. Well, sir, I went right to the boat. All radios were silent as they listened to how I would handle it. My first words that went back on the radio were, “Looks decent to me.” Then I asked, were you just in to Dixie’s Camp? “Yes, sir.” Were these ladies in any way indecent? “Well, they did forget their cover-ups!”After I found that no one wanted to file charges, I gave them my long version of difference in common decency in public and what people choose to do in private. I assure you that I got their attention, and they did understand me. We don’t need to be reminded of the silly interpretation on the decency laws.

You have to be careful with this kind of thing. I had no arguments; end of discussion! It didn’t take too much detective work to see that these ladies were his employees (?), and the cover-ups had no swimsuit tops under them! This explained why all the boats were there: getting a free peak.

One thing was for certain: we didn’t need that type entertainment on Lake Mitchell. I will say that the gentleman did look me up afterwards, shook my hand and told me how much he appreciated how I handled it. Didn’t see them again, that I know of.

As I left, I thought about the postman who takes walks on his day off! Looks like these folks would want to wear clothes on their day off? Back to Cruisin’.