A Trip Inside a Police Cruiser, Made me Think

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I trekked to Grand Island, Neb., to attend the state fair. Little did we know by the end of the day we would be riding in a police cruiser.

No, we did nothing wrong. In fact, the policeman took pity on us. Below is my explanation.

Each year my husband and I travel to the state fair so I can sell my novels at the Nebraska Writers Guild booth. There we can sell our books and in turn we promote to writers we encounter the benefits of joining the guild.

There is a certain place where I park and that is what I did this day. However, you have to bring your own books. My husband and I had two luggage bags. I pulled one and he the other. We began our long walk to the 4-H/FFA building, when a fair volunteer, driving a golf cart, approached us and asked, “Would you like a ride?”

“Yes,” we answered, giving a large sigh of relief. The building was a long ways, and the offer of a ride was well appreciated. But in the end, it caused us a lot of grief.

How? It is one word, b e a r i n g s.

I lost my bearings. Not walking there, I could not remember landmarks to get us to the right entrance/exit gates so we ended up at the wrong exit.

We exited and I scanned the area, knowing in my gut nothing looked familiar. I yelled at an officer, who with other policemen were directing vehicles into a parking lot, and asked him if the road in front of us was Stollely Street. He came over to us and gestured to a street about a mile from us. He studied us, seeing our luggage. “That’s a long walk,” he finally said.

My heart sank, knowing we had walked around fair exhibits and buildings only to travel in the wrong direction. I was dumbfounded. It took minutes to even remember where I parked until the officer said the word, Roush Street. “That’s where we parked,” I replied.

He left and returned minutes later in his police car. He opened the door for my husband then joked, “You won’t be able to kiss in here,” as my husband slide into the tiny space between the plastic glass and the door. If you never have been inside a police vehicle (which we had not), you better not be overweight or you will be squished. The policeman opened the door for me. I sat down beside my husband. Yes with Plexiglas dividing us there was no way we could smooch. However, we were not in the mood anyway. I wonder why?

The officer drove us to our car and unloaded our bags. He placed them into my vehicle. We shook his hand in gratitude for having compassion on a dim-witted couple.

However, this made me think about writers, and how we too can lose our bearings. We forget to focus on our next undertaking and not fret about a past mistake or pet project that may not have done as well as expected.

What is the next hottest genre in publishing? Literary agents will say your guess is as good as theirs. If they cannot figure it out, how can you? Thus, the best thing to do is to leave the past behind you and do not give up.

What do the experts say? That the worse mistake authors make is to give up after disappointments. If people had given up on the movie, “Wizard of Oz,” we would not have this enduring classic since it initially flopped in the theaters when it was released. Television is what revived it and brought it into the living rooms and hearts of viewers for decades to come. My hope, though, that it does not take you that long to achieve your success.

So keep your powder dry, start your next venture and put the past behind you. God bless.