Ssssh! I have a confession to make and I want to be very certain that we keep it between just us, OK? I may have perpetrated a technical violation of 18 Pa. C.S. or, as they like to say in Common Pleas Court, committed a crime. Don’t tell anyone, though. I may be able to get away with it.
It has been ages since I knowing engaged in any criminal activity, so I may not have been quite as adept at this sort of enterprise as I once was. Back in my crime-spree days, which I would place in a pre-President Jimmy Carter era, I was quite skillful at a specific type of criminal activity. I would say I violated the laws of the state of Ohio about once or twice a week at the time and would have done so even more often except I wasn’t allowed out of the house past dark.
The crime I was rather accomplished at is now referred to in legal terms as “retail theft” but when I was a teenager it was known by the more commonplace term, “I don’t get enough allowance.” Basically, I stole cigarettes. From dairy stores. From smoke shops. From grocery stores. From places that were known in Cincinnati, my hometown, as “pony kegs.” More or less, if you were a businessperson who sold cigarettes, I tried to steal them from you.
It may sound as if I am proud of this criminal history, but I am not. I get a cold sweat when I recall standing for what seemed hours aimlessly by the cash register at the local dairy store until the clerk had gone to give another customer a double-dip ice cream cone, and then swiping a pack of Vantage cigarettes. Or Parliament. Or whatever silly brand I was smoking at the time. I take no honor in my past, and so the fact that I found myself on Saturday afternoon walking down that wicked, felonious path is all the more unexplainable.
Don’t be horrified. My crime in the grand scheme of things doesn’t measure up to the sort of perfidy you may have grown used to reading about in the newspaper these days. I haven’t swindled anyone out of their hard earned retirement savings, or threatened to embarrass someone who would pass for a local celebrity in Chester County. In all, I am more like the character in Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant” monologue who finds himself having to explain to other hardened criminals – “mother rapers, father stabbers, FATHER rapers!” – who he finds himself grouped with that his crime amounted to “litterin’.”
What it comes down to is that I took a nice hike at The Laurels preserve out Unionville way Saturday, without being an actual member of the Brandywine Conservancy. Which, if you check the rules in the handy brochure available at the trailhead, is not allowed. That’s it in a nutshell. The prosecutors from the Chester County District Attorney’s Office who look askance at me when I ask them how the police were able to catch such and such a criminal, as if they think I’m compiling a list of “dos” and “don’ts” for my own personal ultimate criminal enterprise, might refer to such behavior as “defiant trespass.”
In my defense, however, I would point out two things. First, it was a perfect day for a woodlands stroll on Saturday and that’s what you get out at The Laurels. The path passes along Buck Run, or Doe Run, I confuse the two, as it meanders along through pastures and woods that used to belong to the great King Ranch. In the 19870s, the conservancy was able to save more than 700 acres of the property that now makes up The Laurels and keep it in a natural, scenic and pristine state. There are quite a few hiking paths along the stream, and a stunningly beautiful ancient covered bridge. You walk though oaks, poplars, beech and ash, and when venturing into the open pasture can see all manner of hawks circling overhead. It’s a delightful, relaxing experience.
I thought someone might call me on my presence when I arrived and made plans for various subterfuges that would get me past the gate, but no one bothered me in the least. As I left, a woodsy looking fellow asked whether I was a member and I replied, as honestly as I could, “Not yet.”
Second, my plan is to actually become a member of the conservancy before my next visit to The Laurels and hope that my criminal past is overlooked. As least as far as arboreal statutes on the books go. Just keep this between us for now, though.
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