The Baboon Congress

The Low-Speed Chase

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Today’s guest post is by Steve Grooms.

Crosby Farm Park is a former farm turned into a 736-acre urban park. It lies along the east bank of the Mississippi River just below Hidden Falls Park, across the river from Fort Snelling. Crosby includes almost 7 miles of trails, a boardwalk over a marsh, a long river shore and two small lakes.

It has critters, too. It was well known for years that there was a coyote pack in the park that was kept alive by a diet including rabbits, muskrats and unlucky house cats from the homes just off Shepard Road. On my first visit, I saw a gray fox (a tree-climbing variant of the usual red fox). I also know for a fact Crosby was home to a black bear for a while in 2001. Does a bear poop in the woods? Yes, and on the walking paths, at least that year.

Crosby is many things, but what it is not is a dog park. That is, any dog down there is supposed to be on a leash. I’ve always blamed the Russians for that. The park is used heavily by Russian immigrants, and they have a terrible opinion of dogs. If an unleashed dog approaches someone with a sweet smile and wagging tail, and if that person nearly faints away with fear and disgust, you’ve encountered a Russian.

In spite of the rules, Crosby is really attractive to dog owners. Dogs can sprint along the river beach and swim for sticks. The park is so big a dog gets to roam a lot without encountering other dogs or people. It is just a pretty place and great playground for people and dogs. And if you hike down there during low-use hours, you’ll probably not see a Russian or any other human. There’s no harm in that!

There is harm, however, if you get caught. It is risky to run your dog off leash in Crosby even if you are in remote areas of the park where others don’t go. At the end of your hike you have to get back to your car in the parking lot, and that means you have to walk where park rangers often go. When a friend got caught with her golden retriever off his leash, she was fined $75. When she got caught again, the bill went to $100. That’s a lot of dog food!

I’ve allowed my English setter, Katie, to run off her leash in Crosby since she was a puppy just a few months old. She doesn’t range far, and she is the sweetest dog I’ve known in a lifetime among dogs. That means she doesn’t intimidate anyone except a freshly-immigrated Russian. I’ll admit it feels spooky to walk around looking out for someone who could tag you for $100, but I did it for years with no close calls.

Katie and I took a hike in Crosby in the winter of 2008. Because the woods were full of snow that had gone through several melting-freezing cycles, all the paths were covered with treacherous ice. I adapted to that by lashing on “traction devices,” a sort of rubber attachment to my boots that carried short bolts like the studs in winter tires. With a traction device you can walk normally on ice without slipping or falling.

At the end of our walk, Katie and I were on the return loop about a mile from the parking lot. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that a large man was following us, a large man wearing a chartreuse vest. Adrenaline hit my system as I tried to think of anyone who might wear a chartreuse vest except a park employee. Maybe this was just someone who was checking the health of the place, but the odds were good that he was a ranger with a pad of citation tickets in his pocket. But I was ahead of him by 200 yards or so, and I had good traction.

It was a fascinating problem. I had to get to my car before he caught up with me, and I had to get there with enough time to throw Katie in the back of the car and make my getaway without getting caught. Was my lead good enough for all of that? Probably not. But if I walked at a normal pace I could pretend I wasn’t knowingly breaking the rules. Authority figures in Minnesota are more likely to issue warnings than fines if they think you were dumb enough to break the laws. Or putting it the other way around, if you run and skulk and make it obvious that you are trying to get away with something, even Minnesota authority figures can get ticked off.

We came to a fork in the road. I went left, not taking the short path to the parking lot. The path I took went through deep woods, and it was used by few people. Without letting my pursuer know it, I turned just enough to peek behind me. Dang! The guy in the vest was still on my trail, having taken the path in the woods like I had. The evidence was mounting that I was his quarry.

Even while struggling to avoid a $100 fine, I could see the humor of my dilemma. I had to make good time, flying over the ice, without looking like a guilty person. I was a bit like the duck that seems placid above water while he is actually madly paddling beneath. And I thought of the OJ Simpson low-speed chase. I was walking and the ranger was walking, but we were both trying for as much speed as we could get without breaking form and actually running. In spite of my casual body language, arms gently swinging, I was panting by now.

As we neared the parking lot, a fellow got out of a white car and headed down the woods path right at us. With this fellow were a black Labrador and some sort of gray mutt.

“Hello!” cried the newcomer. “Do you know how I can get down to the beach?”

“Just keep going,” I said, “and turn left when you get to a T in the trail. You’re going just the right way now!” This guy with two off-leash dogs was going to run smack into the ranger.

As I passed the newcomer, I smiled broadly. “Damn! You wouldn’t believe how happy I am to see you down here today!”

79 thoughts on “The Low-Speed Chase”

  1. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    Steve, your life of crime is horrifying! The image of a “low speed police chase” tickles my funny bone and gives me the giggles.

    Didn’t Dale and Jim Ed do a Morning Show at this park one summer? Lou and I used to attend the traveling morning shows. Those shows were just full of fun! I think I remember one at this location.

    There is no discussion question today. This piece could inspire several questions:
    Do you have a life of high crime? What small rules do you break?
    Did anyone ever wander into a situation and get you off the hook?

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  2. Oh, for gooness snakes! I sent this piece to Dale as a provisional contribution, figuring he would invent a smart question. He’s so much better than I at that. Your suggestions are good. Do any baboons have ploys for talking their way out of tickets? (I’ve got a friend who is pretty enough to flirt her way out of most tickets, batting her eyes a lot.)

    In case there is a baboon who didn’t read the tail of yesterday’s discussion, Dale has just been hired as News Director for KFAI.

    Have a lovely, cool morning baboons. I’m dealing with a crisis in my basement today, a carpet that Katie thoroughly soaked with urine. I have enough ways to remember her with smelling that. Be well.

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    2. great news on dales gameful employment..ill go read it.
      compelling story. fitting way to remember katie with steve making a criminal of her..as for talking your way out of tickets my efforts to batt my eyes do not seem to work. there is an amazing forgiveness rate if you have one of those stickers with a badge saying that you support the police and fireman’s fund. 20 bucks buys bulletproof insurance for those inclined to get into sticky situations.

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  3. Morning all. And to think, all this time we’ve been rubbing elbows with a master of crime!

    When I had my first Irish Setter on my own (Scarlett… often referred to as Katy Scarlett), our daily walk in the neighborhood was always off-leash. She was never interested in bolting too far ahead and was way more attracted by people’s bushes and plants (probably the animals that lurked in those plants, if truth be told) and never ventured toward the street. At the end of a couple of blocks was the Lyndale Farmstead park where she would dutifully chase the ball over and over again… lots of running.

    My current pooches never go off-lease. Thorin (Samoyed) would be off in a flash, trying to find every other dog in a four block radius to play with and Rhiannon (another Irish Setter)… well, who knows. In the first month after I got her, she bolted out of the yard and I literally ended up tackling her AFTER she had run across Lyndale.

    Luckily we’ve never run into any fearful Russians on any of our walks!

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    1. I have a friend who had an Irish setter who, upon seeing a rabbit in the front yard, crashed through the living room window!

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      1. Doesn’t surprise me. My current Irish Setter went through the screen on the back porch last summer – I’m assuming one of those mutant terrorist ninja squirrels that she loathes so much!

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      2. When our terrier looks out the front window and sees the neighbor cats or strangers walking past our house, she gets so excited and then frustrated that she can’t get out to them that she grabs sofa pillows or any available throw and shakes it to death. She’s broken the necks of those pillows more time than I can count. I don’t know what she would do if she ever got ouside. I know she would chase the cats but she is really quite friendly to any person she meets. The little neighbor cat who sometimes comes in our back yard is a bully to Maggy. I once saw that cat chase Maggy around the back yard and corner her against the fence. We have a dog park now in town, but I havn’t taken her there yet. She is very bad mannered around other dogs-our fault since we didn’t socialize her well with other dogs. Any suggestions?

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  4. Terrier owners should never let their dogs off leash. My Welsh terriers could be poster children for the need for doggy Ritalin. They are impulsive, easily distracted, and foolishly fearless. The Badlands and National grasslands here are great for dog walking. Can you imagine how excited a little terrier gets when you stroll her up to huge prairie dog village?. The prairie dogs sound their yippy alarms and I know my dog is trying to tell me that if i would just let her loose, she would have those holes excavated in no time.

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  5. Good moening to all:

    Good story, Steve. I have been trying to think of times when I have been in a stituation like yours. The situation I remember is the time I went to a Jazz show on the South Side of Chicago and found out I couldn’t get a taxi in that part of town to get to where I was staying. I walked through the South Side at night and didn’t have any trouble, but I did hear some gun shots. There was no one on the streets. I was very glad to get to the place where I was staying.

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  6. Not tickets, but once in a while I score a wildflower while walking in the park (to assuage my guilt I only take the ones where they’re prolific), and have an interesting time hiding it on the way out if I pass another person…

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    1. I’ve so far managed to resist wildflower picking in the park, and it was a very near thing with cool looking rocks on Harney Peak.

      Prussian blood will out-post a rule and I will feel bound to follow it on fear of the “authorities”-especially in parks.

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      1. I have Prussian blood as well, mig, but I tend to be a nonconformist anyway. I’m very different from the rest of my family.

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  7. I didn’t hear about Dale’s new job. Congratulations!!! Let’s hope his luck rubs off–my current temp position is supposed to end next Friday. Crosby Farm Park sounds like a doggy paradise; I understand the reasons for leash laws, but if I was still a dog owner (with an obedient and trustworthy dog, which neither of mine were) I wouldn’t be able to resist either. There are few things as joyful as a dog playing in a park!

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  8. p.s. Congratulations Dale – boy are they lucky! I listen to KFAI’s news sometimes, they’ve moved it from mid-day to earlier – Democracy Now is 8:00, other news till 10.

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    1. KFAI is one of only a few places where you can listen to Democracy Now in our state and I think it is an important news show. Bill Moyers was interviewed on Democracy Now earlier this week and he said that show is one of the best news show and we are not getting the news we need from the regular news media. Bill also said he did an interview with Jon Stewart because he thinks humor and news sometimes go well togather. Maybe Dale can work some humor into the news at KFAI

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    2. Thanks for the reminder vs, I had forgotten about that. I need to start writing these things down.

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  9. Tho Other Side of the Story
    My wife is half-Russian with many relatives who live where dey is supposed to live, in Nordeast Mpls. But many of dem are cops, so be careful up dere.
    As a bike rider I could tell many tales of dogs not on leashes on rec. trails. I have had three bad accidents, ones that sent me to the doctor, two caused by loose dogs and the third by two two loose kids and two loose dogs. Two of the times the owners were angry I had endangered their dogs. I have been chased by very seriously angry loose dogs a few times, been in a couple dozen small incidents with loose dogs. I have never had an dog owner apologize or indicate they saw they had not taken a responsibility. On the rec trails, your side is winning; it is now uncommon to meet dogs on leashes.
    So I will now go out and see what I can encounter on the Sakatah.
    Steve, when we moved down here we brought a 15-year-old cat we had to then put down. She ruined several pillows and a few rugs, fortunately not the carpet, to indicate here displeasure at the move.

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    2. No dogs on the Sakatah this morning. I rode at the best time to avoid dogs. People tend to be out with dogs early or mid-day or after-work time. Did manage to kill a bird.
      There is a new very stupid and very expensive bridge across the Sakatah, but it did take eliminate the dangerous place on the trail, the place where I went down the worst from dogs. Now it is a sort of clover-leaf over the tracks with a chain-link fence along the trail above the tracks. As I went along the fence, a fledgling sparrow I had not seen before paniced at having to fly into the fence or me. He chose my front tire.

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    3. I walk Pippin on the trail through Sakatah State Park very often but I always keep him on a leash. He’s a pretty high-energy little guy and would get himself into trouble in no time.

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  10. We never let any of our dogs run because they weren’t well trained and we couldn’t count on them coming back when called. I think those places that have been set up as fenced in areas for dogs in parks are a good idea. They don’t have any of those where we live. Our last dog sometimes took the lease in his mouth and it looked like he was taking us for a walk. I think he was just trying play a tug game with us, but it did look like he was leading us down the street.

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  11. My dad used to work for a creepy businessman named Red. Red’s wife Lydia was one of those people who is more obnoxious without meaning to be than most people can be if they try hard. Red was driving once and he took a cloverleaf turn he didn’t mean to take. So he began to back up in the cloverleaf. Along came a highway cop who hit his lights.

    Lydia lit into Red. “You stupid S.O.B.,” she shrilled, and then she really put her mouth into gear and began an inventory of Red’s shortcomings. The cop had written out the ticket when he looked into the car. Lydia was in full flight, expressing her disgust for Red and his driving. After studying her a moment, the cop tore up the ticket. “You poor b*****d, you’ve got problems a lot worse than a ticket if you live with her.”

    Lydia and Red agreed that she would blister him like that any time he was in danger of getting a ticket. It never worked again.

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  12. Basset hounds are another breed not meant for off-leash jaunts. Between the stubbornness that means they often don’t come when you call, and the large scent-driven part of their psyche, it’s bad news. And contrary to popular belief, the can move quickly when they want to (like the time my prior basset got out of the yard first thing in the morning, sending me chasing down the block in my robe and fuzzy slippers through the neighbor’s yards until I could corner her by a fence).

    As for slow speed cruise…like Jim mine involves being in the wrong neighborhood unexpectedly. In my case, a really sketchy part of Harlem, with Morningside Park (then a haven for junkies) between me and where I needed to be. Added bonus: I was carrying a huge bag from the Metropolitan Museum of Art – a billboard that read “tourist” if ever there was one. A friend from college was with me – he was supposedly my “native guide,” but had put us on the wrong bus…needless to say, between my very Scandinavian looks and his red-haired Irish looks, it was clear neither of us were local to that part of Manhattan. It was a brisk, feigning confidence, walk – as we passed an older fellow sitting out on his front steps, he just smiled a half smile and shook his head at us…

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    1. I used to need to go into Manhattan for work, and never really liked it, until I bought a pair of cheap, dark sunglasses. Behind those, I could look up at the signposts without anyone knowing I was lost. It also gave me that look that said “don’t even try to ask me for anything or sell me anything”. Manhattan was a lot more fun after that.

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  13. the slow chase reminds me of coming out of the john fayhe concert at the cedar about 1972. the marajuana was really good and i was in one of those knds lose track of your thought midsentance sort of states, i was driving my moms 1970 tbird . what a car! and the route home took me down 94 to where you get off at 5th on the right or continue westward on 94 in the two left lanes. i was off in the clouds and when realized i was about to exit unintentionally on 5th i cranked the wheel left and surprised the driver who was in that lane to the oint he honked flicked his brights and had a caniption in the car behind me. i was cool in my tbird and cranked up the tunes and went back into my post concert drug induced haze, when i got to the burbs i realized i had spaced out a couple of times and had sped up to 75 but then slowed to 40 before realizing i was losing spped the i would speed again but the car behind had stayed with me. i suspected he was the guy i cut off and that he was following me to the end of my trip. i checked it by stepping on th egas and going int the passing mode. yep he followed me, i slowed and got into the slow lane he followed me. i had an idea and passed a semi then pulled ovr and slowd right in front of the semi adn turned on my blinker to exit at the next off ramp. the guy behind me had no choice but to get in front of mebeause i didn’t leave room behind and as i started to exit the freeway he too signaled and began to exit. when he was too far up the exit lane to do anything else i pulled back in from of the semi and continued down the freeway. the guy who i led up the exit ramp went ballistic in his car, beating the windows as he went up and i went on and i was very happy to have that as my final remembrance rather than some other scenario. geeze we had good pot in those days.

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    1. Great story tim. Its a wonder we survived those days. As one of the few people of that generation who never smoked pot, I can’t attest to the quality of the pot, then or now.

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    2. Good story tim. I love the image of the guy beating up on his car when he sees you have given him the slip. My pot days were brief, and I don’t think I smoked anything good during them. Mostly home-grown garbage weed.

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  16. I am not much of a scofflaw but I live in a town full of scofflaws, especially, but not only, their driving. Mankato recently got an award for being a bike-friendly town, but that did not mean they drive in a bike-friendly manner.

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  17. No dog owner should EVER let a loose dog mess up other people’s enjoyment of a park. Katie was sweet and obedient, and the worse thing she ever did to anyone was to approach gently with a swinging tail. A dog that harasses bicyclists has NO business running free. I apologize, Clyde, on behalf of all dog owners.

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  18. I’m out of commission now for a while. A carpet cleaning outfit is going to spend hours trying to undo the damage to a basement office carpet where my diabetic dog has been living. I’m thinking a controlled burn would be appropriate, but it would be hard to control.

    Catch you later.

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  19. Oh, was not blaming you or anyone. Just reporting on the state of the culture.
    My wife is interested in all your Russian near-neighbors. She assumes she is related to all Russians. She also used to work right on Shepherd Road, below the candy factory.
    If it fit our life, we would have a dog. Do not know what your future plans are, Steve. Hope they can include as good a place to rent as we found, but a place for a dog, unlike ours.

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  20. I agree with all re Dale and KFAI. Has always seemed like the right fit. I wonder if Dale had an exclusion in his parachute that kept him off of public radio for awhile. I will go back to KFAI. I had a big-turn-off from KFAI when one of my ex-students, a long-time volunteer DJ, was suddenly dumped from his spot.

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  21. Vignette of the day: went over to Cub to get fruit for my wife’s daily drug-laden smoothie. Out of the store came a college-age young man pushing a cart very slowly with only one item in the car–a large bottle of energy drink.

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  22. OT, but today there is more water per minute coming out of the Garrison Dam than flows per minute over Niagra Falls.

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    1. I don’t have any scofflaw stories (need to change lifestyles to keep up with the rest of the troop).

      OT The most common cause of death in domestic zebras is a broken neck. They break their necks running into things at full speed.

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  25. Nicely done, Steve. Nice tribute to your Katie.

    I’ve walked like that, on ice like that, but not away from any perceived law enforcement types.

    I often walk in Sakatah Lake State Park. Late in the year, I only have about a half hour after work in which to get out there and walk. It’s a good place to walk with a dog. I dress warmly, bring a flashlight and a cell phone, and go quickly. It’s usually almost sunset. Sakatah Lake State Park is a lonely place late in the year. I don’t feel alone there, but I know I’m the only human.

    Sometimes there are rumors of cougars. I’ve never seen one but one year a hunter was in his deer stand and a cougar prowled around the ground directly beneath him. He’s the son of a DNR employee and he took pictures. It was definitely a cougar and it was about two miles from where I often walked with Bailey, and now with Pippin.

    I headed out that evening in the gray sunset, in the gray-brown early winter woods at the time of year when animals take on the same color as the drab trees, the earth and even the sky. When everything around you is nearly the same color and the light is failing, the way you perceive the presence of another being changes. You begin to hear rather than see. You rely on detecting motion somewhere near you. You begin to get a very creepy sensation in the back of your neck. You watch how your dog is behaving.

    Of course, that’s what I experienced. There was a breeze blowing high in the tree tops and some of the branches were clacking together. A crow flew over. Of course I thought of that photo of a cougar, not two miles from where we were hiking. Bailey slowed and stayed rather near me, sniffing. There was something near us.

    Bailey was hesitating and trying to look behind us. But I started walking. I walked as fast as I could from that remote foot path back to the Sakatah Trail, pulling a hesitant Bailey along. I didn’t look back or alter my stride -just kept walking. After about a mile of walking as fast as possible, Bailey relaxed and smiled up at me and I knew that we were out of trouble. But the sun was gone, the darkness was collapsing on us and the car was still a quarter-mile away. It was an invigorating walk that night. I didn’t go back in there until the ski trails had been groomed.

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  26. Congrats Dale!!! It is so eerie that your job news was posted today – the reason I came back to the Trail Baboon yesterday to lurk was to get caught up on your job hunt. What a lovely surprise to only have one day to wait for great news. I’ll start re-directing contributions to KFAI! They have great judgement in hiring.

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  27. Afternoon everyone.

    Nice story Steve, Thanks for the image of you and Katie.
    And congrats to Dale on the new job. We’re too far away to pick it up over the air. As “News Director” I wouldn’t expect he’d actually be on the air would he? And he’ll have to be careful not to mix his fake stories in with the real stories… except April 1.

    Walked out in the machine shed today and there was a 4′ snake. Looking on Google I think it was a Fox Snake. Would that be right Steve? Anyone? It surprised me that it was in the shed where it’s rather cool and I just stared at it for a minute trying to decide if this was real or dead or what. Then I reached for my cell phone camera and it slithered away. Nothing slow about it.
    (By the way, Google has a nice image today for Les Paul’s birthday.)

    Fun reading the guest blogs this week.

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    1. Ben, the Fox Snake is a common harmless snake. It looks something like a rattler, though, and it will vibrate its tail to make a rattling sound if threatened. I’ve only seen one in my life. It was in a cage, caught by the boy who lived across the street from me. We had a big gang of guys looking at the snake before we finally concluded we should not kill it, as it was a harmless snake. And the kid who caught it released it.

      And this is fun to add: that kid’s name was/is Nicky Nolte. He didn’t look like that famous mug shot back then!

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      1. Thanks Steve. First thing I did was look at the tail– and noticed it didn’t have any rattles but it had that same checkered look about it.

        Nick Nolte was your neighbor??

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      3. Ben, we had three homes in Ames, the town I grew up in. Our second home was across the street from the Nolte’s home. My book about my parents has a story about the one adventure I had with Nick, which ended pretty miserably!

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  28. Greetings! Excellent story, Steve! Whenever I’ve unintentionally not followed the law, I usually get caught. The one time I missed a stop sign in NE Mpls (the sun was in my eyes), a cop was right there to ticket me. The one time I had expired tabs on my car, a trooper pulled me over. Luckily, he let me off. One of the few times I was speeding just a tad excessively in Elk River, I got pulled over. Once again, no ticket. So now, I pretty much toe the line because I usually get caught it seems. I’m neither pretty nor charming, so I’m not sure what I did to avoid getting a ticket. Maybe because I look l.like a poor, honest person driving a 15-yr old car — who knows.

    My son and husband will be home in a few hours — time to celebrate!

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      1. I don’t think so — they just had road construction to deal with. Just talked to Jim a while ago — he said they just finished driving a 16-mile stretch of gravel road in SD, but it turned to pavement once they entered MN!

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  29. We should be thinking about what we can do to support Dale in his new position. The most obvious notion is to pledge money to KFAI when they have a drive (or even when they do not) and make it clear the pledge is meant to celebrate Dale’s contributions to the station.

    Anyone have other ideas?

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  30. I’m pretty law-abiding, but judging from the handful of times I’ve accidently parking in a permit parking spot, or ran a little late for the meter, or forgotten to get the new tabs on the car – whatever it is, I won’t get away with it, ever.

    When I donated my last car, the organization I donated it to asked me to take the plates off before they picked it up. I had velcroed new plates on the car because I couldn’t budge the bolts on the old ones. So the night before the car was to be picked up I took off the most recent plates, but couldn’t get off the old expired plates. First thing in the morning there was a ticket on the parked car for expired plates.

    If I tried to take a dog off leash in a park, I’m sure it would instantly make a ranger materialize right behind me.

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