He's Calling the Cops

During college we'd boulder on a bridge near our house. We established a few routes on the rough hewn bricks they used to build it, but every time we went back, the chalk marks from our hands had been washed away. We didn't think much of it until one evening when a member of the football team's crew drove up to us and yelled, "You guys better get outta here -- we called the cops!" While I doubt that Minneapolis legislators had made a law expressly banning climbing on bridges, we didn't see the virtue in arguing the finer points of law with anyone, so we traded our climbing shoes for flip-flops, shouldered a bouldering pad, and left. The police caught up with us at the top of the bridge and got out a flashlight to inspect our hands. Then they asked what we'd done with the cans of spray paint. That guy on the football team had called the police on us for graffiti, though it remains unclear to me where he got the idea. Even more baffling is that he drove over in a golf cart to warn us to make a run for it. I wonder what he thought was going on when my friend wore his bouldering pad during our getaway. He must have some odd ideas about what city kids were up to in those days.