Civics Lesson

Posted on December 10, 2002 in Citizenship

All I can really say about my current legal travails is that it is providing me with a valuable civics lesson. I sought and got an extension on my case until late January.

The South County Court House is hidden in the back of a cluster of several sharp, stylishly angled brick buildings. It’s laid out, as befits Orange County’s ultra-militaristic outlook, like a pentagon, complete with an open ground zero in the middle. The bottom floor is occupied by all the hard-nosed people: the Sheriff, the Probation Office, and the State Board of “Equalization”. You have to climb some exterior stairs to get to the court offices on the second floor.

You saw the usual collection of people who police officers class as deadbeats: elderly men; a couple of diminuative Asians; young white guys wearing t-shirts; a clean-cut fellow in a black leather jacket with silver chains; and a woman with an red oriental character tattooed on the back of her neck who used the word “bogus” a lot.

Outside, green clad sheriffs deputies with chests plumped up like live Thanksgiving turkies gabbed in the parking lot reserved for their motorcycles and squad cars. I resisted the temptation to gun the engine and burn rubber in front of them: I wasn’t sure if the parking lot classed as a public street.