Richard Noggin Saturday: Jon Gross

You probably don’t know him or ever heard of him, but I remember the dude so very well. It was Super Bowl Sunday, 1984. We were both in the Navy (both in the same company housed in a Wave Cage at the Electronics A School in Great Lakes, IL; a north Chicago subdivision that has a huge Navy base).

Jon’s brother was a DJ in Indiana and he invited us to a party that he was working at a bar that would be showing the Super Bowl that year. The party was great, but we both had duty the next day, so we struck out for the several hour drive to get back to base.

As we were traveling up the Interstate, Jon decided he was too drunk to drive and pulled over (yes, on the side of the Interstate). I saw that this was a problem, so I told him I would get us off the Interstate and to a decent place to rest.

We did switch seats, but I never drove the vehicle, since a Trooper pulled up behind us as we were preparing to move. It was cold as hell, too, so the car was running, altho it had not moved a millimeter since I got behind the wheel.

Anyway, the trooper asked me to get out and walk back to his car. I did and he began writing a ticket for illegal parking (a warning ticket) and was about to let me go.

So what does Jon do? He steps out of the passenger side, walks back to the cop car passenger window (where I was sitting), knocked on the window to get me to roll it down (I hesitated because I had an idea what was coming) and the cop motioned to roll it down.

Jon immediately began saying, “I wouldn’t let that son-of-a-bitch write me a ticket.” “You didn’t do anything wrong.” Etc, etc, etc

The Trooper grabbed the “warning ticket” back from me and wrote a DUI ticket… loaded us both up and took us to a cold, damp jail.

I spent the night freezing to death on a concrete bed.

After sobering up, Jon was allowed to make a call to his brother for him to bail us out.

As his brother was driving up with the funds, he was pulled over and was arrested, as well. It took the money he had to “them” both out and I was left for another 24 hours as Jon found even more funds to get me out.

Jon, bite my ass, you loud mouth.

Trooper cites pair for DUI in single traffic stop

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A Montana Highway Patrol trooper cited two men with drunken driving in one traffic stop. Trooper Darvin Mees stopped a suspected drunk driver Wednesday afternoon. While he had the driver out performing a field sobriety test, the passenger slid behind the wheel, started the truck and began to drive off.

Mees said he ran after the pickup and yelled at the driver to stop. He did.

Mees said the driver, a 24-year-old man and his passenger 22-year-old man, both failed field sobriety tests and were cited for drunken driving.

The traffic stop began with a bus driver’s report of a suspected drunken driver.