This piece is written by a student in Ruth Story's course in memoir writing, offered under the aegis of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Clemson University. The course focuses on helping students hone their writing skills while telling their life stories. These stories appear every Saturday.

The New Games weekend workshop in Chapel Hill was strenuous but fun. We had climbed walls, made human pyramids and run blind races. It was the late ’70s when cooperative rather than competitive games were thought to help children learn to work together. I had hit the road for home Sunday evening in my dirty jeans and tired bruised body driving as far as Gastonia before feeling myself falling asleep at the wheel. It was dark when I pulled into a rest stop, drove to the end of the parking area, locked my doors and reclined my seat back for a badly needed nap. Suddenly, I was shocked from my sleep with lights in my eyes and male voices yelling, “Open up. Get out of the car. Now.” I was too scared to move. They identified themselves as police officers, but their tone was anything but polite. I wouldn’t open the door. Flashlights examined my suitcase in the backseat, my Clemson sticker on the window while they demanded to know who I was, where I was from and where I’d been.

“To a New Games workshop,” I answered.

“Nude Games? She’s been to Nude Games,” roared one officer.

“Not nude games, New Games,” I corrected through a tiny opening in the window.

Again endless questioning came from the suspicious cops. I answered every one politely through the top of the window, which I had opened a crack, not far enough to stick a hand through. Finally one of the policemen explained that some of Gastonia’s finest ladies had been running a prostitution ring for truckers at this very rest stop. Naturally, when I pulled up and waited at the end of the parking area the officers on stake out decided I was one of them. He took his flashlight and carefully looked me over — head to bare feet. I looked so pitiful not even a trucker would want me.

“Lady, you can’t loiter here,” he said.

“Well, where can I loiter?” I asked.

The policemen looked like a bunch of Keystone Cops as they huddled together asking each other, “Where can she loiter?” Finally he returned to say, “It’s O.K. You can go back to sleep.”

“Are you kidding?” I replied. “The next guy may be a trucker.” They laughed as I drove off, no longer the slightest bit sleepy.

Driving down the highway I thought, “What if I had opened the door? Would I have been searched? Taken to the police department? Arrested? I could just imagine being allowed one phone call, making it to Ted and explaining, “Honey, I’ve just been arrested for prostitution in Gastonia.”

He wouldn’t have been surprised. I’m always getting into some kind of trouble.

Marcia Wallenius, a 40plus-years resident of Seneca, has worn many professional hats since her graduation from San Jose State University in California and from Clemson University. She has been a teacher, lecturer, recreational therapist, pastry chef, director of activity therapy and, at Clemson University, Associate Director of Student Development. Now retired, she appreciates having more time to hike and travel with her husband, to enjoy her family, and to paint, read, and write her life stories …