California Snapshots

The wife and I took a long lunch today to drop by our credit union and hand over our California tax refund check registered warrant/IOU in exchange for loan papers. Hadn’t planned on actually redeeming the thing until its October 2nd payable date, but the Barcelona trip ate up our reserves. Comes October 2nd, that IOU goes from “worthless” to “pay me a coupla grand” and our credit union will collect on it. Being a good credit union, they’ll pass on to us the interest earned. I kept a photocopy of the thing — perhaps someday I’ll show it to grandkids and talk about how California was the first domino to fall…

I’m not kidding — following the credit union episode we stopped by my grandma’s place and chatted with one of my uncles. He said that one of his buddies, a local Concord police officer, decided to retire today. Why? He’d stopped four young Mexican males in an unlicensed, unregistered car who’d driven through two stop signs right in front of him. It was clear they were completely unaware of traffic laws; they were all gawking at various sights. Sure enough, all four were undocumented recent immigrants, and they didn’t have insurance. Now, not only did they violate traffic laws, it’s also illegal under California state law to drive without insurance, not to mention driving an unregistered or (geez) unlicensed vehicle. So this officer had plenty of grounds to take them all in and confiscate the car. Instead, he was told that unless they’d hurt or robbed somebody, he had to let them go — because if he arrested them, Concord would have to deal with housing them in the jail and deporting them and the city can’t afford it right now. If they’d been documented/licensed/registered he’d have issued a ticket, of course. Instead, it’s catch-and-release.