Don’t know why I feel the need to write this, but oh well.

So, it’s Winter Rush. I’m probably in my 5th year at GaTech (of 6… between changing majors, and doing a fair bit of co-op/interning, it took me a little while to escape with a degree), and it’s a quiet night. Randy and I are in my room just chilling, and it’s about 10:30 PM.

For some reason, I look over at Randy and say “You wanna go to Lookout Mountain?” (Note: Lookout Mountain is on the northwest side of Chattanooga, a good 2 hour drive from Atlanta).

Randy: “Why?”

“No reason.”

“Ok. Give me 30 minutes to go get my coat.”

That level of freedom is intoxicating. And it’s hard to replicate outside of College. So, Randy and I hop in his car, and we head north. After 2 hours of conversation about stuff, we make it to the top of lookout mountain, and park somewhere quasi-legally. We then walk around for a while, and go over a couple of low fences, and find a great overlook on to Chattanooga. Randy snaps a few photos, and we decide to head back to the car, not really sure what to do next.

Almost immediately after we clear the last fence (aka getting back into public property), we hear a voice yelling at us, trying to get our attention. Turns out to be a cop, asking if we’re trespassing (which we certainly had been, but not maliciously), and in general, seeing if we were up to anything.

Just to set the scene, it’s pretty cool on Lookout Mountain. Both Randy and I are bundled up in heavy coats, and we’ve both got our hands in our pockets.

We start to walk back towards the cop (who’s right beside Randy’s car), pretty nonchalantly. But there’s a car between us an the cop, and we walk around different sides of the car inadvertently. In retrospect, this wasn’t a good idea. From the cops perspective, we were splitting up to get a better ‘drop’ on him, and we could tell because he put his hand on his gun.

I hardly remember what we said to talk our way out of that, but eventually we convinced him we were just up there walking around (which we were) and that we hadn’t been trespassing (which we almost certainly were). The good news is that both Randy and I have a little bit of forethought, built off each other’s tale, keeping very close to the truth. This is very unlike some other fraternity brothers of mine who have NO sense of persuasion. Eventually he let us go without much hassle, and we drove straight back to Atlanta, rather than try to find something else to do, well after midnight, in Chattanooga.

But it was a good time.

Just don’t let the cops catch you.