That time I was arrested for Treason

From 1968 to 1971 when I was 13-16 years old, I was a street urchin in Orlando Florida.

I slept under bridges, in people's tool sheds or back porches (Florida Rooms), I ate at the mission or panhandled for a few quarters for food, sold pot by the joint so I could keep a little for myself. At some point I stole a lawn mower and started a little lawn mowing service, which actually made things pretty good for me.

This was the time of LBJ and Nixon, of street protests and underground newspapers.

Underground news papers were the internet of the 60s and 70s. Anyone could get published, you could say just about anything, writers like Dr. Dope (reviews of street drugs, dangers and benefits), earned nationwide attention. Comic characters like Mr. Natural (CO0) were distributed widely.

I was walking downtown by Eola Park when I saw a new underground newspaper being sold for nickles by some old guy whose name I no longer remember. I talked to him for a while and he offered to let me take over his job, sell three papers, keep one nickel. That sounded fair to me at the time, and I actually made quite a bit of steady money for several weeks.

Then one day I went back to the office on Amelia street to get more copies, and when I walked in I was grabbed, handcuffed and thrown into a side room with one chair and a really large guy in a suit.

For the next 3 hours I was physically intimidated by a guy who swore he was going to beat me to death if I didn't tell him what the plans were. The obvious question, "What plans?", was met with the obvious answer, "You know what plans!"

Meanwhile through the door I could hear crashing and hammering as the equipment to print the paper was destroyed, and angry shouts and screams as various friends of mine were questioned in a similar manner, I suppose.

At the end of that ordeal, the guy, who turned out to be Nixon's Secret Service, shoved a copy of the newspaper from a year earlier, in which one of the opinion letters advocated for the violent overthrow of the country if Nixon was elected. I explained that I had only been selling papers for a few weeks. They finally let me go, keeping my wallet with my few dollars and my ID.

But that was not really the end, I don't think. In the next two years I was stopped and "detained" by the Orange County Sheriffs about 30 times. By detained, I mean driven to the other side of town, relieved of all my possessions, shoved into a room with no furniture, and kept there for 12 hours or so. Then let loose with no explanation. Usually with just my shirt and pants, never with my shoes, and twice without my shirt. The detention center was about 8 miles from my usual haunts, and I generally had to hitchhike back to town, steal a pair of shoes, and try to start over again. Fortunately I learned not to carry my bedding or other items of minor value.

I assumed at the time that I was on a list, that the Sheriffs knew me, and hoped to catch me at something so they could look good to the Secret Service guys. Or maybe it was just my scrawny hippy look.

I think of this today when I am told I have privileges, or that cops are Nazis, or the President is Hitler. Because you see, there is one thing I carefully didn't mention because it seemed normal at the time. Each time I was stopped, me being a rail thin 15 year old kid, I was soundly beaten by the cops. Every time. Never resisted, usually while still handcuffed, and mostly body blows. Often threatened with homosexual rape, bent over a chair and my pants pulled down. Frequently spit upon and disparaged with every single name in the book, with a guy three times my size screaming right in my face.

Things are better. Calm the fuck down. Trump is no Hitler, he's not even a Nixon.

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