Elected through Terror

Untitled Part 54

John didn't much care for the 'modern day conveniences' of city life. I was told he would give the city folk a bad time about all the things they had to endure, the hated parking meters was one of them. He said he did just fine without those, and the other contraptions city folk had to deal with.

For his birthday his friends had rounded up an old phone booth, a parking meter and a fireplug and put it on the entrance to his driveway just off Bake Oven Road. He left them up.

On one of my trips to the Ranch, I noted that he had left a car parked next to the fire hydrant. I gave him a ticket for parking too close to a fire hydrant and another for parking at an expired meter – I phonied them up, of course, so they weren't valid.

He enjoyed the prank, he said, but he wasn't too happy, at first, finding two tickets on his car – actually his wife's car (she had left it there and rode into town with a neighbor.)

That is a snapshot of John, no nonsense rancher. He was at that meeting in Antelope, that morning. When the Mayor had concluded his remarks and asked again for some of the City's citizens to take over, without success. He then said the meeting was adjourned.

There were a number of reporters there that morning and several questions were asked.

However, the best question was from John. He asked the Mayor, "Are you going to apologize to the citizens?"

The Mayor, taken aback by the question, said, 'no.' 'I haven't done anything to apologize to the citizens for,' he had just recently taken over the post (he was about the 4th or 5th Mayor since the Rajneesh took over the town and had not been there when they had.)

There was something else said by John that basically said that he believed the Rajneesh – as a people – owed the citizens an apology, but the Mayor made it clear he wasn't going to apologize.

One of the reporters was from a television station in Portland. She had a camera man with her and he had set up to cover the council – while she heard John's question, it hadn't been clearly recorded since the mike wasn't on him and the camera was pointed away.

As everyone was leaving, she approached John. She asked him to repeat the question. He said, no.

She was a pretty young lady and she tried using all her feminine wiles to coax him into asking the question on camera. She said that they didn't know he was going to ask it, so they hadn't been able to record him.

He said, no, I know how you people work. You ask a question and then you keep asking, I won't ask it again.

The young reporter was persistent, "all, I want is the question on camera, I promise you I won't ask anything else."

It took several long minutes of pleading, over 15 minutes as I remember, but she finally got him to agree.

I just stood back enjoying her maneuvering and working on this crusty ole rancher.

She said okay, what I am going to do is ask you what you said and you ask your question. She almost had him – almost – however, she said 'and then......'

John cut her off and said, see, I told you, you would do that I am not going to ask the question.

She pleaded a bit longer, but she had blown it and realized it.

I just stood back and smiled – we had seen a lot of her through the summer as her station recorded incidents about the Rajneesh, she looked over at me, by now, grinning from ear to ear and just gave that 'well I tried' smile, shook her head and they left.

Afterwards I joined the recently retired Mayor at City hall and took possession of the keys, paperwork and the weapons the Rajneesh had purchased with Antelope city funds. Can't remember how many sidearms, nor what they were, just remember the AR-15.

I thought to myself, why in the world would this little town need such fire power? Especially since they had plenty on the ranch. The one thing I did note was that they had returned everything, and from what I heard was they had not taken anything they shouldn't have.

I placed the boxes of files in the County Road Department's garage there in the city. (I called the County Judge and Road Master and had asked permission right after I received the call from the citizen.)

I placed the firearms in the trunk to take back and secure at our office as the citizens had requested. Later, at their request, I sold them at public auction and all the funds went back to the city.

I headed on down to the ranch and passed a few cars coming out of there. I passed one young man walking up the hill as I went down.

I drove through the 'city' which was now a ghost town. There were caretakers still on the property and they stayed there until the ranch was foreclosed on – there were not many of them and all they could do was maintain part of the facilities – they chose to work at Rajneesh's private area.

As I headed back up, I stopped and picked up the young man who was walking out. He was heading to Madras and then south. I gave him a ride to Antelope and then he went south towards Madras from there.

He told me that he had been at the ranch almost from the beginning. He had worked long and hard, 12 hour days - 7 days a week as most of them did, to help the commune build the facilities, planted crops and generally did whatever needed to be done.

I said, "Must be frustrating; you wasted four years of your life on the ranch, now it is nothing."

He said, what I had heard from some of the other members, "No, it wasn't a waste of time; I got to be near the Master and listen to him every day."

We talked some more as we drove to Antelope, one other thing that I remember him saying was that he didn't always understand what Rajneesh was saying. One day he would say one thing and the next something else that contradicted what he had said the previous day. "But, what he said was the truth at the time he said it."

I just shook my head.

Later that month I attend a Sheriff's conference. I related how the people of Antelope had appreciated my coming down and helping them.

One wise older Sheriff, said, (paraphrased) Art, it only takes "one oh no, to wipe out a hundred of those good job Sheriff."

He spoke from experience, and, now, so can I, he was correct.