Richard was all knowledgeable.   "Let me explain what these calls mean," said Richard. "Fourteen is the Westchester- Venice area.  Adam indicates that there are two officers in the vehicle.  If they said 14 L 45, it would mean that the police car had only one officer.  211 is the California Penal Code number for robbery, and Code 2 indicates that the police car should proceed with haste, but without red lights and siren. They may not want to tip the robbers off."
We all jumped in the car with our friend so that we could see real policemen in action.

This was the beginning. 

Throughout the ensuing weeks, Gary, and I rode with Richard, we observed the police on numerous calls.  Sometimes, they noticed us as well.  The police were not happy seeing Richard and his black and white and it wasn't long before he started receiving threats from "Los Angeles' finest."   Richard handled this well.  He took advantage of an "Earl Scheib's $19.95 special" and had his car painted light blue.

Interestingly enough, the blue car looked more like a police car than it did as a black and white.  Richard would often post a "hot sheet" on his dashboard.  A hot sheet was a list of stolen cars written on heavy brown paper, and all police cars seemed to have them on their dashes.   Current hot sheets were easy to come by. Richard discovered that all he had to do was walk into a police station and ask for one.

Richard and I would at times dress up in suits and answer a call.  We would make sure to get there before the real police.  Gary (who was younger than both of us) would sit in the back seat looking sullen
Richard would lean out the window and say "Did you call for a police car?" 
The people would answer, and then Richard would say something like.  "We are heading in to the station with a Juvenile.  A black and white should be here shortly.
On certain occasions Gary would say something like "Damn Cops."   One of us would respond with a "Shut up kid. You're in enough trouble already."

Richard was a ham radio operator, and was a member of the Bay City Radio Club.  It was not long before we had a number of people linked together by two way radio chasing police calls. 

The police quickly put a stop to this particular adventure.    They found out who most of us were and hauled us all in.  After a long talking to, and some not so very subtle threats, we decided that it might be safer to look for other ways to occupy our time.

Interestingly enough, the writers for Dragnet picked up on our activities and we were rather amused to see an episode based upon kids chasing police calls.   

We involved ourselves in other things. We read on the Road and Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouic.  In one of his books, he mentioned riding the freight trains.  Richard thought that this would be really fun.  He talked Gary into going with him on the Merchants Express to San Francisco.  Big mistake, it was a closed freight.  The only cars that you could ride on, were open gondola cars.  Gary and Richard almost froze to death.  We all discovered that riding freights wasn't near as exciting as reading about it in a Jack Kerouic book.

Richard was continually advancing new ideas.  "Hey Gary, what do you and Bill think about spelunking, cave exploration?" 

The big problem with spelunking was that there were not a lot of caves to explore around Los Angeles.   Gary heard that there were all sorts of abandoned mines by the Calico Ghost Ranch in Yermo California.  Richard and I both thought it would be a great place to practice cave exploring skills.  We soon discovered that our idea was not all that great.  It was too risky, even for us.  Abandoned mine shafts had deep pits, crumbling walls, and were scary.  We did, however, manage to find several miners lamps during our Yermo California foray.
Mine shafts were too dangerous, but we did discover that there were caves in Los Angeles.  The Los Angles Sewer and Storm Drain System. 

We first explored the Hyperion sewer tunnel.  It stretched 8 miles from Culver City to the Hyperion sewer treatment plant in El Segundo.  We explored it before it was completed and put into use.   

We started at first light, Gary and Richard led the way, and I followed.  Gary's older brother Russ accompanied us, but at the last moment, decided that he would wait in the car.  Sewer exploration was not his forte.'  The Sewer tunnel was a huge 12 foot diameter pipe.  We discovered that there was a manhole every two miles.  The pipe was straight, dark, and the walk was downright uneventful.  After 4 miles of monotonous progress, I volunteered to climb a ladder, go back and get their car. 

I returned for Richard's car and was greeted by a very irritated policeman driving away with Russ in the back seat.   

I yelled "Hey Wait!" 

Evidently someone had reported our entering the tunnel and alerted the authorities.  They hauled Russ and me down to the police station, and it took a lot of talking on my part to convince them that we were not doing anything bad.  Russ was visibly frightened and I was a bit worried myself until I overheard two officers saying "Who knows, they may have broken some law…"

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