Paxety Pages

 Anchor: ONE NORTH CAROLINA SHERIFF HAS A NEW TACTIC FOR FIGHTING CRIME - HE'S TAKING TO THE AIRWAVES.

(take nats up full - music - "Let's Go To The Fishing Hole" - the theme from the old Andy Griffith Show")

SOT - "THIS AIN'T MAYBERRY, AND I AIN'T ANDY. THIS IS SHERIFF GERALD HEGE."

 Gerald Hege. The sheriff of North Carolina's largest county, Davidson, my home county during my last sojourn in the Tarheel State. Even now I can visualize him dressed in his black fatigues with black combat boots and black hat. Graying hair and moustache. Mirrored sunglasses. Carrying a club.

 He drives a black car with no markings except a white spider web. The windows are solid black. His deputies drive cars and trucks with blacked-out windows. 

He's trying to be the toughest sheriff in the country. He enlisted the help of a Davidson County family to sew his prisoner's jail uniforms - black and white convict stripes. He painted the jail cells pink and added baby blue teddy bears.

 He's a Republican elected in a state that's still largely Democratic in its rural offices. Shortly after being elected, he learned that Secretary of State Rufus Edmiston was holding a party for fellow Democrats at a Davidson County lakeside resort. Hege set up a DWI checkpoint - and caught a number of prominent Democrats.

 I ran into Hege and his troops one night just outside of the town of Thomasville. I had been to the local grocery store, didn't find what I wanted, and was headed the back way to the Harris Teeter in High Point.

 I rounded a curve and there it was - one of his infamous DWI roadblocks. Black-booted deputies wearing mirrored sunglasses - at night - strutted between banks of bright lights. Drug dogs sniffed around the stopped cars. Sheriff Hege stood to the side, arms folded, Billy club hanging from his belt - supervising - glaring - protecting his citizens from criminals.

 Understand that I had been back in North Carolina for several months and had not yet gotten around to changing my Florida plates and driver's license. Florida - the state of drug dealers. I was certain I would soon be looking at a baby blue teddy bear staring back from a pink wall.

 I drove up to a deputy - his sunglasses blazing.

 "Where you headed?" My mind added "Boy" at the end of the sentence.

 "High Point," I answered.

 "Lemme see your drybin' licenses."

 I handed "them" over trying not to shake.

 "Florida," he shouted. "We ain't worried 'bout you. Git."

 I got. And I agree with the sheriff - Davidson County ain't Mayberry.

(Photos of Sheriff Hege in action are here.)