On January 30, at exactly 2:28 p.m., I used my credit card to buy 1 hour and 10 minutes of parking time for $1.50 at a kiosk in downtown Salem. I budget very carefully and usually park in one of the free parkades around there. However, it was pouring down rain, and I spotted a spot right in front of the shop I needed to visit for one item Okay, it was See’s Candy Shop. I bought the gift but will admit to eating the free sample. A milk-chocolate Bordeaux. I charged the gift on the same credit card at 2:41 and immediately walked back out to my card to see a bright yellow envelope on my windshield. I had foolishly declined the option of having the kiosk spit out a paper receipt. Big mistake!
This is the photograph Officer Foster took. It was presented to me then I got to court. It is time-stamped 01/30/2026 02:42: 37. That would be 4-1/2 minutes after I paid. And that’s the kiosk. You can see the yellow ticket envelope and the kiosk thingy. $30. Nope.
Now, I have been the recipient of several tickets in the 68 years I have been behind the wheel of a good number of vehicles. The first vehicle was a green Dodge stick-shift pickup truck, learning to drive on dirt roads in Oklahoma. And no. I didn’t yet have a license.
Generally speaking, the tickets have been for speeding. My most recent one was in the red Subaru with two red kayaks strapped on top. Clearly, I was a sitting duck when I left the 80 mph speed limit across southern Idaho and failed to reduce my speed adequately when I crossed into the 55 mph limit on Hwy 22 in eastern Oregon. Maybe you know the feeling when you see the flashing red and blue lights in your rear-view mirror. I was guilty so I paid up.
This time, I was innocent and I wasn’t having it. I presented myself at the Municipal Courthouse, which is temporarily located in Keizer during the retrofitting of the downtown building.
The congenial clerk there said I could plead guilty and have the fine reduced to $15. I declined and was presented with option #2: Take it to court. I ticked box #2. I was offered a court date of March 30, two months out. I asked whether I would have to pay court costs or an increased fine should I be found guilty. No.
The temporary courtroom is a big room with temporary everything. Several of us offenders were present as were the respective officers. Officer Foster was charming young woman who stated her case first. Then, It was my turn. I presented her and his honor, a fine-looking man in my age group, with several pages of documentation. Not guilty.
I had several questions.
First, how did this happen? The probable reason was that I had made a typo when I tapped my license-plate number into the keypad on the kiosk keyboard.
So I asked whether I would have been able to see this had I opted for a printed receipt. “Yes.” Lesson learned.
But I also wanted to know what my next step should have been had I printed a receipt and noticed a typo. Answer: Start over and pay again!
It was a congenial gathering. All the officers present, his honor, and I chatted about this. Clearly, none of us liked the present system for parking downtown.
I guess the money for fixing the pot holes has to come from somewhere. As does the money to pay the parking officers.
I always advised students to choose a simple word rather than an impressive one they found in a thesaurus. (This was before Googling.) Nevertheless, I laughed at this one in the NY Times this morning: “the defenestrated secretary of homeland security.” I took a couple of years of Spanish in high school and I remembered that fenestra means window. So, she got thrown out the window. Perfect.
