Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Spokane police were exasperated while trying to enforce the city’s new jaywalking ordinance. One officer was stymied by a string of circumstances:

• First, he remonstrated with a woman who started across the intersection diagonally, by saying, “You really should go back and cut corners on the square.”

But she just kept coming toward him and then said, “But I just had to come this way.”

“Why?’

“Because I wanted to ask you a question,” she said sweetly.

The officer wasn’t sure if the law provided for such a circumstance, so he let her proceed.

• He then remonstrated with a man who refused to comply with his order to cross at the intersection. The man finally produced a pad and pencil and wrote, “I am a deaf mute.”

• Finally, he saw another offender and was ready to confront him when he realized it was an off-duty policeman. 

“For the love of Michael,” said the officer, at the end of his rope. “Doncha know better? Beat it.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1964: Martin Luther King Jr. received a Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, saying he accepted it “with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind.”