“Dad! You’re freaking me out!” Jadey cried as the speedometer just touched 90 miles per hour.

“Yep,” I growled through gritted teeth as I took my foot off the gas and eased it onto the brake pedal. I pushed harder until we started to quickly decelerate right up to the front of the convention center. Despite executing my stop in a completely safe manner, a handful of passersby scurried as if I were going to hit them. Jadey gasped in response.

“Dude, chill,” I shot back. “They’re like thirty feet away.”

I threw the car in park and quickly got out.

The older man was at least being complicit. He let the kid go and took a seat on the curb – not because we told him to, but because he was clearly overheated and needed the break. “He was cutting tires!” the old man puffed. “I saw him cutting tires!” “I’m sorry,” said the officer nearest him. “You caught him slashing your tires?” “No – not mine,” the old man snapped. “I was sitting in traffic and saw him with a blade over in that parking lot there. And I saw him cutting the tires. I got out of my car and went and grabbed him.

We hung around the Starbucks until local patrol cars showed up. One of them was a young cop I had helped with his application. A kid named Tyler – the nephew of a family friend.

“Hey, can I give you my statement later?” I asked Tyler. “I gotta get this one to school.”

In Jadey’s defense, she was being a rockstar. She hadn’t complained once and was actually doing an incredible job keeping the screaming drive-thru girl – several years older than her – calm and composed.

“Yeah, of course, Mr. Dayson,” Tyler said quickly.

It’s been a studied phenomenon for some time that when “times are good”, new and novel media reign. A boom of original content fed a growing pop culture engine from the early 80’s into the 90’s. Economic hopes and an end to the Cold War, perhaps. Studios were taking big risks and making original blockbusters galore. The works of Lucas and Spielberg in that era alone are an inspiring collection. Not to mention the nearly constant stream of big, ridiculous action flicks like Rambo, Red Dawn, Big Trouble in Little China, The Terminator, Die Hard, Con Air, and all the ensuing franchises.