Mistaken Identity

It was a rainy raw day in LA yesterday, so I decided to skip the open air pool in favor of a trip to UCLA's Fowler Museum.



The Fowler, currently has some great photos from the mid 1970's of Iraq's Marsh Arabs. The Marsh Arabs, lived in the wetlands surrounding the Euphrates & Tigres Rivers in southern Iraq. They lived on islands made of compacted mud and reeds. Reeds formed the backbone of the Arabs lives. They were used to build their dwellings, feed their buffalo and woven into mats to be sold. Beginning in the 1980's, Saddam Hussien, undertook a campaign to drain the wetlands under the guise of development. In reality the campaign was designed to bring the Marsh Arabs under Hussein's control. The Marsh Arabs and their way of life were all but wiped out. Since 2003, efforts have been under way to rehabilitate the wetlands.

After I left the museum, I was sitting in my car checking my voice mail, when there was a tap on my window. When I looked up there where two uniformed parking enforcement officers standing in the rain.

"UCLA parking enforcement. We noticed you have a handicapped placard."
"Um, yeah"
"Can we see your registration for the placard."
Very confused, "Yeah, sure."
I produced the placard paperwork that I carry in my wallet.
"Can we see the placard."
I handed over the placard.
"Can we see your license. This should only take a minute."
I handed over my license.
After examining my documents, as he handed them back to me one of the officers said, "Well, this is anticlimactic."
The other officer then said, "Are you a student or faculty?"
"No, I was just at the museum."

That was then the end of the encounter. Bizarre. They must have thought I was Cade McNown.

McNown Also Had Parking Placard
LA Times, David Wharton, 7/17/99

Cade McNown, former UCLA All-American quarterback, briefly possessed a handicapped parking placard in 1997, apparently while he was fit enough to be practicing with the team.