I’d like to first introduce ourselves as the Groom and Bride, I’m Matthew Watson and my lovely bride is Laurina Lopez, I’m originally from Virginia Beach and I’m a Norfolk Police Officer and she is from the City of Franklin and she’s a Firefighter. To get some facts straight the wedding was at 1100am with a small family reception at Kelly’s shortly after.
A number of my Family members came out to tickets for parking in the wrong direction, not the worst thing to ever happen but again slightly ridiculous. The writer of said tickets was your own Police Chief and he unfortunately received an ass chewing from my lovely wife. I have many problems with the tickets. First of all the tags on the vehicles should be run before you write the tickets to make sure everything is up to date and the cars are not stolen — the first clue should have been that everybody was from out of town. How hard would it be to figure that out and come in and say something? You would have easily found me with the wedding party and the whole family would have been thankful and moved the cars and probably invited you to eat with us, as we would do for any Police Officer or Firefighter — we always treat you as family. Or, you may have found me at the bar with a glass of whiskey which, every Memorial weekend, I traditionally leave along with a list of personal coworkers who have died in the line of duty; this year marks 14 names of Men and Women on that list, which ironically, I was probably in the process of writing while the Chief was writing parking tickets for my family.
We were just trying to enjoy a meal together after a wedding.
Not to be a spoiled sport, the fines were paid immediately, and the Chief got to see my lovely wife’s temper ( better you than me) and we enjoyed the rest of our weekend and I could care less about the Town’s chicken sh(radio edit) way of harassing and making a profit on out of town people who don’t know any better. By the way we bought some property on Tazewell a few days before the wedding so thank you for the welcome to the neighborhood, we definitely won’t forget it.