In the early 1970s, when Ron Moody was a state trooper and Dennis Pike a Farmington officer, Pike called Moody to ask if he could help serve a notice on a woman for prostitution.

“The telephone building in Farmington had guys working in there and they were changing some equipment, and I guess this girl who was from Brazil or Argentina was climbing up the fire escape and visiting the guys,” Moody said. “She was a big girl and (Pike) was just himself, his skinny little Barney Fife Dennis. He was afraid to go alone.”

So Moody, being a buddy – a buddy who would, of course, rib him about this three decades later – went with Pike.

“He went to her and said, ‘Look, I’ve got to serve you with this paper, because you’ve been visiting those guys.’ He was all prim and proper and he had his hat down over his eyes. She said, ‘OK,’ and she spoke broken English if I recall. She took his hat off and she did a little Mexican hat dance around his hat then put it back on his head. She was just having fun with him, teasing him. He was all rattled and flustered.”

“She was blessing it or something, I don’t know,” Moody said. “I had to get out of there because I was laughing.”

– Kathryn Skelton