Combat Driving

We see them every day, sometimes multiple times. We try to avoid them, not let them affect us as we go on about our business. They do, on occasion, become unavoidable.

Who are these people?

I call them 'combat drivers'. Law enforcement prefers the term 'aggressive drivers'.

You know who I'm talking about. The drivers, doing 85 miles per hour on the interstate, weaving in and out of traffic, cutting off other motorists and causing a chain-reaction of brakes lights. Sometimes, chain-reaction accidents, which is then the cause of a massive traffic jam.

Here's a few tips for urban/suburban drivers on how to deal with combat drivers, and how to avoid becoming one.

SLOW DOWN. No matter how pressing it is to get from point A to point B, the most important issue is to get there successfully. It isn't worth $125 out of your bank account and points on your driver's license, much less an accident.

PAY ATTENTION. This one can't be stressed enough, especially in this age of 'distracted driving'. Be aware of your surroundings, what other motorists are doing, and less concerned with changing the radio station or trying to fish the breath mints out of your purse or pocket. Foremost, PUT THE CELL PHONE DOWN. If you just have to check that text message, pull into a parking lot or off the roadway.

DON'T TAILGATE. Riding someone's bumper doesn't necessarily make them go faster, and it's a good way to be the cause of a rear-end accident. This isn't NASCAR, so the whole 'drafting' technique won't work.

TRAFFIC SIGNALS. They're there for a reason. A yellow light means 'prepare to stop', not 'floor it and beat that red light'.

STOP BARS. 'What are those?', you ask? They're those big, wide white lines at traffic signals and they, too, are there for a reason. Your front bumper should never extend past the stop bar. They are placed so that your vehicle sits where the under-pavement sensor knows you're there and will activate the 'left turn' signal at the traffic light. Pull past it and you are beyond the sensor, waiting for a light that will never change. Additionally, if you are past the stop bar, someone turning left from an intersecting roadway may clip the front end of your car and you will be at fault.

CHANGE LANES. If you're on a four-lane roadway and driving in the left lane just because it is a smoother ride, you WILL encounter a combat driver. The left lane is for passing. That's why you see big, white signs that say 'Slower Traffic Keep Right'. If cars are lined up behind you in the left lane, change lanes to the right lane so that those in your rear-view mirror don't transform into combat drivers by passing you on the right and giving you a one-finger salute as they roar by.

USE YOUR TURN SIGNALS. Especially when you change lanes. That lets the combat driver behind you know that you're getting out of his/her way so that they don't have to pass you on the right. ALWAYS check that there are no vehicles coming up on your right side before doing so. And, yes, this may actually require turning your head to look over your right shoulder. Don't solely depend on that right-side mirror.

USE YOUR MIRRORS. According to a study done by the University of Texas-Dallas, a driver should check their mirrors – right side, left side and rear view – every five seconds. It will help you avoid changing lanes into another motorist...and an increase in your insurance rates, points on your license and a hit to your wallet.

There are some unbelievably unconcerned drivers on our roadways - the lady applying her eye makeup using the rear view mirror, the guy with the newspaper spread across his steering wheel – all while navigating traffic on the interstate or city streets. They, too, are combat drivers because they have the potential to inflict casualties.

Slow down, relax and be a courteous driver. Law enforcement, your family, emergency services and your insurance provider will thank you for it.

As fictional Sergeant Phil Esterhaus used to say on the old TV show Hill Street Blues: “Let's be careful out there.”

Staring the Beast in the Face

The Beast is coming for me. Ever so slowly it advances towards me every day, almost leisurely...but still it comes. Constant. Unstoppable. It will arrive in a little over seven months and there is nothing I, or anyone else, can do about it. It doesn't pause, it doesn't hesitate, it doesn't sleep. It is on the horizon, shimmering in the distance, but it is there. Always advancing. Never, ever retreating. I cannot flee from it. It will follow me wherever I go, pursuing me.

It will overtake me. It will consume me, and I know the exact date when it will happen.

 The Beast has a name.

Sexagenarian.

Sixty. 6-0. Six decades on this earth.

How is that possible? It seems like, just yesterday evening, I was laying on the floor of our home on Hout Road watching my hero, Sergeant Saunders, and his band of G.I.s take on the German Army in the WW II television show 'Combat!' Or, the next night, following the exploits of Napoleon Solo and his sidekick Ilya Kuryakin as they saved the world from the forces of evil in the spy show 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.'; they were the small screen's answer to James Bond, corny as the production may have been.

And now, in less than eight months, I'll be 60 years old.

They say the older you get, the faster time goes by. It is a truth of life. According to noted author Phillip Yaffe, it is all about anticipation and reflection. In younger years we anticipate events: first day of school, first little league baseball game, first trip to that big, exciting amusement park. As we age, we tend to look back and reflect on events such as weddings, graduation of children from high school, or the death of relatives and friends. When a child is five years old, that fifth year is twenty per cent of their life; they have fewer memories on which to reflect. However, a person who is 80 has a lifetime to look back on. More memory space is consumed in that octogenarian brain. I heard one analogy that makes sense: time is like a roll of toilet paper; in the beginning it is full and big. However, through use, that roll gets smaller and smaller, makes faster revolutions as you get closer to the core.

Then it is gone.

I try not to think about age. As a matter of fact, in my mind I'm still that sixteen year old junior at Madison Comprehensive High School. I believe all of us have that perception in our minds. We're young!

Not so fast, says the body, I'm going to slap you with reality as soon as you get out of bed. And it does, through aches and pains brought on by a life of injuries, illness and wear. Life, particularly my former profession, has been hard on my body; dislocations, broken bones, disc herniations with a dash of rods and screws thrown in for good measure, a knee replacement and then repair of a worn-out part seven years later, the invasion of arthritis in both shoulders and hands, becoming diabetic....and, oh yeah, that whole renal carcinoma thing this past summer. That episode cost me part of a kidney.

But I am still here. I'd like to stay a little longer, too, if that's what the Good Lord has in mind.

Isn't it frustrating, when you get to be our age, to realize you can no longer do things you could five years ago? Or even last year? That has been my biggest obstacle, dealing with that particular issue. However, being older does have a few advantages. Friends and relatives don't call you to help move furniture every time they decide to change homes. You get discounts on certain days at restaurants. Occasionally, younger people are courteous enough to open doors for you...although, for me, I draw the line on that one. Unless I'm using a walker, crutches or wheel chair, I'll open my own doors.

Age also brings about retirement at some point; for me, it happened in August of 2013, due mainly to those aforementioned injuries. I had difficulty dealing with retirement shortly after it happened, as I think many people do; what am I going to do with my time? How will I handle this feeling of uselessness?

The answer? The passage of time.

With my working life in the rear-view mirror, I've found other activities to engage in...one of which is writing. I developed this growing passion for creating stories with words when I was in high school, which wasn't just yesterday. I first started writing seriously back in 1992, when I was placed on administrative leave by the Police Department after being involved in a shooting. It had been an off-the-cuff fictional work, a law enforcement story, done on a typewriter ( remember those? ) for stress relief. Believe me, being compelled to use deadly force on another human being is extremely stressful. Looking back on that piece...well, it wasn't very good, and ended up in the circular file after I was cleared to return to work. However, the hook had been set.

Now that I'm retired I have plenty of time to write, especially during the winter months. Apart from a book that I've been working on for a few years ( it sees light at the end of the literary tunnel ), I've produced several non-fiction pieces dealing with actual events that took place during my police career, involving both humor and drama. I do this mainly so that, ten or 15 years from now, I'll still be able to recall them through print. I've done fictional stories about another passion, too, that has been developed after retirement: the hobby of metal detecting. I got involved at the behest of my wife's brother, never imagining that it would become as important as it is to me. Now, when the weather and my schedule cooperate, I'm out scanning the ground somewhere, trying to recover history. I love history, particularly America's Civil War and World War Two. I've spent time on vacations and trips engaging in metal detecting, in places such as Charleston, South Carolina, where history abounds, Florida and North Carolina. My brother-in-law Steve and I just got back from a trip to the mountains of Virginia to hunt an old, abandoned plantation. My knee, back and shoulders are still complaining.

Ibuprofen, ice packs and the heating pad are becoming close friends of mine these days. It comes with the territory. That's OK, though, because I know several people my age who are in worse shape than me; unable to climb stairways, mow their own yard, shovel snow...mundane tasks that most people take for granted. I have a good friend who is an inspiration to me; a guy who lost both legs in a firefighting accident. Instead of brooding on his lot in life or feeling sorry for himself, this man has taken his attitude to higher ground. I never hear him complain, he always has a smile when I see him and he just has a fantastic attitude. When I catch myself complaining about my shoulders and hands aching, I think about Joe...and then I shut up. Things could always be worse, as my police pal John Fuller says.

Getting older is just a part of life. The best thing you can do, as far as I'm concerned, is just enjoy it to the fullest. Yes, it's a cliché, but that doesn't make it any less true. Get outside, find something that makes you happy and just roll with it. Try a new activity. Volunteer at the local animal shelter or participate in some sort of outreach program. Take a walk and reacquaint yourself with neighbors. Look up old friends you may have lost touch with and make a lunch date or go see a movie. There's a whole spectrum of things you can do or get involved in that can reinvigorate your body, mind and spirit, even something as simple as sitting under a tree and reading a good book.

Just don't stay in that recliner all day, staring at The Beast on the horizon.

Just relax.....with Candy Dulfer's smooth sax on a Monday evening, as she does Lily Was Here.

Gorgeous AND talented!

I'll be posting a new blog tomorrow.

Karmatic Justice

True story ( as best as I can recall ): Back in the early 90s, while working midnights at MPD, there was a mope in the north end of the city who was pretty much  the crack cocaine kingpin; this was before or early on in the time period where the Detroit and Chicago factions were starting to move in on local dealers. The drug task force had been chewing on this guy and his crew, as were the patrol officers, and had made significant strides in crippling his trade. We’ll call this scumbag ‘Doc’.

It was summer time, a warm night….a Sunday/Monday; there was nothing moving outside. We’d received a stolen car complaint a few hours earlier and, as luck would have it, the car was found…sitting in the middle of Bowman Street at Buckingham St, crossways and engine spewing steam. Somebody had run the crap out of it and left it abandoned. This was at about 0300 hours. Gary Foster, who is like a brother to me, was the officer assigned to the call; he was fairly new, maybe a couple years on the job. I was a Field Training Officer at the time, and had Joann Krausmann on board…she was driving this night. Gary was standing in the street waiting on a tow truck to arrive as we cruised up, and we stopped and chatted for a few moments, making a joke or insulting one another…typical cop stuff. I’d told Gary, “If you need anything, we’ll be in the area”, and he responded that he’d be OK as soon as the tow showed up.

As we pulled away, Joann turned east on Buckingham…and then BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!! , sounding like the gunshots were right outside our cruiser. Simultaneously, Gary starts screaming on the radio “ SHOTS FIRED SHOTS FIRED! 300, I’M BEING FIRED ON !! “. Joann whipped the cruiser around and we screeched to a halt beside the abandoned stolen car, which Gary was crouched behind, weapon drawn. Sirens seemed to be coming from every direction, and shortly there were about ten other police officers on scene….our guys, the sheriff’s department and the state patrol. Gary was OK…they’d missed him…but a little shook up; who wouldn’t be? Cruisers streamed through the neighborhood, searching for the suspect(s) who’d shot at Gary from the north, around the Bowman/Harker intersection. After 20-25 minutes or so, the search was called off…no sign of them anywhere.

As you’d expect, the incident initiated an intensive investigation and round of new policies; the detective bureau utilized their street contacts, searching for any information on whoever had shot at Gary. Patrol guys chatted up neighborhoods in the area, trying to get that one shred of intel to work with. Nothing.

Finally, somebody got something; METRICH had an informant ( they’re called ‘cooperating individuals’ now; ‘informant’ has a negative connotation ) who’d been told that the shooter was ‘Malcolm’ a young guy I’d had contact with a few times who was on the wrong side of the law. Malcolm had been instructed to shoot a policeman by Doc, in retaliation for all the heat that had been brought down on his little operation. I’m sure thousands of man-hours were expended by the Special investigative Bureau, METRICH and the Detective Bureau in order to expand on this information, but nothing concrete enough to take to the prosecutor’s office came out of it. Malcolm, budding drug trafficker that he was, would remain free.

Fast-forward a year, almost to the day Ptl. Gary Foster was shot at several times; afternoon shift receives a call of a shooting with a ‘man down’…somebody had been shot on Vale Avenue, which is the next intersection south on Bowman from the location of the night shift shooting. Officers arrived to discover a body laying in the yard of a home, the body having been shot multiple times. It was Malcolm. Investigation showed that two underage thuglets had tried to rob Malcolm of his dope, cash and jewelry, and had been shot in the process. Malcolm had tried to flee, staggered from the street and collapsed in the front yard of the house on Vale, succumbing to his wounds.

The address of the house whose yard Malcolm had collapsed in was 173.

Gary Foster’s badge number?

173.

You can’t make this stuff up.