I remember a little guy, skinny with folds of wavy blonde hair who, from his earliest years, wanted to be a policeman. He watched the old TV show 'CHiPS' religiously, though it was corny to the point I refused to watch, and wore the hand-sewn police uniform my first wife Lesa had made for him until he grew out of it. He patrolled the suburban/rural street he grew up on by riding his bike while in that uniform, noting unusual cars or people in the pocket notepad he carried. I still have a picture of that little boy and his younger brother standing beside the Ontario PD cruiser I drove back in 1981.
This evening, in a Cincinnati suburb, I will be pinning his sergeant's badge to his chest in front of his friends, family and co-workers.
That little boy with the blonde locks will become Sergeant Jeff Wolf, Goshen Township Police Department. Jeff, all six-foot-four of him, no longer looks up to this five-ten uncle, though he may disagree with that perception. He says I was the reason he wanted to become a police officer, that I set an example for him to follow. This man, in whom I still see that little boy, has set his own example, now trudging forward in the profession I left in 2013, leaving his own footprints for the next generation to follow.
I could not be prouder.
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