Regrets? Yeah, BUT...

I read a quote once that said, 'Never regret the past; learn from it.' The problem is, sometimes those regrets don't surface for decades, long after we've made decisions that, at the time, seemed insignificant but may have consequences in the here and now.

Probably the biggest regret I have occurred in 1975; it happened soon after I graduated from high school.

Back then, the job market wasn't so hot. They were sparsely available but nothing you'd plan on making a career of. I hadn't done much planning for my future in the high school spring of that year, choosing instead to concentrate on baseball, enjoying the four study halls I had and goofing off with my buddies.

In other words, I coasted for most of my senior year. I only needed four credits to graduate and surely didn't apply myself, as I knew college wasn't for me. I'd had this burgeoning dream of making a career in law enforcement, but knew at the time I was still too young.

Graduation day came and went, and I remember thinking, "well, what now?"

I knew I needed to find a job, especially if I wanted to continue living at home; Dad had been abundantly clear on that point. Looking back all these decades later, I realize that he'd been teaching me a life lesson: nothing is free. If you want something, work for it. Stand on your own two feet.

I put in job applications all over the place....and I came up with a Plan B: if I didn't have a job by the end of June, I was enlisting in the United States Navy.

My junior year of Journalism (1974), I'd been assigned to attend a press conference in Columbus, as part of a state-wide high school journalism function, in which Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Chief of Naval Operations, was to speak. CNO, if you're not aware, is the top spot, all-commanding king of the hill for all things Navy. He was The Man. The only two people who out-ranked Zumwalt militarily were the Secretary of Defense and the President.

After his speech, which primarily outlined the Navy's capabilities at the time and morphed into career opportunities for those fresh out of school, Adm. Zumwalt took questions from some of us wanna-be journalists. Most were along the lines of 'what was the biggest ship you commanded in your career?'

I raised my hand. God of Navy pointed at me.

Though I can't recall the exact wording, my question concerned the Navy's ability to counter threats posed by Soviet naval forces globally. Admiral Zumwalt actually smiled, kept pointing, and announced to the crowd of students, "now that's a great question!"

His answer, which took a few minutes, is now a blur in my mind but CNO had planted a seed within me. I wanted to be a sailor.and see the world from the deck of a warship.

Alas, life gives us some twists and turns far beyond our ability to see them coming. Eight days before my self-imposed deadline I got a job installing seamless gutters for my brother-in-law's Dad at Wolf Plumbing and Heating. Less than a year after, I married my high school sweetheart, effectively killing my Navy dream.

Time went by, life evolved and I eventually became a police officer in 1979, spending portions of five decades wearing a badge until retiring in 2013.

To this day I regret not enlisting in the Navy and serving my country. However, if I'd have done that back in the summer of 1975, my life now would doubtless be drastically different. I wouldn't have my sons, I wouldn't have the grandchildren I now cherish, I wouldn't be living at Black Gold Homestead, I may have never gone into law enforcement and I wouldn't have my redheaded angel of a wife.

Though never serving Day One, I still love the United States Navy and carry a pang of regret for not having enlisted; however, I have to say, I've still been very, very blessed with this life that I have.

For that, I thank God above.

                                                      CNO Adm. Elmo Zumwalt

Find The Good

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship,support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty."

-President John Fitzgerald Kennedy

These, my friends, are the burden-bearing, price-paying and hardship-meeting times.

Our nation, even the world, has been staggered by the virus that originated in China, known by various names but what I'll call the Wuhan flu. Unwittingly or not, this oftimes-deadly affliction has raced across the globe like a gale-driven wildfire in the Hollywood hills. I say 'unwittingly or not' because there are those who believe the Chinese Communist government purposely released a lab-enhanced, weaponized pathogen into the world with the express purpose of taking down the global economy. I don't know if that is true, but it sure has been effective against ours here in the United States and the ChiComs aren't lacking in reasons for wanting to trash the most thriving economy in existence.

It has spurred other changes which by now we're all too familiar with: social distancing (which wasn't a term anyone had ever heard at this time last year), layoffs, bar and restaurant closures, loss of income, panic-buying of toilet tissue, water and hand sanitizer...and now the 'stay at home' directives across America. Those vary from state to state.

I'm perfectly fine with that last item. Not being much of a socializer nowadays, I prefer spending time in the woods or on abandoned properties with my metal detector; its great exercise and I usually hunt alone anyway.

Motivation for this entry, though, came in the form of an opinion piece I read at 0400 this morning, written by a gal who is "grieving the life that was."

Grieving. Great sorrow over loss.

Instead of fretting and worrying over this period we're all going through, I prefer another approach:

Finding the good in it.

Period. That's it. If you can't find at least one good thing resultant of these times, you're not looking hard enough....or you're taking a great deal for granted.

Being at home has given me more time with my redheaded angel of a wife. It's provided an opportunity to accomplish a few things here at Black Gold Homestead that would otherwise have been put off due to the 'distraction' of freedom to go other places and do other things. I'm saving money by not spending it. We prepped all our flower beds (we have a lot of them) for spring yesterday. I was able to re-mount a loft door on the back side of the barn and install a lock mechanism so it can't blow open again; with Stacy home, there was also someone here should I have fallen off the extension ladder...always a distinct possibility for yours truly. Sticks and small limbs got policed up and stacked for future pit fires. I even got to work on our future kitchen ceiling light, which will be made from the top half of an old door and adorned with six Mason jars as light globes. Let me tell you, it was a chore getting that heavy door down from the top half of the barn, where a previous owner in times past decided it should be used as loft flooring.

  Lockdown has also illustrated the importance of being prepared for an event of this magnitude. Not being hard-core 'preppers', we were, however, more ready to face this challenge than most others.

Loss of power, which would have cut electricity to our well pump and disabled our water supply? We have a generator and a cistern with an old-fashioned hand pump, plus we've always had several gallons of drinking water stored away. Food? Cupboards are stocked full, though we did venture out for meat and other freezer items. Heat and fuel? Plenty of nut coal for the stove (which we can also cook on) and all our fuel cans are full. Suffice it to say, too, that our home would be well-defended if society should happen to dissolve into pandemonium and lawlessness.

Stacy and I have been in contact with relatives more often than we normally would. Our one close-by neighbor, Kay, stopped yesterday while out for a walk and chatted, though at a safe distance. My bride and I even spent a little time out at our picnic table under the pergola, discussing projects we want to complete over the coming spring and summer.

Though my wife returns to work this morning (she's employed at a physician's office) there's still work to be done, and I'll enjoy doing it.

Because it is something good.

Another Of 'The Greatest Generation' Has Left Us

For over two years, I wrote a weekly column for the local newspaper that profiled area veterans from World War II, Korea and the Vietnam War. It gave me the opportunity to sit and talk with those patriot heroes for a few hours every week, time that I cherished as I took notes while they talked, time that often included laughter and, sadly, occasionally tears. I cannot comprehend what most of those men endured during combat in service to this great nation, but I will always have massive respect for them.

Yesterday, I received the terrible news that one of my veterans, Walter 'Nub' Kirkpatrick, had died at age 92. Nub was profiled in June of 2018. In his memory, here is his story and photos in their entirety.

Veteran: Walter Earl Kirkpatrick, age 91

Branch: United States Army

Service period: November 1945 to July 1947

For lifelong Butler resident Walter Kirkpatrick, enlistment in the United States Army was preferable to being drafted. “I was drafted, but if you enlisted you only had to serve eighteen months and that’s what I wanted to do”, he said. “So after three days I was given an honorable discharge and then I enlisted right away. That’s how I got overseas, I wanted to get out and see the world.”

That feat took some doing, though.

“I went and took my physical in March and failed it. I had a touch of pneumonia and they wouldn’t take me. I finally passed in November (of 1945).”

Walter grew up farming just outside of the southern Richland county village, working the family’s two hundred twenty-two acres with his father and 2 brothers. “The old home farm was a mile long; it went from Lemley Road and butted up against the Knox county line. We raised corn, wheat and oats; we never sold anything, we fed our beef cattle with it. When I was a freshman in high school I got into raising registered hogs, Black Poland Chinas, and at one time we had nearly 200 head of them.”

Five months after graduating from Butler High School and finally passing the Army’s physical, Kirkpatrick found himself boarding a train in Mansfield that would take him to Camp Crowder, Missouri for basic training.

“I tell you what, the old platoon sergeant (drill instructor) was a pretty robust guy. I’d work right with him doing push-ups, though. Working on the farm, I was pretty strong.” Walter had little trouble completing the four-month training, though he added there had been some excitement. “Somebody accidentally started a fire in the prairie grass while we were out on bivouac. We called it ‘buffalo grass’ and, boy, that stuff burned just like kindling. They had us out there fighting the fire, it went close to 300 acres, and we had to fight to stop it.”

Fort Monmouth, New Jersey was Kirkpatrick’s next stop, this time for training as a radio operator. “I didn’t like that at all. You had to type what came over the radio, it was in Morse code and it about drove me crazy. I told them (instructors) I didn’t think I could do it so they trained me to install field telephones instead. They’d give them to us in pieces and we had to (assemble) them. I got so dang good at it that, for the last month, they made me an instructor.”

Walter was able to come home for fifteen days on furlough after finishing at Fort Monmouth, then took another train ride to the west coast. “I can’t remember the name of the camp in California we went to”, he remarked, “but it was between ‘Frisco and San Diego. Then they put us on a Victory (cargo) ship, which was 1700 troops and our equipment, and I think we were overloaded. (Once at sea) we’d hit those waves and go way down, and water would come clear up over the ship and down the hatches, clear down to the second level.” Though he’d never experienced being aboard ship prior to that transport, the Butler native said he hadn’t been afraid. “I couldn’t swim, either; still can’t today”, he chuckled.

After first making port in Japan, (“we never got off the ship”, he said) Kirkpatrick and his fellow soldiers then headed south. “We went down through Corregidor in the Philippines and docked in Manila. Going into that (Manila harbor), you’d hear it (his ship) scrape if it swayed a little bit; it was scraping (against) sunken ships in the harbor.”

Disembarking, Walter remembered how hot the climate was. “In daytime, it was about 120 degrees and ninety at midnight. You’d sleep in shorts and a t-shirt and you always had mosquito nets (over the bunks). Malaria was bad over there. I never took the quinine pills (used to ward off malaria) but one guy, he took them and was kind of yellowish-looking. Mosquitos never did bother me.”

Once settled in the young soldier went to work, though not as a field telephone installer for the 4025^th Signal Corps.

“I was an electrician’s helper; we were building a new camp and needed electric wires strung. When we got done with that they needed somebody to do the plumbing work and nobody knew how to thread a pipe. I told them ‘I do’ because we’d done that on the farm and I was then the chief plumber. I did the latrines, showers, put water in the mess hall; I even ran water to a building they used as a dark room (for photograph development).”

Another military occupational shift soon followed. “I ran into a 2^nd Lieutenant I was friends with; he asked me about switching to the MPs (military police) and told me he could get me another stripe (in rank). That was on a Friday night and Monday morning I was an MP.” His unit was part of the 50^th Military Police Battalion.

Walter’s main duties were at the camp stockade, guarding military prisoners. “There was one man in there, he was a 1^st Lieutenant, and he’d got caught selling black-market gasoline. He told me, ‘I sent enough money home that I can live to be ninety and never have to work a day.’ He was still in there when I left to come home.”

Kirkpatrick remarked that only one prisoner had ever escaped from the stockade, his freedom lasting a mere half-hour. “That happened while I was off-duty”, he smiled.

The young Private First Class ended his tour with the Army and returned to Butler, working the family farm another ten years; during that time he met wife Margareta on a blind date, marrying the young lady in 1954. Walter then began working for the J.A. Reeder Lumber Company in the village, where he spent fifty years before retiring from the cabinet shop on March 31^st, 2007 at the age of eighty.

 Kirkpatrick served the village for twenty years on town council, was a Boy Scout troop leader, coached baseball and was a founding member of the Worthington Township Fire Department; he and brother Donald, a Korean War veteran, were honored during a ceremony on Memorial Day as honorary Veterans of the Year for the village. Walter and Marge, who have two sons, reside on the southeast end of Butler.

As for the promise of an extra stripe upon transferring to the military police while in the Philippines?

“I never did get it”, he remarked.

Walt, US Army, 1946

Nub in June of 2018

Overtaken By Events

Life happens. Most times, it's things beyond our control, outside our sphere of comfort and influence; events that, in some cases, could alter the rest of our lives and impact decisions in the near future or decades beyond.

We've had a run on those events lately.

For me personally it started back in November, on the day my wife underwent surgery to repair a heart valve. There is no more helpless feeling than seeing a wife or child suffer and then face a very serious medical procedure. In the end, my amazing bride bounced back very quickly and has been back to her old self for some time.

Stacy's mother, the inimitable 86-year-old Retta, has had a spate of health issues the last couple of years, resulting in two major surgical procedures. Mom's spirit and strong faith have seen her through, as she's currently rehabbing in an assisted living facility from the latest issue at the end of November. My wife, Retta's only daughter, spends time with her every day, leaving our home at 0730 for work and returning most nights around 8 pm.
`
Every day.

Joyce, my older sister, has been living with the daily pressures of caring for her husband David, who was stricken with sarcoidosis eighteen months or so back. Its a disease that attacks the lungs and is capable of spreading to other organs, such as the heart. Constant trips to doctors at the Cleveland Clinic and several hospitalizations filled their days, regardless of what the world was throwing at them, mindless of holidays or family events.

Tragically, it took my brother-in-law of nearly 48 years last month, less than three years after retiring from his job as a union plumber.

Oh, and Stacy and I became grandparents again, courtesy of my oldest son Travis and his fiancee Desiree. Raelynn Kay arrived on January 15th at around 1030 am, weighing in at five pounds and 10 ounces, just a little peanut considering her Daddy is a 6' 04" man and Momma is tall as well.

She arrived a couple of hours before we buried my sister's life-long husband and best friend.

Though feeling the need to, I won't apologize for not making a blog post in nearly 45 days.


I was just overtaken by events.

Once A Cop, Always A Cop

The old saying goes, "you can leave the job, but the job never leaves you." That truth has been proven to many a retired copper through decades past, and I have the feeling it will always be true.

It held so on Christmas Day.

As was on Christmas Eve, a thick fog blanketed the landscape early Christmas morning here at Black Gold Homestead. The heavy mist left anything exposed to the elements with a glistening sheen; sporadic hissing cut through the gray curtain every time a vehicle passed by, which wasn't often at all.

This Christmas morning, as is our tradition every year, Stacy and I leisurely enjoyed our cups of steaming Tim Horton's coffee, or 'black gold', as I like to call it, while lounging in the living room of our modest home, recalling the family gathering of the night before and the laughter that is always the main thread of such events. We have some rather fun relatives, you see.

Afterwards we readied ourselves to visit the one family member missing the night before; Stacy's mother was hospitalized with a gastric issue that will require surgery.

Leaving the house and heading west up the hill, past a harvested field of corn on the left and woods across from it, I saw a big, gray box laying in the ditch on the south side of the roadway, probably three hundred yards from our home. Turning to my bride, I remarked, "that's a commercial safe. Somebody's business got burglarized."

Turning around in our neighbor's drive, we traveled partially down the hill to where the safe was located. I activated the emergency flashers on our Jeep and got out.

The large box was laying door side down, its door, having been removed, was on the wet leaves beside it, the long door handle and round, electronic dial facing up. I punched in the number for the Sheriff's Office on my cell phone and notified dispatch of what we'd found.

"We'll have a deputy en route shortly. Will you be standing by?"

I advised the dispatcher I would not, explaining about my mother-in-law. "You can't miss it, though", I laughed. "It's pretty big."

We left.

Stacy and I returned home around 1 PM, noticing the safe and its door were gone. "Wonder what they used to haul it out of the ditch", I mused. That, as they say, would be that.

Or so I thought until around two o'clock this afternoon, when Detective Joe Rotuno knocked on my door.

Det, Rotuno explained that he was investigating a business burglary in his jurisdiction, Perkins Township in Sandusky, and that the business' safe had been found not far from our place.

"Yeah, I'm the guy who found it." I explained what had transpired on Christmas morning, adding that I was a retired police officer. I shook his hand and introduced myself, Joe's face split by a grin. Knowing he was dealing with a fellow copper made things seem more...familiar, for lack of a better term. Law enforcement is, indeed, a brotherhood.

Joe explained that, through watching the business' security video, a Little Caesar's pizza franchise in Perkins Twp had been broken into....at 0600 hrs on Christmas morning, a mere four hours before Stacy and I found the safe! The culprits, who'd been wearing masks, entered through the shop's drive-through window; all told, from time of entry to wheeling the safe out a rear door on a dolly, the obviously experienced thieves spent six minutes on the job. Figuring an hour's drive from Sandusky to Mansfield, they'd had to have used a van or small box truck, at the very least, to haul the safe to Richland county, and had worked on its door while traveling.

"Apparently, when Richland County recovered it, the safe still had some paperwork from our Little Caesar's in it; they called us and, when we checked the business, discovered the break-in", the detective remarked. "Otherwise we'd never have known where the safe was from."

We passed a few more minutes chatting, then Det.Rotuno moved on to our neighbor Kay's house. to see if she'd noticed anything unusual Christmas morning. I reclaimed my spot in the recliner as Roscoe, our pit bull, continued to doze on the couch; he'd lost interest in the stranger who'd knocked on the door once it was apparent Joe Rotuno wasn't there to kill me.

 Questions began running through my mind, along with a few scenarios.

Why would a safe crew travel from Sandusky to Mansfield after pulling a job? Were they local to this area? If so, why go all the way to Sandusky to snatch a safe? Could it be possible they were from somewhere south of Mansfield, and just found a remote spot on a foggy morning to dump the safe while passing through town? Why dump it where it would almost immediately be found, instead of, say, rolling it off a bridge into a river or creek?

My own personal conjecture? The mopes are professionals, definitely, though I can't imagine they'd get more than a few hundred bucks from a Little Caesar's. Why pick that spot? Had they scouted it beforehand? Could an ex-employee have been involved, maybe knowing how much might be in the safe in addition to knowing where it was located inside the store and that it wasn't secured to the floor? The criminals might be from this area; Lord knows Richland County has produced its fair share of safe-crackers...but why go all the way to Sandusky if that were true?

I caught myself halfway through trying to answer all those questions.

I'm retired. Let the next generation find those answers.

But I'll always have that cop's mindset, until the day I die...just like all my other retired brothers and sisters.

Back In Time With A Brother In Blue

Rotator cuff surgery is not a pleasant experience; just ask medically-retired former Mansfield Police Sergeant Keith Coleman.

Or me.

Keith's accumulated a variety of nicknames through the years, from Bubba to Biscuit to Keefus and plain old KC. He's a good-natured man with a hearty laugh, who now makes his way in this world as a registered nurse.

That's right, RN. After being forced to retire from law enforcement due to a rare blood condition, KC went back to college and earned a nursing degree. He's in the Oncology department at an area hospital, caring for patients requiring chemotherapy, among other things.

My old pal, an avid golfer, tore his left shoulder muscle swinging a golf club last summer and recently had it repaired; he's wearing a wedged sling on his left arm, one that holds his forearm away from his body so as to aid the repaired muscle's proper healing. I had the same procedure back in '17 on my right shoulder and it's no fun.

Getting old, you see, isn't for sissies.

Knowing he can't yet drive, I picked him up yesterday for an excursion to the city building and then lunch at Coney Island on the square. I figured I'd give his lovely wife  Lisa a little break from having KC under foot around the house as he recuperates.

We never made it to lunch.

The purpose of our trip to Mansfield's muni building was to visit with a few long-time friends not yet retired, folks we'd both worked with back in the day and hadn't seen for awhile.

I parked my GMC in the lower east lot at a metered space, immediately realizing I had absolutely no change with which to feed it. "Hey, the next one beside it has an hour and twenty-four minutes left on it", Keith observed, and so I maneuvered into that spot. Problem solved.

Not. Keith and I spent well over twice that amount of time wandering the halls of MPD.

Our first stop was the second floor where command staff offices are. The first thing I missed was seeing Nettie Ballard's always-smiling face behind the glass at the receptionist's desk. It also required an explanation of who we were and why we were there to the gal manning that post, as she had no idea of the years KC and I had put in at the police department.

Before it was said and done, we were in Assistant Chief Joe Petrycki's office, along with Chief Keith Porch, Captain Shari Robertson, Captain Doug Noblet, Lt. Jason Bammann and Lt. Mike Napier. Needless to say, stories, laughter and good-natured ribbing  were in abundance. A little pang of nostalgia began to faintly glow deep in my chest, much like the coals of a beginning fire in the heat stove that sits in my living room here at Black Gold Homestead. And, just as in the stove, it would eventually glow white-hot.

Shari, or 'Sis', as I call her, joined us as we moved from place to place, after Keith and I first made a stop in the radio rom. Lewanda Curry was the lone person the two of us knew in the communications center and, being her usual self, smilingly chided us for not bringing her an order of hot wings. Apparently Lew has moved on from the apple-pie-and-ice-cream she used to ask for when I was a patrol sergeant back in the mid-90s. She's one of those bubbly gals who can eat anything and not gain an ounce.

Next stop was the detective bureau, where we found Dave Scheurer, still plugging away as he nears retirement; then it was into the elevator to the first floor. Would we even know anyone there anymore?

Of course we would, as we invaded the sanctum known as the traffic bureau. Sgt. Paul Lumadue was in, dealing with the ever-present myriad of tasks and complaints over parking tickets and faulty meters. Shari then led us pair of dinosaurs through the brown, electronically-locked heavy steel door into the patrol bureau; this was where things got a little weird. Nearly every face roaming those halls was unbeknownst to us, though Shari made sure to introduce Keith and I and explain that we'd been sergeants back in the day. She got into the routine of asking each officer, as we were shaking hands with them, what their badge number was, then telling them mine had been 135 and KC's 139. Those kids' badges ranged anywhere from the mid-200s to 313, the newest guy on the department. Talk about feeling ancient...some of those folks hadn't been born yet when the two of us were driving patrol cars and locking up mopes.

We ran into Tony Tambasco, who still runs the crime lab and was always a part of our Pittsburgh hockey trip crews, and Cindy Reed, a lab technician Keith and I had both worked with who still loves to laugh. Even Sgt. Andy Boor, who I worked with on night shift, made an appearance and it was great seeing him after all these years.

Stopping in Capt. Doug Noblet's office (he's the patrol bureau commander now) to chat a little further, I was shocked to see a guy who'd been on my afternoon shift squad in the late 1990s, now-Lieutenant Chad Brubaker, one of the funniest guys I know. I say 'shocked' because Chad had undergone an extensive body transition since I'd last seen him and had lost probably sixty or 70 pounds. Chad's the day shift watch commander.

On the way back to tour where the old jail had been, I told Keith we had to make a swing through the locker room. I wondered aloud if the linoleum that had been on the floor back when he and I had lockers next to each other was still there; you see, KC once had his revolver go off (that's how long it's been, we were still carrying Smith and Wesson 686 wheel guns) as he checked the firing pin function, a routine all of us did prior to holstering and hitting the streets. The accidental discharge caused his bullet to gouge out a chunk of linoleum before it ricocheted into the ceiling at the far end of the locker room.

It was still there, that gouge, and I had KC pose for a picture with it. He's taken a lot of good-natured heat due to that incident over the years and I just couldn't pass up the photo op.

A little further down the hall and a sharp right turn took us into the cell area....or at least where they used to be. Part of the jail had been merged with Tony's crime lab; it's also where we found Jerry Botdorf. Jerry started out as a dispatcher/police aide way back when; he took the city's civil service test for the police department, finished very high and, for reasons that are still a mystery to me, was passed over. That had to be a crushing blow, but I'll say this: he sure bounced back much higher than those who rejected him. Jerry went on to spend a career in the Ohio State Highway Patrol, rising to the rank of Lieutenant before retiring, then was hired by the city to run its communications center. He's since transferred to the crime lab. "Less stress", he laughingly told us.

The rest of the old jail had been converted to a gym area; the big 16-man cell, the felony cell and the women's cell were all gone. Both individual cells were still standing, now securing equipment used by special operations, and the stark, dank drunk tank was still there, with its concrete cots and floor sloped to a center drain.

KC and I both posed for pictures with Shari in the jail control room, which used to be called the 'inner jail', then strolled back up the hallway into the roll call room, where we'd gather at the beginning of a shift to go over incident reports from the preceding two shifts and bulletins and memos from the second floor. It, too, had undergone a transformation of sorts. The bulletin board was still there but our open mail boxes had been replaced by individual metal ones which could be locked. A large-screen digital monitor was mounted on a wall behind a small, elevated platform where shift supervisors sit while reading the reports aloud.

Being in that room, where every shift of my time at Mansfield PD started, brought back a flood of memories: Brian Kerr, a muscular Marine, darting from his chair and flying across the room after the praying mantis we'd found on the brick wall in the police compound crawled up out of his styrofoam coffee cup....he was scared to death of bugs. All of the jokes now-retired Sgt. Jan Wendling told. Lt. Billy Howard's yearly fall admonishment to be careful driving on wet, leaf-covered roadways because they'd be just as slick as ice. Capt. Dan Brant's ninety-minute long roll calls. Being disgusted when a fellow officer sitting in front of me obviously hadn't showered before work, as she had a thick, sweaty dirt streak on the back of her neck. Another officer (male) who had an aversion to soap and water, generally smelling bad. Being able to smoke in roll call. I could go on, but maybe that'll be for another blog post.

The last stop on our trip down memory lane was on the 9th floor, in Safety Director Lori Cope's office. Lori, a few decades ago, was an auxiliary officer who came in and rode patrol with me; we've been friends ever since. She was hired by the police department and served 9 years, I believe, before being forced into early retirement due to injuries received in a cruiser accident.

KC and I cooled our heels as we waited for Lori to return from a late lunch...and it was worth the wait. The three of us chatted and shared memories, both good and not so good, for I don't know how long. All told, Keith and I spent over three tremendously nostalgic hours in the municipal building, staying so long that we decided to have lunch another day.

And I paid the traffic ticket for overtime parking that was waiting for me on the windshield of my truck.

With Capt. Shari Robertson

                                                  Keith pointing to the damage he caused

                                                    With Safety Director Lori Cope

You Want Frustration? Apply For Healthcare As A Retired Cop

I don't want to rant here....but I'm going to. For those who'd rather not read angry words today, feel free to navigate to another page where there's sunshine, butterflies, rainbows and unicorns, because there ain't gonna be any of that here.

Having turned sixty-three on the 27th of last month and being retired through Ohio Police and Fire Pension Fund, the time of year has come where decisions need to be made concerning healthcare coverage, with the current pre-Medicare enrollment period ending after December fifteenth.

Last year, OPF decided to opt out of providing affordable (emphasis on 'affordable') health coverage for its retired members, changing course to a third-party vendor.

It was, and apparently still is, a disaster...especially for those of us under age 65.

This third-party vendor, Aon, made available a very short list of health plans to me, all through Medical Mutual; I couldn't go out and find my own plan, which would have disqualified me for a $685 monthly stipend to help cover premium costs, nor could I enroll on my wife's plan, provided by her employer.

I paid $1313 every month for healthcare in 2019, aided by the OPF stipend, but the coverage was terrible. The yearly deductible is $6500, and not a single one of my current physicians is in network.

"But that $685 a month from OPF..." you say? Well, that has a cap. These last three months of 2019 took $3,939 directly out of my rather shallow pockets. I'm retired on total disability, you see, and secondary employment would endanger my pension, so getting another job isn't an option. Besides, my lower spine couldn't take the added demands.

Which brings us to today.

OPF changed its rules regarding the stipend this year, I'm sure due to the howling of us retired pre-Medicare coppers and hose-draggers. Now we can go out on the open market...but our outside plans must be compatible with those outlined in stipulations set forth by the (Un)Affordable Care Act back in 2008. As an aside, back when that went into effect, my monthly premiums more than doubled; you know, so you, I and every other working stiff could pay for the healthcare of those streaming across our borders illegally and those in our population that are able-bodied but refuse to find gainful employment, choosing rather to remain on the generational government dole.

My current health plan's premium will increase to over $1500 a month in 2020, a plan that I didn't use at all in 2019. Everything was out-of-pocket; doctor's visits and prescription drugs. I skimped on my scrips in order to make a supply last longer and only saw Doc Becker twice, both times a six-month checkup for my diabetes. Other ailments that popped up, which should have included seeing Doc Becker? Nahh...

So, as our last few days of searching for something that resembles a decent health insurance plan (which, like the aforementioned unicorns, doesn't exist) dwindles from days to hours to minutes, I pause to wonder where this madness will end; why, after giving 31 years of my life to serving the public and putting myself in harm's way for the good of the citizenry, I can't afford my yearly December checkup with my cancer specialist. Why I have to endure pain of varying degrees daily in my metal-reinforced lower spine, metal knee, shoulders and hands, all due to on-the-job injuries. Why I can't afford a nine hundred dollar invoice that comes with getting pain-relieving injections in those hands and shoulders. I have to sleep in my recliner nightly in order to sleep at all; can't sleep on my back or sides anymore.

It all just makes me want to throw up my hands and quit, stop the checkups and medication and take my chances. We all have a number attached to our lives, a number unbeknownst to us that, sooner or later, will come up.

The Good Lord willing, mine will be much later rather than sooner...provided He guides my bride and I to that unicorn healthcare plan.