Heart Attack? No Thanks...But I Had One Anyway

 

Three times now, my wife Stacy and I have had one of those "wait, that only happens to other people" moments; the first was in 2012, when medical staff at Columbus' Riverside Hospital told us that she had a massive blood clot on her brain and would undergo emergency surgery, her neurosurgeon telling us he didn't know why Stacy wasn't comatose already.

The second was April of 2015, when my personal physician informed me that I'd be losing a kidney because I had small-cell renal carcinoma. As it turned out, I kept half the kidney and didn't require chemotherapy or radiation treatments afterwards.

The third was Thursday night.

Ask anyone in my family and they'll tell you I'm a pretty stubborn guy. Good-natured, honest as the day is long...but stubborn. I get it from my Dad. Well, that stubborn streak could have been my undoing.

A week ago this past Wednesday (October 21st for those keeping score at home) I started having a weird feeling in my chest. It wasn't pain or pressure, just weirdness that was discomforting. As my wife was babysitting our granddaughter Mila on the other side of town, I texted her this information, adding that I didn't want to alarm her, just wanted her to know. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, I still had very mild discomfort but less than what I felt at its onset. Sunday evening it got a little worse, but there was no way I was going to the emergency room. "It'll pass", I thought, "probably pulled a muscle in my chest filling the coal stove." The next three days were uneventful but the feeling never quite went away. 

Then came Thursday, when it started bothering me worse than ever; so much so that I called Doc Becker's office. Her advice? "Go to the ER."

It was the last thing I wanted to do, believe me. I was sure I was probably having an angina attack and most definitely would catch the China virus waiting to be seen in a room full of sick people. Unbelievably, when I arrived, there was exactly one other person waiting to be examined. Ten minutes later I was in an exam room.

When the Doc came in, I told him my symptoms and that I probably had a pulled chest muscle. He ordered an EKG and bloodwork; the electrocardiogram came back normal. The blood work did not. Apparently there's an enzyme that becomes elevated during a cardiac event; the normal range is 45 and below.

Mine was over 1900.

"We're going to admit you and you'll most likely undergo a heart catheterization on Friday", he'd said.

I CAN'T DO THAT! MY WIFE DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO RUN THE COAL STOVE! I raged in my mind. Stacy, being a self-imagined pioneer-woman, thought otherwise. "When I get home I'll call you, and you can walk me through it."

Coal stoves get hot. Very hot. The first time I emptied the ash pan this year I burned a finger, right through the thick welding gloves I use when handling it. Its nearly healed now but, boy, did it blister up. The thought of my angel trying to handle the hot ash pan scared me to death, let alone the thought of her trying to fill the stove, which requires lifting a 40-lb, 5-gallon bucket of the nut coal we use to chest-level to reach the top-fill chute...all while trying to avoid touching the cast-iron stove.

Stacy stayed with me until I got settled into my room in cardiac step down and my hairy chest was mottled with those very sticky tabs used with heart monitors. I knew that, when I was discharged, those would be painful to remove (and I wasn't wrong).

The night passed uneventfully, though sleeplessly, as it seemed a nurse would come in every half hour to do something or other; blood draws were frequent, I imagine to keep an eye on that pesky enzyme level. I also was outfitted with an IV port in my hand, through which dripped two different kinds of blood thinners.

Then came Friday and the heart cath. I was disappointed to find I wasn't scheduled until 3 PM; I'd hoped it would be much earlier, say around nine or so, hoping I'd get discharged afterwards.

3 o'clock came and went. Then four PM. Then 5 PM. They finally came for me at 5:30. It seems they schedule outpatient heart catheterizations first, and there'd been an emergency procedure to boot. 

The staff in the cath lab were very efficient, to say the least, working in concert to prep me for the procedure. The catheter was inserted through an artery in my wrist; though uncomfortable, it wasn't really painful, due in part to the microgram or two of fentanyl I'd unknowingly been given.

In what seemed only minutes, the procedure was completed. The attending physician informed me that he'd removed a blood clot, inflated a balloon and then inserted a stent, to keep the affected artery open, and that all the other arteries around my heart looked very good. Great news, to be sure, but I'd be staying another night.

All told, the hospital stay wasn't a bad experience; the worst part is both the short-term and long-term restrictions, such as not exerting myself or lifting anything more that 5 pounds in weight for a week, not being able to drive until Monday and adjusting what I eat and how I exercise.

I'd planned on mowing today. Didn't happen.

And my lovely wife will continue to tend to the coal stove for the next week...which drives me insane.

Paratroopers, Fire Ants and Birthday Cake

 I remember a time when fire ants being in the southern border states was big news. These tiny insects were supposed to be killers, attacking their victims in swarms and causing intense pain to go along with massive swelling of the airway, literally choking people to death.

A few decades later, they're still with us in the southlands as more of a nuisance than anything else. I personally found that out four weeks ago while in South Carolina for my mother's 85th birthday. 

Stacy and I traveled the roughly 550 miles from our home to the town of  Easley on a sunny Sunday, preferring the mostly four-lane route of U.S. 23 over the combat-driving of interstate highways; its very scenic, affording the opportunity to see backroads America during the journey through southern Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina before hitting I-85 outside Greenville, SC for a whopping ten miles.

To say my mom Betty was glad to see us is an understatement. Leaving at 0515 that day, we walked though her door around 2:30 in the afternoon to find my brother Jim and sister Chris already at mom's place. As I knew she would, Mom had fixed a spread of food fit for a king, including (but not limited to) meat loaf, mashed potatoes, broccoli, corn, potato salad, sweet potato casserole and more.

I'm working on losing the six pounds I gained that week. Nobody cooks like Mama.

During the week we were there, Mom, Stacy and I (my siblings aren't retired like I am) toured second-hand stores and antique shops, something we all like to do. Mom is a real bargain hunter; you should see the cherry armoire she owns...that she got for five bucks! It at one time had a big scratch on the side, which Mom fixed with one of those wood-scratch filler pens to the extent its nearly impossible to see, unless you know exactly where to look.

I turned one of our antique-seeking excursions into a historical field trip. Forming the plan in mind, I located a very large antique store (three floors' worth) using the internet in the little town of Toccoa, Georgia, about sixty miles from my mother's home. The antique store, located in beautifully quaint downtown Toccoa, was lodged in one of those old-time department stores, complete with an elevator right out of the late 1940s. It took us a full two hours to see all they had, which in turn produced our antique wooden ironing board. Stacy's intending to turn it into something crafty-ish.

We loaded up in my wife's Jeep Laredo, I punched in 'Camp Toccoa' on my phone's mapping app and, ten minutes later, we were at the gates of the former World War II US Army paratrooper training facility, its significance largely lost to society save for those of us who remember and honor those who sacrificed so much.

Camp Toccoa, you see, sits at the base of Currahee mountain...and was home to thousands of men training to become paratroopers during World War II. If you're a 'Band of Brothers' fan you know where I'm talking about. Dick Winters, Bull Randleman, Lewis Nixon, Carwood Lipton and a host of others from Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment walked, ran and marched over the grounds of Toccoa. Several other PIRs trained there but, thanks to the HBO miniseries which aired in 2001, the 506th is the most storied and well known.

While Mom and my wife waited in the car (they weren't nearly as excited as I was about being there), I stood for a moment beneath the overhead gate banner, my mind trying to envision this place in 1943. Most of the original buildings are long gone, with several mock-ups standing in their place, save for one original barracks building which housed a small museum. Three Harley motorcycles were parked outside, along with a SUV; inside I met the three riders, all Gulf War veterans, and I thanked them for their service. I also met George Smith, curator of the museum, who showed me several displays and explained their meaning.

I mentioned to George that I am a very serious metal detectorist and that I would love to detect the grounds of what remains of Camp Toccoa, adding that, if that were to happen, I'd gladly donate any significant finds to the museum. George told me he'd take it up with the camp's board of directors, but believed I'd be given permission to hunt the grounds. I'm waiting to hear back from him. George told me that the "TV guys" from the old metal detecting show 'Diggers' had detected Camp Toccoa ten years ago and that they'd concentrated mainly on the old rifle range.

I was beside myself with excitement when I got back to the car, an excitement that was lost on the two most important women in my life. "That's nice, honey" was all my smiling wife said, knowing how much I love both the hobby and WW II history.

Then came the second part of our visit, one that got more of a rise out of Mom and Stacy.

We drove the Colonel Bob Sink trail to the top of Currahee. Sink was the original commanding officer of the 506th PIR, portrayed in B of B by retired Marine Captain Dale Dye. A gruff, no nonsense officer.

The trail was no nonsense, too. To say it was in dire need of repair is a massive understatement. The first third of the way wasn't too bad, but the higher we went the worse the trail became. Large gullies from rainwater run-off  made very slow speed a life-or-death necessity, as there were, in places, large drop-offs on the downhill side of the trail. It wasn't actually a road; rather, it became more of a path. Suffice it to say that we wouldn't have made it to the top of the mountain without our 4-wheel drive Jeep.

The view from the top, though, was breathtaking.

Trekking back down was uneventful, being that I knew what to expect; near the bottom of the mountain a Toyota Camry, occupied by two teenage-looking girls, passed us headed up. I thought briefly about flagging them down and warning about the very rough terrain but I didn't. Sometimes people just have to find things out for themselves.

The next day, thanks to a tip from Mike at @digginhistorysc on Instagram, I ventured to Greenville's south side to the old Donaldson Army Air Corps base, its runways now used by a small commercial airport. During WW II, the Army trained B-24 air crews at Donaldson but, much as at Camp Toccoa, all the original barracks were gone. The area was now just one large, open field, save for the few stubby, cracked and weathered concrete piers poking out of the ground here and there.

It wasn't long before I was painfully reminded about the fire ants. I'd been too engrossed in swinging the coil, listening to the staccato of multi-tonal feedback through my headphones, to notice the many, many small, red mounds of dirt or the smallish but fierce insects swarming around them. They made their presence known when I sat on the ground to use my pinpointer in a hole I'd just opened up.

Wearing denim shorts had been a mistake.

Almost simultaneously, as if a signal had been given, the twenty or so ants started biting/stinging their way up my lower legs and it took a good five minutes to get them off me. Angry red welts soon appeared, accompanied by persistent, though tolerable, pain. I continued metal detecting but now took note of the mounds of earth, careful to avoid by a good five feet sitting near them.

Lesson learned, the hard way. Weeks later as I write this, I still have one small scab on the inside of my right lower leg to remind me of the encounter.

Then came Saturday and Mom's 85th birthday party, held at my sister Chris and her awesome husband Dan's home outside of Cowpens, SC. In conversation with my siblings, we'd discovered that this had been the first time Mom had all four of her children together for a happy occasion in quite some time. The last had been when Dad died on October 6th, 2014, and again in January of this year when my older sister's husband David passed away..

With much great food followed by birthday cake, all of us thoroughly enjoyed being together, reveling in an assortment of stories and memories from childhood, though, in my recollection, there'd been a few embellishment of facts, resulting in me being more of a rascal than I thought I was.

Stacy and I headed homeward the next day, joyous in returning to Black Gold Homestead and our doggie Roscoe but saddened that our time in South Carolina had come to an end. Many memories were made that week, ones that I'll fondly recall as I venture further into my golden years.

Except for the dang fire ants.

From top: Camp Toccoa, Mom on her birthday, the view from Currahee Mountain and the old Donaldson Army Air Corps base.

Real-Life Hero? He'll Never Say That

 "What's going on, fat boy?"

That was how Bob Mack greeted me earlier this week. With friends like that, who needs friends, right?

We both laughed. The burley, aging and former detective with the sheriff's office smiled beneath his snow-white Fu-manchu mustache. The good-natured insult was Bob's way of expressing happiness at seeing a long-time friend he hadn't encountered in well over 18 months.

I first met Bob probably fifteen years ago, though I don't recall the exact circumstance under which we'd encountered one another...I'd guess it was at a crime scene involving both deputies and city coppers. I DO remember my first impression: gruff, gravel-voiced and unapproachable.

I was wrong on that last item. He's one of the friendliest people I've ever met.

Mack worked some big cases over his 21 years at the sheriff's office, eighteen of which were in the detective bureau, and he seemed to know all the sketchy players on the wrong side of the law, particularly in the county's Little Appalachia area; folks with family lineage traceable to Kentucky and West Virginia. He was a wealth of information if you needed to know about burglars, thieves, dope-slingers and safe-crackers and I used his knowledge on more than a few occasions.

It wasn't until early 2017, though, that I really got to know this man, a handful years after we'd both retired.

Military veterans have always garnered massive respect on my part and I'd turned that interest into a writing project, interviewing local people who'd served in our armed forces and telling their stories in the local newspaper and social media.

Bob had served during the Vietnam war; I approached him about doing an article and he agreed, so we set a time for an in-home interview. When that day arrived I saw a totally different side of  the man, one I'd never known before.

Bob Mack is a war hero. A combat-tested, twice wounded, decorated Army Ranger.

He'd grown up in Florida, he'd told me, and had wanted to do something 'new and exciting'...like any other 18-year-old...so Bob joined the United States Army during the nation's early involvement in southeast Asia. He'd gone through basic training, advanced infantry training, jump school (parachute) and then ranger school.

For the uninitiated, ranger school is a very, very tough course; only 40% of those who start the training become rangers.

I spent two and a half hours with Bob, sitting at his kitchen table and listening to his story of service, of how he'd been promoted to sergeant and been assigned a 12-man LRRP (long-range reconnaissance patrol, pronounced 'lurp' in army slang) unit.

I listened to his stories of combat, of losing close friends, of being scared out of his mind. Out of respect for the man, I'll leave out details he'd confided and asked not to be printed. I'll just say that tears were shed by both of us. A lot of them. Bob told me things even his wife of over 30 years doesn't know to this day.

Suffice it to say Mack earned his Silver Star, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts. He shed blood for his country to the extent that he was sent stateside for medical care and treatment. He still has scars, both physical and mental, that will be with him for the rest of his days on this earth.

He thanked me for listening that day. To say I was humbled is a gross understatement.

These days Bob spends his summers in Ohio and winters at his place in Florida, doing a lot of fishing while we of the northlands shovel snow and pray for an early spring.

He earned that, too.

We're having breakfast next week sometime, as he's headed back to Florida the end of this month; we really couldn't sit and talk during our meeting at the Lexington soccer fields, as we both had grandkids to watch practice. I look forward to catching up with him and hearing how his battle with cancer has progressed. So far he's fared pretty well.

And, for the record, I weigh two hundred and eight pounds, down from 243 in 2018. 'Fat Boy', he'd called me....  

Bob's story can be found here: https://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/story/life/people/veterans/2017/05/26/157-veterans-story/348663001/

What's Happened Since August 4th, 2013?

I know what you're thinking. "What's so special about 08/04/13?"

Pro football Hall of Famer and World War II Marine veteran Art Donovan died on that date. Oh, and Barack Hussein Obama (formerly known as Barry Soetoro) turned fifty-two back then.

"That's it?"

Yeah...and I retired as a copper. I first put on a badge in September of 1979; a series of injuries and surgeries plagued my career, which spanned five decades. One of those surgeries, involving metal rods, screws and my lower spine, forced me out of the job from 1999 to 2002, when I went back to work as a police officer against the wishes of Dr. Timperman, my surgeon. I'd later have a knee replaced in 2005, after a mishap at the Lexington PD pistol range (no, I didn't shoot myself) pretty much destroyed an already fragile joint. I went back to work after that one, too, defying the strong advice of ortho surgeon Dr. Jay Guth, who'd suggested I think about retiring. Problem was, I wasn't ready to call it quits.

I talked him into letting me go back to the job I loved.

I worked right up until February 14th of 2013, which was the last time I took off my uniform; I'd started having issues with the artificial joint and, according to Dr. Jay and a few medical tests, I'd worn out a part of the joint which had to be replaced.

"That's it", the affable doc and personal friend had told me after surgery, "you're done. I'm not signing off on the knee again." Jay and I had known each other outside of the medical realm, having coached travel-league baseball against each other.

Grudgingly, I put in papers for disability retirement; it was granted a few weeks before I officially retired on August 4th of 2013. I chose that date because, in 1984, that was the day I'd been sworn in at Mansfield PD, alongside Chuck Norris, Dave Nirode and Chris Brunk. Since then I've always felt a part of that particular brotherhood, and still do to this day.

Since retirement, seven years ago today, life has continued onward in ways I never could have envisioned, leaving me with some great and not-so-great experiences...and yet another scar on this body that already resembles a road map.

In 2014 I went to a place I'd always dreamed of: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Having a keen love of WW II history, I was able to go to the place where it all started for the United States; I got goose bumps standing on the deck of the USS Arizona memorial, above the sacred resting place of over 1,100 sailors and Marines still entombed in the sunken hulk of the ship.

That trip was courtesy of my oldest stepson, Cory Prater, who was stationed at Hickam Air Force Base while serving in the Air Force. Stacy and I had gone to see him and got the grand Oahu tour during the whirlwind two weeks we were there.

Less than two weeks after we returned I lost my 88-year-old Dad.

Seven months later I was diagnosed with kidney cancer, which had been discovered through a fluke chest x-ray, which had caught the upper part of my left kidney. June 30th, 2015, I lost half of that organ, but it had been discovered so early that I didn't require chemotherapy or radiation treatments. I get checked once a year...so far, so good.

I've gained two daughters-in-law and two grandbabies, who are my pride and joy. We love our children, but I'm here to tell you that grandchildren kicks that love up another notch.

There's nothing like it. Nothing.

Stacy and I sold our house, which I'd called 'Ram Field Ranch' because of its close proximity to Madison's football field, and bought our current place, 'Black Gold Homestead.' There's no oil in the ground here, but Tim Horton's black gold coffee flows through the coffee maker every morning.

My wife had heart valve repair surgery, a procedure in which they had to separate her sternum and stop her heart while it was being fixed. There was a lot of hard praying being done by yours truly. For weeks after she returned home, friends and family brought us an almost endless supply of pre-cooked meals; it got to the point where we had to ask that some meal deliveries be delayed because we couldn't fit anything else into our refrigerator. Stacy and I are richly blessed with the friends we have and will forever be in their debt.

On June 6th of this year I lost my wonderful mother-in-law, Retta Mellick, who I referred to as my 'Ohio mom', as my mother lives in South Carolina. Miss Retta, one of the strongest Christians I've ever known, was a loving, caring soul who never met a stranger. I miss her dearly and think of her quick wit and sense of humor often.

Sadly, I've lost some of the fine men I'd worked with through the years, veteran coppers who took the time to impart some of their law enforcement wisdom. Men like Tim McClaran, who I wrote about a few weeks ago; Dan Brant, who'd been a captain at MPD and my first watch commander there; Denny Reid, second in command at Ontario PD back in the early 1980s; Sgt. Bob Poth, 'Pappy' to so many who knew him and my training officer during my first few weeks at Mansfield. Keith Miller, with whom I'd worked at Ontario, as well as Cal Miller, OPD; Sam Wade, who'd been a part-time officer at Lexington and taught classes at North Central State College in their criminal justice program; and Harold Scott, who I loved like a brother. There's so many more that have left us and I'm sure I'm not recalling some, but they're people I'll never forget. Ever.

It's been quite the journey, these last seven years in retirement, and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

                                      Retirement reception, with some of my Mansfield PD
                                      brothers. (L-R) Dean Blamer, Keith Coleman, myself
                                      Jan Wendling, Gary Foster, Phil Messer and Mike Bammann

You Want Hot? Bulletproof Vests In August...

Bulletproof vests. I guess nowadays they call them 'ballistic' vests, or 'body armor', or 'personal protective gear.'

Back in my day, us coppers had quite a variety of terms for them, nearly all unprintable on this forum. I try to keep it rated 'PG' here. Parental Guidance...where has that gone? Might be a good topic for a future post.

Those vests sure were hell on hot days, let me tell you.

When I first started wearing one, back in 1979, bulletproof vests for coppers were rather crude, to put it mildly. Made of a material called Kevlar and fitted into a cloth carrier, you put it on over your head; they had a front panel and a back panel, with a strap down across each clavicle and four 2-inch straps from the back panel to the front, held in place by velcro. That way they were adjustable, so as to make them conform to your torso. Then you put your uniform shirt on over top of it, went out and put your life on the line.

There were a couple of problems: if you tightened the side straps too tight and weren't svelte they'd cut into your sides, showing the general public your fat rolls in the process in addition to chafing your skin. The other was, by virtue of moving around, the panels would ride up on you, until the front panel felt more like a clerical collar jammed into your Adam's apple.

So the manufacturers tried to solve the issue by adding an 'apron'-like extension to the front of the panel carrier that you tucked into your uniform pants, like a second set of shirt tails.

I can't tell you how many times I'd watch one of my co-workers unzip their pants, reach way inside and grab that apron so they could pull the vest back down where it was supposed to be. I did the same thing, too. We'd always take care to make sure we weren't in the public eye when we did that....didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea about what we were actually doing.

When we'd order our vests, usually every three years because of fabric decomposition, they came in a variety of threat levels; the higher the TL, the more protection they offered. That's protection, by the way, from handgun bullets. Our vests at that time, well...a rifle round or an ice pick would go right through them.

As time progressed, through the 80s and into the 1990s, manufacturers added side torso panels to the vests and these rectangular metal or ceramic plates that slid into the outside of the front of the vest carrier, designed to add further shielding for your sternum. Police officers, after getting shot with their vests on, were suffering from blunt force trauma; the impact of the bullet, with all that kinetic force behind it, still caused considerable damage to internal organs, though no penetration of the bullet occurred. The plates were added protection for blunt trauma.

Still, those vests saved countless thousands of police lives over the decades.

But they were, and probably still are, unbearably hot. That was one of the many reasons I preferred working night shift during my career; it was always somewhat cooler at night. Back in my early days at Mansfield PD, though, I was stuck on afternoon shift for six years. That's six years of July and August, with many sweltering days from late June and early September mixed in for good measure.
Those vests were absolutely, stiflingly torturous on smoking-hot and humid days. The A/C in the cruiser would always be cranked wide open as we'd pull the vests away from our chests, as much as we could, to allow that luxuriant, cool air access to sweat-soaked T-shirts and bare skin.

If you got stuck outside the cruiser for an extended period of time, say, to direct traffic at an accident scene, God help you. Assorted coppers tried various methods to keep cool while wearing vests, from nylon, woven mesh undershirts to not wearing the back ballistic panel. I went to the Ohio State Highway Patrol academy with a guy from Marion county who ended up getting shot in the back in a rest area. He wasn't wearing his back panel.

 He survived, but it could have ended up so much worse.

At the end of the shift in the locker room, when we'd gear down, you could see the perfect, wet outline of those vests on whatever type of shirt was worn under the vest. I learned early on to bring an extra T-shirt to change into for the trip home, the damp duty-worn shirt balled up and in my gear bag.

Then there was the smell. You've never savored the aroma of a police locker room in late August...to me, it was five times worse than a high school football locker room. We'd hang our vests on hangers, body-side out, to dry out before the next shift; most of us had two vest panel carriers so we could launder one when the stale-sweat stench started to get overpowering, though it was a pain to change out carriers.

Bulky and uncomfortable as they were, someone finally came up with the idea of a protective vest designed to be worn on the outside of the uniform shirt, which is what you're seeing now with a lot of police agencies. Lexington, the PD I worked for the last eleven years of my career, has gone to that style of vest. Officers who use them seem to like them, but I don't think I would...because I'm a throwback.

I'd go back to a hot, humid August afternoon in 1986 and wear my old bulletproof vest again.

In a heartbeat.

                                               Early 1980s bulletproof vest

The Degenerate Burglar

A very good friend and retired brother officer recently commented that he hadn't seen any new posts in awhile; this one's for you, KC.

It was early fall in 1982; warm days were giving way to crisp, chilly nights as I approached my second anniversary with the (then) Village of Ontario Police Department. Aside from the shocking car-stop shooting of fellow Patrolman David Pugh early one morning in November of 1981, nothing of great note had occurred in Ontario up to that time during my four year stint there.

 Dave, shot in the face by a felon out of Cleveland, who was a passenger in a stolen van loaded with stolen car parts, survived; the shooter, later that morning, was located and killed in a running gunfight with police.

My dayshift partner in the story I am about to tell was Ptl. Tim McClaran, who would go on to be Chief of Police in Ontario and, later, Crestline, Ohio.

Tim was a combat veteran, having served in Vietnam with the Marine Corps. He'd previously been a deputy with the Richland County Sheriff's Office before coming to Ontario; on this day, Tim would pass on a little of his investigative skill to this still-green rookie, some of which would be rather...unusual.

Around noon we'd received a report of a home burglary on Walker Lake Road, just west of the now-modified 'S' curve. The house, a brick ranch-style home, sat by itself well back from the roadway, bordered by a cornfield to the west and deep woods behind it. As we arrived we were met by an older woman, probably in her early fifties, and another we'd learn was her daughter, whom she'd called even before notifying the department of the break-in.

The woman had already checked with her lone neighbor across the street, explaining that they each kept an eye on the other's house when anyone was away. "They didn't see any cars come or go."

The interior of the home had obviously been ransacked as we looked room to room, the woman telling us that some of her husband's tools, four long guns and two chain saws were missing. She also believed some of her jewelry was gone; her jewelry box, which had a glass lid and smooth metal sides, was opened, some of its contents spread on top of the dresser on which it sat.

At that time Ontario was a 13-officer department, including the chief; we weren't large enough to have our own crime scene technicians, so each officer processed his own crime scene, taking photographs and fingerprints; major crime scenes, such as homicides, were handled by the state Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation.

This one, though, would be handled by us....or, rather, Tim. He took the time to explain what he was doing and why as he went. It was during this time that we both overheard a conversation between Mom, the house's occupant, and her daughter in the living room, around the corner from where we were working. It went something like this:

Mom: "Well, what's one of my bras doing out here in the living room?"

Daughter: "Uhh, Mom, I wouldn't touch that. Let the officers handle it."

Mom: (obviously not heeding her daughter's advice and picking the brassiere up) "I just don't understand why...ohh, why is it wet?"

Daughter, alarmed: "MOM! PUT IT DOWN!"

There was a hushed, short exchange between the two, followed by Mom shrieking "OH MY GOD!!"
She fairly ran, followed by her daughter, to a bathroom down the hall, where we could hear her furiously washing her hands.

Tim looked at me with knowing eyes. "The guy jerked off in that woman's bra."

I was astounded. "Why would somebody do that during a home burglary?"

"Good question. What does that tell you, other than he's a pervert?"

I thought for a moment. "Well....he was probably alone. I mean, if you were burglarizing a home with someone, that's not something you'd do, right?"

My partner smiled. "You're learning. So, nobody saw any vehicles here while the complainant was gone, meaning they had to come from the woods or through the cornfield."

I finished Tim's line of thought. "The shotguns and rifles, the tools and chainsaws, how did one guy carry all that stuff away if he was on foot?"

Smiling, the veteran copper answered. "He didn't. That stuff is hidden somewhere close by and he's gonna come back, probably after it gets dark, to pick it up."

McClaran, to this young, green patrolman, was a genius.

Using the victim's house phone (cell phones didn't exits back then), Mac, as I called him, called Chief Krauss and explained the situation; the chief agreed to call in the next shift early so we could stay on our case.

After hanging up, Tim and I went looking for the stolen loot. We found it after about 45 minutes, stacked neatly at the edge of the woods fifty yards west of the house, in an open, green tractor lane between the standing, brown cornstalks and the treeline. I was getting excited.

We checked to ensure that the two shotguns and the pair of rifles were unloaded, then put them back where they'd been hidden. "We're gonna stake out this stuff. You go back to the station and get us some extra batteries (for our portable police radios), flashlights, green coveralls (which we'd all been issued but never used), some water and maybe snack food. We might be here for awhile; I'll stay here and watch the stuff."

I must've drove 100 mph on the way to the station. Once there, the oncoming patrolmen wanted all the particulars about what Tim and I were doing but I didn't have time to explain. "Just stay out of the area so we don't spook the guy" was all I said.I also grabbed two 12 gauge pump shotguns before leaving. Stopping at a gas station, I bought water and a couple small bags of chips, then hurried back to where Tim was waiting.

We quickly slid into our coveralls, pinned on our badges, strapped on gun belts and took up a position in the cornfield, able to see the loot between the tall, unharvested stalks from where we lay.

Time crawled by. When we spoke, it was in hushed whispers; we mostly listened for the sounds of someone walking on fallen, dead leaves in the woods.

Mac remarked, "Man, I need a cigarette."

Dusk had started to set in when we heard the snapping, crackling sounds of someone making their way through the woods. "Wait until he picks the stuff up and starts to walk away", Tim whispered. "That way we can show intent to take the stolen goods."

Another thing I never would have thought of. McClaran knew his stuff.

We watched as not one, but two men emerged from the treeline in the falling darkness, cautiously looking left and right before walking directly to the piled items. As each grabbed an armful of goods and straightened up, we sprang, shotgun butts planted in our shoulders.

"POLICE! ONTHEGROUNDONTHEGROUNDONTHEGROUND NOW!"

Startled, both men hesitated before dropping what they had and laying down. We were on them quickly, cuffing both in quick successions. Immediately, one of the men started pleading.

"I'm the one you want. I broke into the house and took this stuff. He's my brother-in-law and had nothing to do with this. Please, let him go, I'll tell you whatever you want to know."

McClaran got brother-in-law up and took him a few steps away. The short of it was that he indeed didn't know what was happening; the burglar had only told him he'd 'found' some stuff while taking a walk and brother-in-law had never imagined his sister's husband would be involved in a burglary.

After taking down his information, we let him walk.

Once back on station, Tim interviewed our suspect, who confessed everything at length, however leaving one part out of his story.

Mac: "Tell us about the woman's bra."

A look of sheer horror, which quickly turned to shame, played across the suspect's face; then he started crying.

"I'm so sorry", he said tearfully. "I've been out of work for awhile, my wife and I have been fighting, and...well...I just needed some relief." The 30-something man started to sob.

The man was eventually transported to the sheriff's jail and locked up, and we tagged our evidence, putting it in the evidence room.

Later, in court, the man pled guilty as charged. Since he'd confessed to the burglary and fully cooperated, coupled with the fact that the man had no criminal history whatsoever, he was sentenced to time served while awaiting trial and placed on probation, a huge break for him.

During the rest of my career, I never heard the man's name or read it on any police reports; he'd apparently turned his life around...or moved out of the area.

Tim McClaran, from whom I would learn so much, died of lung cancer in November of 2013. Though many people didn't like him, I'll always remember Mac for the good cop that he was.

                                                                       Tim McClaran

The One Call That Still Haunts Me

I wrote this story, which was published in June, 2016 at Narratively.com. This is an actual event.

It was a slow, late-winter Sunday night in 1991; the cold, drizzling rain making the shift seem endless. My partner, Bosko, was ten years younger than I, and had been on the street for about five years. His cherubic face and sparse, dark mustache somehow didn’t fit his stocky but bull-strong form. Boz, as we called him, had an easygoing manner and was very good at the job; I always enjoyed riding in a two-man cruiser with him.

On this night we were cruising a high-crime neighborhood of Mansfield, with plenty of public housing, hoping to catch a drug dealer plying his trade on a street corner at three in the morning.

I wish that’s what would have happened.

Our cruiser’s police radio, which also monitored the city fire frequency, came to life: a rescue squad was being dispatched to an address right around the corner from where we were, for a “person choking.” As we weren’t handling any calls, Bosko and I decided to respond also, since the firehouse was a good three minutes away.

Just as we stopped in front of the home, which seemed to have light blazing from every window, the call was updated: it was an infant in trouble.

I was out the passenger-side door in a heartbeat, bypassing the two steps up to the porch. As I reached for the door it flew open and I was met by a chunky middle-aged woman, a well-worn robe draped over her long, pink nightgown. She was screaming hysterically. A mixture of tears and mascara streaked her face.

“DO SOMETHING! PLEASE DO SOMETHING!” she screamed, as she thrust an infant, wrapped in a blanket, into my arms. “HE'S NOT BREATHING!”

I looked down into that little innocent face, dried formula around his mouth whitish against the gray pallor of his skin. I’d seen eyes like his a hundred times before: half closed, staring at nothing. The baby was gone.

Pressure bands gripped my chest as I went through the motions of infant CPR, knowing it would do no good but doing it anyway, more for the woman’s sake than anything. Shortly the paramedics arrived and took control of the baby’s lifeless form; I could hear Bosko’s voice, which seemed distant as if he were at the far end of a long tunnel, as he questioned the woman who’d met me at the door. My partner had been right behind me onto the porch, but after seeing that tiny face in the blanket I’d become disconnected to events around me. Nothing else existed but that vacant face.

I had a baby boy at home the same age.

Tyler had been born two months premature, his little lungs not fully developed; he had started to show that same gray pallor as they’d worked on him in the delivery room. A life-flight helicopter had been called and Tyler was loaded aboard. I would later learn he’d stopped breathing five times during the twenty-five-minute flight to Akron Children’s Hospital.

I felt very alone as I stood in the parking lot, watching that helicopter ascend skyward with my youngest son. I’d gotten to hold Tyler for thirty seconds before the medical team had realized there was something wrong with his respiration, that he was having to work too hard to breathe. Just as they were taking him out to the helipad, a doctor informed me that Tyler’s condition was “very unstable.”

Once he arrived at Akron Children’s, an experimental treatment saved his life.

The infant in this house never had that chance.

The little boy had been robbed of life. Robbed because his mother had come home from a bar and fed him, not bothering to burp him afterwards, and then laid him on his back in the crib. The infant had aspirated his formula and choked to death while his mother lay passed out on a bed a few feet away. The screaming woman on the porch was his grandmother.

At the time of this incident, my baby boy had been released from the hospital and was on an apnea monitor at home, one that would alert us if he stopped breathing. It happened a couple of times, the loud squeal of the alarm jarring us when it sounded. Bosko knew I was on the ragged edge while working, worrying about Tyler throughout the nights, and asked about him every shift.

I told Bosko I had to go to the cruiser, his reply unheard. I was getting tunnel vision, my mind’s eye seeing Tyler’s face in that blanket.

I sat heavily in the passenger’s seat, alone, and began sobbing uncontrollably, the woman’s pain and grief becoming my own. I had come perilously close to losing my own infant, and in that moment I knew how she felt.

At some point Bosko got into the cruiser and drove us to a park, where we sat silently until I’d regained my composure, the call we’d just finished having obliterated that hard ‘shell’ that all police officers have to form in order to maintain sanity.

Bosko and I never spoke of my emotional breakdown, an event that had never happened before in my 31- year career, and never did again.

That night left me with scars, emotional wounds that have never quite fully healed. Even now, decades later in retirement, I still think of that little boy, often wondering what would have become of him. I look at Tyler and see the man he has become, sometimes also seeing that baby’s face in the blanket, trying to imagine what he might have looked like or what path he would have taken in life. I imagine, too, that somehow he knows there is an old policeman that keeps a place for him inside.

                                            Original artwork by Sishir Bommakanti