Dealing With Roadblocks And Setbacks

Everyone has a plan, what they see as a pathway to success. Some are meticulously laid out and may extend well into the future, having many moving parts that must be synchronized along the way in order to reach that magical kingdom called 'success'.

Some folks, though, choose the less difficult way to reach their version of success, the path of least resistance, by flying by the seat of their pants, winging it through life on their way to the prize., whatever form that may have.

And then the problems start happening, interrupting the schedule you've set for yourself, blocking your chosen course. A death in the family, a major medical issue, marital trouble...there will be something that falls across your road, becoming an issue that must be solved or overcome.

When that time comes you'll have to make a decision based on a number of concerns and variables.
How you respond in that moment, at that time, will dictate how the rest of your journey goes.

How do you make those big decisions or handle a setback? It all goes back to how bad you want what you're seeking. Hard work and extra hours could be the answer, as well as the possibility of altering course and going a different direction for a bit.

You just have to get past those issues by any means necessary and move forward....as long as your actions are legal,

And if your decision has bumps and potholes, you know what to do to...deal with them. No 'woe is me' or 'I just can't win'. Nope, the problem is yours and it is solvable. You'll find a way.
 Dad used to say, 'no problem you're going through right now  hasn't been  had by someone else before you'. Sage advice from the man who raised me.

Those pot holes and roadblock? Later in life they're points of reference. You'll realize they served a purpose and added to the fabric of your character, making you a better person.

And isn't that what we all want? To be better people?

                                                                                                                                         

Then Versus Now

Being a cop isn't easy by any stretch of the imagination, no matter what size of police department you work for. As a matter of fact, the difficulty of the job increases exponentially with the size of the department.

As the population increases, so do problems.

To deal with these problems, some of which have mutated since I retired in 2013, requires a lot of training. I mean a lot.

Back when I got started, 1977 at Ontario PD on the auxiliary, if you took a 40 hour 'short course' you could work on the street...provided you started a standardized law enforcement academy within a year. Forty hours. If I recall correctly, a standard police academy back then consisted of 280 hours.

As an auxiliary copper, I worked as much as I could, knowing it was an investment in my future. I'd work Fridays and Saturdays nearly every weekend, riding with a full-time guy (there were no females at OPD back then) and soaking up as much as I could.

Nowadays, I don't think two-hundred-eighty hours is even one-fifth of what the State of Ohio requires. A majority of departments, and almost all the larger ones, require at least an Associate's Degree to even qualify to take a Civil Service exam.

That wasn't even a consideration in 1977. Education wasn't as important as real life experience, such as military service. A military vet, in my opinion, is preferable to someone who spent four years in college to earn a degree in French Antiquities. I'm not saying education is a bad thing in law enforcement; I'm just of the opinion that, as long as some part of that college degree is remotely connected with enforcing the law, all the better. Most of the policemen I worked with were military vets...and some pretty good coppers, too.

Starting out, back in the day, you rode with a veteran officer until they thought you could handle yourself out on the street. Every rookie impatiently waited for the day they were 'cut loose' in a cruiser by themselves, that first shift alone being a mixture of excitement and terror. At Mansfield PD in 1984, my training officer was Sgt. Bob Poth, a big, lanky guy who seemingly knew everybody in the city and who was a cop's cop. Known as 'Pappy' or 'Slim' by those we came in contact with, I remember being amazed at how easily he handled every situation, how calm he could be no matter the circumstance. After a couple of weeks I was handed off to Ptl. Bob 'Bumper' Shook, a man who I was convinced had ice water in his veins. A few weeks with him and Bob pronounced me ready to go though, looking back now, I think he may have just gotten a little weary of hauling a new guy around with him every afternoon. That was it, though; no structured training program. You just had to prove that you could do the job adequately.

Today is a much, much different story. I can't comment on exactly how the field training program is structured now because I've been out of law enforcement for awhile but, suffice it to say, it's pretty extensive. Over the years civil litigation has largely grown police training standards, thanks to the lawsuit-driven environment today's law enforcement agencies are forced to operate within. I was a Field Training Officer for five years at Mansfield PD in the early '90s and, the way the program was administered back then, a rookie officer would work several training cycles, usually six weeks apiece with a different FTO at each level.

The mantra then, as I'm sure it is now, is document, document and then document some more. We operated by means of a Field Training Guide, in which was included just about every police task imaginable. At the end of every shift the FTO filled out an evaluation form and then went over it with the trainee. A separate eval, based on the daily observation reports, was then completed at each level of the training cycle. It was a huge but necessary paper trail and not every rookie would make it through the program.

As an FTO it was easy to get burned out. I'm just glad I started when I did and had some solid, patient coaches.

Otherwise, I might have spent my entire working life in the grocery business instead of wearing a badge.

Getting Older

If you're part of the 'Baby Boomer' generation like I am, I know you already know this but I'm going to say it anyway:

Getting older sucks.

However, it sure beats the alternative, doesn't it? Mind you, I'm not complaining, because there are many folks I grew up with or went through school with who aren't on this earth any longer. I've been blessed this far along in life much more than I deserve; I won't bore you with the details so you'll just have to take my word for the fact that God definitely has a plan.

Frustration is becoming a semi-daily occurrence, though; not being able to do some of the things I could even a year ago is aggravating, to say the least. Arthritic thumbs are starting to limit my ability to use my hands when gripping things like a shovel or hand trowel, activities in much use when I'm out metal detecting, the 'other woman' in my life. The left thumb affliction is thanks to a fractured metacarpal, incurred while rolling around on the sidewalk in front of the old Jimmy's Lounge with a drunk 200-pound Amazonian woman I was trying to handcuff nearly three decades ago. I guess the right thumb, not wanting the left to feel alone, decided to join the party about ten years ago.

You haven't felt pain until you've had steroid injections in both thumbs. Doc Dawson did them for me...one at a time. Before the first injection he told me it would be painful; he also asked me not to hit him. It was and I didn't.

I haven't had any since...by choice.

The reading glasses came along seemingly overnight. One day, a decade ago, I had no problem reading reports on a computer screen while at Lexington PD; the next day I was squinting to see the words. A trip to the eye doc revealed I was becoming far-sighted. Wonderful. Now, when I drive at night, I have to wear them to see clearly.

I have a distinct feeling it only gets worse from here. That's OK, though.

Like I said, it sure beats the alternative.

Big Street Cred For A Small-Time Rapper-Turned-Inmate

Sometimes you read things that can't be created in a Hollywood screenwriter's mind.

Take Michael Persaud, for instance. Persaud is a small-town backwater Rhode Island rap 'artist' who uses the name 'Montana Millz' when he performs, and writes nearly all of his material himself. One of the things he's created and performed is a little number entitled 'Sell Drugsz'.

Apparently he's listened to his own stuff too much; Persaud was sentenced to prison last month for...you guessed it...drug trafficking.

Persaud and an accomplice, both of whom are obviously lacking in narc detection skills, sold 70 bags of heroin to an undercover narcotics investigator in 2016; a subsequent search of his hotel room turned up an additional seventy bags of the drug, along with the very potent and deadly synthetic narcotic Fentanyl and cash.

This isn't his first dance in the drug trafficking game, either; he's been previously convicted of trafficking for which he spent time in prison.

Persaud plead guilty to five counts of narcotic distribution and one count of possession with intent to distribute and was sentenced to three years in prison.

While he grinds out his time behind bars, maybe Persaud can work on a new version of his old song:

'DON'T Sell Drugsz'.

                                                  Michael Persaud

What If ?

As part of the domestic duties I assumed after retirement, I was washing dishes last evening; along with laundry and carpet maintenance, it's what I do to help my wife keep the household ship-shape. After all, she works full-time; it's the least I can do to make life a little easier for my redheaded angel.

Anyway, I was recalling occurrences from my past while scrubbing a casserole dish, thinking about growing up and all the people who'd  been involved in or a part of those better times; relatives who have since died, neighborhood friends, pals from high school, and it got me to thinking about 'what if?'.

For instance, what if we hadn't moved into the Madison school district and the house I grew up in on Hout Road? I would have never met Dean Blamer or sons Dear Jr and Dale; Dean had significant influence on the career path I chose because, being that I was around his sons so much, I'd often be at their house two doors up and have the opportunity to hear some of his cop stories. Those tales sparked the fire that drove me in the direction of law enforcement. Dean Jr retired just last week from the Gahanna Police Department; he, too, having been influenced by his Dad, without doubt.

 Then there was Rick Utt, who was the fastest kid in the neighborhood, and his brother John, with whom I would work at Mansfield PD. The Guegolds lived right next door; George Jr, who I graduated with, now owns Schneider's Bakery on Orange Street and makes the best apple fritters in Richland county. Across the road were the Lucas and the Thomas families, both with multiple kids in the house. Our front yard would become the neighborhood whiffle ball field, complete with base
paths worn  down to the dirt. Mom and Dad didn't mind, and all these years later I realize it was because they knew where I was and what I was doing.

John Utt, who I occasionally run across at Kroger's, still reminds me to this day of the rule against cussing while playing at our place.

What if I'd taken more time to talk to my relatives who were veterans of war? My Grandpa Clark, who died the day after my birthday in 1973, served in Europe in World War One, or 'the Great War', as his generation called it, 'the war to end all wars.'

Adolph Hitler and Emperor Hirohito would change all that in 1941, and war hasn't slowed down much since.

Grandpa used to tell of being in a fox hole, trying to convert his fellow soldiers while under artillery bombardment; he would become a minister for the rest of his adult life after the war. I wish that I would have had the interest in history I now have, would have asked questions about life in the United States Army in 1918. What if I'd have asked my Grandma Jackson's brothers about what they'd seen and experienced during their service in World War Two in the Pacific Theater? Realizing now what a missed opportunity those were might explain my love of writing veterans' stories for the newspaper that I now have.

What if I'd spent my entire police career in Ontario? When I left for MPD in 1984, I couldn't envision the village becoming the retail/entertainment center it now is, never mind transitioning from 'village' to 'city' status. Several of the men I worked with back then are gone from this life now: Denny Reid, Tim McClaran, Keith Miller, Cal Miller, Bob Krauss, Dick Hamrick and Rex Knee. Rod Smith, who was one of our dispatchers, went on to become Chief of Police; he's retired now, too. I still count Mike Burchett and Ron Dille as close friends from those days and still see them on a regular basis.

Then again, I would have never met and become friends with guys such as Jan Wendling, Bob Powers, Dave Nirode, Jim Gadd and the man I call my 'little brother', Gary Foster. . I have a memory filled with good, funny and rather exciting times from Mansfield PD.

The flip side of that coin is some of the horrible things that came along with being a policeman in the largest city in this area, terrible scenes that still visit occasionally during the night.. The Darla Ward homicide scene and the dead infant on France Street are two that jump to the head of that awful line.

What if I'd never suffered the very painful spinal injury while there, causing eight hours of surgery and forcing me out of MPD? Where would my career have ended in the department if I'd been able to stay?

I can tell you one thing: I would never have met and married Stacy who, in my opinion, saved me from myself. I would never have worked at Lexington PD with Brett Pauley, whose wife Heather introduced me to Stacy; nor would I have had the opportunity to work with some pretty good coppers like my old night shift partner Troy Weaver, or Jon VanHouten, who is possibly the funniest man I know...next to Jan Wendling. Jon is also an excellent investigator; if I were a criminal, I sure wouldn't want him after me, even if he IS afraid of cemeteries.

We can 'what if" our entire lives, you see, but on this day, at this moment?

I wouldn't change a thing.

Absolute Truths

There's an old saying: the only certainties in life are death and taxes.

I disagree, to an extent. While it is true that no one gets out of this world alive and the Internal Revenue Service can be fanatical about extracting the government's pound of flesh, I believe there's a few more certainties that can be added to the list of absolute truths.

Number one, in my book, anyway, is that there is nothing guaranteed to anyone. No one controls what happens even the very next second. You may not even finish reading this sentence. Life can end just that quickly.

You never stop being a parent, ever. I don't care how old your kids get, you always worry about them. It's just a natural occurrence. It's unavoidable. To be sure, there are cases of parents abandoning their children but, in my view, if they can do that, they weren't parents in the truest sense of the word in the first place. If they don't care about their kids they should have never had them to begin with. My first wife, all she wanted was to have a family, to raise and nurture them, guide them into adulthood. Then one morning she got out of bed and passed out; I thought she'd died right there on the kitchen floor, right in front of me. The rescue squad took her to the hospital, where she underwent emergency surgery.

Unknown to us, she had endometriosis; she was pregnant but the fertilized embryo had started to grow in one of the Fallopian tubes, rupturing it and causing severe internal bleeding. We later went to see fertility specialists in Cleveland, who told us she couldn't bear children. It destroyed her, changed her, and I later made a bad decision, too, one I've had to live with through the decades. That's on me, my fault. I wasn't the man then that I am today.

I don't blame her for hating me. Carrying hate around with you, though, will eat your insides away. That lesson was learned firsthand, too.

The point is, the world is full of couples more than deserving of bringing life into this world, yet there are those who have no business having babies but pop them out like an auto assembly line anyway.

Life, you see, is not fair. Not at all. Add that one to the list, too. One of my peeves is hearing people, especially some of the younger generation, complain about 'fairness'. As much as the civilized world makes laws to foment equality and fairness, the truth is the opposite will always exist, no matter our efforts or how much we wish for its elimination. Life isn't fair and the sooner people come to terms with that fact and move past it, the better off they'll be. You adapt, improvise and overcome challenges and obstacles.

The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr once had a dream; I wish it would come true.

In that same light, you're going to make mistakes and bad decisions in life. You are, after all, human. Learn the lessons of those mistakes, remember them so they're not repeated. There's only been one man, the Son of Man, who passed through this world clean, unsoiled, and pure.

 He was crucified for it.

Another one that comes to mind: there is absolute evil in the world. Always has been, clear back to when Cain killed his brother. Mankind has taken great strides to counter evil but still it flourishes. All you have to do is pick up a newspaper or turn on the evening news and it smacks you in the face, from the senseless murder down the street to the violent armed conflicts fought by great armies across oceans and continents. It will remain that way until evil and savageness are terminated and, according to my Bible, that day will come.

Lastly, it is an absolute truth that not everyone knows the meaning of the word 'responsibility'. Nowadays no one wants to take responsibility for their actions or decisions; they'll slip, slide and twist facts in order to deflect a lack of responsibility on their part, choosing to blame a plethora of deficiencies of character and common sense for what they do.

To this old, retired cop, those are absolute truths of life.

'I Hate My Life'....Really?

I was walking down an aisle in Kroger's the other day, intent on picking up a package of my favorite peanut butter sandwich cookies. I'm addicted to them. Yes, I know they're not good for me. Yes, I know I am a diabetic. Sometimes, though, you have to yield and step over the line. I wouldn't call it 'living on the edge', but you get the idea.

As chance would have it, I overheard a young gal talking on her cell phone as I passed by, obviously unhappy about something.

"I HATE my life!"

I hate my life. That's a pretty big statement, especially from a young person who has yet to experience so much more of it.

I thought about what she'd said as I drove home. What could possibly be so wrong that she hates life? Well, her life, anyway? Had she just been dumped by a boyfriend? Was she telling a friend that her parents wouldn't let her go to the mall after school tomorrow? I mean, how could anyone take this, the life that we have been given, so lightly?

I know what you're thinking: "Chill out, it's just a figure of speech." While that may be true we should never take our words lightly. Ever. Be thankful for your life no matter how bad it seems.

That's the problem with our world today...people taking things, not only life, for granted. You get in the car, turn the key and expect the engine to start. Same thing with life; we expect to wake up and open our eyes every morning, never imagining what could have happened as we slept. Every morning across the globe, however, people who had expected to wake up, to resume their lives where they'd left off the night before, don't. They had plans. They had schedules and activities. Places to go and people to see.

And I'd venture to say they didn't hate their lives.

If she thinks life is so bad she should consider the person suffering from emphysema, struggling just to draw each breath. Or the combat veteran, a victim of multiple traumatic amputations after the detonation of an IED while he served in Afghanistan. Or the single mother of three children, working several part-time jobs just to make ends meet and getting no financial help from her ex-husband, who just keeps plugging along because she knows those kids depend solely on her.

She doesn't want them to hate their lives.

I could paint several dark scenarios in which people struggle to live, to stay alive, but my point is this: life is fragile and precious. All over the world there are folks hanging on by a thread, grasping for even just one more minute of life. When I discovered I had small-cell renal carcinoma...kidney cancer...I could have cried and wrung my hands in hopelessness. I didn't. I wanted to move ahead immediately. We have to look beyond our problems, our issues, and meet them head-on with a plan of attack. Giving up and hating life? That's the easy way out. It takes drive, motivation and a lot of self-evaluation in order to see a path to overcoming our own personal obstacles. In some cases, there is no pathway, so what do we do? How do we go on, knowing the termination point is approaching?

You live your life the best way you know how. You get the most out of the time you have.

You make each day count.