Before Civil Courts And Insurance Companies

Stacy was off half the day yesterday, so she started cleaning the closet out in the back bedroom. I was working on a story on my laptop in the living room when she comes in, holds out a dark blue pair of pants and asks if I want to keep them.

It was a pair of my old uniform pants from Mansfield PD.

I took them from her, looking them over as memories came flooding back. I'd had a blackjack pocket sewn into the right leg, just back of the outside seam and low enough that it was easy to get to. The outside material was worn and a little faded from where the leather-encased, lead-filled business end of the attention-getter used to ride, a tool I used for door-knocking more than anything.

Back in the day, just about all the folks I worked with carried some variation of the blackjack, sap, convoy or whatever else those personal defense weapons went by; their use most times meant a trip to the ER for their target before going to book-in.

With the advent of kinder, gentler policing and newer, 'better' tools such as the PR 24 side-handle baton, OC spray and tasers, the throwback from my early days on the job fell by the wayside.

"Too much liability", the decision-makers had said; law enforcement techniques were becoming fodder for lawsuit-happy defense attorneys across the nation, resulting in sweeping policy changes that affected virtually every police agency, large and small.

Civil suits and municipal insurance providers now dictate how a policeman does his/her job.

...and I hate that. I thank God that I worked when police officers could actually do their jobs.

Anniversary Of A Second Chance At Life

Three years ago today, right at this very moment, I was in the fight of my life.

I had small cell renal carcinoma, a tumor the size of a quarter was growing in my left kidney; had it not been discovered, quite by accident, I wouldn't be here today. This type of cancer doesn't manifest itself until it's spread to the liver and lungs and, by then, it's usually too late.

I'd had a routine chest x-ray, which just happened to catch the upper portion of my kidneys and the doctors noticed a mass in my left kidney. Believing it to be a cyst, which is common, my personal physician suggested I have an MRI...just to be sure it wasn't something more serious.

It was.

She'd told me, on our next appointment, that it would have killed me eventually and that I was lucky. She also said I'd lose the kidney, but that hundreds of thousands of folks are living normal, everyday lives with only one kidney. Doc Becker asked if I'd like to be referred to a local kidney specialist or go elsewhere.

We went to Columbus. For reasons I won't go into, I'll never have another serious surgical procedure performed in this area.

We chose Central Ohio Urology, a group of thirty physicians in Columbus who specialize in all things related to the renal system. Dr. Brad Pewitt was who we saw on that initial consultation, a 50-ish, balding man who spoke in monotone but made it clear he knew what he was doing.

After reviewing the x-ray and MRI film and reports, Dr. Pewitt had some good news...sort of. "You won't be losing the entire kidney. The tumor is confined in the upper portion and, provided there's no evidence of it having spread, we'll be able to remove that portion of your kidney during a robotic procedure which will leave you with three small incisions in your abdomen. You'll heal much quicker because we won't have to make a large incision and cut through abdominal muscle."

I had to wait 45 days for surgery day, a time frame during which I didn't sleep much, knowing there was a killer growing inside me.

Stacy and I stayed at a hotel near the hospital the night before surgery; I had to be at Mount Carmel East in Columbus at 0600. That night I slept a little better, knowing the issue would be resolved the next morning.

Surgery prep was almost robotic itself; the nurses and staff were very efficient in getting me ready to go under the scalpel. They shaved my lower chest and stomach, dousing it thoroughly with the red, sticky antiseptic that every hospital in the world seems to use. An IV was started and they gave me some sort of sedation to keep me calm, the nurse administering it laughing as I joked with she and my wife. The sedative, I thought, made everything I said hilariously funny.

The time came to go into surgery; Stacy kissed me and said she'd see me in a little while as she held my hand. I didn't want to let go.

Three-and-a-half hours later, hearing first and then seeing through hazy eyes, I drifted in/out and then back into consciousness. My left side just below the ribcage throbbed, burning a little, too. A nurse worked beside my bed, checking vitals on a large monitor and inspecting the IV insertion site. She told me I was in a recovery room but would be going to intensive care shortly. I was still loopy enough that those words didn't alarm me.

Drifting in and out, seeing fluorescent ceiling lights pass by and feeling the sensation of moving - stopping - moving, I cannot say I knew exactly when I was wheeled into the ward. Time didn't exist, just the floating feeling, the snatches of sentences heard, but not quite understood, from nursing staff. That aching, burning pain getting just a little more intense by the minute, I finally regained some semblance of my senses when I heard my wife's voice, her face appearing above mine like the angel she is.

She was crying.

"I thought I was going to lose you", she said, voice cracking. That is a memory I will take to my grave, Stacy extremely distraught at my brush with death. I don't ever want to be the reason my wife cries.

She kissed my forehead and explained that something had gone wrong during the procedure, wrong enough that a nurse had sought her out to tell her I was bleeding profusely internally but that doctors were working to get it stopped.

I later discovered that, during the robotic procedure, an artery had been cut; Dr. Pewitt and assisting surgeons then had to make a ten-inch incision just below the ribcage to get to the artery. They gave me six pints of blood during that incident, which is why they'd placed me in intensive care; they wanted to make sure I didn't start bleeding again. Apparently I'd almost bled to death in surgery.

Three days later I was moved to a step-down ward; five days after that I was released from the hospital. Three check ups later, there's no sign of cancer anywhere. I didn't even have to undergo chemotherapy or radiation treatments because, by the grace of almighty God, the tumor had been fully-encapsulated inside the kidney.

Though I may be sixty-one, I consider this day the third anniversary of my second-chance life, a chance that thousands every day don't get. I look back on those three years that have passed, noting all the events and happy times I would have missed, and am ever thankful for this life I have, this gift God has given me. To Him goes the eternal glory.

It can end in the blink of an eye, at any moment. I will never take my life for granted. Ever.

Neither should you.

Dad

Father's Day. Call your Dad, go see him and give him a big hug as you tell him you love him. One day you won't be able to do any of it.

I lost my Dad over four years ago. I wish I could still do those things.

Dad was a blue-collar man's man. I remember him, at times, working two jobs to provide for our family. Most of his working life was spent at Ontario's General Motors plant, at a time before they paid big hourly wages. I worked eighteen months at Stone Container Corporation making cardboard boxes and sheets, hating every minute being inside a factory. It gave me a much greater respect for what Dad did for us, spending over thirty years inside a factory; I imagine he hated it, too, but he was doing what he had to do in order to raise a family.

So many memories come flooding back, not only on Father's Day but every day.When I was in kindergarten we lived on Lexington Avenue, two doors south of what was then Cesar's Shell station; it's now a Valero. I ripped my hand open trying to climb up onto the garage roof back then, running into the house screaming. Mom and Dad wrapped my hand in a towel, loaded me into the station wagon and we took a wild, horn-blaring ride to Mansfield General Hospital. Being too young to understand it was a serious but non-life threatening, I clearly remember pleading, "Daddy, don't let me die! Don't let me die!"

Hearing those words had to have ripped his heart out. Being a father, I understand the impact those words must have had.

I remember Dad pitching to my sister Joyce and I in the back yard with a wiffle ball. One of us would be Mickey Mantle and the other Roger Maris. Dad was a Yankee fan, only because the Indians were terrible. He took me to see the Indians in old Cleveland Municipal Stadium several times while I was growing up and he is the reason I love baseball so much. I'll forever hear him saying "those dang Indians!" when they'd lose yet again.

I remember Dad driving us cross-country to see the Grand Canyon and sleeping along the road, all five of us, in the station wagon. I also remember staying in the Vagabond Motel outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico and swimming in the pool there...with Dad's help. That same trip, we were eating in a restaurant, me sitting next to a big window in a booth. I spotted a dead fly on the window sill and pointed it out to Dad; his reply was "Sshhh, son...everybody else will want one, too."

That was Dad's sense of humor.

I remember Dad taking me to see Dr. Shamess my freshman year of high school; Doc fixed my shoulder after the third dislocation and it had been time to get the stitches removed. Apparently Doc had waited a bit too long to take them out, because skin had grown over several of them. I laid on the exam table as the surgeon worked to remove them, blood trickling down the shoulder and onto the paper covering the table.

Dad almost passed out.

My Dad was a strict disciplinarian and I'm glad he was; it kept me out of trouble in my teen years. He also pastored a church in Galion for several years, which meant church Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night, every week without fail...unless I was sick.

He was also a man who could fix just about anything. One winter, the blower motor in the furnace went out in the middle of the night; he fixed it using the motor out of Mom's old washer, which he'd had the foresight to remove before hauling it off to the junk yard.

There's several years' worth of anecdotal stories I could write about my Dad, a man I loved and admired deeply and who instilled in me my conservative values and love of history, but there's not enough time to tell them all.

I miss my Dad.

                                            My Dad, Clarence Clark, in the early 1960s

Good Vs Evil

From the dawn of time, when Cain killed his brother, Abel with a rock, evil has existed in the world. A single rock killed one boy, whose brother became mankind's very first murderer.

Millions and millions have followed in Cain's footsteps throughout the millennia, right up to present day on this Earth; there's no sign evil will ever slow down.

So how do we combat evil, which takes on a plethora of forms? How can we stem the tsunami waves of despicable acts committed by mankind on mankind, flooding across our nation and other continents?

By doing good. Good takes on a variety of identities, too. It may be in the form of mowing your elderly neighbor's lawn, by volunteering at a homeless shelter or cleaning up your neighborhood after a violent storm rolls through the area..

You've heard the term 'mob mentality'? Good will towards your fellow man can be infectious, too. I think the phrase is 'pay it forward'; in other words, when someone does something good for you, you in turn do something positive for someone else. Doing that, whether you're receiving or giving, evokes good feelings, makes you feel positive. You can make a difference. Even something so simple as a kind or reassuring word to a total stranger in obvious need is a step in the right direction.

Evil, however, will always be with us; it's why we have police officers, fire fighters, trauma center nurses and doctors and social workers. Those are the first that come to mind but there are many other groups whose sole aim is to give assistance in times of crisis.

We each have our own inner battle with evil, things we struggle with daily that those around us can't see or even comprehend. It brings to mind an old Native American proverb that goes like this:

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” 

He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Memorial Day's True Meaning

For much of America, Memorial Day means an extra day off from their work week. It means the end of the school year and the official start of summer. It means cook-outs, picnics and trips to the beach and, for some, visits to the grave sites of lost loved ones, where they’ll lay wreaths or plant flowers in their memory.

The reality of this day, which became an official national holiday in 1971, is that we honor those who have lost their lives in military service to our country. Started shortly after the conclusion of the Civil War, it was formerly known as ‘Decoration Day’, a time when our nation’s patriot heroes were remembered by placing wreaths, flags and flowers at their resting places. It is to be a solemn, somber occasion during which this nation reflects on the sacrifices made by those who have kept us free. We are to honor America’s military combatants who paid the ultimate price, in all wars and conflicts, by shedding their blood so that we, today, can live free of the shackles of those who would enslave us and trample our Constitution.

We honor those who fell freeing us from British colonialism in places such as Bunker Hill, Boston and Valley Forge; from the North versus South Civil War, which was anything but civil, in places like Charleston, Fredericksburg, Manassas, Gettysburg and Antietam.

We honor those who sacrificed their lives during the Great War, often referred to as the ‘War to End All Wars’, at Belleau Wood, Chateau-Thierry and Cantigny; the Second World War in the hell that was Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Normandy and Bastogne.

We honor the brave men who fought in Korea, killed during combat action at Inchon, the Imjin River, the frozen Chosin Reservoir and Pork Chop Hill; those who died in the steamy jungles of Viet Nam in places such as Pleiku, Ia Drang, the A Shau Valley and Khe Sanh.

We honor those who have fought and died in America’s ongoing War on Terror in the heat and grit at Anbar Province, Fallujah, Mosul and Basra in Iraq, and Tora Bora, Kamdesh, Wanat and the Helmand and Kandahar Provinces in Afghanistan.

We honor men and women who gave their lives amidst the artillery barrages, the bayonet charges, withering automatic weapons fire, aircraft crashes; in the dark, flaming, smoke-filled compartments of torpedoed ships, inside the oven-like personnel carriers hit by rocket-propelled grenades or buried improvised explosive devices, in the trenches, fox holes and bunkers in every war the United States has fought, hot steel raining down from enemy bombers or shards of shrapnel from air burst artillery rounds.

We honor those who died protecting this nation; whether the conflict was deemed  just or unjust by the American public matters not. These patriot heroes answered the call to arms, protected us from all enemies foreign or domestic, in our own nation and on foreign shores. They left behind their wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, loved ones who will forever remember the souls laid bare upon the altar of freedom.

Much as the State of Israel pauses as one on Holocaust Remembrance Day to recall the millions of Jews whose lives were stilled by the Nazis during World War Two, we also MUST pause to honor those who gave their lives in defense of our United States of America.

God rest the souls of all our patriot heroes this, and every, Memorial Day.

The Public Perception Of 'Speed Traps'

I lost interest in issuing traffic citations a long, long time ago, for a variety of reasons I won't go into; let's just say I found more pleasure in arresting folks who'd committed serious crimes.

That's not to say that traffic enforcement doesn't have a place in the cop world, because it occupies a prominent segment of the face of enforcement. Imagine a driving environment in which no speed limits exist, driving while impaired is ignored and traffic lights mean nothing.

You wouldn't want to ever leave the house.

Traffic laws exist and are enforced because they are needed, period. The zeal with which they are enforced is another issue altogether.

That brings me to the topic of  so-called 'speed traps'. There's a little secret about them that I'll reveal to you:

They don't exist.

That's right...there's no such animal. I don't care if a copper is hiding behind a billboard or sitting with his lights out at night. It's not a trap. One definition of the word says a trap is '...a situation in which people lie in wait to make a surprise attack.' The key word in that definition is 'surprise'.

Speed limits should not come as a 'surprise' because, through rules set forth in the Ohio Revised Code, they must be clearly posted along the roadway on standardized signage. They can't be altogether absent or in lettering so small they can't be read. The only exception is on rural roads where, if the speed limit isn't posted, the presumptive speed limit is 45 miles per hour.

That's it.

So, if Ohio regulation requires a speed limit posted in standardized signage, how can there ever be a 'trap'?

It is only a trap when you make it so by not paying attention. Drive the speed limit and there'll be no speed traps.

Here's another hint: the speed limit changes at the point where it's posted, not 200 feet before you get to it or once you've passed it.

So, if you pay attention to posted limits, you avoid being 'trapped' by a copper who's just doing his job.

Blue Family Mourns

This has been a terrible week for area law enforcement.

Ryan Garner, who was just thirty-three, fought a long, hard battle with cancer, succumbing to the disease Saturday evening. Though not personally knowing this young man, the love of his blue family is clearly evident in expressions of love, memories and sorrow across the social media spectrum.

Not knowing this man is my loss. Doubtlessly, I would have liked him.

I knew Harold Powers very well, however.

Harold, whom I first met in 1977, had been a Captain on Ontario's police auxiliary back then; I was a wet-behind-the-ears twenty-one, eager to start a trek that would end in August of 2013. The first thought when I met Harold was that he would have been right at home playing the part of an Old West Sheriff in a Hollywood western: six-feet tall, thick mustache and probably twenty pounds overweight. Harold was also an extremely friendly man, a guy who liked to laugh but was very serious when it came to law enforcement.

I lost track of Harold when I hired on at Mansfield PD in 1984, but ran into him in 2007 at Mansfield General/ MedCentral/OhioHealth Mansfield, where he worked in security. 23 years after I'd last saw him, Powers was still the same man. That made me happy.

The lasting memory I have of Harold was a November day back in 1981, when he shot and killed a man who had, at around 0440 that same morning, shot Ontario Patrolman David Pugh in the face during a traffic stop on US 30. Dave survived.

Powers shot the man at a range of approximately 100 yards as the suspect, Russell Echols of Cleveland, was engaged in a running gun battle on foot with another officer, Tim McClaran. Harold's round, fired from a six-inch Smith and Wesson, struck Echols in the forehead. Echols died later that morning in the MGH emergency room.

Harold Powers himself once told me he believed his single shot was guided by divine intervention. "If I'd fired straight up into the air, I still think that bullet would have hit him", he'd said. Why did he believe that?

Because Powers was a terrible marksman. He struggled during firearms qualifications.

Harold Powers, 84, died Tuesday evening at OhioHealth Mansfield. The world's light is dimmer today with the loss of Ryan Garner and Harold.

God bless both of these men.