Mindset

The alarm goes off right in the middle of a dream...or maybe you're so sound asleep that there is no dream. You roll over, reach out and your hand hovers above the 'snooze' button.

What you do next, that miniscule little moment of decision, can set the tone for the rest of your day.

It forms your mindset, frames your approach to everything you're going to do until you slip back between the sheets at bedtime.

The lure of a few more moments in that warm bed can be strong, can't it? Its powerful, that urge to doze a few more minutes, but does it have power over you? A study done by some think-tank on the taxpayers' dimes says that there's eighteen seconds to decide whether you hit that button or get out of bed and into the day.

I don't think its anywhere near 18 seconds. I can't recall the last time an alarm woke me up because I'm generally hitting the 'brew' button on the coffee maker right around 0430 hrs.

Why arise that early? There's things to get done, tasks to start or finish.

We generally have an idea of what the day ahead may entail, but we also know no two days are ever the same. There's too many variables, too many 'Murphy' moments that can occur. You get in the shower only to discover there's no water due to an overnight line break. Car won't start or you notice a tire with low air. It snowed while you were sleeping and the roads are slick. One of the kids wakes up sick. Your elbow bumps the coffee cup, splashing its contents all over your shirt. Caught in traffic because of a wreck that has the highway snarled.

That extra five minutes in bed put you that far behind.

Your mindset, your approach to life in general, can be what sets you apart. The snooze button? That was a rather mundane illustration but it fits the topic. We all have tasks we don't like but they have to be done, right? A former Navy SEAL and founder of SEAL Team Six, Dick Marcinko, says, "you don't have to like it, you just have to do it." I don't know how many times I said that to my boys when they were growing up, but I'm sure they'll recite it to their kids too.

Get it done. Attack those uninteresting or unavoidable tasks and put them behind you.  Don't procrastinate, not even for a day, because it just makes it easier to put things off in the future. Don't rationalize, incentivize. Give yourself a little reward for completing a job.

Like maybe hitting the snooze button tomorrow morning.

Rid Yourself Of Subconscious Stress

The worst kind of stress or tension you have in your life is the kind you don't even know about.

Take some time for you and only you. Seek solitude. Shut off the phone, the TV, the radio, the internet and get away from people. Find a quiet place with no distractions. Take a walk in the woods, sit by a river or lake and just be by yourself, just for a little while. It doesn't have to be a daily event, or even weekly, but you need to make time for yourself.

Its amazing then, at those times, how clearly you can hear that still, small voice that should be guiding your life. I say 'should' because we allow the clutter of daily life to all too often drown out that voice; when we allow that to happen, when we permit the static and noise of things that cloud our judgement strangle that voice, stress is created. Tensions mount. Problems are magnified.

Choose, at times, to be alone. Refresh your spirit. Drain your mind of those things causing your storms.

And seek the voice of God.

Another Strange But True Police Tale

A few decades ago, while working at a small department, our Watch Commander on nights, Frank, was a very demanding sort, one who wanted things done his way and his way only. To that end, when Frank decided to divide our village into northern and southern halves, one of us would be assigned to each side with specific responsibilities…mainly performing building security checks.

Frank wanted our businesses checked several times throughout the shift; there’d been a rash of businesses burglarized  throughout the county and this was a tactic he’d utilize to make it tougher for the criminals to hit us in the village.

Checking buildings, when you’re not otherwise occupied, can get very tedious, not to mention down right boring. Occasionally one of us would find a business’s door unlocked, but those times were few and far between. Frank had gotten it into his head that Paul and I weren’t shaking any doors since we weren’t finding very many open so, one night before we left the station to start our patrol routine, he made an announcement to both of us.

“Before I came in tonight, I marked six business doorknobs…three north and three south…with ketchup; your job will be to find those doors and notify me which ones they were at the end of the shift.”

I have to be honest, this was a little ridiculous; we’re grown men, enforcing the law, carrying the power of life and death on our hips in the form of sidearms and charged with making a split-second decision, should it ever come to that, on whether or not to use that power…yet he couldn’t trust us that we were checking the security of the village’s businesses?

After about the third night of this, I formulated a tactic of my own, employing it to good measure. When the time came to go on station for the end of our shift, I informed Frank that I’d found not one, not two….but SEVEN business door knobs marked with ketchup, and told him which ones they were.

“But that can’t be, young man…I only marked three!”

“Well, LT, you can go out and check for yourself because I didn’t clean them off.” We were supposed to carry napkins and wipe the doors clean after finding his markings. I didn’t do it on this night, with purpose; I’d made a stop of my own on the way to work to get a fast-food burger…and a big handful of ketchup packets.

The next night, not only did I mark a few extra in my end of the village, but also on his end ( Paul was on nights off, meaning the WC would be out shaking doors), which perplexed him mightily. The next night, same thing…only I added a little mustard to his end of the village, too. When I was on nights off, I made it a point to go out about two hours before their shift began and leave some ketchup and mustard on business doorknobs throughout the village; this way, the same thing was happening even when I was off. (Good thing I lived close to the village, huh?)

It wasn’t too long after that that we stopped reporting our condiment findings before gearing down after our shift, and Frank never said another word about it.

I think he got the message.

*** Names were changed to protect the identity of officers involved

When Death Became Real

"No one here gets out alive" - Jim Morrison

Death is inevitable. It's a part of life. In the United States, a death occurs every twelve seconds, amounting to 7,452 every day. In the time its taken you to read this, someone, somewhere in the country, passed on.

That's pretty morbid stuff, yet so common....until it hits home.

Death has impacted all of us at one time or another; for many of us, several times. We've lost grandparents. parents, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters or spouses. It is a terrible tragedy, losing a loved one, but a tragedy we've all faced.

Normally, its the grandparents first. That's just a fact of life. I remember losing my first grandparent, Grandma Clark, on Christmas Eve of 1965. No time is a good time to lose family, but Christmas time, in my opinion, is the worst. It sucks the joy out of the holiday. Instead of celebrating the birth of Christ into the world, we grieve loss.

I'd lost two of my grandparents prior to 1974; my Grandpa Clark died in November of 1973. While losing them was terrible, it was inevitable because they were elderly.

Losing a classmate when I was fifteen years old, a guy I'd played baseball with, was when death became all too real. It was a shocking event because we were just kids. Dying in high school just isn't supposed to happen. Ever.

Jim had just gotten his driver's license and tooled around in a VW Beetle. It had to be amazing, having that freedom, a day we all looked forward to. Independence carried in your wallet.

Back then there was no seat belt law, no restrictions on who could be in the car with you, or when, save for rules parents put in place.

Mansfield-Washington and Hull Roads intersect on the downhill side between two rises and is a nearly-blind intersection, a hazardous stretch of road for an experienced driver. On the night of his accident, Jim was driving with three of his Madison classmates in the car after dark, approaching the intersection.

And it was foggy.

Though time has robbed me of details, there was a terrible collision in the intersection; Jimmy suffered severe head trauma, one of the kids in the back seat sustained a broken hip and I think a third passenger broke a wrist. Jim's injuries were by far the worst.

He was in the intensive care unit of Mansfield General Hospital, as it was called back then. After hearing of this terrible event, I called ICU and they told me he was in critical condition; there were no HIPAA laws back then, either. The next day I went up to see him; unbelievable (by today's standards), they led me to his darkened room, and what I saw was the biggest shock of my then-young life: a form laying in a hospital bed, head heavily bandaged, monitors both above and beside where he lay. On the other side of his bed a machine, its hose snaking to Jim's mouth, breathed artificially for my friend. I don't know how long I stood in the doorway in stunned silence; I do remember the nurse tugging at my arm, leading me away.

I went home and cried.

Two days later I called the unit to check on Jim's condition. The nurse who answered the phone, when I inquired about him, seemed very nonchalant when she replied, "I'm sorry, but he expired."

Expired, as if she were talking about a gallon of milk.

I don't remember if the school excused those of us that went to Jim Norris' funeral; thinking back, I can't imagine they wouldn't have. I just recall how somber the service was, surreal as it ran its course. I didn't go to the cemetery because I knew it would have been terrible, watching them lower my red-headed friend, who had always seemed to have a smile, into the ground. I waited six months to visit his burial site, and I stood staring at the plaque with his name on it. I still hadn't accepted the fact he was gone.

Today, nearly 45 years later, its still hard to believe.

In the years between that event and 2013, when I retired from police work, I came to see death on a fairly regular basis, in all manner and form, taking infants through the very elderly. Much like that nurse on the phone so many years ago I, as have many of those I worked with and those who protect and serve today, formed the hard shell around my emotions. Its a shell that keeps you sane, helps the psyche stay intact and functioning. Its a necessity, an integral part of equipment for coppers, the same as a ballistic vest or gun belt, tools you don't go without. Its not that you don't care, as some would think; its because police officers inherently care too much, an emotion that can profoundly affect job performance as well as family life.

I've lost some of the hardness of my shell over the last five years, as the job has receded in my personal rear-view mirror, but vestiges of the shell still remain with me.

As does the memory of my Madison High School classmate, Jimmy Norris.

This Week's Bizarre Police Tale

Police in Hanahan, South Carolina were called to an apartment complex Monday night in response to a 911 complaint of a woman attempting to remove a male victim's genitals.

With her teeth.

"It's one of the worst body cam videos  I've seen in my career," said HPD Chief  Dennis Turner. "It honestly reminded me of something you would see from off a horror movie."

Officers arrived at the apartment to find two men, one suffering wounds to his manhood, and a woman, who was naked and spattered with blood. The woman began crawling aggressively on all fours towards the police officers, who then subdued her with a Taser.

The two men and the woman had been engaged in sexual intercourse when the attack occurred.

The woman was later administered Narcan, as it was found she was under the influence of heroin and methamphetamine, and then transported to a local hospital.

As of this date, no charges have been filed.

It is unknown if the male victim sought treatment....or will have need to consult with a plastic surgeon.

Check back every Friday for a new bizarre police tale.

Who's Stopping You? You Are.

Fear. Phobia. Apprehension.

Regret.

We fear what we don't know. Fear can keep us from goals, dreams and desires, and from confronting problems and issues. Phobias allow unreasonable elevation of our fears Our apprehensions make us take pause and hesitate to move forward.

Then the regret sets in. We'll 'what if?' the rest of our lives because we were afraid, once upon a time, to confront our fear. Then comes self-doubt and, maybe, self-loathing. Don't do that to yourself. Have some respect for you.

So how do we overcome our fears?

We take that first step toward them. That's it. Simple as that. Make that first move forward.

We can educate ourselves, strive to determine what is causing us that fear. Is it fear of failure? You failed. So what. You won't be the first person in the history of mankind to fail at something. The key is what you do next. Prepare for that step the best way you can. Study that fear, have a reasonable idea of what it'll require of you to overcome it and go right back at it.

Don't allow fear to defeat you. You get back up, dust yourself off, figure out what went wrong and take that step again only, this time, you'll have a better understanding of what you're stepping into.

You want that dream, that goal or desire? Don't let fear stop you.

Run that sucker down.

Get Off The Treadmill

No, not the one that's keeping you healthy.

The one that's keeping you stationary in life.

Let's face facts for a moment: most of us get out of bed, go through a morning routine, work, come home to another routine for a few hours and then go to bed. That cycle repeats every twenty-four hours for five days, with maybe a few variables.

No wonder we look forward to weekends so much, but even those can have their very own cycles too, right?

It gets to be monotonous, a drag, smothering your life aside from those few variables. You're running in place on life's treadmill when you want to move forward and higher. You can't see an endpoint, the time in your life when you can stop running and start enjoying.

Trust me, that day is coming.

In the meantime, though, how do you step off that platform of everyday mundaneness? Of the mindless 'rinse-and-repeat' cycle? CAN you throw the change-up instead of another fastball?

I'm not advocating a total life change; that's a pretty big gamble, especially if you have loved ones depending on you at home. You can't act on chance and risk losing something you can't afford to lose.

Break up that cycle to whatever extent is acceptable. Take your wife or husband out to dinner unexpectedly in the middle of the week. Have a family night at the movies. Go through the attic and donate unused or unneeded items to those less fortunate. Volunteer a few hours at a local food bank.

Have something in mind you've always wanted to try, but haven't? Do it. Read a book...or write one. Build something. It doesn't have to be intricate or expensive. Dig a hole, line it with bricks and stack a few rows of pavers around it. Now you have a fire pit. Refinish the old table sitting in the basement that Grandma gave you and make it functional again.

Do something a little different every week. Break the monotony by stepping into unfamiliar territory outside your comfort zone. Change something...anything...

...and stop complaining about the treadmill.