All Seriousness Aside...

Sometimes you get to the point where you just don't want to think about current events and all the negativity that comes with them. That being the case, let's lighten things up...

There's a little shop here in Mansfield that serves specialty coffee and tea, along with baked goods, occasional live music and local art. It's called Relax, It's Just Coffee and is located on North Main Street. I've never been there, but the name got me to thinking about maybe opening my own little shop, with one caveat:

It's only clientele will be senior citizens. I'd call it 'Relax, It's Just Arthritis.' Our main offerings would be ibuprofen, ice packs and analgesic creams.

On our way back from Nashville/Lebanon/Murfreesboro, TN last Sunday, Stacy and I stopped at the Sunbury exit off I-71 to grab a bite to eat. As we made our way around to KFC, we saw two semi tractor-trailers parked behind the restaurant, marked 'ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball'. Voila! The Tribe is playing on ESPN right now and I'm bouncing between the Browns and the Indians on the tube. I must say, though, that I can barely tolerate SNB on ESPN; between the field mics being way too loud and an 'analyst' who never set foot on a professional baseball field popping off about what players are doing wrong, well....I'll only watch because it's the Indians. That would be like me critiquing an airline pilot on whose plane I was flying.

...and what's up with on-field halftime shows during seemingly every NFL primetime game? Last I really watched any No Fun League games, celebrity singers lip-synching songs only happened at the Super Bowl.

...and does anyone really care that alleged (innocent until proven guilty, unless you're a conservative) sexual predator Antonio Brown says he won't be playing in the NFL anymore? How will I ever sleep knowing that?

Stacy and I have been grandparents for nine months now. It is awesome. Our little granddaughter Mila is at that age where she's curious about everything and gets into anything. When I'm holding her while she consumes her bottle, she likes to reach up and grab Papaw's beard while watching Sesame Street (hey, whatever happened to Bert and Ernie?). Then there's moments like this:

Have a great night, everyone!

Is America Forgetting?

Never Forget.

Soon after Islamic terrorists hijacked planes loaded with passengers and flew them into both towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., as well as United flight 93, whose passengers fought back and caused their aircraft to crash in a field in southwest Pennsylvania, America took up that slogan.

It was on everything from billboards, t-shirts and coffee mugs to bumper stickers, key chains and magazine covers. Suddenly, divisiveness disappeared and all of America came together. Through our grief, we became stronger.

Today, eighteen years later, it seems a large segment of our society has forgotten.

Broadcast media memorializing September 11, 2001 and those lost on that terrible day varied from channel to channel; locally, one print media outlet posted two stories online connected to that day: one a hand-me-down from USA Today and the other dealing with 4th-graders making lunches for local police, fire and ems personnel.

Two stories, then it's move on to adopted cats and rescued deer.

It kind of feels like the line from Islamic Democratic Socialist Representative Ilhan Omar a few weeks ago: "Some people did something", referring to the sons of Satan who hijacked the planes and killed over 3,000 innocent civilians and civil servants.

Today's era of fragile feelings and micro-aggression makes people hesitant to mention the words 'Islamic' and 'terrorists', though in Omar's case, what she said was a premeditated slight to freedom-loving Americans.

As I drove through the county today, federal, state and municipal offices all had their flags lowered; sadly, very few private residences and businesses followed suit.

Where has out patriotism and remembrance of that horrible day gone? What happened to all the cars, and pickup  trucks especially, flying American flags as they traveled our roads and highways? Would today's 'look-at-me, I'm-offended' prima donna athletes dare to kneel during the playing of our national anthem eighteen years ago?

I think not.

The United States gravely needs to regain its unity and shed the hatred and profanity-laced name calling that is becoming prevalent in the 24-hour news cycle.

We need to do it NOW, without the terror-driven impetus of monsters flying planes into buildings.

Who's At Fault? The Police, Of Course...

In the last few weeks, liberal politicians aspiring to this nation's highest office have publicly renounced law enforcement for political gain.

Not surprising. In this day and age, it's almost expected.

A few years ago, Ferguson, Missouri became a flashpoint of unrest and rioting after a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed black man. The predominant....and wrong...public perception, boosted along by media and television news talking heads, was that the victim had been trying to surrender and had his arms in the air; protesters, with their arms raised, chanted "hands up, don't shoot!" nightly on our television screens as Ferguson burned.

A St. Louis county grand jury, after hearing days of testimony from eyewitnesses to the incident and being presented with forensic evidence, later determined that Officer Darrin Wilson had acted in self-defense as Brown charged at him; the 6'04", 292-pound victim had initially attempted to take Wilson's service weapon as the two struggled inside the officer's cruiser. 

A separate federal grand jury later came to the same conclusion, yet left-leaning Dems seeking their party's nomination in next year's presidential election still espouse the 'hands up, don't shoot' narrative.

In recent days another, far less intense incident happened locally. A man, running for Mansfield City Council, was stopped for a traffic violation. During the course of officer contact the violator opened his vehicle's center console, whereupon the officer believed he observed the top slide of a semi-automatic handgun. The officer and his back-up both drew their service weapons, though they didn't point them at the driver. Cruiser video shows both policemen holding their guns at their sides, pointed downward.

The candidate was not taken into custody but was cited for driving while under suspension.

Since then, the council candidate has called for a public summit; in attendance will be the city's Chief of Police. Based on past personal experience, the police will be guilty in a large segment of the public's eye before the summit even starts; the local print media's parent company is already attempting to make the incident a national story.

If Michael Brown would have complied with Officer Wilson's instructions he would be alive today. Likewise, had the council candidate not chosen to drive an automobile while his license is suspended, I wouldn't be writing this post.

Personal responsibility for one's decisions and actions needs to make a comeback.

Evil Revealed

I wrote a few months ago about one of my earliest memories being the assassination of JFK. At the time I was too young to grasp the magnitude of the event or understand that it was a national tragedy. I didn't understand why my teacher cried when the President's assassination was announced over the public address system at Raemelton school.

I was just short of my seventh birthday.

Three years later I heard on the news about eight student nurses being murdered in one night by a guy named Richard Speck; he'd held them hostage in a dorm room after breaking in and then, one at a time, taken them into a hallway and stabbed them to death. Speck unknowingly left a witness, though; Filipino exchange student Corazon Amurao had hidden under a bed while another of the student nurses was being led out of the room. Amurao stayed there for seven hours and eventually testified during Speck's trial. He died in 1991 in prison, his death sentence having been commuted to 1200 years behind bars.

Even though I was only ten years old, that saga began my introduction to just how evil the world is.

Throughout my years until today, as I type this entry, evil has seized headlines at an ever-increasing frequency. Can't watch a newscast or pick up a newspaper without being assailed by man's brutality to man. Charles Manson's 'family' was responsible for the Tate/LaBianca murders in southern California. John Wayne Gacy raped, tortured and murdered thirty-three boys. Ted Bundy, whose actual name was Ted Cowell, confessed to raping and killing 30 women. Cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer raped, murdered, dismembered and ate sixteen young men and boys.

And then Islamic fundamentalists started flying commercial airliners into buildings.

Evil, though, doesn't really resonate until it touches you in some way, close to home, or until you see it for yourself. As a law enforcement officer you'll see it all too often.

A woman stabbed 31 times by her boyfriend early on Thanksgiving morning. Another shot in the back of the head as she exited her home by a jilted boyfriend. The brother of an acquaintance of mine shot and killed as he walked along West Fourth Street. A man found beaten to death with a bumper jack, in a field across from a bar where he'd been drinking the night before. A father shot and killed by his son as he sat in his living room over the killing of the son's dog. A son stabbing his mother repeatedly because he didn't like the man she was dating.

That's a small sampling of the evil I've witnessed. Even my wife's cousin, a local business owner, was found beaten to death several decades ago; a guy I grew up with went to prison for killing a man during a drug deal.

Evil has been around since Cain killed his brother Abel in the book of Genesis...and it has gotten worse through the ages.

All I can say is, God help us.

Seriously.

It Would Have Fallen On Deaf Ears

Ever have occasion to impart advice to someone who would benefit from it but you kept silent because you knew they wouldn't listen anyway?

That happened to me a few days ago as I was buying barn paint at a big-box home (barn?) improvement store.

I'd stepped up to the service desk in the paint department; apparently, six other folks had the same idea as I...take advantage of the beautiful, rain-free weather and paint something outside. The store had three people assisting customers at the desk, so I had to wait a bit. I wasn't about to leave without having this can of paint violently machine-shaken for three minutes to ensure its contents were well-mixed, as I had a week earlier with the first one. Mixing by hand in the garage for what seemed an eternity sucked. I probably needed another shave by the time I'd finished.

"Hey, I really like your shirt." This from one of the male employees behind the desk, a baby-faced, stocky young man with steel-rimmed glasses.

I'd just received a "I Stand For Freedom' t-shirt from Nine Line Apparel the day before and had donned it for the trip to the store.

"Thanks."

This started a conversation between he and I; he owned several patriotic shirts from the same manufacturer. During our conversation the youngster mentioned that he was attending a police academy, mentioning names of some of his instructors. I knew a few of them, explaining to the young man that I'd spent three decades in law enforcement in this area.

His face lit up and I was peppered with questions; then he started talking about how he couldn't wait to start his career and that he thought he had an 'in' with a neighboring county's sheriff's office.

"I hope they put me in the detective bureau." His wide-eyed enthusiasm shined behind those spectacles as he took my can of red barn paint, secured it in the shaker and started the machine.

Inwardly I cringed. I didn't have the heart to burst his bubble, to explain that he'd have to work years in a cruiser, answering calls for service, and that he'd have to prove himself before being considered for such an assignment.

I also couldn't bring myself to recount some of the morbid, horrible things he'd be exposed to, the hardships he'd have to endure, the sometimes unimaginable scenes his eyes would see but his brain would not want to accept as real.

Memories kicked in. Seeing needless death for the first time outside of a funeral home, I'd answered a call at a farm in 1981; the middle-aged woman who'd called was worried because her husband hadn't returned from the barn after feeding his livestock. She was worried because he was supposed to see a doctor the next day and had convinced himself he had cancer.

I found him hanging from a rafter in his barn, rope knotted at his neck and an overturned, rickety wooden chair beneath his lifeless body. The morning sun had just peeked over the eastern horizon as I notified dispatched to have the coroner respond.

Then I had to walk back to the house and tell the distraught woman that her husband had taken his own life.

Presently the youngster turned the shaker off and set my barn paint on the counter; he obviously wanted to continue asking questions but others seeking assistance were standing in line behind me.

"It was very nice meeting you, sir. Any suggestions for me?"

I wanted to tell him what I'd been recalling. I wanted to tell him to learn how to drive a tractor-trailer or consider a career as a bricklayer or an educator. Be anything but a policeman. I didn't because I knew he'd shake that advice off, much as I would have decades ago if someone had suggested the same to me.

"Good luck."

I went home and gave both garage doors a second coat of that barn-red paint.

"Don't You Know Who I Am?"

Celebrities' preferred statement when encountering police.

I heard that question a few times back in the day. Most times I did know who they were; most times, too, I did my job in spite of that knowledge.

The very first time I had contact with someone who expected me to know who they were was way back in 1979-1980, while working for Ashland PD. A car passed me eastbound on East Main Street, right about where the old Dairy Dolly used to sit, traveling fifteen miles per hour above the posted speed limit. I activated the light bar, turned on the car and stopped it a few hundred yards away. The vehicle pulled to the side of the road and, even before I was able to open the cruiser door, its driver popped out and was walking towards me, a big smile adorning his artificially-tanned face.

The driver extended his hand. "Hi, officer. I'm Mark So-and-so, TV 5 weatherman. How are you?"

WEWS channel 5 out of Cleveland. I recognized the guy immediately.

"I'd like for you to get back into your car, sir, and then I'll need your license and registration." There was no requirement to show proof of insurance back then; heck there weren't any seat belt laws, either.

The wide, bright smile fled his face, replaced by a look of bewilderment. Eventually he received an invitation to municipal court for driving fifteen MPH over the limit. I preferred having Dick Goddard tell me what the weather was going to be anyway.

A few years later, this time at Ontario PD, I had occasion to encounter the local television sports anchor during a traffic stop. He didn't jump out of his car and extend his hand; he just flat-out asked the question after I requested his driver's license.

"Don't you know who I am?", he said with a palpable air of indignance.

"Not until I see your license, sir." Of course, I knew who he was, too. Like the Cleveland weather-guesser, the local sports talking head got a ticket.

I've had interaction with other celebrities also that didn't involve violations of the law. The Indians' Jim Thome is one of the nicest, most down-to-earth professional athletes I have ever met. I worked an autograph session for the future Hall of Famer at a now-defunct card shop across from the Holiday Inn. Chatting with him while eating pizza after the session was finished was like talking to a neighbor.  Likewise with the Tribe's Julio Franco and Albert Belle, the latter in spite of his outwardly gruff demeanor. Both very nice gentlemen.

The comedian Gallagher, on the other hand, was a nightmare.

I'd been working overnight security at the Holiday Inn a few nights a week for a couple of years. Often, when entertainers performed at the Renaissance Theater next door, they'd lodge at the hotel. This particular Friday evening the man famous for smashing watermelons had finished a show and gone up to his room. Around midnight or so, I happened to be standing at the far end of the front desk, chatting with the clerk, when Gallagher exited the elevator. He strode to the counter and, in the most vile, disdainful, profane language, asked the female desk clerk if there were any restaurants open "...in this F-ing town." He was not trying to be funny.

That incident forever changed my view of Leo Anthony Gallagher. I can't stand the guy.

Likewise, I was working a few years later when actress Glenn Close rolled into the hotel at 2AM, entourage in tow. This was when a film crew was in town to shoot prison scenes for the movie 'Air Force One' out at the reformatory. Ms. Close played the role of the Vice President of the United States in the film, opposite Harrison Ford's president. All I can say about her is....she looks better on screen.

Then again, I'm pretty sure I'd look better on screen, too....with a LOT of makeup and special effects, at about a hundred yards away.

                                                        Ashland Police Dept, 1979

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I Just Shake My Head

The same thing that happened on the old TV show 'Cops' is starting to happen on A & E's 'Live PD'...only on a whole different scale.

It's getting to the point that I don't know if I can continue watching.

Back in the day, when 'Cops' first came on, it was mainly Miami PD officers. Not that it was a bad thing, but it was the same people all the time. The one officer, whose name I don't recall, was a real 'pretty boy'; by that I mean that his combed-back hair was always perfectly coiffed and he made sure to wear his gold....not the badge, but the necklace, rings and bracelet. This guy looked as if he came straight from central casting with the lite version of the Mr. T starter kit.

As the show expanded to other agencies I noticed another anomaly, something that non-TV cops didn't do: whenever a group of officers would finish a call, after the arrests had been made and the bad dudes/dudettes went to jail, those involved would stand in a semicircle and tell each other what a great job they did. Every call, no matter how run-of-the-mill, every show.

I used to laugh at the TV when those officers would do that.

There's a line that Clint Eastwood's 'Gunny Highway' used in 'Heartbreak Ridge' that would fit what I almost expected them to do after the show, but I want this blog to remain family-friendly.

Those of you that have seen the movie can probably imagine what I'd print, though.

That brings us to Live PD.

Great show but, on most episodes, there's one or two officers being shadowed that are definitely camera-aware...and they make sure to act and dress the part.

By 'dress' I mean that they're sure to have their uniform shirtsleeves tailored in order to display bulging biceps covered with tattoos...as long as they have the guns for it. Skin tight and ending just at the bottom of the deltoids, they seem to constantly have their thumbs on the gunbelt, arms bent and flexed.

That's not a knock on tats or fitness by any means, it's the 'hey, look at my arms and be deeply impressed' way they carry themselves when the camera is pointed in their direction.

If they thought they could get away with it, I'm sure some would be completely sleeveless.

Here's the kicker: I've seen coppers that looked like they were in chess club in high school that were great police officers and I've seen muscle-bound hulks wearing a badge that did just the minimum they could to get by on the street. All show and no go.

I don't care how much you bench press. I do care if you have the verbal acumen to talk a person out of committing suicide.

Endeth the rant.