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His name was Tim Koss, a Lieutenant of detectives when I was a rookie police officer. Koss was a tall, distinguished-looking man in the mode of Cary Grant or Stewart Granger, prone to monogrammed cardigan sweaters, subtle jewelry, and expensive footwear. There was a reserved elegance about him that women were drawn to and men trusted. His wife balanced him nicely, also tall and slender, worthy of displaying prizes on “The Price is Right”. When the two of them were viewed together, the casual observer might conclude that Mount Olympus was short a couple of residents. In truth, Koss was bright, slightly depressed, with a twisted sense of humor, and a wry way of looking at the world. For unknown reasons, he took an interest in my young, rookie self, and became somewhat of a mentor to me during my first year as a cop.
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As of this writing, it is May of 2010. There was a celebration at my house this morning. Last night was very stormy – heavy rain, excessive lightning, brutal winds – the temporary finale of several days of harsh weather that produced tornados in Oklahoma and Kansas, hail up to baseball size here and there, flashfloods all over tornado alley, and over five inches of rain at our place. As of this a.m. it’s still raining a little, but not storming, and our number two cattle dog, Clancy, will sleep a lot of this day. For some reason, she has a grudge against lightning and feels obligated to invite it to come down and fight like a man – or dog in her case. She rages at storms, bouncing around, calling Thor names, ready to do battle with the tempest, validating the old adage that it is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog. The long night of struggle is over now and she is tired. This morning, the wind has laid, the rain has softened, and all is clean and new, and the birds, free now from three days of brutal pounding, are celebrating.
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The young couple had two small children with them at the restaurant, and as I labored through my chicken fingers I watched the relationship of the family. It was different than most I see these days. There was no travel bag full of toys, no blizzard of techno-bliss, nor were the kids fussing or whining. All four people at the table, two in their adulthood, two under 7 years, were talking and enjoying one another, physically and psychically touching each other, learning about each other, with relatively equal participation.
Selling Dawn
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Snobbery seeps into every facet of human endeavor, I think, even riding horses. Keeping equines at stables where they are cared for and have their stalls mucked by people hired for that very purpose, is an expensive proposition. Nevertheless, when I was in my early twenties, I made the financial commitment necessary to place my sorrel colt at an excellent facility. The stable maintained about 50 horses, the vast majority of them stalled in an immense barn around a large indoor arena. A few, my colt among them, stayed in the small barn next to the outdoor arena. It was cheaper by about 25 percent, and it was where most of the Quarter horses, plugs, and crossbreds stayed. In the big barn were the “society horses”.
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Back in the days when I was a rookie cop in 1968, I encountered a parking problem. The city cop shop had a very small parking lot, inadequate to handle the number of cops’ cars near shift change from the day shift to the three to 11 trick. When it was deemed I was not a huge danger to myself or others, I was assigned to the three to 11 shift, and faced with the problem of having nowhere to park when I came to work, except at a metered space on the street. It was not a big deal to do so and walk a block to HQ, but, there were only two-hour meters in the area and they were active until 6 p.m. I would park at around 2:30, which meant I needed to feed the meter one more time each day. Most of the guys on the shift avoided that situation by having a day shifter drop by their home and catch a ride to the station with another cop in a patrol car, but I lived outside the city and could not avail myself of such a service. Consequently, from time to time, when my meter expired, I would be someplace, on city business, crushing bad guys to their knees or some such, and not be able to get back to the meter to feed it on time. Because the meter maids, who also worked out of the same building as the cops, were always in abundance in close proximity to where I would park, they would pounce on an expired meter like robins on a worm. I got tickets. In those days, keeping the meter fed would cost around 20 cents. A ticket for an expired meter was five bucks. By my reasoning, since I was employed by the city, if the city sent me on some sort of city police errand that did not allow me to feed the city meter on time, it was not my fault should the meter expire, and the city should allow me to pay the city the standard city fee for city parking instead of leveling a city fine upon a city employee since it was their fault I could not return in time to feed the city meter. I saw no fault in my reasoning. The city did not agree. Actually, it wasn’t the city that I had to deal with. It was a newly hired civilian who changed his title from Personnel Manager to Human Resources Director that called me into his office one morning at 10. He was not a nice man. A bit pompous and full of himself and his position, he inquired as to why I had not paid my outstanding parking tickets. I told him I would be happy to pay them at the standard parking meter rate, but that the fines were out of line. I then explained to him my reasoning. Several times during the explanation he snorted at me. I thought I caught the scent of an alcoholic beverage. When I finished, he actually laughed.
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I must warn you that in the upcoming vocalization, I am going to use the term “God”. I use that term in the broadest possible sense – the power of the universe, the Force, Wakantanka, Earth Mother, whatever. I do not align with nor do I endorse any particular version of the concept. If that offends you, I’m sorry you’re fearful. My concept of God belongs to me. I don’t want yours. You can’t have mine.
A Gift in the Fog
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In the early spring of 1975, I quit my job, and my wife and I filled a Volkswagen Thing with us, camping gear, a giant Schnauzer puppy, and took to the road with no destination in mind. A few days later we found ourselves in Brown County, Indiana, a truly lovely area with rolling hills, scenic valleys, quaint artist’s communities, and more covered bridges per square whatever than any place else on the globe. We decided to stay for a few days, and pitched our tent in a rambling campground between two wooded hills in one of those scenic valleys, 50 feet from the obligatory babbling brook.
Clipping and Flipping
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There are those to whom mowing grass is a gas, but I find a lawn a yawn. Some feel that heaven is clipping a hedge, but I’d rather camp on a skyscraper’s ledge. Many find flowers their cup of tea, but a dandelion can get the best of me.
It shouldn’t be that way. I was raised by a man who took a well-groomed lawn very seriously. He mowed a lot. So did I. I even did a stint for a time as a grounds man on the campus of the University of Illinois mowing for a living until I screwed up my knee by falling off an 8-foot wall of a raised yard near the office of non-academic personnel.
Employed in the lawn and garden department of a large store one spring, my job was to assemble lawn mowers for the unsuspecting public. Some of them actually worked. I know the difference between Kentucky blue, fescue, and zoysia. I know privet when I see it. I can easily determine between northern birch and the river variety. I am not ignorant, just ineffectual.
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When I was a lad, kite flying was popular among me and my peers – a ragtag crew of Cub Scout, river-rat little leaguers. In those days, one could not journey to the local mart and purchase some exotic piece of airborne art for a few bucks. Oh, no. The best we could manage was a trip to Baumgartner’s Dime Store and buy, for a hard scrabble 50 cents, a common paper and split lav kite that, with the proper tail attachment, might actually fly – and it had better, because one crash with the delicate craft most always meant its demise and the total loss of half a buck, a small fortune when cokes were a nickel and comic books a dime.
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Bud Miller was born to lead. With 20 years service in the military, including the Korean War, when ex-Sergeant Miller retired and came home to our small town, he just couldn’t wait to get back in charge of something – and the Fire Department caught his eye. Our little volunteer fire department was housed in a rundown brick garage just off the small uptown business district. One ancient pumper truck constituted the entire fleet of firefighting vehicles and, three or four times a year, the town whistle would sound, phones in the volunteer’s homes would bellow a continuous steady ring, and 8 or 10 stalwarts would get to legally drive like maniacs to the fire house and launch the wheezing fire truck to go put out a garbage fire or a blazing tool shed. Once a week the volunteer firefighters would hold an evening meeting at the firehouse to discuss business for a few hours. The rumor mill claimed the meeting consisted mostly of beer, cards, and the occasional “stag film”, but nobody ever got out of hand. So it was, so it had always been – until Bud Miller declared his candidacy for the exalted office of Fire Chief.
An Arresting Development
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When I first met Billy O’Neal I was just 21 years old, a rookie cop with less than one month on the street, full of high hopes and lofty aspirations as yet untarnished by the darker realities of my job. One fine June afternoon, I rode with another officer to the city garage to pick up a repaired squad car and return it to the cop shop. The Lieutenant who dispatched me on that errand probably assumed that even a rookie such as I could carry out the task without incident. Silly he. The 10 block drive should have been simple. Neither one of us counted on Billy O’Neal.
Double Indemnity
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As it happens sometimes in my narrow life, a friend started me to think. It was when she spoke of her wedding, her husband in his rented tux and she in her linen suit with dyed-to-match heels setting off on their road of life together many years ago – and some of the rocks that litter that very road. It brought to mind weddings – two of them to be exact, both of them mine.
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Some time ago, my wife and I watched a rerun of a movie starring Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt. “What Women Want” is a very enjoyable romantic comedy about a male chauvinist pig who can, all of a sudden, hear what women are thinking. It also caused Laura and me to do some thinking about the battle of the genders. So far there’s no clear winner, but women seem to be ahead on points – at least that’s what they’d like us to believe.
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