"Encourage and support your kids because children are apt to live up to what you believe in them."

                                                                         Lady Bird Johnson

   My kids just don't get it.  Where they think I'm being judgmental and authoritative, I'm just trying to offer a bit of input about things I've encountered time and time again in my life and handled in a manner, well that I thought acceptable. Something about the past I suspect. But I've long since accepted them as adults and completely empowered with the capabilities of coming to their own conclusions.  I guess the biggest obstacle I have to deal with is that what I believed is acceptable, often doesn't meet their standards.  And there exist some things they just need to find out for themselves. And their fear of my disapproval is overstated.  But I guess my little "nudges" are expected and even appreciated once in a great while.  But what they never, ever need to worry about is to be disavowed, ever.  Cause when I'm in public or private, with or without them, somebody asks, Hell yeah I made them.  Aren't they fucking spectacular?


  I decided to tackle the long forgotten interior of the back side under the kitchen counter.  Specifically I was wont to get the Cast Iron stuff from back there, We've got a couple skillets and Dutch Ovens.  And it's been some time since I got all up into that  kind of cooking. Couple of years ago in Arkansas I just killed it with the Cinnamon Rolls. Lisa is going to be gone at least another week and a half so, Ok, let's make some messes.
   
    But...... it was bad, real bad. Cloverfield movie bad, or that one movie Tom Green made while married to Drew Barrymore bad.   An undiscovered leaking faucet had been dripping into the two stacked Cast Iron skillets.  It wasn't a yuuuge leak, just a drip, over the course of about a year.  No real damage to the cabinet, but the skillets, wow.  Most folks probably throw em out they're so rusted out.  Nah, It's a project.   I spent the afternoon with a drill and wire brush and made some great headway.  Next I'm going to sand down the bottom.  Ain't retirement great?

     Driving home from Wally World with my brand new RV faucet I just bought for two fitty, I'm listening to NPR.  Yessir, they got NPR even in Texas.  And a retired NYPD guy by the name of Osborne.  A writer and some kind of actor.  I couldn't really make that part out .  But his book is about the many experiences a NYPD cop has over the course of a twenty or so year career.  And during the interview the guy, a natural born storyteller, related a lot of experiences, that guys like me instantly relate to.  The way I see it, big city or little city, the difference tends to be frequency, but not intensity.  Twenty four years as a parole officer has gifted myself and my retired peers (Ellery) many many war stories that could easily rival those I was listening to.  Not to disparage his stories in any manner because frankly they were pretty good.

   But there was a point in the interview the guy just knocked it out of the park.  See,  it's not a great time for law enforcement.  They've picked up a bad name, all account of some bad apples.  The South Carolina incident, the Mesa, Baltimore and Chicago incidents just blow my mind.   Myself and my peers all dealt out force of some kind.  Some involved in shoots, most not. I personally never fired my weapon.  I don't believe I ever witnessed any force inflicted excessively, nor thankfully ever heard of a shoot situation used only as a last resort.. But we've all had those close calls.

   The interviewer, post war stories asked Osborne had he ever fired his weapon.  Finger squeezing the trigger, but at the last second always some other option was found rather than killing the guy he said.  It was close a couple of times.  He said most were disappointed upon hearing that but that he was elated he'd never had to kill anybody. Then she asked his opinion about the controversial shoots that had recently surfaced. He said, "listen I'm not going to defend those people".  " I just don;t know what they were thinking". " We don't shoot fleeing felons and those other incidents I don't understand either"'  "You go to work with the intent of coming home safely". "But you also don't want to have to kill anybody either".  "Make no mistake, there were a hundred times I would have been justified and I could and would in the right situation, but that was the last resort and I always chose something else". "Those guys are still walking around right now and have me to thank". "My friends still working can't say anything in public, but it just makes the job harder they say".  Finally he said "it takes balls to be a cop".  

    I've refrained from saying anything because it's construed as anti cop.  The last thing in the world I want to do.  99.99999 of those folks are awesome. So many of them are trying to turn things around and doing the right thing every day.  But in my day, those bad apples eventually were accounted for.  It's not a training deal.  We all got the same training.  It's an accountability thing.  So Osborne, Thank you. .Boom  ( Que the mike drop)  

     So I'll end here listening to some Isaac Hayes and other awesome fifties sixties and seventies stuff I haven't heard since I was a kid.