Just a very sad week

        A very pronounced phenomena one notices getting older is a much deeper, pass on  the word "involvement",  more like immersion in the world around us on a daily basis. Subjectivity, what's good, what's bad POV du jour.  Been like that forever.  Early morning coffee gatherings consisting of "older folk" like myself, swapping lies and opinions.  Now hyper driven by nonstop twenty four hour bombardment of every little detail and nuance of each disaster.

    My ready made opinions and easy fixes have just dried up. Tragedies occur such as Orlando a few weeks back and the one in Dallas a couple of days ago, five dead police officers , twelve shot overall. And more incredibly stupid police executions and a sniper not unlike the Clock Tower Sniper tragedy in Austin several decades ago.  This time cops targeted while assigned to a peaceful BLM protest.  A point of ugly irony is that in a city touted for it's progressive policies, Officers, if the media has it right, talking and joking with protesters. A responsible law enforcement response that should have been the model Ferguson emulated and sounds completely unlike Baton Rouge.

 But force tends to be met with force, violence with violence.  For these cops, probably rightly perceived as good duty.  Extra OT cash and since Dallas habitually responded in this manner, low stress interactions with the community.  Many left their ballistic vests at home.

    Speaking from experience most officers enjoy this kind of interaction.  Lisa as a County Deputy many years ago wandered her jurisdiction and counted the nights by successful coffee dates with locals. Filling me in the next morning about conversations and new ideas about how law enforcement could improve her community.  She was doing community policing long before it became a buzz word. Fit right in with being Scout Leader and other community involvements she used to have.  We'd go to 4th of July parades and be bombarded by greetings from well wishers.

       In my youth and later in college, myself and my friends discussed our interactions with law dogs ( our word not theirs) while growing up. Made for great stories.  Being on the business end of those interactions wasn't always pleasant then either, but certainly a rite of passage.  We knew our local officers by name.  Some we liked some we didn't.  Dependent much upon who'd made us pour our beer individually, one by one on the side of the road.  Or the ones that carted us down to the police station to have our parents pick us up at 2 AM despite all our protests that we were really headed there right now.  A punishment that got one's parents involved.  But we respected the badge and the purpose.

  This was in the day when nearly any responsible father on the block was grandfathered the duty to kick your ass if the need arose. Indeed encouraged.  Just boys of course.   We weren't Angels, nobody really is.  Unlawfulness at that age within reason is really an important stage of development. Irresponsible behavior is far less embarrassing at fifteen than say thirty, the age some from more restricted families decided to finally bloom.  But this tended to be understood by both us and the police.  Consequently their response was always measured, usually appropriate to the offense but almost always involving a bit more pain and humiliation than paperwork  My friend got whacked on the back of the head, grabbed by the shirt collar and given a good old fashioned shake, told to get his ass home and his father was going to hear about it.  It may even have included a kick in the butt.  Like one might see in a Cowboy flick. Or maybe the kick to the butt happened to me in another episode.   Hell I'm  old OK?  Did he get manhandled, hell yeah, but appropriate to the crime of scaring some elderly women sitting in their car while he was jumping up and down on the bumper  in the parking lot following a  baseball game. A nonsensical for the most part harmless impulsive act.  The back of his head smarted a bit, his ego was bruised.  Good old fashioned Corporal punishment.  The elderly ladies I'm sure were satisfied, probably a bit smug with this outcome as well as the officer. The miscreant sent on his way.  No paperwork, no Court and no testimony and more importantly no record.  TCO  My friend, he had a ways to go to get through that phase of life but to the best of my knowledge nothing ever resembled terrorizing elderly ladies by bouncing on their bumper again.  Now I won't mention my friend's name because he and my other cohorts have as many similar unflattering stories about me as well.   But I will mention the Officer.  The former Sgt. Mildon, a guy known as much for the number of jobs he worked raising his family, (Police pay sucked back then) You'd be as likely to see him wearing a clerks apron at SAFEWAY as much as the policeman's uniforms.   He knew my by name because I ran with his little brother umm, who tended to also dabble in mischief.  So that probably wasn't the best thing.

  But myself and hundreds of others seemed to muddle our way through those years in that small town.  Move into adulthood and mostly unfettered choose our path in life.   Those side of the road reprimands became stories providing valuable street cred in later years while trying to jostle ourselves into our place in the world.  So no matter how intimidating Sgt Mildon seemed at the time   when he died from natural causes many years later, a college gymnasium could not house all the people who came to honor him.   Jim wasn't perfect, there exist some who feel they weren't treated fairly by him.    But I suspect proven by the fact I worked a nearly thirty year career the few unpleasant "Corrections" I received from Jim and others until now have been unrecorded anywhere but in the minds of those present.

       What happened? I'm not sure.  But I do know that there are some who do know.  We need our Police and need the security in the knowledge that "Protect and Serve" is not just what's painted on a Car door.

      So I wrote this a few weeks ago.  Much more has happened since but the words I decided worth merit.

     

State Dem Convention

     

On the 16th Lisa and I packed up and headed to San Antonio for the Texas State Democratic Convention.   Lisa became a Delegate a couple of months ago and so reservations were made more than a month ago at the Holiday Inn near the River Walk in the downtown area.  And we were less than a mile from the Alamo Dome.

       Hard lessons learned.  Even though I have regularly walked a couple of hard treadmill miles several times a week at the little AC gym in Rockport, This proved to be little preparation for the heat.  Thursday night we covered a couple of miles downtown to attend a "pre convention" meeting.  The Motel provided free shuttle service to the downtown area but that ended early in the evening.   So we decided to walk back.  The temperature hovered around a hundred the entire day and into the night with the indice up around 110.  Recently turning 62 reminded me all to well my days of being invincible are long over.  My wife who rarely walks for the exercise benefit had to stand by as I just couldn't hack more than a few blocks at a time without stopping to rest.  But then she is a  freak of nature when it comes to the heat.  I've nicknamed her "Demon" given that she also complains of the cold when it sits around 85.     I was completely undone when we got back from that walk and I took the next day off.  


Photoshopped Bernie
  

   Several people made the walk each day in a beautiful park like setting lining the sidewalk for most of the way.  Were the temps more around the seventies, it might have been a little thing I'd have enjoyed immensely.  As it were, I didn't dare and marveled at people in suits, complete with jackets making that walk in the heat. So I'm pretty convinced all Texans are "Demons"  Unbelievable.

    Second lesson, if one has never witnessed politics, doing so at a state convention is an eye opening experience.  From the initial meeting at the Grand Hyatt crammed in a less than accommodating room with a couple of thousand people in order to be schooled on resisting insider tactics.    An example of this is compared to say you buy a Volkswagon.  Now that you are the proud owner of a Volkswagon, seems like almost everyone else is too.  It's the same thing.  Being schooled on a couple of insider tricks.  Like rodents, they turn up everywhere and often.  

       The Amazing thing is:  Texas, like a lot of other Conservative states passed some highly progressive recommendations for the DNC that is occurring in Philly in July.  I'm not giving it up but this link probably answers most questions.  Speaks well for Bernie's folks who stayed and fought back hard.  Hard not to notice that the hardline mainstream weren't getting a bit irked.

      Six hundred bucks for Auto Insurance and that's the cheapest we can find for one old Bronco with two hundred thousand miles on it and a modest 2002 Silverado 2500.  And that's with no wrecks, tickets or underage Drivers.  Oh and that includes a 90's era RV that I also just had to drop 800 bucks on for a new AC.  The little portable we bought to sustain us the Winter couldn't even bring it down to 90 when the temps started rising.  Plus another 450 or so into tires for the tired old Bronco that just keeps huffing away.   Jesus' Kristo how does anyone make it on ten bucks an hour.   Fifteen is going to be hard enough.

     The joke of this is I recall my buddy floated the stupid idea that I might want to work in the private sector of Corrections.  I'd already been laid off my planned second career Airline job so I checked out some job descriptions.  Yeah, for thirteen fitty they wanted a four year degree and five years experience.  That's thirteen fitty an hour folks for a sad sad business that makes their CEO's some high rollers.   No wonder there are a lot of pissed off folks in the world.  As one guy put it "The pitchforks are coming".  I don't think literally but meh....it may be.

  And so with replacing the refrigerator a couple of months ago and the AC this month, I've pretty much come full circle in the little trailer.  I used to sweat what would happen if some of those expensive items went out.  Now I got my answer.  Get the best damn deal you can for a used reefer because y'know damn good and well they don't make them in the dimensions you need and haven't for quite some time.  They want you to buy a new one every two three years.  Then take out the door, knock a couple of holes on either side of it and somehow with the help of Crisco and spit, man and woman noover that sumbitch inside.  And that turned out to be the easy part.  Buuuuut it's been humming away pretty good the last several months.  The AC, buy the sumbitch and hire a guy to stick it in.

   So, yeah done here.  Be talking from the road next month....