I am, I said

I am, I said

You may recognize the above title from Neil Diamond who penned a song by the same name.  “L.A.’s fine, the sun shines most the time, and the feeling is lay back.”  I always liked that song, but then I like Neil Diamond’s music anyway.  I rented a car with XM stereo recently while I was in Houston and I found a radio station that played nothing but Neil Diamond music.  “Did you ever read about a frog who dreamed of being a king, and then became one?” I was in heaven.  He once turned the words around to that song and sang, “Did you ever read about a king that dreamed of being a frog, and then became one?”  That was when I realized that the next verse applied directly to me.  “Well, except for the names and a few other changes, if you talk about me and the story’s the same one.”

I always detested filling out job applications and résumés.  The expectation is that you are supposed to reduce the sum total of your life to a page or two.  I’m glad I don’t have to do that anymore.

I also hated the “who are you” question.  So much of who we are is based upon the path we have taken in life that I think it is fair game to identify the who we are by what we are and have been and done in life as part of our genetic makeup.  In fact, a person recently told me of recent research that indicates that our life’s experiences are genetically passed on to our descendants.  I don’t know how that is possible and I’m not sure I buy into it, but I’d certainly like to review the research.

During the past several weeks I penned a series of short essays as part of an “I am, I was” collection.  You may remember some of them if you caught them at all.  I said that I was a janitor, a teenage mutant musician, a Mormon, a retired police officer, a retired educator, a Cub Scout, a daydreamer, etc.  Perhaps you remember them.  There were 14 short essays in all.  If you missed them you can check them out on my timeline or they may be easier to find on my blog (gregorybtalley.BlogSpot.com).  I had hoped to add one more “I am” to the list.  I wanted to add “I am an Author” to the list, but having sold fewer than 40 copies of a really, really dirt cheap novel that I wrote (Desperado), I don’t think that one is going to work out for me.  (By the way, you can still buy the e-book at Amazon.com for $2.99 or go to the website created for the book at http://www.DesperadoBook.wix.com/desperado and connect to the link there to Amazon to purchase the book.  I digress).  Anyway, I don’t think that being an author is going to work out for me even though I have a couple more books in progress.

I had an identity crisis a few years ago.  As I neared retirement a few parties were held in my honor over the course of a few days.  I guess it was in my honor.  Either that or people were looking for an excuse to party.  Maybe they were celebrating the fact that I was finally going to retire?  I don’t know.  People said some very nice things to me and about me.  Nice notes were written and beautiful gifts were given to me.  A colleague and friend even hired a bag piper to come and play at one of my retirement parties.  I still have every one of those notes and gifts and I will treasure them for the rest of my life.  There were hugs and handshakes and even a few tears and then on the last day of work I was not only “off the clock” I was off the payroll.

I walked to my car from my office feeling a little lighter than I did when I walked in that morning and a whole lot lighter than I did when I assumed the responsibility for two academic divisions of the College.  It felt absolutely fantastic knowing that I would not have to return on the following Monday morning and sink into my office chair and wade through the challenges and meetings of the day.  It felt great for about 18 hours, and then reality sank in.

Susan had gone to Utah about a week ahead of me.  I drove out to pick her up and the two of us would take a leisurely ride back to New York.  I hadn’t driven very far when the reality of what I had just done and the consequences of what I had done began to sink in.  A mere 24 hours earlier I had been the dean of two academic divisions and an associate vice president at the College.  I made decisions concerning students’ futures by approving their continued enrollment in classes.  I had made decisions concerning academic appeals and resolved disputes between faculty and students.  I approved teaching assignments and payroll.  I wrote policy.  I served on and chaired fairly important committees on campus.  I wrote and controlled a very substantial portion of the College’s budget.  I made decisions that affected thousands of college students and well over half of the teaching faculty.  As I sat behind the wheel of my car driving west I realized that now I was none of that.

Not only had I left those responsibilities and authority behind, but I had left behind another profession with substantial authority and responsibility.  As a police officer I had authority over arrest.  I could determine if the person before me would be placed under arrest or walk free.  In the early part of my career as I worked “on the streets” there were occasions when I literally had power over life and death.  Later as an administrator I made decisions concerning who would be hired and who would be disciplined or even dismissed.  I wrote policy.  I was responsible for the department’s budget.  On occasion I represented the police department to other county departments and to the county administrator and to the elected governing body of the county.  I served on various not-for-profit boards and often worked with state and federal officials.  I had sat in meetings with United States Senators and Representatives. 

During the span of two careers I had held positions of substantial responsibility in two small spheres of the world and now I was nothing.  As I contemplated my “professional” status, it occurred to me that I had also lost some ecclesiastical status a couple of years earlier.  Over a period of 20 years I had served as a bishop in my church (twice) and had served in three stake presidencies.  (A bishop is the leader of a Mormon congregation and a stake presidency oversees the membership of several congregations.)  There had been substantial responsibilities with those church assignments as well, but now somebody else was the bishop or in the stake presidency.  No longer were people coming to me for counsel.  No longer was I instructing in spiritual matters with any authority.

I literally felt naked and vulnerable and useless.  Everything that I had been; everything that I had prepared for and had worked for was now wrapped up and gone.  Done.  Finished.  I was nothing and I was nobody.  That was quite a fall into my little pity party as I drove further and further west.

As I continued to contemplate my worthlessness and nothingness a thought came to my mind.  It came to me as clear as a bell and as though somebody had been sitting in the car seat next to me and had shaken me and yelled at me.  “You are a child of God!  You are the son of Richard Eugene Talley and Vivian Jeanne Goodman Talley.  You are the husband to Susan Schofield Talley and the father to Benjamin Andrew Talley, Gregory Scott Talley, Nanon Patrice Talley, Justin Mark Talley, and Megan Denise (Talley) Tilton.  You are an older brother to Richard Mark Talley and Kimberly Jeanne Talley.  You are a grandson and a great-grandson and you are a grandfather and someday will be a great-grandfather.  Nothing you can do will change that.  You will always be a father, a son, and a husband.  You have always been and always will be a child of God!  Nobody can take that away from you!  What else matters?”

It was as though another weight had been lifted from my mind.  Academicians and police officers come and go.  So do janitors and bishops and authors.  But children of God and family?  Both are forever.

Who am I?  I am, I said.

The Fourth Branch and Power

The Fourth Branch and Power

The Constitution of the United States is divided into parts that include the Preamble, Articles with Sections, and Amendments, the first ten of which constitute the Bill of Rights.  There is a total of 27 Amendments to the Constitution.

The various articles in the constitution specifically identify three branches of our form of government, namely the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, and when we speak of these branches we speak of a separation of power.  What we seem to overlook is a fourth branch of the government that is not separated out specifically as an individual article, but serves as the underpinning of the entire Constitution and each amendment in the Bill of Rights.

Article I of the Constitution spells out the establishment of the legislative responsibilities by government and creates a Congress composed of Senators and Representatives.

Article II of the Constitution spells out the establishment and duties of the executive branch of government, namely the President of the United States.

Article III of the Constitution creates a judicial branch and specifies the duties of this branch of government.

Article IV relates to the States, giving the states full faith and credit, and outlines privileges and immunities given to states as well as outlining the framework for extradition of fugitives.  Additionally, the process for admitting states to the Union is provided as well as guaranteeing states a republican form of government and protection against invasion.

Article V outlines the amendment process, while Article VI spells out the legal status of the Constitution, and Article VII sets forth the ratification process of the Constitution.

When we speak of the Constitution, especially the first three articles, again, we look at our form of government in terms of a separation of powers.  Congress, the legislative branch of our government enacts laws while the executive branch is responsible for enforcing those laws.  Finally, the judicial branch determines the constitutionality of those laws when its constitutionality or its application has been called into question.  Each of the three branches has given to it the power to regulate or moderate the other.

What is often overlooked in our review of the Constitution is the Fourth Branch of government; the power that is not and should not be separated from the other three branches.  I speak of We the People.

The Constitution begins with a preamble that spells out exactly where the other three branches of government derive their power. 

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

In these few words, one short sentence, the framers of the Constitution identified the source from which authority is given to the other three branches of the government to function and the purpose of our government.  The source that “ordained” and established the Constitution was We the People.

Evidence of this Branch of Government and its power is not limited to the Preamble.  For example, Article I, Section 2 states that “The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states….”

Other evidences of this Fourth Branch and Power of our government follow.

Article I, Section 3 initially gave the power of the states to elect senators, but this article was amended by Amendment XVII, and provides for two senators from each state that are “elected by the people thereof,...”

Article IV, Section 2 states: “The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.”

Article V of the Constitution provides for amendments to be adopted by three-fourths of the state legislatures or conventions.  Of course, state legislatures and conventions are selected by We the People.

If the Preamble is one bookend to the Constitution, then the Amendments, beginning with the Bill of Rights is the other bookend.  Clearly, the Bill of Rights reserves rights to the people.

Amendment I provides for the free exercise of religion, freedom of speech and of the press, the freedom to peaceably assemble, and equally important the ability to petition the government for redress of grievances.  Amendment II, as everyone should know is the right to bear arms.  The Third Amendment is one that we take for granted and we seem to overlook, but spells out the superlative position of the person over the government and provides that troops cannot be quartered in homes during peace time.  This particular amendment introduces the concept of a “man’s home being his castle”.  The castle doctrine has as its origin the British concept that even the king’s (King of England) army cannot enter the owner’s home without the owner’s consent.

The Fourth Amendment further establishes the sanctity of the Castle Doctrine by protecting people from unwarranted intrusions into their persons, houses, papers, and effects.  This amendment is followed up with the Fifth Amendment that prescribes the manner in which the government must hold people to answer for alleged crimes.  The Sixth and Seventh Amendments give further protections to people when accused of criminal or civil wrongs and the Eighth Amendment protects people from the government use of cruel and unusual punishment and excessive bail.

The Ninth and Tenth Amendments specifically reserve rights to the people that are not granted to the United States or limited to the individual States.

While the Fifteenth Amendment is a Reconstruction Era Amendment, it clearly states that the right of the Citizens (aka people) to vote shall not be denied or abridged.  This, of course, is followed by the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteeing the right of citizens to vote regardless of sex.

Clearly, the framers of the Constitution saw the People of the United States as an equal, even exceptional branch of the government endowed with power and ultimately responsible for the functioning of our government.  And, whereas the Constitution sets up a separation of powers of the other three branches of government, the only separation of power of the People from the legislative, executive, and judicial branches is the list of protections and guarantees provided to the People.

The United States Constitution is the law of the land and came about by our declaration of independence from England.  In part, that Declaration of Independence states the following.

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security….”

I draw particular attention to concepts enumerated in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence as they serve as the philosophical background for the Constitution.

1.      All men are created equal.

2.      We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights that include

a.       Life,

b.      Liberty,

c.       The pursuit of Happiness.

3.      That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That declaration goes on to describe the right of the people to abolish a government and reestablish a new government, but cautions that “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.”

I call on all Americans to step up to the plate and accept the responsibility of the Fourth Branch of The United States Government and to not abrogate that power to any singular person, office, or other branch of government.  Ours is a sacred obligation as acknowledged in our Declaration of Independence, given to us by Creator.  We the People have a responsibility to live up to the expectations of our Founding Fathers.

Christmas 2014

Christmas 2014

Gregory B. Talley

Christmas. Within that word is the name of our Savior. And, while we should rejoice and be happy when we utter that word, I wonder if at times is we shouldn't speak it with reverence.

Christmas. Your perception of Christmas is most likely dependent upon your age, how you were raised, where you lived when you were growing up, what your economic situation was and is, and what you have learned about Christmas over the span of a lifetime. Some, like me, have evolved from sitting on Santa’s lap and leaving him a wish list to becoming Santa and receiving the wish list. Somewhere in there I learned to leave cookies and milk for Santa along with a thank you note. Then, gradually over time, gifts that came from Santa were replaced by gifts from parents. Later I sought to find just the right gifts for my parents, friends, and other loved ones. The intrinsic value of those gifts became more significant as I spent my own money for gifts as opposed to borrowed dollars from my parents. Likewise, I began to understand the meaningful value of gifts given to me, sometimes at great sacrifice during some fairly lean times.

As children of God we are beneficiaries of the greatest gift of all time, the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Often undeserving and through no effort of our own we have been given the gift of immortality with the potential to live in God’s presence through eternity. Merely by accepting the grace of God we are entitled to have His Spirit to comfort us in times of trial. He is there to take upon Himself our pains and sicknesses and to stand by our side through temptations (Alma 7: 11-12). Indeed, “God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3: 16).

As we mature in our knowledge of His gospel we come to understand the meaning of loving him “because He first loved us” (1 John 4: 19). As such, it is only appropriate that we think in terms of gifts having eternal value that we may return to the Savior, not because we fear Him and not because we want a reward from Him, but because we love Him. In the course of loving Him we should come to emulate Him in every way possible. Therefore, what manner of men and women ought we to be? We ought to be even as Christ is (3 Nephi 27: 27). But, what acceptable gift may we offer Him in return? Prophets and the Savior Himself have given us guidance on this. Perhaps you could call it His Christmas Wish List. Let me share it with you.

“If ye love me keep my commandments” (John 14: 15).

“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34).

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:37 - 39).

Be “willing to mourn with those that mourn;…and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and… stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death” (Mosiah 18:9). Remember that, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40).

“(S)ee that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day” (D&C 4:2).

He invites us to come unto him, all “that labour and are heavy laden, and (He) will give (us) rest” (Matthew 11:28). Said the Savior, “Come, follow me” (Luke 18: 22).

And lastly He asks that we repent of our sins and present unto Him “a broken heart and a contrite spirit” (3 Nephi 12:19).

“And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which (I) give of him: That he lives!” (D&C 76:22). He is the Son of God, the promised Messiah, our Savior and Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the great I Am. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). Wise men sought Him, and so should we. May we be willing to take upon ourselves His name and “always remember Him and keep His commandments” which He has given us” (D&C 20: 77), I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

A Little Criminology Related to Racism and Police

Some friends began a discussion on Facebook on racism, crime, and police.  The answer to the problem is complicated and complex.  What follows is my rather lengthy response to the issues they raised.

Thank you for allowing me to join this conversation.  The answer to the issues simply stated is, “It’s complex and it’s complicated.”

Let me first explain crime rates in general.  The FBI for several decades has maintained what is referred to as Uniform Crime Reports (UCR).  UCRs have been criticized for its inability to gather all crime data; however, the vast majority of police agencies across the country submit UCR data on a monthly basis and those data are consistent.  Two indicators on UCR are considered to be valid and accurately representative of crime in the United States.  Murder rates and vehicle theft rates are considered accurate because it is difficult to conceal a murder and when a person loses a car to theft the tendency is to file an insurance claim, and insurance companies require police reports to validate the theft.  These UCR data are validated through two other sources: self-report data and data sampling done through the State University of New York-Albany.

Now, some very valid points have been made in your discussion here.  But, let me move on to crime rates of blacks and whites.  As it turns out, race has absolutely nothing to do with crime rates.  The three most important factors in crime “causation” (and I use that term cautiously) are economics, education, and employment.  Crime rates are consistent among blacks and whites when you look at those three factors.  Yes, blacks are over-represented by population in prisons, but it isn’t because they commit more crimes or because police pick on blacks; it is because there are more blacks than whites who are unemployed or underemployed, have significantly less education than whites, and have a lower economic status.  Put whites in the same set of conditions and their crime rates are nearly identical.

Bruce brings up a very interesting point which should not be summarily dismissed.  Why is it that blacks are incarcerated for drug violations at a higher rate than whites?  Again, the answer to this is complex.  The most common drug charge for blacks is associated with crack cocaine.  Several years ago when crack took an upswing in use and sale, legislatures enacted stiffer and mandatory penalties for crack offenses.  What we are slowly realizing is that crack, besides being cheaper than coke, is not any more dangerous than the whites’ drug of cocaine and meth.  It would be easy to say that the real culprit here would be the legislatures that enacted stiffer penalties for crack offenses, but like I said, it is complex and complicated.  It is important to realize also that few people go to prison for mere possession unless there are large enough quantities to establish an intent to distribute.  For the most part, what you have in prison on drug offenses are those who are dealing or manufacturing drugs OR are part of a larger criminal enterprise.  It is the larger criminal enterprise that lands people in prison even though the records show that the offender is in prison for drug related offenses.

Criminal enterprise is often a euphemism for gang activity.  Gangs tend to be racially exclusive.  You don’t find blacks in Hispanic gangs, nor do you find whites in black or Hispanic gangs.  Just like violence in gangs, drug activity within gangs takes the form of one of two objectives: (1) Dealing in drugs to finance activities or (2) drug use as part of the activities—a sort of byproduct of gang activity.  Gangs tend to form in communities where there is a high rate of absentee fathers.  And, where do we find the highest rate of absentee fathers?  Where there is poverty, low education rates, and unemployment.  Gangs function as substitute families for a lot of people surviving on the streets.

Therefore, what?  We know that the easiest route to conviction of people engaged in criminal activity is through drug charges regardless of all the other crimes they may commit.  The reason for the ease of conviction?  Drug crimes are referred to as strict liability offenses.  Prosecutors do not need to prove criminal intent.  All they have to do is show that a person committed certain acts and they let the criminal statutes do the rest of the work.  Most other crimes committed by gangs require proving malicious intent.  That, at times, can be a high standard to meet.

 Additionally, there is often a culture of violence that attends to any group of people who suffer from poor economic status, unemployment, and lower education, and that is not reserved to blacks alone.  What may start out as an interaction between police and a potential offender can quickly escalate to violence.  This happens when the offender is mad at the world for his/her status in life.  Since police are recognized not only as authority, but also as representative of the oppressive ruling class (and the class that makes the rules) it is highly likely that there will be a clash between the police and the offender.  It is that violent clash that gets the offender in trouble.  What may have started out as a simple confiscation of illicit drugs or the issuance of a criminal summons escalates to assault on a police officer—a felony in any jurisdiction.

There is no doubt in my mind that there is racism in law enforcement, just as there is in any sub-population in our society.  Yes, there are bad apples and I think we would all like to see those apples removed.  However, this cannot explain the overwhelming assertion that police have more enforcement contacts with blacks than they do with whites.  Consider the fact that many of these contacts occur at night in traffic stops when police do not know the race of the person stopped until the officer is face-to-face with the offender.  What happens next is dependent upon what the officer sees inside the car and the driver’s and occupants’ reaction to the stop.  It can go uphill or downhill from there.  If the occupants of the car believe they are being singled out and act out, things will go downhill quite fast.

Another factor to consider in crime causation is the proximity relationship of one ethnic group to another.  Criminologists George Herbert Mead, Robert Park, Walter Reckless, and Edwin Sutherland did extensive studies on what has become known as the Chicago School or Ecological School of Criminology.  Their research shows that the closer ethnic groups are to each other and the more they mix the more likely it is that crime will take place.  Part of their research showed that poorer people tend to live in urban centers, but as they accrue more wealth the more likely it is that they will move further away from urban centers.  They referred to this movement as moving through concentric zones.  It is where the zones meet or overlap where you find crime.  These concentric zones tend to be inhabited by ethnically homogeneous groups.  It is where these zones meet where heterogeneous groups clash.  Remember, the poorer you are the more likely it is that you will be in the center zone (where you find urban plight, slumlords, etc.).  Historically, there are two groups that have never been able to get out of the center zone: blacks and American Indians (aka/Native Americans).  As much as they would like to move out of those zones, they are stuck, so they push on the outer edges of their zones and that is where you will see crime and violence.  Additionally, those center zones tend to be overpopulated, which is a sure predictor for criminal activity and violence (remember your psychology and sociology studies involving lab rats in confined spaces?).

President Lyndon Johnson tried to address this through his social experiment called the Great Society.  With a few exceptions, it failed miserably.

Well, I’ve told you much more than you bargained for; much more than what you wanted to know.  If you are still awake and reading at this point, congratulations! The bad news is that there is so much more involved in this issue than what I’ve explained.  And, the sad news is that nobody really wants to address the real problem.  People want a quick fix by placing body cameras on police and giving them sensitivity training.  (My barber says we want to put body cameras on the wrong people.  He says that the bad guys should have the body cameras so they can record the actions of police.  Oh, and don’t get me started on body cameras.)  Mark my word.  That will fix nothing.  That is akin to treating cancer with a bandage and calling it good.

A final word is in order and then I’ll slink away and let you tear everything apart that you want.  You must be careful what you use for reference material.  As a criminology professor I never allowed my students to use online references from .com or .org.  The .coms and .orgs tend to have their own agendas and slant their research to meet their objective.  Unfortunately, you must also be careful with .edu references as more and more undergraduate students are putting their research papers online through their college websites.  When you look for theories look for .edu  papers written by graduate students, PhDs, and post-docs, and look at .gov for data generated information.  Some of the best information comes from SUNY-Albany, Sam Houston University, Michigan State University, and (believe it or not) UC Berkley, but most major universities are going to provide you with excellent resource information.  I just wish that Washington along with state and local governments would let people who know something about reality work on the problem rather than assembling a blue ribbon panel that has an axe to grind.

Duty on Christmas Day

Duty on Christmas Day

Gregory B. Talley

Duty on Christmas Day is generally slow in a small community.  Probably the best things about having to work on that holiday was that if you had the day shift you could go home at two-thirty in the afternoon and still have a good part of the day to spend with your family.  Those of us who had swing shift could be with our families in the morning and watch the kids discover the magic of Christmas in the early hours of the day.  I was a swing-shifter.  I was also the watch commander.

The other good thing about working Christmas was getting paid double-time and-a-half for the holiday.

Unlike Thanksgiving, people don’t watch to see you coming down their street so they can bring you turkey sandwiches and pecan pie.  Instead, they bring boxes of candy or homemade cookies and brownies to the police station for a week or two before Christmas.  You don’t eat things from people you don’t know.

Christmas is pretty quiet.  And slow.  It is slow enough that we let people go home for an hour to eat dinner with their families, but not all at the same time.  That Christmas was that way.

I had served a three-year stint as a patrol officer then another three years as a detective.  Without a doubt detective work gives a police officer a great deal of freedom; the kind that breaks one free of strict work hours and district assignments.  With the freedom comes a great deal of responsibility and long hours on the job, many of which do not come with any sort of compensation.  After three years as a detective I was ready to move back to being on patrol.

I was the newest sergeant on the department.  New sergeants were often assigned to swing shift.  It was a tough shift on our department.  There were always traffic accidents to work during the evening rush hour.  Runaways were generally reported missing when they didn’t come home from school.  There was always a steady flow of petty crimes and felonies to keep you busy.  Weekend parties in the summer typically began during the hours of swing shift and they were always good for drug and alcohol violations.  And, in the winter you could count on a couple of house fires to keep you occupied in the evening.  I loved swing shift.

Death.  Death is a fact of life in law enforcement.  Deaths from natural causes were generally reported on day shift when one spouse woke up and the other didn’t. It seems like most deaths from natural causes took place in bed or on the toilet.  The ones on the toilet are the tough ones to work.  You kind of hate to invade a person’s personal space.  When they remain in the upright and locked position they aren’t too difficult to deal with, but there are a fair number of folks who just roll off the pot and onto the floor.  They often end up wedged between the toilet and something else—generally the bathtub.  Think rigor mortis.

Accidental deaths could happen at any time of the day but seemed to occur most frequently during swing shift.  You tend to think of accidental deaths with traffic accidents, and you would be onto something there except not all accidents take place on the road.  Mary lived alone.  A neighbor was concerned because Mary wasn’t answering her phone but the neighbor could clearly see lights on in the house.  We walked into her house and there she was—face down in her mashed potatoes.  Everybody except me assumed that she had a heart attack while eating dinner.  I saw the bottle of wine on the dinner table and predicted the autopsy would show that she choked to death.  I went to the autopsy and watched as the medical examiner pulled the green bean from her throat.  She choked to death.  The medical examiner called it an accidental death.

Suicides happen just about any time of the day.  I’ll never forget the woman who tried to commit suicide by slitting her wrists.  She didn’t cut deep enough and she didn’t slice in the right direction.  She obviously didn’t read the instruction manual.  Since she couldn’t bleed out she tried to drown herself.  She filled her bathtub with water and forced her head under water.  That didn’t work either as she would hold her breath as long as she could then come up gasping for air.  So, she stripped down to nothing, slit her wrists again and ran outside and around her house in the dead of winter hoping to either freeze to death or bleed to death.  The neighbors saw a “streaker” and called the police.

Then there was the guy who shot up with insecticide.  That didn’t work either, but it gave him really bad breath.  He ended up grabbing a shovel and swinging it at the police.  He was hoping for the suicide-by-cop routine.  I showed up and told him to put the shovel down and to come with me for a ride.  He dropped the shovel and cried like a baby.  A few years later he got his wish.  He broke into his ex-girlfriend’s house after she told him to go away or she would shoot him.  He persisted and broke into her house.  True to her word, she shot him.  Dead.  We didn’t charge her.  We had every reason to believe he wasn’t there to pay her a social visit.

There was something that I found in common with nearly all the suicides I worked.  They were lonely.  Often they were afraid of something in the future, like a terminal illness or loss of employment or a spouse or exposure to something humiliating.  But they were very lonely people; sometimes hurt by a single significant person, and then they were even lonelier.  So many of them had nobody else to connect to.

***

That Christmas had been like those of the past.  Quiet.  No turkey sandwiches or pecan pies from people coming out to meet you in the street.  Just left over candy and cleared cookies.  Everybody got to go home for dinner with their families.  It had turned out to be just another typical Christmas.

Ten twenty in the evening slowly made its way around the clock.  I had earlier checked what meager paperwork there was to approve for the day.  Nothing was going to happen for the remainder of the shift, so I made one last drive through town and was now backing into my parking place outside the police station.  You always back in to your space so if you need to leave again in a hurry you won’t have to look over your shoulder and carefully back up and pull out of the department’s parking lot.  The risk of collision with another backing police car is too great.

***

Randy was new on the department.  He and his wife and children moved in next door.  Their children and our youngest children were about the same ages so it was natural that the two families almost became one.  Just as our kids all played together, he and his wife and my wife and I would often get together to visit and play table games.  Randy was still young and though he had military police experience, he had quite a bit to learn about civilian policing.  He was pretty impetuous.  I had to ride herd on him a little, but he was good.  He would eventually be a very good cop.

***

Just as I was ready to put my car into park and gather my things to go home the dispatcher broadcast “Shots Fired!” and gave an address on El Viento Street.  It was on a cul-de-sac.  Under normal circumstances the drive would take about 15 minutes.  These were not normal circumstances.

“One man down!” cried the dispatcher.

I was already a quarter of the way there when she made that report.  It was very dark outside and there was no traffic.  Deer were always a concern, but they would simply have to get out of the way.  The 35 m.p.h. speed limit meant nothing at 75 m.p.h. with red and blue lights cutting into the cold night.  I turned off Trinity Drive onto Diamond Drive.

Trinity Drive, unlike its namesake, was not a dead end drive.  This drive was named after The Trinity, as in the Trinity Site where atomic weapons were tested during World War II.  Still, a fair number of people had gone to meet the Trinity on this drive.  How ironic.

The tires squealed in agony as I rounded the intersection of Diamond and Trinity.  I could see red and blue lights in my rearview mirror closing in on me as I once again sped up to meet the demand of gunfire.

***

Jared and Elaine* had lived on El Viento most of their married lives.  They had raised their children there and now there were grandchildren.  Jared had a good job in the company town and Elaine worked at the post office.  Elaine spent more time at the post office than working at the post office and she began to find more comfort with Craig than she found with Jared.  Divorce papers had already been filed.  The Department of Energy would later want Jared’s blue “Q-Clearance” security badge.

***

The dispatcher reported more gunfire at the residence on El Viento.  As I sped up even more I looked to my left to see Randy passing me.  I was doing 80; he had to be doing 90.  You don’t do anybody any good if you don’t get there.

“Another man down!”

The turn onto Barranca Mesa from Diamond Drive is tricky under normal conditions and at the posted safe speed.  I’ve seen my fair share of cars that went through the guard rail or slapped into another car or lose complete control and end up in the ditch on the opposite side of the road at that intersection.  Randy left a cloud of dust for me to drive through when I hit the intersection.  Please God, don’t let there anybody be walking across the street.  I had practiced that intersection for occasions just like this.  Once again my tires painfully protested as I rounded the second sharp turn of the evening—two more and I would be there.

***

Jared was now living in an apartment on the opposite end of town.  He had spent Christmas day with Jack Daniels.  The two of them had become good friends over the previous months.  Jack Daniels had done most of the talking through the day.  Jared sipped.  And listened.  There he was in a little apartment all alone while another man was with his wife in his home probably sitting in his rocking chair sharing Christmas with his family.  Jack Daniels was now the only one talking while Jared pondered.  “You know what to do,” Jack whispered to Jared.

***

People were standing in the street on the cul-de-sac and in the yard outside the home.  Dodging them was only another obstacle as Randy and I screamed to a stop outside the home.  The garage door was open and the light in the garage was on.  We ran with guns drawn and looking for cover as we made our way to the house.  The door leading from the garage into the kitchen was standing open.  Randy went low and covered me as I went high.  No immediate sign of threat.

***

Jared left Jack Daniels in charge, wrote a note, grabbed a jacket and his Remington 870 12-guage shotgun and drove to his house to take care of business.  How could he have made it there without being detected by any one of the four of us on duty?  At that hour of the night on Christmas there just is no traffic to be found on the streets of this national laboratory town.

He walked in through the open garage door then quietly opened the kitchen door.  From that vantage point he could easily see Elaine sitting on Craig’s lap in his rocking chair.  There must have been quite a bit of noise in the house as Jared was able to walk through the kitchen and up behind Craig and Elaine without being detected.

***

With weapons still drawn Randy and I slipped into the kitchen and made our way to the crime scene.  Somewhere in the house a baby was crying.  A woman’s figure was on her knees and sitting back on her heels.  She was covered with blood and little pieces of something grey all over her; her bloodied hands covered her face.  There was gut-wrenching, soulful sobbing as her body uncontrollably convulsed.  The acrid odor left behind from gunfire remained in the air.

***

The last thing Craig had felt was the cold blue steel of the business end of the shotgun.  There was nothing left to see where the shotgun had touched him below his left ear.  His hands remained on the arms of the rocking chair.  His torso was soaked in red as a sudden gush of blood rushed up to where a head had once been.  There just wasn’t anything there.

Jared had turned the shotgun to Elaine and cranked another round into the chamber.  She dropped to her knees and pleaded for the sake of their children and grandchildren that he not kill her.

***

In the next two seconds we scanned the room to find Jared prone on the floor in a pool of blood with the shotgun not far from him.  Like Craig, there was no evidence of a head to be found—only blood, pieces of scalp and hair, skull fragments, and bits and pieces of grey matter.  Jared had placed the shotgun far back under his own chin and spared Elaine and the children and the grandchildren.

Elaine was unhurt.  We left her in the care of a neighbor.  The family dog, a beagle, bit into a brain lobe laying on the floor and began to drag it over the bloody carpet.  A quick thump on the side of the head and she dropped it cold and ran for the door.  Another partial lobe began to slide down the wall.  Randy excused himself and stepped outside and made friends with a bush.  The baby and her mother were safe in a room near the front of the house.  I grabbed a blanket and moved mother and baby out the front door and away from what I relive every Christmas.

The next six hours involved diagrams and color photographs and the medical examiner and statements and a visit to Jared’s apartment.  Jack Daniels stood sentry over the note that Jared scrawled out explaining that he could not stand the thought of another man in his house with his wife.  Randy seized the blue Top Secret security badge that leaned against the sentry. 

***

            Randy got an Atari video game for Christmas.  We spent the first half hour silently taking shots at each other as we mastered the game of Tanks.  His wife later told us that she knew we were O.K. when she heard us laughing.  We played until the beginning of day shift.

*Not their real names.

Blue Lives Matter

Blue Lives Matter

When a police officer is killed in the line of duty surviving police officers do not riot.  They do not burn down buildings, break windows, overturn and burn cars, loot businesses, and march in angry protest.  Instead, they wear black bands over their badges, mourn their loss, and support surviving family members.  Seldom will you see a national leader even mention the loss of life of a police officer let alone attend the funeral or stir the mass of police officers into a feeding frenzy.  Media coverage is almost always restricted to state and local audiences.  We bury our dead and then move on.

The Attorney General doesn’t come running to any community to investigate the wrongful death of a police officer.  The ACLU certainly doesn’t care.  I don’t know what the current President does for families of sworn police officers.  I know what his predecessor did.

The first recorded police officer line of duty death occurred in 1791.  Since that time, over 20,000 police officers have been killed in the line of duty. That would be 223 years for those still doing the math.  That is an average of just under 90 police officers killed a year.  At present, 108 police officers have been killed in the line of duty in 2014.  We are already ahead of the 105 police officers killed in the line of duty in 2013.  But, that’s O.K.  We are well below the 203 officers killed in the line of duty in 2007.  We can expect another eight officers to be killed in the line of duty before the end of the year.  Given the season, that won’t be hard to reach.  There has been an average of 152 police officers killed in the line of duty each year over the last 10 years.  That is well above the yearly average number (90) of officers killed over the past 200 years. 

Additionally, police suicide rates are between 125 and 150 a year which amounts to about 17 per 100,000 police population.  The general population suicide rate is 11 per 100,000.  It is not unusual for police suicides to be mislabeled as “accidental”, so the number of police suicides could be much higher.  One in five retired disabled police officers commits suicide.

The life expectancy of a retired police officer is 10 years.  Depending upon whose statistics you view, the expected age at death for a retired police officer is 55 or 66, either of which is well below the average male death age at 76 in the United States.

A police officer was killed in the line of duty once every 57.5 hours during the past 10 years.

Yes, we have more civilians dying at the hands of police officers than we have police officers dying at the hands of civilians.  There is a reason for that.  This isn’t a contest.

About one-third of police officers in large police departments and two-thirds of officers in smaller police departments resign their commissions within five years of employment.  About half of those leaving small departments and one-quarter of those leaving larger departments seek employment in other police agencies.  Most police departments have vacancies but cannot fill them due to a lack of qualified applicants or because of fiscal constraints.  Because of training and certification requirements most police officers are not “productive” for the first six to twelve months of their employment.  Many police academies last six or more months and then their departments require the rookie officer to work with a field training officer for one to two years.  Because of the high attrition rate in police work, most police departments are constantly in a new officer training phase.  Consequently, there is not a lot of police experience on the streets.  Don’t get me wrong.  There are a fair number of experienced police officers who make it to retirement, but many of them are tied to a desk trying to figure out how to keep their agencies afloat.

So, you want to figure out what is wrong with police departments?  Start here.  When you are done with this, I have more.

Oh, and Blue Lives Matter.

I Will Not have a Happy Holiday this Year

I Will Not have a Happy Holiday this Year

I know that there are people out there in a faith community who are not Christian and are trudging through the Christmas season being sensitive about being wished a Merry Christmas.  There are also some Christian denominations that do not celebrate Christmas at all.  And then of course, there are those who do not believe in a higher power.  There are also Christian denominations that tend to believe anything that they want and have joined the political correctness bandwagon.

I am none of the above.

More than four decades ago I wrote an essay as a freshman college student about the death of Christmas.  I suppose if I looked hard enough I could find it.  I mention this only because the death of Christmas was evident back then even to a college freshman student.  Otherwise I would claim that my essay was prophetic.

In the past few years I have grown increasingly intolerant of having happy holidays thrust upon me.  Oh, I can understand why store clerks and those who don’t know who I am being a little leery of wishing everybody a Merry Christmas, but on the other hand it has been Christmas for so many years.  And, please don’t feed me the line about Christmas being a pagan holiday hijacked by Christians.  (Or, is it Easter?  Is it both?)  If you want to celebrate a pagan holiday, please feel free to do so.  In the meantime, Christmas happens to be a Christian holiday and has been since the fourth century A.D. and is celebrated by billions of people around the world.  Granted, Christmas wasn’t quite as commercial as it is today.  O.K., it wasn’t even close to being as commercial as it is today.  The point is that Christmas has been around for a very long, long time.  And yes, I realize that the actual birth of Christ took place in the spring, but I celebrate Christmas with the rest of the world on December 25 each and every year.  Regardless, Christmas was declared a federal holiday in 1885.  Of course, at the rate we are going I wouldn’t be surprised if Congress would deholidayize it.  (No, it is not a real word.  I just made it up.  It is called “wordsmithing”.)

My intolerance of everybody else’s intolerance came to a boiling point a few years ago.  Ever since then when somebody wishes me a Happy Holiday I respond with “Merry Christmas” instead of some other greeting. 

Christmas parties at work were part of the social practice for many, many years.  When I accepted a new position at work I also accepted the privilege of bankrolling the annual Christmas party as a means of showing my appreciation for the work that everybody was doing.  It should not surprise you to know that it took a substantial lump out of my billfold.  Then one foggy Christmas Eve….  No, wait!  That isn’t quite right.  Then one year as we prepared for the annual Christmas party a subordinate supervisor objected to calling it a “Christmas” party.  A rather lengthy discussion took place and then an ultimatum was delivered to me by the supervisor.  “If it is a Christmas party then I will not go.”

I found an excuse to be busy on the day and time of the “holiday” party—the one that I funded.

Was I being childish?  Perhaps I was although I didn’t take my ball and go home.  I just went home.  Well, actually I went to another office and caught up on some other work.

Retirees are invited to the annual “holiday” party and I went the first year after I retired hoping to spend time with people that I had come to love and appreciate.  It just did not feel right.  I didn’t go the next year and I will not go this year—or next year.  I have drawn a bright line that I do not intend to cross.  “Bah, Humbug!” you say?  I wonder how Jacob Marley would respond.

Will I go to any “holiday” parties?  Sure I will, that is if I am invited.  At least I’ll go to holiday parties that are not built around Christmas.  Of course the only other holiday party that takes place this time of year would be a New Year’s Eve party.  But then, people call them New Year’s Eve parties and not holiday parties.  And, I don’t stay up to midnight anymore anyway.  (The Chinese should object to calling the parties that take place on December 31^st as New Year’s Eve parties.)

Will I be offended if you send me a holiday greeting card?  No.  It is getting increasingly difficult to find greeting cards that say Merry Christmas.  Not only that but if you want to have a holiday instead of Christmas then have at it.  As for me and my house we will celebrate Christmas.  In fact, we will have a Very Merry Christmas.  I hope you do, too.

Do We Need another Good Attack on America?

It pains me to say this, but I’m convinced that there is nothing quite as galvanizing and uniting of Americans as a good attack by a foreign force on our soil.  I wasn’t around 73 years ago for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but my parents were and they recalled the wave of patriotism that swept the nation following that attack.  Then came 9/11.  I was around for that.  I remember.

Afterwards, I remember how people spoke a little softer.  I remember people being a little kinder to strangers.  I remember people, complete strangers, standing in line in supermarkets speaking to each other in hushed tones comforting one another.  I remember that road rage had virtually ceased for a few weeks.  I remember how I felt when President Bush stood atop a pile of ruins with firefighters.  I remember the image of an American flag hoisted up a pole by firefighters.  Not long after the attacks of 9/11 I remember how young men and women enlisted in the armed forces of the United States much the same way as they did 73 years ago.  Those who enlisted were black and white, just like the first responders and volunteers who, who despite their differences, rushed to aid those caught in the senseless violence of that day.  History tells me that blacks and whites, despite their differences, rushed to enlist in the military following the attacks of December 7, 1941.  I remember how united we were following 9/11.

Ferguson.  New York City.  Cleveland.  Do we need another good attack by a foreign force on America?

I was a Mormon Bishop

I was a Mormon Bishop

I was a Mormon bishop.  Twice.  I first served in Los Alamos, New Mexico, then again in Binghamton, New York.  I did not ask to serve as a bishop either time.  You see, bishops are not elected and there is no committee that does a search for a bishop.  A stake president, a man who presides over several wards in a geographical area identifies a person to be called as a bishop.  Bill Rogers, a friend of mine, asked me once if I knew how bishops were chosen.  He told me that the stake president looks for the most spiritual person in a congregation then calls her husband to be the bishop.

The only training I received to serve as a bishop came from watching other bishops as a member of their congregations.  There was no inside track to becoming a bishop.  There was no formal education, no theological seminary.  Instead, there were years of service as a teacher of young children, Boy Scout leader, and missionary for the Church as well as time devoted to scripture study and to caring for my family. 

A Mormon bishop serves as an unpaid pastor or minister to his congregation.  A congregation, called a ward, is generally composed of at least 300 members and as many as 600 to 700 members.  The bishop fills many of the same roles that a paid minister does for his or her congregation.  The principal difference is that bishops are not responsible for delivering weekly sermons.  However, bishops are expected to address their congregations from time to time.  As a bishop I’ve performed weddings and presided over and spoke at funerals.  I’ve visited Church members in their homes and at church, often listening to members who were troubled with some matter that had occurred in their lives.  I attended baptisms and presided over various meetings of the Church.  Bishops also have a special responsibility to provide care for the poor, needy, and elderly in his ward.  I kept track of the time that I spent in my calling as bishop and it ranged from 20 to 30 hours a week.  That was on top of my full-time job and at one point while I was going to graduate school. 

A Mormon bishop has a lot of help in filling his responsibilities.  Any bishop who tries to do it all doesn’t really understand his calling.  My help first came in the form of counselors, two at a time.  Bob Judd and Ken Fellers were my first two counselors and I will ever be grateful to them for the direction they frequently provided me and for their willingness to assume responsibilities that allowed me to focus my attention on the spiritual matters of my calling as a bishop and to spend as much time as I could with the youth of my ward.  They were followed by other men who were equally dedicated.  Richard Mason, Rulon Linford, and Max Baker in Los Alamos and Matt Haney and Joseph Cronin in Binghamton literally gave all they had to give to help me.

I frequently relied on the insight of women to help me in my calling as a bishop.  These faithful women served as presidents of the women’s organization (the Relief Society is the oldest and largest women’s organization in the world), young women’s leaders, and primary (children’s organization) leaders.  Had it not been for them I would have been running off in meaningless directions on multiple occasions.  I will always be grateful for women like Rita Spencer, Joan Jackson, Sandy Jennings, Marcia Boyack, Nadine Hogan, and many other women leaders who dutifully cared for women, young women and children in both wards where I served as bishop. 

The most important woman in my calling as bishop was my wife, Susan.  She often had insight into things that I knew nothing about and she frequently (and carefully) counseled me.  I should note that as a bishop I held information shared with me by ward members in the strictest confidence.  It just could not work any other way.

I learned lots of important lessons as a bishop.  There is a passage in The Book of Mormon where a prophet by the name of Alma has taught and baptized several people.  As he taught them he told them of the true meaning of membership in Christ’s Church and explained to them the covenant that they make when entering the waters of baptism.  In part, he said, “and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another's burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death,” (Mosiah 18:8 - 9)….  It was during my time as bishop that I learned to bear others’ burdens, and to mourn with those that mourn, and to comfort those that stand in need of comfort.  That may sound demanding, and it was (and I fear that I was not very good at it) but on the other hand, Alma’s son whose name was also Alma explained the other half of service when he said, “Yea, and again I say unto you, my son, that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy” (Alma 36:21).

Within a few weeks of being called as a bishop the first time I asked myself just exactly what it was that I had gotten myself into.  I had no idea of the magnitude of the responsibilities and effort that was required to be a bishop.  But, when my tenure as bishop came to an end, I wept like a baby.  I wept the second time I was called as a bishop because I already knew what I was getting myself into, and I also knew the feeling I would experience at the end of that tenure as well.

Not every man in the Church has the blessing of serving as a bishop, and it is indeed a blessing.  You see, I was a Mormon bishop.  Twice.

With Liberty and Laws for All

I read a little news item this morning about a state that is contemplating requiring students desiring to graduate from high school to pass a citizenship test.  What a marvelous idea!  I can hardly contain my enthusiasm for this to be put into place.  Oh, that every state would pass such a requirement.  Can you imagine what would happen if we actually taught civic responsibility in the classroom instead of “No Justice, No Peace”?

Justice is such a fickle thing.  I’ve come to the conclusion long ago that one person’s justice is another person’s injustice.  We need not look any further than Ferguson right now to gain an appreciation for my conclusion.

Because justice is such a fickle thing we as a nation have become a nation of laws.  Laws help us govern how we interact with each other and how the government interacts with us and how we interact with government.  We enact laws in the pursuit of fairness and in the hopes that a level playing field will be available to all in the pursuit of justice.  As need requires we modify, update, delete, or add new laws.  At times I think we should change the closing words of our Pledge of Allegiance from “with liberty and justice for all” to “with liberty and laws for all”.

Sometimes we are satisfied with the justice that comes from the law and other times we are not.  That is the reason for calling our courts, courts of law, not courts of justice.  Likewise, some people are satisfied with the justice that comes from application of the rule of law while at the same time others are not satisfied with those results.  There are all kinds of little sayings that we could apply here like beauty is in the eye of the beholder or perhaps one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

In all cases, those laws should serve as a means of preventing chaos and by preventing capricious actions on the part of those who think they should be able to act with impunity.  At the same time, laws should prevent private retribution or revenge by those who feel that they should take the law into their own hands.  History has shown that when we take “justice” into our own hands that blood feuds result.  In our pursuit of justice, no person should be above the law.

There is a certain beauty in our legal system.  While we have professionals who know the rules and who work to apply the law in the courtroom, we have everyday citizens who elect judges and who also sit on juries.  It is all about “we the people”.  Juries serve as a representative cross section of “the people” both on grand juries and petit juries.  We have citizen juries in hopes that they represent community values in application of law rather than attorneys who spit out judgments like computers.  Of course, it doesn’t always work that way, and when it fails we use our system of laws to correct it.  Sometimes correction is a long, painful process.  But, it is a process that has worked for centuries and while it is not perfect, it appears to be the best.  At least it is the best for us.

So, let me return to my initial comments about requiring graduating high school seniors to pass a citizenship test.  So much of the unrest I see today comes from a lack of knowledge of two things: the facts (what actually happened and the reason for the events that transpired) and the way we function as a country.  As for the facts, all too often people either know nothing of the facts then simply react to what they see as an injustice, or they only know one side, if that much, of the events.  We call that going off half-cocked.  The way we function as a country includes having a basic knowledge of our laws and our respect for those laws and having a basic knowledge of our responsibilities and rights, and then exercising them.

As for police, well, it seems that everybody knows what a police officer’s job is.  Everybody knows how to be a cop.  Everybody knows the law.  Everybody knows how to enforce the law.  Judging from what I’ve seen lately, everybody knows how to be a citizen as much as they know how to be a cop.  Perhaps as we focus on fixing what is wrong with police maybe we should put equal emphasis on fixing civic (civil) knowledge and behavior.

Justice is a Fickle Thing

I read a little news item this morning about a state that is contemplating requiring students desiring to graduate from high school to pass a citizenship test.  What a marvelous idea!  I can hardly contain my enthusiasm for this to be put into place.  Oh, that every state would pass such a requirement.  Can you imagine what would happen if we actually taught civic responsibility in the classroom instead of “No Justice, No Peace”?

Justice is such a fickle thing.  I’ve come to the conclusion long ago that one person’s justice is another person’s injustice.  We need not look any further than Ferguson right now to gain an appreciation for my conclusion.

Because justice is such a fickle thing we as a nation have become a nation of laws.  Laws help us govern how we interact with each other and how the government interacts with us and how we interact with government.  We enact laws in the pursuit of fairness and in the hopes that a level playing field will be available to all in the pursuit of justice.  As need requires we modify, update, delete, or add new laws.  At times I think we should change the closing words of our Pledge of Allegiance from “with liberty and justice for all” to “with liberty and laws for all”.

Sometimes we are satisfied with the justice that comes from the law and other times we are not.  That is the reason for calling our courts, courts of law, not courts of justice.  Likewise, some people are satisfied with the justice that comes from application of the rule of law while at the same time others are not satisfied with those results.  There are all kinds of little sayings that we could apply here like beauty is in the eye of the beholder or perhaps one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

In all cases, those laws should serve as a means of preventing chaos and by preventing capricious actions on the part of those who think they should be able to act with impunity.  At the same time, laws should prevent private retribution or revenge by those who feel that they should take the law into their own hands.  History has shown that when we take “justice” into our own hands that blood feuds result.  In our pursuit of justice, no person should be above the law.

There is a certain beauty in our legal system.  While we have professionals who know the rules and who work to apply the law in the courtroom, we have everyday citizens who elect judges and who also sit on juries.  It is all about “we the people”.  Juries serve as a representative cross section of “the people” both on grand juries and petit juries.  We have citizen juries in hopes that they represent community values in application of law rather than attorneys who spit out judgments like computers.  Of course, it doesn’t always work that way, and when it fails we use our system of laws to correct it.  Sometimes correction is a long, painful process.  But, it is a process that has worked for centuries and while it is not perfect, it appears to be the best.  At least it is the best for us.

So, let me return to my initial comments about requiring graduating high school seniors to pass a citizenship test.  So much of the unrest I see today comes from a lack of knowledge of two things: the facts (what actually happened and the reason for the events that transpired) and the way we function as a country.  As for the facts, all too often people either know nothing of the facts then simply react to what they see as an injustice, or they only know one side, if that much, of the events.  We call that going off half-cocked.  The way we function as a country includes having a basic knowledge of our laws and our respect for those laws and having a basic knowledge of our responsibilities and rights, and then exercising them.

As for police, well, it seems that everybody knows what a police officer’s job is.  Everybody knows how to be a cop.  Everybody knows the law.  Everybody knows how to enforce the law.  Judging from what I’ve seen lately, everybody knows how to be a citizen as much as they know how to be a cop.  Perhaps as we focus on fixing what is wrong with police maybe we should put equal emphasis on fixing civic (civil) knowledge and behavior.

I was an Educator

I was an Educator.

I began my career as an educator while I was still in high school.  While in high school, upper classmen could assume the role as a cadet teacher and I was given the opportunity to do exactly that.  Jane Engleman (Clarice Jane Snyder) and I were cadet teachers working under the direction of Judy Meeks, the choral director.  If I recall correctly, we helped her with a junior high school music class.  I’m not sure that we did any teaching, but the experience was good and put me on a path that eventually led me to a teaching career.

When I went to college I bounced around college majors like flubber on the shoe soles of basketball players.  At one point I majored in education, but abandoned it in my continued quest to find something for which I could be passionate.  Eventually I found my passion.  My on-again-off-again college career led me through 14 torturous years of part-time and full-time study just to earn my bachelor’s degree.

In the meantime, I was also working full-time and trying to support a family.  I had found my passion in policing and it was in that career that I renewed my interest in education.  Several years previously while I was an undergraduate student, I took an instructor development course.  It was extremely helpful to me in teaching church classes and while working with Boy Scouts.  But, while employed with the police department I had the opportunity to take a “Training the Trainer” course.  Once certified as a police instructor I found myself doing training not only for my own department but also for other departments throughout the state as well as at the police academy.  (Thank you Jim Burleson.)  I even taught a “Training the Trainer” course a few times.  I still have the lesson manual that I created for that course.

Two critical results came from the experiences of finishing my college education while being deeply involved in training.  First, I resolved that upon retirement from my policing career that I would pursue a career in post-secondary education.  This would lead me to complete graduate education.  Second, I finalized in my own mind a distinction between training and education.  Training involves instruction in “what” and “how” and often involves hands-on work.  Education involves instruction in “what” and “why”.  Yes, there is overlap and objectives are similar, but those differences are significant.  Training is practical and application-oriented while education is theoretical and philosophical in nature.  Still, there is room for hands-on application in education and there is room for philosophy in training.  It is the emphasis that is important.

Prior to my retirement from my policing career I began searching for a position in teaching at the college level.  I secured a job teaching on the opposite side of the country and began fulfilling my second dream career.

The first three or four years of teaching were difficult.  I had not realized the effort that would go into teaching five or six class sections each semester.  That amounts to “only” 15 to 18 hours of classroom instruction each week.  I found that I was constantly updating relevant information and adjusting the way I delivered material.  I constantly modified requirements for all of my classes and developed objective guidelines for grading tests and term papers.  I quickly learned that three or four hours in a classroom each day easily translated into another 30 to 40 hours a week of lesson preparation and assignment grading.  There were many late nights and weekends grading tests (especially essay exams) and reviewing term papers.

Of all the lessons I learned while teaching though, the one lesson I learned that was of most value to me was that the best instruction didn’t take place in the classroom, but took place in my office.  At times I had only one or two students in my office at a time.  On other occasions I had students sitting on the floor and leaning against the door frame to my office.  I’m sure that I was in violation of some sort of fire code.  However, when I had eight or ten students in my cramped office all at the same time, something told me that I was doing something right.

I don’t know what learning really took place in the classroom or in my office.  I hope some small amount of good came from it.  But, there was something that struck me when I made the transition from policing to education.  I gained a whole new appreciation for educators.  You see, even though I began this little essay claiming to have been an educator, the truth of the matter is that I really am not a teacher.  At least compared to men and women who had been faithfully teaching day in and day out for 20 or 30 or more years, I clearly was not an educator.  At least I was not an educator like them.

There is an off-handed remark that people make about teachers.  Perhaps you have heard it.  You may have even said it.  It goes something like this: “Those who can’t, teach.  Those who can, do.”  For the most part, this is not true—but only for the most part.  There are people in the college classroom who have absolutely no business teaching.  Most, however, are hard-working, competent, dedicated professionals; at least the ones that I have seen fall into that category.

The worst day of my teaching career was the day that I left the classroom and entered (once again) the arena of administration.  Two things happened.  The first was that I missed the classroom and the day-to-day interaction with students.  The second was the assumption of my teaching colleagues that somehow my DNA had changed overnight.  I was called a traitor (and worse) while my sole purpose in moving into administration was to improve the lot of education in my little corner of the campus.  And though I was no longer trusted as a colleague among many faculty members, I believe I remained faithful to that goal up to retirement.   

I learned other valuable lessons during my short tenure as a professor.  I learned that we are all teachers, trainers, professors, mentors, and educators.  I learned that the older we are and the more experience and knowledge and wisdom we acquire the more we should feel obligated to share that experience, knowledge, and wisdom with those who come up behind us.  Not only should we feel obligated, but we should act on that obligation.

I was an educator.  At least I tried to be an educator.

I am a Daydreamer

I am a Daydreamer

I am a daydreamer.  I think I’ve always been sort of a daydreamer.  In fact, I cannot recall a time when I was not a daydreamer.  Even in grade school I found it easy to get lost in my thoughts.  A single glance out the window would take me miles and years away.  So, it was no surprise to me when I found myself daydreaming in church today.  Daydreaming in church?  That’s a bad thing, right?  Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t.  You can be the judge.

I don’t know why but for some reason a question came to my mind.  “What are the three most important words a person can speak?” I asked myself.

The answer to that question was obvious.  At least it was to me.  What three words could possibly carry more meaning than to say I love you?  “Yes, I love you!”  Then some familiar scriptures passed through my mind.  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).  “Yes, that’s true,” I thought to myself, and then another verse came to my mind.  “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15); and then another, and this one was a little longer, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:36 - 39).  I was on a roll.  Just like that I came up with three scripture verses from the New Testament that dealt with the Savior and love.  Then a fourth verse popped into my mind.  “We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

Now, I don’t know why, but after having gone through this little mental exercise while I should have been paying attention to what was happening at church, a second question came to my mind.  “What,” I asked myself, “are the next three most important words a person can speak?”

The first thought that came to my mind was to say I am sorry.  But that didn’t quite sit right with me.  We can express sorrow for any number of reasons.  It doesn’t have to be as a result of having wronged somebody.  Then it hit me.  “Please forgive me” have to be the next three most important words that a person can speak.  After all, the receipt of forgiveness is a true expression of love.  “Yes!  That’s it!  Please forgive me must be the next three most important words a person can speak.”  Those are healing words.

My mind continued to wander, as it often does, and I asked myself how many times somebody had asked me for forgiveness for an offense made toward me.  I couldn’t think of many.  In fact, I could only think of a handful of times.  And then my mind spoke to me again.  “Yes, but how many times have you, Greg, asked forgiveness from those people you have offended?”

And there I sat in church trapped by my own thoughts, my own daydream.  It occurred to me that I’ve said that I’m sorry for something that I’ve done, for an offense given, but I have seldom asked for forgiveness.  And the sad thing is that I have a hunch that I don’t even know half the people that I have offended, which merits seeking forgiveness in and of itself.  Now, I must know.

Sometimes when your mind is left to wander it will come back to indict you.  Mine did.  Please forgive me.

I am a daydreamer.  I think I’ve always been sort of a daydreamer.  I must either stop daydreaming or I must go to work on righting the wrongs I’ve done.  I think I know which it is I must do.