&quote;Birth of a State Trooper&quote; (eBook)

One

The Beginning

There I was, eight years old, on the hunt once again with my crab net and sling shot for wharf rats that lurk in the darkness of the underground sewer pipes in my neighborhood until one of them decided to leap out of my crab net over my head making me re-think the idea of messing with such a creature. So, I ended the search for the wharf rats and came up out of the sewer for some air and realized that I had traveled across town via the underground sewer system to an area behind a shopping center. This shopping center was bordered with a small stream and wooded area that was instrumental at shielding me from what was going on at that time. Anyway, I decided to take a break and get some air along while catching my breath. While doing so I noticed some activity behind the shopping center. It looked like a liquor store that was part of the shopping center was being robbed by several individuals. The owner of the liquor store, who was an elderly man with white hair was chasing two individuals (alleged suspects) out of the rear entrance of the liquor store shouting “help me I’m being robbed” to anyone that was listening. Unbeknownst to me the elderly man at the liquor store had called the police, and they (the police) were arriving on the scene to hear what was going on. Afterwards, one of the officers on the scene of the alleged robbery, signaled to another officer to head around to the other side of the store to intercept the other alleged robbers. Shortly afterwards, a van drove around from the opposite side of the store’s rear entrance occupied by two more suspected robbers that were stopped by the first officer’s partner. A short time later I noticed that one of the officers on the scene had ordered several suspects out of a van they were traveling in at gun point. Once the four suspects were up against a wall and at gun point, one of them saw me. I guess at that point one of the suspects had made a movement which looked like a flinch to one of the officers. That officer told the suspect at gunpoint that if he made one more aggressive move like that, he (the suspect) would be shot. It was then I realized that I wanted to be like the police one day, one of the good guys that fought evil in the world. So, once everything was under control with the alleged robbery, I decided to head in the direction of home to check in with my parents since they’re always curious to what us kids are up to, considering I have three siblings that pretty much do their own thing.

Along the way home I decided to walk onto an adjacent golf course to see what loose golf balls I can find to sell back to the prospective owners. I’m always looking to make a buck where I can so I can buy matchbox cars from area toy stores and save toward a Schwinn bicycle that I’ve had my eye on for some time. So, the time frame now is in the 1960’s in a neighborhood that is a predominately white area that is being de-segregated a little at a time with what I called blockbusters. I’m almost 10 now noticing that the white and Jewish families that once lived across from me now are moving out and minorities are moving in. I guess that’s when some of my problems started...namely the theft of my beautiful Schwinn bicycle that I parked in the front yard. I figured the Schwinn bicycle was taken by one of the newly arrived neighborhood kids who in my opinion was part of the de-segregation movement. I couldn’t prove who took the bike, however, I was pretty sure it wasn’t anyone that I knew that lived in my neighborhood before this happened.

Earlier when I lived in another urban city north of where Live now, namely Queens, N.Y., I had some run- ins with some Hispanic kids that would beat and rob me as part of their daily gang effort. Be mindful now that I was 5 years old at that time and being jumped by an elementary school aged gang was a new experience for me especially since they had robbed me of any money I had, which wasn’t much but a lot for me. Afterwards, the neighborhood gang threw me inside a half full dumpster.

It took me about 2 hours before I figured out how to get out of the dumpster. After realizing that I could pile trash on top of other trash I then began to climb out. Afterwards, it was homeward bound for me.

Once I got home my mother asked what had happened to me and my reply was” the Hispanic gang had beaten me up and taken any money I had left in my pocket”. Her response was for me to not play with those kids anymore. I knew then that I needed a trump card to keep these bad ass kids off my back, so I befriended a student who was Hispanic. This new friend was a couple of years older than me and three times my size, but was always hungry, and looking for extra food where he could find it. So, one day while at lunch in the cafeteria I decided to go over to his table and offer him some of my lunch. He was obliged and took what I had offered him and later I asked him “do you like spaghetti and meat sauce” and his reply was yes, but he didn’t get many chances of eating like that since his parents were poor and rarely home. I offered to invite him over one day at my house for spaghetti and he accepted, but I told him later that the offer came with some strings attached which involved keeping the Hispanic gang off my back. He said that I could count on not being bothered anymore by the Hispanic gang provided I could have him over for an occasional meal. With that I learned that making the right friends at the right moment can bring me some relief and remembered also that an equalizer or a backup plan is something that’s necessary in life if one wants to protect him or herself. And that this idea of being prepared for anything can come in many forms depending on the situation.

Now at 10 years old living in an urban area near Landover, Maryland in the same neighborhood that I used to hunt rats in is now taking its toll on me. I have more problems with bullies trying to intimidate me on a regular/daily basis with either beatings from multiple individuals or just one big one that generally requires either money from me or just someone to antagonize.

I really liked living in this neighborhood despite all the other annoying crap, since on the weekends certain neighbors would get drunk, throwing parties at their residence’s and end up in the front yard mostly naked. And when the neighbors weren’t getting drunk and passing out on the front yards, they were in the streets wearing pajamas fist fighting with each other until the police would arrive. Sometimes I would get up around 5 in the morning on Saturday just to ride around the neighborhood on my bicycle to see the mostly naked drunks that had passed out on their front yards. I also like the idea that I lived adjacent to a golf course and how the golfers would knock a lot of their balls into the woods or near the tree line where I lived. When that happened, me and other boys from the neighborhood would scrounge up the golf balls, clean them and eventually sell them back to the golfers at a nominal price. And when there was snow on the ground the neighborhood kids would go sledding on the golf course in the areas where there were a lot of downgrades.

One of the things I didn’t understand about elementary school back in the 60’s was the reason to change the left-hand writers to right hand. I understood later that the school board was doing this to simplify the teachings of writing in cursive, however, I still think it was laziness and ineptness on the part of the school administrators. Every former teacher or educator that I had the occasion to talk to later in life about the changing from left to right hand thought the method was a horrible thing to do to anyone. This happened to me around the 2nd grade and in my opinion had a very negative impact on my learning. It also had an impact on my psychological and physical development. I started experiencing a lot of problems that consisted of a long laundry list of dysfunctional behaviors. First, my handwriting became worse, along with problems with bad spelling, defiance and provocative behavior, poor concentration, bad memory, and lastly the bed wetting issue. My mother would make me wear plastic diapers to school to shake me from the bed wetting, but it only made things worse. Once my youngest sister was born my bed wetting issues stopped. The beatings from my mom and dad had also ceased.

My mom and dad couldn’t do anything to stop what was going on with the handwriting issue but told me that my brain would probably catch up with itself somewhere around 30 years old. They weren’t far off on that assumption since I did go back to school, after taking a break from college for eight years while working as a State Trooper. I managed at the age of 32 to have attained a bachelor’s degree from an area University and earned some post graduate credit courses as well.

The professors at the University encouraged me to keep going with the schooling and achieve a graduate degree, possibly a doctorate, but I was out of money and tired. So, I continued to do what I did best and that was hands on law enforcement. The degree was in Criminal Justice/Criminology and from the “College of Behavioral and Social Sciences” which apparently is a well-respected area of study.

I remembered thinking back about my 6th grade teacher who I thought at the time was a joke at that time until I realized later in life that everything, she did to prepare us students was important at the time. When my parents grilled me on my grades during this time, I would say I’m not worried about her...she’s just an old lady. Their reply was” she may be old, but she can still fail you”. And with that, and the fact that the 6th grade teacher always said fail to...