Memories of Athens

 

     I woke this morning and found an email notification saying that Donnie Weller had tagged me in a picture on Facebook.  Donnie was one of my best friends on my shift when I was a police officer at the Athens Clarke County Police Department.  We have both since left the department, I train dogs now and Donnie is a executive protection contractor in Iraq.  Any how, I opened up the old Facebook and was greeted with a picture of a slightly younger me sitting on a silver Harley Davidson holding my shotgun.  I believe this picture was taken on my last day at work there.  The motorcycle belonged to my Lieutenant and I was posing on it as a joke.
   My last day was supposed to be all fun and games.  We had all gone out to Sons of Italy the night before to eat pizza and drink a few beers.  Needless to say, some of us had a little too much fun.  The highlight of the evening was watching Kane do the robot dance on top of our table with his very angry wife watching.  That was followed by a ride back to Donnie's apartment in the back of a truck.  Fortunately we did not have to be back at work until 1:30PM so I was able to sleep in, grab a little Chick Fil A and roll on into work.  The plan was for me to spend the day hopping between several of the restaurants we frequented and my shift mates would catch my calls and hang out with me in between.  Well, after we looked at the line up I quickly realized that my slacker party was probably not going to happen.  I was assigned to zone 2, the busiest zone on the west side, and we barely had enough guys working to cover all our zones.  We went into service with calls holding and within 30 minutes I had one of my favorite young thugs at gun point.  It seemed like we just got busier from there, I missed my dinner break and I don't think we slowed down until around 9:00 pm.   I spent the remaining few minutes of my shift sitting with my friend Mike and his trainee at the Jittery Joes reflecting on our day and my time in Athens.  At about 9:45pm we started to make our way back to the precinct to turn in our cars at the end of the shift.  At about 9:50pm I heard my Sargent come over the radio and request a signal 46.  Signal 46 means dispatch asks all available units to return to the precinct and they hold all calls for the next shift.  After a long day, it is music to your ears because you know you are not going to get stuck with a late call and if all your paper work is turned in you can go home.  My buddy Ryan was dispatching that night and as I drove down Atlanta Hwy he came over the radio and asked if I would do the honor of calling the Signal 46.  I thought that was pretty cool so I keyed up and said, " 2386 (my badge number) to all west side units, signal 46, all 10-8 (in service) units return to precinct for 10-42 (out of service)" .
      At that time it hit me, I would never be here doing this ever again.  As I drove in I thought of all the long days and crazy calls but most of all I though of all the friends I was leaving behind.  When we worked together we would take care of each other no matter what, period.  I remember Donnie and I were working a domestic and we heard another guy come over the radio and yell for help.  Without hesitation we told the people they were going to have to get along and we ran out.  No second thoughts, no hesitation, that was just how we did things.  The knowledge that no matter what was going on, my friends were on the way to help made some scary situations a little less scary.  Regardless, I knew that those days were over for me.  I would never patrol those streets again and I had put on my ACCPD uniform for the last time.
    Looking back I now realize that the time I spent there has had a profound effect on the person I am today. I learned what hard work was and what it meant to be part of a team.  I learned to overcome adversity and I did and saw things I would have never imagined.  I wouldn't trade my experiences and memories for the world.  Regardless, those days are over now and I  have traded in my crown vic for a mini van that smells like dogs.....and I couldn't be happier.

Reunited

Today I had the pleasure of reuniting with an old friend, my old youth pastor Sam Halverson.  It has been a little over 15 years since I have seen or spoken to Sam.  He left our church about half way through my freshman year in high school.  Last week I was doing a dog training eval and the topic of church came up ( yes, at training evals we often end up talking about a million other things besides dogs) and I mentioned I grew up in the Methodist Church.  They asked me if I knew Sam Halverson.  I sat for a minute and realized I did indeed know Sam.  They went on to tell me that he was the youth pastor at their church.  I had thought he had moved up north and was thrilled to hear he was back in Georgia.  I asked them to please give him my card and tell him I would like to speak with him if he had time.  

   I am sure you are wondering why I was so excited to find out my old youth minister had moved back to Georgia.  Here is the back story:  When I began middle school I started attending the youth group at our church and Sam was the leader.  That was around 1992, when I was in sixth grade.  On July 4 1993 my father died while running the Peachtree Road Race.  The day it happened is somewhat blurry to me now but there are a few things that I can still see in my mind as clear as day.  Shortly after I found out what had happened my friend Ross and I decided we would go to the pool.  There were a lot of adults at my house and I wanted to get away.  While at the pool the phone rang and someone (don't remember who) told me that I needed to go home because someone was here from the church to see me.  I arrived home to find Sam at my house.  I don't remember what he said but do remember just burying my face in his chest and just sobbing the kind of tears that come from a hurt that few will ever know.  He stayed until I calmed down and over the next few months he made a great effort to spend time with me and just be there if I needed him.  Those acts of kindness have never been forgotten.  

   Fast forward 15 years later and Sam and I are eating hamburgers at Red Robin discussing the ins and outs of youth ministry.  We talked for almost two hours and at the end I finally got the chance to thank him for what he did for me back in July 1993.  Before we left he said that shortly after my fathers death he had written a poem about it. I told him I would love a copy if he could find it and he said he would gladly send it my way.  He followed up with the fact that it was probably going to hurt to stir all that up again.  I think that's ok though, we all need to be stirred up from time to time.  

Back in the Saddle

Today I took my first trip to the shooting range since I destroyed my trigger finger in December.  I decided to try out sharp shooters in Roswell.  It is a new range that opened up and I wanted to check it out.  Today was Navy SEAL appreciation day and everyone got a Bin Laden zombie target with a lane rental.  I thought that was pretty cool.  What was not cool was my shooting. It was far from SEAL like, and little more like a drunk monkey with a pistol.   I still have very limited movement of my trigger finger and I will use that as my excuse for my poor performance. I was also a bit out of practice but my ego finds it much easier to blame it on my injury.  I shot my Glock 19 that sports a custom grip reduction and stipple job.

I have hands like and elf and the slight reduction makes it much easier to hold.  The stippling ads a very aggressive texture to the grip.  Below you can see where Don Garmin ( the guy who did my stipple job) put my initials in dot dash morris code.

Any who, it was a good time and I need to get my butt out there more often now so I can learn to shoot again.