I do.

When I took the oath of office to become the Village Marshall for the town of Obetz it was not without a flood of reservations on my part. Until this day I held a commission as Deputy Marshall and had been serving as a patrol sergeant.

Having joined its police department eight years earlier after spending ten years as a deputy with the the Franklin County Sheriff's Office I knew full well of the challenges I would be facing both in protecting the town of Obetz and navigating through what had always been a political hotbed within its government offices.

Obetz itself has long had a reputation for being governed by sometimes less than savory characters from the ranks of its city council all the way up to the mayor's office.

That is not to say that all of its elected officials have always been persons with bad reputations or reasons to keep an eye on. In fact during my tenure with the village I served under two very good mayors, first the man who hired me in 1995 Mark Froehlich who soon after bringing me in left his post to become a respected Franklin County Municipal Court judge, and his successor Louise Crabtree who before becoming mayor had served a number of years on city council. As council president when Froehlich left for his seat on the county bench she inherited the mayor's position and later ran successfully to keep it.

The one constant that both mayors endured on a daily basis was distractions from other office holders and key appointed personnel who reveled in chaos. Some of them had histories of being town bullies long before I ever pinned on a badge there. Serving the town as a lawman was never an easy undertaking anyway but battling the daily politics that oversaw the police department made some days nearly unbearable. Fighting the bad guys on the street and keeping them in line while constantly battling other bad people who held down elective offices.

Being a cop in Obetz has always been a job that required a tolerance for bad behavior and having the wherewith all to keep it in check regardless of the direction it was coming from. Bad behavior on the part of some was often rewarded instead of punished. It depended on who was connected to whom. Those with the most money had the most friends and too often they were the worst people in the entire town. Worse in many ways than the thieves and other bandits that prowled the streets at night.

So when I accepted the position as Village Marshall which also held the title of Chief of Police I knew from experience that my workload ahead was about to become the greatest lesson in personal fortitude I had ever had to endure. I had to accept that my family would also be targeted for constant harassment and that there would be assaults on their character as there would be on my own. Letters and phone calls to my wife suggesting that I was cheating on her became the daily norm. Snide remarks about my children and other manufactured distractions all designed to test my willingness to serve and hopefully derail my intentions to follow the letter of the law as I had sworn I would do.

Still, I decided to take the job and not only promise to do it to the best of my ability but to hit the ground running, to begin immediately efforts to change what we all knew needed to be done. First on my agenda was to rid the department of some of the officers who had been for years making a mockery of their badges by showing up for work only to collect a paycheck and incite others to commit chaos. That was a decision that the mayor warned me not to make for fear of personal ramifications. But it was one that had to be made if I had any hope for not only a better, more professional department but a better town!

The bad seeds within our ranks were the ones most connected to the shadiest of politicians and to their biggest campaign contributors, the real power brokers. Without going into great detail I was able to achieve most of what I set out to do and I have explained the full saga in my book "Deputy in Disquise" but the one thing I was unable to accomplish was to stem the tide of bad or questionable politics there. I am not sure anyone could have done that, nor am I confident that anyone ever will.

For that reason when the time was right for me personally I walked away from it all. Leaving behind some bad memories but also leaving behind some very, very good ones. I wouldn't trade those years and the experiences that came with them for anything else I ever did in life. Being a cop in a small town in Ohio where boundaries are only lines on a map provided me with more personal satisfaction than I ever would have found in the largest sheriff's department in the state.
(Franklin County.)

I have always said that in spite of its public service roster that is heavily contaminated with toxic personnel, Obetz is still one of the most interesting wide spots on any road that borders a big city like Columbus. Most of the people there are pretty amazing and most of them respect and support its peace keepers. During my tenure there I saw the town nearly double in size and thanks to the efforts of mayor's Froehlich and Crabtree and a few council members who really cared about it Obetz has become more than just that wide spot in the road with an eerie and mostly mundane past.

Where there were no hotels a few of them sprung up during their years of service and where there once was only one or two choices for commercial dining there is a wide variety now that includes most of the major restaurant chains. Those mayor's sparked something of an industrial revolution during my own years as part of its public service infrastructure. Today there is a public park that offers everything in the way of recreation that any park in any major city can offer and before I left we were all nestled into perhaps the most progressive and innovative municipal building of any town anywhere.

The police department more than doubled in size and more and more housing sub divisions offering newer, cleaner and safer environments for residents have been built and no longer do people from outside its borders see it as just another speed trap on their way into or out of Columbus.

So yes, I am proud of my service there and if I never again accomplish as much as I think I was a part of there I am okay with it. Like I said, I wouldn't trade the opportunities I had for anything I did before I took that oath. And anytime someone asks me if I ever miss the daily rigors of being a police officer I tell that I do but I preface that answer with a sigh of relief that I no longer have to watch over my shoulder or listen for the footsteps of well dressed, well paid public servants sneaking up on me from behind, intent on making me regret it.

It's not Manard, Sheriff! It's My-nerd.

When I first heard that Franklin County Sheriff Jim Karnes had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer I thought about calling him at home to express my concern and offer support to him but the idea quickly dissipated. Not for any reason aside from knowing him as I think I do... he may not have wanted to engage in any conversation about it since the news was not only new but not good. I know that I wouldn't want to talk about it if I were facing the same challenge he is.

Karnes is a pretty tough guy and when the news broke he vowed to fight it vigorously. How his reaction to it was reported came off as if it were just another day at the office for him, just one more battle between himself and something evil.

This is the sheriff I know, as serious as he has to be when it is necessary and as devilish as he wants to be anytime the circumstances allow. My rapport with him through the years involved being on the receiving end of the latter more than it has been anything too concerning. Of course there were times I am sure he wanted to bury me deep beneath his doghouse, but usually my encounters with him were light moments that sometimes bordered on a real friendship.

In that regard I never flattered myself to believe that he and I were really friends. I mean I was never in what I considered a circle of his close friends but that brings up another point relating to my relationship with him, first as a fellow officer and later when he became my boss.

I first met him a few weeks after I joined the sheriff's office as the department's Public Information Officer. I was sent to a trucking company on Frank Road on the south side of Columbus where there had been a toxic chemical spill. When I arrived I found him at the front gate of the facility sitting in his cruiser blocking the entrance.

He was Lieutenant Jim Karnes then and probably because he heard me dispatched to the scene he was waiting for me. Waiting with what I believed was a rehearsed ice breaker to allow us to understand our respective roles. Meaning that he was the seasoned old guard and I was just some rookie that he and others probably questioned my ability to get past my probationary period. I had no law enforcement experience on my resume and in fact I was just a few weeks earlier just some long haired hippie who hosted a daily radio show to him and others around the department.

I got to see two sides of Karnes' personality that day, first what seemed like often practiced authority over new guys like me and then a softer and more helpful veteran who quickly saw the desperation I probably showed to just be allowed to do my job. He was that day and all of those that followed during my years with the department the most engaging, willing to teach supervisor I ever encountered. It may be presumptuous to say it but I think he actually liked something about me from the start. Because if he didn't he had a tremendous knack for acting.

I could tell immediately that my experiences in broadcasting was not a turn-off for him as it seemed to be by some of the other deputies. In fact after we concluded our business that day the conversation shifted to radio and television personalities that he had known through the years. He seemed to know all of them and that was something we could share and talk about.

He had been in community and media relations with the department long before I got there and his persona then and now has always been something of a showman. Quick with humorous one-liners, not shy about saying whatever was on his mind and seeing the world around him for what it was without allowing all of the bad to force what was good into the shadows.

Starting then and to this day Jim Karnes still mispronounces my last name on purpose. Even when he says it- it is with more than a grain of intentionalism. To him it isn't pronounced My-nerd it is Ma-nard. He knows it bugs me so he does it.

There was a time during our working relationship that I was as well received by him as I was by the man who hired me and who I answered directly to, Sheriff Earl O. Smith. However, there was also a time when I knew that he didn't exactly trust me because of my loyalty to Smith, that was when he decided to run for the office himself. The election year of 1992.

It was an ugly battle between two men that for what I think I know about them both were once very good friends. Decades before I met either of them Smith actually played a huge role in the hiring of Karnes when he (Smith) was a lieutenant in the office's personnel bureau. At least that is what Smith told me.

Before what ever caused such a serious falling out between the two Smith often spoke highly of Karnes and I can recall on at least one occasion when he encouraged me to trust him more than any other supervisor in the department. It was years before the election in '92 and during a sensitive investigation that I was having difficulty as the PIO gathering information for a press release I was writing. I wasn't receiving much cooperation from the other supervisors and the chief deputy over the unit that should have helped me wasn't. In fact he was doing everything he could to be in my way.

Smith told me to go to Karnes and said something to the effect of "he takes care of me."

What I do know is that Lieutenant Karnes was always more willing to share with me what he knew than any of the other supervisors under his command. But then came 1992 when I found myself in the middle of a feud that was as depressing as it was difficult to navigate. Karnes had retired briefly to run for sheriff and when that happened I could not have been placed in a worse spot. More than half of the department was in his corner and doing all they could to derail Earl and it seemed any of us who didn't jump on that bandwagon were regarded as enemies of the office.

That summer during the Franklin County Fair, which was one of Karnes' longtime commitments and an event that could have had his name on it for all he did for it every year, I was tested by Karnes himself. I was sitting in the sheriff's display tent with Smith and his campaign manager, a guy who never liked me anyway and who was often critical of my work (Ted Griffith.)

Unbeknownst to me Griffith had somehow convinced Smith that I was working behind the scenes and using my media influences to help Karnes' campaign against him. Griffith had been feeding the sheriff assurances that Karnes had promised me a promotion to the rank of corporal if I would help his cause. None of that was true of course and I was more than a little disappointed that the sheriff bought into it when he questioned me about it, but that day in the tent Karnes did something to fan those flames. He walked over to where I was standing and put his arm around me and said "let's take a walk."

I could see the iron in Earl's eyes and if the redness in his face had been embers I would have surely caught fire at that moment. The heat and intensity of seeing me walk out of the tent with the man who had topped his enemy list was grueling and his gritting teeth and curled fists made him look as if he were ready to charge at us both. Griffith had a cocky grin on his face that seemed to say..."See I told you so."

As Karnes and I walked away he was telling me that there was no way he was going to lose that election and that when he did become sheriff I would still have a job. Not the high profile and perks laden one that I did have, but as a deputy in the jail. He told me that he didn't need a Public Information Officer because he knew his way around media circles pretty well himself... but that I needn't worry that I would be left with nothing.

The idea of becoming a corrections officer was not appealing to me and I told him so. I then asked if he understood that my allegiance was to the man who hired me and he said he would expect no less, but that when he became sheriff he expected the same loyalty to him. That is all there was to that encounter but when I returned to the tent I could tell that Smith's suspicions about me had become real if they had not already been. He was very cool to me and Griffith wasn't helping by asking me what division I would be supervising in if Karnes won.

He wanted to stoke his own rumor. He was asking about secret meetings and dinners that he said he heard I was having with Karnes behind the sheriff's back and what I got him for his birthday. Each time I would battle his insults I could see that Smith was growing more and more suspicious. And within a few weeks I was no longer in a position where I only answered to or reported directly to the sheriff. He placed me under the command of Major Paul Fererra, a guy who wouldn't allow me out of his site or to talk with any media representative without his blessings.

What I will always believe is that Griffith had managed to place me under the watchful eye of the one he accused me of being all along. My warnings to Earl Smith that it was the major and not me who could not be trusted may have been without merit and it may have only been a coincidence but when Karnes did win the election Ferarra became the supervisor in charge of the transition team.

After he took office the major became one of the driving forces of management, one of his primary go-to guys. He was visiting me daily asking me to turn in my keys and other sensitive hardware to him. It looked to many of us that it was him and not me who was working behind Smith's back. I know that Karnes would clobber me for suggesting such a thing but it is what a lot of us felt. Ferrara even suggested to me that I should consider returning to my old haunts in broadcasting, asking often if I still had ties in radio if I were to get discouraged in my new assignment.

That planned new assignment never happened. A few days before Smith left office I typed up a resignation and forwarded it to the new sheriff. A few days later it was returned to me, denied.

Karnes really wanted me to stay. We met and talked about what I would be throwing away if I left the sheriff's office and returned full time to WCOL where I had been working part time all along. He pointed out the benefits and the retirement opportunities that I would probably never see again and when I convinced him that I really wanted to leave he sent my old partner Corporal Dennis Verbance to talk some sense into me.

On the evening before he swore in all of the deputies now under his command he called me and told me to report to the Jackson pike jail facility to renew my oath the following night. I thanked him and told him that my mind was made up and he accepted my decision. A few month's later I received a call from Verbance who said the sheriff wanted to hire me as a DJ to play records at a fund raiser for him. I accepted the job and when he asked how things were going in radio for me I told him they weren't going as well as I had hoped and that he was right, I made a mistake by leaving.

Within a week I was wearing a sheriff's deputy's uniform again and working in the the communications center as a radio dispatcher. Not the greatest job in law enforcement but one that rescued a nearly dead career. For that I will always be grateful to Karnes. When the opportunity to leave for a more promising job as a police officer in the Obetz Police Department came along I received his support and his encouragement to go out, and in his words do "great things.

I don't know whether or not I ever did anything that great in Obetz but I was able to work my way through the ranks and eventually retire from there as it's chief of police. And during my tenure as chief I had no greater supporter than Sheriff Karnes. Being a small department we could not have accomplished all we did without the resources he made available to us every day.

We had access not only to his communications system that dispatched our vehicles and provided all of the information about driving records and stolen cars, but to his records bureau that checked backgrounds and alerted us whenever we encountered a dangerous or wanted person.

His K-9 units were never more than a simple requests for their assistance away, nor was his bomb squad or his huge detective bureau with all of their resources. His detectives solved homicides that we never could have with our limited resources and they fed us information daily on investigations that were paramount to the safety of everyone in our jurisdiction.

We even relied on his Internal Affairs Bureau anytime it became necessary to investigate misconduct or alleged misconduct on the part of our officers. The gratitude I owe to Karnes is way more than I could ever impart in a simple essay such as this, so when I learned that he is battling a sometimes deadly cancer I was saddened and more than a little worried about how it would all eventually play out. I haven't said anything to him about it and I probably won't. I do know this about Jim Karnes, it is not a topic he probably wants to engage in with me. If we talk at all it will probably be about music. From that first day I met him to the last time we spoke the talk always seemed to turn to music.

He has regarded me as a source when there is some song playing in his head that he has forgotten the name of. One of my favorite stories regarding my relationship with this very powerful man in Franklin County, the top cop who has law enforcement jurisdiction over us all is a time when I was a patrol sergeant in Obetz. One of the dispatcher's called my car number and instructed me to call the sheriff at home immediately. She implied that it was an emergency and then a million things went through my mind, I feared the worst.

When he answered the phone he said "Hey Ma-Nard, who did the song called I'm gonna sit right down and right myself a letter?" "Billy Williams" I told him. Through the years we shared a few other similar emergencies like that. And after that one I hung up feeling pretty good about myself, confident that I never let him down. I hope he feels the same way.

A brick for your thoughts?

"Can you tell me where Schmidt's Sausage Haus is?"

I can, and I can also tell you the little bit of the history of it and why I know it. And so can many others who live within a stone's throw of what has become an historical landmark in German Village, one of the oldest communities within the boundaries of Columbus, Ohio.

Any time a car stops in front of my house and someone in it shouts "excuse me"... I can almost always know what they they want. Directions to Schmidt's, and I always point them straight ahead just two blocks down the street. I can see it from my front porch. A man who I knew as a boy when his father opened it along with his uncle in 1967 now owns it and his family might be the most famous klan in the neighborhood because of this little restaurant that was born from the building shown in this photo. (The J. Fred Schmidt Packing Company.)

Geoff Schmidt and I are about the same age and we were both high school kids when his father George and his brother Grover Schmidt opened it in the summer of '67. He was a football star at Upper Arlington High School when he and I worked there along with his brothers John and Andy. I was a student at Columbus South High School and along with my best friend Dan Sauer we were among those first employees working in the old stable that sat across the street from the old packing plant.

That building was demolished in the late 1960s and replaced by condominiums but I recall the days when its trucks rimmed the limestone curbs along East Kossuth Street and Jaeger Street and when we knew it simply as "the slaughter house". I also remember many of my neighbors who worked there as well as some who worked in another one like it on the same street about six blocks east of it called The Village Packing Company. Some of those who worked for Schmidt's took jobs there when this slaughter house closed and the restaurant opened. And at least one old meat packer, and maybe a few others stayed on to work in the restaurant.

I never knew it at the time but I was living in what I now regard as the tail end of what was really great about the south end of Columbus. Not the fancy expensive homes that now dominate the area lived in mostly by people of well means, but because of those like the old meat packers who lived in what was then a blue collar neighborhood where it seemed everyone was somehow connected. Either by where they worked or by who their kids went to school with. It was a time when many in the neighborhood could walk to work and when every kid did walk to a nearby school. And not just a few hundred students that live within walking distance of this place now, thousands.

German Village and the neighborhoods that surround it used to be heavily populated by kids, it was an area where families layed down roots because of places like Schmidt's Packing Company and all of the schools that were once packed to the rafters with students in the area. Many of them have also closed in recent years for lack of interest or even a need to keep them open.

One of the reasons I love this old photo is because I remember this place, one that if it were still around would be out of place. I remember the bouquet that was in the air from the livestock that died in it everyday to become what the company called "Montrose Meats" (sausages and such.)

If the men in this picture were alive now they could tell you about the ball park they are facing, the one that saw a Big Bear supermarket spring up in the old infield around 1955, the one now called Giant Eagle. The field where the Ohio State Buckeyes played their first football game on and where some of these guys might have sat on bleachers eating their lunch from brown paper sacks on workdays. Al Capone may have eaten a sandwich made with the meat from this plant at the Mohawk Grill just a block west of this spot when folklore says he had ties there.

During prohibition it is said that Capone supplied the alcohol there and that he had a mistress who operated a whorehouse above it. One of these guys might have seen him there. Of course there is a lot of speculation here but that is another reason I love this picture. It represents many things to me and not least among them was the sadness I felt when Dan and I walked around in the rubble of it when it was torn down. Sifting through debris of unused sausage casings and printed meat advertisements that I wish I would have salvaged and hung onto.

Walking over a few broken bricks that I should have bothered to pick up and keep as memento's or thick shards of glass that would mean something to me today if I had them. Something to hold onto from the end a great era. Anything that was lying around waiting to be hauled away or bulldozed under.

Today all that remains is the limestone curbs that these guys and me stepped from to cross the street. That and the DNA that exists in Geoff's place.

What's in a picture?

The tall man wearing the suit and hat and smoking a pipe was once one of the most popular men in Columbus, Ohio. His name was Walter Furness and although I know very little about him I do know that his was a household name and that he probably was heard on the radio by more people than any other announcer in the city on this day in 1951 when this picture was taken.

Walter was regarded as the city's most popular radio newsman in an era when there were more radios in people's homes than there were televisions. But this story isn't about this WCOL newsman it speaks to the photo itself and of some thoughts I have about it.

My guess is that Mr. Furness is counting the change for the purchase of a copy of the Columbus Citizen Newspaper visible in his coat pocket. This was in the days before it merged with the Ohio State Journal to become the Columbus Citizen Journal, a morning newspaper owned by the Scripps-Howard Publishing Company. The man smiling and wearing the ball cap is Dale Geddes who was a colorful vendor at the corner of Broad and High for many years.

Not visible in this picture is the State House grounds across the street from this transaction where then Governor Frank J. Laushe may have been conducting some important business for Ohio. If a photographer would station himself on this spot today something else that wouldn't likely be seen is the number of pedestrians on that sidewalk. In the sixty years since this day there aren't as many reasons for people to be in this area because there isn't nearly as much commerce nearby as there was then and probably not as many downtown workers.

The radio station Walter worked for isn't there anymore either, WCOL was located just a few blocks east of those trolley buses at the corner of Broad and South Young Street then and just one block down from this location is where WBNS radio broadcasted at 62 East Broad Street.

Back then almost all of Columbus' radio stations were within walking distance of this spot. Also gone from within sight of it is the Neil House Hotel (across from the State House) that Walter could have eyeballed if he turned around and the Deshler Hotel if he were to look to his left.

But back to what we can see. I find it interesting that here is a radio guy making a purchase from something else that seems to have vanished from the streets of downtown Columbus, a newsstand watched over by a vendor. A simple one that looks to be made of wood like so many others that dotted the busier corners or that stood in front of stores before those self-serve metal boxes with see-thru plastic windows that line them now. And clearly visible on this rack are copies of Billboard Magazine and Variety...both of them entertainment publications that could be found lying around in every radio station I worked for throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Walt wouldn't have needed a copy of either because I am guessing that he read those editions at work. The contents of both would have been something that WCOL listeners would have been interested in because at that time the station was one of the main sources of entertainment for Columbus and besides the news that Walter delivered everyday it carried music as well as drama programs that starred some of the most famous names coming out of Hollywood and New York.

The contents of the newspaper in his pocket might have had the box scores of the Columbus Red Birds (now known as the Columbus Clippers) and a team at that time whose radio voice was Jack Buck another employee of WCOL who did the play-by-play for their games and was a man who would later become one of the most famous sports announcers in the country.

Old black and white photos like this one are priceless to anyone like myself who loves history, especially that of my hometown, and this one in particular is made even more special because the most popular guy in it is someone whose footsteps I walked in for nearly ten years when I worked at WCOL, some twenty five years later.

I never met Walter Furness but I worked with some who did and who knew him well and although there is probably no one connected to that station now who has a clue about him or his impact on the profession they count on to make a living, he was a pioneer of sorts.

When you consider that commercial radio stations didn't begin broadcasting until 1922 and that by the time this picture was taken in '51, old Walter's stock and trade had been in broadcasting for a number of years.

This photo could have been staged, perhaps planned by some promotions person at WCOL but I doubt it. I am guessing that the photographer worked for the old Citizen and was there for another reason. The picture appeared in that paper but I don't have enough information about it to explain why or to even speculate.

It is possible that they staged it as part of some expose written by their entertainment writer on the daily activities of Walter Furness, or maybe even for a story about Dale Geddes and Walt just happened to be there. As I mentioned, Dale was very well known among the daily downtown crowd. I wish I knew more about him aside from hearing a few stories others have shared about his colorful banter about the politics and other headlines of the day.

The man standing behind him with the cigarette hanging from his lip appears impatient to me. Maybe he is in a hurry or has something else on his mind, but to me he looks annoyed that the transaction going on before it is his turn is taking too long. The little guy sitting on the stoop of the rack just looks happy to be there, or maybe one of the other gents just said something funny.

And if that is the case I'm guessing it was Walter. Dale is smiling, as if reacting to something that was said and from what I have heard about Walter Furness he was pretty colorful himself, a man with a dry wit on and away from the microphone. A lot like nearly every radio newsman I ever met.

Click on the photo to enlarge it and fully appreciate it.

Theatre of the mind

The photo shown here was taken sometime in the early 1900s. The man standing beside the wagon is someone I never met, but from what I know of him he worked hard all of his life... and what I know about this picture is that his wagon load may still be in the ground as part of the infrastructure that runs through Athens County Ohio.

This is Jacob "Jake" Minerd who died of a heart attack while picking potatoes in the 1930s, he is my great-grandfather and I would give anything to have known his grandson (my father) when he was a young man.

All I really know about him is what has been passed down by my mother and not a lot of what she knew of him was all that flattering. According to those stories and my own vague memories of him he was a hell-raiser and a free spirit when he was a young man and his experiences in life couldn't have been more different than mine. Aside from the blood in our veins and our last name not much else about us resembles the other.

But like I said, I wish I could have known him better, not so much as a son but as someone his age, maybe even hung out with him for a while if only for the chance to possibly understand not only who he was but why. I can only imagine the the type of men he may have called friends or running buddies. If a movie were to be made about him it would probably be one something like "Cool Hand Luke" about a guy who couldn't be tamed.

There would be a backdrop of dirt roads where he hot-rodded through the countryside in old jalopies, a lot of hard drinking in some rough Southern Ohio bars, some prison scenes and a lot of women who fell prey to his charms. Falling prey in the sense that he was a good looking guy with what has been described as a gift of bullshitting his way in and out of unsuspecting hearts, or as he described himself....God's gift to women.

Someone I would have found to be a very interesting man.

As I have often written I wish I could have been alive in the 1940s and old enough to take in all of what that decade was. To have had the chance to join the heroes who fought against tyranny in World War ll and to have experienced the culture of America during that time. My fascination with the big cars of that era as well as the movies and the music that were made then and the way people dressed and their attitudes toward one another has filled many pages of stories I hope to someday publish.

The man who married my mother before he was twenty-one years old was someone I am sure could have given me enough material for a great movie script, and if I could write such a script I would want to play him if that movie were ever made. Far be it from me to condone his early lifestyle but I have to believe the man had what he regarded as fun. Usually at the expense of others but I know that in his mind his life before settling down in his forties was one long joy ride that landed him in some very exciting scenarios as well as rivers of hot water.

And from what I think I understand about him he didn't mind... nor did he feel much remorse for the trials and tribulations he caused for anyone including himself.

I wish I could have peeked inside his brain when he found out that I grew up and became a lawman. I have often wondered if that made him proud considering that he spent a great deal of his youth running from guys like me. Petty offenses mostly, but offenses that did allow him to get to know life behind bars more than a few times.

Old faded black and white photographs of him show a cocky looking guy who seemed to enjoy showing that side of him in various poses. Pictures of him with a cigarette dangling from his lips or a bottle of beer in his hand and facial expressions of a man twice as big and way more important than he was.

He was guy who served in two branches of the armed forces during wartime, serving in both the United States Army and Navy, and his stock and trade after that was in iron works. A tough guy who wanted to be married and have children but one who never learned the ropes of either until after he was booted out of my mother's life and found his bearings with another woman and more children besides the ones he left her alone with. That's when I finally got to know a little more about him. By his own accounts he was the man my mother knew, one who made a ton of mistakes in life.

But how I wish I could climb into a time machine and go back and observe him as his equal. To see first hand up close and personal the things he did and how he behaved. If I could do that I would be right there in that era I only know from books and movies and from second hand accounts from those who were. I think if I could do that I might be able to change the course of this man's history. I may have been able to steer him away from some of the self destructive behavior that made his life such a challenge.

I know, that sounds like I may have more confidence in myself than I have a right to but I like to think that I could do it and I know that I would have found the experience worth it for us both.

In reality I know that any attempts to change who he was or how he acted would have been a frustrating endeavor in futility just as it was for my mother and a few others, but imagine being a part of something like that. To be with your father and see him as he was, not as a son but as someone who only knew him well...or at least as far as he knew your role in all of it.

To be there knowing that he's your father but being the only one on the planet who knew it and being someone who knew what he was going to do before he did it and having the chance to at least try to change his course in life for the better but knowing you would fail. Now that I have written these thoughts down and studied them I may indeed be onto a pretty good movie script.

And while I am back there I would want to look up the second man who married my mother and became my real dad. Totally opposite from Jacob's grandson. What Jake's grandson pretended to be my dad really was. My mother regarded him as a true gift from God and he was the best gift she could have given myself and my siblings. If I could go back in time and study both men before they married my mother and found myself in a position to pick one or the other for her the decision would be a no-brainer.

I can't think of a single thing I would change about my dad's life except to maybe make his work a lot easier than it was or to make his paychecks fatter than they were so he could have had more.

Here were two men who grew up in Southern Ohio approximately seventy miles from one another who couldn't be more different. And although I hold my dad in higher regard than I did my father his life wouldn't make a movie nearly as interesting. As far as I know he did everything right in his and by comparison to Jake's grandson a film about him just wouldn't be that interesting. Still I would love the opportunity to make one that had both of them in it.
Click the photo to enlarge

Boogie Men

When you were small did anyone ever warn you about the Boogie Man? Aside from rounding a few of them up and locking them down during my twenty years as a sheriff's deputy and police officer I had a few encounters with him during my childhood as well.

At least one of them chased me in a car when I was on my bicycle after soliciting me for sex one predawn morning while I was making my rounds delivering the Columbus Citizen Journal, another one robbed me of some cash I had collected from that paper route in an alley one night and still another one grabbed me around the waist when I was eight years old and then tried to stuff me into the back seat of his car.

Today such encounters might be worthy of stories told on local television news programs but mine happened in the 1960s in a time when such occurrences didn't usually make headlines unless they ended tragically. I survived them with no more mental scars than memories of a few close calls. I have had many of those. Nonetheless, I think I am glad I experienced these things because I truly believe it helped mold the character I had to become.

Not that any of them made me a tougher guy or for that matter a different kid than who I was, but I am certain that these experiences helped hone my common sense skills. And aside from what they can teach in the schools or the lessons our parents try to impart to us about bad people, that's something that cannot be taught. The same is true no matter our age or where we go in life. As a cop I walked away from one bad scenario after another wondering if common sense was a quality few possessed or just some lost art.

Whether it was a victim of a crime who became one out of apathy or the criminal who had no regard for anyone but himself when the pay-off for him was a few moments of pleasure or simply a few stolen dollars in his pocket. The latter came into focus again recently when a man in Columbus was found burned to death after being electrocuted while trying to steel copper pipes.

He was burned so badly that dental records were required to identify who he was and when what was left of him was found he was still gripping a pair of bolt cutters. Pretty crazy.

Criminals like that guy are also willing to trade years of freedom for a life in prison and immediate retribution from their victims if they target the wrong one at the wrong time. More of them than what is reported in the news get kicked in the balls or beaten to a pulp and even shot while trying to help themselves to something they shouldn't have. Yet those so inclined know that there are many common senseless people out their primed for the taking.

However I am not suggesting that all victims get hurt because they let their guard down or because they did anything else wrong, usually that is not the case. But we can minimize our difficulties in life and learn from our experiences and I think those earlier encounters with the Boogie Man that live in my memory have helped me better understand the world I have navigated through since. As a father of five I do know that they made me a more protective dad over my kids when they were small and during my years in law enforcement I think I had a better understanding about those on either side of the crime tape than I might have had otherwise.

And now that I have landed in the circumstances of being the old guy on the block I have to accept the fact that I must still worry about those around me who are bigger and stronger and who have less to lose in any confrontation they may have planned for me. That's not to say that I change anything about how I live or that I fear going anywhere I choose to go. I still enjoy playing on the edge of danger now and then and my better years aren't so far behind me that I don't remember how to play. And through some unexplainable osmosis I have managed to stay in pretty good shape physically.

My diet isn't what my doctor would probably hope it was, I smoke cigarettes but I shy away from alcohol and I rely on everyday excercise instead of joining a gym or hiring someone else to give me tips on staying fit. In short, I pretty much live as I have all of my life. I am the correct weight for my height, no sagging belly or breasts, I don't need to wear oversized clothing to hide anything, I still have my hair and my teeth are still good. But maybe just important as all of that I still possess a cockiness that leaves others sizing me up before they take me for granted.

A great deal of my playtime now consists of pecking on these qwerty keys recounting and pounding out stories that draw the attention of some of my peers and a few others who enjoy reading what life was like for some of us in an era they call "back in the day." Because like all good things my life will end soon enough and like one of my favorite bosses when I was a radio DJ once said to me... "Why just do stuff? Make it count for something and leave something behind besides rumors and hearsay. Document it. And of course, beware of the Boogie Man. Lord knows he's out there.

But now he might take the form of a politician or other well dressed con men hoping to take away a lot of what many of us have worked for all of our lives. Or he may be somewhere in cyberspace snooping into our lives and hoping that we slip up with information he needs to steal from us from afar. It can even be someone posing as a man of God on some television show asking you to let your guard down and send him money in exchange for prayers you might not receive or some that you do that probably won't help anyway.

He could even be a family member or just someone you call friend . All of us have something someone else wants. And that brings me to wondering why I often receive invitations to places to meet up with people who in earlier years could not have cared less that I even existed. I get those more frequently now than ever before and usually I decline them. Not out of resentment or fear of anyone but more because I don't see the point.

I stopped going to class reunions and family reunions for these reasons. I am more comfortable where people are less familiar to me and where I might learn something important that I never knew. I prefer going to places where I'm not likely to engage in conversations with anyone I may have tried to talk to in years past but who blew me off then. I never again want to sit across a table from an old girlfriend to compare notes about how our lives have gone and I really don't want to see photos of some one's grandchildren, especially if I really don't know the person who is showing them or if that person is someone I never really cared for anyway, and I get bored very quickly when the discussion begins to be about health issues.

And I certainly don't ever want to be in the accompany of anyone who drinks alcohol to help them remember the good old days. I don't fare well socially with people who need that to express themselves. I have always been more of a one-on-one guy and I believe that sharing thoughts that are written are forever. So I write books and blogs to do that and I don't ever have to dress to impress others, or put on airs or laugh at anything that isn't funny just for the sake of expected protocol. I have survived the Boogie Man and a few other unknowns.

But with all of this said I enjoy hearing from all types of people, those I may have known or some I wished I had. And occasionally I will sit down with a few of them and talk about what might be important to either of us, but at the end of the day all that really matters is what comes next. And since I still have some years left before I become eligible for Medicare I plan to remain who I have always been. Someone with one eye on my surroundings and the wit to expect more from life... so that when all that's left of it nears an end I will have left what I hope are some good stories behind.

Those boogie men from my past who tried to harm me physically are probably dead now but the legacy they left behind lives in my work and within my very being.

Weekend Get-a-Ways

Whenever I hear the sound of a car alarm late at night I know that another thief got away with something. And being more of a self preservationist than someone who loves thy neighbor I always hope that it isn't my car that got hit.

"C'mon, don't cock an eyebrow, when you hear one you're just like me in that regard."

But if you are not there is a house near mine that is for sale and I'd like to see you get it! If you would rather see your property targeted instead of mine I know that we would get along very well.

Most of the get-a-ways on my block seem to happen on the weekends but the thieves who roam the streets at night don't discriminate against week nights, they spread themselves around pretty well and rarely take a lot of time off. These are people who are generally self employed and very loyal ones at that. To themselves.

If the glass left behind in the street from all of the broken car windows in my neighborhood were swept up and placed in the same bag it would take a fork-lift to pick it up and haul it away.

These after hours workers are dedicated to their craft and if you stop and think about it they possess certain skills that not all of us have or would be very good at even with practice. Case in point; At my age I doubt that I would have the speed or endurance to run down alleys and hop tall wooden fences as I made my get-a-way after breaking into some one's car, especially if I had just stolen something that required me to carry a burglary tool in one hand and the items I stole in the other.

Also...I would regard the wherewithal to slide under a vehicle to avoid detection by the search lights of helicopters as a skill and I have nothing but high regard for anyone who is willing to dive into a garbage dumpster and use it it as a hide-out until frustration overcomes the hunters and they give up the hunt. To be willing to crouch among rotting food, yard waste and rats to avoid jail time wouldn't be an easy task to master for me but a good thief can do it.

Something else many of us no longer have as much of as we once might have had that would make this work a little easier would be the strength and endeavor to fight one's way out of physical confrontations should a victim be faster and actually caught one of us trying to get-a-way.

If you have ever been a victim of a crime where someone got away with it you probably lost your valuables or were harmed otherwise by a person who also knows and understands marketing things that didn't belong to them until they took yours. (Another talent.)

For example, no one on my block ever had a factory installed radio ripped from the dash. A good thief takes the time to peer into windows looking for the more expensive after market stuff.

They will also ignore vehicles that have cheap items like newspapers and magazines left lying on the front seat and look for ones that have laptops, cameras, purses and other valuables. I mean why cause hundreds or even thousands of dollars of damage to some one's vehicle unless there is a little profit in it? I mean unless it is for personal reasons.

But even there, a skilled vandal can do it and get-a-way!

A good weekend get-a-way can also be had by these people after breaking into the homes around here. Burglars who smash windows or kick in doors to gain entry into places they have no lawful business being in to steal televisions, jewelry and other expensive items probably revel in their get-a-ways even more than the thieves who break into cars or those who only settle for a few pieces of lawn furniture.

But like I said, I wouldn't be any good at this work. The last time someone broke into my car I chased him for a few blocks and he got away. I wasn't fast enough to catch him. I probably could have run him down twenty years ago and beat him to a pulp with the hammer he dropped when he dashed off but again, at my age I was no match for his speed.

All of this brings me to what I really want to talk about and that is how I manage my own weekend get-a-ways. I go places in my mind. After fifty-five it's easier to do that anyway and it doesn't cost me anything but my time, and since I am retired now all of that belongs to me. It is mine, I own it and I can do what I wish with it.

This weekend, like most others I will spend some of it writing stories that I will eventually share here in my blog. Some of them will eventually fill more pages of more books I plan to have published and almost all of them will relate to people I have known or places and times that have been important to me. A great deal of my work evolves around the area I have called home most of my life. An area that is one of the most popular get-a-ways in the south end of Columbus.