Because I will get nothing done if I don’t make “To Do” lists of things to get done while recovering from surgery, I have been scrounging junk-mail envelopes for requisite stationery. Because my doctor has cleared me to drive an automobile with automatic transmission, I have been running some errands today.
Dropped Seventy-Six off at the sitter’s, Miss Bee’s, house. Dropped Caution-Lady off at school. Mailed stuff. Paid a bill in person. Dropped off some paperwork at the tax accountant’s. Got a tire repaired. Got gasoline. Shopped, briefly, at Stepford’s premiere furniture store for a kitchen island that rolls – their best price: $480.00. I may try a builder’s salvage, instead, or Big Lots.
While waiting for the tire repair, I spent awhile in conversation with two older men. The one who looked older, it turned out, was about 11 years younger than the other man – they were 75 and about 86, respectively. Both had worked in law enforcement – Air Force, the younger man; Marine Corps, the elder.
I enjoyed listening to them exchange stories about getting into trouble for doing their jobs. The elder was transferred after arresting and jailing a drunk driver who was also a Lebanon city judge. He said that of all the jobs he’d ever held, he like police work the best, but “politics” often made it difficult to do the work. The younger man said that while stationed at Columbus, Ohio, were he served as a military police sergeant. He said a black man, not an officer, came in to the officer’s club and started fighting with anyone who challenged his right to be there. Broke a captain’s arm, broke up furniture, grabbed women randomly making obscene suggestions as he did so.
“The Officer of the Day said, ‘Sergeant, take him down – any way you have to.’ I walked up to (the miscreant), put my hand on his shoulder, and told him, ‘You’re under arrest.’ He turned and hit me, and I slid 30 feet ending up under a table. I didn’t have a stick with me. I didn’t usually carry a stick. I went up to him and took my .45 and (struck him over the right eye, at the temple), and he dropped. Can you believe it, the NAACP got on to me for that,” the old gentleman said. He expressed disgust that in military, law enforcement, and civil government, “In the upper echelons, they’re scared of their own shadow.” The man he struck, he said, was at some later time arrested for murder.
He went on to talk about how he had been issued the sidearm, manufactured by Ithica. He talked about the M-2 he’d been issued, but stated he was not allowed to keep that firearm after discharge, and had to trade it for an M-1, instead. He said his .45 had been borrowed and never returned by a relative.
We talked about pistols we have owned. He talked about having a Russian-made 9mm pistol of the sort used by the KGB. Said it was accurate and reliable, but he found the slide too “stiff.” He said, “I walked up on a bunch of buzzards that had taken down one of my cows that was calving – I shot and killed two of them (with the 9mm pistol).
I have some other things to get done today before it’s time pick up Caution-Lady and Seventy-Six.
Fall is in the air. I can smell a change, sunlight has begun to fall at a different angle, days are getting shorter, and some leaves are falling.
Christov_Tenn 