Into the Breach

"In peace there's nothing so becomes a man. As modest stillness and humility; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger." Henry V, William Shakespeare (1599).

I have to admit, even after so many years of "pushing a radiator" around Lakewood or, more pleasantly, riding a bike on duty, I have fallen into the trap of driving to work in the morning happily ensconced in Condition White.

Most of the time, headed south on Kipling St., I'm immersed in an audio book - at the moment a charming reading of Michener's excellent Caribbean - mind wandering. Recently, an officer admitted to following me one morning. He'd remarked, "Do you know the speed limit on Kipling?

From memory. But, when the reader speaks of the ocean breezes blowing across lovely Barbados... I long to be plopped down in the sand, love of my life at my side, sipping something cold and refreshing, warming my soul in the sunshine.

It was in this semi-aware state that I rolled up to the red light at Kipling and Alameda on a recent morning. It's perpetually busy, and not just because of the number of cars present. There are double left turn lanes, right turn lanes, and the timing of the lights changes as the day goes by. One cannot venture into the intersection uncommanded - every movement is controlled. Then I saw...

A cyclist. They (here English is unartful, but I'm pressing ahead) were dressed in several iterations of visibility, scarf covering their face to ward off the cold. A light perched atop their blaze-yellow helmet shone brightly. A brighter bulb flashed rhythmically mid-handlebar. Reflective tape, striking hi-vis coat, orange ankle straps. Their gloves contained bands of 3M material. Visibility-R-them.

This person had chosen, for their foray across one of the busiest intersections in Colorado, a left turn lane from Eastbound Alameda to Northbound Kipling. There are bike paths available, ped crossing lights and places on raised gore points to wait safely, out of traffic. But, no.

To be clear, nothing this person was doing offended traffic law. We teach this very maneuver in Bike Patrol class on an equally busy street - which generally scares the crap out of the new riders. The proximity to traffic, the feeling of vulnerability... If one need not do this, don't.

The rider I was watching looked all ways in the intersection and promptly made their left against a red light. Against a red light! They then darted across three lanes of traffic and sped urgently down the bike path.

The tapestry of human nature is one of the great appeals to awareness. Human beings are rarely ordinary, if one is susceptible to embracing their nuances.

I returned to Michener's story, having just seen something stranger than fiction.

Don't Know Much About History

What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare (1597)

Here I am, sitting in the shadow of a good friend's retirement, anticipating my own. We joked repeatedly - look at his retirement countdown calendar, add 365 and there you had it.

The scholar in me rebels at going into such a life-changing moment without consulting the experts. Pat and I attended classes, did the workshop and met with our longtime financial advisor. I spoke to someone who knows about cop retirements. Everything I read, wrote or heard was valuable, but this little gem beat all.

"Don't spend a lot of time arguing with people you don't know about police work on Facebook."

I don't know if wiser words were ever spoken, so let me tell you a story.

Several days ago, on a police site focused on supporting law enforcement officers of all stripes, someone asked an entirely reasonable question. Paraphrased - why do most police departments call their officers "officer" but the [my department] calls them "agent?"

That is an entirely reasonable question, one I am often asked by LEOs from other jurisdictions, and by citizens. The answer is easy...sort of. Let's take a step back in time.

Law enforcement in the middle 60s was something of a shit show. Good work was being done by honorable men (and a smattering of women) but scandals plagued departments coast to coast. Graft was endemic, training was uneven and, in some places, cops were the focus of criminal investigations. In Denver, for example, this nugget was popular: "If you find a burglar in your house just get his badge number. We'll get him at briefing the next day." An excellent book, Burglars in Blue, was written on the subject by an ex-cop who went to prison.

In 1965 President Johnson commissioned an examination of the police, with the study published in 1967. Among the findings and recommendations - have several levels of officer, with each succeeding level reflecting greater education and experience.

In 1969 a group of citizens living in Jefferson County, CO decided to "incorporate," that is they decided to create a new city. The successful vote had the collateral effect (or, to an extent the intended effect) of causing a new police department to form.

It was someone's idea - the first generation cops would know this - to pattern this ground-floor organization after the 1967 recommendations. Fair enough, huh?

One suggestion was to allow experienced officers to move from department to department without the need to start at the bottom - to "lateral," so to speak. It is a term that survives to this day and has found a formal process in POST rules.

Another was standardized state requirements - Colorado's (and everywhere else's) Peace Officer Standards and Training office is the result. God help us all.

The Commission envisioned that police officers would have high school educations or perhaps some college credits. They would undertake basic police investigations - the sort of bread and butter things street cops have done for almost two hundred years. The more sophisticated the investigation, the more likely it would need someone with more training, a higher level of education. That position? Agent. A department would have both, paying the agents more.

Of course, in typical [my town] fashion it was felt someone with a higher level of education could pick up the mundane stuff in their spare time and so, except for one group in the 80s, we never adopted the "officers and agents" structure. Legend has it that the mundane stuff was occasionally put off in those early days, but oh well. When I got there a bachelor's degree was required of everyone applying for the agent position, there was no officer rank and the department was structured along fairly traditional lines.

That outline persists to this day. One might argue that a degree is no guarantee a person is suited for a law enforcement career. Conversely, it's said that the lack of a degree doesn't preclude someone from being an exceptional cop. Trust me, both are irrefutable. Nevertheless, our way has worked for us so far.

Oh, yeah... The blazers. Following the Commission's original notions, the initial uniform issue was a blue blazer, gray slacks and a light blue shirt. The gun belt was worn under the blazer. Women wore skirts at first, but that's for another day. Eventually, it became obvious that the outfit caused more problems than it solved. Now agents wear a traditional blue uniform that is evolving right along with everyone else's.

Several of the commenters on Facebook made fun of the blazers, the title agent and the presumption that having a degree in - I don't know - underwater basket weaving made you something special. Or, that we were paid twenty-five grand a year more. I took a pay cut to come over from my original department, so I'm not sure where they got their information. Yeah, yeah. Whatever. 

I'm very proud of my organization and the people I work with. They are committed to service, dedicated to professionalism and among the bravest people I have ever met. When one of our folks took a job with the FBI (and became - wait for it - an agent) he interacted with a number of agencies on the East Coast. His assessment? "[Our shop] does it right."

So, now you know. 

       

A Spot of Bother

SHERWEN: I don't like to feel that I'm commentating to the cycling fans because there's 50,000 to 100,000. I like to be commentating to your mom. I like to be commentating to a little old lady down the street who says, wow.
Mourning the passing of cycle racing commentator Paul Sherwen.

Most Bikecopblog readers are aware of how important cycling has been to the author. I know, right? BIKEcopblog. A cross-country ride over my Bikecentennial summer of '76. Rides with memories to last a lifetime. Bike patrol - night, day. Good weather, snow. Teaching, learning... In the company of forever friends.

Then, there is racing. Never having raced has not cooled my interest in the men and women who can make the bike fly.

I followed a man through much of Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming during that 1976 bike odyssey. He called himself "Pro Padre," but his real name was Glenn. He rode like the wind, a back wheel I could hold for only so long. In the hour-long runs between refreshments (mostly junk food) he would run out to a hundred yards ahead, me red-lined the whole time. Together we braved driving rain, hail, obnoxious (but very flirtatious) teenagers and too-many-beers-to-run-into-the-organizer intoxication. He made burritos we washed down with fable Coors beer and bought a duck call in a hardware store outside of Eugene.

We were camped in the shadows of the Teton Mountains, drinking beer and sitting by a campfire. Several road-weary riders asked to share our fire, and our site. We all got to talking. One of the visitors said "No shit!" and looked at me. "Do you know who this guy is?"

Me: "Glenn."

Him: "He's Glenn Griffin."

Me: "And?"

Him: "He was road racing champion of California!"

I didn't spend a lot more time with Glenn. Eventually he pressed ahead on a day I struggled. But, in the meantime he regaled me with tales of racing bikes, of training and striving and riding the dog-eat-dog pelotons in California.

I moved to Colorado, and followed racing here. The Red Zinger, Coors Classic. What was supposed to be a Quiznos race, except that Lance screwed it up by being a douche.

I watched the Tour de France on TV, helping my wife understand and then appreciate the subtleties of professional team bike racing. My partner in crime - an Englishman who'd grown up in Africa. Paul Sherwen.

He had a knack. Every rider was awesome, fabulous. They suffered doing a job of work. A struggling rider pedaled squares, and was in a spot of bother. His broadcast partner Phil Liggett has a bit of Frank Gifford in him - "It's first and ten at the forty... Or, is it first and forty on the ten?" Paul would seamlessly point out "That's actually [fill in a rider's name] when Phil had totally botched it, and we'd all forgive Phil.

They played off each other the way best friends do, two men watching the best cycling in the world next to someone who knows them better, perhaps, than their own family. Decades crammed into cars, commentary booths in small town Belgium and the billion watt "City of Light" as Le Tour heads down the Champs.

Paul taught us well, two avid fans sitting in our basement hanging on his every word. During the 2012 London Games Columbia's Rigoberto Uran led Kazak Alexandr Vinokurov to the line at the end of the road race, the usual game of cat and mouse evolving, a question of who would flinch under tremendous pressure. Who would jump first. Rigo looked left.

My wife leapt to her feet. "He's looking over the wrong shoulder!!"

Vino darted right, went full gas and won the gold.

How did she know that? Because, for years, we'd learned from Paul Sherwen. We were the couple he was broadcasting to, the ones he wanted to reach from so far away.

God bless you, sir. Ride like the wind.  

"What They Do is...America"

5. George Bush plays for Denver Bear

July 12, 1984

George Bush was the sitting vice president when he donned a Denver Bears uniform and entered the old-timers Game at the start of the fourth, playing first base. When his time to bat came up, the second baseman allowed Bush's lazy pop fly to bounce harmlessly to the ground. Given another chance, he smacked a legit single off Warren Spahn. Also appearing in the game were Ernie Banks, Brooks Robinson, Billy Martin, Bob Feller and a fellow named Joe DiMaggio.

"Top Non-Bronco Sporting Events at Mile High Stadium" The Denver Post.

.

Mourning the passing of former president and Naval Aviator George Herbert Walker Bush.

The pros this morning - some toiling into the wee hours - will write hundreds of thousands of words about "41." Certainly, for a man who lived into his nineties, was married for nearly seventy-five years and was shot down (at age 20) flying a TBM Avenger during World War II only to become President of the United States some decades later, there is a lot to tell.

I remember him as a man who served admirably in the background of Ronald Reagan's breathtaking aura. Elected to his own presidency in 1988, he faced first the upheaval attendant to a political theatrical performance known as the "Iran-Contra Affair" and the understandable (and unfair) comparison to his old boss. 

In late 1990 an obscure dictator with delusions of...just delusions works fine...invaded oil rich Kuwait on a pretext as thin as a human hair. "This will not stand" President Bush noted. Not the most eloquent, nor impassioned speaker, he nevertheless backed up his assertion with a coalition of military might that swept aside Iraq's most powerful brigades with overwhelming force so shocking that dispirited Iraqi troops surrendered to the first available coalition unit...or to members of the press. Or, a drone.

America held its collective breath as the first instantly-broadcast war unfolded. The war fighters got most of the attention, commandeered most of the press conferences and in short order negotiated the succession of hostilities. George Bush was sometimes criticized for not "finishing" the war - invading and conquering Iraq when her routed troops were being handily slaughtered by the thousands as they fled Kuwait in every stolen vehicle they could start. The experience America would later have with President Bush's son at the helm has cast that decision in a kinder, gentler light.

George HW Bush also presided over...well, he was anyway there as a horrified witness to...the collapse of the "Savings and Loan" industry. America ponied up a cool half trillion to keep the shock waves from devastating the economy. Among the institutions that toppled was an S&L in Denver controlled in part by son Neil. By and by, a president who had been wildly popular months before was challenged in reelection by a quirky Texas billionaire and defeated by a faux country boy from Arkansas - with whom he eventually became fast friends.

George Bush and his gracefully outspoken wife Barbara retired to their private interests, staying involved in politics where it seemed most appropriate and staying silent otherwise. His sons George and Jeb were successful governors. George W - well, history has a funny way of smoothing out the rough edges of a presidency. Time will tell. 41's public political statements were often bipartisan - he bristled at the treatment afforded Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, saying she deserved a fair hearing based not on wild accusations, but on facts. No fan of Donald Trump, he let it be known he'd voted for Trump's opponent.

In 2009 George HW Bush, then in his early eighties, had occasion to walk the flight deck of a Nimitz-class carrier named for him. His public pronouncements - of pride in the men and women serving aboard - did not include what his private thoughts were, about what he had done so many years before from just such a vessel. Such was the focus of an honorable man.

In the aftermath of the liberation of Kuwait by coalition forces, political writer PJ O'Rourke encountered a man on the streets of Kuwait City. In tears, overcome by emotion, the man grabbed O'Rourke and said - "You write that we would like to thank every man in the allied force. Until one hundred years we cannot thank them. What they do is...is..." - words failed him - is America." 

George Herbert Walker Bush served his country with distinction. In so many ways, his was a life that is America.