Sheriff Tom (Part 1)

There's been buttloads of stories about cops being murderous assholes recently, can't say that the age of the internet and a fucking smartphone is a bad thing....

I'd like to contrast that with my own personal interactions with a County Sheriff in a small mountain town out west closing in on thirty years ago. This was a pretty weird place for two Motor City longhairs to land after a quarter-century or so of weird behavior (long story there...), but the locals seemed to take us in stride and we had a mutual understanding of the Golden Rule type with them.

One of those folks was Sheriff Tom.

A fine example of his method of policing was to be had by Rick and me on a summer Saturday night after we closed the bar that was up the canyon a mile or so from town. Quick sidetrack, when Rick and I went on a tear, ENORMOUS amounts of Jim Beam and beer served as the baseline for any other substance that came our way, and the results were....unpredictable.

Anyway, we staggered our way out into the wilderness that was the parking lot, found his truck and, with some considerable wobbling and fumbling, got in and proceeded to head down-canyon at about 25 or 30 miles an hour. Just above town is a spot where you can turn left and take the shortcut to Rick's house, just before the turn is a wide spot on the same side, Sheriff Tom would sit there sometimes just to keep an eye on things.

Here's where things get interesting.

We rolled erratically  around that last curve before the left turn, saw Sheriff Tom's Bronco at about the same time he flicked his blue-and-reds on and off. Naturally, we pulled over next to him and waited until he got out and walked over to the driver's side. He looked at Rick, looked at me, smiled and asked "Ok, you two, where are you going?" . We replied that we were going to Rick's house as we both have had a considerable amount of fun already and it was time to call it a night (the actual conversation is untranslatable due to....).

He looked at the pair of us and said "Ok, I'm gonna follow you to the house and I don't want to see this truck on the road again tonight" That's exactly what he did, we wobbled our way the last little bit to the driveway, shut it down and got out, waved at Sheriff Tom, who flicked his blue-and-reds again and drove away.

Now, THAT'S what I consider to be the the gold standard for policing, know your people and protect them from their own stupidity when needed.

I've got more Sheriff Tom stories, will be posting more soon. Somebody should be acting a  counterweight to all the bad press.