Until a year or so ago, I lived in a small town. Usually when I write about this town I mention it by name, but not this time. This time I'm likely to say some unkind things and I still have a friend serving on the village council there. I'd like to keep him, because he makes really good home-brewed beer and on occasion gives me some.
Anyway, it's not really the town's elected leaders I want to talk about, but rather some of their appointees; namely, the police.
When I moved to this town, which I will henceforth refer to as "Taylorville" since -- according to assorted ex-wives and girlfriends, I'm a narcissistic egomaniac -- there was one cop. His name was Rupert*, or Chief Addams if you were trying to talk your way out of a ticket.
Chief Addams was hired as the town's lone officer after retiring from the State Police. He spent most of his days in a cubicle down at the village offices. He read a lot of magazines, filed a little paperwork and on occasion drove the town's only police cruiser up and down main street to see if any crimes were being committed. This being Taylorville, none were.
In Taylorville, a "crime spree" consisted of kids TP-ing each others' houses after Homecoming. A "major crime spree" meant those same kids also had vandalized a couple mailboxes out on Youngman Road. About once a year, someone would break into the pizza joint or hardware store in the middle of the night and steal the $27.50 left overnight in the cash register. (I suspect the "perp" in these break-ins was Alvin McDonald, owner of the town's only insurance agency; without the occasional robbery the downtown business owners might cancel their theft policies.)
The only other crime committed with any regularity in Taylorville was the annual kidnapping of Jesus from the Methodist Church Nativity display. Every year on the first of December the Methodists would stick Jesus out there in the manger and every year he would go missing by December 20. Chief Addams would mount an investigation (from the comfort of his heated office) and wait for Jesus to turn up again Christmas Eve, as he always did, often on the bench in front of the village offices.
Then Chief Addams retired. He didn't really need the money and was growing weary of the malcontents calling him at home because their neighbor's pit bull wouldn't shut the hell up, already.
Rather than follow the time honored tradition of hiring another recent State Police retiree, the village council decided it was time to "shake things up." They hired a kid who looked almost old enough to order a beer, but not quite. Kevin Binkey, our new chief, subscribed to the Barney Fife philosophy of peace-keeping: Everyone is a suspect and guilty of something. Binkey wrote more tickets in his first week than Chief Addams had written in his career.
Great-grandfathers who had never received a ticket in their lives got their first from Chief Binkey, sometimes for the heinous crime of driving two miles per hour over the posted 25 mph limit. Others got tickets for turning right out of the grocery store parking lot without first engaging the correct blinker. And that seat belt law -- never popular in rural communities -- became a whole lot less popular under Binkey's Draconian rule.
The village council was amazed by how much revenue this generated. So amazed that they hired on another full time officer. Then a part-timer. Chief Binkey suddenly found himself leader of a police force. You could tell he liked it way too much. He began to strut around town like Darth Vader stalking the hallways of the Death Star.
Kids on skateboards got tickets. Old ladies crossing against the town's only traffic light got tickets. People who parked their cars in their front yards to wash them got tickets. The council used the extra revenue to hire yet another part time officer and buy a second, used cruiser.
Taylorville is now an orderly village. No one drives 26 miles per hour, but always 25. If Taylorville had trains, they would run on time.
And if there ever is a serious crime in Taylorville, you can be sure the law will be there. To pass out tickets to the gawkers and loiterers.
*All names changed in case I'm ever stopped for speeding or coasting through a stop sign within village limits.
Mike Taylor's book, Lookingat the Pint Half Full, is available at mtrealitycheck.com and in eBook format at Barnes & Noble, Border's Books and other online book sellers. Email Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.
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