Love and law enforcement go hand in hand

People who know me these days will be surprised to learn this: I once had a promising career in law enforcement.

That’s right; I carried a badge, baby! And I wasn’t afraid to whip it out if some perp failed to respect my duly appointed authority. Actually, I didn’t have to whip it out; it was pinned to my safety belt.

I was in fifth grade and bore the heady responsibility of making sure my fellow students were able to cross Fountain Street without getting squished by a car. It was a job I took seriously.

My motives for going into law enforcement were not altruistic, however. Sure, I enjoyed the prestige and respect the uniform (a white belt with a pin-on badge) brought me. I liked the hot chocolate we safeties got after our “shift” on cold mornings. And I REALLY liked being able to yell at kindergarden babies to “step on it, already!”

I liked pretty much everything about being a cop.

But after all these years, I guess I can admit this; I joined the force not out of any love for the law, but for a dame, a goil, a skirt — pick the 1930s detective novel euphemism of your choice.

Marietta Bartilotti — who five days a week sat directly in front of me in Mrs. Lewandowski’s class — had as much in common with the rest of the knocked-kneed, brace-toothed fifth grade female rabble as a swan has with a hedgehog. Marietta … even her name was beautiful.

Long hair, so black it was almost blue, flowed like India ink over shoulders both fragile and strong. Any errant breeze brought about by the opening of the classroom door carried her scent to me; Wrigley’s gum and strawberry shampoo.

Her laugh was the tinkling of glass wind chimes, musical, delicate, ineffably precious.

To say I was in love is a gross understatement. What I felt for Marietta was all-consuming, potent, life altering. I would have climbed mountains for her, swum oceans, crossed deserts.

So when she volunteered to be a safety, I signed up as well. It gave me another 15 minutes with her every day.

Marietta impressed me as a woman who would appreciate a man in uniform. I’d seen enough World War II movies to know the beautiful Italian girl always falls in love with the rugged G.I. I figured it was just a matter of time.

Standing together on our cold corner post, I told her knock-knock jokes, I recited poetry (a dirty limerick I’d learned from my Uncle Ed), I punched her in the shoulder — basically, every trick in the fourth-grade boy’s lexicon of love.

And miracle of miracles, after a couple weeks, it worked! One blustery Friday morning, on the walk from our corner back to school, Marietta shyly took my hand. And held it. Buddha receiving universal enlightenment beneath the banyan tree couldn’t match the sublime transcendence I felt at that moment.

Nirvana! Valhalla! Heaven! 

It was the singular, most perfect moment of my life. Even viewed through the dark tunnel of all these years, that morning still shines like gold.

I have loved a few women since I last saw Marietta — her parents transferred her to a Catholic school a week after the hand-holding incident that consummated our devotion — but I’ve never again loved like that; never like I loved Marietta.

And I’ve never again felt the urge to wear a badge.

More Reality Check online at mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com. Contact Mike at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

If America is to remain number one, we must take fork in hand and work together

Patriotism runs through my veins like fire through dry tinder, not just around the Fourth of July, but all year long. I’m one of those people who get choked up singing the National Anthem at a White Caps baseball game. Despite its problems, I believe with all my heart in the U.S. of A., mom, and apple pie.

That’s why I get worried when I hear we’re falling behind other countries.

A friend recently sent me a link to an article that originally appeared on the website, Salon.com. That article noted several areas in which the U.S. is number one in the world.

Among those “number ones” is obesity. Yup, we’re fatter, overall, than anybody else on the entire planet. We’re number one! We’re number one!

Here’s the problem; Mexico is gaining on us, and fast.

And when I say “gaining,” I mean that in all permutations of the word. In a way, it’s not surprising. They do have Mexican food on their side, after all. I know I can gain six pounds just being in the same room with a bean and beef burrito or deep-fried chimichanga; imagine what would happen if I were surrounded by a whole country filled with that sort of food? 

Sure, we probably have more McRestaurants than anyone else in the world and that can only help us maintain the walrus-like physiques we need to prevent Mexico from out-blubbering us. But it’s not enough. We must try harder.

Yeah, it’s easy to say we should eat more and exercise less. Everyone’s heard this advice. But it can be so hard to follow. Even with television to while away the sedentary hours, most people eventually feel the urge to get up off the couch and walk somewhere, even if it’s just to the kitchen to fetch more donuts.

All this walking burns waaaay too many calories! My advice: If you must walk, do so only slowly and remember to take frequent breaks, even naps, along the way.

Granted, Mexico is far ahead of us in “siesta technology.” They’ve been doing the afternoon nap deal for generations and have it down to a science.

Another factor that’s working against us — which also was mentioned in the Salon.com article — is cocaine use. When it comes to nose candy, we’re in a dead heat with Spain for most users per capita.

This must stop. I don’t advocate drug use, or use anything stronger than vitamins myself, but it’s never mattered much to me what others do. That’s all changing now, now that I know the Peruvian Marching Powder is keeping America from that cherished Obesity Gold Medal.

It’s a known fact (or, maybe it’s not; I make a lot of this stuff up) that coke heads don’t get fat, because they never eat. So I’m advising now, just say no to blow and yes to extra helpings of Moo Goo Gai Pan. 

We can do this if we work together, people. But don’t work TOO hard. Work burns calories we just can’t afford to lose.

More Reality Check online at mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com. Contact Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

I once was lost, but now … I’m still lost

I got lost coming home from the bar last Saturday night. I hadn’t been drinking, no, I’d been working with my little weekend band, The Guinness Brothers (which, admittedly, is named for the beer; but no, again, I swear, I hadn’t had any beer myself).

The club was one we’ve played dozens of times over the years, less than an hour’s drive from my house. I’m almost sure I know how to get there without the GPS, but after all this time, I still don’t quite trust myself to do so.

Which is why it’s odd I left the club without programming my return route into the directional gadget. I guess for once I was feeling fairly confident I could find my way home on my own.

I couldn’t. Two hours later, I realized I was in Cadillac. Somewhere along the line, I’d started daydreaming and had gone the exact opposite direction from where I wanted to be. I pulled to the side of the road and punched my own address into the GPS.

Thus guided, I finally rolled in to my driveway around 5 a.m.

I wish I could say this was an unusual occurrence. It’s not. I’ve been directionally handicapped since birth.

As a kid, I would get lost walking the six blocks home from school. It was so common my mother stopped worrying about me when I was late. If I still wasn’t home an hour after school let out, she’d stop what she was doing and drive around the neighborhood until she found me. More often than not, I wasn’t even aware I was lost.

This problem followed me into my teen years, where I spent a couple summers hitch-hiking around the country. Never knowing for sure just where you are or where you’re going can make for some interesting travels. Phoenix, Independence, Chicago and Tulsa are all cities I’ve seen by accident, because I turned left when I meant to turn right, or vice-versa.

At 17, accompanied by my girlfriend Dianne, I left a church camp near Kalamazoo and drove all the way to Indianapolis before I realized I was not headed toward Grand Rapids, where Dianne (and her father, the grim-eyed pastor) lived. The old man was neither amused, nor inclined to believe my stuttering explanation when his daughter and I pulled into his driveway around sunup the following morning.

As an adult, most of my geographical miscalculations have resulted in only minor inconveniences. Sometimes, especially when I’m out late at night, I’ll accidentally drive “home” to a house I’ve not lived at in years. That’s happened a couple times.

In recent years, I guess my worst directional faux pas happened after I’d gone to Lansing, where I interviewed then-Governor Jennifer Granholm. As a rule, I dislike covering politics, but there was a free lunch involved.

Miraculously, I found my way there just fine, despite the fact driving in Lansing provides an experience almost identical to that of being a blind mouse in a particularly complex maze, one with no cheese at the other end.

It wasn’t until the drive home that things got dicey. It was a beautiful, autumn afternoon; the sun was shining, the sugar maples ablaze with color, the roads clear of heavy traffic. The perfect day for a quiet drive back to Big Rapids.

I didn’t realize I’d gone off course until I began seeing signs informing me that the Mackinac Bridge was coming up in a mile or so.

My editor, who was almost as used to me getting lost as my mom had been decades earlier, let me file the story from a McDonald’s in Mackinaw City, rather than try to make it back to the paper before deadline.

I’m pretty sure I had a point for this column when I started writing it, or some punch-line … something. But somehow, it has gotten lost along the way.

Mike Taylor’s book, “Looking at the Pint Half Full,” is available in eBook format at Amazon and in paperback from Robbins Book List in Greenville. mtaylor325@gmail.com