If you hang around Nicholas for any significant amount of time (like
five minutes!), you'll quickly learn that he has a fascination with
police cars and fire trucks. I know that boys normally would like these
things but he seems somewhat obsessed with them and there isn't a police
car stealthy enough to escape his notice when he's riding along with us.
(NOTE: please make sure you ID the cops when they're ahead of us...not
behind us! :)
The boy must have at least ten police cars in his collection ranging
from small Hot Wheels to
mid-sized die-cast cars with operating doors, to a big monstronsity
that will belt out M.C. Hammer's Can't Touch This when you fiddle
with the oversized engine.
For the longest time he'd refer to any police vehicles as a police
truck, even though most of them were actual cars. It wasn't until
we were in Washington, D.C. for Alexander's surgery that he called out
police truck from the back seat and lo and behold, it was an
actual police truck!
We occasionally watch World's Wildest Police Videos
and the boy certainly has an appreciation for a beautifully executed
PIT move (pursuit intervention technique, i.e. the patrol car noses the
suspect's vehicle in the rear quarter panel to hopefully spin and stall
the suspect vehicle to effect capture). Come on, admit it...the show is
a guilty pleasure of high-speed pursuits and spectacular crashes and
Sheriff John Bunnell's
blinding flashes of the obvious about drug crazed maniacs behind the wheel
was enough to inspire it's own drinking game. He first appeared
(with his vice unit) on COPS in 1989-1990 (if you've ever seen the show,
you couldn't help but notice this guy...impossibly white teeth in a
constant grin and impeccably coiffed hair even after taking down a
perpetrator and he's got a terminal case of sarcasm). The guy is an
absolute hoot! He spent over 25 years in the Multnomah County (Portland,
Oregon) sheriff's office, was promoted to sheriff when his predecessor
resigned early, and then lost the next election to a long-time Portland
cop. Total time as sheriff...seven months! But he seems to have done OK
with hosting law enforcement shows... :)
If the boy decides to join whatever local constabulary happens to serve
the area in which we're living in the future, it really shouldn't come
as a surprise!
I'm sure you're wondering what in the world this has to do with anything
relevant to this BLOG. Or maybe it was just me...
We had gone over to Grammy's house to do a bit of work and hanging out.
So we figured we'd head over to Bill's BBQ
in Wilson for a nice dinner. As we're pulling into the parking lot,
we see a Nissan near their drive-through with smoke coming from the
engine compartment. As soon as they lifted the hood, the raging fire
was evident. The people manage to get the fire extinguished and the
driver goes to start the engine. Not exactly what we'd choose to do...
so we figured we'd park the Sienna well out of harm's way and go to
dinner.
After we were done stuffing ourselves full of good Eastern North Carolina
barbecue (done with a vinegar-based sauce as opposed to the pork done
west of I-85 which is a tomato-based sauce), we noticed a deputy from
the Wilson County Sheriff coming in to get some of the good stuff.
Knowing that Nicholas likes police cars, we figured that we'd ask this
deputy if Nicholas could get a look at the inside of his vehicle. The
deputy kindly agreed and lead us out to his ride which was (and I'm
not kidding!) a truck. He pops the door and turns on the blue
lights...and of course, Nicholas was looking the other way. But
he got interested enough a couple of seconds later as the deputy gave
an overview of the patrol area. The county is 371 square miles with
72,000+ people...and there are five of these trucks on patrol at any
given time. They prefer the trucks because they can go off-road much
easier, take much more of a beating, and have the power to keep up with just about anything. The
surprising thing about the inside was that it didn't have that usual
plexiglas partition. Our friendly deputy explained that they prefer to
keep the suspects cuffed and belted up front so in case they missed
something on a search, it'll be easier to deal with and keep them under
observation up front rather than deal with an attack from the rear (and
the plexiglas can be kicked out by a determined crook). Interesting...
you normally don't see the crooks get a ride up front.
As you can imagine, it was soon time for friendly Deputy Tomlinson to
resume his patrol helping to keep the city and county of Wilson safe
from the ne'er-do-wells out there. But he had enough time to light the
lights and hit the sirens as we were all waving goodbye.
They really are the good guys doing what is often a thankless job!
But it was really nice spending time with someone who obviously loves
what he does and takes to protect and to serve seriously by giving
a couple of minutes to give a little guy a thrill to see the tools of
the law enforcement trade. Deputy Tomlinson...you're A-OK in our book
and Wilson County is lucky to have you on the beat!
And who knows, someone might well have been inspired to wear a badge
tonight.
Mommy suggested that it might look a little bit weird to have the
pictures from today without the story that goes along with them. And
you know what...she's right!
We had cleared enough space in our stuffed garage the night our new
Sienna came home but
it was definitely a close fit! So today's task was to clear out a
bigger space to make getting in and out of the Sienna much easier
and get some of the stuff on it's way to charity or the dump.
Of course, we're not capable of handling this task by ourselves...we do
need a bit of supervision and Nicholas was more than willing to fill
that position. As is usual with supervisors, they manage to find some
time to play whilst the worker bees are, well, working! After we had
done some arranging of some cabinets from Mommy's house in Clayton,
Nicholas decided it was time for a safety inspection complete with his
toy cars. The pictures tell the story... :)