GRANDMA

   We all called June Folsum "Grandma." I was responsible for that moniker. June loved it.

 Had the pleasure of working with her at two agencies. First, the NPD where she was June Holtzhausen, married to Don who owned a music store. June was a dispatcher, secretary, matron, and, in reality, the real honcho of the outfit.

 She was smart, remembered everything, and had a punch like Marciano. Once, I said something that displeased her and she gave me a sample. I listened to tweety birds for several hours.

 June was a daughter in the House family, old-timers in Collier County. Dan House Prairie, in the Big Cypress is named after her father. Her family once ran the old Gulf Hotel on 5th Ave South.

  When I was a young Detective, June was the secret of my success. If something happened she'd say, "Ol' so-and-so is probably good for that one." When I asked where Ol' so-and-so could be found she'd give me a look like I'd never heard of The Three Little Pigs, then the address, and say,"Everyone knows where he lives. He's lived there for 30 years.

 And poor, ignorant me would explain that I'd only lived here two.

June went on, like so many, to the CCSO where she became the Records Supervisor. Again, June claimed all the ground she stood on and was a superior Deputy.

  Grandma left us all too soon. To the regret of many.

  Photo courtesy of Chester Keene

TIRE WEASELS

   An agitated citizen stormed into the CCSO lobby wanting to show something to a Deputy. The duty officer, Capt Crunch, said he'd take a look, seeing it was the only thing except mace that would calm the citizen down.

 Outside, the man, D.S. Gruntled pointed to his car parked at the curb. "The tires," he said, "just look at those tires."

 Crunch did. "What am I looking for? They look new, right out of the factory."

 "They are," D.S. said, "that's the point. I just bought them two days ago at Camelot Tires and I've been ripped off."

  Crunch studied the tires again. "I'm gonna need a little help here or I'm goin' back inside."

  "Look at the tires on this side," D.S. said, "then on the other. You'll see. It took me a couple days to figure it out. Knew something was wrong but couldn't pin it down."

  Crunch took a walk around the car--twice--before he saw it. Then he tried to suppress a laugh, and failing miserably, covered it with a cough.

 "It ain't funny," D.S. Gruntled said. "I got a car that's got whitewalls on one side and black walls on the other."

 Crunch choked back another spasm. "Did you take them back?"

 "Sure. And the salesman said to fill my order--bein' short on tires--they'd had to use two whites and two blacks. What's worse, he says "What's the big deal? You can only see one side of a car at a time."

 Crunch could stand no more, retreating back to his office, D.S. Gruntled in hot pursuit.

 After regaining his composure, Crunch made things right with a phone call to Camelot. At first, the salesman was reluctant. But Crunch reasoned with him, explaining that if he didn't straighten this crap out, his weasel ass was going to be looking at only one side of the scenery at a time. The side you could see out of a jailhouse window.

GRUMBLIN' ROADS

  In the 60's there was a southbound strip of Highway 17, near Zolfo Springs, that talked to drivers. Sort of. Ken Mulling showed me the rumble strip type surface one day when we had case work over around Arcadia.

 The idea, Ken explained, was that if you drove too fast over the strips they would vibrate up through your car the admonition: Slow Down. We tried it several times and were only able to coax out an unintelligible grumbling sound. It was a sound, however, that like the rumble strips that jolt inattentive drivers on highways, would get your attention.

 After I asked several other old cops if they remembered the thing, and got negative answers, I looked it up on the wellspring of all knowledge, the Internet. Wikipedia says the strip wasn't unique. There have been Musical Roads in Denmark, Japan, South Korea, and the USA. They would hum, when driven over at highway speed, everything from Mary Had A Little Lamb to The William Tell Overture. So, maybe I'm not fantasizing.

 Studying on it longer, I seem to remember that after we'd driven back and forth across it a dozen times or so something did finally rumble through my unreceptive skull. It sounded a great deal like: Get a life, stupid.

THE TONY LEMA BOYS

From left to right:  Bill Padgett, Lloyd Sisk, Steve Hornsby, Acey Edgemon, Dave Johnson and Byron Tomlinson.

  End of the day for the security detail of the 1977 Tony Lema Golf Tornament on Marco Island.  It's always what the photos don't show that tells the story--like the empty Michelob bottles on the ground from a case donated after they went off duty.

 Of course the Deputies had good reason to be in such high spirits. They'd had a good time that day.  Hanging out with members of the championship 1972 Miami Dolphins and listening to Jackie Gleason crack jokes was pretty darn good duty. 

 Thanks to Tom Smith and Dave Johnson

THOSE SNEAKY CHAIRS

  Dave Johnson strikes with yet another diabolical chair chiller. As Dave tells it:

  We had a secretary with a ponderous posterior (big butt).  She was a sweetheart, but cops can become predatory when there is an opportunity for humor.      

  We noticed she didn't have a lot of side clearance with the arms of her office chair.  It was the old sturdy steel frame kind that lasted for generations.  We decided we would psych her into going on a diet by making her think she was gaining weight.

  I brought in some large screw clamps and we began squeezing in  the arms, a little each night.  This went on until she damn near got stuck in the chair --and almost fainted from dieting.  

  Then we reversed the process!  Using a spreader bar, we pushed the arms back out a little at a time until she was comfy again.  She thought her diet had worked and all returned to normal.  

  She later found out what we did but, being the sweetheart she was, never held the station house humor against us.

THE SCENT OF SANTA

  Chester Keene reminded me of a tale of Christmas Cheer--Cop style. The officers at the NPD decided it would be a nice gesture for one of them to be Santa Clause for the PAL kids. But who could portray the jolly ol' elf?
 There were a couple of requisites. First, one of our most likable officers had to be selected, since they'd be working with children, many of whom are afraid of the fat man with a beard. (Some of our cops were gruff and broadcast menacing presence that would  terrify Lucifer) And, most importantly, the cop had to fit in the Santa suit. 

 The obvious choice was a cop we'll call Rumple. Rumple had a grand sense of humor, liked children, and the Santa suit fit him perfectly. Rumple's only possible drawback was that he was a tippler and liked his tan and foamy. But, he wasn't a drunk, and who would know?
 At the gala event, the line of children was long and eager, each with a Christmas list. All went well until one wary child climbed on Santa's knee, looked Rumple up and down, took a whiff, and bellowed, "You smell like beer!"
 We suppose Kris Kringle slid down that child's chimney early Christmas morn. But Rumple sure as hell didn't.
 

COP OUT

   We'll be away until next Thurday 23.  See you then.

SLIPPIN' AND A SLIDIN"

  Yesterday's blog brought remembrance of more slick stuff by the NPD cops. Dave Dampier recalled when we wore synthetic fabric uniform pants, that had no traction in the rear quarters, and all the patrol car seats were vinyl. You had to make sure your seat belt was buckled or braking put you into the windshield.

 To make matters worse, some joker sprayed the vinyl seat of one officer's cruiser with silicone. When he slid in, he, literally, slid to the passenger's seat.

 Chester Keene remembers when the rear seat in the cruisers were replaced with fiberglass models, to hold down the wear and tear by unruly arrestees. For those, taken into custody, who demonstrated they were true A-holes, a dose of silicone was applied to the seat, making the prisoner a ping-pong ball at every stop, start, and corner.

 This calls to mind the old platitude: When you get in a peeing contest make sure it ain't with a skunk.

OLD ROCKIN' CHAIR'S GOT ME

  When she was a rookie at the NPD, my Favorite Dispatcher--later my wife, Sandy--was the victim of dark cop humor. That was a good thing since cops don't tease folks unless they like them. Sandy was a victim of "the chair."

 Dispatchers ride a chair almost their entire shift and we tried to buy the most comfortable one our meager budget would allow. But, hoisting butts 24/7 caused them to wear out faster than a fat guy's enthusiasm for marathon running. Until we could get a new one, we made do with regular office chairs. 

 When Sandy came to work one day, one was waiting for her: a straight-back oak office chair. Since, all the offices were locked for the night, she had to use what had been provided. And she tried.

 The cop she was working with, Earl Perkins, was recuperating from a broken leg and had been assigned dispatch duties. He had a slightly better chair, but needed it because of his fracture. 

 Sandy tried hers, and it was terrible. The seat was hard as a hooker's heart and you seemed to have to brace yourself to keep from sliding out. She brought in a cushion from home and tried that, but it kept sliding out. But being a tough little woman, she kept at at. For almost a week before Perkins confessed.

 Sandy had been provided the chair from the interrogation room. This chair had been modified to put the interrogatee under pressure. The front legs had been sawed off a half-inch and the oak seat waxed.  You couldn't see the alterations by looking, only by sitting. And then you didn't realize what was being done to you.

 After she worked there a while, Sandy found out cop humor is usually a pain in the ass for someone.

WHEN YOU KNOW YOU'RE IN TROUBLE

  When selected to attended Dick Arther's polygraph (lie detector) school in New York I felt fortunate. Mr Arther was the best in the business. How good? The government had him on an airplane to Dallas to polygraph a fella named Lee Harvey Oswald when Jack Ruby cancelled out the appointment. At the time, he trained most of the CIA and FBI examiners. So you did exactly what Dick taught you to do if you wanted to be successful in the truth verification business.

 I found out right away what was important. About one week of the school was devoted to how to use the instrument (polygraph) and five weeks to interrogation techniques. The polygraph was just a doorway to the truth. The truth was obtained with interrogation.
 We learned how to meticulously set the stage to induce confessions. To put so much pressure on a suspect that they fell apart like a Chinese automobile. And most of the time it worked. But, there were times when all your devious work failed, and some cool customer was rubbing it in.

 Such a slick dude we'll Cue Kumber. Ol' Cue was a suspect in an aggravated assault--a little rowdiness at a local Knife and Gun Club. Everything was going just to plan. I had Cue trapped in the small interrogation room, his chair wedged in a corner, physically, where he couldn't get out except thru me. He was beginning to sweat. The questions were coming fast and pointed.

 One such was, "Have you ever been in the joint, Cue?"

 "Yep," he said, "but I was innocent."

 "What was it alleged that you did?"

 "They said attempted murder. . .that I stabbed a guy."

 "How'd they get that idea?"

 "Well," Cue began, "I was standin' on the corner, mindin' my own business, cleanin' my fingernails with my pocket knife, when this clown comes runnin' 'round the corner and runs right into my knife."

 "Uh-huh," I said.

 "Ran into it fifteen times," Cue said, giving me a sly smile. "Fifteen times, right in the back."
 Cue then gave a bigger smile and said, "Say, you don't have any coffee do ya? I'm as dry as a camel's cod sack."

 I hoped the coffee pot was full cause it was gonna be a long night.

IN THE COMPANY OF BUD TINNEY

  Bud Tinney was a part-time sports reporter for the Collier County News. (Naples Daily News, now) And a part-time sports reporter for WNOG. Fact was, Bud would tell you, he was part-time at most everything.

 Born under fortunate circumstances, his family owned the island they lived on in New England. Bud still lived there, occasionally, when it got warm up north. He said he spent his youth on the amateur tennis circuit, until his dad decided a reluctant Bud should really go to work and bought him a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.  He tried stock brokering a few months--until he found out how valuable the "seat" was--and promptly sold it. Since then he'd been part-timing it.

 When I first met him he had to be in his sixties. Small and wiry with a nose like Elmo, and dressed in outlandish golf garb, he was hard to miss. And harder yet not to like. Bud would've fit nicely in any Damon Runyon story.

 Bud, and other reporters, liked to hang out at the NPD and we enjoyed having them. There was a desk set aside for when they actually took notes from the reports for a story, but mostly they drank coffee, smoked cigarettes, and BS'ed with the officers.

  Bud came in one day with a photograph of him and Richard Nixon. It was taken on a local golf course during one of Tricky Dick's visits and was one of probably a hundred Nixon had taken with anyone who wasn't  ashamed to be photographed with him. Bud wanted to borrow an envelope so he could mail it off to Nixon and have him sign it. When he received an askance look, he said, "Dick's an old friend of mine."   Uh-huh.
 "I'll call him in advance and tell him it's coming," he explained.
 "That's the White House," I said.
 "I have another number," he said.
 Bud was alway telling how many celebrities he knew. Said he'd met them when he was a hot-shot tennis player. We chalked the Nixon thing up to that kind of polluted air.
 Until, a couple weeks later, when Bud returned with the photo and an inscription from Tricky Dick about how much he'd enjoyed talking to Bud on the phone, and how much he missed him.
 Later, Bud brought in an album with photos of him with the "A" list of Hollywood. After the Nixon thing, it looked good to me.

SANTA'S ELVES IN BLUE

  One Christmas long ago, two desperados were caught in the act of larceny. The culprits: two elderly ladies. Their prize: a Christmas tree.

 It was 11 PM on Christmas eve when the two were collared, at a tree lot, surreptitiously stuffing a prime pine into the trunk of their station wagon. The two, short on funds, but brimming with Christmas spirit, were going to deliver it to a nursing home. Explaining the theft, they said they figured, due to the late hour, the remaining trees were going to waste anyway. 

 Chester Keene was one of the cops who caught them. He, too, was overwhelmed with their misdirected good intentions. After talking to the lot's owner, he struck a deal on a reduced price, the other working cops chipped in, and the ladies were given the tree as a present and sent on their way.

 Chester said, looking back, it was one of his best Christmases ever.

 Who said Santa's elves all wear red and green?

DOOBIE CANES

  Lila Zuck, local historian and author of "Naples Oldest Tradition, Swamp Buggy Days" reminds us of a stunt pulled in 1977 to promote marijuana legalization.

 Lt. Paul Sireci was opening his morning mail, just before Christmas, when he discovered in a bulging envelope, an extra large, candy cane shaped marijuana cigarette. He wasn't alone.

 A group calling itself the "Naples Buffalo Association" mailed the festive doobies to several well known area residents, including the Mayor. They said their purpose was "to show our total disregard and utter disrespect to the antiquated and unjust marijuana laws, we have taken our time--and reefer--to share with these select people in this holiday season, a chance to experience before they condemn."

 Getting sent marijuana cigarettes during the holiday season was nothing new, but these candy cane doobies were a unique twist. Problem was cops don't write the laws we just enforce them, some of which we don't agree with.

 Paul Sireci laughed, and sent his to the evidence locker. I kept mine for New Years Eve.

 Nah, you know better than that.

 Thanks to the Daytona Beach Morning Journal. 

BUDDY'S GIFT

 Nothing to do with the cops. Just a story I like to remember at Christmas time.

 Buddy dreaded this time every year. Christmas time. Time for you to give a gift to the student in your class whose name you drew. It wasn't that he was cheap or didn't like Christmas. It was that Buddy was poor. So poor he wore clothes that, though impeccably clean, were patches upon patches. Wore shoes with the sole taped so it wouldn't flap.

 Most of us were hard up back then, the end of the depression, the war and all, but Buddy made us look like Hiltons.

 Buddy drew my name that year, in the third-grade class in Spring Hill, W.Va., and when gift time came he proudly placed a cigar box on my desk. It was not wrapped, festive paper being a luxury he could not afford. 
 I opened the box and was stunned. It was Buddy's collection of marbles. A collection he loved. The most beautiful aggies he'd won in the marble rings scratched in the playground dirt. And he'd given them to me.

 Even at that young age I knew I'd received a special gift. While the rest of us gave something, Buddy had given all.
 And, knowing their worth, they were a cherished possession. For about two weeks. The time it took for him to win them all back from me.