Kerrian

KN, p. 267 “Thankful in a Challenging Time”

Some years are better than others, that’s the pattern of life. 2020? Without any hesitation, 2020 should be buried in a deep, dark hole somewhere and forgotten for all time. 36 days to go.

 

Sheila and I have always enjoyed our gatherings with family and friends, and as you are aware, most of the recipes and posts during the last nine years have been generated because of those gatherings, whether professional or personal. But, the last eight months have been a blur of cancellations of conferences, events, and people scrambling to make sense of life in the USA and the world, as the Pandemic and politics became the overriding daily themes. We couldn’t turn on the TV, listen to the radio, or open a newspaper without those two topics jumping into the forefront.

 

So, how can we be thankful for anything except each other? That’s a biggie, for sure, to know that you can count on your nearest and dearest to help and support you whenever you need them, to share both the pain and the joy.

We might be stretching our thankful list this year, but I have to believe that the only way we’ll get through this is to find the silver lining in as much as possible during the truly weird times.

  • We are thankful that we met a wonderful Orthopedic Surgeon who took over Sheila’s case when her recovery wasn’t going well. He truly listened and made significant adjustments to her rehab.

 

  • We are thankful for her marvelous PT guy. Because of him, she was able to walk 2 miles yesterday without her crutch. She’s tired and sore, but she did it!

 

  • The bats are still in the attic because the bat guy was in a car accident. We are very thankful that he’s fine. He’s looking for a new car and the bats are okay up there until he does.

 

  • The washing machine died. A crazy series of events led us to having to do the wash in a too-small sink for three weeks, rather than getting the new washer two days after ordering it, as promised. Our thankful moment? We got a washer upgrade for our troubles, for no more money.

 

  • We are thankful for the best plumber in the business. We’ve used him for 14 years for all our plumbing needs, and that tells you something.

 

  • We are thankful that we each tested negative for Covid. Bridget, too.

 

  • I am REALLY thankful that the new car dealer is cooperating and that a file has been started at Corporate. There may be a recall of the car on one of the issues. We’re not crazy for pointing out the concerns, and now they know it as well.

 

  • We are thankful that we can make a living that pays the bills.

 

  • That new roof is still sound, even after hailstorms and windstorms, and more rain in three days than we’ve seen sometimes in an entire summer.

 

  • We are thankful for GoToMeeting, an oldy-but-goody secure system for meeting visually online. We’re going to try cooking with pals this weekend through the magic of cyberspace and laptops.

 

  • We are thankful for phone calls, texts, and messages with family and friends, both near and far. They make the weirdness bearable.

 

  • We are thankful that the anti-erosion system (the front gardens and new stonework) are holding through all the storms.

 

  • I’m thankful for all our books and time to read them. We’ve visited places in them that we can’t go to IRL right now, but we’re making a list for the future.

 

  • We are blessed to have this marvelous Kerrian community. We have come to know many of you personally and it always brings smiles to our hearts whenever we make that connection.

 

Life will return to normal, with jammed concerts, crowded conferences, full stadiums, big parties, open nursing homes, full churches, in-person book signings, noisy restaurants, real vacations here and abroad, visits with the grandchildren, and hugs of a dear friend – some day.

Keep the faith, wear the masks, wash your hands, and stay six feet apart from people not in your tribe, and we’ll get there. We’re ever hopeful.

 

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all!

 

 

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KN, p. 196 “Bodies on the Golf Course”

 

When golfers are sidelined because of rain or sleet or snow or as in my case, the flu, our minds start dreaming of everything we have ever done around a course. I’ve been honking and coughing for weeks, so it’s been waaaay too long since I stood anywhere near a green. On the plus side, the Golf Channel has been on for 24 hours straight and I am getting some great tips on improving my short game. Choking up on the 9-iron might give me an edge. But, it’s me after all, and I started thinking about bodies on the course.

 

I’ve maintained that hiding a body on a course is not all that easy, because there is a lot of foot traffic from dawn to dusk, whether it’s the players themselves or groundskeepers in charge of maintaining the fairways, the greens, and the deep rough/woods next to the fairways.

 

In September of 2016, a woman was heard arguing with her boyfriend at 5 a.m., was dragged away, then driven to a golf course in the Chicago area and left there. Her body was found a little after 8 a.m. and the boyfriend was charged a few days later.

 

 

Then, in October, 2016, a body was found in a pond near a fairway at the Seven Bridges Golf Club in Illinois. It was golfers who discovered the body of the 29-year-old man, so they were probably looking for a lost ball. Imagine that surprise!
A Fire Dive Rescue Team recovered the body, and the police decided that there was no foul play involved. That made me think of all the times I’ve played near water hazards and was tempted to go in after a ball that didn’t quite make it across the lily pads. I always opted for keeping my feet dry and left the ball to the ducks unless I could see the little white orb right at the edge. What could have made the guy go in far enough to lose his footing and drown?

 

 

Private and/or public courses are not the only places bodies pop up. In January, 2017, a 50-year-old man’s body was found in the water at the Cypress Lakes Golf Course, which is operated by the 60th Force Support Squadron at Travis Air Force Base. Another non-suspicious death, but seriously, how expensive was that golf ball?

 

 

All these bodies had been discovered within a few days of the person’s death. But with this next case from February, 2017, the remains had been there since 2005. Twelve years of nobody tripping over a young man who had committed suicide? He was found next to the second fairway at a Columbus, Ohio, Golf and Country Club.

 

Danny Sanders was a senior at Worthington Kilbourne High School when he left his house in February, 2005 and he wasn’t reported missing for 10 days. When asked why they waited so long, the family thought that he had just taken off somewhere. Then three months later, the father discovered that his handgun was missing.

 

What’s even more tragic was that Danny’s body was found about 100 yards away from the family’s house, 30 yards into some woods and heavy brush off the fairway. At least the family has closure. In this case, I have to concede that it was unlikely that the body would have been discovered any sooner, since most guys/gals won’t bother looking for a ball that far off the fairway. My guess is that the heavy brush will disappear soon.

 

Interested in finding out more about two of the cases? Check out these links:

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-boyfriend-charged-in-slaying-of-woman-found-at-golf-course-20161001-story.html

 

http://nbc4i.com/2017/02/06/human-remains-discovered-near-northwest-columbus-golf-course/

 

 

Stay out of the water hazards and stay safe on the golf course!

 

*Kerrian is a fictional character, but the bodies on the golf courses were real.

 

*Photo by Patti Phillips

 

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KN, p. 195 “The Blue Flu”

 

I feel lousy. If I didn’t have to get out of bed to eat, I wouldn’t move. The body aches remind me of what it felt like to be back doing the physical part of basic training at the Police Academy. Everything hurts. Everywhere. Between the coughing, the sneezing, and the sweating, my days are filled with junk. And not the good kind.

 

I am buried under a pile of tissues.

 

Sheila has disappeared again. She brings me chicken soup, drops off a new box of tissues and leaves. She’s sleeping in the guest room and has Hammett with her, so it’s pretty quiet in here. I miss them both. Yeah, I know they’re just in the next room, but it’s not the same.

 

Hammett growled when he heard me honking the first day, so I’m pretty sure he’s away for the duration. I don’t want Sheila to catch this, so she should stay away. Still. A hug and a woof would be good. I admit it. I’m a wimp.

 

At least I’m well enough to read a little and work on the Notebook. Seriously, it’s been four days since I got dizzy and almost fell off a ladder outside. Who knew that 102 fever would knock out a big guy like me? If I was on active duty, I wouldn’t have the strength to hold a gun steady, and it wouldn’t be safe to put me out on the streets. Can you imagine sneezing in the middle of taking a shot? EVERYONE would run for cover. I might shoot myself in the foot if I ever actually had the strength to pull the trigger. I definitely wouldn’t be fit for roll call until the coughing and sneezing stopped.

 

It got me to thinking about the Blue Flu – the pretend flu we hear about every once in a while. The kind of flu that gets rumored about when a contract negotiation hits a snag over in NYC or in one of the other larger communities in the country.

 

Here’s a little history.

 

It all started in Boston, back in 1919. A full 80 percent of Boston police went off the job, leaving the city unprotected for several days. Unions were on the rise and the cops decided that there was no other way to get the boss’ attention. They wanted better working conditions and more pay. But, Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge disagreed with the concept of unions in general and the right in particular of police officers to strike. He called out the militia, and famously declared, “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime.” Coolidge used this get-tough policy to leverage a spot as Vice-President on the ticket to the White House in the following election.

 

Instead of viewing the police as helpers of the community, for a while at least, Boston cops and unions in general were in disfavor. It became illegal for law enforcement officers anywhere to strike.

 

It wasn’t until fifty years later that big city police officers were back in the news for a job action. In the early 1970s, the NYC Police Department was under scrutiny for corruption, and at first, the 19th precinct was targeted more than the others by the Knapp Commission. The Police Commissioner at the time, Patrick Murphy, sought to clean house before the investigations went any further and started transferring officers as well as demoting some. But the PBA (the Police Benevolent Association) was upset at the way they thought Knapp was attacking the entire force with what the PBA called “unfounded accusations.” More than 60 of the 90 day-shift officers in that precinct sat down on the job for four hours and would not go out on patrol.  First strike ever in the history of the NYC police department. My boss told me that both good and bad fallout rippled across the country.

 

Then, just a few months later, while parts of the NYC Police Department were still under investigation, salaries were up for review. Officers faced a tough reception on the streets and any shift could be deadly. While never an easy job, the level of violence toward cops had gone up a notch and cops wanted to be compensated for that danger. 20,000 officers of the NYC police department called in sick for six days in a row. The mayor at the time, John Lindsay, threatened to fire the entire police force if they didn’t get back to work. Public outcry was fierce, with many in support of the theory of pay raises, but taxes were already high and new money would burst the budget. The union leadership got the patrolmen back on the job, but it took years for goodwill between the public and cops and the mayor to be restored.

 

Cops, firefighters, and hospital workers are sometimes faced with horrendous working conditions in metropolitan settings and while they know what they signed up for, buying the groceries and paying the rent gets in the way of that warm and fuzzy feeling towards management. Full-on Blue Flu sickouts are discouraged when tensions run high, so some unions prefer the work slowdown method. The idea behind it is that the resulting traffic stops and mountains of paperwork will convince the other side to come up with solutions to the issues at hand. It isn’t always about the $$$.

 

Blue Flu has been a last resort job action. Many would say that it should never be used at all.

 

If you’d like to read more about the history behind the “Blue Flu,” click on the links below.  🙂

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/blue-flu-cops-strike-december-1970-january-1971-chapter-384-article-1.911985

 

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/01/06/a-short-history-of-police-protest#.qaqzR8evc

 

Check out a more recent use of Blue Flu as a job action, in September, 2016: http://www.fox10tv.com/story/33261705/blue-flu-hits-prichard-police-department

 

 

 

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