Mr. Dale Westman was a Saint.  A Fireman by trade, his calling was to be our Scoutmaster.  He had two sons, Rick was a lot older than me, Denny was a couple of years younger.  They were good guys, and scouts.  Mr. Westman treated us all like his own.  His patience was infinite but he commanded respect.  He never gave up on a kid, ever.  Even if the kid gave up on scouts.  We had some scouts that were rough around the edges.  He made room for everyone.

He was a diplomat.  The local Elks Lodge was our sponsor and we put a lot of wear and tear on the building.  Fortunately for us, so did the Elks.  After some of their parties, the place looked like there had been a scout meeting.  The damage was often quite similar.  The main difference was the Elks had booze at their meetings.

We had more than a few “cleanup days” at the Elks Lodge, that involved a bit of construction before we cleaned up.  Seems that a couple of the scouts specialized in punching holes in sheetrock.  We figured out who they were because they ended up breaking bones when they happened to hit the sheetrock over a stud.  On cleanup days the scouts with casts on their arms learned how to repair sheetrock.

One year the Elks decided to evict the scouts after an incident.  The past Exalted Rulers, quickly quashed the rebellion.  They were the patriarchs of the community and had all been scouts.  They understood.

I didn’t know until many years later, but Mr. Westman was often a character witness for scouts who got into trouble.  Mr. Westman and the local authorities plea-bargained more than one kid into the military.  I remember more than one former scout coming out to our camp to talk to Mr. Westman after they made it through basic training. Del G. the local Chief of Police had sons who were scouts.  The Chief was on the committee too.  It was a good thing that the firehouse and the police station shared the same building.

“Hey Mr. Westman!”   Was a greeting, a distress call, and sometimes an announcement.  Occasionally it was a plea for mercy.  It was usually shouted by a scout from a distance.  Once and a while it was murmured through tears.  He was always there.

Our troop did a 50 mile hike one year.  It was a big deal.  He hiked the whole way with us.  To many of you who are hikers, 50 miles doesn’t sound like much.  It was a very long hike.  Most of the participants were the younger scouts, their packs were too heavy, they didn’t have much scouting experience, but they were determined.  We didn’t have training hikes or shakedowns, like modern scouts; we only had enough resources for the main event.  We were not an affluent community, most of the hikers didn’t have the right shoes, let alone the proper camping gear.  We had plenty of grit.  We did fun stuff, like catch and cook rattlesnakes.  Fifty miles in five days was a lifetime.  We had a few casualties but no regrets.

Every year we went to Camp Fleischmann, the main event of the scouting year.  Mr. Westman usually didn’t go.  I don’t think his wife wanted him using up his vacation time.  It was a chance for some of the other adult leaders (parents) to take the helm.  We did cool stuff like snipe hunts, raid other camps, rig snares and set booby traps.  We also did the mundane stuff like hiking, merit badges, swim, canoe and row.  There were always a couple of the adult leaders who developed nervous conditions after a couple of days and had to go home.  I don’t think we ever had a parent go to camp a second time.

Arts and crafts were fun.  We did a lot of carving.  We made neckerchief slides and carved faces on hiking sticks.  We got to practice a lot of first aid.  Usually from carving on our fingers with dull pocket knives.

There were rites of passage for new scouts; and adult leaders.  Trap them in sleeping bags.  Get them lost at night.  Smoke up their tent while they were asleep, hold the edges down and shout fire.  You learn a lot about adult leaders when there is a snake in their sleeping bag.  Then there were the outhouses…

Canned prunes were in the rations, probably for the adults.  The scouts knew better than to eat them.  They ended up hidden in fire pits, and stuffed in the back of our cook stoves.  The hot cans would swell and burst.  The sugary syrup would catch fire and flare up nicely.  Sometimes there was a respectable explosion; the fire would burp out of the stove onto the ground, or the cook, and molten sludge would erupt out of the chimney.  The cooking merit badge developed a new degree of respect.

We got to practice first aid for burns too.

In those days the camp had a sport that I have never seen anywhere else.  We would take turns climbing to the top of a small fir tree.  As many scouts as possible would grab the trunk whip it back and forth, trying to throw the rider off.  It was great sport as long as you could hold on.  If you lost your grip you could easily be thrown a mile or two.  If you were lucky, you landed in another small fir tree, if not, you hit things like fences, rocks, or manzanita brush.   After a while the tree got so limp it would no longer stand on it’s own.  I wonder if they ever recovered.

The adult leaders who went to camp with us returned with a hell of a lot more respect, and a lot less advice, for Mr. Westman.

Once my brother Phil and I had a rodeo.  I was around ten, Phil would have been eight.  That year we spent the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa Ashe.   They lived in Dana, a very small unincorporated community in the woods of north-eastern Shasta County.

We were related to about half of the residents.  Down the road about a half mile lived my Great-Grandparents, the Brewster’s; Grandma’s folks.  The homes in Dana had several acres of land and a barn or two; and usually a shop for logging equipment.  Just out of town a great-uncle ran a lumber mill.  Great-Grandma and Grandpa ran the store and gas station.

After Christmas, Mom & Dad went away for a few days of rest and left my brothers and I with Grandma.  They needed a sanity break.  After a day of so, Phil and I got bored and decided we needed a bit of excitement.

Grandma was raising a steer in the field next to the house.  It was our size; about head high.  The field was big so we had to chase the steer into a corner so we could ride it.  I went first.

The steer didn’t want to be ridden.  When it looked like I was going to mount it successfully; he turned and walked through the barb-wire fence.  Just walked right through it!  Two or three posts came out with a tangle of wire.  I don’t think the wire was broken, but it could have been.

We were in trouble now and tried to herd him back through the hole in the fence.  No deal.  He was scared, spooky and wouldn’t let us get near him.  The more we chased him the worse it got.  Finally, he ran down to the road in the direction of our Great-Grandparent’s place.

If we stayed at a dead run we could keep up with him, but he had about a fifty foot lead.    The field on our side of Great-Grandma’s place had a corral.  That was our goal.  As we neared the corral, the steer saw it and made a sharp right turn toward Spring Creek.  It ran through the icy creek with me right behind it.  Phil was smart and stayed dry.  The water was COLD!  There were still patches of snow on the ground.  Not long after crossing the creek the steer and I realized there was no escape there so we re-crossed the creek and were closer to the corral.

Great-Grandpa had seen the chase and had come out to supervise.  He opened corral and waved us in.  We had reinforcements!  It looked like we were going to get him through the gate, but he suddenly stopped.  I kept running, waving my arms and hollering.  By the time I realized he was rearing-up to kick, it was too late.  He got me in the face with both hooves.

I woke up in a mud puddle looking up at Phil and Grandpa.  I had been face down when they got there so they were worried.  I was a mess, mud, blood; and bleeding nose.  The steer was gone.

The inventory went pretty well.  Had all my teeth, my jaw worked, one eye was swollen almost closed, both eyes were full of gritty mud; wasn’t too sure about my crooked nose.  I had bitten my tongue pretty bad.  Could have been a lot worse.

Grandpa told me to go across the road to Aunt Bubble’s place and get her to clean me up.  He and Phil were going down to the mill to see if the steer was there.

As I crossed the road to Bubble’s house, she came running out of the house crying hysterically.  She thought I had been shot.  There had been some kids duck hunting on the creek that morning and that was the only thing she could think of that explained my condition.  Once she realized I wasn’t shot she settled down.

Uncle Kenny spent most of the afternoon finding the steer.  Then he had to get it home and fix the fence.  He must have had other plans for the day because he was madder than hell.  I remember Aunt Ruthie laughing at us while we were sitting on the back porch in our muddy underwear.  It didn’t bother me as much as Phil.  My nose had quit bleeding, my ears were ringing and I couldn’t see too good; I was happy just to be warm.

All of that from just a little steer.  A few years later when one of my buddies wanted me to ride bulls with him, I decided to pass.  That was my first, and last, rodeo.

When they were children, my sons regarded me as a barbarian.  I have a little better status now, but I am still suspect.  I should not be surprised, they are city kids.  They grew up civilized.  When I was a kid, if you called me civilized I would have punched you in the nose.  Worse than being called a sissy.

Not too long ago Mark was showing me a fancy bottle of expensive, single malt Scotch.  He wanted me to try it.  I pulled the cork and took a swig.  I thought he was going to choke to death.  If it hadn’t been expensive I think he would have thrown the bottle away.  Hell, I didn’t backwash.  How was I to know I was supposed to use a glass?  I can imagine what would have been said, when I was a Smokejumper, if I had passed a bottle and expected them to use a glass.

They grew up in suburban New York City, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco.  Their mom was a teacher; their dad was an FBI Agent.  They never really had a chance.

I grew up in a small lumber town in Northern California.  If you didn’t have a BB gun by the time you were five you were a social outcast.  If you didn’t know how to dig BB’s out of your hide, without your mother, by the time you were six; you were doomed.

My aunt and uncle lived on a ranch by a lake.   We loved to go there.  We always took our BB guns.  My brother and I would hide in the haystack, allegedly hunting for birds or rats.  When I got a chance, I would shoot the bull in the nuts.  He would go about six feet straight up if I made a good shot.  I didn’t know until a few years later that a bull, or steer for that matter, could walk right through about any fence it wanted to.  If that bull had realized it was me shooting him, he probably would have killed me.

I mentioned this to my brother a few years ago.  I thought we had competed to see who could get the bull to jump the highest.  He denied all knowledge.  He became a teacher and raised daughters. Perhaps that civilized him.  I bet he even has a pink shirt.

We could not wait until we were old enough to get a hunting license at the age of twelve.  Many of my peers had their own .22 rifle by the time they were eight.

We lived for hunting and fishing.  Our house was on the edge of town.  Nearby the river emerged from a canyon.  There was an old abandoned rail line that went along the river, up the canyon, to the next lumber town about 35 miles away.    That canyon was our playground.  We could not wait until we were old enough to go “up the tracks” by ourselves, to fish and spend the day.

By the time I was twelve I had my own .22 and could take it “up the tracks.”  I went through a 500 round “brick” of ammunition in about a week.  Needless to say we got to be pretty good shots.   It was a good thing I had a paper route, I had the funds for fishing tackle and ammunition.  The Army Navy Store provided us with everything else we needed.

REI and North Face were not around when I was a kid.  The good stuff was army surplus.  I had a down mummy bag that only had a few holes in it.  We were in Boy Scouts too.  Their gear wasn’t that great.  The army stuff was a lot better.  I remember buying a Boy Scout pack and blowing it out on the first camping trip.

In the early 90’s we took our sons camping in West Virginia one weekend.  Joe, the oldest, had just started Cub Scouts.  He was a Tiger Cub.  Of course it was raining when we got to the campground.  I surprised them, and Terry, by setting the tent up in the rain while keeping the inside dry.  Soon we had a nice cozy camp.  We sent the boys out to get some firewood, explaining that the wood on the ground was wet.  I told them to break the dead limbs off of trees to get the dry wood.  After about a half hour they came back with a small bundle of reasonably dry twigs.

I told them to come with me to learn how to get wood.   We found a small dead tree about fifteen feet high.  I broke it off and used the long stem to knock the high dead limbs off the taller trees.  Pretty soon we had a big pile of wood.  Then I showed them how to break up the big pieces of wood by levering them between two close standing tree trunks.  It made a lot of noise and splinters.  I was pleased to have taught them some woodsman-ship.

Later when we were in our sleeping bags I could hear them whispering about dad killing trees…

I had jury duty today and dreaded it.  It was terribly inconvenient.  There were better things to do with my time.  Really?  If I was an innocent defendant, with the misfortune to be charged with something I did not do; I would want a reasonable, open-minded person on the jury.  Preferably twelve of them.

Am I a reasonable and open minded person?  Hope so; but maybe not.  For 22 years I was an FBI Agent.  I’ve conducted more investigations than I can estimate.  I’m very cynical and more skeptical.  Keeping an open mind is of paramount importance.  A lot of subjects who initially appear to be guilty are, in fact, not.  I have seen many who appeared to be innocent, insisted they were innocent; but later confessed when confronted with damning evidence.  First impressions of people are usually wrong.

Witnesses lie and withhold exculpatory information.  Often they only tell part of the story.    Witnesses often are afraid for their lives if they talk to law enforcement.  Rightfully so, despite all assurances, law enforcement cannot always protect witnesses.

False complaints are common.  Complainants only tell you enough of the story to lead to to the conclusion they want.

Any investigator worth their salt spends a lot of time and energy trying to “punch holes” in their investigation.  It is an important part of the process that is sometimes minimized in the face of political or public pressure to solve a case.

Not all “good” cases are prosecuted.  Not all that are prosecuted are convicted.  Not all requests for warrants are approved.  That is as it should be.  Sometimes there is shoddy investigation, or malicious prosecution.

Some guilty subjects are not prosecuted, or released on appeal, because the investigation or prosecution is conducted outside the law.

There are a lot of people who have a hard time distinguishing between fact and opinion.  There are many more people who are willing to jump to conclusions with very thin facts.  Some of them are investigators.  What is more frightening is some are prosecutors.

I vividly remember an Assistant U.S. Attorney who would decline prosecution of complex felonies.   He was eager to prosecute a group of local teenagers.  They inadvertently trespassed on a military reservation, where they set off fireworks, with absolutely no harm done.   The only reason the kids were arrested was that the guard who caught them was off his post meeting a girlfriend in the woods near town.   The AUSA liked it because it was a “slam dunk” case that meant very little work and boosted his accomplishments for the year.  In my opinion it did not serve justice.

There is an incredible amount of “fact” published in newspapers that is half-truth.  How often have you seen conjecture blended with thin facts to sway opinion in the media?  We have all seen newspapers ruin the reputation of innocents.  Have you ever seen a front page retraction?  In the press, as in politics,  perception is more important than reality.  We should never forget that a news media’s first mission is to sell itself, not tell the truth.

When there is a particularly heinous crime and the shock is still fresh; the range and depth of obviously prejudicial opinion is astounding.  When there is an arrest, the concept of innocence until proven guilty is rarely heard.  It is easy to see how lynch mobs happen.  Sometimes the first person arrested in a high profile crime is not the guilty party.

Bureaucracies are slow, cumbersome, and subject to political influence.  They have limited resources and therefore take short-cuts.  The justice system is one of our biggest bureaucracies.

Our system is far from perfect.  There is one element of our system that exists for the sole purpose of mitigating the faults I have mentioned.  It is the jury.  You never know what a jury is going to do.

There are a lot of countries in the world whose citizens ache for a jury system like ours.

The jury alone decides the truth of the testimony and the innocence or guilt of the defendant.  Sometimes the jury “runs away” and nullifies the law.  Sometimes they decide the son-of-a-bitch needed killing and the citizen is acquitted despite the law.  The only element of our system that holds in check law enforcement, prosecution, or the judge; is the jury.  The jury’s decision, if unanimous, is final.  The case can be appealed, but not on the basis of the jury’s decision.  An appeal has to be based on a flaw in the application of the law or rules of procedure.  A jury’s finding of “not guilty” cannot be appealed.

Today, when I looked out on the one hundred or so prospective jurors in the pool, I was actually reassured.  Most of them looked like they could tie their shoes.  A couple  dressed and behaved so as to be disqualified quickly.  Most of them were real people who were capable of deciding the fate of their peers.  All of them had other things they would rather be doing.

As luck would have it, we were all dismissed by 10:00 a.m.

If I had been selected, I hope I would have measured up to the job!

One of the benefits of being a paperboy was free rubber bands, lots of them.

Early in my journalism career I noticed a box marked “rubber bands” on one of my administrative documents; the card I sent to the Sacramento Bee to order papers.  I checked the box.  A couple of days later I got a bag of rubber bands about the size of a loaf of bread.  Cool!  Now I could THROW papers.

Putting rubber bands on all of the papers wasted time; not only in the act of banding papers but in damage control.  Soon I was retrieving papers off of roofs, out of trees; from under cars.  My throwing arm was never very good.  It didn’t take long to learn that rubber bands were appropriate for some situations but not others.  They were great for yards with mean dogs.  Sometimes I could hit the dog with the paper.

One of my customers complained unless the paper was precisely placed inside his screen door.  One time after a particularly petty complaint I put about 50 rubber bands his paper, threw it on his roof, and left it there.

Before long I had about 30 “loaves” of rubber bands.  After a couple afternoons of detention I was forbidden to take them to school.  They were a valuable commodity.  I could use them to trade with my friends for cool stuff.  I traded five loaves to Steve for a WWII bayonet with real blood stains on it.  Turns out it was Steve’s blood.

I started looping the rubber bands together to make a long chain.  I could snap my brother with it from across the room.  I made a real heavy rubber band by making a chain with about a dozen bands on each link.  The heavy ones made good slingshots.

I made a long, heavy chain and towed the wagon behind my bike to deliver papers for a while.  It was quite a bungee.  Over time I kept adding links.  One particularly boring afternoon I used up a dozen or so bags adding to the bungee.  It was probably about 70 feet long.

Thank God we had never heard of bungee jumping!

What do you do with a bungee that big?  I was playing with it in our yard when I noticed my brother’s Tonka Truck in the sandbox.  It was a navy blue 1960 Chevrolet pickup.  I popped off the front axle, put it through the end of the bungee and popped it back on the truck.   Now what?  The bungee was almost as long as our yard.  It was a problem in need of a solution.  Then I noticed my mother’s car, a nineteen fifty-something Lincoln Capri.  It had a trailer hitch.  I looped the other end of the bungee over the trailer hitch and carefully pushed the bungee and truck under Mom’s car.

We lived on a dead-end street that was a long block in length.  After a short while Mom came out with her purse.  She told me to stay home and be good while she went to the store.  As she drove away I kicked the truck out into the middle of the street, casually sauntered out and stood on it while the bungee payed out to full length.

As the tension on the truck increased I realized I was about to die!  She was at the stop sign about two-thirds of a block away.  If the bungee broke it would probably take off my head.  If I could not hold the truck it would hit Mom’s car and she would take off my head.  I kept all my weight on the truck and prayed.  After an eternity she turned right and drove away with the bungee stretching around the Stop sign.

I stepped off the truck. It leaped about four feet in the air and launched like a rocket.  At that same moment a late model white sedan drove across the end of our street.  It came from the direction where Mom had gone.  BAM!  It hit the passenger door behind the driver, a man in his late fifties.  He came to a screeching stop.  He jumped out of the car and walked around it to see what had happened.  The passenger door had a huge blue dent.

I could hear him swearing as he looked in all of the nearby yards and the ditch along the street.  He could see me standing in the middle of the street, way down the block.  I just stood there with my hands in my pockets.  He ignored me.  Pretty soon I saw him holding up the remains of the Tonka Truck by a piece of bungee about a foot and a half long, comparing it to the dent in the door.

After another sweep of the yards, ditch and the culvert at the end of the street, he threw the Tonka Truck in his trunk and drove away.

The whole situation evolved without malice.  There was no plan.  One step seemed to suggest the next.  I meant no harm.  At least nobody was hurt.

I still wonder how he explained it to his insurance company.

What’s a jump story?  A jump story is a tale of adventure.  Usually related to parachuting.  All parachutists, recreational, military, smokejumper and some lucky pilots have them.  Those of you who know someone who tells jump stories are rolling your eyes and thinking here we go!  Few things sear images into memory like life and death experiences.

After a certain number of jumps you stop thinking every one is a near death experience.  Somehow other things slip into the equation and make the experience memorable enough to merit a story.  Humor is the primary element, adventure is another; it doesn’t take much to qualify.

Most jumpers have a twisted sense of humor by conventional standards.  I remember an end of the season party in Fairbanks in the early 70’s.  We were standing around a campfire drinking beer.  One of the guys kept trying to sneak up on the more inebriated, grab them, and try to throw them in the fire.  That’s what I mean about sense of humor.  I remember one jumper who would throw his razor sharp knife at you if you asked to borrow it.  Guess he didn’t like having people borrow his knife.  Maybe someone forgot to return it once.

Back to the party in Fairbanks.  Like all smokejumper parties there was an abundance of new jump stories, or recycled stories that were embellished to the point they sounded new.   One of the pilots threw out the observation that all jump stories start out with “there I was, and this ain’t no s***!”  I think he was trying to get a rise out of someone and start a fight.  He seemed disappointed when we all agreed with him.  Who wanted to explain to the boss why he punched out one of the pilots?  Nobody ever threw one of them in the campfire either.

We needed the pilots.  They were our main transportation and our supply line.  We wanted them on our side.  They rang the bell that told the spotter when to throw the fire packs and other cargo out of the plane.  You didn’t want your stuff hung up in the trees.  It happened often enough without the pilot being pissed at you.  I remember a jumper who was always giving one of the pilots a hard time.  He never did figure out why his stuff ended up in the trees or was dropped so low that the cargo chute didn’t have time to open.

Some of our pilots were career Forest Service.  They really knew the terrain and were very conscientious.  Some were seasonal contractors, they were very good pilots but didn’t always know their way around the forest.  Some of the contract pilots drank a wee bit.  Particularly the ones that spent part of the year flying in Southeast Asia.  The Viet Nam War was on.  After the war, many still flew for the “government.”  Go figure.   Flying and drinking and drinking and driving was a way of life for a very small number of our pilots.  The DUI’s usually caught up with them and they got fired.  They had to go back to Southeast Asia to fly.  One in particular comes to mind, we called him Turbo.  He never really got lost.  Flying with him was a real test of how well you could keep your lunch.  I didn’t know a Twin Otter could pull so many “G’s.”  I remember a couple of passes where the G’s had the cargo stuck to the floor so hard I couldn’t throw it out of the plane.

The pilots looked out for us.  I think they regarded us as their kids.  The local Shakey’s Pizza Parlor in Boise started an all you can eat for lunch buffet.  We regarded it as a challenge.    We took a walkie talkie with us because there had been some lightning on the forest the night before.  Most of the crew went.  By 2:30 we were blacklisted.  We averaged two large pizzas apiece along with at least a pitcher and a half of beer.  When we got back to the loft the engines on the C-47 were running and the boss was pissed!  We had forgotten to turn-on the walkie talkie.

Personally, I think Roger heard the call but hadn’t had his fill of pizza and turned it off.   When we got on the plane I heard the pilot talking on the radio to the dispatcher who thought we were over the forest looking for the fire.  When the plane got back to Boise the spotter had to clean a lot of liquid pizza and beer out of the C-47.  We loved our pilots.

It is all relative.  I am really not an “old guy.”  Virginia, my mother-in-law lived to be 90.  She often referred to my wife and I as babies.  Store clerks sometimes regard me with the martyred patience reserved for alzheimer’s patients.  That’s OK, I can only hear about 20% of what they are saying.

In my mind’s eye I am about 24, at my physical peak; until I look in the mirror.  I am aways shocked to see my Dad’s reflection looking back at me as I brush my teeth.  Terry, my wife, insists that we are middle aged.  I wish.

The first insult came from AARP when I turned 50.  They had the brass to offer me membership, for a price.

In my youth I was a Smokejumper.  We reveled in the arrogance of peak physical condition and elite firefighter status.  In the Boise Unit, if one of our number stayed with the crew long enough to reach their 30th birthday we did the right thing and had a “keggar.”   The theme for the party was a funeral.  They were officially over-the-hill at 30.  The McCall Unit may have had the same tradition, the two crews were pretty much joined at the hip.  We trained our rookies, we called them “Neds,” together in McCall.

In those days candidates over the age of 27 were too old to be considered for new hires.  The rare ‘jumper who attained the ancient age of 40 was retired from parachute jumping.  At that age they had usually been in management positions for a long time and rarely did more than routine qualifying jumps with occasional rescue or fire jumps when necessary.

Laws have changed.  Now, Smokejumpers can jump and fight fire as long as they can pass the physical.  Women are Smokejumpers.  A remarkable number of hardy souls from my era stayed in until the new mandatory retirement age of 55 or optional retirement at age 50.  Sooner or later we all got hurt.  Some were maimed or killed.  Some endured less severe career ending injuries.  The lucky ones healed up enough to keep jumping or voluntarily leave the program.  After a few years we all started getting up slowly in the morning to take inventory of our various aching parts.  I managed seven years without serious injury.

I decided I was getting too old for the job at age 25.  The smoke, heavy packs, long hours of firefighting, and slamming into the ground were taking their toll.  I had breathed too much smoke, my lungs were the weak link.  I was also eating NSAIDS like candy.   Arthritis arrived at 40.  I had a bone scan a few years ago and made the mistake of looking at the image before the final diagnosis.  I thought I was full of cancer from the top of my head through my pelvis.  The doctors were confused until I explained my history.  They said my scan looked like that of a pro football player.

I became an administrator.  That lasted until age 31 when I became an FBI Agent.  The FBI Academy was a bit rigorous but nothing like smokejumper training.  The work was fascinating, occasionally strenuous, often stressful, and the best job in the world.  After a short time, nothing humans did was a surprise.  The best part was when I least expected it, I often saw the best of humanity.

I retired in 2005 with 32 years of service; 22 years in the FBI and 10 years in the Forest Service.  I felt like I had stepped into a tornado in 1983 and it spit me out in 2005.  I was fortunate to be under the Civil Service Law Enforcement and Firefighter retirement.  I loved the work and would do it again in a minute.  No reservations.  My health has started to wane.  It was time to enjoy my wife and family, slow down, and do some traveling.

It is not the years, it’s the miles.  In my case anyway.  Mentally I am about 24, physically I am sometimes about 75.  It’s all relative.

My career as a journalist started at age eleven.  I had been tormenting the local Area Distribution Manager for the Sacramento Bee since I was nine.  Technically, you had to be twelve to be old enough.  If you waited until you were twelve to ask for a route you failed to show enough initiative and started out at a disadvantage to us nine year olds who had been hustling substitute jobs from the local paperboys.

Doug, the local paperboy, lived up the street.  He had been our paperboy for several years and was reaching the age where the ‘fumes were interfering with his career.  It was getting difficult for him to meet the bell on Sunday Morning.

My Dad was the one who clued me in.  The fumes?  Perfume and gasoline.  They start affecting teenage boys at different ages, but in my era it was around age sixteen.  That’s when you were old enough to get your driver’s license.

Patsy, Doug’s sister, had been delivering his papers since he got his license.  She was a year younger than me but was losing interest.  I was their substitute, had been since I was nine.  The Area Manager was skeptical of me because of my age.  I kept reminding him that I was a year older than Patsy.  He said he couldn’t buy that one since the route was actually Doug’s.  I think he was just testing my resolve.

When I was substituting I always got all the papers to the right customers, pretty much on time.  In those days you could make about twenty-five bucks a month as a paperboy.   A virtual fortune.  Sure beat the hell out of selling the Saturday Evening Post for a quarter; or Grit, for a nickel a copy.  Don’t even mention selling Christmas Cards.

One day when I was eleven, Patsy told me that she was quitting.  I don’t really remember why but I think she had finally saved up enough for a horse.  Doug called Mr. Lovell and formally resigned.  I was hovering around when he came by to pick up the canvas bags and receipt books.  The interview was grueling, but since I knew the route I was a shoe-in.  Patsy even vouched for me.

I always read the front page, the funnies and the editorials.  I learned about people, about economics, journalistic integrity and bureaucracy.  The most important survival skill was handling mean dogs.

Particularly Sophie’s dog.  She was the smartest kid in my class at school.  She lived about half-way through the route.  Her mother could not hear so they had a big Lab that guarded the place.  Particularly from the paperboy.  I always kept a few choice rocks in my canvas newspaper bag for emergencies, but I preferred to use detente.  I hated to use the rocks because I had to answer to Sophie.  Not only was she smart, she was as tough as most of the boys.  I wasn’t afraid of her but I didn’t want to tangle with her either.  That dog chewed a hole in more than one set of my canvas bags while I was in full retreat.

The best thing, after the money, was you could win trips to the State Fair, Disneyland, the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, and other places if you got enough new customers.  There were regular contests at the same time each year.  They regularly sent solicitors out to walk your route with you and sign up new customers.  I learned that customers who stopped their paper while they were out of town were actually new customers when they resumed service.  That was how you really got good stats.  I wasn’t too sure about the practice at first.  The solicitors were eager to write them up since we both got credit for a new customer.  The more new customers we got, the happier everybody was.  It was all in how you wrote the story.  I sure enjoyed the trips and got to know a lot of my fellow journalists from around the state while we were traveling. I was never challenged with the fact that the overall customer count on my route did not seem to reflect all of the new customers I got every year.  It was journalistic integrity.  There was more truth in our stats than in a lot of the editorials.

I learned to deal with customers who didn’t have enough money on hand to pay.  There were also a few customers who complained about everything.  I ultimately refused to deliver to some of them.  It was an enlightening, empowering and enriching experience.   It was all business.  We paid for all of our papers whether or not our customers did.  We were expected to deliver seven days a week 365 days a year; regardless of weather.

When I was fifteen, I actually had two routes for about a year.  The money was good but  I was burning out.  About the time I got my driver’s license I learned that I could make a lot more money washing dishes at a local restaurant and my early life as a journalist was over.

Writing a blog should be a piece of cake.