I am reminded in a way that might seem trivial and inappropriate to some of a John Denver song from his later and less glorious years but before he had ceased to really be an important star in his own part of the musical firmament. I have put these lyrics up on my Facebook timeline before. In fact, they’ve appeared probably three times or so. But every once in a while I have to let John Denver say something about my own life. Except that I am now writing about my country as well and writing much more bluntly than the speaker is in the lyrics. But I still relate to the way the song sounded when I first heard it. It is time for Americans to realize that many very serious problems must be addressed in our society. Wr would all like to say that thinngs will work out bu they may not, we would like to say that the crises on our streets and eslewhere almost every day do not define our country but in part they do. the song expresses that well in the personal sphere.
“When you asked, how I’ve been here without you
I’d like to say, I’ve been fine and I do
But we both know the truth is hard to come by
And if I told the truth, that’s not quite trueSome days are diamonds, some days are stones
Sometimes the hard times won’t leave me alone
Sometimes a cold wind blows a chill in my bones
Some days are diamonds, some days are stonesNow the face that I see in my mirror
More and more is a stranger to me
More and more, I can see there’s a danger
In becoming what I never thought I’d beSome days are diamonds, some days are stones
Sometimes the hard times won’t leave me alone
Sometimes a cold wind blows a chill in my bones
Some days are diamonds, some days are stones”The song then repeats these refrain lyrics
Originally many highly credible reports were filed that spoke of multiple shooters in a coordinated attack on police. But the new orthodoxy after Obama and his feds made contact is the traditional lone nut idea. The focus is increasingly only on a suspect who died after a robot destroyed a bomb he had made or placed and after he had spoken with negotiators in a standoff with Dallas police. That man said that he wanted to kill white people — especially white police officers — and that he was angry about “the recent police shootings”. Conveniently for the great American narrative that all is well this man may have been recorded saying that he acted alone and that is the narrative put forth by Dallas Police Chief David Brown after the told reporters Friday that there would be no questions answered about suspects. Early reports can be seen here and here. The original posting of the first article online was,
Four gunmen shoot 11 police officers – killing at least five – and … Daily Mail
While these texts are fluid and are changed to fit the evolving narrative it is clear that there was enormous evidence that this was not a lone nut situation. In addition there is a great deal of interlocking tension in the country. There is a very limited amount of real and effective political discussion about these tensions. Political discussion is not a cure-all by any means and the country might move into greater crisis with such discussions. But the lack of effective discussion of the forces straining our national consensus and the framework which allow for our differences — that lack of effective discussion is an important part of our daily reality.
Over the years I have known a lot of cops. The very first was Willie Brady, the town marshal in my hometown of Lecompte and my across-the-street neighbor. Back then Lecompte did not even have a police car, so he used his own. There were no uniforms, so he worked in street clothes. Sometimes he wore a badge. He did not wear a gun belt. He kept his pistol in the glove compartment. And he maintained law and order. He also made kites for me and took me out to fly them. Knowing me to be an astronomy buff, he let me stargaze using his big binocular telescope. He was an incurable practical joker who once wired oranges to a bush to ‘prove’ to a friend that it was a citrus tree. He had a pet raccoon at one point. He told tall tales. He took care of his nephew and my friend, Anthony. He was a lot like Andy Taylor (Griffith). He was a good man.
Later Lecompte’s first African-American marshal was a big guy named John Baptiste. By that time the town had a police car, the cops had uniforms, and the police station had moved across the street from my family’s hardware store. John used to come over and swap stories on a pretty regular basis. One night some of my friends were hanging out in front of a grocery store down the street, and a couple of smartass white boys from out of town pulled a .357 on them. John arrived shortly after. He never took his own gun out of the holster. He just walked up to the car and said, ‘I just took a gun away from a n—–across town who as a lot bigger than you boys, and I’m sure not scared of you.’ They gave him the .357, and that was that. Nobody got hurt. He, too, was a good man.
This is an image of policing which seems far from the realities of lines of somewhat militarized men dealing with highly organized mobs. this does seem moving and I would quote the whole passage if it were not that there are limits to how much I am willing to stretch the limits of sharing even on days like this. He is not an author of this post. But the rest of the post is a really worth American tribut to cops. I shared it on my timeline with the following post:
“(The named there on Facebook college professor and Louisiana native) and I have met once. We disagree on a lot of things and nonetheless I think his. very personal response to this tragedy.and related incidents is a well written and insightful piece of prose. God bless the thin blue line today especially….
In between we had a bad cop that the city fathers eventually fired. It happens. Cops are humans just like the rest of us. But the vast majority are good people, just the like vast majority of people in other occupations. And like other first responders and people in the military, they routinely take risks that the rest of us rarely face in order to keep us safe, and I am grateful for that. When there are episodes like those in Baton Rouge and Minnesota this week, I hold the bad cops responsible as individuals, not as a representative of all cops.
A lot of cops have helped my family and me, not least those men and women who stood out in the wind and rain for hours and hours during Katrina and Gustav. A lot of them have been my friends and neighbors. John and Danny Cummings—the sons of my dear friend Big John, who taught them to call me Uncle Bill (which I like)—have both been cops, and I am proud of them.
A lot of cops have been my colleagues on the faculty at Southeastern Louisiana University, for example, Ronnie Jones, the one-time spokesman of the Louisiana State Police, who was a great teacher and a great cop. In the latter guise, he was on hand a few years ago when a truck started leaking explosive chemicals less than a mile from my house, and emergency workers had to set off a controlled explosion to destroy it.
A lot of our campus cops have been my friends, including Paul Marek, who served as chief of the University Police and whose previous job was as a U.S. Army Colonel and head of Southeastern’s ROTC. And O’Neill DeNoux, who writes brilliant crime novels when he is off duty. And all the others who have defused dangerous situations on campus, been the first responders when faculty, staff, and students have been injured, and in one instance bailed out a shamefaced department head who accidentally locked his keys in his office.
One of my former graduate students is a state cop named Clay Schutz, who has been the driver for every Louisiana governor since Roemer and who still calls me from time to time. In fact, a lot of cops have been my students, including several who retired at the end of their hitch and went into teaching in an effort to get kids into good jobs and keep them off the street. I learned as much from them as they did from me.
That is why I pray for the cops who lost their lives in Louisiana over the last week-and-a-half and those who died in Dallas yesterday. That is why I do not hold all cops to blame when one does the wrong thing. That is why I do not identify cops by race, gender, or anything else except the badge. That is why I, diehard civil libertarian that I am, regard cops as my friends. God bless all those who serve, who uphold the law, who take risks on our behalf, and who in some cases make the ultimate sacrifice. I know who you are, and I thank you.
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