Ponch & John Live On!…read more
You know, This is a cynical age we dwell within. We are spoiled for want, we have *NO* idea how good we have it. By WE, I mean the royally spoiled chunk of humanity with the spare time to write and read Yelp reviews...no matter how useful they are :-)
I accept all that. And yet, occasionally, I stumble upon charitable acts of individual kindness and decency, which give me pause; leaving me to think: There is hope for us all.
Why did I choose to add the Ukiah California Highway Patrol to Yelp, and write a glowing review, you ask? First, let me tell you what the reason was not:
It was not a heroic "pulled a baby from a burning car stuck on the train tracks, JUST as the California Zephyr came whooshing by, consuming the burning wreckage with but milliseconds to spare".. Nor did the officers, having earned my assiduity, "leap upon a bomb vest wielding, bank robbing, extremist brony, thereby saving my child from bodily harm... or from life-long visits to a shrink, to evacuate the crazed bronyist from his or her psyche"... Nope... nothing so extreme. Rather, this is about my Mom; lets not disclose her age lest I be expunged from my inheritance (or lose first dibs on the toasted marshmallow yams at Christmas time, whichever comes first).
So, here is: Mom is driving down a little two-lane highway, up in the Nor Cal hinterlands of Lake County, when she had a tire blow out... A few cars back, as the fates would have it, was the first of our nameless Chippers (CHP Lawmen). He saw Mom's van blow the right front, and proceeded to hit the lights, thus clearing the log jam of traffic stacking up on Mom's rear bumper (damned California drivers!)... This helped her get safely to the side of the road.
Now, I don't know if you've ever been sitting on the blacktop in Lake County, on a mid-July afternoon, but let me tell you: IT IS HOT. Mom's spare was jacked, and so she needed a tow. The tow truck was 90 minutes away (two and a half hours as it turned out), and the bacon crisping heat was just a shade under Hades Mean Summer Average.
What transpired was nothing short or amazingly normal human decency: The Lawman parked his car there, on the side of Highway 29, and waited..with Mom, for 45 minutes, in air conditioned patrol car heaven. He simply refused to leave her on the side of the road, with her old yet functional van. Then his compadre showed up and the baton was passed, freeing the first Lawman to head for the barn. This next Lawman waited with Mom for an hour and 45 minutes more! Finally the tow driver made his appearance and soon, Mom was rollin' down the highway!
Those Lawmen were not obligated to say with her, and had there been an emergency, they would have left her alone... but no emergency came, and instead the kept an [don't say old] woman company, in the heat of the day, so she could be a little more comfortable, a little more safe. Given Mom was in the middle of pumping out a kidney stone the size of a small moon, she was indeed in a *lot* of discomfort... Those fellas really made her week.
I say to those Lawmen: Thank you.
Thank you for being gentlemen, dignified and thoughtful, to a complete stranger.
You have renewed my faith in those who have sworn to uphold the law and to police the lands. While it seems the term is cliched to death, i have to say that I am hearted to know there are still men who carry the mantle "To Serve and To Protect".
