OUT WITH THE OLD

Today I have a special announcement that both saddens me and thrills me with anticipation at the same time. Starting April 6th The Writing Deputy will no longer be a deputy. I am retiring from law enforcement after twenty-six years.
I will still be working and writing—always writing. I just won’t be driving around in a squad car anymore. Law enforcement, especially working the streets, is a young man’s game. I still have my health, but reflexes slow as you get older. Time to get out before something happens. Even more than that, I have lost the fire to do it. I find myself going through the motions, not working cases the way I should. Over the years I have taught classes for criminal justice students at our local junior college. I always ask them why they want to get into law enforcement. The most common answer is: to help people. Funny, I’ve never found anyone who thought getting a hundred dollar speeding ticket was a lot of help. That part of the job burns out of you quickly. If anything you lose a lot of your compassion. You stop feeling sorry for people. You see so much you’d run out of tears if you cried every time you should. Your compassion reservoir drains, and you become desensitized.
I once saw a sign in a firehouse that said: “THEY HAVE AN EMERGENCY, YOU HAVE A JOB.” All emergency personnel need to keep that in mind to focus on their jobs. The trouble begins when we forget THEY have an emergency.
In my first novel, In The Sticks, the main character is a burned out deputy sheriff. He puts in his time waiting for retirement. I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t want to be working for my days off and just putting in time. So I am retiring “to pursue other interests” as they say.
I would like to thank my family for putting up with my crazy schedule, rearranging holidays and birthdays to fit my days off. I’d like to say sorry to my kids for all the sporting events, school concerts, plays and recitals I had to miss. And to my wife who became a widow and had to learn to go to events by herself because I was working.
I’ll still be The Writing Deputy, because I’ll always be writing. Take care and stay tuned. I’ll be doing a post on all the funny things I ran into in twenty-six years of being a road deputy.

IN THE STICKS WEBSITE

THE WRITING DEPUTY WEBSITE