The recent Police Officers Appreciation Banquet brought my thoughts to one of my favorite peace offices: Bill.
I knew that he was a card as soon as I met him. He had a comic's sense of humor and a good lawman's sense of justice. I met him in my first church right out of seminary in south Texas. He was a U.S. Customs Patrol officer. He didn't just patrol the border, but he had authority to investigate customs violations inland as well. He covered quite a territory.
He once served as a bodyguard for governor John Connelly during the assasination of John Kennedy. Bill was not present in Dallas, but was called to the hospital room of Connelly after he was wounded. He told me that no one knew at that time whether there would be further assasination attempts. Those were scary times.
Bill's sharp wit and dry, sarcastic sense of humor often came out. Once, as we were riding down highway 83, toward the Rio Grande Valley, he made a sarcastic remark as he pointed to a huge, expensive house in the South Texas Desert- "See that house?" He asked. "Unemployed!" This meant that while the occupant may officially be unemployed, something illegal was being done in order to afford a spread that big.
One Sunday afternoon after delicious Sunday lunch, he made a comment on a recent news item. "Well, we had another misdemeanor murder last night." It was down on the river, in smuggling territory. Bill knew that little would be done to find the killer, since these types of things were "all in the family..."
(Stay tuned for upcoming installments.)
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