K-Wal Cast
Interview podcast with the people in my life. We'll have some fun, dig deeper, and have some good conversations.
K-Wal Cast
Doug Wolking: From the Chili Line to the Front Line
Doug and Nick met as clock-punchers at Skyline Chili over 25 years ago. Doug was the manager calling shots and Nick was scrubbing dishes in the tank. Over time, they served up a steaming plate of friendship that brings them into the recording dungeon.
Now, Doug keeps the citizens of Independence, Kentucky safe while wearing the Blue and Nick makes podcasts in his spare time. In this episode, we take you on Doug's journey from the steam table to the police cruiser. What's it like making a career change? What lessons does he bring from the world of customer service to the side of the road while talking to nervous drivers? And what is the day in the life of a police officer in the Kentucky suburbs like?
Thanks for listening! Please visit the pod's website at https://kwalcast.buzzsprout.com for more information.
Welcome to the KWALCast. My name is Nick Kowalski and this is a podcast where we have fun conversations with fun people. This week we have an old friend and colleague of mine, doug Walking. Doug and I worked at Skyline a long time ago. We talk about restaurant life and some of the fun and not so fun parts of working in the industry. We also talk about what it's like becoming a police officer and what a day in the life is like when you're wearing the blue.
Speaker 1:You'll find out soon if Doug has all of his organs, unlike his wife and KWALCAST alum, anne. On that note, there is some discussion of medical procedures in the beginning of this episode. You've been warned. Please welcome Doug Walking. Doug Walking, welcome to the pod. Well, thanks for having me. How are you doing? I'm doing all right. How about you? I'm doing fine. So do you have all of your organs? No, hold on. Really, yes, oh, man, all right For everyone in the audience. I ask that because Doug is married to Ann, who is on this show, and she has donated a kidney. I really expected you to say that you have all your organs. Which one are you missing? My appendix? Oh, okay, is that a separate organ?
Speaker 3:It's more of like an attachment, okay, it's kind of like a little hanging down thing off of your intestines.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, when did you have your appendix out, was it two?
Speaker 3:years ago when we had the blizzard.
Speaker 1:Oh really oh, it was horrible. Whoa what happened?
Speaker 3:okay, so let's see where do we begin. It's really kind of oh okay, yeah, so you're gonna love this one, so go on. As you get older, you have these medical processes. One of these medical processes, you have to do a colonoscopy. So we have insurance and our insurance works in such a way as where you do things, you get benefits. Okay, because they're really, they really want to work on your, your health, body health. You know we get money for blood draws, things like that. Nice. If you don, you don't get it in time, you get penalized by paying more a month on your premium. Went in for a colonoscopy.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Didn't want to do it. I heard horror stories from people at work and one guy went through the VA and he woke up, oh, during the, during the process. No, I'm like no. And he woke up, oh, during the During the process. No, I'm like no, no, no. Well, it's got to be a VA thing.
Speaker 1:Totally has to be a VA thing.
Speaker 3:So we go. The worst thing is drinking the mix to clean you out.
Speaker 1:See, that's why I've heard, I've heard the day before is actually worse than the day of.
Speaker 3:Well, you just spend a lot of time in the bathroom.
Speaker 3:No one likes it, it's gross yeah it's yeah, yeah anyways so and I've never been in any type of you know, besides wisdom teeth being taken out. I I worry about because I have this deep treasure chest of secrets that I can't tell. What's the anesthesia gonna make me tell? Tell when, like you know me, we've been together, for you know, we've known each other years. I have no deep, dark secrets. So get put out, go back. They're doing their thing. I wake up. I look at the monitor. It's the inside of my colon or my intestine. Wait, wait, wait. Is this?
Speaker 1:like during the procedure, or is this after? No, this is during.
Speaker 3:Oh no, so I'm on my left side, the monitor's right there. I wake up, I go, I know what that is, and then anesthesiologist is like good night. I'm like good night.
Speaker 1:Wait Back out. Good night, I'm like good night, wait back out what hold on it was it. Was it intravenous or like, how did?
Speaker 3:they give you the anesthesia um, it's normally a shot, and then you know it's the standard. You count back to 10 with a little mask on your face. So, okay, I don't think it was. I, I'm not, I don't do, I don't medicine. So yeah to me. From now on, I tell people I'm resistant.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:If.
Speaker 2:I have any type of procedures hey, I'm resistant to anesthesia.
Speaker 3:Be like, please double it for me. Yeah, see, it's night-night land. So yeah, I woke up and saw the inside, which looked like a standard.
Speaker 1:Did you compliment your own colon? Were you like that looks like a good colon? It looked own colon. Were you like that looks like a good? It looked good. I was happy. You know, I like the shape of that a couple seconds I was like this really happened to me.
Speaker 3:I know what that is. Because because the other guy hit a horse or like they were actively working on him in the sense where he felt movement. So for me I didn't feel movement, but I didn't want movement. So I was like hey, I know what that is. Good night, good night, look back up. And then so the doctor looks at the results and he's like they were rolling me out to the car, handing me two bottles that I had to chug for contrast to do a ct scan oh man, because they were concerned that something was going wrong with my appendix for some reason.
Speaker 3:Basically it it releases something in your intestine like a uh, some type of chemical. I'm not who knows what the appendix does anymore. I don't.
Speaker 2:We're getting very technical here, yeah, and I'm not medical. Who knows what the appendix does anymore? I don't. We're getting very technical here, yeah, and I'm not medical.
Speaker 3:So well, like I said, I'll do medical stuff. Yeah, so we roll it, or, saney, do a CDC scan or cat scan, I don't remember what it is and then they're like well, something's going on, we need to get it out, but it's not an emergency, so we can't do it out now. So you had to call somebody to do the procedure and I just remember we were pissed because I was hungry, because you don't eat, and like I think Ann was pretty pissed because we were just like you know, know, like, oh, you know, it's just, it's just a couple hundred dollars, it's like we don't make doctor money, we don't, you know a couple hundred dollars for us to stay in this, this room, for an hour oh, they, wouldn't you like stay in the room?
Speaker 3:they wouldn't well just moving, going there, staying in the room, unless I'm confusing this with another time, but I'm pretty sure this is the same, yeah, same time. So we left and knew a really good doctor through a family friend who we love, and so we went over to ohio, scheduled it. It was Scheduled it. It was December 23rd or 22nd of, I think, two years ago. Okay, it was 22, 23. I think it was 23. And I think we went to Christ Hospital. It's supposed to be a 30-minute procedure. 45.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Apparently mine was hiding. Oh, okay, so it was inverted, didn't know they did that inverted and hiding behind inside, behind just the intestine, oh weird. So yeah, very weird. And uh, that's when I learned that when we did customer service, we try and be pleasant even when it's unpleasant, and I found that when I have any type of I guess it's a nervous thing for me I go over the top. What do you mean?
Speaker 3:I'm too pleasant to the line of where it's almost flirty, apparently, and I'll tell you no, I'm flirting. It's like I'm not meaning the flirt. Yeah, I'm just trying to make their day better because I know they're stuck here for 10, 12 hours, whatever, dealing with people who aren't happy, grumpy, let's not be that guy. Yeah, so, so yeah, apparently I'm a flirt, okay, well, oh yeah, nice.
Speaker 1:So they took out your appendix and so I've got some staples. Got some staples, okay is it? Arthroscopic, or do they actually have to slit you open?
Speaker 3:uh, it's arthroscopic, they go through your belly button oh, oh really yeah oh, so I know that you know the belly button and a couple of little uh ports, I guess, to put the little arms in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, that sounds about right yeah, so you're the first person I've met who has found out something about their appendix from a colonoscopy. I feel like most of the people I have talked to have had an appendix out. It's always like the extreme, like super painful. They don't know what's going on and it's like the appendix needs to come out now or else it's going to burst, kind of thing yeah, no pain.
Speaker 3:Um, so they basically said that, uh, because they always actually get any experience of pain, I'm like, no, well, apparently I had a chronic appendicitis, so it would flare up and go away. Flare up and go away, oh man, which doesn't make sense. It doesn't add in because I think it was 20, 2018, in february of 2018, I had this, uh, incredible pain. It felt like indigestion and like I did the whole, the whole route. You know, pepto-bismol, crackers, coke, yeah, sprite. It didn't never got work, never got better, just felt like a worse, felt like it's going up my esophagus and I'm going to hospital. Um, they gave me morphine. That's a fun drug yeah, weird can't say.
Speaker 3:You know, it's just, it's just weird warm sensation, then like they do a ct scan and it's like, well, can't find anything. So it went away. Yeah, almost like anniversary present, february 2019. I got it again. It's like, okay, go back in ultra gallbladder. You got, you got some problems. We're gonna go ahead and we want to schedule to get it out. So we used our connections once again, went to uh, was it christ hospital again? So, and sister who used to work at uc in the transplant I don't know what she does exactly, so she knew a doctor, we talked to him. He looked at the scans. You're perfectly fine, I would love to take it out. That's what I love to do. I live for it. That's my job, that's what I want to do. I can't take yours out he's like licking his chops.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's like there's nothing wrong with it, you're fine okay, knock on wood yeah, hasn't resurfaced yeah um, I think what it is is you know how you get cramps in your body. I think basically my diaphragm was having a cramp a muscle cramp okay so I own that? No, no idea, no yeah, so, man?
Speaker 1:so do you think all of this is a result of a lifetime of eating cincinnati chili, which brings us to oh I mean skyline, chili is really, or I mean just say skyline, that's where we worked, so yeah, we're speaking of, which you and I first met, I think 25 years ago.
Speaker 1:I was doing it, doing the math in my head. I'm pretty sure I started when I was 15 I might have been 16 working at skyline chili, so you were already a manager there. What, when you think about working at Skyline? So Skyline is like the big. Skyline is like the Cincinnati Chili franchise. That's probably the biggest one in the region. There's only one really major competitor, although you find like little pockets of like small mom and pop chili shops around town. But Skyline is usually what people think of when they think of chiliile. You and I worked there a long time ago. You were my manager. Like what do you think of when you think of those times?
Speaker 1:it's a long time ago now we had fun yeah, it was fun.
Speaker 3:Uh, the the engagement with it was just fun. I mean just, I mean to think. I mean 25 years ago, let's see, I would have been working there for nine years at that time if I do my math right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so because I started at Skyline when I was 16. Dishes for two years came out, did food production Pretty much. Really quick transition to management. We just had fun. It was a lot of hanging out with people getting the work done. I mean I hate to say times were easier, but you know, times were easier. It was enjoyable hanging out, trying to be responsible, learning about ourselves each other because you know I laugh to this day and Ann's got different opinions and you know we evolve as we get older. We think about things. Our opinions change knowledge. You know I'm a.
Speaker 3:I always think of myself as I'm an introvert. I don't have the social battery to want to go out all the time to want to talk to people, like even today, knowing that someone's going to hear this at some point, kind of like man. That's crazy, but let's just go, it doesn't matter. I'm now older, I don't care. But you know, having to talk to people in that capacity as a manager, tell them though I can't do this or yes, I can do this I learned to deal with the stress. In the way I dealt with stress was basically to laugh it off. You can only handle so much and people try and control so much you can't, you're going to spiral out of control. Do what you can. That's all you can do. Yeah, if it's if you. If you can't fix it, try and get some help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you can what were, uh what were the biggest challenges with managing?
Speaker 3:Friend zone. Oh yeah, yeah, people want to take advantage of it. Because you were only a year to two years older than the people you worked with, you know, I didn't care about the horseplay. Sometimes we had food fights, you know at the end of the day you're throwing away the product. Yeah, you know throwing away the product Well sometimes. But we threw potatoes over the building you did, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:We threw potatoes over the building. Oh, like a whole potato, not a mashed potato.
Speaker 3:No, not a mashed one that hit the floor. Let's see the one guy I know. We called him libby. Uh, to this day I can't remember his real name. I've run into him at swim meets. Yeah, so really nice guy when we were still friendly. But we put, uh, someone snuck out and put buns in his exhaust pipe that's hilarious, you know.
Speaker 1:So wait could that be dangerous no because it kicks it out.
Speaker 3:It's not enough to stall the motor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you did like a potato or something a little more, I probably could cause some issues yeah, for context, we're talking about hot dog buns for, like real pretty small hot dogs and they're always steamed so they're always super soft.
Speaker 3:Yeah so I know, you know people who are having bad days. You know, uh employees would have. They'd go on the walk-in punch a cube of chili scream and they thought they couldn't be heard. You'd always hear them outside, but they wouldn't travel into the dining area.
Speaker 1:The walk-in was like the big refrigerator that you could literally walk into.
Speaker 3:Like a room refrigerator that you could like literally walk into. Yeah, like a room. So I mean it was just the. The best part, looking back, is that it's the. The mental part was the best part. We did math in our head yeah we, we did orders in our head. I can tell you right now how do we call everything still. Yeah, I know how we played it. Remember how we played it on the table. This was this way.
Speaker 1:This way it's just like yeah, a little system, you work out system.
Speaker 3:And then you know, uniforms were khaki pants. Let's see, when I started working it was black pants, white, white shirt, button down.
Speaker 1:Oh really.
Speaker 3:Managers had to wear a blue shirt. Don't you remember Any time that? Okay, so you'll vouch for this. When we worked, I always had a button down shirt on. Most other people wore polos.
Speaker 1:Did you really wear button down shirts All?
Speaker 2:the time.
Speaker 3:I picture you wearing the polo.
Speaker 1:We all had the polo.
Speaker 2:Everyone else had the polos did you really wear button-down shirts? I remember all the time I I picture you wearing wearing the polo. We all had the like everyone else had the polos.
Speaker 3:At least I had button-down shirts, the pocket with the skyline logo on over the left, yeah, uh-huh, and I always had my sleeves rolled, yeah, down to my elbow yeah yeah, yeah I always liked.
Speaker 3:I always liked the look of the button-down shirt. Now, on lazier days, I would wear a polo, but I liked the look, the old, you know, the standout. You know, when you come in, this person's a manager, which to me was always fun because I was opened. I remember a Sunday morning we had you know some clientele who I'm more important We'll say a Karen, but you know, listen to Metallica. You know, got a hat on because I had hair back then and Just open the store. She's knocking on the door. She's like hey, we got a party coming in. Okay, we'll be open up at 10 30. Well, can we come in early? Well, no, because I'm not ready. I don't have serving staff here, we're not gonna. We open 10 30. You got 30 minutes and she looked at me and she's like well, let me speak to the manager.
Speaker 1:And I was like oh, I am the manager, did you do the whole thing? Where you like, turn around, and I had a friend, like it's me no, no, I had a friend do that.
Speaker 3:I did not. You know, he told me when he worked at uh or he somewhere down texas, he spun, he was a server and I love, I love him. He moved out san diego. He's a flight nurse now and uh, you know, props out to jonathan you know, I text them every time it's his birthday I remember jonathan uh, so but yeah, it's just like I am the manager. You'll wait 30 minutes until my staff gets here yeah and they did. They waited on the sidewalk and then came in.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, that's it yeah, and then the opposite of that are the nights where, like, you're closing at like 11 o'clock or one in the morning and someone rolls in at like 10 minutes till maybe, like oh man.
Speaker 3:Well, that's when you well, no one liked me. When we moved from Fort Mitchell to Fort Wright, we got the drive-thru location, which is probably Is that where you worked at.
Speaker 1:I never worked at Fort Wright. Yeah, I was only at Fort Mitchell. I did Buttermilk too. I opened the Buttermilk store, the first Buttermilk store before the second one opened.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they hopped across the street to the. Yeah, once we got the drive-thru, I would actually stay late. I would stay open a little bit later because people were coming through the food's hot. People would clean. I would make the food. I'd pass it out. Yes, I would wash my hands.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's just, yeah, it was fun learning to deal with the stress as a young teenager when you're trying to talk to adults who are upset to transitioning to being adults, trying to not parent to people I work with, but you know they they would always come up and have questions and they were silly questions and it was like well, I really like this guy. Like what do you mean? Like you really like this guy? It's just like, well, I just don't know how I like him, and it's like you know, full disclosure. It was. I mean I was dumb. I'm still kind of dumb. It's like well, let's break it down. Like you like, like him, like him, how do you feel you like him? Like, well, I'm not really sure I'm like do you want to see him naked?
Speaker 2:They're like yeah, Well, then you really like him.
Speaker 3:Okay, Then you know, ask him out. Well shouldn't he ask me out? I'm like, well, guys are dumb.
Speaker 2:You know.
Speaker 3:it's okay to let them know, but don't see him naked on the first day. Wait a while Take time let's not date one let's get to know him. Let's do this the old school way, where you really you know this is going to be a meaningful relationship that's going to last for years. I'm more about supporting that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you end up taking on almost like a mentor kind of dynamic with a lot of the employees. So you end up taking on almost like a mentor kind of dynamic with a lot of the employees. Yeah, I would recommend restaurant work to, like, anyone entering the workforce who hasn't, like, if they've never done anything at all. Because, like so, I worked a lot of restaurant jobs. I'm curious to hear if you worked any other ones, and I'll get to that in a sec. But, like with the restaurant job, you learn how to work hard because, like, once the dinner rush comes in, it's like everyone, it's like all hands on deck, like you just sit there and bust it out, like you don't have a choice, like the orders are rolling in.
Speaker 1:You know people are coming in, you need to get that food out. You know you learn some humility because you might be doing jobs that you never thought you would do. My first restaurant actually was before Skyline was where I learned how to scrub toilets. But then when I started Skyline, I worked in the dish tank when I first started and like you're cleaning off people's plates For a lot of people and like and I understand that not everyone is as open or can like can kind of handle like that kind of work.
Speaker 3:There's a crossroads of germs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like that kind of work the cross, the cross fence of germs yeah, like I understand. Like for some people that's that's an absolute no-go. But for I think most people you can get past it. Like, yeah, it might be a little bit gross at first but like I haven't. Like, after like one shift, really, you're like all right, whatever, like just throw the slop in the garbage can, rinse off the dish, throw it in the tank. Like you learn that you learn. Uh, yeah, you're, you're working with people, you're on a team like you know. There is no like I mean unless, unless your very first restaurant gig is you running a hot dog stand. Like you're going to be working with others. There's like all these like really good benefits and skills that come out of it. And one of the things I've noticed, um, for skyline like I really enjoyed my time at skyline as well, like I made, made legit friends. You and I are sitting here 25 years later doing a podcast. It's not like we've hung out continuously for 25 years, but we've formed a good bond.
Speaker 3:It was enjoyable. You see people years later and it takes you back to that time when you remember all that feeling, all the emotion, all the you know just like it's like. And you do have friends who are. You may not see them for years, but you pick back up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and you care about that person.
Speaker 3:You wonder what's going on and you know. But like you know, after this, you know, after today, I'm going to go to my job, you're going to go do your thing and then we're not gonna go have beverages. But that doesn't mean we can't yeah you gotta talk to my wife.
Speaker 3:She's a social calendar. I'm not so, but that's just how it is and that's fine. That's acceptable. It's you still care about that person. You've there's a meaningful impact to their life and if they've impacted your life, you care. You know, like I said, impacted your life, you care about them. But it's a lot of fun. You learn a lot of responsibility from the get-to-go being young, because it's not your parents telling you to clean the bathroom, it's someone in charge. My role was always.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to ask you to do the thing that I wouldn't do yeah, and we were fortunate there was no nothing in a restaurant, at least our restaurant, that was like so beyond the pale that like no one else is going to do it. Um so, but I like what there was a day.
Speaker 3:There was a day, and what room of the restaurant.
Speaker 1:Are we talking before we go down this path? It's a restroom, of course. Who's restroom? All right, yeah, it was a mess. Okay, it was the lady's room.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:She blew it up.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like literally blew it up. Yeah, it was, that's rough, it was gross. It was definitely an experience that I still giggle about, because I remember walking in and going like CSI, yeah, what happened in here, like oh my gosh yeah. Okay. Well, the trajectory of the hit this angle and it caused this.
Speaker 1:You're putting strings out, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was like wow, yeah, that's rough, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It was gross. So have you worked at many other restaurants like? So my career? I ended up working at like eight to ten restaurants and there's one other that stands out to me that has a similar culture that we had at skyline. The rest of them, like yeah, the skills are still the same that I mentioned before, but the people weren't always that great and management wasn't always that great and it totally changes like um, I'll give you another example like the best as far as like where it stood in the star ranking scale was I did work at a really nice steakhouse in dayton, ohio. It was. It was not.
Speaker 1:You know, the big one around cincinnati is jeff rubies. That is the place where people should go to if they're from out of town and they like steak. Like go there, it's the best, it's awesome. It's hard to consider anything else. It wasn't that level, but it was very close. It was like where the, it's kind of where, yeah, people who had money, they went to this restaurant and like I remember one I hated it. I was a busboy. Everyone was broken into clicks like the. The serving staff all stay together, the bus boys stay together cooking.
Speaker 1:But I remember at that time in my life I was getting into cooking myself and I remember talking to one of the chefs there who was a professional chef, and I was like, yeah, tell him, I was thinking about it and he was like, don't do it. I'm like what do you mean? He's like the hours are terrible, like it's high stress, like he was. You know, the stakes are a little, a little bit higher.
Speaker 3:There's a level of perfection that you have to attain because if it doesn't go out the way someone wants it, it's going to come back. You get to redo it again. That's a lost product and you know. It's a nightmare.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it's one thing to throw out a Coney that costs, you know, $2 at the chili parlor. It's another thing to throw out that $70 steak, that filet, because you overcooked it, which is very easy to do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, very easy. But talking about pricing $2 a Coney, it was $1.25 back when we worked.
Speaker 1:Goodness, her perspective is now like $3.50. It's $2.80 something. Is that what it is? I think it's $2 something.
Speaker 3:I thought it was even more than that. Yeah, let's see, last week was scott, was was chili week and gold star, which is one of my top favorite yeah, um, still love skyline.
Speaker 1:Doug always liked the competition. Let the record show I always did.
Speaker 3:I like to piss people off. Uh, my favorite's empress chili, which is out in highland Heights. There's only one left. But Gold Star had a deal last week for two cheese counties for $5. So, it was $2.50. So they're about $3 a county.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like Gold Star. One opinion I know not everyone shares is like I think their veggie chili is great. Like when I go to Gold Star I get their veggie chili.
Speaker 3:I still like the beans and rice at Skyline.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:But I add an immense amount of crackers, hot sauce and mustard.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, nice.
Speaker 3:She has it up the mustard really kicks it off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Okay. So I remember when I was working at Skyline. That was when you went to the police academy from there, right? That was yeah, six years there, right that was yeah, six years ago.
Speaker 3:So was it six years ago, six years, six years ago, in september that was when ann decided to give away her kidney. 2019 was a whirlwind. It was a scheduling nightmare of decision making that I don't know how we got through it, but we did. Even Ann will say what were we thinking? We were so dumb.
Speaker 1:So tell me about what made you go to the academy.
Speaker 3:Well, we're going to go back more than six years, so I always wanted to be a police officer. I always wanted to be a police officer. I found out later in life that my grandpa, on my mother's side, was a reserve officer for, I believe, the city of park hill oh nice not positive, but uh, so he was reserved.
Speaker 3:So maybe there was some subconscious or some type of push there. But you know, I can't, I don't, I can't really recall. I remember seeing, uh, it was police chief. It was mr heidemann, whose wife taught second grade science at st agnes. I remember mrs heidemann. She looks the same still today, like literally still the same. Uh, so I guess because of that, all those interactions you know back then.
Speaker 3:So I joined the uh fire department in 94 when I was 19, did that off and on for about 17 years. Wow. So the reason why I went that was my brother, my older brother, rick. He was a fireman and always, you know, it's the same thing that people have oh, this looks exciting. You got a big red truck, lights and siren rolling wherever you want, as fast as you want, you know. So who doesn't love that? So I ended up joining the fire side to see what it was like to be a civil servant, to see what it is to serve the community in that aspect. And people always ask like, why don't you do it for pay? It's like, well, I've got a job, I like doing it. On the fact that it truly is a sacrifice of my time and I'm getting the benefits of the education and the training. So that's just me being just hating myself, I guess. I don't you know. I don't, you know, I really don't want to call it, but so I tried to get on the Covington years ago.
Speaker 1:The Covington Fire.
Speaker 3:Covington Fire. Okay, and it didn't work. Not really sure where I got stopped and then I started taking the uh police tests and for some reason I got further on the police side than the fire side what?
Speaker 1:what is on the test?
Speaker 3:uh, simple math, grammar, navigation, um, they're all pretty much similar, very easy tests to take, it's just common knowledge. And how you can apply it. Uh, I remember one of them for hovington was they had a city map and it was like a paragraph if this person goes down this street, takes a left, goes so many blocks, takes a right, goes so many blocks, goes this and then does so, you know, keep doing turns and stops. What street are they on? Wow, and you're like nice, well, they're on sixth street or they're you know yeah and that was the answer.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I think that kind of stuff is like really fascinating. What would be on a like a very specific kind of test? And what that makes me think of is? I talked to someone who was in college last year who was looking to become a dentist, and I can't remember if dennis is a separate school from med school or if it's like you go to med school and then dentistry is like part of it. But to get into whatever program it was part of, the test was being able to identify geo, like um, geometric figures, like as if they were 3d like. What do I mean by that? So you know, as a dentist, they have to be able to like stick a mirror in your mouth and then like be able to look around your teeth and then like scrape stuff off it.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So the test would be something like you know, this is on paper, so it's 2d and they would show. They would try to draw it like a geometric shape and it'd be like and then, like, the multiple choice would be different geometric shapes meant to be like, like a rotation of like what you were looking at before, like it would show you, like from one side, is the question and then the multiple choice to be like which of these would be like the vertical angle of that geometric shape.
Speaker 1:It was really interesting you know and like and not honestly not everyone is good with that kind of stuff. A lot of people aren't good with like shapes and spatial and like whatever. So it was interesting to see something that specific, that tailored to the profession yeah, because I don't think.
Speaker 3:I don't think the civil service tests that we take are very geared. That would be the only one that's close to being geared because of city blocks and directions of travel, but I think it was just really, can you follow along? And what's your comprehension on the reading, which is very simple you put your finger on the map as he makes a turn, you make the turn and then you go okay.
Speaker 1:Like there we are. Hey, there we are. He's on six and vine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah okay, and they didn't use covington as the as the city streets. It was any, any street, which makes me think of a joke. I just went through training a couple weeks ago and probably one of the best classes I've been through, and it was a leadership class called Leadership is a Behavior and to me, the class was very self-analyzing, self-political. How aware are you of your feelings? How aware are you of your own leadership styles, your strengths, your weaknesses? And the joke that one guy gave was like's a street? What's the street name in every street? And it was one way. So in leadership, it's my way, it's one way and it took forever for everyone to go one way. How does this really apply? It's like, yeah, it's my way, and what we learned in that class was it's not yeah but we hijacked the yeah, the dentist.
Speaker 1:Thing but okay, yeah, that's really interesting. So did you guys do like a personality test? Or anything like that. Which one did you do? I can't tell you.
Speaker 3:Disc anagram we looked at the. We did finder we. We looked at um. We looked at the disc. We did a. Is it a? Love me? Uh, which was that that's? I can't remember what. We did one. I can't tell you the name of them are because I've taken so many, because ann always likes to look. I'm like what are you? It's like, well, I'm, I'm classified as this. I'm in, yeah, intrinsic. You know, I'm an introvert, extrovert. I'm over here. It's the one with the owl lion prism. There's a dog. These are where you classify as the images of what you are.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, no, I haven't done that.
Speaker 3:One there's strengths and weaknesses on both. You're perceived as this and you're this. So it was a really good class because we watched two movies.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But while we watched the movies, we had homework in the sense that we had to pick a character. Well, we were assigned a character to watch, determine what their leadership style was normally, and then under stress, and so it was like so really, I mean, like I said, it was a fantastic class, that you know. The one thing I'm going to take away and I want to put like a in my not in my room, but in my office or somewhere it's it's the don't make your day someone else's day, which is, if I'm having a bad day.
Speaker 3:Don't make your day someone else's day, which is, if I'm having a bad day, don't make you have a bad day. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really interesting. So what kind of stuff did you learn at the academy Basic?
Speaker 3:Basic how to listen, I mean.
Speaker 1:Is there like de-escalation training?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's de-escalation training, descalation training, yeah, there's descalation training. So before we get into that, I mean if we're going to do full disclosure of the timeline of events, it was fire department for years and that covered over, you know, 94 to 2018, 2019. You know a couple of breaks in there because I moved out of the city, lived in Fort Mitchell, lived in Fort Wright.
Speaker 1:Are you not allowed to be on the fire department if you're not in the city To frown upon?
Speaker 3:You can now because it's difficult to get volunteers. But I knew giving up being a volunteer to take a paid position in law enforcement there's really. I need to spend time at home too, and so I miss it. I mean I love the guys. It was great, learned a lot of skills, learned a lot of things. You kind of get the adrenaline and that's why people do it. I of get the adrenaline and that's why people do it. I don't think they realize that's why they do it, but you know, a lot of times it's you know, self-sacrifice. So let's see, I did fire department, joined 94, joined the military in 99. Did the army.
Speaker 1:Oh, I forgot about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't really talk about it too much because I don't really think I did anything with it.
Speaker 1:Were you reserve or which one was reserve?
Speaker 3:Okay, and then, two years in, you know, my dad passed away. Mom had a hard time with finances. Um, I almost got in a lot of trouble cause I didn't go to drill, cause I made more money as a manager working weekends and going to drill as a private, making $8 an hour versus management. I mean, it was really, you know, so I made that choice. And then I got certified letters and I, you know, I was like, well, I can't, you know, to me I'm not saying I, it's not my proudest moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So Did they just like let you out when you're like, hey, this isn't working for me anymore? Or are they like no, you're on a contract, son, you have a contract and I had a really good.
Speaker 3:so my unit changed company commanders about three times in two years, which I don't know if that's standard practice or not.
Speaker 3:I don't think it is. So I had a conversation with the company commander. All the drill time that I missed, I paid back. I come in during the week and I loved it. I loved being up there. I worked around the motor pool, I worked in the office, I just ran around, did private stuff, I did anything and everything and it was. It was great.
Speaker 3:And then, uh, she's like well, if you're having this financial hardship, we can just go ahead and move you to the inactive ready reserve. You become an individual. You can still fulfill your contract. How does that sound? So, of course, being 24 at the time, I jumped on it. You know, looking back, I wish I would have been more mature and really had a broader knowledge of the way the world works. I would have continued and fulfilled the contract completely, maybe even extend it, not really sure. Nothing wrong with the unit, but you know I jumped on the chance to stay home, help mom. You know that's the narrative. I'm telling myself yeah, and that's what worked, you know. So we kept the house and the family and then so I graduated in December 99, got a job in Covington PD in 2000,. In February did all the tests. They had this one test where you had to have a vertical leap of 18 inches so I don't play basketball. When have you ever known me to be really like athletic, athletic?
Speaker 1:I'm not you know so. So, like, what were you able to do? Like I don't even know how hard it would be to do 18 inches.
Speaker 3:Um, they got rid of the test. How about that? Okay?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So shortly after I failed it, they got rid of the test.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Um, I was able to do it, but you get, you get um, you know like. You get like three tries or six tries. It always took me nine. Okay, yeah, so they shipped me down anyway.
Speaker 1:For like ah close enough.
Speaker 3:First day. Well, no, I passed it.
Speaker 1:I was just like work on it.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'm going to work on it. So I'm in my driveway jumping as high as I can. Yeah, Several days a week in preparation for this test.
Speaker 1:Did you get the run? Is there like a do a mile and 10 minutes? Mile and a half.
Speaker 3:I can't, I couldn't tell you what the times are. You know you can go to website and you know, look up kentucky pop standards. You know they're all listed. So it's a 300 meter sprint. I think you have to do it under like 67 seconds, mile and a half and under, I think, 16 minutes. It's not really that, it's not horrible. Um, I think it's 18 sit-ups, 24 push-ups. Uh, you hit the bench press 75 of your weight okay so all right.
Speaker 1:So it's like you need to have some physical. Yeah, you have to be, you have to be somewhat in shape you can't just be a you know,
Speaker 3:yeah a couch behavior. Go out there and just yeah you can't pass that. You can't, you don't go.
Speaker 3:You only just roll off the bed, out of bed and you're like yeah, let me knock this out no, but you know, my thing is, I went down as a 24 year old, you know, cocky, you know. You know me how. When have I ever been like a cocky person? I it's not my standard uhisms. I came out, I felt like I could defeat the world. I got hired. I thought it was great and they moved fast and it was like okay, you come down here and you're going to swear in Okay, here you go. Here's your gun, here's your badge, here's your belt, here's your suit. This is where you need to go for this. You need to do all this. I'm okay, this is what we're doing. Okay, great, okay, we're going to send you down here. This is what we got to do. Then they go. They go down there. They're talking You're all lined up. I'm military. They're talking like this is paramilitary. I'm like, looking at it, I'm like no, this is they. Don't you know they're not standing right. They're not.
Speaker 3:You know, I didn't give the vantage point of they're new. They don't know there's been no training. You know, to me my favorite thing to do in the military was marching. Dressing ceremony, the weird cadence, the half steps, the right steps. That, to me, was like I love it. That's the pattern. To me it's almost like my wife was in ASMR. I love it. You know I could watch it today. I enjoy it. It's the pattern, it's the movement. I, you know I get into it. So went down there and I was just like okay, whatever, this is fine. Well, you know, this is whatever paramilitary. You got nothing when I just trained on and then we could take the test. I failed the jump test.
Speaker 3:You're like not again it's just like really okay, go to go somewhere. We sit across this table. I had this. I almost I had this smirk on my face because the guy in charge looked at me. He's like you, look like you're happy going home, like it's you know, it's whatever you know. Yeah, I didn't care. I should have cared yeah you know.
Speaker 3:So I go back, talk to my command staff and we're just talking. He's like, well, you're gonna do this. And then a guy who's in my unit, he's a sergeant, he was gonna go, but they're talking about, excuse me, I, they're talking about bumping him. I'm like bumping him, no, he'll like. He's like pinnacle of physical strength. He's like, no, I don't want to screw him up. When you say bumping, do you mean like Well, that's where me not thinking they're going to bump him. I mean, to my mind, they're like they're not going to.
Speaker 2:They were going to delay his departure.
Speaker 3:Oh okay, you know well, no, they were just going to, you know, send him down when there's another slot open. You know which I understand now Didn't know then, you know, I thought I was screwing this guy's life up.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I resigned.
Speaker 2:Oh man.
Speaker 3:Yeah, went back to Skyline. It is what it is yeah and then you know that's where a lot of it I look at. You know that's 2000. The next year my dad passed. I got to spend a year with my dad.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So to me, look at how you want. I'm going to look at it as that's a year I got to spend with my dad For sure. Yeah, things happen for a reason. Beat myself up. So people say well, I didn't know you were in the army. I don't tell people it's not my proudest moment. I've got a friend who wanted to be in the military and he's like happy Veterans Day. I'm like stop it. You signed the check.
Speaker 2:man you signed. Would you have gone if they had called?
Speaker 3:you? Yeah, now I think I'm too old, but would you go if they sent you? Yeah, I would yeah you know it's, the dedication is not gone. Yeah, I was 24 and stupid. Yeah, I didn't think about the way the world worked because, well, honestly, I sheltered myself working in skyline, you know, and that's yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you definitely can't beat yourself up over stuff you did when you're young I mean like even just taking the steps to get as far as you did both times is like pretty remarkable. Most people don't do that.
Speaker 3:Well, it's funny because my dad was in the air force and I laughed, cause I just told this story to someone the other day. Um, I went in the wrong room, I went in the wrong door. I was going to join the air force Really going to join the air force, really um, but I went to the army's door yeah and like, oh my god, this is no, no, no, no, come on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, come on in, sit down. Yeah, they want to bring you in. Yeah, have some cool day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, next door they have crayons for the marines.
Speaker 2:We got, you know so, but they signed.
Speaker 3:You can do whatever you want, but what is funny, or slightly interesting, is, is two years before I tried to join the Coast Guard, so I was 22. And I had it all mapped out. Joined the Coast Guard Maybe tried to be a pilot, because you can be a pilot with glasses in the Coast Guard. Other services you couldn't at the time. Oh really so. Took the ASVAB. Everything went well. Went up to MEPS, which is the processing station up in columbus?
Speaker 1:what's the asvab?
Speaker 3:asvab is the armed services vocational aptitude battery. I think that's what it stands for. Gosh, what a mouthful you take.
Speaker 3:It tells you basically what you're good at, okay yeah mine said, because I remember being posted when I graduated from beachwood. I remember being posted on the wall or you got the reports back this is what you'll be good at, pilot, firefighter. And I want to say law enforcement. But I'm not going to say it's on there, but I'm pretty sure it was. You know, because me growing up, like I said, you know you get influenced. And back in the 80s it was all the police shows, duke say hazard, sheriff lobo, uh, bj mckay and his best friend bear. So to me I was like well, I'm either gonna go law enforcement, firefighting or backup plans, gonna be a truck driver, nice. So to this day I joke and say my backup's to be a truck driver no way, dude.
Speaker 1:You gotta, like you gotta get your pilot's license at some point. I'm afraid of heights.
Speaker 3:All right, maybe don't get your pilot's license but I will say so, I've flown three times in planes. Uh, we went to wisconsin with my unit for our so one weekend on two weeks a year, my two-week training, and they marched us to this big football field and we're like what's going on? And we could see I think it was new york air national guard flying blackhawks. Nice, they came in and they landed and like okay, put your earbuds in. Yeah, get on board.
Speaker 1:I'm like yeah okay, let's go yeah, wasn't it at one point, like weren't looking into working for like the telephone company or something like that?
Speaker 2:Then you're like they're like cable, yeah, and they're like right, clamp that pole.
Speaker 1:You're like never mind? Oh well, no, because I fell.
Speaker 3:Oh, you fell. Yeah, the guy took me back in the woods because he was an independent contractor and so he didn't take me. I wasn't properly trained. He didn't take me to the training grounds where they teach you how to do it, he just gave me the gaffers. It's like a spike you put on your foot, you step on your foot and you strap it on your calves, and then you put this big belt.
Speaker 3:So you basically are putting spikes in this tree, oh dear, and the belt's around. So it's basically you know okay, so you can't like yeah, physics works, but if you don't spike right, no, and you don't spike no, not gonna do it, you fall yeah, well, I fell about five feet and that belt doesn't let you fall far from the tree yeah so so did like drag you down the tree, basically, yeah basically, basically, oh my gosh, I didn't get hurt but it's just like I'm good.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:If it makes you feel any better. Like I'm terrible with heights too. I can do planes just fine. If I'm like strapped in or I'm behind a you know a handrail or something like that, I can do it. But I was out with some friends in Mount Zion a few years ago almost three years ago now and there's a beautiful, absolutely gorgeous hike out there called Angel's Landing. I recommend it to anyone who can stomach it.
Speaker 1:I was not able to. It's something like where you take your path that is like two feet wide or something like that, and as long as you can manage it, I think. I mean I saw little kids doing it and I took one. It was a time in my life where I tried to mind over matter it. I'm like I know I'm not good with heights, but man, this is amazing. I'm with a bunch of buddies. This is perfect day out. It was actually my birthday. Now that I think about it, it was April 12th and I was already up pretty high and I was like you know, I can just do this. You know, my friend said just like, look at the feet in front of you and just follow that. I accidentally took like one glance to the side and I got like lightheaded and my first thought was like I'm basically I can't die because I got young kids at home.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I got a wife and kids, like I'm not, I don't need to take this risk when I'm, when I'm getting woozy up here and so I like basically slid down on my butt. I was only you know the way the hike works is the first. Like two thirds of it are just a normal hike through, you know, up a hill. Basically it's not bad at all, but it's the last third where it gets real steep. And so I was a hundred, about a hundred yards up that section of it. I just went back down on my butt, I couldn't do it, and I saw like little kids walking right past me, like no problem.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that's a, that's a hard pass. I accept it now that that's not gonna be my, yeah, that's not gonna be my uh recreation we've done, uh red river gorge, uh natural bridge.
Speaker 3:My problem is, my curiosity gets the better of me. I want to creep to the side and look down yeah but uh, like on the fire side. You know, someone's probably on the other side of this podcast going. He's a fireman. They do ladders all the time. No problem with ladders? Yeah, none, because you're looking at a brick wall yeah now the aerial going nowhere no it's not going anywhere, it's not attached to anything yeah, you know, but ladders, climb it work off it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not a problem. See, I don't even like to hang up the christmas lights on my house because I'm up on a ladder. I mean, I, I've gotten to the point where I can do it. I have to be very mindful of how I put the ladder up. If it's like real sturdy, no problem, but some of the angles on my, because there's a trio against my front house, the front of my house, that makes me have to go like a real steep angle and then I get all wobbly and yeah, yeah no, no, no yeah, so, yeah.
Speaker 1:So tell me, like what is it like a typical day in the life of your police world? Like, do you just show up? Is it like, do you have like speeding duty do you have? Do you just patrol the neighborhoods? Like what do you like?
Speaker 3:what's a day like, so a day is, I want to say it's mayhem, it's not, it's uh. You try not to keep a routine, because routine is what's going to get you hurt, in case people are out there, because the mentality that was pushed for a while was us versus them wow, now like who's the them?
Speaker 1:everyone else, everyone else.
Speaker 3:I mean it's the current. I love saying this. The current narrative, you know, is there's not a lot of people who like law enforcement, and I think that's because I'm going to say it's the news. The news wants to put out anything that's going to grow all your attention. They get ratings. That's what they want. You know people, you know social media. That's. You know what we're going to get negative contents, what's going to get more people will follow you because they want to see more.
Speaker 3:We as a people, as a nation, we're gluttons for punishment. We watch train wrecks. We love it. We're there for the train wrecks. Reality tv, man, that's, and that's what it is.
Speaker 3:So for us, it's us versus them, and it's not a healthy mentality to have in what I call customer service and I, I'm a trainer and I train my guys. This is customer service. You got on this job for what reason? I want to help people. Then help them. What can you do to help them? Look at it from a customer base. This is who pays your bills. This is who wants you here. You're showing up and they're having a horrible day.
Speaker 3:Do you come in being an a-hole? Do you come in with the mindset of like, I'm here to help you. What can I do? It's customer service. So I don't have that mentality as much as a maybe pushed it more in the academy, but you're individual. So you get basic training. It's basic. Basic training is like military, it's basic training. Then you go to your school to learn your military job. So when you go to your city, your county, your department, they fine-tune it, they polish your gemstone. So you have to learn to work within the confines of that city, what they want, how they want it, where work is basically may bury on crack. We're not a little city, we're giant, we're huge so how big is independence?
Speaker 3:oh 15 to 17 square miles okay, wow so where we live now is maybe three, yeah, so yeah we have a population. What? Where we live, population 3 000.
Speaker 1:Where I work, over 20 000 oh my gosh, wow, that's way bigger than I thought, so it's enjoyable.
Speaker 3:So we come into roll call, talk about anything that happened the day before and it's emails that have come in through, you know, citizen portals. People want us to hit areas you know they're seeing they have issues over here, having issues over there. This is where we have to focus on that. So then we go through that. Then we go hit the street. So we look at the areas that people want us to hit. You drive around Daytime. You hit the stores, say hi to people. We're a community.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're kind of being like ambassadors, yeah so you want to go out, you want to say hi to people, you want to be friendly, you want to be approachable. Um, and the one thing that really irritates me is if you go to kroger walmart your kids being bad mom's going. Well, you keep this up. You know I'm gonna call the cops on you. I'm gonna get the police officer. And this is where you're not. You're dressed, but you're you know. It's just like you're scaring that child that the, the cops are bad. Yeah, so what's gonna happen when your kid goes missing? It's the same thing on the fire side guys wearing their all their gear. They're scary looking. The kid's gonna hide. That's not what you want yeah you want that kid to know.
Speaker 3:This is who you go to.
Speaker 1:You know like what do you all think of like when you see like the thin blue line flags or stickers on cars or something like that? Is that, is that reassuring, or is it? Or you do you look at that as like, oh great, it's like a political statement, or like a culture war thing.
Speaker 3:Well, that's a different thought process, really. So if you were to come to my house, there's nothing in my house that says this is the house of a police officer, the only way. It's a giveaway. If you look at my closet, you look at my garage, my cars in my garage. We don't throw it around, we don't have the flags. It's the show, a sign of support, but at the same time, to me I don't look at it as as it could be a false support. To me, a bad guy could put that on his car to try and get away. It's deceptive. So if you have that on your car, hey, that's great, appreciate it. It's not going to change how I'm going to do my job. If you're speeding, you're speeding. You know I love pulling cars over, love it, favorite thing to do in the world.
Speaker 2:Love it, Absolutely Wait why, why.
Speaker 1:Mr. Customer support, here I love it.
Speaker 3:It's so. It's one of the most dangerous things we do. Yeah, the other one is spending time in people's living rooms, domestics, it's just. I mean, people can't see me. I lit up, I'm like, I'm smiling, I love it. I love pulling people over. It's a point.
Speaker 3:When I took my interview to get the job, they asked me what I thought policing was, and I started when I was 44. It was my last shot and supported me all through the couple times I tried and we decided that this was like I'm done. This is my opinion. It's parenting. Policing is parenting other adults. I am one parent. Yeah, I find you do something wrong. I'm going to pull you aside and we're going to address it. Yeah, what it takes to address it, you may have to go to the other parent which is the judge.
Speaker 3:Okay, so to me, I don't write a lot of tickets, it's a conversation. Okay, most of my traffic stops, organically, have evolved to be where it is. It's a safety lesson. You get a headline out. There's lots of deers out here. You're going to hit a deer. You can't see it. I don't want to take the accident report. I don't want to call your mom. I don't want to call your family. You lost the vehicle, you got hurt, you lost your life. I don't want to. Yeah, I don't want to be that introduction to someone else yeah are people usually pretty receptive, like I'm sure.
Speaker 1:At first they're freaking out when you walk up, but then by the end they're like, oh, he's just giving me a parenting lesson well, I'm sure they probably don't think that, but they don't think of it as parenting, but like right.
Speaker 3:But most of the time I'd say most of the time I stop people, they thank me okay because the interaction I have is is I'm not 24 old, 25, 28, from 1930s, you know yeah uh-huh, I just turned 50. Yeah, so to me it's. I want you to get home safe now. That doesn't mean I'm not gonna. You know you're going 26 over in a school zone. You're gonna get paperwork yeah you know. So I turn the guys to where it's like what's it gonna take to change the behavior? Yeah, is this going to be this awkward roadside conversation?
Speaker 3:yeah, which is what I love to call them yeah you know, that's my favorite thing tell me what you do without telling me what you do. I do awkward roadside conversations, yeah you know sure yeah.
Speaker 2:So what's it going to?
Speaker 1:take yeah conversation paperwork yeah, and as a quick like aside. So I used to work for a judge for about a year and a half and I got to see a lot of criminal cases where that stemmed out like traffic stops. And I will say that the law is set up in a way to recognize the danger that police put them in in those kinds of situations. Like you see a lot of situations where what are we looking for if we're the judge? So, because the way it would get across our desk is not necessarily the trial, but like people can contest whether or not a traffic stop was constitutional or whether any kind of stop is constitutional.
Speaker 1:Because the way the fourth amendment works, that's for searches and seizures, if a police officer were to violate your constitutional rights, basically you throw out the evidence. They call it suppressing motion is suppressed. It's like the what brings it to our eyes and it basically is a way of saying that like, well, hey, if a cop just pulled you over for zero reason at all and then he pulled you out your car and then he searched every compartment in it and he found out, oh, you got a bag of weed or like something like that, then like they can throw that out because that's inappropriate. Um, that's inappropriate action on the police officer, which is not the norm. I should say, throw that in there. But what I came to appreciate from doing that area of law is the danger that police officers put themselves into. Like, for example, a lot of things we will look at. If we're looking at, like a dashboard cam of like, a pull of a stop, are there furtive movements? Is the person or person reaching around their car and doing all that kind of stuff?
Speaker 1:because, like, if, if you're in your shoes and you see someone doing that, like yeah, they can be pulling a gun they could be, you know, doing like whatever, and you know, you know, while a an officer might need a warrant to search your glove compartment, your locked glove compartment or your trunk, they're allowed to get you out of your car and it's for their safety. Another, another example I'll give you, I'll throw out there is, you know, a lot of times people will talk about like why aren't the laws stricter for people who use guns to commit crimes? And the answer is at least in Ohio they are. They are. They call them specifications and, depending how you use a gun in a crime, you will get an automatic one to three years extra in jail for using that gun. It's enhancement.
Speaker 1:You also in Ohio I don't know how Kentucky is you will get an enhancement or a specification if you wear body armor. And the reason why we don't need people going around wearing body armor to protect themselves from a gunfight with the police. It's like a safety measure, which I'm not sure, by the way, how many people actually have body armor that could repel, that could withstand gunfire. But yeah, the reason we have those is to protect the police. They are the ones out in society trying to confront the dangers.
Speaker 3:I mean, I would love a world where I wouldn't have to wear body armor or carry a gun. I think it'd be fantastic. I don't think we're ever gonna get there yeah and about gun control.
Speaker 3:I'm all for gun control, but the issue is and this might be a jaded opinion I don't. I think it's stopping good citizens from from acquiring a weapon, because the bad guys will always get a weapon, because bad guys I don't want to say bad guys, because I had a conversation with my nine-year-old the other day we all have that little voice on our head that tells us inclinations of what well, this might be fun. What about this? Inclinations of what well, this might be fun? What about this? It's up to us to think about what the ramifications are for that voice. If we listen to voice, I have a voice in my head that tells me things that I probably shouldn't do, and I don't do it. It's you don't have to listen to voice. Make the, make the choice. You know I watched uh, you know I don't, I don't watch police shows. I mean. Now it's got to a point where it's a technicality oh, can't do that, oh, can't do that. You know, nope, that's wrong.
Speaker 3:Nope, nope yeah, I'm the same way with law shows, it's just yeah, they're so amazing, it's like this is fun, but now that I know about it, nope, that's wrong, like Like Chicago Fire Entertaining. But have you looked at the size of their face masks? No, they're huge, huge, absolutely huge, so you can see the whole face of the actor or the actress. It's huge, it's like that.
Speaker 2:No, Not how that works.
Speaker 3:It's giant but it is for the show and how that works. No, it's giant but it is for the show and that's fine. It's what people want to watch. And you know, like I said, we're all crazy monsters trying to look at the train wreck. You know we're so desensitized to violence now in the movies that we watch. I mean, I like to watch them. But I remember watching older shows and I had a conversation with my older brother about it. It's like older movies spent so much time on character development. You got attached to the characters, like Band of Brothers is a fantastic show.
Speaker 1:I know someone who has that's like his favorite show.
Speaker 3:But it's all the character development. I mean there's some violence in it, there's some wartime, but it's not's all the character development I mean there's. I mean there's some violence in it, there's some more time, but it's not like over the top, whereas if you watch, I don't know, I want to say michael bay and transformers, you know it's just it's a light show and I mean it's just, it's just, it's almost too much, but I mean I'll go watch it. I mean I'm not gonna say I'm not gonna watch it yeah you know, but you know.
Speaker 3:Look at prime example, look at the not that it's changed, but look at the dune movies I've seen the first one.
Speaker 1:The first one was fantastic.
Speaker 3:I thought first one was fantastic. The second one was equally good, but it's more of the storytelling. The third one's gonna come out it's gonna be interesting so they so is.
Speaker 1:Are the dune movies? Do they not finish the first book by the end of the second movie?
Speaker 3:I never. I never read the book the book is great. I watch I mean I watched the first dune movie in 1986 oh, the old one, oh, it's old but it's I love it yeah if it comes on, I watch it yeah, you know, but to me this, that's my childhood yeah, so no, I know what you mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what do you want to do? Uh, you want to do a lightning round what's a lightning round? A lightning round. So I'm going to give you some questions and you have to answer them, okay, kind of like off the top of your head. But okay if, if one trips you up, don't feel like you have to, you can take a second to answer if you want.
Speaker 3:So it's kind of like watching uh beat bridget on 96.5 in the morning. Ninth caller in oh, I've never asked you. They get six questions, they get 60 seconds and they answer it and they can always pass yeah okay, okay.
Speaker 1:If you were to go anywhere on vacation right now, where would you go right now vacation?
Speaker 3:oh, michigan, what part uh up by the lakes. Uh, we went to lake charlevoix with uh, the personal trainer of yoga fitness.
Speaker 2:We were very good friends with them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, had a fantastic time. She went up there for running marathon. She went up to run a marathon. The only problem is the um, where we stayed, was the worst part about it. Okay, now, it was a mile walk into town, we didn't care, kids didn't grumble about it. That, by far, has been our favorite vacation. We want to go back.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's awesome. I love it. What's the most common mistake you see citizens make when they're interacting with police? Putting their hands in their pockets.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, uh-huh, Don't put your hands in their pockets. Oh yeah, don't put your hands in your pockets.
Speaker 1:Mine are in my pockets, while yours is yours. Yeah, no, I know what you mean. What's the worst piece of advice you've been given as a police officer?
Speaker 3:One-way street. Well, actually that was a good, that was a. You know that was advice of falling into the pit trap of leadership one-way street. Like I said, that was probably the best class I've ever had. I learned more about myself in that class than anything else. That's awesome. Um really helped me develop, want to develop, furthermore, who I am. Um, I'd say worst piece of advice is that you know you're never going to change anything. Um, I don't think that's true. I think you, I think you can change things. You know where I'm at right now in the department. I know I'm just a patrolman, but I know I've changed things. So I mean, I guess it all depends on your perspective on change. If you're looking for change from a point of authority, of making the change, no, that's horrible. Change it yourself. Change the directive. You know, I'm honestly surprised that you know adults didn't clean a table or that the garbage can't fill up. They wouldn't take it out.
Speaker 3:Take the garbage out yeah so now I take the garbage out, and now I don't have to because all the other guys keep seeing me take the garbage out. Over years they take it out when it gets full and we have a cleaning lady. But I mean, I know we prepared to clean, but we don't have to let it get to the point where. So yeah that was just one of the inner secrecies that really bothered me yeah but that's from coming from 27 years of restaurant work. Yeah, uh-huh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really no big deal to clean up. No, yeah, it's not hard, it takes two seconds. Yeah, yeah, that's the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:All right. Final question what brings you joy? My family, Everyone says that, because that's true.
Speaker 3:What the heck, because it's you understand this, it's watching your kids grow up. Now, on the business side, what brings me joy is and people are going to say, oh, because you bring people happiness and you solve things for them. No, it's taking the guys who come out of the academy who are stressed out, overwhelmed, don't know what's going on, can't add two plus two, and then there's a moment it all clicks. I remember when I had my moment. I remember who was there for my moment, helped me through that moment, and it's fantastic to see that when it hits them, where they go, it all makes sense. Yeah, and they move on.
Speaker 1:I've heard teachers say the same thing with students, like that moment when the kid gets how to do the math problem and it's like oh, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know, that's just having conversations with my kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:See them grow up and seeing them have that moment every day. And then you know an argumentative nine-year-old.
Speaker 1:So yeah, she's fantastic, that's awesome. Well, doug, thanks a lot for coming on to the pod. Oh, anytime, it's a pleasure. Well, pleasure is mine. All right, take it easy, man, you too. Thanks for coming on the pod, Doug, we can all rest easy that if you pull us over, we're probably getting off with a warning. We off with a warning. We'll be sure to keep our hands out of our pockets. Also, thanks for listening everyone. If you'd like to send feedback, check out the show notes for this episode. There is a link that lets you send a text. Until next time, take care.
