Wednesday July 4th, 2012 – Vacation Week One – Blog Entry – Day Three 
It’s another beautiful summer skied day in the land of the Ontario sun. I wake to the sounds of a garbage truck whirring, stirring and munching the refractions of what the baby raccoons did not salvage last night. A bird sings over the loud engine in competition as I try to identify it’s song – a long call where sometimes another answers. There is never a shortage of bird song or chatter in the greens that hover over this magnificent tree lined suburb street I call home. The street of my childhood is comfort and truth to me, unlike the struggles of British Columbian terrain. In fact, it was about year ago around this time that I gave official notice of my leaving the dirty detachment in No-Mans-Land, BC.
It was a tough year all around – save and except for a few fleeting moments of auxiliary graduate success, a handful of lifetime friendships and the end to chapters that were long overdue. I had been working in an environment surrounded by files of serious crime, radio in stereo dispatch, overcrowded workspaces and prisoner bar clangers and screamers that often emanated like a bad smell coming up from the basement. For a duration of four-plus years I had been immersed in the sewage that sprang up from the crimes and deeds of the addicted, twisted and defiled. There weren’t many ‘good’ stories or ‘happy’ endings; perhaps the odd lost wallet returned intact, the missing teen returning home or the stolen car found but nothing strikes me as epic in that regard. Found keys, glasses, purses, backpacks, suitcases, drugs – dirty fingerprints, traffic ticket complainers, DNA sample slimers, subpoenaed stiffs, parolee reporters and smelly front counter customers with missing teeth were the daily routine.
I don’t miss the office politics that smelled as bad as the homeless and damaged people for life. I’m certain its chokehold continues long after my post was due. That’s what you get in a small town of small talkers. My observations are that if you grew up there and you were smart enough to get through school and get your high school diploma you might be the recipient of twenty plus years of dog *ucking and working at the District before a higher education, general respect and manners were considered a job pre-requisite. Perhaps a few kids were born at the local hospital, you shared the same divorce lawyer as your ten other neighbours and you had a 50% chance of ending up living in the basement suite of what used to be a grow-op with a dog or cat to come home to. It’s a tough town to live in, grow up in and be a part of. It’s not near the small town friendly one would expect unless it’s where you came from. Kudos to those who had the strength to move on, move up and get out and make it as far as the next town of the same game. That’s progress.
On the up side there were some fine friends both uniformed and un-uniformed that I fully respected whom worked hard and didn’t get paid near enough for what they endured. They put up with far too much drama and often spent more hours in the paper trays instead of at home with their families. They stayed up all night to keep a community safe, chased bad guys in the dark, looked for downed small aircraft in forest terrain in the dark and they were the first on scene when a death occurred spontaneously or purposely, they directed traffic in busy intersections in torrential downpours at the remains of a bad accident scene and proudly went into schools to teach life awareness skills to kids who thought they knew more. They rode bikes for days in an effort to conquer cancer and helped you pack and move on their days off.
That’s the thing about coming home, it provides a chance to look in the rearview mirror and affirms that courage is character, truth always prevails and sometimes-huge sacrifices are made for the greater good of self-preservation. There is no turning back and the road ahead is only a forward lane. So far its been a beautiful ride and the only emergencies in this new life are chosen and come without the dirty detachment dust and all its sirens.
wordsoulographicgirl 