You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The tall cool country sheriff.
I’ve known this southern law man since I came to Nashville.
He is white-haired and chiseled like a corn field Adonis.
He stands approximately 6’2″ tall, enhanced by polished Ostrich skin cowboy boots. He wears with his neatly pressed uniform with a bright shiny star.
His 9 mm sparkles in its holster, secured to a gun belt.
He is like a drug store cowboy of yesteryear. He is a hero from a black and white movie starring Gene Autry and his horse Trigger.
His angular face is tanned and his shoulders are broad. He looks as if he could pull the cart when the ox gets tired.
He has the wisdom of his office today. 18 years as the county’s top law man, he has seen it all.
But when he was a brand news sheriff, just having won the election, I gave him one piece of advice.
“99 out of a 100 times you guys are the good guys. You wear the star on your chest.”
He is a good listener.
“But once in a while, you guys are human and you mess up and you have to be accountable. My advice, step up and own it.”
I remember the 1st time I told him this, his steely blue eyes engaged me, his brain seemingly firing on all cylinders like a tractor racing through a tobacco field.
“What do you suggest,” he asks.
“News people are inherently lazy,” I say. “If you push us to the news buffet and let us gorge on facts and truth, we will burp and walk away and never return. Instead of looking deeper, we will forage in a forest of stupid. We will crawl under the covers to sleep, we will excitedly gnaw on pepto bismol tablets till our belly ache goes away”
His bushy white eye brows rise as I speak.
“But if you try to obfuscate, if you dare lie, if we sense a whiff of deception, our antennae will protrude from our thick Neanderthal skulls and we will hone in on you like laser guided hell. One after another, we will pick you apart, tearing the flesh from your bones. Then we will come at you like teething piranhas hungry for meat, ready to chew some sheriff ass. When it’s all over, you will be a ravaged corpse, tossed aside in the tumbleweeds where only the buzzards gnaw on your entrails.”
The tall sheriff with the steely chin and white as snow hair smiles a toothy grin.
“You got a mighty pretty mouth boy.”
I don’t even know what that means.
Anyway, many law men I encounter in this new millennium are soft, their bellies protruding over their belts.
This sheriff is rock solid, right out of central casting.
“Hey Billy, send a sheriff down to the set. We need a tall honest looking country cow poke.”
That’s my man.
“I’ll remember that,” he says his southern phonics dripping with cream and taters.
“It’s simple,” I say. “Own it. Tell us the truth all at once and be done with it.”
“I always remembered that advice,” he will tell me every time I see him.
I’m not sure how book smart this southern Sheriff is. But I know he’s life smart.
He was born a country boy. He was built by John Deere. He grew into a law man, developing a chest thick like a rain barrel.
“Is that a bullet proof vest” I joke banging on his mid section.
He’s probably ten years my senior and I am still afraid to shake his hand.
He has a ninja way of firmly breaking every bone in your hand with a grip that would make a pair of pliers jealous.
Whenever I would meet him over the years, it became a game, not to cry or wince.
Crime scene, dead bodies on the ground, sniper in the woods, car upside down in the creek.
It didn’t matter. Upon meeting the southern sheriff, I would have to prepare for the hand shake.
Who has hands this strong?
It’s as if he had spent a life breaking rocks with his pinky, tossing bricks with his thumb, moving dirt mounds with the flick of a wrist.
And that white hair? So white, so pure, almost ethereal. His hair was whiter than truth, brighter than a grand jury indictment on a hot summer’s day.
I’m not sure what color his hair was as a boy. I just assume it was always the color of new fallen snow.
The southern sheriff has a trimmed mustache that never moves, is always groomed, that sits patiently on a tight lip that ready to impart wisdom in 10 syllables or less.
Some sheriffs dress in a suit and tie. They are businessmen. They are jail house administrators who sit behind a desk.
Not the Southern Sheriff. He is a cop’s cop, wearing his uniform proudly, a symbol of justice for a world that is teetering off its axis.
The Southern Sheriff is going to retire after 4 terms in office. If he ran again he would win. If he ran after that he’d win again. He could retire, raise pigs, spill mustard on his barrel chest and then run for office again, and you know what? He’d win. He’d win against Moses. He’d win against George Clooney. He’d win against Prince Harry.
The Southern Sheriff is dependable as salt. He is solid as dirt. He serves his constituents like rain sprinking on a thirsty cornfield on a hot August afternoon.
Call him at 2 am. Just try it.
Most people’s phones go to voice mail.
If they do answer they tell you go to hell.
You know what you get when you call the Southern Sheriff?
You get freaking the freaking sheriff.
“Hello, this is the sheriff,” he will say as if he has been awake all night.
From his chief deputy to the man next door whose cows broke free from their pen, he is there for you.
Why’s he retiring?
Because after a million phone calls at 2 am, it’s time.
It’s time to close the jail house door for one last time and never look back.
It’s time to get on that John Deere and plow that field.
It’s time to hug those grand babies and take Mrs. Sheriff on a trip somewhere nice.
He’s not a man who needs to walk on the Great Wall of China before he dies.
He is a simple man, a country man.
He just needs a place that stimulates, where the people are polite and the restaurants have sweet tea and grits.
For 18 years, it’s been issue after issue.
He is a jail house daddy. He is the county’s top law man. He leads funerals and speaks at city council meetings and rides a horse down main street during the annual parade.
His problems are unlike yours.
Hey sheriff the inmate smuggled a deodorant top full of tobacco up his ass
Hey sheriff my son doesn’t have a blanket on his cot and his cell mate is stealing his toothpaste.
Hey sheriff your deputy wasn’t polite when he pulled me over and I want an apology.
Hey sheriff can you lead the funeral for my grand daddy, even though he was a scoundrel.
Hey sheriff can you check and see why my neighbor’s cows keep getting into my yard.
Hey sheriff why did your tactical team decide to blow the suspect’s head off? He was just fooling.
Day after day. Year after year. Morning. Noon. Night.
The southern sheriff is on call.
His phone is on. The problems of a county, of a jail never stop.
Leaky faucets, jail house fights, deputies crashing patrol units. People dyeing for no damned good reason.
Can you imagine?
OMG
So after 18 years, this iron horse of law enforcement is retiring.
“You’re my boy,” he will tell me every single time I see him.
He’s 10 years my senior. I think of him as a good man, as a friend, almost like an uncle.
Can you imagine? Uncle Sheriff. That’s funny.
He is country ham steak with a quick wit. He understands people like a farmer understands his crops.
He is sagacious even though he doesn’t know what that means.
He has a profound God-given wisdom found only in a Mark Twain book.
He understands people, situations. He knows right from wrong.
I’ll miss this southern sheriff. He has been good for me and good for his populous.
It’s time to ride that John Deere into the sunset, letting a southern breeze blow back that cotton top hair.
Maybe there’s room on the tractor for Mrs. Sheriff.
Of course there is.
After 4 terms of crazy, it’s time for this man of the Earth to chew on a hay seed and relax.
Thanks Southern Sheriff.
They don’t make them like you any more.
Life’s Crazy™