I Wouldn't Want Your Job. April 19th 2024
While I would like to say "Far be it from me to flog a dead horse" or that I am redundant, that I repeat myself, that I write things over and over, I am afraid some things are just too good not to pause and enjoy. A very short time ago I related to you, my online therapists, that I would be attending a luncheon with members of my troop. Troop 4 '74 in recognition of our fiftieth anniversary of being sworn in to the R.C.M.P. Well I attended, and I spent about three hours with five of those guys..........AND IT WAS FREAKIN AWESOME!!!!! So allow me if you will, this one last indulgence.
After hearing the boys who were living in British Columbia were planning a luncheon in Merit, B.C. My better half told me I should be there. Her reasoning? Well I suspect she thought she could do her spring cleaning without having to do it around me. But officially she simply said that it was our fiftieth anniversary and at this stage in life, time should be treated as a gift. So I booked a hotel for two nights and drove nine plus hours each way for lunch with guys, some of whom I had no contact for half a bloody century.
Tell you what: It's been a long time since I was that excited about anything. I had no idea who I would see, or what would transpire. Would we find out we were good for five minutes remembering that day we did that thing that was so funny, and then eat in silence? Would we discover we really didn't like each other? Would our paths from thereto here just be too different to overcome? Or would it be the reunion of a short but crucial time when we functioned like a team, a brotherhood, a family?
The meeting was planned for noonish. I was the only person overnighting in Merit, a full block from the pub. I was ready to go about 9:30 a.m. but I paced myself. Even when you're seventy you don't want to be seen as too keen. Ya kinda want to be cool. But at 11:40 I rationalized that being 15 to 20 minutes early was just polite. I strolled in at 11:45 to find everyone was there. Five guys, three of whom I could not identify until they introduced themselves. There had been a couple of cancelations for various reasons. There were a couple more no shows, cause life does tend to get in the way. But round the table were two mates from the Vancouver area, another from Kamloops, an Edmontonian, and one all the way from New Brunswick....to B.C....... for lunch.
If there was anything uncomfortable about this meeting, it didn't last a nanosecond. Funny what reveals a person after all those years. But all it took was a smile. A smile that suggested sincerity and mischief, and a renewal of the memory of events all but blurred completely by the day to day that is survival in those day to days we lived for half a decade.
I learned some things about life in the force in other parts of the country. Like how tough it was to raise a family in Metro Vancouver during a six year wage freeze for government employees. Like what it was like to move into other careers or to work for other employers after being a mountie. And of course there was the host of silly funny tricks, stunts, trials and tribulations during our time at the Ranch. ( The R.C.M.P. academy we call Depot Division.) Then there was the "What are you doing now?" and the "how many grand kids?" stuff. But the best? Well it may have been the in-between. The there to here we all had endured.
One of the guys talked about his time on the Musical Ride, and his European tour that culminated in England at Windsor Castle for the Queen's silver jubilee. Born in England, his grand parents were in attendance for the Ride's tribute to Her Majesty and were recognized by the crowd. He attended his grand parents home in a small English Village were the media tracked him down. The local newspaper headline was "Mountie Returns Home." A highlight. Another related his time in Peggy's Cove Nova Scotia where he dealt with the families from all over the globe during the Swiss Air Disaster. He also attended the Oka crisis and dealt with communications in a most stressful national incident. During which time he organized a soft ball game with local youth and the R.C.M.P. Some guys never take their eye off the ball.
Fifty years prior I had driven down to Regina from Edmonton with a troop mate in his Volkswagen Beetle. From Edmonton he hailed and to Edmonton he did return. Where he was a much revered homicide investigator and renown interviewer. (Not how he described himself, but his reputation preceded him). The organizer of this little get together had spent his career in greater Vancouver. Mostly out of uniform. He served 25 years before moving to the Transit police and eventually starting his own security company.
Our little group did not escape all of the carnage that comes the way of a cop in a risky career. Every troop, every team, every class room has that guy. Very intelligent, extremely funny, full of mischief, and a nose for trouble. It is usually that same person in whom the troubled confide, cause he listens, cause he cares, cause he lets you know he can handle it. Our guy was there. The spirit of the troop. The guy that helped so many of us get through just by saying the right thing at the right time. Or just by saying the absolute wrong thing and the right time. By suffering pressures of his own making but never taking it to any of us. That guy was there. Involved in a Police Car Crash while on duty some time ago, he is now in a chair. ....... and with that same spark. Still able to relate a memory in a line that would be the envy of any stand up comic. Still that face full of mischief. Still the go to guy.
And of course there was me. And I had my stories. Not about the ride, which I have only even seen twice. Not about my participation in international and national events. Not about Homicides or working cover or VIP security. But I did relate the time I got my van full of prisoners stuck and let them all out to push the van out of the snow before I reloaded them and took them to cells. About the time I led prisoners in a sing song. About silly funny things I had witnessed over the years in small and smaller towns on the prairie.
For about three decades I heard more times than I could count the phrase "Boy, I wouldn't want your job." And there were days I could agree. I don't know how many careers start with 32 guys in a long hall. Where you learn each others strengths and vulnerabilities. Where you decide to get through as a unit. Where fifty years later you sit down with what amounts to be a random sampling of those guys and you realize just how important they really were (are) to the person you have been and have become. And if you didn't have a life that included something like that? Well boy, I wouldn't want your job.
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