Upcoming Speech to the Citizen’s Patrol Banquet
Some of you crusty old timers out here tonight might remember when Camano was such a sleepy little backwash, we didn’t have deputies on patrol after midnight. Crime was pretty much limited to marijuana growing —- you know, BEFORE it became a medicinal herb — and a few break-ins down at unoccupied beach cabins, probably OFF-islanders sneaking in by boat. Any criminals that were caught, well the sheriff’s department had to haul them over to the hoosegow in Coupeville, kind of a long drive, deliver the miscreant, then drive back here. In the meantime we were left vulnerable, defenseless and unprotected. To be honest, most of us never noticed….
Somewhere in the 1980’s some entrepreneurial South Enders … well, okay, some desperately unemployed South Enders thought the time was ripe for a Private Security Agency, sign up the absentee landowners and go check on their unattended dwellings. You know, cruise by and see if the front door was still on its jambs and lights weren’t on when they were supposed to be off, maybe get out and check the locks, walk around with a flashlight, wear a special agent badge South End Safeguard, something catchy, something official looking in case the neighbors wondered about us prowling the back yard late at night. Admittedly, we looked a little rough. Okay, we looked like the guys we were supposed to protect folks against. But hellfire, man, this was the South End and back then we all looked a little ragged around the edges. Remember, this was BEFORE the great migration, the one where the Dot.com’ers took their suitcases of cash and bought up the bluffs and hauled in stuff WORTH stealing.
That’s the trouble with rich people, you see. They bring valuables. They bring expensive toys. They bring, if you follow my reasoning here, CRIME. Simple as that. When we were all poor, why would we steal from each other? We left our doors unlocked, the keys to the truck in the ignition. You wanted to steal MY truck, chances are I’d find you broke down about half a mile north of me. I’d probably have to apologize to YOU for loaning you a beat up rig you’d have to repair three times to town.
Well, the South End Security and Surveillance Agency was a little ahead of the curve. So they finally called it quits. Before the incoming tsunami of wealthy neighbors brought their big suburb crime to our pastoral paradise of poverty . We got 24/7 deputies from Island County finally and for awhile we could drop off captured criminals, alleged captured criminals, with the Stanwoodopolis Police, save them hours of scenic transportation and get right back to the scene of our crimes.
And then, before we could regroup our patrol cars and security agents, along came the Civilian Patrol. Free of charge. Official. Nice lettering on the side of the vehicles instead of that ratty plastic sign we had that fell off more than a few times and even got Two Toke Tom pulled over for littering. He got off with a warning, but it rattled him so much he resigned and turned in his patrol badge, worried, I think, littering might lead to some sniffing around his grow sheds up by the South End Diner. And that was his sole livelihood, so he didn’t want to jeapordize that.
Well, anyway, I’m sort of rambling along here about the history of crime-fighting on Camano and I haven’t even gotten to Colton yet, but …. I think maybe I better just wrap this up and move on to subjects that won’t interfere with dessert digestion. But I do want to say to you crimefighters, thank you! Not so much for ending crime down by me as for saving me that job in my truck patrolling the rich folks’ houses. If I’d really seen how they lived, how much they had, how nice they had it, who knows, I mighta turned to a life of crime myself with all that temptation. Lucky for me I stayed stupid and poor.
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