I have always had nothing but respect for our men and women in blue. Our local police consistently go above and beyond the call of duty to keep us safe and be of help to our community. Lately, I have had several reasons to make my beliefs even stronger.
First, a huge burst of gratitude for my favorite local police officer, Chief Fisher, who I often refer to as either a rock star or Superman. He is a respected police chief, SWAT leader, parent of three amazing boys, (all of whom I got to teach how to drive,) tireless volunteer, coach of two high school sports teams, and somehow always make time out his incredibly busy schedule to come a talk to my driver’s ed classes. He is knowledgeable, approachable, funny, firm and yet friendly. He is the perfect positive police presence for my students, and I could not be more impressed every time he speaks. (That was a lot of P’s.)
Next, on one of our typical trips down Main St., in a quest for the most interesting thing we can fine, we spotted one of our illustrious bicycle police officers walking his bike as he helped a little old lady slowly cross in the crosswalk. He carried her oxygen tank for her balanced on one of his handlebars as he smiled and patiently chatted as they strolled. Totally made my day! I wish I had a video of that for you.
Lastly, yesterday, (I still can’t get over it!) we got pulled over in the driver’s ed car. My student was driving perfectly nicely down a busy road. We stopped at a traffic light, and as I always tell my students to do when stopping, we checked our rear view mirror. We casually noticed a police cruiser behind us. As the traffic light turned green, we went on through the intersection, and then came the flashing blues behind us. We smoothly and quickly pulled over to the right, we thought, to get out of his way. A little flicker of nerves came up in the car as he pulled in behind us. We waited as the officer got out and walked up to my instructors-side window. I rolled it down and took a deep breath. He asked us if we had recently been on a specific local road, where we had not. He then explained that he was looking for a car exactly matching the make, model and color of ours, minus the big yellow sign of course. He was incredibly polite, and further explained that he was pretty sure it wasn’t us, and reassured my student that he had not done a single thing wrong. He had been driving well, pulled right over, and had nothing to worry about. We wished him luck in his search for whomever he was looking for, and with one last smile and equally wishing us luck with our drive, got back in his cruiser and drove away. With a nervous laugh and look of disbelief, we pulled back out into traffic and went on our merry way.
In all my years as the driver’s ed lady, I have had so many positive interactions with police officers. We’ll have to do a post about what to do when pulled over soon… In the meantime, one last big thank you to all the police officers in our area for all that they do for me, my students, and our community.