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I left work a couple of hours early one day because I wasn’t feeling well. Since I didn’t want to have to go back out later, I decided to stop and pick-up my 4 year old daughter from the in-home daycare place that she attended. I arrived to find her come squealing and running across the road (THANKFULLY a quiet Village street) from the playground across the street from the sitter’s house. A quick glance of the playground proved that there were 4 children there, all under the age of 5, and not a single adult. I asked my daughter, “where’s S%^$# ? and she answered, “she just had to run to the house for a quick minute-but it’s okay cuz we are big!” Picking my child up in my arms, I went to the sitters door, knocked-no answer, walked in saying her name, proceeded through the foyer, the kitchen and the living room, calling her name repeatedly. When I finally “found her” sitting at her computer in the den (this was 22 years ago when computers were still beasts) she was quite shocked to see me! She also got an earful!!! Needless to say, I reported her to our local childcare council because I didn’t consider her fit to be caring for children and she didn’t collect any pay from me that day! Typing this still makes my blood boil! And yes, to field comments in advance-she did come with references and was a registered provider with our local childcare council (which means she had to pass certain New York state inspections in order to be a licensed provider) when I hired her.

There was no kindergarten. Not in the public schools. Some of us had gone to various day care centers or kindergartens, but many of my classmates were away from Mommy for the first time. Our parents were sent a list, a very very specific list of what supplies we would need. Among these was a request for the eight pack package of Crayola Crayons.Some parents tried to be over achievers and sent the larger packages. The teacher collected these and returned them with a note. The kids came back with the right crayons. Parents did what the schools asked. Our day started with the Pledge of Allegiance, the Lord’s prayer and then it was time to learn. We had work sheets, reading groups that were actually designated as which was the top reading group and so on. Stickmen - plywood cut outs of the figure of a man lined the top of one shelf. Using clothespins we would use these to learn some simple math. Lunch was at school. Some children, but not too many, brought their lunches in lunch boxes. Cooks, employees of the school system prepared home made stuff food every day. Lunch was twenty five cents. For five cents more, you got a 4 oz. carton of ice cream. One day a week, you took in some extra money and gave it to your teacher. She pulled out a folder with your name and gave you a stamp to glue in the folder. When the folder was full, you would get a savings bond. You didn’t know what that was but you had been told it was a good thing, so you did it. Report cards came out every six weeks. A local bank provided the cardboard folders in which your teacher put your grades. You took these home. Parent signed them and you took them back. We pretty much had the same people in our class at the beginning of the year as at the end. We had a fifteen minute recess time in the morning before lunch. The playground had swings with heavy chains and you learned to not put your fingers in the links. You could climb on the monkey bars or cross the cross bars. We got callouses, bruises, scrapes, etc. We survived. You lined up at the water fountain, one right after the other, and grabbed a sip of water before you went back to the class room. We sometimes had film strips. In first grade, our parents had been instructed to take a gallon of bleach and when it was all used, tip the bottle upside down in a sink over night. We took that and a towel to school. Our teacher put our name on the bottle, filled it with water and made a line of these in the cloak room - Each child’s bottle sitting on their towel. We were at war. We had fire drills and civil defense drills where we would huddle under our desks, out interlocked fingers covering the back of our necks. In third grade, cartridge pens were added to the arsenal of school supplies. We were going to learn cursive. That may have been fourth. As we got older, our desks changed and we were expected to store our books, supplies, etc. under our seats. Desks were subject to inspection. The girls wore dresses or jumpers or skirts and blouses. The boys wore pants. On school picture day, the boys wore bow ties. When that one boy did not stand up for the Pledge or when the three Jewish boys did not say the Lord’s Prayer, that was okay. As long as they were nice. We learned about how those Jewish kids had some different holidays than us. One mom bought in a noodle keugel. Another brought in Matzah. We learned about Hanukkah. We went on field trips. We had an art resource teacher that brought really cool art stuff to our classroom every other week and music teacher that did the same. There were poor kids. We knew who they were not because anyone pointed to them and said, he, he or she is poor, but the clothes, the other stuff, you knew. It didn’t matter. If Rex was poor, that was okay. Was he a good kickball player is what counted. The Weekly Reader arrived every Friday and was a part of our weekend plans. Almost all of us talked about going to church or Sunday school during Monday’s show and tell time. One kids parents, that i remember, got divorced. We had snow cones for sale, after school on Thursday. We had paper drives one a month and the class with the most paper all got a party. My class one time had over a ton of paper. We had a Halloween carnival with all sorts of booths and fun. You could throw a ping pong ball at a table full of small cups and if it went in the cup, you got to keep the gold fish in the cup. They put it in a bag, pumped in some air and tied it up. The gold fish that I won lived until noon the next day. No one called PETA. There were bake sales. And a cake walk at the Halloween carnival with home made cakes. No one would have thought that someone would have dared to try and slip poison into one of those cakes. If a friend’s mother or father told me to do something, I said yes ma’m. And I did it. You did not want to go to the principal’s office. Our teachers hugged us, some to the point that they allowed five minutes extra before the bell on Friday to get their weekend hugs.Most of us walked home. A few kids road a bus but their parents had to pay extra for that. There was a group of boys that attended my elementary school that lived in a boy’s home, a children’s home. We always knew when they had had their haircut weekend. There were children of color in may school Just a few. We didn’t pay much attention. We would have afternoon time on the playground filled with serious games of dodge ball, kick ball, red rover, etc. Typically, about four classes at a time would be on the playground at a time. Your skill at kick ball, bound ball, dodge ball, etc. was as negotiable as cash. We all wanted to win the presidential award of fitness. The teachers would sit on the edge of the playground, grading papers, talking with each other. We were safe there. And, typically, within fifteen minutes of that last bell, the school, the campus were a ghost town. And then there was the day that, just for a minute, it kind of changed. I had stayed after school. Probably for a spelling bee. Who knows? There was parking on the street right in front of my school, but the crossing guards were gone. But I was trained to cross there, so I stopped to see if I could cross. A car was parked there. I looked down into the car to see that he had on no pants. I didn’t freak out. It just seemed strange. My experience in seeing penises to that point was very limited. He sped away. I went on along my way wondering why in the world he wasn’t wearing pants. The next day, another girl had told a teacher that she had seen him and then I told the teacher. The police wanted to know what I thought. And then, later, we went to the playground. There were police cars on the street that ran along side the playground. The teachers wouldn’t let us play near the very quiet street that edged the playground. The police came for a few more days. But our teachers, they stayed on top of it. We were their responsibility. I dare say had the man shown up…No, he would have had to know better than to even think of dealing with four angry teachers bent on protecting their class. And that, by the way was elementary school.

Before he approaches the car, you, the motorist don’t know why he pulled you over. You’re assuming it’s for a “traffic citation”. You don’t know though unless you’re able to read minds.If he’s unholstered his sidearm, and has it in his hand as he approaches the car, there’s more going on than just a traffic violation investigation. He considers you a potential threat. So you need to act accordingly by merely keeping your hands on the wheel and obeying his orders. It’s really that simple.I would typically do this when I wasn’t sure if I was pulling over an otherwise innocent motorist who had committed a traffic violation, or a felony suspect. I’d keep my pistol beside my leg, ready in case I needed it. It is up to the officer to determine if a traffic stop should be handled as “high risk” or “routine”. Having the gun ready means it’s being handled as “routine” (really “unknown risk”) but there is a higher than normal chance it could turn into a high risk stop. A good example is cold plated vehicles. A cold plated vehicle is one in which a license plate is stolen from an abandoned car, and attached to a stolen car. The car thief is hoping that when a police officer “runs” the plate, it will return clear, since the license plate hasn’t been reported as missing or stolen. Sometimes the car thieves put the license plate from a Chevy onto a Ford. Sometimes the plate is actually in the system as missing or stolen. What sometimes happens is the person who has their rear license plate stolen will remove the front plate from their car, and attach the front plate to the rear of their car. Now when the police run their plate, it will return as a reported missing plate, but it is indeed on the correct car (they’re supposed to surrender the front plate to DMV and get two new ones but often don’t). Or it’s a cold plated car. Sometimes it’s tough to tell until the VIN is checked, which obviously requires a close inspection of the car. So the officer may be walking up on a car thief in a stolen car… or maybe not.Other common cases are situations where the vehicle matches to a certain degree a felony armed and dangerous vehicle recently used in a crime. For example, someone shoots up a playground. A short time later, an officer spots a car that matches the general description of the suspect vehicle. The description is good enough to have “reasonable suspicion” to stop the car, but hardly conclusive it’s the suspect car. No license plate was obtained by witnesses, but the description was better than merely “dark colored 4 door medium sized car”. Something along the lines of “white late model Toyota Camry with an empty roof rack on top of the car, and collision damage to the right rear bumper”. If it was a drive by type shooting, there may be no suspect description at all. A Toyota Camry is a common vehicle, and roof racks aren’t uncommon. However, if a white Camry with a roof rack and damage to the right rear bumper area is spotted in the area by an officer, he’ll be expected to investigate. Maybe he sees a little old lady behind the wheel. In that case, he might decide to have a chat with her to see if she knows anything about the crime. Maybe her grandson borrowed the car. Maybe he’s hiding in the backseat, lying low, and forcing his grandmother to drive him out of the area. There are many possibilities. Maybe the old woman is the shooter (very rare, but possible). The officer could perhaps justify a felony traffic stop (social media would explode if she wasn’t the shooter), or maybe he just has his pistol ready in case the shooter is in the trunk of the car…