| 234567 | > |
Several of my readers took a hard look at the numbers I was using at the end of Chapter 32 to analyze the status of the Matucket Police Department. If anything, the situation is even more dire than Grim reported to the County Council. Being short 33 officers is the equivalent of being an entire shift short of officers. At the budget level being discussed, nobody has had a cost of living adjustment in years. That translates directly into high turnover, low retention, and difficult recruiting. Why did the Lieutenant Governor get involved? Probably because somebody at the Georgia State Patrol told him they were about to go in and clean house! I’m certainly no expert on police departments, but it looks like the way I wrote it was correct. Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while.
Anyway, let’s see what happens next. Grim is now the Chief of Police. Enjoy!
Everybody thought Riley wanting to join the Coast Guard was a nice surprise. I heard lots of stories about the CG; much appreciated. Anyway, get ready for more surprises! I’m not giving out any spoilers, but I can guarantee you weren’t expecting the story to make this kind of change! We’ll have to see how the readers react to this. Should be interesting! Enjoy!
Everybody seemed to like the latest twist in the Grim Reaper’s life. Lots of positive comments and interest (several dozen!) Quite a few readers mentioned that the story was getting a little boring, with Grim just doing consulting and writing. Sorry if you got bored. (No, not really!)
As for the readers who seemed to think this was a huge jump forward in time from Chapter 30, well, it really wasn’t. Chapter 30 occurred on Labor Day 2027, September 6. Chapter 31 started on April 4, 2028. That’s about seven months. What was he doing during that time? Just more of the same! He was consulting in southern Georgia and writing a book. I’ve already written a bunch of chapters about that and didn’t see any need to write more. (See comment about boring.) As for the documentary project with Ken Burns, in Chapter 26 it was mentioned that the documentary probably wouldn’t air until 2027 or 2028. (I researched how long these projects take. They typically have three or four working at the same time and can take three to four years to complete.) What better time than sweeps week in the fall of 2028?
What was Riley doing with the Coast Guard? Not much, for the simple reason that as a junior in high school there wasn’t much to do. As mentioned in Chapter 30, most of the Coast Guard Academy programs are for high school seniors. Other than researching and talking to a CG admissions officer, the big thing she needs to do is take her SAT tests, which normally don’t occur until the second semester of your junior year. Otherwise, she and her brother are just normal teenagers.
One of my readers commented on the storage unit that the Reapers rented to hold Granny’s stuff after she moved into the assisted living facility. He remarked that often the storage units outlast their owners, that people can’t get rid of anything. So true! I saw this in the case of my father-in-law, who had Superdomes full of crap to get rid of when he passed away! I also saw it in my old business of selling homes, where I would get older customers who wanted to downsize, but the new home needed to have room for all their old stuff plus some new! Not quite sure how we were supposed to do that. It was sort of like when my father decided he needed to add a second story onto the split-level they owned. This was after my sister and I had already moved out, and my mother and brother couldn’t understand it at all. The plans ended when he came down with dementia, but we were scratching our heads for a bit.
Anyway, enjoy!
A couple of British readers noted that bobbies and peelers are now considered archaic terms for police in Britain. Some of the replacements are American names (coppers, fuzz, pigs, feds, po-po, five-oh, etc.) undoubtedly taken from American television and movies.
Everybody seemed to like how the boy problem was handled. I think Grim showed a lot of restraint compared to some fathers. I’m pretty sure my dad would not have appreciated finding his baby girl in a compromising position with a young man! I would bet he would have thrown him into the creek next door; said creek had a twenty-foot drop and was mostly rock and gravel.
Time to get serious again. Riley is growing up, and the parental units are having to deal with it. Enjoy!
Still getting people asking if I am going to incorporate the current racism-in-police issue in the story. No, I am not rewriting the story. Remember, the story is in 2025 at this point. 2020 was back in Chapter 12, which ran through 2022. He was not an active consultant during those years but was working on his doctorate. Regardless of the reforms being pushed and promised, we will still have police forces in the future. The crazies are pushing for police forces to be dismantled, but that simply won’t be happening. Defunding is a definite possibility, but that isn’t crazy. The largest mental health system in the nation is the prison system, which is also the largest drug treatment system and the largest homeless shelter system. The police and the prisons are the most expensive and inefficient way to do these things. Putting more money into these types of social programs makes a considerable amount of sense. As to what Grim would do differently, as early as 2019 Grim was giving lectures at the Athens and Forsyth academies on topics like PTSD, Use of Force, and Autism/Mental Health (Chapters 8 and 9). Those are the types of things that will be much more important in the future, at all academies.
More than a few people enjoyed the end scene in chapter 27. Some asked if it was something I had ever gone through. Sorry, nothing quite like that. Back when my wife and I were dating in college, we got busy under a blanket in the living room of her parents’ house late one night, and a couple of her younger brothers wandered in. They just laughed and went to the kitchen and we quickly redressed. No shotguns were brandished. We didn’t have the same problems with our youngest, but she was incredibly headstrong and basically told us she was going to see her boyfriend with our knowledge or do it anyway and lie to us. That being said, she never got into any trouble and has grown up to be a great kid, wife, and mother.
Gnius1 informed me: “Wow - assault, domestic abuse and brandishing - quite an episode for Grim. Of course, being an ex-cop, he won't end up in prison as he should.” Glad to see how well I write evil criminals! I suppose throwing Romeo in the lake was the assault and throwing Juliet in the lake was the domestic abuse. Under the circumstances, Grim can probably get those laughed out of court. Brandishing is going to be a real stretch, though; Grim never took his weapon from his holster and Georgia is an open-carry state. While I’m not a lawyer, I doubt any DA is going to want to take any of this to trial, especially when Riley files much more reasonable charges of statutory sexual assault. (She’s under the age of consent in Georgia, 16, so even though she didn’t have sex with him it still qualifies as sexual assault.)
Multiple people commented that biologically speaking, it is the male that determines the sex of the offspring. Not sure I believe that, considering the arguments my wife and I have had about our own kids. I know that nitwits of that caliber couldn’t have been from my genetics!
Anyway, enjoy!
Several people wrote that Carl was totally unrealistic in figuring that his heroics at the diner would cause him to lose. I have two comments on that. First, Carl is not an experienced campaigner and didn’t realize the positive effect this would have. Secondly, the only reason this becomes positive is the presence of the video. Without the security video showing what happened, it would be ridiculously easy for Stewart to frame Carl as an out-of-control vigilante who bought the endorsement. This would be basic Political Science 101. Instead, he gets huge amounts of positive televised time that he could never have bought. Television is a visual medium. The various media outlets might not run the press conference, but you can guarantee they will run that video repeatedly!
And so ends Book 5. Book 6, ‘Congressman’, is next. For those who have asked about future installments, there will be:
Book 7: President
Book 8: Emperor
Book 9: Overlord
Book 10: Grand Imperator
And then we will finish with:
Book 11: Grand Poobah of the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes (Bonus points to all who figure that out. Double bonus points for those who remember which Lodge number it is.)
Now we take a break from Carl Buckman to finish off the Grim Reaper. Enjoy!
| 234567 | > |