VIEW FROM MY PORCH - "Look Beyond the Blue"

St. Paul Police Department, on Wednesday, March 7, graduated the 18th session of its Citizen Police Academy (CPA). I’m proud to say I am one of the new graduates. The academy, funded
by the Chief’s own budget, offers St. Paul residents, age 21 and older, an opportunity to receive a micro version of officer training. It’s interesting to learn of other participants’ experiences and expectations as the course evolves.The ultimate goal is that the participant will gain knowledge of an officer’s training; a better understanding of policies and procedures that govern the actions of St. Paul police officers; and for the department to gain a better perspective of issues important to residents and to open communication between the department and residents. Additionally, for residents who wish to serve on the SPP Citizen Internal Affairs Review Commission, CPA participation is a prerequisite. Many opportunities for volunteer involvement are available for youth and adults and do not require Citizen Police Academy training. A call to Don Luna at 651-266-5583 or e-mail at don.luna@ci.stpaul.mn.us will start the step to registering for a future CPA or for one of the many other opportunities.


A visit to the SPPD website will give a listing of class sessions (6:30-9:30 for 11 Wednesday evenings). Our instructors were officers and leaders in their fields. Classes included learning the why and how of carrying out actions; how policies are applied; how and when force is applied, defensive tactics; making the decision of when to shoot or not to shoot; patrol and criminal investigation procedures; dispelling the NCI crime lab myths and learning the realities; bike and horse patrol, ordinance disposal (includes bombs); community policing, SWAT, Internal Affairs, narcotics and gangs, and so much more! Classroom teaching always had ample time for questions and answers. 


Of course, ‘hands-on’ training was the most fun! Like kids of all ages, we like to be active and display what we learn! We spent time on the training room mats working our way through scenarios common to officers who have to make split second decisions when interacting with a person and the real threats involved. It’s not like TV, folks! We used laser guns to test our ‘shoot/don’t shoot’ reactions to scenarios based on real life events. I learned quite a bit about myself and how quickly I do or don’t react in shooting someone. We learned techniques in using the baton on someone threatening us, and physical  tactical maneuvers using only our body parts. I will have to admit, my favorite sessions were on the gun range, firing an M-16, and the taser session. I was tased with three different methods. (I love being in the library and saying “I was tased three times” as someone walks by. I wonder what they think as they give me a surprised look). A note to others: this is all volunteer and each person decides whether s/he wants to physically participate in an activity.   Truthfully, the most frightening part of this was being fingerprinted. I felt as if I were giving up a part of myself.  I got over the tasing, but not the fingerprinting.


The title of this piece is important to me. Throughout our sessions we were building relationships. We also were receiving and sharing some insight and getting to know the human side of people who sometimes appear as never smiling, iron-clad robots. I’ll never forget my feelings during the RNC as I walked the downtown streets and many times faced what appeared to be four or five Darth Vadars who appeared ready to lunge at me given the slightest threat. It’ll probably happen again in my lifetime. However, at our last class session was an officer who shared why he chose this profession. Like so many, though certainly, not all, he wears the blue because he wanted to make a positive difference in people’s lives. I am glad to say that I have met many, many St Paul police who make a positive difference and only two or three who have made a negative impression. This officer encouraged us to remember we are all human; have good days and bad days. We don’t know what’s happened in another’s life just before our paths cross, but we can keep a positive perspective if we, ‘look beyond the Blue’ and see the person.


Don Luna, I hope your phone doesn’t stop ringing with requests to participate in CPA! Call Don at 651-266-5583 to register for a Citizen Police Academy training.


 (By Sage Holben: originally written for Dayton's Bluff District Forum neighborhood newspaper, April 2012)

The Rhythm From My Porch

The Rhythm from my porch

Tire low of air, flap, flap, flap…does the driver realize he’s almost on the rim?

A ball game played in my neighbor’s yard…I’m half asleep on the porch, listening to a metal clang…the bat? A metal plate used as a base? The rhythm plays like music in its own way. I recognize Mario’s echoing laughter, and I smile…laughter with a real, a full joy in it. I hear Jose’s voice…a rather humorous lilt in how he makes his pronouncements…

 A group of wrens, massed around a ‘puddle’ of seeds fallen from a tree; they move almost as one, from the driveway apron to the drive, and then to the lilac bushes, flowers shed so long ago. As if prompted by the influx of wrens, a cardinal bursts from the bushes to a neighboring tree...one rhythmic note  affecting the other.

“F….him, I said, mother f’er….”, I heard the words, followed by laughter, words I can’t understand – is it a dialect, is it lazy speech, is it just that I don’t want to hear it…my cold eyes hold no power if the speakers don’t make eye contact with me. The raw, unwelcomed cursing is oddly rhythmic…its own music…is it?

Slap, slap, slap; rap, rap, rap; basketballs and rap music, both hitting the sidewalk. Rhythmic, too, are the glances….”Don’t look, Sage’ my 12 year old neighbor whispers to me. He’s Blood; don’t look.’ This, too, is a warning oft repeated to me. He’s Crypt, he’s Blood, He’s an 18…don’t do it, Sage.

You’re gay; am not; sure you are; laughter; some tension; the message not spoken now reveals who has been ripping on who today. You are, so I’m not. A day’s rhythm is coming to its end on the porch.  Kids are gathering, feeling safe to say what they wouldn’t on the street. We talk about ‘gay’. “You’ve met my son; he’s gay. You like him. You respect him. What’s different?

Karen boys bike by; chattering in a language we don’t understand. Marco mocks the unknown under his breath. Hey, I tell him, how was it when you came here and didn’t speak English? Did people mock your Spanish? How did you feel? The form of our conversation takes up a familiar rhythm, we’ve had it before about Hmong language and culture. It’s a rhythm that becomes, sadly, almost comfortable.

Weed wackers, lawn mowers, people calling to each other. Motors revving, missing mufflers, roaring motorcycles; planes in a no-fly zone, dismiss any shred of conversation.  Wait.

A scooter’s whirrrrrr; a Rainbow shopping cart, rumbles down the hill, child propelling child; in the background a car horn out of control, but in perfect rhythm.

And then, one Saturday morning, the world regains briefly, the rhythm of only birds, the sipping of early morning coffee, and the quiet turning of a book’s pages. I’m alone with my own rhythm.

9/2011

A few bits and pieces

I have no idea how anyone could be bored or have 'nothing to do'. I would at first say that it's especially living in St. Paul, or as Sam would know, living in NYC. But even when I lived in Iowa, unemployed at first and knowing absolutely no one, once fixing a schedule to keep me sane, I could always find something to do.

I have an occasional downstairs neighbor who comments 'do you EVER sleep?' Well, yes, but have you ever been in bed, sometimes awaken with a great idea and just have to start putting it into place?

The last few months have been very busy. I was thinking I'd have a few quiet months before summer, but not so. I have learned so much about the St. Paul city CIB program; I'll write the process I've learned in a different blog. It went from something with many attached misconceptions on my part, to quickly writing a proposal, to seeing how the community task force works, to planning a neighborhood workshop so other people have the information I didn't.

Neighborhood kids have visited more this winter than last; I've learned more about bicycles than I ever thought I would; the girls want a mostly girls summer. I don't know - girls are so high maintenance. Boys can be a little bit crude at times, but they are so much easier going.

I have been away from Door County for way too long and need to visit very soon. My brakes need work and I need a little money to do that.

I need to visit with Aunt Cleo. I miss her. I need to at least call soon. I need to write more letters to everyone.

Thursday evening, Murphy, four now? said we need to do some street clean-up. I had been thinking that too, Murph. So Friday I picked up a rake and some garbage bags. From almost 6pm to about 9, Kari, Kate, Murph, Abigail, Alma, Francisco, Jesus, Sam, Jose, KayLynn (sp) Jeff and I raked, swept, scooped and picked up. We filled, what, six big garbage bags and 12 big orange city bags. When the street sweepers come in a week or two, their job will be so much easier and less waste will enter the sewer to the Mississippi. I was achy, but it felt so satisfying.
Then Kate's brother and uncle had grilled ribs and chicken for a nice late supper, and a visit with Kate, Mel, Jill and some wine...a nice evening.

The next day, Saturday, was the City DFL endorsing convention. I couldn't get the kids to go. I thought they might enjoy it. I've always loved the DFL process. This morning I kept my apheresis appointment, but the nurse said she nicked the vein, tried to move it around, but the clotting had already begun; tried another vein, couldn't get any saline in. The bruise is forming, and none of us thought to go to a one-needle apheresis instead of my usual two. I'll make another appointment when the bruise heals. It did open two hours for me this morning. I went to Byerly's for lemon ricotta pancakes...lovely.

A Season for Grieving

I was just upstairs and a library patron talked about the suddenness in the weather change. It dawned on me that I'm grieving for the passing summer. Autumn, with its coolness, brisk wind, and color had always been my favorite season. Since Sunday when the chill seemed to claim a permanence, I've felt a bit low and sad.

With that brief conversation, I realized it's not the weather that is affecting me, but the fact that it means no more frequent porch gatherings or movies. Certainly, I'll enjoy get togethers with friends in coffee shops and spontaneous meetings, but I've found it's not the same. Two years ago I didn't enjoy going home as much as I have the last year. I've so fully embraced the character of my neighborhood and I've come to cherish it.

I'll miss the kids riding their bikes and anything else with wheels. I'll miss their just stopping by, coming up on the porch, sometimes wordlessly and then quietly disappearing; at other times they'll engage in conversations or pull out a board game. Where can we gather when the porch isn't warm enough? Kids are why we must take care of our neighborhoods.

Of course, I want the color of beautiful flowers, the peace of no loud mufflers or the stress of a screech or squeal of a car in the intersection, the sound of a bottle being thrown from a car window to the breaking point of hitting the pavement. I've known pure beauty and I've known evil. But the kids are at a starting point in life...and they ARE our kids.

Mostly it was a pleasant weekend

It was a pleasant weekend. I had loads of energy after work on Friday and attacked the messiness in my bedroom....dust on furniture, dragged out 'things' stored under the bed...in the process of cleaning one room, I made a mess of two others as the found and moved items make their way to other storage spots, to Goodwill, etc., or to the trash. K and the boys played video games on the porch, using the projector.

Saturday, three of the kids stopped up to play a board game while it was still warm and light; then Kira stopped with a fundraiser for her school.
Movies with kids and neighbors on Friday and Saturday. The kids were really wound up on Friday night. We all chattered, teased, and talked more than watched any movie. On Saturday we all watched the old version of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Sunday, no kids. Ariel came over to talk and borrowed a library book, we caught up on making connections for her signing lessons. I had been sorting through my 33Lps and 78s, needing to get rid of some (any takers?); Ariel had never seen a turn table/ record player. It was fun to introduce her to one, along with some 60s folk music! Then B and I decided to make popcorn and watch 'The Way We Were'. Besides the draw of Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand, I had forgotten how I liked the story itself. We bundled up in quilts, heavy socks and I ate popcorn for supper.
I still think using 321 Bates as a drop-in center for kids would be a better use of property than the problem property it's been all the years I've lived across from it. That, or tear it down for green space/play area for kids.

Saturday B called the police for a domestic fight across the street and then in the evening with all the kids, we saw a man stop and publicly urinate. Sometimes I can give leeway, depending on...whatever, I don't know. I blew up on this one...ran out to him -there were four other people in his car. He was a big guy, towel around his neck, bling; after I told him no public urination and he told me I was harassing him, I followed him to his car and called him, several times, a pig. Of course, he blew me off. I stood in front of his car to get the plate number. The car is one that frequents our neighborhood, goes through stop signs, and speeds, but a police check (they came very quickly) noted the car is not from our neighborhood. The kids were worried that the driver was going to run into me, as he drove forward when I was getting the plate number, but he wouldn't have done that. That's the third public urination in about three months. WHY such pigs?! The last was broad daylight - two males visiting across the street...and I was on the porch at the time!

Porchtalk

Errands after work, then a fundraiser luau for Vallay Moua, then home shortly after 8 tonight. I brought the projector home, and sure enough, as I walked from the car to the porch, Cesar rode over and asked about movies. He and F came up to the porch and then Bonni and Kyle came out. Though Cesar brought up movies several times, I much enjoyed that the five of us talked until 11:00 about the boys' first week at school. For F, it has included another student pouring alcohol or perfume on his shirt and being called into the principal's office, a friend being shot by a bb gun at school, being offered coke, another student getting into his locker and tearing up earned 'money' that goes toward a field trip, and a number of other events and interactions.

Cesar, with his smile that lights up the darkness, attends a different school and seems to really like it. I worry about F. He said he has a gym teacher who helps with his English, so perhaps he's found a bit of an anchor there. We talked with him about building a relationship with at least one teacher with whom he could talk.

The boys talked, too, about some of the relationships among neighborhood kids. With tonight's conversation and the one I had on the street two days ago with a number of the kids, some of what I've been seeing and hearing comes together.

As Kyle said later, it's great that the kids can come and talk with people of different ages. It's true....hard to say who gets the most from it. From the seriousness of school, to what they're learning in sex education, to the boys pretending to see a rodent (I think they were pretending), to confiding about bike thefts and neighborhood dramas, to Cesar feeling comfortable enough to know that he could dip into the candy machine from the top while I was filling it, and to the laughing about silly stories from three generations. Tonight was a very special gem. And tomorrow, Cesar and I may go to see if we can find the turkeys that roam behind the library...and there's talk about playing dodge ball...the question is, will Bonni give up Barack Obama for an afternoon of dodge ball?