Thoughts On A Wednesday Evening

It is Wednesday evening, just over a week after an animal less than worthy of being called a man shot and killed or injured practically every member of the little Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, TX.  This shooting unfortunately became the worst multiple shooting in Texas, overtaking the Killeen "Luby's Massacre" that occurred in 1991.  Just as the "good Samaritans" in Sutherland Springs confronted the shooter and possibly saved lives, the shooter in Killeen was confronted by police officers who were just across the street from Luby's, saving lives in that situation.

But as I sit here tonight trying to "blog" I find that the weight of the vicarious pain I feel from this latest mass killing, while still not over the shock and outrage of the Las Vegas mass shooting, the truck attack in New York, the church shooting in South Carolina, and just a couple of days ago, the shootings in California, seems to dampen my spirit and drown my creativity.  So much hate and anger in just three or four people has left well over one hundred people dead in the span of just a couple of months.  And this is just in the United States.  The numbers killed and injured in mass casualty incidents around the world are almost beyond calculation. 

I like to write about light-hearted things, funny things, or factual snippets on things of interest in this nation or in our sister nations around the world.  But it is still a struggle, a week later, to feel light-hearted, or to sink my mind into research about historical or interesting things.  The thought of the fear and pain of those church members, those little children, and the hate of that animal...I guess that even from the distance at which I heard of these things, still leaves my heart, my mind numb.  My prayers and sympathy for all those left behind, those just now beginning to bury their dead.  It is difficult enough to lose loved ones in natural, normal ways.  I cannot even imagine what those left behind are going through.

I cannot begin to understand what it is like to be an that safest of all places, a house of worship, and suddenly bullets begin flying through the air, people, friends and relatives, begin falling, dying.  Yet this is becoming all too common in the United States.  Our brothers and sisters in foreign lands have known this fear as a reality for many years.  And in the United States, houses of worship have been targets occasionally for many years, but not on the scale we have seen in the past three or four years. 

One of the most horrific of those "older" church attacks occurred in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963 when a Ku Klux Klan member (whose name, which can easily be found with a few seconds' research, I refuse to dignify by writing in this post) made a crude bomb powered by FIFTEEN sticks of dynamite.  The bomb was planted in the basement of the 16th Street Baptist Church.  It exploded just after 11:00 AM, killing four young ladies and injuring more than twenty other church members.  These girls were Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Ada Mae Collins, all three age fourteen, and Denise McNair, age eleven.  Their deaths were just as tragic and senseless as those of the children and adults killed last week in Sutherland Springs.  If there was anything even the least positive in the loss of those four young girls, it was that their deaths were unconscionable even by the White America of that time.  Discrimination and racism continued after the church bombing, but the era of wide-spread, socially acceptable discrimination against Black Americans had been dealt a near-fatal blow.

Another thing I cannot even begin to fathom is how a man's heart and soul can be filled with such hate, rage, and such evil that he can kill men, women, and children in cold blood.  How does a person reach such a point in his life that he does not value the lives of other humans, or even his own?  It seems that personal problems, a hate-filled life, the desire to harm others, can lead a person to act in ways that rival the worst acts of the deadliest terrorist.  Motives?  I doubt if the police will ever determine a motive in the Sutherland Springs killings, and even if they do, does that make the tragedy any easier to understand?  Does it make this shooting more tolerable?  Oh, he was crazy...does that help a church member deal with the loss if his entire immediate family?  Motives help give "closure" but only to the paper file.  People may never understand why these things happen until they are finally able to ask the Creator Himself.

Speaking of the Creator, He did a great thing when he created man. He gave mankind a great ability.  Human beings have a wonderful ability to rise up and carry on even after the worst of disasters or criminal acts.  The people where these latest mass shootings have occurred will rebound and carry on in spite of the almost insurmountable losses.  As for me, I am sure I will be able to reawaken my creativity in a little while, but tonight my thoughts, indeed my heart and my prayers, are with all of those who have suffered loss at the hands of such hateful and heartless animals. 

Just some of my thoughts and feelings on a Wednesday evening...

May God be with us all, and may God remove the hate from man's heart...

End of Watch: Senior Trooper Thomas Nipper, Texas Department of Public Safety (Temple area) - November 4, 2017

On Saturday, November 4, 2017 Senior Trooper Thomas Nipper of the Texas Department of Public Safety (TDPS) lost his life when his patrol car was struck by a pickup while the trooper was conducting a traffic stop around 3 PM on Interstate 35 near Temple.  Another vehicle was also damaged in the same accident.

Senior Trooper Nipper had been with the TDPS since 1983, and had over three decades of service with that agency.  Prior to joining the TDPS Highway Patrol, Trooper Nipper served in several municipal and county agencies, including the Coryell County Sheriff's Office.  His total service as a peace officer spans over four decades.

The circumstances surrounding Trooper Nipper's death are both tragic and too-often repeated.  An officer stops a vehicle for a traffic violation, both vehicles park on the shoulder of the road, and an approaching vehicle strikes the trooper, his car, or both.  Too many officers have lost their lives this way - when the oncoming traffic should not have been on the shoulder in the first place.  Why did the pickup swerve to the shoulder and strike Trooper Nipper on that Saturday afternoon?  At the writing of this post I cannot be sure, as I have not seen any further information regarding the driver of the pickup, who was in the hospital in Temple as of Sunday.

The Texas Legislature finally recognized the danger that "routine traffic stops" posed to officers who, of necessity, stopped traffic violators and issued citations along the shoulder of the roadway.  Many times there is no other place to conduct the traffic stop than on the side of the ride.  A safe exit or side street may not be available for miles from the point of the violation.  To try to maximize officer safety, a law went into effect in 2015, I believe, if not the year before, that requires drivers to move to the next lane of travel when approaching an emergency vehicle stopped along side the highway or street.  More importantly, the law requires drivers who cannot change lanes due to heavy traffic to slow down to twenty miles slower than the posted speed limit, unless the speed limit is under 25 mph, at which time the driver must slow to five miles per hour.  If every driver obeyed this particular law, both officers and those pulled over by the officers would be much safer.

At the police academy, officers are trained in the techniques of making safe traffic stops.  One of the first things officers are taught is that they can choose the location at which they want to make the traffic stop.  Such things to be considered include the immediate environment, volume of traffic, whether the location is isolated or in a more traveled area, and whether are not there is sufficient area along side the street or road to allow for a safe traffic stop.  In theory an officer is free to choose the timing and location of the traffic stop.  In real life it is not quite that simple.  I know from personal experience that persons stopped for traffic violations are extremely upset when an officer tells them that they were stopped for violations that occurred several blocks or a couple of miles back.  The driver invariably yells, "Oh yeah! Well, why didn't you stop me a couple of miles back?!"  If the officer attempts to explain that it was because the officer wanted to make the stop in a safer location, that explanation never seems to satisfy the irate driver.

Unfortunately for Trooper Nipper, the option of following the violator then making the traffic stop in a safer location simply was not available.  Interstate 35 is under major renovation construction for literally MILES both north and south of Temple.  Many exits have been closed, and in many locations, the shoulder of the roadway has been narrowed due to construction.  BUT...and I emphasize...the officer had done everything he could to assure both the safety of the person he stopped, and his own safety.  Both vehicles were on the shoulder and out of the right lane of traffic.  AND...all approaching traffic was REQUIRED BY LAW to change lanes.  That may not have been an option for the driver of the pickup.  If that was the case, the driver was nevertheless REQUIRED to slow down to a minimum of twenty miles per hour UNDER the posted speed limit.  I have not driven that stretch of interstate in several months, but I believe the construction speed limit was set at either 60 MPH or 65 MPH.  This means that oncoming traffic should have been traveling at no more than 45 MPH when approaching and passing the trooper's patrol car.  And certainly there should have been no traffic at all on the shoulder anywhere near the trooper's location.

Was the driver of the pickup drunk or on illegal drugs?  Maybe he was innocently texting while he was driving?  Or perhaps he just did not have time to slow to the required maximum of 20 MPH under the speed limit.  Whatever the reason, the driver chose not to slow down.  Even then, however, he probably would not have struck the trooper's car.  Something, either a distraction or the influence of some substance, caused the driver not only to fail to either change lanes or to slow down, but also to run off the road onto the shoulder, where he struck the trooper's car.

As pictures of the accident scene have made their way onto the media and the Internet, it is extremely clear that the pickup was traveling at a high rate of speed, not the 40 - 45 miles per hour as required by the "move over or slow down" law.  Trooper Nipper's patrol car was damaged almost beyond recognition as a state police car, and was barely recognizable as a vehicle at all!  The pickup was severely damaged as well.  Although I have seen nothing official yet as far as estimations of vehicle speed and driver distraction or intoxication, I am sure that the accident investigation will reveal both excessive speed for the conditions at the time, and that the driver was either intoxicated or was distracted.  One man's dereliction of his legal duties and inattention to the road (for whatever reasons) cost the life of this good man and endangered the person the trooper had stopped as well.

No, Senior Trooper Thomas Nipper was not shot or murdered in some other way by a dangerous criminal; instead, he was killed in the line of duty while performing the most dangerous task an officer, particularly a highway patrolman, can do...a "routine" traffic stop.  His death was not only tragic, but senseless.  The law that should have saved this trooper's life had been "on the books" for at least two years.  It is up to motorists to follow this law.  Even more so, it is up to the individual who has been drinking alcoholic beverages or taking illegal drugs to make the conscious choice NOT to drive until he or she is once again sober.  And, it is very important as well to obey the law that prohibits a driver from texting while driving.  So many fatalities have resulted as well from this innocuous activity.

The vast majority of Texas Department of Public Safety Troopers, Narcotics Officers, Investigators, and Texas Rangers who have been killed in the line of duty over the years have lost their lives in traffic-related incidents.  Far too many of these traffic incidents are in fact troopers being struck by drivers who drove off the road and into the traffic stop. If there is a positive in Trooper Nipper's death, it may be that more Texans, because of this tragedy, will choose to obey the "move over" law, will not text while driving, and will choose not to drive when they are impaired for any reason.

Senior Trooper Thomas Nipper (TDPS) leaves behind his wife and three children.  My prayers and thoughts are with this family and their loved-ones, and with the troopers who lost their comrade.  Senior Trooper Nipper, I, and thousands of other Texans, thank you for your many, many years of dedicated service to the people of Texas, and honor you as you made the ultimate sacrifice.  And the Thin Blue Line (sprinkled with the khaki of the TDPS fallen) is a little thicker in Heaven now.  May you rest in peace, and may the Good Lord continue to surround and hold your sweet wife and children in the days to come.

And may God Bless America...

National Deviled Egg Day - November 2

I have to day I feel rather betrayed today...Betrayed by the national media and local news sources as well.  You see...today is National Deviled Egg Day!  That's right...the day the United States set aside to honor (and enjoy!) one of the best recipes EVER CREATED, the Deviled  Egg.  Not only was there no fanfare whatever on any of the major networks, but deviled eggs were not featured at the cafeteria inside my place of employment.  In fact, deviled eggs were available AT ALL!!

Granted, the nation (or parts of it, anyway) were still all excited that the Houston Astros won the World Series last night, but still...I mean we need to keep the proper perspective of a mere baseball game...after all, it was only a game.  But...not featuring deviled eggs today!  Really!!  What a faux pas!! By the way, shouldn't the "deviled" in deviled eggs actually be spelled DEVILLED?  The rule in proper English would be to double the last consonant then add "ed."  Shouldn't the word "deviled" rhyme with the word "reviled"?   But I digress...

I would like to take just a few minutes to honor the Deviled (or Devilled) Egg, and to lick my chops while wishing I had at least a dozen deviled eggs waiting for me in my refrigerator.  It seems that spiced-up, boiled eggs were served at least as far back as the early Roman Empire.  Richer dining patrons were served spiced egg yolk replaced into the boiled egg, although a more expensive version included small birds called fig-peckers in the egg yolk mixture.  I...er...would have to pass on that particular variation.  (ummm...BARFFF!!)

The spiced-egg spread from the Roman Empire across western Europe, finding its way to England and France by the 1300's.  To the spiced-egg yolk people began to add paprika and mustard, and many different kinds of herbs.  By the end of the Dark Ages, the deviled egg was beginning to take its modern form, the delicacy with which many of us are familiar in this very day.  But where did the term "deviled egg" first appear?

It is believed that the first use of the term "deviled eggs" was in British cook books published around the year of 1786.  "Deviling" became a verb that meant to add spices and other herbs and flavors to foods to make these dishes more exciting.  Hence the term "deviled eggs," which referred to mixing boiled egg yolk with various spices, herbs, and mustard, and replacing this mixture into boiled eggs. Thus one of the most popular food items and picnic essentials of all time was created for our culinary pleasure.  By the way, prior to the turn of the 19th Century, some faithful Christians refused to use the term "deviled" eggs, much preferring more innocuous titles such as "stuffed eggs," "dressed eggs," or even "salad eggs," especially if the eggs were served at religious functions!

So I missed National Deviled Egg Day this year.  No matter.  I have worked up such an appetite for deviled eggs while writing this brief post that I will definitely purchase a dozen eggs tomorrow and try my hand at making some of those tasty little morsels this weekend.

Remember, it is ONLY 364 days until National Deviled Egg Day!

Until then...stay deviled, my friends!

End of Watch: William (Bill) Tilghman - City Marshal, Cromwell, Oklahoma - November 1, 1924

One of my favorite of the Lawmen of the "Old West" was a man named William Tilghman.  Known to his contemporaries as either Bill Tilghman, or "Uncle Billy," William Tilghman was considered to be one of the most honest and most effective lawmen of the Old West-era.  The truth is that Bill Tilghman could have gone either way as a young man.  Bill left his home state of Iowa when he was only sixteen, and "went west."  Actually, he didn't go very far west.  In the area of Dodge City, Kansas, Bill joined up with some other young men who made their living by stealing horses from local Indians.  The "Law" did not get too upset with people who stole horses from the Indians, but the Indians themselves were wild with anger.  Young Tilghman was nearly killed on several occasions, and eventually gave up the life of the outlaw - it was too risky.

In a more respectable turn, Bill opened a saloon in Dodge City (I wonder where the money came from?) and also served as a deputy city marshal.  He was accused on a couple of occasions of rustling, once of robbing a train, but there was not enough evidence of these evils, and no charges were ever formally filed.  As the years went by, Tilghman's reputation as an honest lawman grew.  He served as a deputy sheriff in Ford County, Kansas for several years, and eventually joined the US Marshal Service.  Some of Tilghman's contemporaries were the Earp Brothers and William Henry (Billy the Kid) McCarty.

Tilghman was one of the first White men to arrive in Oklahoma when that territory was opened for Anglo settlement in 1889.  In 1891 Tilghman became a deputy US Marshal for the Oklahoma territory. As the 19th Century faded into the past, Tilghman continued his legendary career as a peace officer into the new century.  His resume included several years as a sheriff's deputy, and later, Sheriff of Lincoln County, Oklahoma.  Perhaps his most famous capture was the arrest of Bill Doolin, the leader of a criminal gang that had terrorized parts of several states for years.  Doolin escaped from jail a year later, but was killed by a posse led by one of Tilghman's colleagues, Heck Thomas. 

Bill Tilghman retired from active duty after serving for several years as the police chief of Oklahoma City.  He had taken that job in 1910.  During the year 1908, and for several years following, Tilghman directed four films, the most famous being "The Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaws."  Retirement was not to Bill's liking; however, and by August, 1924, Tilghman was once again a peace officer, this time the marshal of Cromwell, Oklahoma, an oil boom town. 

Cromwell was a boisterous little town, and when the roughnecks were not out on their rigs, they spent their hard-earned pay at several "speakeasies" scattered throughout the city.  Prohibition was going strong at this time, but so was the thirst of the hardworking oilmen, and the money lust of moonshiners and alcohol smugglers.  Marshal Tilghman, the honest lawman, refused to turn a blind eye to the illegal alcohol, as his predecessors had done. 

As he arrested smugglers and bar owners, Tilghman aroused the ire of a crooked "revenuer" named Wiley Lynn, a federal prohibition agent.  Lynn had met with Tilghman several times and "encouraged" the lawman to look the other way as alcohol was brought into Cromwell and distributed among the various illegal bars.  Tilghman not only refused to cooperate with Lynn, but continued to vigorously pursue and arrest those involved in bootlegging in and around Cromwell.

Finally Wiley Lynn had all he could stand.  He was losing money because he could no longer "protect" the alcohol crowd.  On the night of November 1, 1924 - three months to the day since Tilghman had taken over as City Marshal - Wiley Lynn confronted Tilghman.  The prohibition agent had been drinking and was intoxicated.  He railed at Tilghman, then produced a hidden pistol.  Wiley shot Bill Tilghman twice, killing him where he stood.  Lynn Wiley had murdered one of the last of the great lawmen from the Old West.  Wiley was later acquitted, presumably due to his intoxication, but was himself gunned down in 1932.

I am proud to honor Marshal Bill Tilghman, one of the greatest Lawmen of the Old West.  Thank you for your service, Marshal, and may you rest in peace.