Only in Hillsborough

How do you define essential? Is it the job title you hold, or does it depend on the work you are actually doing?

Clearly, as a semi-retired author, my contribution to society today is somewhat questionable. I write short stories and novels that nobody reads, I blog about all the petty little things that irritate me during the week, and occasionally, I come up with a clever joke about genitalia that I post on social media. Hardly life-saving stuff.

But what about years ago? In the 1990’s, I was a police officer working for the Hillsborough Police Department. Was I essential then? There are those that would argue, no. Hillsborough is a quiet little residential town of about 11,000 people spread out over six square miles. There are no businesses of any kind allowed inside the city limits, which means everyone in Hillsborough is there because they live there. There are no commuters and no outside people coming into the city to shop or browse.

It is the ultimate bedroom community. As such, other than neighborhood squabbles and domestic issues, there is almost no reported crime in the city. So, are police essential workers?

I have heard City Counsel members say that the only crime in the city of Hillsborough is every two weeks when the cops cash their paychecks. I’d say that’s at least one vote that we aren’t essential.

So, what were my job responsibilities? What did I do? Um… I guess that depended on what day you asked me. Sometimes I did traffic enforcement. I did neighborhood patrols and responded to burglar alarms. Those sound necessary, right?

I also dragged garbage cans in from the curb, picked up mail and stray newspapers that accumulated in front of homes when the families were on vacation, reported broken sprinklers and streetlights to city maintenance workers, and even moved cars from the street into driveways at the request of homeowners.

Pretty dangerous stuff. Makes the heart pound a little faster and the adrenaline flow, doesn’t it?

My favorite “essential” duty, while I was working for HPD, was the time a resident flew to Europe for vacation. While he was overseas, he remembered that he had left his pool pump running in the back yard and he called the Hillsborough Police. The dispatcher called me on my radio to advise me of the call for service.

This is back in the 90’s remember, so we did not have computers or cellphones in the cars. All we had was the radio, and these radios were not private channels. They were frequently monitored by other police agencies, ham radio operators, any kid with a police-band receiver, and even some news reporters.

The dispatcher advised me to respond to the homeowner’s residence and turn off the pool pump. She said, “Sam-1 is aware of the call and has approved it,” which means the sergeant working that day knew about the request and had approved police resources to deal with the issue.

Police resources being, of course, me.

Next, the dispatcher told me when I arrived at the house, she had further instructions for me. I got to the house, advised on my arrival, then the dispatcher proceeded for the next five minutes to explain where the pool pump was located, how to find the shut off switch, and the proper way to turn it off so as not to damage it. I had to ask her to repeat several of the directions since it took me three attempts simply to locate the “Off” switch. By the time I figured out how to get everything shut off and put away, I felt like I had successfully defused a bomb.

I turned off the pump and left the house. I thought that was the end of it, but I was wrong. Apparently, a local news columnist by the name of Herb Caen heard about my daring rescue of a pool pump. Either he, or one of his staff, had overheard our radio traffic and he decided that my exploits would make a wonderful addition to his newspaper column.

The headline the following day read: ONLY IN HILLSBOROUGH.

I have very mixed feelings about this event, even today. On one hand, he was making fun of me and my department. It was quite hurtful. Funny, yes, but hurtful. He wrote about how little real work the cops in our town did, and he even suggested that we should turn in our police batons and replace them with sprinkler keys.

Not very nice.

On the other hand, it was the only time that doing my job got my name in the newspaper. I still have the article in my scrapbook.

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