The Unclad Soul

I have spent my life supporting the police and law enforcement. They have an often dangerous job to perform, and the truly good cops are too often unappreciated or taken for granted for service they provide day in and day out. But if you have never been confronted with an aggressive or bullying cop then you don’t understand the emotions of that from those who have. A couple of years ago I went into a Subway sandwich shop in downtown Dallas to pick up lunch. I parked on the street in an area right in front of the shop. Inside, two street cops were eating at a table near the entrance. One was an older guy with a three-day beard. He looked tired and his uniform seemed to hang on him. The other was a younger guy who looked fit and healthy. The place was jammed with customers. As I walked in the older cop blurted out, “You’re illegally parked and you know it!” Everyone stopped talking and looked at me. I said, “I’m sorry but I’m not in an illegal zone. May I show you?” He glared at...

“Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary.   A houseboat in Kashmir, a view down Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, a gray gothic farmhouse two stories high at the end of a red dog road in the Allegheny Mountains, a cabin on the shore of a blue lake in spruce and fir country, a greasy alley near the Hoboken waterfront, or even, possibly, for those of a less demanding sensibility, the world to be seen from a comfortable apartment high in the tender, velvety smog of Manhattan, Chicago, Paris, Tokyo, Rio, or Rome —   there's no limit to the human capacity for the homing sentiment.” ~ Edward Abbey, Environmentalist/Author