Item from the blotter of the Chadron Police Department: Caller from the 900 block of Morehead Street reported that someone had taken three garden gnomes from her location sometime during the night. She described them as plastic, “with chubby cheeks and red hats.”Such is life.
When you reach Chadron you’re glad for it, because this Nebraska town is a long way from anywhere. Drive north on Main Street, past the Police Department, and you hit prairie; drive south, past the state college, and you hit prairie. In between, 5,600 people embrace, avoid and endure one another in a compact place that began more than a century ago as a remote railroad town.
Here, as anywhere, the specifics of most encounters between residents evaporate with the moment, leaving only those precious, fleeting bits, snatched from the ether and pinned by some dispatcher sitting at a desk behind the Police Department’s service window. A call comes in, the dispatcher types and another brief paragraph is added to the continuing Chadron epic.
Caller from the 200 block of Morehead Street advised a man was in front of their shop yelling and yodeling. Subject was told to stop yodeling until Oktoberfest.
It is in this regard that Chadron is blessed. For here, life’s gradual unfolding is measured and honored by Police Beat, a longstanding feature in The Chadron Record, the weekly newspaper. It records those small, true moments lost in the shadows of the large — moments that may not rise to the Olympian heights of newsworthiness, yet still say something about who we are and how we create this thing called community.
Caller from the 400 block of Third Street advised that a subject has been calling her and her employees, singing Elvis songs to them.
Police Beat repeats, almost verbatim, some of the calls that the town’s police dispatchers receive and then dutifully log, often in a literary style that synthesizes the detached jargon of the police with the conversational language of the people.
Caller from the 200 block of Morehead Street advised that a known subject was raising Cain again.
Every day, except on those days when they don’t feel like it, the dispatchers fax copies of their calls log to the ink-perfumed office of The Record, just around the corner. There, a young reporter named Heather Crofutt selects the most interesting items, edits out the names and specific addresses and types them up for Police Beat. Although she is essentially transcribing the reports, she says, “People think I make it up.”
Officer on the 1000 block of West Highway 20 found a known male subject in the creek between Taco John’s and Bauerkemper’s. Subject was covered in water stating he was protecting his family. Officers gave subject ride home.
George Ledbetter, the editor, says Police Beat rivals the obituaries in popularity, so much so that it has become an integral part of local culture. Not long ago, for example, the loud practice sessions of four Chadron State College musicians earned them a mention in the log. They instantly knew what to call their fledgling band: Police Beat.
Mr. Ledbetter struggles to name his favorite item; there are so many. But taken as a whole, he says, the feature is “such a reflection of human life.”
Over the years, Chadron police officials have had a tolerate-hate relationship with Police Beat. One top-ranking officer complains that the feature seems to minimize the difficulty of police work. She says that while there are plenty of calls about animal encounters (Caller on the 900 block of Parry Drive advised a squirrel has climbed down her chimney and is now in the fireplace looking at her through the glass door, chirping at her.), there are plenty of calls about far more serious matters: child abuse, domestic violence, you name it.
But Police Beat often reflects how heavily some of us rely on law enforcement for just about everything (Caller from the 800 block of Pine Street advised that she had just left someone’s home and she forgot her jacket, and requested an officer to get her coat), and demonstrates how deft the police can be at defusing potentially volatile matters:
Caller from the 100 block of North Morehead Street requested to speak to animal control because caller felt that someone was coming into his yard and cutting the hair on his dogs. Dispatch advised caller to set up video surveillance on his house. Caller said he planned on it.
What emerges, then, is a kind of weekly prose poem to the human condition, where annoyance about barking dogs is validated, where nighttime fears born of isolation are reflected, where concern about others is memorialized.
Caller stated that there is a 9-year-old boy out mowing the yard and feels that it is endangering the child in doing so when the mother is perfectly capable of doing it herself.
In short, Police Beat is a rough script to the tragicomedy that is everyday life. And if the details preserved in the ever-expanding Chadron epic do not always find us at our best, there are moments, recorded for posterity, when we seek redemption, we make amends. We try.
Two weeks after the theft of those three chubby-cheeked, red-hatted garden ornaments, a brief item in Police Beat reported a break in the case. Two girls refusing to identify themselves had “brought in some gnomes.”
- Before You Hit "Send" From the The Blade:
A spat between Sens. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) and Ben Nelson (D., Neb.) over the touchy subject of congressional earmarks has gotten nasty and public enough to make us wonder if someone shouldn't be given a quick trip to the Capitol Hill woodshed.That moment between the time you hit "Send" and realize that you shouldn't have sent it to "Reply to All" is called the "Ohnosecond."
According to the Washington Post, Coburn staffers exchanged e-mails early last month in which they made, shall we say, vulgar and juvenile references to Mr. Nelson.
At issue was a $7.5 million earmark request by the Nebraska Democrat for Omaha defense contractor 21st Century Systems, for whom, coincidentally, the senator's son works. Senator Coburn, who spends a great deal of time tilting at the earmark windmill, had requested that the Defense Department inspector general look into the contractor, undoubtedly just to make sure everything was on the up-and-up.
Unfortunately, a Coburn staffer apparently neglected to make sure who was on the recipient list before clicking send, shooting off the gloating, descriptively worded, e-mails to an aide for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska).
But pork runs deeper than party in Washington and the misguided missives ended up in the Hill, the Capitol Hill newspaper.
Mr. Coburn's office has since apologized - for the language, not the tilting - while Mr. Nelson's people suggested the Oklahoma Republican should do a better job of controlling his staff.
The truth of the matter is that Mr. Coburn's staff is neither the exception nor the rule on the Hill when it comes to engaging in juvenile behavior. It's just the one that got caught this time. But we have a right to expect better than that from public employees and, as distasteful as we find earmarks, their behavior is a bad reflection on the Senate.
Don Quixote knew that when you "fight for the right," you have to do so with honor. A visit to the woodshed might just remind Mr. Coburn's aides of that.
- A Dream Come True: This one's for Beantown Girl.
- Doonesbury: Don't Myth Out.Years from now, there will be hundreds of thousands of folks who'll say they were there. Memories will dim and wannabes will exaggerate and it will be impossible to prove who really sat in Fenway Park Sept. 1, 2007, and who watched it on television or heard it on the radio.
It was a night dripping with fate, fame, and circumstance.
Clay Buchholz wasn't even supposed to pitch at Fenway Park last night. He had only one game of big league experience under his belt and he was still in the minor leagues Friday.
And then last night, he was back in the Show, pitching a 10-0 no-hitter against the Baltimore Orioles in his second start in the big leagues. At the age of 23. And he told us, "This is what you dream about growing up."
This is what you dream about when you are a little boy in Texas. You dream about making it all the way to the majors. And as you throw a tennis ball at your back porch steps, maybe you narrate the play-by-play and maybe you say, "Two outs in the ninth, all zeros across the board, Buchholz kicks and throws and it's called strike three! A no-hitter for Clay Buchholz!"
This is what you dream about and then it actually happens and guys like Curt Schilling, David Ortiz, and Josh Beckett are pounding you on your head, and the sideline reporter grabs you as you head to the dugout. You stand there and try to explain what it felt like to pitch a no-hitter in your second game in the big leagues. And you don't have any words after your 115th and final pitch.
Here in the Hardball Hub of the Universe we've been commemorating the 40th anniversary of the most important team in Red Sox history. A lot of the Impossible Dreamers/Cardiac Kids from 1967 have come back to wave, sign autographs, and tell lies about Boston baseball's summer of love.
Billy Rohr is one of those guys and New England baseball fans over the age of 50 remember April 14, 1967, when Rohr took a no-hitter into the ninth inning in his first game in the big leagues. The game was played in Yankee Stadium and Whitey Ford was the other pitcher and Jackie Kennedy and her young son were in the stands.
Serving notice that this would be a special year for himself and the Sox, Boston left fielder Carl Yastrzemski made a running, leaping, over-the-shoulder catch of a Tom Tresh drive to start the ninth inning.
Rohr, of course, was denied. Veteran Yankees catcher Elston Howard cracked a clean single to center with two outs and Rohr settled for a 3-0 shutout. Though history eluded him, immortality did not.
Rohr would win only two more games in his major league career, but he'll live forever in Boston baseball lore.
And now there is Buchholz, who wasn't even supposed to be pitching last night.
The strange scenario is instant folklore. At 5:15 on the afternoon of Aug. 31, 2007, Sox publicist John Blake burst into the Fenway press box and announced that scheduled starter Tim Wakefield would be scratched due to a sore back. Julian Tavarez, Saturday's scheduled starter, had to pitch Friday night. Saturday's starter was TBA - to be announced. Logic held that Buchholz, still with the Pawtucket Red Sox, would get the nod. He was properly rested and available to join the other Sept. 1 call-ups.
"I didn't find out I was pitching until the third inning of our game in Pawtucket," Buchholz said. "I had to gather up my stuff and get here. I didn't sleep very well."
The assignment came on such short notice that Buchholz's parents did not have time to make the trip from Beaumont, Texas. His dad had been at Fenway Aug. 17 when he made his big league debut against the Angels. That was the game Buchholz pitched knowing he was going back to the minors after completing the assignment.
Sox manager Terry Francona had gone so far as to say, "Doesn't matter if he throws a no-hitter, he's going back down."
It seemed funny at the time. But Buchholz's flirtation with the no-no was dead serious last night. Fenway took on a special buzz in the middle innings as the Sox pulled away from the moribund O's.
Teammates avoided the rookie righty as he sat on the bench between innings. Victory over the Orioles was certain and the only issue was the prospect of the kid throwing a no-hitter. Fans grew impatient when the Boston batters padded their stats and added to the lead. Everyone wanted to see the defense back on the field. Everyone wanted to see some history.
Dustin Pedroia's seventh-inning backhand play on Miguel Tejada's shot up the middle - Pedroia capped the play with a great pop-up pivot and throw - will go down as the no-hit saver. And we'll always have the frozen frame of Joe West ringing up Nick Markakis on a game-ending 1-and-2 curveball.
Buchholz told us that this was his second no-hitter. He said he pitched one in high school.
Bet he pitched a thousand of them in his mind games. If you are a kid who loves baseball, this is what you dream about growing up.
- Opus: The cartoon the Washington Post won't let you see.
