Beech-Nut Plant, Canajoharie, NY
7. JOBS:
My first paying job aside from delivering newspapers was working for Fred Walters putting in hay. He didn't operate a farm anymore but he put in the hay and then sold it. Again this was a job I inherited from my brother. Fred had a cooler in the milk house that he kept stocked with Genny Cream Ale and orange soda for me. We'd come in from the field and he'd say "We'd better drink!" The job was stacking bales of hay on the wagons, bringing them in and storing them in the hay mow. It was really hot up in the hay mow. Sometimes we used a hay elevator to get the bales into the hay mow, but in the main barn he had a big hook thing on a block and tackle that would pick up 4 or 6 bales, raise them up to the hay mow and drop them when I yelled to him. The problem was, they'd all roll or bounce in different directions and I'd be running all over to get them packed away before the next load came up. His wife would make great meals for us. I was paid by the bale from the counter on the baler. I used the money I earned to buy my first brand new bicycle, a black 3-speed bike that I bought at Montgomery Ward in Herkimer. When I was younger I would ride a big old 26" balloon tire bike. I couldn't reach the ground but I would prop it up against the porch and climb on and then ride away. When I wanted to come back home I'd have to "come in for a landing" by skidding along the side of the house until it stopped and then I'd climb off.
My next job was also on a farm, this one belonging to Ellis Elwood. As this was a summer job it also involved making hay, but also all other aspects of farming. Virgil Hazzard was the hired man and we got along great. He was a couple years older than me and a real wild man. He had a white Mustang he tore the roads up with. I always liked it when he took me home instead of Ellis in his big black Chrysler. There were two tractors on the farm; a Farmall H and a Farmall M. They were pretty similar. We would race them and try to pop wheelies. I helped clean the barn, milk the cows, spread manure, repair fence, mow the lawn, and make hay. I don't remember if I ever mowed the hay but I did learn to rake it. Virgil would pull the baler with a wagon attached. I'd stand on the wagon with a hay hook and pull the bales from the baler and stack them on the wagon. It was fairly easy when you were first starting a load but got a lot harder when you started running out of room and had to stack the bales higher. One time I had almost a full load when half of it tipped over and fell off the wagon taking me with it. Virgil laughed like crazy.
There was always a radio playing in the barn and one of the songs I remember hearing at that time was "Mr. Bojangles". All the cows on the farm were Guernsey, a red and white cow, not the usual black and white Holsteins. Their milk was very rich but they seemed dumb as rocks. Mrs. Elwood made really great dinners but we'd eat so much we felt more like taking a nap than working.
The summer after I graduated from high school I got a job working for the school mowing lawns. They had a pretty big Gravely lawn mower that I would use. I remember one day, mowing the football field in the broiling sun it got so hot that I finally pulled up next to the swimming pool and jumped in, clothes and all, and then continued on mowing.
My next job was after I'd withdrawn from college. I went to work in the Beech-Nut in Canajoharie.
Beech-Nut Plant, Canajoharie, NY
I started working evenings in strained foods. I was part of a group of utility workers who filled in wherever needed. The job I did the most was pull baskets in the filler room. Jars of baby food were filled with product and loaded into big round baskets. The magnet operator shoved the basked out and I would push it to one of the retort operators. From there the baskets went through a cooling canal on their way to the labeling room. We had a good bunch of guys pulling baskets; we were fast enough so that one of us was continuously on break. We'd take turns. We would have to hide out so we would head over to the small cafeteria over the labeling room instead of the main cafeteria. We also discovered that if you carried something with you, you could go anywhere in the plant and no one would challenge you.
At some point I got sent to the gum area. It was much better than strained foods. I worked on the 5th floor, drawing gum base and pulling gum. I also spent some times on the 4th and 3rd floors where the gum was wrapped and packaged. At some point I was moved to days. Then I was sent back to strained foods, this time on the 4th floor where it was cooked. That was a pretty good job. I filled in on the cookers. Beech-Nut never bought anything but the best ingredients. Someone would always have a ham stashed someplace and in the morning you'd smell it frying on top of the cookers. When we made cottage cheese with pineapple one of the supervisors was always up there chowing down. The custard was another favorite.
One day the supervisor came to me and told me I'd have to go to the Cereal Plant in Fort Plain and also back on the 2nd shift. I told him I didn't want to go there but he said it was that or be laid off. (The Cereal Plant had just opened and a lot of workers had taken jobs up there. They came back with horror stories about how hot and dusty it was.) So I went up there and started out as janitor in the Batch Room. I ended up bidding on the job. Jobs were put up for bid by seniority and having a bid job was the only way to have "rights" in a particular department. I got the job and soon after one of the Batchers went out on extended sick leave so I filled in. The job involved making batches of baby cereal and pumping it over to the Dryer Room. I worked 3:30 to midnight at the Cereal Plant and often worked Saturdays too. The plant operated 24 hours a day. If your relief didn't show up you had to work until 4 AM and the day shift Batcher would have to come in 4 hours early.
Then a job came up in the Dryer Room as a Dryer Operator. I bid on that job and got it and moved over there, working with John Rheinhardt. He and I got along great. He had a very sarcastic wit and we hit it off. As the name implies, cereal was dried in huge steam driers, crumbled into flakes and blown up to the 2nd floor. It was very hot in the Dryer Room. We also had to change long knives on the driers which peeled the cereal off the drums. That could be an adventure and it wasn't unusual to cut your gloves if not your hand. It was also not unusual to get burned by hot cereal when checking the level in the driers.
Eventually I bid back into the Batch Room since the pay was the same without as much heat and danger. I worked with Bruce Guile there. It was at the cereal plant that I met my wife-to-be, Marie Swartz who came to work in the Quality Control Lab. We flirted around a little at work and joked that we should go out since our birthdays were a day apart, mine on November 6th and hers on November 7th. After work several of us would go out, often to Hub's Tavern in Nelliston. Dave Keba was working on the packaging line and he had a thing with Betty Osborne. Larry Shibley and his wife, Vicki both worked at the plant too, as did Ralph Richer. Marie will tell you that she touched my hand one night at Hub's and that I ran away. That's not entirely true, but I did certainly have reservations about getting involved with a divorced woman with a child. We've been married now over 30 years so I guess it worked out ok. During this time, Marie and I would also go out after work to the Valley Tavern, on Rt. 5, next to the El Rancho Drive-In. We would have a couple of drinks and dance to our song, "Color My World" by Chicago.
When we were dating one of our favorite things to do was to come to Johnstown and go to Losurdo's for dinner and then to the Holiday Theater for a movie. Sometimes we'd have steamed clams at Losurdo's, something that we both loved. The restaurant is no longer there, it now houses a real estate agency. Because Marie had a daughter, we often stayed home too and spent time with her. Saturday nights we would watch "Emergency" on TV and usually had potato chips and bacon & horseradish dip something all three of us still have a taste for today.
The guys and I would often go to the Fort Plain Hotel after work. It was run by Pete and Paul Hage. We would drink until closing then grab a couple six-packs and go into another room and play cards. After that, we'd drive up to the Thruway restaurant at Indian Castle for breakfast.
We used to play some furious pitch at the Cereal Plant. John Rheinhardt and I played against Bruce Guile and Silas Dingman. John was not above bidding 4 with nothing but a bare jack. Joe Mastracco, the maintenance man, taught me how to play Cribbage also.
While the job wasn't bad and the people were great, I knew I needed to do more than work in a factory all my life. The only thing that I ever really thought I wanted to do from the time I was small was be a Police Officer.
I began looking into opportunities to get into police work and began taking Civil Service exams when they came up. I wound up being number 1 on the list for Herkimer County and number 2 on the list for the City of Johnstown. I didn't have strong feelings about either place, but Johnstown paid a little more. So that brings me to my next and longest job.
On April 22, 1974 I was appointed as a Police Officer in the City of Johnstown, NY. It was pretty exciting stuff getting my uniforms and a gun. At the time, what is now the Zone 5 Law Enforcement Academy was operating out of Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, NY. Apparently the students decided they didn't want the police on campus and we moved to the Emma Willard Girls School in Troy (featured in the movie "Scent of a Woman"). We finished out our classroom training there and our firearms training on the Colonie PD range.
Was
I ever really this skinny?
In June of 1974 three big things happened in my life. I started working at the Police Department, got married to Marie, and moved to Johnstown. It was a busy month. I started working with veteran officers for on-the-job training. I worked with Gus Sweeney and Alan Walker on foot patrol. They taught me important things like where to get coffee in the middle of the night and what time the bakery opened. Then I would ride in a patrol car with another veteran officer. My very first night on the job I was riding with Steve Pelosi. We got a call at 111 Glenwood Avenue about a stray cat in the cellar. This cat was the size of a bobcat and about as vicious. Before I knew what was happening, Steve pulled out his .38 revolver and shot the cat inside the cellar. I think it took 3 days for my hearing to return to normal.
Police work is a lot more mundane than it appears on television; it can be tedious and boring. But at times it can be exciting, rewarding, and even terrifying. Night shift was the most extreme. Most of the time it was a dull routine of walking the beat and rattling doors or patrolling in a car and driving around the businesses, shining a spotlight on the windows, and if you were feeling ambitious, getting out and checking the doors. But the night shift also brought the bulk of domestic disputes, burglar alarms, high-speed pursuits, fatal accidents, and bar room brawls. We often answered calls at homes or apartments where the stench and filth were overpowering, and you'd see toddlers in diapers still up and wandering around at 1 or 2 in the morning. You learned in a hurry on this job that life is fragile. One day a salesman was making a call at the glue factory, Milligan & Higgins, on Maple Ave. He walked out of the office and started across the road to his car when he was struck and killed by a speeding automobile. As I looked at his bruised and broken body lying on a table at the hospital it struck me that just minutes before he was laughing and joking with the office girls and now he was dead.
The first fatal accident that I worked on was on the night shift in front of the Holiday Inn on Rt. 30-A. I was riding with Paul Vosteen and complaining that it was too quiet. That's when we got the call. We got there and found two cars, demolished, in the middle of the highway. The roadway was soaked with antifreeze and littered with pieces of debris from the cars. I swore I could smell death in the air. The one driver was dead in his car, the other was alive and highly intoxicated. It sickened me to look at his face knowing he had no clue where he was or what had happened. Because of his carelessness an innocent person was dead.
I was never a prolific ticket writer. I wrote them when necessary but was just as likely to give a warning unless the driver gave me crap. I investigated a minor accident one day and one of the drivers said, "Officer, I demand a ticket be written here." So I gave him one. He was livid; he wanted the other driver to get a ticket even though he was at fault. I watched a car go through a red light one day. He saw me there and I didn't even have to turn on my red lights, he just pulled right over to the curb and rolled down his window. He got off with a warning.
One night I saw a Porsche flying down Rt. 30-A. I pulled out to chase him but couldn't catch him. I never even turned on the lights because I couldn't get close enough and I was going over 100 mph. I never would have caught him but he pulled over by the old Tollgate outside the city towards Fonda. So I pulled in behind him. I gave him the old "Do you have any idea how fast you were going?" He told me 75. So I wrote him for 75 in a 55. I didn't write him for the 35 mph zone. So he was happy, and we got a guilty plea even though I had no clock on him and no RADAR.
I was not a fighter either. I preferred to try to talk things down rather than get into a physical confrontation if possible. Some cops seemed to enjoy the opportunity of thumping on someone and sometimes they would even escalate a situation that was already calmed down. My hero was Sheriff Andy Taylor from the old "Andy Griffith Show". Now there was a real lawman! He would sit on the front porch and play guitar and he kept the peace in Mayberry without carrying a gun.
Sometimes the calls would be comical. We had a lady who would call in that Martians had landed on her roof or on the house next door. Another called constantly to complain that there were strangers in her house but that they "talked very nice". We would get there to find it was the TV. When we turned it off, the people went away. We ended up tying the cord in a knot so she couldn't plug it back in. I answered a call one day at one of our infamous houses. I asked what the problem was and the lady told me, "Johnny won't eat his peas." I should have shot him. Another time I responded to the same house where the same woman complained that Johnny had eaten the salad she had made for a family picnic. The husband was known to be a violent man and had pulled a shotgun and knives on officers in the past. One night we got a domestic there and he had gone into his garage. We knew he had an explosives license and thought he might have dynamite in the garage. I went to the door and told him to come on out. He replied, "Come on in." The door was open a crack and I saw movement so I reached out and grabbed him. I couldn't pull him out but I wouldn't let go. Kevin Quinn came up and grabbed him as well and we dragged him out, threw him on the ground and cuffed him.
When Kevin was new on the job, being the good Irish boy that he is, he had red hair and a freckled face. We were in Sambo's (now Friendly's) one night eating and he kept saying, "That girl over there is looking at me….Really, she's looking at me." I told him, "Yeah, she can't believe Howdy Doody became a cop." He spit his food all over the table. I'm sure she was impressed with that suave move.
Fires were never fun. They seemed to happen when it was either extremely cold or extremely hot. We would be doing traffic control and freezing. We couldn't even get close enough to the fire to get warm. One of the worst sights on the job was a fire victim or "crispy critter". Later on, when I was a Fire and Arson Investigator I would slosh through a house or building after the fire was out. Everything was burned or blackened; water was several inches deep on the floor and dripping from the ceiling. It was heart-breaking to see the damage and the loss of people's belongings.
Funny things happened too. One night Alex Alpert was on the desk and he radioed all of us to come to the station right away. We rushed in just in time to see Joe Cameron drive up to the door of the police station with his wife on the hood of the car wearing a flowing nightgown. Where the Stewart's shop is now on Main Street there used to be an Atlantic gas station with a drive-through automatic carwash where we would wash the patrol cars. You would pull into the car wash, put the car in neutral and a conveyor system would pull you through. One day Chet Hensel pulled in but forgot to put the car in neutral and it rolled ahead into the car in front of him. It was kind of hard to explain an accident in the car wash. Another officer, Tom Pelosi, teased him relentlessly. He said, "It wasn't bad enough that you had an accident in the car wash, but when you got out to investigate it and the brushes kept hitting you in the face, that was too much."
We answered a call one night to a very rowdy party. They had a bonfire in the back yard and when the Fire Dept. had responded the revelers had thrown beer cans at them. We arrived and were trying to get things calmed down. Vern Osborne quietly pulled out his mace and held it behind his back. He backed up to the table and sprayed mace all over everything. One of the loudmouths was going to show us that we couldn't stop the party and he grabbed a beer off the table and started chugging it. As he did, tears streamed down his face from the mace.
We answered a call one night at the Waterway Tavern. I don't remember what it was about but there was nothing going on when we got there. I was with Paul Vosteen again and he got down to the other end of the bar and turned around and there I was, still by the door with my arm around a woman and a drink in my hand. He said, "Don't become part of the crowd."
I was patrolling alone one very hot summer night. We had no air conditioning in the cars then and it did not cool down at all that night. I pulled into a gas station to get a soda out of a machine. I put my money in, hit the button, and out rolled an ice cold can of beer! I chugged it in a hurry, then told Paul about it. He was back there feeding change into the machine like crazy but he got nothing but sodas.
Another episode involving Paul and me was when a dog had been hit by a car on East State Street. The dog's hind quarters were broken and he had dragged himself with his front legs into a long culvert. Terry Cassell, another officer, showed up at the scene. We discussed shooting the dog to put it out of its misery and Terry volunteered to go to the other end of the culvert and shine his flashlight in so we could see to shoot it. Not really a good idea Terry!
I hadn't been on the job very long and was patrolling one Sunday afternoon. The police and fire departments had had a softball game and were having a buffet at the Rainbow Restaurant. The Sergeant called me in and sent me over to eat. I fixed a plate and sat down and people kept putting beers in front of me and refilling them. By the time I went back on patrol I was half looped.
There used to be a tremendous amount of camaraderie among the police officers and firefighters. The cops would stop in at the Fire Station for coffee or just to shoot the breeze. Both the police and firemen were close among their own members too. Unfortunately that has changed now and those feelings are no longer there, everyone seems to be out for themselves. We not only worked together but socialized together. We had some great parties at various officers' homes. We pitched in and helped each other. Mike Sepanara put in a new electrical service in our house and he and Kevin Quinn ran new circuits upstairs so we could run air conditioners. Vern Osborne had a garbage route on the side and when he was out sick, Steve Pelosi and I did his route for him. I hunted woodchucks with Greg Sherman, hiked with Buddy Knoblauch and Neil Luck and rode motorcycles with several of the guys.
We had a lockup downstairs with four cells for men and one for women. We could hold someone for up to 48 hours before they had to be released or arraigned and sent to the County Jail. Generally people were only locked up overnight and were released on bail in the morning or taken before the Judge. We tried not to lock up women if at all possible because it required hiring a Matron to watch her. We had a guy locked up one night and he took his socks off, tied them together, and then tied them to the top of the bars. He stepped up on the wooden bench in the cell and tied the other end around his neck. When the desk officer went down to check him he jumped off the bench. Fortunately for him he was wearing banlon socks and they just stretched. That was another episode that required us all to be called in to laugh at him.
I was called in another time and told by the Sergeant to show up the next morning with my dress uniform as I was going to a funeral. It was a funeral for a police officer killed in a car accident. I went with Jack Marshall who was a Sergeant, Bill Knuffke who was a Detective, and John Kane who was a Patrolman. They were among the oldest guys on the force and I was thinking what a drag it was going to be attending the funeral with them. After the funeral there was a buffet put on and we walked in and went straight to the bar. These guys couldn't buy drinks fast enough. That was my first experience at a cop funeral. It wouldn't be my last. I've stood in more formations outside of churches or funeral homes than I care to remember. Often an officer killed in the line of duty leaves a young wife and children behind.
Me
in dress uniform
The first time I had to attend an autopsy was for a 19 year old boy who had been to a concert at SPAC, smoked some pot, came home and dropped dead. I was worried about how I would handle it, I didn't want to get sick and make a fool of myself. But it turned out to be very interesting. The pathologist explained everything he was doing and what everything meant. The victim had been in good condition but he had severe asthma and his lungs were like those of an elderly person with emphysema. The smoke at the concert and the marijuana smoke in particular had done him in. Sometimes the victims weren't as "fresh" as this one was and the aroma was not the best. One time everyone in the morgue smoked cigars to help with the smell. Another trick was to smear a little Vicks under your nose.
We investigated an unattended death where the victim, a known drug user, was found naked in his bed. The pathologist wasn't coming up with anything, then called later to tell us all to burn our clothes as he thought the victim had TB. We didn't burn our clothes and it was a good thing because it was a false alarm. Another time, when I was an Investigator working with Bob Wilson we investigated another unattended death. An elderly lady had been fixing her supper. She got up to get something and fell against the corner of a wall cutting her head. She had gone over to the sink to try and stop the bleeding but passed out and fell on the floor and died. While her autopsy was going one, Bob and I decided to clean up the bloody mess in the kitchen so the family wouldn't have to see it. When we got back to the station the pathologist called to say he thought the case might be a homicide. UH-OH! We had just destroyed the crime scene! But he met us back at the house, and after seeing the scene he could see what had happened and how the wall had caused the damage to the woman's head. WHEW! Trying to be nice had nearly gotten us in big trouble.
Suicides were another tough call. Some were carefully planned though. One guy went down into his cellar and put up boards to contain everything, then lay over the floor drain and shot himself with a shotgun. He had left a note for his wife not to come looking for him. Unfortunately that's the first thing she did. I went on another suicide where the man had sat in a chair, put a shotgun in his mouth, and pulled the trigger. There was nothing from his jaw upward. His brains were all over the walls and dripping off the ceiling. We called the Coroner and he came in and said, "Yep, he's dead." Then he picked up some mail from the table and read the name and said, "Hey, I know this guy, wow I never would have recognized him." Yeah, no kidding.
I took the Sergeant's exam and became a Sergeant in 1980. That required going back to school for Police Supervision. I worked as a Desk Sergeant for about a year. That involved answering the phone and dispatching calls (this was before we had civilian dispatchers, or Central Dispatch from the County). I assigned the shift personnel to the various patrol posts, administered breathalyzer tests when an officer made a DWI arrest, set bail, and checked on prisoners that were held in the lockup. It was my responsibility to see that all the necessary reports and paperwork were done for every offense or arrest.
During this time we had a robbery in the liquor store on Main Street. This one was memorable because the clerk, a young girl, was stabbed multiple times during the course of the robbery. The case was ultimately solved and the perpetrators were arrested and extradited from Texas.
After about a year I got offered the opportunity to move to the Detective Unit as a Detective Sergeant. I went to additional training such as Fire and Arson Investigation and Narcotics Investigation. Those were both very intensive schools. The first was taught at the NYS Fire Academy in Montaur Falls, NY, and the second at the NYS Police Academy in Albany.
Aside from investigating crimes, a lot of the job involved paperwork; making sure that the accusatory instruments were done and accurate and that all paperwork was in order for the court. I worked much more closely with the District Attorney's office, the Probation Dept., and the various courts. During this time I was also asked if I would take on the duties of the Juvenile Officer. I never wanted to turn down an opportunity so I did that too. That involved learning some different rules and not only dealing with the Probation Dept. but also the Family Court, the schools, and parents. At that time the police were still able to file petitions in Family Court, either PINS (Person in Need of Supervision) or JD (Juvenile Delinquent). Now only the Probation Dept. can petition the court.
In July of 1982, Edward Kane the current Police Chief resigned. Lt. William Knuffke took over as Acting Chief. He wanted more money but the Council wouldn't give it to him so at the end of October of 1982 he retired. He walked into my office one morning, shook my hand, and said "Congratulations, you're taking over." I was dumbfounded! I only had a week to learn anything from him about the job and that entire week I was stuck in County Court in a trial. So, on November 1, 1982, at the age of 29, I became the Acting Chief of Police. I had to start out cold and learn as I went along.
I had previously taken the Civil Service exam for Police Lieutenant and passed and was promoted to that rank shortly after taking over as Acting Chief. I wanted to secure the Lieutenant's position in case I didn't pass the test for Police Chief.
I had to pass the Civil Service Exam for Chief which was supposedly a wickedly difficult exam. I felt good about it though; I thought it was actually easier than the Sergeant's exam. After the Sergeant's exam I was pretty sure I hadn't passed but I was confident that I had passed the Chief's exam. I was appointed to the position of Chief of Police in April of 1983 at the age of 30 and exactly 9 years after I'd started on the department.
Hail
to the Chief
I had to attend a 2 week course in Police Management. It was the first session of this training which is now mandatory for new Chiefs. It was held at the Holiday Inn in Saratoga Springs, NY.
I wanted to have a fresh start and made a lot of changes. We changed from rotating patrol shifts to permanent shifts, bid by seniority. I changed the uniform shirts from light blue to dark blue, designed a new shoulder patch, switched from the old NY style badge to the oval LA style badge, and changed the patrol cars to blue and white. Eventually the cars became dark blue with white stripes. We increased our firearms training and we switched from the .357 Magnum revolvers to Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistols, and eventually to .40 cal Glock pistols.
The police station was old and there was really no security. There was only one public area and people were booked in the same area the public came into. We designed a whole new layout with attention paid to security for the officers and for the public. We put in a concrete wall with two bullet-proof windows. There were two doorways, one for bringing in prisoners, the other for the public to come in to see the Investigators or me. We built a new Juvenile Office with a separate entrance as required by law. We created a whole new booking area, with chain link fencing above the counter-top for the safety of the booking officers and to prevent having to fight with prisoners. Breath tests could be given through the screening. And we set up video cameras, not only to videotape arrests, but also placed cameras throughout city hall for security purposes.
I brought my interest in computers to the department and purchased a small computer network with a non-dedicated server and two workstations and law enforcement software. I met a retired State Trooper who was in the computer business named Bob Morey. We became good friends and he and his wife and Marie and I spent times together at the Chief's conferences and went out to dinner. Bob helped me out with my own computer on a few occasions. Unfortunately he became ill and recently passed away.
In a few years we did the computer system over again, adding workstations in every office. We had dual servers, one for the in-house network, and one for mobile communications. We purchased law enforcement software called A.L.E.C.S., and we installed laptop computers in the patrol cars so that officers could complete Incident Reports in the car and transmit them to the station, keeping them on the road more, instead of in the office doing reports.
All the law enforcement agencies in the county switched to standardized Incident Reports, Arrest Reports, and Domestic Violence Reports. That made it easier for the prosecutors at the DA's office, since all the paperwork was the same.
Over the years, and mostly using grant money, we created a K-9 Unit, bicycle patrols, a DOT inspection team, an Emergency Response Team, and trained a department sniper. We joined the D.A.R.E. Program and the county-wide Drug Task Force.
Aside from grant money, we also got involved in a program where we could get used equipment from the military. We were able to get cars, trucks, furniture, fax machines and other electronics, and binoculars.
I got involved with Mike Sleezer, the owner of the local television station in Gloversville, and started doing a weekly TV show called "Public Safety and You". That was a lot of fun and hopefully it was educational for the public.
After becoming Chief, I joined the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police and Marie and I attended their annual conference each year. Every year it was held in a different city in New York State. They were always a good time. Each regional conference had a hospitality room and you could really learn a lot socializing with other Chiefs. There was also training presented each day, but there was enough free time to enjoy a mini-vacation. There are generally tours available, shopping for the wives, a BBQ and a banquet. One of the best Conferences we went to was held in Hempstead, LI. It was put on by the Nassau County Chiefs and they had arranged trips into New York City, a boat ride around Manhattan, and many other events.
Me on the boat ride around Manhattan. Notice the World Trade Center
towers behind my right shoulder.
I began having meetings with Mike Gancarz, the police chief in Gloversville about 911. We quickly brought in the Fire Chiefs, Ed Heberer from Johnstown, and Herb Martin from Gloversville. Next we brought in Sgt. Marv Stock from Johnstown and Lt. Butch Generoso from Gloversville and also Bob Winchell the Fulton County Fire Coordinator. We talked not only about 911 but central dispatch. These were breakfast meetings and eventually became the "Friday Morning Breakfast Club". We also included the Sheriff Tom Lorey, Lt. Jim Zink from the State Police, and Mike Sandel from the FBI. These meetings made a great forum for exchanging ideas and fostering cooperation among the various agencies.
At some point, Clancy Miller came to a few of the breakfast meetings. I think Marv might have asked him to come. Clancy was a firefighter in the city and I had known him since I'd started on the job. He was also a photographer and took pictures for the police department. He was present at the very first drug raid I went on shortly after joining the department. He also took ID photos for the police and fire departments and was also the track photographer at Fonda Speedway. We began to find we had a lot in common and a friendship began. We share interests in guns, racing, airplanes, computers, and good food. We started meeting for breakfast on other days, usually when he finished a shift at the firehouse at 8 AM. He'd pick me up at the police station and we'd have breakfast at Woody's Diner at North Perry and Water Streets. It was an old dilapidated building but Woody and Alice put on a heck of a breakfast. Alice's French toast was the best in town. Clancy sold film to the city and also developed our pictures. We needed someone who could do it discreetly. Because of the nature of police photography we couldn't send pictures to a drug store for developing.
After he retired from the fire department we started having occasional lunches which became more and more frequent until it became a daily routine. Everyone knew that Clancy and I would be at the Moose Club for lunch. They even named the "Clancy-burger" after him. We would branch out from the Moose Club occasionally but we tended to put restaurants out of business. It seems like every time we tried a new place it would go under. After I retired from the police department, the one thing I told my new employers was that I had to have an hour for lunch so we could continue our Moose lunches. Clancy has been a good friend for a lot of years. He's always willing to help out in any way he can. He's driven us to the airport, picked up our papers and mail when we were away, helped me put in a phone jack and additional electrical circuit for my computer and any number of other things. I discovered that a lot of "friends" I had made on the department were only my friend as long as they needed something from me or when I was in a position to help advance their career. Once they didn't need anything from me, the friendship faded away. But Clancy has been a true friend through thick and thin.
When I turned 40, Marie set up a surprise birthday party for me at The Timbers in Mayfield. We had been there a few times with the Moreys. She did a great job of getting all my friends and family together, including some old high school friends without me finding out about it. Again, Clancy was involved, he set up the ruse that he and Carol had won a dinner for four and wanted Marie and I to go with them. It was one of those very special times in my life.
The 911 and Central Dispatch meetings continued on when Bill Lair became police chief in Gloversville and when Mike Shaefer and Steve Hart became fire chiefs in Gloversville and Johnstown respectively. When Francis Reed was Mayor of Johnstown, he was very interested in consolidation of the Gloversville and Johnstown police departments. We had the NYS Division for Criminal Justice Services come in and do a study. They determined that consolidation would save the cities over $300,000. Mayor Reed wanted to pursue it and we did a lot of work on it, including mapping out revised patrol zones to cover the two cities, but other political forces were very opposed to the idea. That's when certain political factions started to make things rough on me. And when Mayor Reed was defeated by Robert Valachovic, and Jack Papa got elected to the council, that gave them the power to come at me. They didn't waste any time in telling me I didn't have a future in their vision for the police department. In hindsight, I think that the consolidation issue was their main problem. They worked very hard to get Mayor Reed out of office because he favored consolidation and so did I. The officers that were trying to get into command and supervisory positions were all opposed to consolidation.
In the midst of this political strife, I had probably my single hardest day of my career. It was the annual Memorial Day Parade in 1994. Mark Snyder and I had been friends since he had joined the department. We spent a lot of time together over the years, both on and off duty. We rode motorcycles together and he helped me pick out my first guitar. I had made him an Investigator and Juvenile Officer and he did very well in those roles. He also was working as an undercover for the Narcotics Task Force. Just before the parade was to start I got a call that he had been shot. At first my mind flashed that it had to be related to the drug work. But it wasn't. He was working in uniform doing traffic control for the parade. He was at William and Clinton Streets which was the starting point for the parade. A young man walked up to him, said "Hi Officer" and raised a gun and shot him. Mark went down and the kid took another shot at him on the ground, but missed. He then ran away. The next calls I got were from Officer Mike Sepanara telling me Mark had been shot in the face, and from the State Police Major in Troop G offering whatever assistance we needed. I didn't find out until later that when Mark was being loaded into the ambulance that he told Mike Sepanara "Tell them Jack Papa did it." That was indicative of his sense of humor, still intact at that time.
We established a command post at Johnstown High School and had assistance from the State Police, Sheriff's Department, and Gloversville Police. From witness interviews it was determined that it was Nathan Lamphere who had shot Mark and a massive search was begun. I was torn because I was concerned about Mark and wanted to be at the hospital, but my place was at the command post. Mark was flown from Littauer Hospital by helicopter to Albany Med. It was a .22 cal. handgun that he had been shot with; the bullet entered the side of his mouth and came to a rest in the back of his neck. Because of the position of the bullet it has never been removed.
Later that night, Lamphere was apprehended on a back road near Caroga Lake. He is currently in prison and Mark had to take a disability retirement and has moved to Florida. In one of those strange quirks of fate, the guy I work with now at Johnstown Dodge, Harold Robbins, was one of the eye-witnesses to the shooting.
The pinnacle of my career as Police Chief was attaining Accreditation for the department through the NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services. The program consisted of 115 polices and procedures that had to meet the Accreditation guidelines. You also had to prove to them that the policies were in fact in place and show documentation that they were being followed. They would send a team to your department for three days to do an evaluation, interview as many officers as possible, review your documentation, and generally inspect your operation. At the time we applied for Accreditation less than 10% of the departments in New York were accredited. When we achieved Accreditation we had a nice ceremony and D.C.J.S. personnel made a presentation at a meeting of the Common Council.
Certificate of Accreditation
In spite of that success, the political group was as determined as ever to get me out. I fought them throughout the Valachovic and Papa regime. Then Bill Pollack was elected Mayor and he was also aligned with the same group. They finally offered me a financial package to retire and on December 31, 1998 I retired from the police department. Ironically, this same group then turned on Mayor Pollack and made his term a rough one.
During my tenure at the police department I had served as Police Officer, Sergeant, Detective Sergeant and Juvenile Officer, Lieutenant, and Chief. I had been Secretary, Vice-President, and President of the Police Benevolent Association (PBA) and a member of the International Association of Arson Investigators, a member of the Northeastern Police Conference and the Police Conference of New York, a member and the Treasurer of the Northeastern Police Chiefs Conference, a member of the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police, and now the Retired Police Association. In addition, I served as an Advisor for the security program at B.O.C.E.S. and was a member of the Pine Tree Rifle Club, the Johnstown Rotary Club, and the Johnstown Moose Club. I am a Life Member of the NRA and have now earned Life Member status in the NYS Association of Chiefs of Police.
In
my office, hard at work
I very much enjoyed my career in law enforcement. I tried to do my job the best I could and I always tried to treat people the way I would want to be treated. As Chief I wanted the best for my men and I considered myself a "cop's cop" in that I would stand up for them, even to the point of creating problems for myself with the council. But I firmly believed in the "thin blue line" the "brotherhood of the badge"; whatever you want to call it. I believed that things should be kept in-house and handled in-house whenever possible.
The guys in the department put together a retirement party for me at the Moose Club. It was very nice. My good pal, Clancy, was the Master of Ceremonies and he had put together a video of photographs of me through my life which played on a TV during the party. His son Mike videotaped the party itself. My good friends from the Northeastern Chiefs Conference attended and I was presented with plaques from both the Northeastern and the New York State Chiefs. Assemblyman Marc Butler was there and presented proclamations from the state Assembly and from the Senate on behalf of Senator Hugh Farley. I also received a letter from former President George Bush. The PBA presented me with my retirement badge and a .40 Cal. Glock pistol. My family also attended and it was extra special having them all there as well as other friends and people from the community.
After retiring from the police department, I had no plans to do anything right away. We took a cruise to the Western Caribbean and when we got back I planned to at least take the winter off. But a month later I got a call from Dave Bramer at Bramer Chevrolet in Johnstown. He wanted me to do a web page for the business. So I agreed to do it. He got me a desk and computer and put it in the GM Pro Shop where they sold NASCAR collectables and merchandise. His step-daughter, Jennifer, ran the shop. I would work on the web page and help out in the Pro Shop as needed. He sent me to school down in Colonie for GM Buypower which was a program for people to shop for a new Chevrolet online. So I became the administrator of that program too. You had to reply to customers within 24 hours when they inquired about a car. I also photographed the entire used car inventory and put it online. I also put the entire inventory of the Pro Shop online and set up a shopping cart program so people could buy online. It worked quite well and we shipped merchandise all over the country and to Canada.
Me
at Bramer Chevrolet
I also did dealer trades from time to time. I would drive a new car to another Chevy dealership and bring another new one back. I went as far as Boston and Pennsylvania and up north to Watertown. That was a tough job driving around in a brand new car. The only downside was that the car I picked up was almost always on empty and it was sometimes a struggle to find a gas station before it ran out.
Jennifer didn't like working in the Pro Shop and quit. I became Manager of the Pro Shop in addition to being the Internet Manager. The website was fairly self-sufficient except for updating the inventories of used cars and the Pro Shop as needed. I really enjoyed working in the Pro Shop because I was a huge NASCAR fan and a NASCAR die cast collector. I liked talking to the customers about racing. It was really a dream job, but after about a year rumors started that Dave was selling the business to the Eagle Auto Group and that they didn't intend to keep the Pro Shop. I had known Dave's wife Gail for a long time and it bothered me that they wouldn't be honest with me about the future of the Pro Shop, but when they wouldn't allow me to order any new merchandise it was pretty obvious.
A friend who was a retired Johnstown firefighter, Jerry Shelmandine, stopped in to see me and asked if I was interested in going to work at Johnstown Dodge in the parts department. He was a salesman there. So I went and talked to the owner, George Kline, and talked to Harold Robbins who was the Parts Manager. I took the job and quit Bramer's who did sell out to Eagle who did close the Pro Shop. I've enjoyed my job at Johnstown Dodge too. It's been a pleasant change from the stress of the police department. Things are very low key there although it does get hectic sometimes. The Parts Manager and I really work as equal partners. I usually check in the parts that come in each day and receive them into inventory. We use Auto-Mate for inventory and billing. Then I put the special order parts together and either deliver them myself or send them out for delivery. One of us enters the parts order daily, usually whichever one thinks of it first or whoever is free when it's time to enter it. We are computerized and use a PAIS lookup system for parts, and increasingly use Chrysler's Star Parts for lookup. Chrysler has gone completely over to the internet and we use Dealer Connect for all functions such as the parts locator, doing CORE returns, warranty returns, Chrysler email, etc.
On September 11, 2001 I was working at the Parts counter when word came over the tv in the customer waiting room that an airplane had flown into the World Trade Center. First thought, of course, was that it was some kind of accident. But when the second tower was hit, and then the Pentagon, it was clear that we were the victims of a terrorist attack. It's one of those dates, like the JFK assassination, that you will forever remember where you were.
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