The Adventure Begins

And the adventure begins……

Today was my last day to work a full day and the day of my retirement party. I must say that I didn’t really know what to expect at the party but it turned out very well. Dedra is on vacation, so I guess I shouldn’t be disappointed that she didn’t make it. Everyone from City hall was there, even Isaac from Public Works. The Chief made a small presentation of a plaque that was very nice that listed out my law enforcement jobs and the years that I worked there. It totals 34 years, which is a pretty good career. The Santa Fe PD Chief of Police, Barry Cook came over. Barry has always been a good friend and of course we worked together in Dickinson back in the early days of the police department there. Barry had left Santa Fe to come to Dickinson, but soon went back and then made Chief of Police. Judge Culling, the Municipal court judge in Manvel came over, as did JP2-1 Justice Court Judge John Vasut. I was glad that these two men came as they have both been good to me in Manvel. Judge Vasut is a former Detective from the Angleton Police Department

As I said before, the city bought me a plaque and the Police Association gave me a silly retirement hat and a gift certificate for Camping World for $100.00. That was very nice of them. David Davila, a former officer in Manvel gave me a very nice pocket knife and another nice retirement card.

Before the party started, I finished up some reports that had some minor problems and took care of some evidence that I had found in my desk drawer. There were some video tapes of the counting of the money that was recovered in the 2nd bank robbery and another video of the return of the money and the counting of all that cash. It wasn’t as though I had actual evidence in my desk, it was video tapes of some events that were taken by others and then given to me to take care of. I got ‘er dun today and dropped them into the evidence storage where they will be filed with the rest of the evidence.

I went by the First State bank to see their employees before I left, including Ron Brazil the branch manager. Ron was out today, running errands for the bank, but I did get to talk to Sandra who was a former teller at the 1st National Bank and who had been robbed in the first robbery there. She was shocked to hear that I am retiring, but I think they are all glad for me. I met the new personal banker there, a girl named Angela who used to work for Amegy bank and who had worked with Stella there. She remembered “Stella the stalker” as being a hard auditor. She complimented Stella on being such a stickler for details in her audits and said that she learned (the hard way) how a good exam was supposed to have been done. She said that the new bank’s people were not nearly as thorough as Stella had been and didn’t know nearly as much as she did, so the bank was the one that suffered when Stella left.

We went out to eat at the Red Lobster in Webster for Tyler’s birthday, which will be on Saturday. We are leaving tomorrow for Rayford where we will stay for almost two weeks through Thanksgiving and will leave on Thursday December 4th for Boerne and the Boomer’s Christmas rally there. I think it would be nice to stay in the Hill country for a couple of days to look at the pretty Christmas lights, but we’ll see how that goes.

I cleaned out my office yesterday and today I took the rest of my stuff home. The office looks so bare without my certificates and awards hanging on the wall. I also brought in all my uniforms and gear as well as my duty gun and holster. Tomorrow, all I have to do is bring in my other gun, badge and identification cards, credit cards and my Expedition which I will turn in. I plan to go to lunch with Kristine Schaffner, Mike Jaimes and Greg Bartlett who were all good friends to me during my stay in Manvel. Stella said she may come have lunch with us and then we leave to go home and get the trailer to go to Rayford, and THE ADVENTURE BEGINS!!!