Respect For The Badge

You may or may not remember Zsa Zsa Gabore but she is famous for several things.

She was Miss Hungary in 1936. She’s been married nine times. Her house, which she bought from Elvis, is famous for being built by Howard Hughes. She is famous for suing her only daughter, Constance Hilton, aunt to Paris Hilton, as a fraud. You may have even caught her one episode of Gilligan’s Island or cameo on the Naked Gun.

She is famous for saying things like, "I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house." The Brewer tilts his cup and says between his stained teeth, “What a blessing”.

When Mrs. Gabore was pulled over in 1989 by a Beverly Hills police officer, she became famous again. This time it was for slapping an officer in the face.

A few days latter, the San Francisco earthquake halted the World Series and before the games resumed, her court sentence came out. The same day she was sentenced to 3 days and $13,000 in fines, Jim Baker was sentenced to 45 years and a $500,000 fine for mail fraud. It was the 80’s. It was a scandalous and disrespectful mess. A day of big shaking when you would shamelessly slap the law in the face.

…Watch ya gonna do?

My dad was a Ft. Worth police officer for a while. From the day I first saw my daddy in uniform, I have had a high respect for cops in general. In Texas, there has been a long-standing tradition of high respect for men with a badge. It is quickly fading as our unique culture heads out of a door that no one holds open for ladies anymore.

This week I got an e-mail and it perfectly illustrates what I’m talking about.

Somebody named Glen Copeland, a retired veteran, wrote he had gone downtown to run a few errands and stopped at the coffee shop. He was only there for about 5 minutes and came out to find a police officer writing a parking ticket.

Glen said to him, “Come on, man, how about giving a retired person a break?” The cop just did his duty and continued writing the ticket. Glen said he was annoyed that this cop ignored him, so he called him a Nazi. Completely unnecessary.

The policeman just smiled and wrote out another ticket for worn out tires or some crazy thing. That’s when Glen called him a doughnut-eating dinosaur.

He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first. Then politely and patiently the police officer wrote a third ticket when Glen called him a moron in blue.

This went on for about 20 minutes. The more Glen was ugly, the more tickets were written. Finally the policeman asked, “Are you finished?” Glen said, “Yes sir, I am”

Personally, Glen confessed in his e-mail, he didn't care a bit about the tickets because he came downtown on the bus. The car that with all the tickets had one of those bumper stickers that said, “Obama in '08”.

Glen went on to say he tries to have a little fun each day now that he’s retired. The doctor tells him it's important to his health.

The Brewer says, shame on you Glen. Have a little more respect for the police please.

A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones. Proverbs 17:22

Contact the Brewer @ www.FreshFromTheBrewer.com