Now when we were just little kids our weekends were devoted in part to getting together with the other guys on our block and playing games. If we didn’t have a ball or a makeshift bat that was really an old broomstick, we came up with other ideas that did not require anything more than our imagination. Hide-and-Seek was always a good beginning, but then there were other variations on that theme. And so we also had Cops and Robbers. The cops were the good guys and had to chase, find and capture some outlaws. Most of us (and I include myself) liked to be on the side of the law so we opted for the role of the police.

At home we had learned how important it was to listen to and obey the policeman. If we passed an officer on our way to school, we walked a bit slower and nodded most respectfully in his direction. I remember once that one of the policemen in full uniform, hat and club and all the rest of the regalia smiled in my direction and this was coupled with a wave of his hand as I crossed the street and walked to school. And at that moment I felt that my day had been made, and to paraphrase the poet, “God was in his heaven and all was right with the world.’

As I think back on that day suddenly an incident comes to mind. Many years later when that little boy who nodded at the officer had grown up and had grandchildren of that age, he was visiting with his grandson. (Now you know I am talking about me: and my grandson, Ari.) Ari was in fourth grade at the time, and while we were chatting he informed me that on the following day there would be a visitor in his class, a police lieutenant who was going to speak to the class about the importance of walking the straight and narrow (my words, not his) and avoiding problems that could land the recalcitrant offender (again my words) in trouble. Now I knew a number of these police officers because we had met at community meetings, so I told Ari he might even give the visitor my regards.

The following day I was eager to learn what had happened and Ari was all aglow, his face beaming and his eyes sparkling with delight. He had spoken to Lieutenant Ted after the lesson, and not only did this terrific police officer remember me but he told Ari to send me his best wishes and then he capped everything off with a “high five” and all of the fourth graders smiled. That “high five” brought back the memory of another time and another policeman who had given a child a smile and that youngster also had beamed with delight.

And so today when I pick up the paper or turn on the television and check the news, I wonder how many parents today do what Mama did many years ago, tell their children how important it is to listen to the policemen, to be respectful of those who do their best to carry out the law and make the streets secure and safe for all of us. I wonder how many today appreciate the work that those like Lieutenant Ted are doing as Public Affairs Officers and working in crime prevention, how they go to schools and speak to our young pupils about avoiding drugs and petty thievery.

Officer Ted may be a Captain now (that’s better than a lieutenant?) but I wonder if he knows how much it meant to a child in the fourth grade to receive that smile and that “high five” and also to the grandfather whose image was magnified in the eyes of his grandson because a real live officer of the law had remembered him and had sent him his good wishes.

Now I am not in the habit of hugging policemen, but I must admit it crossed my mind when I heard about how warm and kind Lieutenant Ted had been and that image combined with that of a policeman of many decades ago who had smiled and waved at a child crossing the street on his way to school.