(10-01-2016, 02:36 PM)Charon Wrote: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/insp...nl_az_mostGood story to relate boss. Good kid, good cop. People used to walk those distances, but they usually did it on a horse. It''s true though, as most of you have experienced, once you walk to a place over and over, the time seems to pass faster. It doesn't, but your mind gets used to it. Duncan has the attitude, the work ethic. Smart and lucky kid to know what he does. I've know lots of parents that were more or less functional, but have kids Duncan's age who have been seduced and deluded by the various idols of our consumerist philosophy . . . and all that stuff. Our society is a tough act to counter for the kids.
EDIT: LONG LONG GOOD DEED
This teenager was walking for hours to and from work — until a police stop changed his life
By Amy B Wang September 30
Officers had a surprise for Jourdan Duncan after finding out that he walked more than four hours each day to and from work. (Benicia Police Department)
As its name might suggest, Industrial Way is not known for being pedestrian-friendly.
The road in the Northern California city of Benicia is lined with trucking companies, warehouses and metal-finishing factories. As it curves north, before it turns into Channel Road, the street cuts under busy Interstate 680.
So when Cpl. Kirk Keffer of the Benicia Police Department spotted a lone, lanky teenager walking on Industrial Way during the graveyard shift a few Saturdays ago, he was curious. It was after 11 p.m. and dark outside, and the boy was just nearing the highway overpass.
“Usually in the industrial area, there’s no foot traffic, so it was kind of weird to see someone walking around on foot,” Keffer told The Washington Post.
He stopped his patrol car, got out and called out to the pedestrian.
Was he okay? What was he doing out there by himself?
The teenager, 18-year-old Jourdan Duncan, was equally startled at first.
“I was absolutely nervous,” he said. “I thought, okay, um, did I do anything wrong? Is he going to put me in cuffs? I didn’t do anything bad.”
Duncan told Keffer he was walking back to his parents’ home in Vallejo. He had just gotten off from his job at Pro-Form Laboratories, where the teen worked on the packaging line from 3 p.m. until around midnight.
“Vallejo? That’s like seven miles away,” Keffer said he remembered saying to Duncan.
Soon, he had cleared out the passenger seat in his patrol car and offered Duncan a ride home.
[This photo of an officer comforting a baby went viral. But there’s more to the story.]
On the drive, Keffer asked the teen more questions. Why Benicia? Why not drive to work?
He was agog that anybody would walk more than two hours each way, every day.
Duncan explained that he had just graduated from Jesse Bethel High School the year before. He had gotten a job at Pro-Form Laboratories in May, and enjoyed being around his co-workers. He was saving money for college, he said — but really wanted to be an officer with the California Highway Patrol, to follow in the footsteps of some relatives who were in law enforcement.
When the timing belt and an engine valve on his 2001 Volvo broke in July, Duncan got a few rides from friends and co-workers, but soon decided he would try to walk to avoid burdening others.
“I didn’t want to always call somebody and be like, ‘Hey, can you pick me up?’ ” he said. “That would have took a lot of people’s time.”
benicia2 Jourdan Duncan and Benicia Police Cpl. Kirk Keffer. (Benicia Police Department)
Duncan never told his parents he started walking. (“They thought I was getting rides every day,” he admits.) The first time he plotted out a walkable route on Google Maps, it spit out an estimated commute time of 2 hours and 15 minutes.
“This is going to be a long walk,” Duncan thought. On his first day going to work by foot, he didn’t know what to expect. “The whole way there I just had my earphones in, kept quiet and I just power-walked the whole way.”
That was in July. Gradually, the foot commute grew easier for him.
“The walk now, it’s not a problem for me,” he said.
By the time Keffer pulled up to Duncan’s parents’ house that night — all of 15 minutes later, by car — the police officer was impressed. Most people won’t even walk down to the store, he joked.
“I was just like, wow, Jourdan, that’s really impressive, your dedication and your hard work,” Keffer said. “At age 18, that’s a good work ethic to have, and I said, you know, I admire that. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
They parted ways and Keffer returned to the police department in Benicia. Still, he couldn’t get Duncan’s commute out of his head. He mentioned his interaction to his shift supervisor, who, like Keffer, happened to be a board member of the Benicia Police Officers’ Association.
“So I hit him up and say, ‘I just had this contact with this young man,’ ” Keffer said. ” ‘He’s walking five hours a day, and I think it should be rewarded. What if we help him out?’ ”
They emailed the rest of the board to seek approval to buy a bicycle. It was, he said, one of the fastest votes they’ve ever taken: Within an hour, enough board members wrote back in agreement. And so, the following day, Keffer visited Wheels in Motion, a local bike shop.
[Hailed a hero, the homeless man who found New Jersey bombs gets apartment, job prospects]
He was looking for a good mountain bike, Keffer explained to the owner. Something with a reliable gearing system that could handle Benicia’s steep hills. The longtime shop owner, Greg Andrade, helped him pick out a $500 Giant-brand bicycle — and loved the teen’s story so much that he also donated a lighting system, brake light and helmet.
The only matter left was how to surprise Duncan.
Keffer looked up Pro-Form Laboratories and dialed the company, asking for Duncan’s boss. Then, he explained their encounter the night before. Was Jourdan scheduled to work Monday? Would they mind if a few officers stopped by the warehouse to surprise him with something?
That Monday night, Sept. 19, Duncan’s supervisor called him out and told him to go outside. Some policemen were waiting for him.
Once again, Duncan was taken aback. His boss assured him he was not in trouble.
Outside, he spotted Keffer, along with some other Benicia police officers.
“‘We have something for you,'” he said they told him, pulling the bicycle out from behind a car. “‘This is your bike’ … I was like, wait, what? Is this some kind of trick?”
The bike was a token of their gratitude, the officers said.
“We would like to acknowledge your hard work and dedication for what you do and setting the example for kids your age,” Keffer said they told him. “Hopefully this’ll make your trip easier.”
Duncan said he was bowled over by the gift, but also stymied by the attention. Several local news stations wanted him on their shows. Normally reserved, he shyly agreed to talk to all of them — “I was so nervous; I’ve never been on TV” — but couldn’t help but think: They want to interview me for walking?
“The walk isn’t hard,” he said. “It’s like a challenge. To me, it was like a challenge to see if I was willing to do whatever it takes to get to work.”
Keffer said that was precisely what moved him to do something for Duncan. And Duncan said the bicycle has made him “feel more at ease” with his commute, which has now been cut down to an hour.
Duncan said he and Keffer are keeping in touch, and that Keffer has offered to take him on a ride-along so he can get a better idea of what being a police officer is all about.
“It’s something I’ve been interested in since high school. A lot of my family members, they’re in law enforcement,” Duncan said. “It’s like, what they do and, due to a lot of people thinking that there are bad cops out there, I want to prove that all cops aren’t bad — which is true, due to what just happened to me.”
Spankster
Saw an interesting and thoughtful act today. Usually I just see people walking around in the stores, on the streets, and lots of times they are courteous, nod, say hi, and that's good, but not noteworthy.
Today I was getting some exercise by walking around my current--leaving end of this month--home of Coos Bay. Went to Biz Mart--kind of a small "everything" store with regular new stuff, to Dollar Store, to Salvation Army Store, then to a place that is an off shoot of Habtat for Humanity, a small retail place where they take in everything, some they repackage and sell at way low prices. Bits of furniture, lamps, lots of small hardware, tools, cans of paint--some not full. But, good stuff, so I was just looking.
And somebody was clattering through a shelf with a mess of small hand tools next to me, across an opening in the cramped aisles. They try to more-or-less arrange things int he store, but lots of it's just laid out. But as I looked it was a young Asian kid, maybe 13-14, and he was picking up small fixtures and tools and everything on the shelf and moving it around. I thought maybe he worked there, but there was such a slurry of small metal stuff without containers for them I couldn't figure how he could come up with a plan.
So I looked around some more, and got closer to the kid, and he was engrossed by then in arranging sockets that were jumbled in a small bin into an empty bin next to it, by size, in lines, larger to smaller. Then I noticed an older Asian kid, maybe 18-20 standing behind him a couple of feet and keeping an eye on the kid who was bent over the sockets, arranging the hell out of them. The older one tapped the younger on the shoulder as I got closer and told him to move because I was maybe wanting to be in that spot, but I told him, no, no problem, I was fine. The older just smiled a bit and turned his attention to the kid who was like Bobby Fisher playing chess with the sockets.
So, didn't take a psych degree to tell that the younger of the two was obsessive compulsive and was kind of in hog heaven. I don't pretend to know the developmental ins and outs of allowing the kid to exercise his compulsion, but he seemed to be enjoying himself. It's a small place and I'm sure the older, who may have been his brother, had gotten permission from the owner who seemed like a good guy.
So, that was pretty amazing.
Spank