The radio on our belt had to be put into the console in the car to work.
I was the first officer on the scene of a fight and saw 20 to 25 motorcycles parked outside the club. I also saw a familiar three-wheeler that I knew belonged to a member of the gang who was known to always be armed. I got out of my car and pushed the button to release the radio so that I could put it on my belt. As I went to put the radio on my belt, I missed, and watched in horror as it fell to the ground, breaking into about a hundred pieces. I looked over and suddenly realized that about thirty gang members had also watched my radio fall and shatter.
There I stood, outnumbered and outgunned. I looked at them; they looked at me. What to say at a moment like this? The first thing that came to my mind was, “I guess I’m f***ed.”
When the bikers heard that, they broke out laughing, erasing any tension that may have existed between us. We chatted until my backup arrived, lights and sirens screaming, because they couldn’t raise me on the radio and thought the worst. (We had no cell phones in those days.) My accident with the radio not only broke up the fight, but it also broke the ice as well. They could have easily destroyed me and everything else.
I later became a Field Training Officer and used this incident as a training tool for new officers. The lesson was to treat people with respect, and they will treat you the same way. I didn’t get smart with these guys, and I joked about my misfortune. They, luckily, took it in the way it was meant, respectfully, and returned that respect back to me.

For more by John Wills’ “Women Warriors: Stories from the Thin Blue Line” go to www.amazon.com or totalrecallpress.com

It was decided to first visit the senior class with the lowest collective grades of all the senior classes. Father John figured a culprit was more likely to be there rather than from a class of top students. He and O’Shea broke into a Marriage and Family class, taught by Father Albert, a pudgy teacher that despised the coursework he was charged to teach. Instructing on such a topic he felt was ludicrous for him. He stepped aside hoping Father Principal was there to reassign him.
“This is Special Agent O’Shea of the FBI,” the principal announced standing at the front of the class, causing many students to murmur nervously. “A serious issue has come to light and I have asked Father Bill, along with agent O’Shea, to inspect all lockers and possessions on your person.
A student in an end seat of the last row raised his hand waving it for attention. He wore a checked flannel shirt with frayed cuffs.
“Yes, Thompson?” Father Bill said curtly.
“Father, I think this might be considered an invasion of privacy according to the city charter.” Many class members snickered, knowing what was coming next, but were silenced by Father Bill’s dark unamusing eyes that quickly scanned the room.
“Get out in the hall, Thompson.”
“Yes, Father.” Jimmy Thompson wasn’t the brightest bulb on the block, but he also wasn’t a complete fool, aware that Father Principal only brought Father Cech along if severe punishment might be merited. He would set aside his constitutional principles for the time being and argue no more. Besides, he couldn’t remember if this privacy thing he had heard about was in Mayor Daley’s city charter, or some other charter. He cursed himself for opening his mouth and hustled up the aisle and out the door, careful not to get too close to the reach of the grim priest.
Father Bill’s dark eyes behind the tinted glasses followed the student out the door and then he turned back to the class, all of which were standing and reluctantly emptying pockets onto their desks. All sorts of incriminating items summarily appeared on desks throughout the classroom – pocket knives, pictures of nude women, brass knuckles, parley cards, condoms, and then the melted down pennies. Lots of melted down pennies. Upon one desk Agent O’Shea with a quick calculation figured there were at least thirty shiny dime-sized pennies.
Penance handed out by Father Bill was swift and severe. He went after those with the condoms and dirty pictures first, whacking the culprits hard in the back of the head with a powerful cuffed hand. It was chaos as the priest moved up and down the aisles, slapping and cuffing anyone and everyone for there was not a desk free of some sort of improper item. Realizing they had been caught red-handed in sinning grievously, the brave boys took their medicine in stride. All, excluding the fake dimes, were scooped into a waste basket and set on Father Albert’s desk. Agent O’Shea produced a plastic evidence bag for the coins and moved through the room scrapping them off desks into the bag.
Father John then moved to the center of the class and announced, “I want everyone to sit down so I can see you.” The boys returned to their desks as one with their eyes on the principal in fearful anticipation. The principal waited for absolute quiet and let that sink in for several long moments and then said, “I am sorry to say that this is disgraceful! Boys in a Catholic high school carrying such filth where anyone can see it. What about your mothers? Do you want them to come across pictures like that? How can you do that?”
Now all eyes were down on the desks or the floors. After a pause the principal continued. “I expect to see all of you to go in confession after school. Now the problem that brought us here is obvious and real. I want the name of the student responsible for this crime of defacing money that has brought a federal agent into our school, and I want it now!”
The room remained quiet and, though no one wished to be the subject of further atonement by Father Bill, no one wanted either to be the one to snitch on a fellow student. Even with Father Cech moving up and down the aisle with his intimidating look through the dark glasses, the boys squirmed in the seats, but said nothing. Nothing, that is until Jimmy Thompson who had been watching Father Bill’s carnage through a crack in the open door, hedged back into the room. Hoping to elude Father Bill’s dissemination of penance, he blurted out, “It was Charlie Resnick! He sold us the coins!” Father Bill nonetheless grabbed Jimmy by the arm and cuffed him good on the back of the head. He then shoved the boy back toward his desk and the other students moved away, shunning the stoolpigeon in their midst.
The principal’s eyes widened and then he leaned over to Agent O’Shea to whisper, “Charlie Resnick is by far the most brilliant student we’ve had in years. He’s never been in trouble.” The agent nodded not citing the obvious that Charlie Resnick was indeed now in a heap of trouble.
They reached Charlie in the Chemistry lab. As he often did during any free time, which he had at the moment, he was discussing worldwide scientific developments with Father Adolph as the pair came through the door.
Father John spoke as the agent had never met Charlie. “Charlie, this is Special Agent O’Shea with the FBI.”
Charlie realized at once that he was cooked, and Father Adolph sensed also that his prize student might be in considerable trouble. As there were a few students scattered about the lab, the principal directed that they go move to his office. Though not asked, the Chemistry teacher accompanied them down to the Father John’s office.
The Malloy principal’s office was small with barely enough room for the four to be seated. Father John sat behind his glass-topped desk with O’Shea in a straight back at the side of the desk while Charlie and Father Adolph were in a pair of inexpensive arm chairs across the desk. The chemistry teacher moved an ashtray nearer to him to catch ashes from the cigarette he held upward.
The FBI agent spoke first. “Charlie, I’m investigating a crime that involves counterfeiting coins that has cost many people a lot of money. Do you have any knowledge of that?”
Charlie frowned rubbing his hands together and nodded. “Yes, I’m responsible for this wrongdoing.”
“Why, son?” the agent, surprised by the quick confession, questioned with a tone of sympathy in his voice that didn’t escape Father Adolph’s notice.
The boy pushed his thick horn rimmed glasses back causing his eyes to appear even rounder and larger and said, “It started out as an experiment with nitric acid. Realizing that this compound dissolved copper, I was curious to see if I could generate a mathematical formula that would provide the exact time required to transform a penny into something else, say a dime.”
Father Adolph nodded slightly following his student’s hypothesis and then brought the cigarette up to inhale, causing an eye to squint from the smoke.
“So you were successful,” the agent broke in. “But then you decided to start an enterprise?”
“Correct,” Charlie eagerly answered as if the agent had said something profound. “I am a weak person, and I found also a vain person. I wanted the world to know of my accomplishments, but I erred grievously and I am sorry for that.”
O’Shea and the principal looked at each other and then the agent turned back to Charlie. “Son, you’ve committed a serious felony that has hurt many people financially. A crime like this could well mean having a prison record which would follow you throughout your life.”
The room was quiet due to the enormity of the consequences. But then the chemistry teacher leaned forward. “Might I make a suggestion?” the wily chemistry teacher that had long ago dealt with the rising Nazi thugs during the thirties as a novitiate, until deciding to leave his home country when they started tossing priests from rooftops, said in his thick Bavarian accent. All heads turned to him.
“Yes, Father Adolph,” the principal replied, realizing with all of the turmoil that he hadn’t introduced his chemistry teacher to O’Shea. “Father Adolph is the student’s chemistry teacher,” he explained to the agent.
“Thank you, Father.” He turned slightly to half-face his prized student next to him. “Mr. Resnick has certainly done wrong, by his own admission. And he must pay for that. But he is young with a bright future ahead of him. He is not a bad boy, but a good boy who has strayed from the path. He must return to that path and we as responsible adults can help him do that.” The teacher’s left hand moved a little bringing attention to the long ash on his cigarette that seemed to be defying gravity. To O’Shea he questioned, “I believe the FBI has an intern program for students with special skills, such as in mathematics and chemistry. Is that correct?” O’Shea hesitated and then nodded reluctantly. Father Adolph continued, “What if Charlie would have a chance to use his God-given talents to benefit the FBI and our wonderful country? And whatever money he might earn could be used to pay back those unfortunate businesses hurt by his misbehavior.” His look to Charlie required concurrence from him which he readily gave with a vigorous nod.
Father John, preferring not to see his top student behind bars either, looked to the special agent who seemed to be weighing the peculiar possibility of employing a suspect against whom he was about to press charges. Working toward a conclusion, he checked the faces of those in the room; Father John who looked to be silently encouraging him to go along with the bizarre proposal; Father Adolph who finally tapped the cigarette ashes into the ash tray; and the perpetrator himself, avoiding the agent’s eyes with seemingly innocuous glances at spots on the wall behind his principal.
Finally, Special Agent O’Shea said, “I must clear this with my supervisor of course, but I’m quite sure we can use someone with Mr. Resnick’s gifts.”
Father John sprung up and suggested, “I will have Father Bill round up the fake coins from the rest of the school for you, and I will take care of the punishment for those possessing any counterfeit money, Mr. Resnick included. I’ll let you certainly determine what Charlie must provide for compensation to his victims. All were standing now shaking hands all around, Charlie excluded as he thought that might be pushing the envelope a bit.
Gratefully, Charlie started back to his class instead of being carted off to a Federal prison. Sadly, though, he was out of a lucrative source of income. But on the bright side, he figured, he still had the parley card business.
THE END

COINS (Part 1)
By Gary Repetto

Charlie Resnick was an exceptional math student set to graduate that June of 1968 from Malloy High School in Chicago. Father Ed, his Advanced Trigonometry teacher crowed in the teacher’s lounge that the boy was the best he ever had. The good priest would write down complex problems on the blackboard and, giving the chalk to his prized senior student that wore fashionable brown wavy hair over his ears, Charlie would quickly solve the problems before other classmates had even a chance to digest them. The brilliant senior student looked like a scholar with thick glasses that made his brown eyes large and round and he rolled his head back and forth as he explained theories and premises. In addition to his mathematical talents, he was also a superb chemistry student. He was, in general, a terrific scholar at the west side all boys Catholic high school. Yes, the brilliant boy was up high on a pedestal. Maybe too high. For in addition to his acumen in the classroom, and unbeknownst to his teachers, Charlie enjoyed a considerable amount of larceny in his soul. He used this God-given acumen to make money, discovering a talent to figure largely the correct odds for college football games during the fall season of his senior year. Recognizing the opportunity to make a killing, he bought a simple printing press to produce parlay cards. For a dollar, a fellow student had the opportunity to make a pile betting on his favorite teams. Seldom did that happen, however, as Charlie worked the odds in his favor as any good ‘house’ gambler would. He flourished, making more than lunch money for sure. But he was not a greedy soul, realizing that making too much dough could bring trouble from the mob, who held the corner on parlay cards at that time. Misfortune wouldn’t come from that direction, however, but it would come. His talent in the chemistry lab would prompt the demise.
The calamity began one day during a project when he found that the properties of nitric acid had a dissolving effect on copper. Charlie then approached his chain-smoking chemistry instructor, Father Adolph, an emigre from Nazi Germany, about the possibility of procuring a jar of nitric acid to enhance his experiments at home.
“This could be very dangerous, Charles,” the priest said holding a half-burnt cigarette upward between a nicotine stained thumb and index finger. With his free hand he combed through his unkempt grayish dark hair, which he often did while trying to come to a decision.
“But, Father, I might be able to help advance the standing of our department in the eyes of the community.”
The good priest weighed this idea with a crooked head looking up toward the top of the wall of the laboratory and nodded. Charlie, a foot shorter than his teacher with thick horn-rimmed glasses, wearing a neatly ironed white shirt with the mandatory Malloy tie, loosely knotted, nodded along with Father Adolph. It was as if they had both come up with a dazzling solution to a most difficult problem.
“How will you get the sealed jar home?” the priest asked, already leaning in Charlie’s favor.
“I’ll transport it by car, of course, Father,” he replied with no intention of doing so. Passengers on the bus would be none the wiser that they would be riding along with the horribly hazardous solution.
“Good. Good,” Father acquiesced. “Yes, this is a splendid idea you’ve come up with, Charles.”

Later that afternoon Charlie took a freshly sealed bottle of nitric acid from the lab and transported it by bus to his home on Diversey Avenue near Kosciuszko Park. Once home, Charlie hustled the caustic liquid down to his makeshift lab in the basement where neither his mother nor father dared to venture down to as neither one quite understood their son’s interest in making things fizz and foam. Julie Resnick was content scrubbing floors at the parish rectory while her husband, Joe, preferred his work as an attendant with the Chicago Park District. The elder Resnick was uneasy with his son’s interest in the sciences and, while he was glad the boy was an exemplary student, he just hoped secretly that they didn’t one day get blasted through the roof of their modest home.
That evening after dinner Charlie began work on his venture. He had earlier developed a mathematical formula to determine the exact time it took for nitric acid to break a copper penny down to the size and weight of a dime. He arrived at the conclusion that this would happen at exactly sixteen seconds in the acid solution. Not fifteen nor seventeen, but sixteen seconds. Into a glass dish he poured enough acid to cover a penny and dropped a shiny copper coin into it. A rank cloud of smoke rose from the dish and Charlie readied tweezers, plucking the melted down penny out at precisely sixteen seconds. He repeated this process twice more and then timed two more at fifteen and seventeen seconds respectfully.
Running up the stairs after cleaning the transformed pennies off, he yelled to his mother, “I’ll be right back.” Charlie was off to test his theory on a pay phone at the park that required a dime to make a call.
Outside the large field house was a phone, and, with an added sense of cheek he called the local police precinct with a ‘sixteen second’ coin.
“Police, 14th District,” a gruff voice answered.
“Wrong number,” Charlie replied, excited that his undertaking was a success. To be sure he dropped the second coin in and successfully called ‘Directory Assistance’. He further fueled his vanity by slipping the ‘fifteen’ and ‘seventeen’ second copper coins into the phone without hearing the necessary dial tone for either. Charlie was ecstatic, pumping his arm upward and yelling loudly for joy that caused an older man walking a dog on the balmy night to look strangely at the high school student.
The next day after classes Charlie proceeded to the nearest bank to purchase several rolls of pennies. He was in business! That night he melted down a hundred pennies to exchange with students at Malloy for a nickel each. It was a slick deal. Charlie would see a profit of four cents per transaction while his student customers would be able to purchase dime candy and sodas from vending machines with the melted down pennies for the nickel they had paid Charlie. Everyone profited and was happy. That is, everyone but the owners of the vending machines who were essentially giving away the goods that they had loaded into the machines.
In a short period of time vending machines and pay phones throughout the north and west sides of Chicago became packed with the bogus coins. However, for a week or so little happened as vending equipment was normally serviced on a weekly basis. It was on a Friday when police phones began to ring off the hook. Scores of businesses and organizations called to frantically inform the authorities of the travesty massed upon them. But the city police, up to their ears in muggings and shootings, quickly saw their out as it was cited that this was a federal crime. They gladly passed the callers on to the Feds.
This was the last thing the FBI needed, however, with church bombings, hate crimes, race riots, anti-war violence and just general attempts to overthrow the government taking place in 1968. Plus, with so many businesses pleading at once for help, it was a considerably difficult task to pinpoint a source for this crime. That was until the cafeteria vendor at Malloy High School reported that the coin box for her candy machine contained the counterfeit money.
On a Monday, a day when many Malloy students were boasting of how successful they had been with their melted down pennies over the weekend, Special Agent Timothy O’Shea appeared unannounced in the principal’s office. Father John Sobykevich, in his tenth and last year as principal of the esteemed Catholic high school, sat down with agent O’Shea in his office and groaned decidedly when informed that students at his beloved school could be part of a city-wide crime ring.
“The most disturbing crime here, Father, is the counterfeiting of hundreds of dollars of coins,” O’Shea, a devout Catholic himself, stated. In his late twenties, he had a thin waste with a barrel chest and strong hands. Per agency standards at the time, his hair was cut short above the ears and he wore a brown suit with an ironed white shirt and a plain red tie, knotted neatly.
“And you think it’s connected to our school?” the principal, a tall man with light hair and wire-rimmed glasses.
The agent pursed his lips and said in a sympathetic tone folding his hands, “I think it originated here, Father.”
“Dear God!” the priest said rubbing the back of his neck with his fingers. He longed mightily at this moment for the year to end so he could return to his work as a Church historian. “What needs to be done?”
“I don’t have a search warrant yet, and we don’t have a student identified to name on one.” Having attended a Catholic school himself, O’Shea knew the ways of the good priests and waited for Father Principal to weigh the matter at hand.
Father John then nodded and said, “No search warrant is required, Mr. O’Shea.” This was the answer the agent figured would come and what he had been hoping for.
The principal leaned forward to speak into an intercom and pushed down a lever. “Wanda,” he beckoned his secretary.
“Yes, Father,” she replied through crackling static.
“Have Father Bill report to the office.”
“Yes, Father,” she replied through the noise that was hard on the ears.
A couple of minutes later Father Bill Cech stepped into the principal’s office. He was about average height with a powerful build and a slow methodical walk. He wore tinted glasses and he didn’t smile much. Father Cech was the one the principal went to when special corrective abilities were needed. A stern task master was the priest, but not a fanatic, both of which was important to the Malloy principal. Father John introduced the agent to Father Bill and explained the situation to his priest. Father Bill listened carefully with his head titled down and to a side, as he might in the confessional booth, to better hear as his ear drums had been damaged from canon fire while serving as a chaplain in Korea. He nodded with understanding after Father John had finished.

My story is a New York story, which is where I grew up, where I experienced this time. You could have grown up in California, the Midwest, the Deep South, New England, or anywhere in the United States for that matter. The place is not the story; it is the experience of being a boomer, living through this time of enlightenment and wonder that made this time special for me, for us. From the fabulous ‘50s through the turbulent ‘60s, and the disco beat of the ‘70s, we were there and we saw it all. This is my story, but it certainly can be yours, especially if you’re a boomer. And, if you’re reading this, you probably are.
Many years ago a wise old woman once told me, “One day in your life you will become your father and honestly, I hope you do.” It sounds so prophetic now that I put it to print, but those were my grandmother’s words in 1961. Believe it or not, we are becoming our parents! Some will disagree, but I can live with that. My dad is still an inspiration and a role model to me. At 85 years of age, he’s still there for me, always. Mom, too! Still, I am a boomer and proud of it. I still think I’m invincible and so do you. Be honest. You do.
We all have memories and nostalgia. Stimuli can be a powerful and welcome emotional trigger. Memories are like snapshots of a specific time in our lives. They are experiences that we all have stored in our brain. Some of these memories are taken for granted and perhaps forgotten at times, but they are always there. They don’t go away and I don’t think you would want to remove them, especially if they remind you of a better time and place, which is for most of us our youth.
Triggers are our connections to the past. They can immediately bring us back to a time and place that may have fond remembrances or perhaps a sad experience; nevertheless, they are important components to our past. It’s like pushing the rewind button on the cassette player you got for Christmas years ago. These triggers create an immediate picture of who we were, where we were, what we were doing, and who we were doing it with. Cool, huh?
It sounds complicated, but it really is a marvel that your brain will assimilate this information and, within a millisecond, return you in a specific place and time from your past. Did you ever think you were as efficient as your laptop? You really can be. It could be a faint scent or a strong odor, a song playing on the radio or a photograph – they are all triggers. You know those boxes stacked at the top of your bedroom closet or stuffed on a shelf in your garage, labeled “old photographs?” You probably haven’t opened them in 20 years or more. Yes, those boxes! These triggers are around us every day and they speak volumes at times. They take us back to a time of simple joy, perhaps when we were children. Hopefully, a time of comfort. Perhaps not, but they will stir your memory to another time in your life.