There are generally two types of people when it comes to encouragement: those who are encouraged and told they can do anything if they set their mind to it and those who are told that they can't do this or that or even the other thing.
Genetics and ingrained laziness caused me to be fairly small-framed and truly not what most of us think of as an imposing figure. I remember being in high school and just hoping that someday I would get up to 150 pounds. I also remember that I was fairly intelligent and had a stubbornness that wouldn't give up-usually.
Sometime in my first year of college I met Steve Evans, a Sunnyside Police Officer. He became my role model. I remember stopping in at the Washington State Patrol office in Sunnyside with my new found desire to become a law enforcement officer and met a very nice sergeant who told me that I shouldn't put my eggs all in one basket when I told him I wanted to go into his line of work. Hmmm.
This wouldn't be the last time I heard this...It seemed that my not-so-imposing figure of a man immediately made people conclude that maybe I should be a librarian or maybe a writer or maybe a scientist or...
So, I ignored the general consensus and joined the Pullman Police Department Reserves where I did fine in shooting etc but was a complete failure on the street. Hmmm.
Then, a year out of college, I joined the United States Border Patrol. Why? Because it had a mystique about it, an unknown quality and I would show everyone and I did.
On April 29, 1984 I stepped into the Del Rio, Texas headquarters of the US Border Patrol as a trainee. I remember the chief of the Del Rio Sector, Black Jack Richardson, a true legend in the BP, looking at us and saying that one in three of us wouldn't make it through the academy. He looked at me specifically when he said this.
Chief Richardson was right and wrong in the same sentence. Out of 50 of us in the 162 session of the BP at FLETC, Glynco, Georgia, only 35 graduated. I was one of those 35 that survived!
I was also the best shooter by leaps and bounds. I remember the real cops in our class just saying that my shooting was a fluke; that it was just a one time aberration. But I continued to shoot very good and no matter how they justified in their mind that my shooting didn't count or wasn't the same as theirs or whatever, it was me that received the top awards from both FLETC and the US Border Patrol for achieving perfect scores.
Along with these naysayers were a couple of back patters that were my instructors. Paul Conover, another legend in the Border Patrol was my firearms instructor and he liked me for whatever reason and one time told the other instructors that he "would ride the river with me anytime". That was a great complement coming from a legend.
There was also another legend in the Border Patrol, Mr. Luis Barker who would eventually become a chief patrol agent that for some reason took a liking to me and because of these two individuals I succeeded with honors.
I remember the day of our final run and I ran the mile in 5:33 which is good enough; a classmate who had been with me for the whole time looked at me curiously after the run and said "good job. I never expected that out of you."
Hmmm.
