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January 29, 2020 I named him Scott,

PROMPT January 29 ▼

What is your favorite virtue? Give a few examples like kindness, cleanliness, tact, truth, generosity. Is your favorite one you possess, or one you simply admire in other people? Do you have a strategy to develop it yourself?

Prompt is courtesy of Kåre Enga, P.O. 22, Blogville

Like most mothers, I love to share stories about my son. If you have read any of my stuff, you have probably run across something I've said about him. My husband and I were married nine years before I finally gave birth to a perfect baby boy. I named him Scott. My only child, I have always marveled at how we could have created such an awesome kid.

He was no great student, he struggled academically all the way through school but from the time he was 7, no one could beat him at chess including me, (A reclusive neighbor lady taught him how to play, he would go across the road regularly after school and she would have the chessboard ready. Most of the kids in the area were frightened of her, she had been scarred in a terrible fire and her face and arms were badly twisted and disfigured, one ear and her fingertips burned off. He never seemed to notice.). I don't recall him ever lying to me, he always met things head-on and took responsibility for his actions, even as a little kid. He was a competitive swimmer at the age of 5. I have boxes of ribbons and trophies.

He was raised on horseback and though he is an excellent equestrian, it was clear from a very young age motorized vehicles were his first love, dirt bikes, motorcycles, and fast cars. He built his first car from junked parts and argued with the DMV that since his 16th birthday was on a Sunday, he should be allowed to take his driver's license test on Friday so he wouldn't have to wait until Monday before he could take his test and drive his car. He didn't win that one.

At the age of 23, he was pinned with his badge and became a deputy sheriff. He wanted to be a cop from the age of 3, he would put on a cowboy hat and call himself Deputy George. (I have no idea where that name came from.) He was a motor cop for 7 years, and currently is an investigator on an interdepartmental task force. He has all kinds of awards for his skill as a motor rider and more important awards of merit and bravery. He was nominated for merit by the Rape Crisis Center for the sensitivity and kindness he extended a young rape victim while responding to a call, another more recent commendation was for talking a felon from a barricaded building while SWAT was setting up to launch an assault and the negotiator was still en route. He is also a husband and involved father of four great kids, one of which was born with only half a brain. To say the least, I am very proud of him.

To describe Scott, I have to begin and end with, he is a man of integrity. In fact, that word pretty much defines him.

When he was promoting from middle school to high school, at the promotion ceremony the headmaster referred to Scott as a "John Wayne', "a young man of few words, but when he spoke everyone listened.". He was praised for his quiet, but determined manner in which he sought fairness in the schoolyard. Apparently, my son had made himself champion of the underdog which came to the notice of the administration. It was a small private school with no real PE program and the big kids were bullying and leaving the smaller kids out of the games. Scott saw the injustice, stepped up and divided the teams into equal number of strong players and weaker players before the teachers could get involved. He stood up for the little kids and became their hero. It was impressive enough that my son was given a special award at the promotion ceremony and that was the first time I had ever heard of it.

When he was first hired by the sheriff's department they put him in the jails to give him some experience because he was young. He worked the jails for three years. Early in his probationary time, he talked to me about a dilemma he had to resolve. His training officer was a bully who treated the inmates, to put it nicely, poorly. Scott viewed inmates mostly as guys who had made stupid mistakes and unless they were causing trouble, he treated them like he would anyone else. He felt the taunting, foul language and just plain meanness of some of the officers including his training officer, toward the inmates was wrong. His training officer reprimanded him for being too soft when overhearing him say "thank you" to an inmate and ordered him to never to use polite phrases when dealing with inmates again.

His dilemma was, how to please his training officer so he could continue in his chosen career and still not compromise his belief that harassing, yelling, cussing, and treating inmates like sub-humans was unnecessary. He walked a fine line for his entire probationary period, but he made it through with his integrity intact. In the last year of his jail assignment he was promoted to Lead Deputy, over his training officer, and he put a stop to some of the harassment and what he perceived as mistreatment of the inmates. He was Lead for a year, then moved on to patrol, then to a motor position, and finally to the task force he now serves. His training officer is still a correctional officer in the jail.

I could go on and on with examples of his integrity. My daughter-in-law says I think my son "walks on water". (She must think so too since she has stuck around for 20 years.) Haha, but I know better, he lived in my home in his teens. Do you know what it is like to try and contain all of that testosterone? Enough said.

I believe Scott is the living, breathing example of what it is to live a life with integrity.

this redwood
stands straight and strong
against gale force wind
                    ~~jvg

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