012 - Captivation

Episode 12 brings you 3 short stories with 1 common theme.  This country is in upheaval.  The quarreling.  The violence.  The hiding.  People are still captive.  We still have a purpose.

Please rate and comment, and email Bruce your stories so he can parallel them.  parallelproofpodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

Episode 12:  Captivation

Welcome back to Parallel Proof.  I am Bruce, your host, on a journey to make sense of my past.  I want to thank you for all the support I have received.  So many of you have inspired me.  Please share this podcast with others, and if you have time, I would love for you to rate it and comment.

Many have asked me who the Producer is.  They see the “Produced by Cairn Lane” when they pull up the podcast on whichever platform.  My life, from birth to 18 years, was shaped and molded in the same house, set in the woods, next to a continuously flowing creek.  A sloping 350-foot-long driveway between trees and brush was connected to the street I grew up on called, Cairn Lane.  I happen to be a product, and this podcast is an outcome of the life forged those 6,570 plus days turning off Cairn Lane, to a colonial style house in Northeast Ohio.

This is episode 12:  Captivation

This week’s episode is a potpourri of stories pointing to a common theme.  There are things that happen in life that are not all tragic.  Funny instances we can look back on and chuckle as we share with others the saying that goes, “What a time to be alive.”  Life can be fun and funny.  We all need the pauses in the day-to-day that breaks up the monotony.  I still find myself creating a parallel with those laughable, head scratching times to what I think God might be telling me.  The words come alive and mean something to me when I do that.  Maybe only me, but forming relevance is a way for me to connect with the God so personal to each and every one of us.

So, here are a few stories surrounding confinement under duress.

It was a blistering hot summer day, and my family and I decided to pack up some lawn chairs, a canopy, food, and some sunscreen and head over to Folsom Lake to enjoy some swim time and playing in the sand.  There I was, trying to be a good dad by swimming in the lake with my kids, and doing the typical father of the year thing by tossing my 7-year-old daughter as high as I could, and letting her splash into the water, completely submerging herself, coming up for air, and paddling back to me for more.  One such throw went from funny to scary and back to one of the funniest things I’ve every laid eyes on.  As my innocent, wonderful, precious daughter was making her way back to my grasp, she started freaking out.  I see my girl clutching her chest in a panic.  I’ll save you the screaming part for your poor ears, but in her very own words she’s yelling, “I feel my heart!  Something is wrong with my heart! My heart is coming out of my chest!”  I’m all, “What?”  “My heart!  It hurts!  It’s coming out of my body!”  I can tell in her eyes, we could have a major issue.  She wasn’t kidding.  She was scared and feeling some type of sensation.  I seize my little girl as she’s cupping and grabbing the area near her heart.  I pull her swimsuit out away from her body and I peer in, and there it was.  Not her heart, but a fish she had caught flopping around, captive, between her rib cage and the fabric.  The catching of her first fish, never to be forgotten.  A catch and release.

I received a story from an ex-coworker at the police department that I want to share with you.  This is the abridged version, and the full story is available for you to read in addition to this transcript at parallelproof.buzzsprout.com under this episode.  Paula Gow was patrolling the streets, and per usual, the mundane burglary call at 5:30am pops up on her terminal, and of course, she’s near the end of her shift, so let’s hope the owner tripped the alarm by accident.  Initially, no burglar in sight, and the owner of this auto parts store wasn’t aware of any break-in.  But, the good officer she was, she is going to roam the store and make sure nothing is awry.  Oh yes, there he was.  The culprit had stolen Planter’s peanuts and was roaming the business.  The Planter’s peanut bag had a tail.  A rat, stuck in the bag, was scurrying around and tripping alarms.  One swift stomp and Paula got the bag, but missed the rodent, and off the dirty little creature went straight into the bathroom.  No police training in the world could prepare Paula for what was about to take place.  Although she did grow up in the country with cows and chickens, she’d also engage in rodent warfare from time to time.  Now it’s a mission to capture, or conclude the life of this mongrel.  Another stomp, another miss, and it’s gone.  Until,----there was a weight on her pantleg, but no rat to be seen.  The mangy rodent is inside her uniform pants!  Paula begins jumping up and down, frantically shaking her foot at warp speed, along with squeals at the thought of pending rabies, or Bubonic Plague, or bird flu.  Who knows.  Haha.  But now it gets disconcerting.  No rat exits.  Only the feeling of a warm, furry movement at her crotch.  Under different circumstances, whatever.  But male or female, a rat nestled in the seam of your junk would be quite unsettling.  A rat, in captivity, in your crotch.  Let that one process for a minute.  Haha, I hate that word, crotch.  The rabbit I’ve heard of, but not the live rat.  Was there an escape?  More details of her story are available.  Download the full narrative afger my transcript at Buzzsprout, and read it in her descriptive words.  Thank you, Paula for sharing.

Now, people in captivity, or those that feel captive, often make irrational decisions, and if alcohol is involved, look out.  As a cop, you often have time to hunt, or time to just cruise around being the friendly neighborhood police officer, there when you need them, and also present when you really don’t want them around.  Case in point, on my beat one night, I make my way to many of the downtown bars within my territory just to be a presence and make sure everyone stays sane and gets home safely.  I roll up on this bar at closing and I see this dude, I mean, hammered.  Drunk off his rocker, stumbling around trying to feel up all the ladies, so I decide to help this guy out.  He’s not scoring any points with the women and won’t be scoring at all later on.  So, to keep him from hurting himself by falling face first to the asphalt, I sit him down in the back of my patrol car, unhandcuffed.  He’s not in trouble and not going to jail.  I ask this guy for a name and a number of a friend that could come and pick him up, which, he provides me.  I call said friend and they are literally 10 minutes away and, on their way, to take this guy home.  Until----captivity overwhelms.  Dude lays back and starts kicking my driver’s side rear window shattering the window.  Within seconds, he’s crawling out the broken window and falls face first to the paved parking lot.  Freedom gave him some balls, and the opportunity to fight a cop.  And fight me he did.  That brief stay of captivity in the back seat not only captivated his mind, but willed him to end up becoming a captive in county jail.

I have in my mind the word captive and captivity.  A captive fish, a captive rat, a captive person.

This country is in turmoil at the moment.  Ever since Covid graced the world with its presence, there has been an increase in the amount of resentment, arguments, violence, and quarrels.  An upheaval of common decency along with fights on so many fronts.  Angry radicals lashing out and honorable citizens taking cover.  The Apostle Paul talks about this very thing in 2nd Timothy and at the end of chapter 2.  Paul pens something about, “coming to their senses and escaping from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.”  Many times I like to work in reverse as I read the word, and this happens to be one of those occasions.  So bear with me as I prove a parallel to myself.

The devil traps and ensnares, and when he does, a person is taken captive, or can be taken, to do the devils bidding.  But God has asked us, He has commissioned all of us to be His servant and carry out the calling placed on our lives.  There are many captive around us knowingly and unknowingly.  Stuck, imprisoned, near a dead end, chained.  A friend, a coworker, a spouse, your child, your neighbor, the people in your bubble.  They may be trapped by foolish thinking, taken hostage by  schemes orchestrated by evil.  There may be someone in desperate need of you being an instrument in the symphony conducted by the Lord Himself.  And here is the mandate.  This is what Paul says to do and be.  When you come across those who have foolish and stupid arguments (Paul’s words by the way), when you deal with the same that produce quarrels and dissention, we are asked, as a servant, to be kind to everyone, able to teach and not be resentful.  So many using the excuse of how shattering this past year has been.  People with different viewpoints and opposing ideas about life, we are to be gentle, and in the gentleness, instruct.  Why?  Because there is a hope that God will grant them repentance which leads them to the knowledge of the truth, and they will come to their senses and escape.  Paul says that.  Like it or not, there is a reason we are placed on this earth.  God has ordained you, and me, to be here for a purpose.

But even before Paul says all of that, he directs us to flee.  First, start with that.  Flee the evil desires.  Fleeing something that’s behind us means we are heading toward something else.  He says, “pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace.  ALONG with and ALSO with those who call on the Lord.”  Chase after those pure in heart.  Surround yourself with other servants of like mind.  In these tumultuous months, under the umbrella of disheartening news, it makes most want to retreat and hide.  I know I want to quite often.  These crazy times make me want to become invisible and exclude everyone.  But, that doesn’t negate God’s word, nor His calling of us to those captive and in need of gentleness.  As I speak to myself, I ask if I’m trying to be understanding and compassionate.  Do I present peace and forgiveness?  When so much around me are quarrels and a tug of war, am I pursuing being a servant to help those trapped and taken captive?  Do I exude the nature of Christ, so people come to the knowledge of Him?  Even in these dark times, among a divided nation, what am I doing?  Not enough I can tell you that.  But I want to.  Lord, help me flee and pursue so I can help any taken captive.

Thank you again for being here with me as you sort through my thoughts.  If you happen to like this podcast, rate it, share it, comment if you want.  I just so appreciate all those here by my side on this journey.  Let me know who you are.  Email me and give me good story of yours that I will parallel.  Have a wonderful rest of your week, and I will be with you again soon.

**BONUS**
Below is the full story "I SMELL A RAT" written and as told by Paula Gow.

                I had just finished code 7.  It was around 0530 hrs. on a Tuesday Morning.  My Friday!!  August, 1992.  I needed to use the ladies room but a call popped up on the terminal in my squad car.  It was a burglary alarm at an auto parts store just down the road from our substation on Franklin Blvd.

                Well, given the hour of the day on a weekday morning, I was hoping the alarm was nothing more than an accident by the owner of the store as he opened to get ready for business.  I could be out of there in 5 or 10 minutes then head right on into the substation, use the ladies room, then it would be just about time for end of watch.

When I arrived at the auto parts store, there was a car in the parking lot, the lights were on in the store, and the front glass front door was unlocked and not broken.  No signs of forced entry.  Things were looking good.  This was going to be quick.

                I found the owner in the back between rows of shelves.  We talked briefly and I told him I’d check the other portion of the back which he had not checked yet.  I began checking between rows of shelves.  I noticed a vent of some kind in the ceiling that had insulation and debris hanging from it.  The debris and insulation looked freshly torn but the vent did not look as it if had been recently opened.   Hmm…  I guess the debris could just be falling out little by little. 

                As I went to the next aisle however, something caught my eye.   It was small.  It was moving.  It was making a rhythmic although barely noticeable little noise.  It was…… THE ENERGIZER BUNNY!!!   I shook the cobwebs from my head and looked closer..   No…not quite!   Something similar though and it was coming toward me.  Well it certainly wasn’t a burglar but what was it?   Hmm…  a Planters Peanut bag with a tail!!!  But there was a little rat butt attached to the tail.  That’s IT!  A RAT!!!  And it was packing a Planters Peanut bag in it’s mouth with the bag up over it’s head and draped over it’s back. 

                With the bag over it’s head the rat apparently didn’t notice me.  I had my SL20 Streamlight in my right hand.  My baton was on my belt near my left hand.  I had my gun and I was wearing a good pair of boots.  I poised myself to pounce on the rat when it got within range..  All of these tools but yet in all of my academy training we had not been taught which would be the best tool to use on a rat.  I did have some farm experience however.  The thoughts that were running through my mind were about this rat being diseased with Bubonic plague or Rabies since by now it was around 0600 hrs., it was light outside, the lights were all on in the building, I was moving around, the owner was moving around, and the rat was still doing his rat thing.

                I pushed these thoughts to the back of my mind as the rat came within reach.  I struck a lightening fast stomp with my right foot but only got the Platers Peanut bag.  The rat scurried off underneath one of the rows of shelves.  The owner walked up about that time and I told him about the rat.  He speculated that the rat was what had set off the alarm by golly!!  I tried to make small talk while looking for a good line to bow out on.

                I continued to check the remaining aisles for burglars (just to show that I was being thorough) while I talked with the owner.  I stepped over to the last aisle that had not been checked yet as our meaningless small talk continued.  A minute later, the rat came out from underneath the row of shelves and into the aisle where we were standing.  He took one look at us and ran through a door at the end of the aisle.

Now I must take time out here to explain the driving force behind the actions that I took concerning this rat.  You see, I grew up in the country where we had cows and chickens.  These animals required grain which we kept on hand.  Now the mice and rats were attracted to these products also.  They would also, from time to time, decide that our house would be a nice place to stay.  They were destructive little creatures and to defend our animal’s sustenance and our abode, I learned to engage in rodent warfare.  It was ingrained in my being like a survival instinct.

                Thus, when I saw the rat run through the door at the end of the aisle, I noticed part of a commode showing through the partially opened door that the rat had run through.  I reasoned that the room was a bathroom and that there was likely no back door and that the rat would be trapped in the bathroom if I closed the door, my goal being that I would be in the bathroom also with the rat and he could not escape from me.  I ran to the bathroom arriving at the doorway at precisely the same instant that the rat did as he was on his way back out the door, presumably after he didn’t find another route out.

                In a fraction of a second I saw the rat and tried to stomp him again.  In the flurry of excitement I lost sight of the rat.  He had vanished.  He was not under my boot and I had not seen him run off in any direction.  I started to aske the owner (who was silently watching from the other end of the aisle) if he had seen where the rat had run to…  but…about that time I felt a weight on my right pant leg, at the back, near the hem, yet, I could not SEE the rat on the outside of my pants leg…  The obvious conclusion, which took only hundredths of a second to come to, was that the rat was on the INSIDE of my pants leg!!!!!

                Now there I was, a professional Police Officer, in full uniform, my hair neatly braided and tucked neatly up on the back of my head, 20 something pounds of gear on my duty belt around my waist and suddenly, involuntarily, my body begins jumping up and down on my left foot while frantically shaking the right foot in the air at warp speed and letting out a squeal with each jump. 

                After an indefinite period of time, I no longer felt the weight on my pant leg so the jumping, shaking, and squealing stopped.  I breathlessly managed to out the questions that were swirling through my mind.  “Which way did he go?  Did you see where he went?  I think he ran up my pant leg!!”  The questions were coming out at warp speed also due to the enormous amount of adrenaline flowing through my body.  The owner, still standing at the other end of the aisle with an unamused look on his face and his arms folded across his chest, grunted out “He didn’t run up your pant leg!”  As he finished his sentence, I felt a warm, furry movement in the crotch of my pants as the rat settled himself on the seam….on the INSIDE of my pants…  Now…I don’t care if you are male or female, this is an extremely unsettling position to be in.  And let me clarify for those of you who think I am talking about a mouse and just calling it a rat…  I KNOW the difference. And this rat, although small for a rat, was still a good 5 or so inches long NOT counting the tail.  It’s size, and whether it was a mouse or a rat is really not as relevant as the fact that it was INSIDE my pants!!!!  Again, the thoughts that the rat could have Bubonic Plague or rabies were again swirling through my head and now it was sitting in the crotch of my pants…  This brought on another round of involuntary jumping and squealing only this time I was jumping on both feet and grabbing at the rat in my crotch and squealing at the same time.

                You might think that grabbing at the rat and squeezing it is strange behavior but again, I must refer to my background for an explanation.  In the country, we often hung our clothes outside on the clothesline to dry.  This was quite effective but every so often a wasp or other species of stinging or biting bug would choose my shirt or jeans to nap in.  I would grab my garment from the line and run in and put in on when I was in a hurry to get somewhere and then get stung.  I learned that if I felt something moving in my clothing the way to avoid being stung or bitten was to grab and squish the critter right through my clothing as soon as I felt a movement.  My early training took over when I felt that rat in my pants…

                It was all so unfair.  All that academy training and they never taught me anything about how to deal with a rat in my pants.  The usual Police procedures were pretty much out.  The gun was out of the question.  The baton would have been ineffective as well as dangerous to me.  The preference would have been to drop my drawers in spite of the owner standing right there but with 20 pounds of gear hanging on my duty belt which was fastened with leather keepers to my dress belt which was fastened underneath the duty belt, that process would have taken entirely too long and this diseased rat could have bitten me a number of times  in the meantime…  Again…hundredths of a second for my mind to complete this reasoning process.  

                This round of jumping and squealing went on for a minute or so until I realized that I was not going to be able to kill the rat by squeezing it through my pants.  I let go of the rat, who apparently had enough of that by now because he took the opportunity to bold forward and run down my left pant leg and back onto the floor.   The survival instincts and training were in complete control as my foot automatically struck out at the rat again as it hit the floor and tried to run off.  This time I was more accurate in my aim.  My left foot pinned his head to the floor.  This left his little rat butt sticking out from underneath the side of my foot, bouncing up and down as his little back feet were going at warp speed trying to run away.

                Meanwhile, I was standing over him, my hands clamped over my heart, hyper-ventilating, and in a panicked, out of breath voice saying “What if he bit me?  What if he bit me?”  Now I felt no pain but I knew that with all of the adrenaline flowing through my body that I could have been bitten without knowing it.  But the reassuring owner, standing motionless at the other end of the aisle, in the same grunting voice as before said “He didn’t bite you!”  I was thinking to myself “Yeah!!!  You said he didn’t run up my pant leg also!!!”

                As I was struggling to regain my composure and my breath, I noticed the rat butt still flopping up and down at a high rate of speed so I instinctively smashed his head into the floor until I heard the crunch of his little skull that I remembered from my rat warfare days.  I waited until every little sign of life had drained from the body of that dreadful creature before I removed my boot from his head.  By then I had pretty well stopped hyper-ventilating but I was still concerned that the rat could have bitten my and I just couldn’t feel it yet.

                I stared at him for a while, debating whether or not I should take the body and book it as some kind of evidence.  How would I classify it?  What was the procedure for booking dead rats?  I guess the owner could see the uncertainty on my face because as I pondered the options he said “just leave it there”.  I took his advice since I wasn’t in the best state of mind for making decisions.  I suppose that rat still lies right where I left him and I am happy to say that I did not die from Bubonic Plague or rabies.  

                Well, I determined that there were no burglars in the store so I returned to my squad car.  I was now wide awake and realized, amazingly, that somehow, I no longer needed to use the ladies room!!!  I typed a brief note to the dispatcher about what had happened.  Being the efficient dispatcher that she was, she asked if I needed someone from peer support to respond.  Well, let me tell you, this definitely fit into the critical incident category, but thankfully my work buddy was on duty and available to talk to and I was able to debrief with him.

                I told this story to a number of people within the first few weeks after it happened and the reactions became pretty predictable.  So for those of you who don’t believe this really happened I must say that I could never have made up a story like this and I am not one to embellish, make-up, exaggerate, or otherwise distort or add on to the truth.  The entire story is very factual.!!

                I think it is necessary for a progressive kind of officer to evaluate critical type incidents in their career in order to learn from them.  I must say that this incident taught me at least one thing.   WEAR TIGHTER PANTS!!!