Fifty years is a long time.

Fifty years before I was born the world was still in the 19th century! Fifty years before I graduated high school the U.S. was embroiled in World War I.

Fifty years has always seemed like a long time ago. The other day I was ruminating on this matter and realized that only 50 years ago it was 1973. That went fast!

So what was I doing 50 years ago?

Fifty years ago I was a young married man. My wife and I had welcomed our first child, a son, into our family in December 1972.

Fifty years ago I was the sports editor of our local daily newspaper. After a start in radio, this was the job that set me on a path to a newspaper career.

Fifty years ago I was a member of our community’s police reserve unit. Of all the things I have done over the past 50 years, this was one of the most educational.

Our police department was serious about their reserve officer program. To become a member, one had to successfully complete a training program that spanned about six months. In addition to law enforcement classes that included weapons and self-defense lessons led by an FBI agent we had to pass an advanced first aid course.

Reserve officers were unpaid and rode “shotgun” with a paid officer on a weekend night shift.

Much of the time the shifts were uneventful but there were memorable moments.

One night the officer with whom I was riding announced that neighbors had reported someone coming and going from an old vacant home and we had to check every room and closet. We found no evidence of squatters but vacant old houses can be spooky at 11 p.m.

A half hour later we were dispatched to the local high school building where a neighbor reported seeing someone prowling near a door. We checked every door and every room in the building which was also creepy in the dark. Again, we found nothing.

I learned that my overactive imagination is not beneficial in dark buildings.

We responded to a call one night where a young man who had consumed drugs and alcohol went berserk, got behind the wheel of his car and caused considerable damage before hitting a mobile home. He suffered multiple glass cuts and was covered with blood. It took six of us to hold him down to be secured to a backboard and taken to the local hospital. The drugs had given him super-human strength.

Later that night we encountered a young woman who had been beaten by her husband. I had never seen a woman so badly injured and can still see that poor battered young woman in my mind’s eye.

On my first night of reserve duty we were dispatched to a bar fight. The officer I was riding with instructed me to guard the front door and not let anyone in or out. Less than 10 feet away was the closest bar patron, a diminutive guy who had way too much to drink. He told me that he was going to kick the excrement out of me. I was confident I could have handled him but was glad I didn’t have to. I learned that drunks — particularly smaller drunks — always want to fight the biggest cop on the scene.

My police reserve experience wiped out my taste for alcohol. I did not like dealing with drunks.

One of the most important things I learned was how to treat a law enforcement officer when stopped for a traffic violation. A little respect goes a long way. Some nasty motorists greeted us with “So the donut shop must be closed tonight?” or “You must not have any real crime in your town if you have to pick on law abiding people like me.”

An officer from another central Iowa community told me that for minor infractions he let the driver’s mouth decide if he would write a ticket.

A couple of months before we moved away from that community the police chief asked me to consider joining the fulltime police force. I told the chief that as much as I appreciated the experience I felt I was too slow and ungainly to be a fulltime officer and, besides, I was too large of a target for bad guys with guns.

That’s what I learned 50 years ago when I served as a reserve police officer.

Arvid Huisman can be reached at huismaniowa@gmail.com. ©2023 by Huisman Communications.