• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

While Tom’s son, Terry, was an all-state quarterback and earned a scholarship to Notre Dame, my dad won a scholarship to a local college. I suspect my dad was afraid he wasn’t good enough to go to college, however, because he didn’t follow through with it. After graduation, he moved right out of the Lacey’s house. Maybe his overwhelming sense of independence got the better of him.

Hard as nails and not afraid to prove it, my dad decided to enlist with the Marines. When he arrived at the row of recruiting offices, an officer said, “Could you come back tomorrow to sign the paperwork?”

My dad agreed and, having nowhere else to go, slept on a park bench outside all night.

The next morning, a Navy recruiter greeted him. When he learned what my dad was doing, he said, “The Marines representative isn’t coming in today.”

Eyes bleary and stomach rumbling, my dad signed with the Navy instead. The Marines recruiter walked in shortly after with a stunned look on his face.

The military led my dad to my mom, Charlotte Gold, whom he met while he was stationed in Long Beach, California. Two years later, they married. My sister, Sheri, was born a year and a half after that. On October 12, 1962, I came into the world.

For the first few years of my life, my family settled in Lake-wood, California. My father served in the Navy four years and then worked for the local gas company while he tested for a position with the Los Angeles Police Department.

Not only did he get a spot with the LAPD, but he went on to build one of the most distinguished careers in law enforcement. As he rose to the rank of sergeant II over the next twenty-five years, he earned the Medal of Valor for his actions in the 1974 shoot-out with the Symbionese Liberation Army; originated the modern-day Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) Unit; protected dignitaries and Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush Sr.; and oversaw the terrorist-related precautions and response team during the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Given so little in life, my dad accomplished much more than many ever do. Having to fight for everything, he learned to protect himself and to make decisions on his own. Right or wrong, my dad learned early on that fighting was a way to establish himself. He let people know he wasn’t somebody to be messed with, and word traveled fast. Violence was a means to get what he needed or to keep what he had, and I can understand his attraction to it.

One of the most impressive things to me about my dad is that he never complained about his childhood. In fact, he’s told me many times it was good for him. He doesn’t dwell on the past. As I’ve grown into an adult, with a wife and three children of my own, I’ve learned to understand the patience and wisdom it takes to not allow past hardships to seep into your everyday life. Despite the difficult relationships he endured in his childhood, my dad was always affectionate toward his kids, giving hugs and kisses and telling us he loved us.

He’s also always been strict and opinionated. In his mind, there’s right and there’s wrong. If you’re on the right side, no matter what you do, you’re okay in his book. If you’re on the wrong side, though, you’re wrong.

I grew up under this system, and I don’t think it was necessarily bad. In fact, as usually happens in families, many of my dad’s principles became my own. Just ask my wife and kids: I can be set in my ways. I’m as bullheaded as a Minotaur and as stubborn as an ass most of the rest of the time. I have a deep sense of justice, so it’s no wonder I eventually followed in my dad’s footsteps and became a police officer.

I learned early from my dad that if somebody did something to me, I didn’t cry or whine about it; I did something back. When I turned three, my parents bought me a shiny gold bike with training wheels. Wanting to be like all the big kids on my block, I asked my parents to take the training wheels off. My mom spent the day watching me crash, and by sunset I