In 1999 I quit banking after nearly 30 years. Enough already. I took a year off to see what would happen and within a month writing happened. Essentially I acknowledged what I really wanted to do and tried it, as I’ve done again now in retirement. I wrote regularly for a year. I wrote short stories mostly and posted them on Zoetrope. I think they’re good but they’re not good enough. I sent some off, I got good reactions, but not great but as a writer I learned a lot that year. At the end of the year I went looking for work and in 2001 I had the good fortune of getting a job as an on call counselor at San Francisco Juvenile Hall.
On call counselor is a part time position , no benefits, where I could work no more than 1096 hours or six months in any twelve month period. As I’ve learned it is the normal first step to becoming fully employed in the public sector. At Juvy the pattern for people who became full time counselors was to work the hours as six months straight and then be taken on as a provisional counselor, benefits but not full civil service protection. The transition was accomplished by staying under the radar and becoming provisional because you worked more than 1096 hours and personnel didn’t stop it.
I made the mistake of pointing out to a supervisor that I was close to my 1096 hours. That week I was laid off along three other counselors. I collected unemployment and the thought occurred to me I should at least look for other employment even though I was assured I would be rehired at Juvy either full time or brought back as an on call the next year. So one morning while surfing the internet, I asked myself what I wanted to be when I grew up?
Park Ranger! I went online and quickly found California State Parks. They listed Park Ranger as an open position for which they were taking applications. I could apply online. So I did. Two or three weeks a notification of the test came. It was in February. In November I was rehired by Juvenile Hall as a full time counselor along with three others who had been laid off. Within a couple of months I was enrolled in the POST course for Juvenile Corrections Officers. In the jargon of law enforcement, counselors are badged peace officers, but not sworn, that is they don’t carry weapons and they don’t have full powers of arrest.
I was actually still in training when I went to take the State Parks Ranger test in February at Half Moon Bay. A Ranger from the local State Park was there. To my surprise he was wearing a large sidearm. I had no idea State Park Rangers were armed and that’s when I learned Rangers are full fledged police officers with police academy training and the same powers as a Highway Patrolman or any municipal police officer.
I struggled with the idea of being a cop with a gun but from my experience at Juvy working with police officers and asking myself how I really felt about it, I realized I really wanted to be a police officer. I had wanted to be a police officer since I was five years old. In daily practice I’m mostly a pacifist. But I knew from juvenile hall that I could subdue kids when I needed to. As a twenty year old facing the draft I had asked myself if I was a conscientious objector. I really searched my conscience and the answer was no. I believed armed force was sometimes necessary, in wars of defense or protecting the innocent, and the same held for police officers. I knew then and I know now, that under the right circumstances I am willing to take a human life to save lives.
I daydreamed of being a Park Ranger and a police officer and it became very attractive to me. I couldn’t believe State Parks had no age limit for Rangers. They thought that even though I was 56 years, that was just fine.
In State Parks all superintendents are peace officers and one career path in State Parks is to work one's way up through maintenance to Maintenance Chief and then go through the Academy, become a peace officer and a superintendent. So Parks had experience with people going through the Academy when they were well into middle age. Many senior superintendents in park management had followed just that career path.
Even though I really wanted to be a police officer and a Ranger I told myself I would just stay with it through the agility test as a challenge. After all I really was 57 years old. The agility test required normal good physical condition which most of my adult life I had maintained into my 50s with running and cycling. In training I injured my left shoulder and worried about trying to carrying weights while running in one of the tests. In June, 2003 my shoulder had healed enough that I did barely pass that test. As I was doing the step test I realized in my training I had trained wrong and I ended up struggling through that test. The rest of the test was relatively easy. At the end we had to dive in a pool fully clothed, retrieve something from the bottom, and swim to the far side. After passing everything else the dip in the pool was refreshing. Lots of people didn’t pass the test and I felt 10 feet tall among all those 20 and 30 somethings. I passed!
In December I went ahead and met with a retired Ranger who did the background check and in February of 2004 I took the pysch test. As San Francisco had done the State asked about my experience in the service but instead of a short conversation and passing me as the psychologist for the City had done, the State wanted my service medical records. I was devastated. I thought that was their bureaucratic way of getting rid of me. No, a personnel clerk told me, I could send off and have my service records sent to the State. So I did, but I wrote off becoming a Ranger. I settled into Juvenile Hall and adjusted my thinking that I would stay there until retirement. I even became a union steward.
In August, two years after I had first applied, State Parks asked me to meet with a psychologist who by coincidence also contracted with San Francisco Juvenile Hall. He was very interested in my experience on unit B4 with the 17 year olds, and then he passed me. I didn’t hear anything from the State but in December I got a panicky phone call that said my background check was expired and could I quickly meet with an investigator and if I passed it again, could I attend a class starting January 2nd in three weeks time?
I couldn’t believe I was crazy enough to consider going to a Police Academy at the age of 58. Then I happened to pick up Lance Armstrong’s biography and the message I got was, Go For It! So I did. I got notification that I passed the background two days before Christmas. I spent the next week trying to get together the uniforms I needed and January 1st, 2005 I l drove to Pacific Grove near Monterey and the California State Parks Ranger Academy.
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