Tales from a Rolex Submariner

I’ve always liked nice watches.

Most of them, however, have been cheap rubber Casios or whatever the hell I could find because I worked in law enforcement for years. I broke at least four watches during various fights in my career. In my younger, salad days of course.

Today, being an elder gentleman and more irascible, in my seventh decade, I won’t fight you. I’ll just shoot you. Which is why I can finally wear my Rolex Submariner.

It’s a beautiful watch and it has an incredible back story. It goes like this.

My father passed away in 2009 at the age of 88. He was a member of The Greatest Generation, flew B-17s for the Mighty Eighth, and seldom spoke of his service. I cornered him for a couple of days a few years before he died and got him to talk a bit about his family. Those conversations are on cassette. Yes. Cassette. Tape.

About two years before he died, as we were gathering documents and I was assembling his wishes, archiving them for my oldest brother, the executor of Dad’s estate, he quite mysteriously told me that I’d one day find a chest.

He didn’t tell me where it was. But he said I’d find a number of things there. One of them would be a watch he’d acquired when he was in Hong Kong but, he said, it was likely a knock-off because it hadn’t been all that expensive at the time in the 1960s.

He said it looked like a Rolex, so he’d bought it. He said he wanted me to have it when I found it.

The strange thing was, about two months prior, he said he wanted to get a very specific watch that he’d found at the WalMart on Watt Avenue. I took him there and purchased it for him. He was really quite pleased. To have Dad happy was, well, magical. The watch would illuminate when a button was pushed. Remember that.

My father passed away at 3:30 AM on Wednesday, February 11th, 2009. It was now my oldest brother’s job to tend to the estate.

The strange thing is, with a few exceptions, neither of my brothers were interested in very many of Dad’s things. My oldest brother’s wife insisted on taking a trunk from the living room and the family heirloom book, plus a knick-knack I wanted from Grandma’s house. But I stood back and let whoever wanted to take what they took when they wished. I was the youngest brother. I felt I just had to take one for the team.

There were tons of photo books. Uninterested. I took them. There were tons of Dad’s books. Uninterested. I took them. There were tons of family slides and photographs. Uninterested. I took them. Then I found something.

I found the chest. It was in Dad’s shop, up high, in the rafters. It was heavy. I managed to heft it down and opened it. Inside I found maps of California from World War II marked CLASSIFIED, which I kept. Dad was a USAAC pilot and they were likely maps he’d used in PriFly. I’m not giving those maps to anyone. They are mine.

I found his USAF dress hat as a Colonel, with the beautifully-embroidered clouds and lightning on the brim. I also found one of his piss cutters still in its original plastic bag (one of the most stupid caps in the history of history) with a price tag affixed. $2.75.

I found his custom desk sign when he was a Captain.

And I also found a green box — not so impressive — which contained an absolutely gorgeous watch in blue, silver and gold, called a Rolex Submariner. You know. The fake watch he bought in Hong Kong.

A few months after the funeral, I wondered. Was it fake or was it real? I took the watch to a couple of local jewelers, both of whom said they could neither confirm nor deny its validity. They both said I needed to take it to a person on Fulton Avenue who could examine the watch.

To simply open up the back of the watch — much less confirm any kind of provenance — was a $200 charge.

The appraisal was another $250.

But wait.

That Rolex Submariner was appraised at $15,000+.

Gulp. It was real.

And Dad gave it to me. No one else. It’s a beautiful watch. Hell, it’s gorgeous.

But, according to Dad, it didn’t light up at night. And if you didn’t wear it, it would die. It just didn’t interest him. He sort of liked the colors but that was it.

He’s right. It doesn’t light up at night. Unless you hold it under a lamp and cause the face to illuminate for a while. It dies if you don’t wear it and keep it running by the movement of your wrist.

It will tell you the numerical date, but you have to adjust it for Leap Years.

It’s hella analog in a digital world.

But it was my Dad’s, it’s real, and I’ll treasure it always.

BZ

 

Son of fallen officer gets his father’s actual squad car

Kleenex time.

From EOnline.com:

Tanner Brownlee from Colorado attended an auction on Wednesday night to raise money for C.O.P.S. (Concerns of Police Survivors) with one goal on his mind: to win his father’s squad car.

Tanner’s dad, Deputy Sam Brownlee, was killed in the line of duty after a police chase in 2010. His Dodge Charger was one of his prized possessions and 19-year-old Tanner was on a mission to buy a piece of his father’s memory.

From WestWord.com in 2010:

Sam Brownlee, first Weld County deputy killed in line of duty since 1940: Tributes pour in

by Michael Roberts

The last Weld County deputy to die while doing his job was Earl Bucher way back in 1940 — until yesterday, that is. Deputy Sam Brownlee was allegedly slain by Reuben Reyes, twenty, following a chase that reached speeds topping 100 miles per hour. Afterward, Reyes himself was killed by officers.

According to the Greeley Tribune, Reyes stole the car of a woman he knew mid-morning yesterday in Morgan County. Officers from Morgan County and the community of Wiggins gave chase for more than an hour, with Weld County joining in when Reyes passed into that jurisdiction. So, too, did the Colorado State Patrol, and while its use of stop-sticks near Kersey didn’t disable Reyes’s vehicle right away, the car eventually lost a tire in Greeley.

Bystanders report that officers surrounded the car — but then shots rang out, and Brownlee went down. At that point, the officers opened fire on Reyes, who reportedly went by the street names “Smiley” and “Demon.” His rap sheet includes offenses for felony menacing and driving under the influence, as well as an assault beef that was subsequently dismissed.

Brownlee left behind two children, two stepchildren and a wife who works for the Weld County District Attorney’s Office. As noted by the Tribune, he was a training officer, charged with helping his peers survive dangerous situations.

Continuing, from EOnline.com:

“It’d mean a lot to me and my brother. We’ve been through a lot,” he told WKBW.

“This is kind of the end of Sam’s legacy here. It’s the last tangible thing we have that he was connected to,” added Sheriff Steve Reams.

It gets better. And more surprising.

Tanner applauded the amount of money his dad’s car raised, because after all, it was for a good cause (C.O.P.S. provides help for family members and coworkers of officers killed in the line of duty), but he was about to have an even better reason to celebrate.

The second Steve Wells got his hand on the keys to the Dodge Charger patrol car, he turned to the grieving son who lost his father and said, “Tanner, here’s your car.”

Humanity.

We need more of it.

BZ

 

Last day on the job for a 39-year LE veteran

“2L16 is secure.”

Barb Shelton writes:

At 6:30pm on September 15th of 2017, after a 39-year career at the Kelso Police Department, my husband, Officer Dave Shelton, signed off for one last time.

When police officers sign off for the last time after a career in law enforcement, it’s traditional for them to say something a little extra for their final sign-off. This can be pretty emotional as it’s the ending of an era.

It’s emotional for anyone to arrive at the end of a long, successful, and productive career, but for police officers who put their lives on the line every time they don their uniform and head out for another shift, there’s even more of an element of joy, relief, and gratitude for having physically survived a law enforcement career!

For more of the story, go here.

Law enforcement son and father: Officer Tory Shelton (L) of the Longview Police Department, Washington — and father Dave Shelton.

You’re darned near right up there with me in terms of years of service. For some people retirement isn’t easy. It wasn’t for me in 2016 and it isn’t for me now.

That said, God bless you sir for your years of service to the Kelso Police Department.

BZ