Police Blotter

My friend Rosalie and I began working at the Southeast Office of the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS, or, more commonly in those days, the Welfare Office) in the late '60s (that would be the late 1960's, not OUR 60's--we were young, vibrant 20-somethings back then). In the beginning, all of the offices for King County were housed in one big building in Seattle's Rainier Valley, close to the old Sick's Seattle Stadium where the Seattle Rainiers' baseball team played its home games. When new local buildings were built in various areas of the county, our office moved out to Kent where Rosalie lived in a house with her husband  and I soon found an apartment. I'm not sure exactly when she and I became actual friends, but I see her close to me in a picture from our 1976 wedding, as my husband and I are preparing to drive away from the church. Within a few years of that she and I were both having babies and raising them together, even though I had moved away from Kent to Port Orchard, eventually to become a Bethel Valley Girl.

Over the years Rosalie and I, as friends do, established some traditions together. Every Christmas we would meet for lunch at Issaquah's Gilman Village and do some Christmas shopping. We would get our children together to color Easter egg. Our families got together for dinners, or with our husbands we would go out to dinner. Rosalie knitted large, gorgeous, incredible Christmas stockings for us, our children, and eventually our children's mates and our grandchildren, while I made Christmas decorations for her every year. We kept in touch during my 11 years living out of state, and then when I moved back five years ago we began a new tradition. Once a month we meet for lunch, most often at the Red Robin near the Tacoma Mall. This is our chance to catch up on our busy lives and family stuff. We never run out of things to say, and I know we never will. After 40 years of knowing each other, our friendship remains a RENEWABLE RESOURCE!

So yesterday was one of our once-a-month get-togethers. We met at Red Robin at 11:30, and two hours later our conversation was still flowing, long after our salads were devoured. I was chattering on about something when Rosalie interrupted me to say, "The police are in here." I turned to look at who had passed right by our table, expecting to see a group of officers stopping in for their lunch. What I saw instead was a policeman walk down a few steps to the lower section of the restaurant, and as he was turning the corner to the right I could see he had both hands on his gun as he started to run toward someone. A half wall and potted plants obscured my view, but right away we could hear,  "Get on the floor! Get on the floor!"

You see scenes like this on TV and it's ugly, but of course you don't feel threatened because it is, after all, TV. This was no TV show, this was real, and when I think back on it now, some of our reactions were comical. We remained calm as we weighed our options. I observed that we still needed to pay for our lunch, so walking out of the restaurant was not an option. This shows how honest a person I am. Meanwhile, Rosalie was contemplating obeying the police officer's command to get on the floor. She mentioned that to me, and I guess, in retrospect, she was right, we should have gotten under our table in case bullets started flying. However, we realized that being of a certain age and in a certain condition, once we got down on the floor we would have required help getting back up again. That is so humiliating, we didn't want to attempt that. I thought of escaping to the ladies room---certainly the perp would not go in there, as it is a 'dead end,' but then what if the perp was not in his--or her--right mind? The perp wouldn't be able to think that through. Then it crossed my mind that there could be more than one perp, and they could have guns, and there could be a big shoot-out, and Rosalie and I were sitting right near the exit to the front foyer, and.........

And then here came a policeman and the perp--the only perp I guess--walking within a few feet of us, the perp in handcuffs and being led out by our knight in shining armor, a now calm Tacoma policeman. When our waitress came by we paid our bill and swapped stories with her about how that all went down. She had come out of the kitchen and then saw a big man on the floor. It was, in the end, a bonding experience for everyone at Tacoma's Red Robin yesterday. I must said that was the most exciting lunch Rosalie and I ever had together.

That is my Police Blotter story. I guess it's not all that exciting, and perhaps it is not really blog-worthy. I was thinking as I wrote it, not just about yesterday and my long friendship with Rosalie but also about the fact that we BVG's all have other friends---old friends, new friends, young friends, fun friends, other groups of friends, friends with which we have traditions. But there is something unique about this quartet of ours. Maybe it was something in the water on Bethel Valley Lane. Maybe it had something to do with the Piggy Park. Maybe it had something to do with the babysitting co-op we set up at church together. Maybe it had something to do with the couples Bible study we did together through Christian Women's Club. Maybe it was Christian Women's Club. Whatever it was, the four of us know we are incredibly blessed, and not just because of the BVG's but also because of all the wonderful friendships that define our lives, especially now in what might be described as our 'golden years.' (Which doesn't really make sense, because if you took away all of our hair dye, you'd be more apt to call these our 'silver years'!)

In closing, yesterday's lunch might have ended in a different way and could have been much more dramatic and traumatic. My thanks go out to the policemen who protect us on a daily basis, and to God for keeping me safe so I could live to write another day.