db: 310 handshakes

Don Barone shook the hands of every competitor of the Team Championship. Here are some of the stories he heard from those encounters.

“Well, who are you…”

Dateline:  The Last Table In Line

In my America, the America I get to shake hands with, in this the America I know and meet, my America, is humble, my America, is kind, my America, is polite, my America, is God fearing, my America, is about family, my America, is hard working, my America, loves America.

I know this to be true, because, they tell me.

I don’t sit on some fancy TV set under intense klieg lights and read a teleprompter telling me about America, I’m out here seeing, smelling and meeting America.

I don’t listen for a minute to what Washington has to say, I listen to the hard working folks who cooked the asphalt, spread the concrete for the roads leading there, listen to the folks who walked the steel building the joint.

Last night at registration for the Toyota Bonus Bucks Bassmaster Team Championship shindig I stood behind the last table of the registration line.  The table where we hand out the free B.A.S.S hats.

To me, it is a place of honor.  I get to say, “Thank You,” to all who have come, all who help support B.A.S.S and the many hard working folks here at the gig who depend on all these anglers standing in line.

And I also get to shake the hands of all those who come to the table.

Last night, I shook the hands of all 310 competitors.  I’m sure it means more to me than it does to them.

And when I shake their hands I say three things to them:

I say, “Thank You.”

I ask, “Where are you from.”

I ask, “What do you do.”

And then, then, I just…listen.

“…I really…” 

Don’t hold me to the math here, not the side of my brain that works much.

But of the 310 anglers I met last night, I’m guessing about 10-15% told me they are retired, “db, 31 years teaching Middle School, now I’m fishing.”

“Did you like teaching the kids.”

“Most times.”

And then as he picked up a hat and started to move on, he glanced back at me quick like, locked eyes, said, said quietly, heartfelt, “…miss them, those kids.”

You want to know about America, turn off whatever media you believe, and ask this guy.  This is one guy who knows.

“About 1,000 acres or so.”

When I asked what he did, he sort of just whispered, “…a farmer.”

I reached back out and shook his hand again.

“…been in the family since Grandad, farming.”

Farmer, Sir, no need to whisper that you’re a farmer as if to say, “…just a farmer,” because you know what, I don’t know what you grow, don’t matter none since I don’t grow NOTHING and yet I still eat. 

Thanks to you.

You’re a farmer, you need to shout it, and we, who live off your fields, we need to shake your hand AT LEAST twice.

“… wanna know…”

I was saddened by one thing that happened a couple of times in line, several times really.

The most humblest of answers, the quietest of answers came to me like this, came to me in such a small voice I had to lean in to hear this answer, “…law enforcement.”

I am a long time crime reporter, been around hundreds of various degrees of cops, know their personality, know their beliefs, have been accepted by many all over this planet.

I know they don’t brag about what it is they do, don’t say much, quiet folk, but in line last night, it wasn’t that, it was different, and it made me sad.

I shook the hand of state cops, big city cops, small town cops, one guy in a Fugitive Task force, and while happy to be here, underlying I felt, sadness.

Let me tell you something, I spent probably 25 years of my life dealing with various levels of law enforcement, from way down at small towns, to the highest federal level.  Dealt with law enforcement in other countries, Canada, France, Italy, England, Australia, and maybe I was just lucky, maybe just dumb, but I have never dealt with a law enforcement person who wasn’t straight up, honest, and who was there to help people.

Federal records, as always, are all over the place but when I googled “How Many Cops In The United States,” I came up with numbers ranging from 780,000 to over 900,00 sworn in law enforcement officers.

Let me ask you this, lets take an infinitesimal number 0.05%, and say that 0.05% are bad cops, 0.05% of a population is a pretty low number so lets use that.

Based on that number, that’s about 8-thousand, four hundred cops.

You really believe that there are over 8-thousand bad cops in America.

Be serious.

I am sorry for the victims of a very few of the bad ones out there, but I’m damn happy that there are hundred’s of thousands of good ones out there as well.

A punk is a punk, unless you are a cop, best you never have to face one, it ain’t pretty and most times won’t go your way.

These guys are between you, and everything you stand for, and for that, I shook their hand twice as well.

“…tell me…”

“I’m a plumber.”

“I’m in construction.

“I own a corrugated box company.”

“I work for the FAA, Air Traffic Control.”

“I work for NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), I study fish in Lake Michigan.”

“Landscaping.”

“Insurance, I own an insurance agency.”

“Work in a cheese factory.”

“Painter.”

“Build custom Harleys.”

“Accounting.”

“Marketing.”

“Respiratory Technician.”

“Diesel mechanic.”

“Roofer.”

“I lay wood floors.”

“Power Line Technician, I string the wires that power your home.”

“Commodities trader.”

“Sales rep.”

“Cabinet maker.”

“Marines, active duty.”

“logger.”

“A Town Manager of a small town.”

“High School principal”

“Machinist.”

“Nuclear Plant Tech.”

“Forrester.”

“Write service manuals.”

“I crack safes.”

Eh, excuse me…

“… who are you…”

Safe cracker?

  

Meet Ryan White, Lancaster, KY, ex-Marine, Surface-to-Air Gunner, 4 years active duty…now…

“I pick locks.”

He picks locks, for the feds.

“I work for Lockmaster Security Institute, we are a contractor with the government, I work closely with law enforcement on local, state, federal levels, work with the NSA, work with the military…”

“Doing what again…”

“Cracking safes.  I teach people in the government how to open top secret safes, I have a clearance level to do that, the safes are very sophisticated, not only how exacting they are built, but even how they look from the outside, you can tell, if you know what to look for, if they have been tampered with at all, I teach how to look for covert entry, and how to open them the correct way…”

“Is there an incorrect way.”

“Yes.”

“Then what happens.”

Ryan just smiles.

Not my first rodeo, I don’t press the answer.

“I’ve been doing it for 18 years now, try to get better every year, fastest I ever opened a safe, a bank safe, was about 10 minutes.”

I try again, “How’d you do that.”

This time, an answer, “Manipulation, most people use drills and other instruments, I do it with sight, sound and feel, just use these,” and he holds up his hand and wiggles his fingers.

Frankly, I’m pretty damn amazed.  Then, “”Yesterday I helped one of my colleagues crack a safe in the Netherlands.”

“Weren’t you here practicing.”

“Yeah, I did it through Facebook messaging.”

More damn amazed.

“Antique safes are the easiest, but most people who own them don’t want you poking holes through the case so I just use the feel of my fingers, listen to what happens inside, and pop, usually anywhere from 15-20 minutes.”

Trust me, Ryan does not look like some cat burglar, not like some James Bond kind of guy, Ryan looks like, like, you know…me.   A younger and not so wide me, but about an eye level me, with short military hair cut and somehow, ears in his fingers.

“What’s the hardest safe you ever had to crack.”

“Oh, it’s called a Tann Safe, people who know safes will cringe at that, it was inside a Brinks Armored Car and for some reason they couldn’t get it open but really needed it to be unlocked, I worked on it all day, 8 hours, it was tough, but I got it opened, and they were pretty pleased.”

“What was in it.”

“Six-and-a-half million dollars of other people’s money.”

“…’cause I really…”

“I’m a welder.”

“Haul Coal, been doing it all my life, 40 years.”

“Me, an ER Tech, Xray.”

“General Motors, machinist.”

“I own the Aloha Grill in Henderson, Nevada.”

“Build homes and cabins.”

“Work boats out in the gulf.”

“Student, Business Management major.”

“Landscape Architect.”

“I build turbines for power stations.”

“I run a dam.”

“Me, I flip homes for a living.”

“I fish for a living, my wife here, she supports that, and me.”

“Cook.”

“Project manager.”

“Work at ALCOA.”

“UPS driver.”

“UPS driver helper.”

“Site safety coordinator.”

“Me, I’m restoring and preserving the birthplace home of General Robert E. Lee.”

Eh, huh.

“… wanna know…”

Meet, Chuck Rackley, owner and all around guru of Restoration Preservation Services of Virginia.  “We restore, but more importantly, preserve 17th and 18th century homes.”

The oldest home he has restored and preserved was a home built in 1655, called now, Bacon’s Castle in Surry, Virginia, “It dates back to pre Revolution…”

That would be our Revolution…1776 whereabouts.

“Right now we are working on Strafford Hall, built around the 1730’s, home for 4 generations to the Lees of Virginia, home to two signers of the Declaration of Independence, Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee, and the birthplace of Robert E Lee.”

As you may or may not know, I’m a Revolution times history buff, I’m loving this.

“When we restore, or more correctly preserve a house it is like peeling back time, we find coins, silver, many times they insulated the walls with newspaper, sometimes from that exact day of framing the wall, so it really gives us great clues as to the period we are preserving.”

I’m wishing I was twenty-something again, if I was I would be following this guy home.

“You know, we find great things in the old rat’s nest in the homes, little toys, shoes sometimes, a spoon every once in awhile.”  That rat’s though, are long gone.

Chuck does the work with, “My two daughters who I’m teaching them the trade, pass it on, two other craftsmen and my wife.”  They have been doing it for 35 years now for museums and private owners.

You have to figure how well built these homes are, most have 2-3 foot walls, inside the home these people had first pick of the best timbers, the best trees in a young America, most went with white oak, these places, with a little help, will last long after we are gone.”

As Chuck talked, I could hear in the words he used how much he respected not only the homes, but the people who built the homes.  “Tell you a quick story, we are working on preserving a 300 year old home in Virginia, we get to this one room, and believe it or not it still has FIRST PERIOD PAINT on the wall.  It was painted when they built it and never painted again.”

My pen is down, I know I will remember this pretty close to exact.

“There was no way I was going to paint over that, no way I was going to try and duplicate the paint process, you could still see the lines from the horsehair brush.  All we did was to bring in a paint specialist and gently clean the walls.  When you open the door to that room, sit in that room, you are sitting in a room that is EXACTLY as it was 300 years ago.”

Chuck told me that he stalks eBay, cruises antique stores, flea markets, garage sales looking for, “period tools, when you look at the woodwork in an old home, it was planed in a very special way, with very special, sometimes made on site, tools.  You have to honor those craftsmen, so we use the same tools they use, I could buy cheaper tools, I could use hardware store mortar, but that’s not what they used, they used lye, and you know what, I’m going to use lye as well.”

And then, “These are the homes of the people who found this nation, most of the places I work on are listed on the National Historic Register, but every home, every room, every wall of paint we preserve, I know I’m doing it for our children, their children, and the generations to come who will want to know, and visit the places of the people who got us here.”

“…well,who…”

The greatest part of this job is shaking the hands of the people who come through the line.

The hundreds and hundreds of hands I get to shake throughout our travels, the hundreds and hundreds of stories I get to hear.

I believe in my heart, my soul, that I have been given a gift, that in the real twilight of my career, the man who drives the bus saw fit to introduce me to the other passengers along his route.

This job, these columns, did not make my career, I have all the award hardware needed to ride a recliner to the hereafter.

But that ride would have been fueled with bitterness.

Contempt for the country, contempt for those who live in it, three decades of covering the worst amongst us doing horrible things to each other will do that to you.

The gift came from being able to stand in line, in lines all around the place, and shake your hand, America.

310 times last night.

An early Christmas gift for me, for sure.

I hope for as long as I’m here to keep standing in lines to have the honor of shaking your hand.

From my America, who is generous, who is accepting, who is creative, who is of faith, who is of family.

Can’t wait for my next handshake of America, and who I’ll find in that line, please, tell me…

 “..are you…”

Who Are You

The Who

db