The car is upside-down. The wheels are still spinning.

My dad told me a story about a guy he knew either in college or in dental school. The story has never left me. It is indelible.

Decades ago, on a desolate night near Wendover, Utah, this guy my dad knew came upon a single-car accident. The car was on its top. The wheels were still spinning, probably slowly. But the man made a point to tell my dad that the wheels were still spinning.

Picture yourself in that car. You might have been traveling to see relatives. Or to a job interview. Or to your honeymoon. A tire blows. You fight for control. Control does not come. The dotted line is a blur, the steering wheel has a mind of its own, and you are full of panic while your passengers are suddenly awake, screaming at an ear-piercing volume. And suddenly the car tilts and lifts and the steering wheel no longer fights against you. Bangs and metal screeches fill every space inside the car. Shattered glass glistens, suspended in front of you, the light from the speedometer and fuel gauge showing the millions of tiny shards. Your head is knocked from side to side. Your arms will not honor your instincts to bring them in close to your sides, to protect you; they crack and slam against the inside of your door and the car's ceiling. It lasts all too long--the violence of the rolling car. You have no idea how many times it's rolled. You just want it to end.

And then it's over. You're not sure how long the car has been still. There are a few odd noises still, here and there. You can tell you're upside-down. You think of them, the passengers in your vehicle. You think you can hear breathing, but you're not sure. Your ears are ringing. It's dark. No sign of light. It's very late and your thoughts turn to hospitals, nurses, people rushing around in white coats. They would know what you need. They would know what your family or friends need. All you want right now is to hear a siren, to see flashing red light bouncing off your surroundings. You hear something. A car. You don't hear a siren or see any red light, but it's a car. It's slowing down. You feel like the 74 prayers you've said during the past minute--or has it been hours?--have been answered. Someone has found you. You can hear it. The car is slowing. Slowing still.

They see us.

If they were any closer, with the windows down, they could practically hear you whisper a plea for help. The car that slowed down is picking up speed. You can tell because the tires are moving faster on the pavement, making cracking and popping noises as they encounter the small rocks that your accident has spewed across the freeway lane near the shoulder. The only thing worse than your physical pain right now is the confusion and despair that set in.

They saw us. They are gone.

Now I don't know how the accident happened. But I imagine it could have been like that. Perhaps no one survived even the first few seconds of the crash. Maybe they made it. But the end of the story is true. That is what happened. The man my dad knew came upon the upside-down car, its wheels still spinning. And he drove away. Our man did not want to get involved, apparently, for whatever reason.

Last night on patrol we got word of an incident that reminded me of this story. A driver was southbound on the interstate and got a flat tire. A citizen pulled over to help her and noticed she had two children with her. Afterward, the citizen called 9-1-1 to report that during the process of changing the tire, the woman who got the flat tire actually pulled out some pot and started smoking it. After getting back on the road, she was driving a bit recklessly at a very high speed. The citizen-caller tried to follow her while he was on the phone with the emergency dispatcher, but the woman was going too fast and he could not keep tabs on where she was going. Southbound: that was all we knew. Another deputy and a highway patrol trooper started looking for her. Because they got a late start in their pursuit they could not catch up to her.

We headed to the interstate and saw a car heading south at a high speed. We crossed the median and caught up to the car and discovered it had the same plates that the citizen-caller had described. We watched closely for 'probable cause,' driving behavior that would warrant pulling someone over and testing for DUI. The driver noticed us and began to slow down. We followed until she went past the county line. We only had a few miles of jurisdiction, and the driving behavior was not quite erratic enough. We were done. The highway patrol trooper had to take over from that point. The driver pulled off the freeway because our pursuit was obvious, and headed straight to a motel. And that's the last I know of it.

The unfortunate thing was that we could have pulled the driver over instantly if the citizen-caller had been willing to sign a document detailing what he had seen when she allegedly smoked marijuana, got back into a car with two kids in it and drove recklessly down the interstate. But he would not. I guess he did not want to get involved beyond making a phone call.

The disappointment was not that we did not get to pull her over, or arrest her for DUI. The issue was the kids in the car. And the kids and people in the cars around her on the freeway. That was the point.

I don't know that I'd be comfortable with myself ever again if I'd been the one who drove away from that accident near Wendover. And if that driver from last night had crashed, or caused someone else to crash, I wonder what that citizen-caller would have thought if he'd known that we could have stopped her instantly if he'd been willing to get more involved by signing a complaint.

It's not always going to be comfortable to do the right thing. But what about the comfort that comes after you do the right thing?

Decisions

How many times have I done something that, afterward, I have completely regretted? I think most people would do at least a few things differently if they could go back in time.

We have a kid here in Helena who just turned 18. When he was 17, back in late Spring or early Summer, he was at a party. He was drinking. Something happened with some text messages, I think, and he ended up picking a fight with some kids. He met them near a neighborhood in town, telling them he was not going to "fight fair." Then he pulled out a handgun and shot all three of them. He killed one of them and severely wounded the other two.

So this kid entered a plea a few days ago. He pleaded guilty in a courtroom where his family, as well as the families of his victims, watched and listened. Wearing the token orange jumpsuit, he sat at a table with two attorneys. He looked young. His brown hair was short and neat. He seemed like a regular, decent teenager. His glasses made him look smart, which, according to how his friends have described him, is very much the case. His friends also said some things about him that are quite unfortunate. Whenever he drank, they said, he became "a different person." He did not act like himself. On one occasion, prior to the shooting, he allegedly pointed a gun at someone after having had some alcohol.

There he sat in the courtroom. The judge asked him for his plea to each charge, from murder to attempted murder. "Guilty," he said. The judge, having been prodded by the prosecutor, asked young Sebastian what his intention was when he shot at all three victims. "To kill them," he said. It was difficult to watch. Not because gruesome details were discussed, but because it's hard to see such a young kid, who has probably lived many more good days than he has bad ones, talk about such horrific things. All because of some irrational decision he made in such a short instant. The judge asked him why he did it. "I don't know why," he said. He's been sitting in the Lewis & Clark County Jail for months. How many mornings do you think he has woken up in his cell, wondering if what he did really happened? Oh, no, please tell me I'm not waking up here again. I can't have done that. Did that really happen? Did I really kill that kid? Wasn't it just a dream?

I'm a member of Lewis & Clark County Sheriff's Reserves Class 16. Our most recent class was Evidence Handling and Crime Scene Investigation and Processing. Pictures? Yes. Stories? You bet. The most fascinating comment, however, was not related to a specific story, but to law enforcement work in general. The detective teaching the class said, "If it weren't for booze, we wouldn't have jobs, guys." In the context of what has happened in Sebastian Olivares-Coster's case, and in countless others, alcohol was involved. People really need to stop and think.

4 Guys Who Nearly Made Me Wet Myself

It can take a lot for a person to intimidate me. Part of it has to do with my size, I think. People generally leave me alone, even in situations where others might not be left alone. Believe it or not, my most dangerous moments thus far in life have come when I was a bouncer at Subway--yes, as in the sandwich shop Subway--on Halloween in Chico, California. I did that gig two years in a row. For those of you who don't know, downtown Chico on Halloween used to be pretty rowdy. All the downtown business snobs slithered away while Chico State students came out to flaunt their costumes. Oh, and they were drunk as skunks. And stupid. It never got too crazy while I was there. I only had to man-handle two guys. But the potential was there.

There's another kind of intimidation. I've worked for people who, in their devotion to the bureaucratic model, have truly lived in silent awe of organization directors and upper management. I've attended meetings with them, and with all kinds of people. I've never been one to feel like I need to sit back and let the big dogs bask in some kind of angelic light that shines only upon the high and mighty. We're all people, after all, and everyone snores, wakes up, showers, drives to work and gets hungry at lunch time. Just because someone gets paid more to do something than I do does not mean he or she is more important than I am. Nor am I more important than the people whose work I manage.

But today, everything changed. I came across some guys who stared me down so hard, so thoroughly that I felt that they could see every part of me. From the time I peed my pants in Mr. Persky's fifth-grade classroom while I waited for the final bell to ring, to the moments when my kids have told me that I'm fat, I felt completely open and exposed. I wanted to apologize to them. I wanted to say: "I'm sorry for being a sissy moron, Sirs. Please don't kick my can around the block." The worst part of it? I did not even meet them in person. They glared at me from the cover of a magazine. Imagine, if you can, the sight of four men so focused, fit and scary that all you can think about is running away before your pants become wet in all the wrong places. Yeah. That was me. Today. I had to put the magazine down and run to the little boys' room.

These guys were bad. Apparently they are the four biggest studs in the American Bowling Association. I've never seen them before. But there they were on the cover of the ABA's magazine with their huge balls. They were trying to look like four prison thugs locked away for something horrible. The four toughest bowlers I have ever seen. In fact, if I ever saw them at a bowling alley, I imagine I would not be able to bowl just then. At least not in the lane next to them. I'd be afraid they might come over and make fun of me. "Hey, pal," they'd say, "nice gutter ball. Why don't you get out of here before we throw our stale bowling alley beer at you." Perhaps one of them would want to arm wrestle me with his strong bowling arm. Or dare me to an eating contest to see how much bowling-alley-snack-bar food I could eat without getting indigestion. I'd be dead in the water.

And worst of all, I bet my wife would be there. Man, how could I compete with that? One look at their bowling shirts, and she'd be like, "Greg, I'm sorry, but those guys are so hot that I don't care which one I go home with to his trailer, as long as one of them will have me." Then I'd be forced to finish my game, bowling gutter ball after gutter ball while my wife was sitting on the lap of Doug, Chet, Dave, or Bob, running her fingers through his Pert Plus hair. They've got to be using Pert Plus. Have you seen how their mullets sway just right as they release their grip on their bowling balls?

And then there's the romanticism of conquering an enemy. We've all seen boxers strut to the center of the ring, only to stare each other down while the referee reviews the rules of the bout. Or the four captains of an NFL team walking deliberately to the middle of the football field like they own the joint. What gives? I'm sorry, but a professional linebacker sprinting in stealth to deliver a monster hit on a running back has nothing on a chubby white guy who rolls a ball at some stationary pins. Nor does the boxer who spends 26 hours a day jumping rope at the speed of nano-light. If I were a professional bowler, I'm sure my mantra would be the same as the one all the others chant as they bend over to heft their huge ball: "OK, pins, don't even think about moving. It's not going to matter. You could slide a millimeter to the right or the left, but I'm going to get you nonetheless."

I know--why don't we set up a staring contest between these guys and the top four chess players in the world? I bet we could sell tickets.

Give me a break. I've seen scarier two-year-olds. I'm sorry, but if you want to be an intimidating sports figure, don't go into bowling.

Wanderlust & The Next C.O.

I listened to the voice of a dead man yesterday at work. His wife, a new widow, called our client helpline to ask some questions. I took the call. She told me she had some questions about a bill she was getting for her late husband. In the health care industry, consumers call helplines to get answers. Sometimes their circumstances are not great. Sometimes they are very fragile. The really hard ones are the moms who have lost newborns and those who have lost spouses.

I needed to research the issue about which she called. I asked her for her phone number and told her I'd get back to her shortly. After getting the information I needed, I dialed her number. The next thing I heard was her husband's voice, explaining that they were not able to take my call, and that if I would leave my name and number, they would get back to me. He sounded happy enough, like a pretty regular guy. I thought about how hard it would be for that man's mother (he was only in his early fifties) or son or neighbor to hear the familiar voice, and how it mocked reality by providing a hollow, bogus return to the recent days when that return call just might come from him. I thought about life and circumstances and fortune. Luck. Dreams. And wishes. And then I remembered something I had learned several years ago about wishing for things to be different.

My first real job out of graduate school was as a trainer for a large county agency in Central California. It was my privilege to work with a chap who was, and remains, wise, funny, caring and very experienced. The Chief (he spent at least 30 years in our beloved U.S. Navy and had retired as a Command Master Chief--never mind his two master's degrees) taught me a valuable lesson during our time together. He talked about C.O.s (commanding officers) he'd had in the service. Some of them were good. Some of them weren't as good. He explained to me that no matter how bad someone thought his C.O. was, it was risky to look forward to the day when that C.O. was to be replaced. The reason? Perhaps the new C.O. would actually be worse than the one who was replaced.

So........life. I can't say just how many times I've wished I had a different job. That whole thought pattern goes all the way back to my days at KFC as a gourmet chef. I think what it has come down to has been a mindset that tends to look at negatives around me rather than positives. I bet there are negatives to most jobs. Just as there are negatives to many places one could live. I have heard it called wanderlust. It's a condition typically found in men. Hey, there's land in .... who knows where for really cheap. Hey, there are lots of government jobs in Wisconsin. Hey, I hear that such and such is a really nice place to live.

Any of this sound familiar? I know that the men in my family are guilty. Guilty! And the women I know--my wife, my mom, my sister, my brother's wife--seem a bit more grounded and less likely to cave to wanderlust. I think men are restless, generally speaking. I've been working on becoming more grounded. More content with things the way they are. That way, I don't spend my life thinking about what another job would be like. What another place of residence would be like. It's not a really productive way to live. Plus you miss out on so much that is happening around you. And like wishing for a new commanding officer, how can it be guaranteed that the new situation will, in fact, be better than what is there already?

I hope that when my bell tolls, when it's my turn to take the big exit, I will have been living a content life instead of having been preoccupied with wanderlust. If my voice is the one someone hears on the voicemail greeting when they call my home after I'm gone, I will sound happy. That's the plan.

Dad as Sucker

Is there anything better than having your presence celebrated? The two-year-old gets pretty excited when I get home from work. This evening she jumped up and down as I walked by her room on my way to mine, announcing, "My daddy's home! Yay! Yeah!"

It doesn't seem too long ago that I looked forward to the hour between 5:00 and 6:00, when my own dad would return home from work. He often came inside the house and went straight to work, either by helping to get dinner ready or by getting started on the dishes.

I don't know what it is about a dad's arrival home from work that can make kids giddy. After all, dads aren't that cool. They're tired. They're cranky. They don't think straight when they first walk in the door. They sometimes smell bad. Dads are famous for telling really stupid jokes. They are also known to get upset about messes and kids who back-talk to their mothers. Dads might leave their socks on the living room floor--accidentally, I'm sure. There are other things, of course, about dads, and our list could go on. Especially if we ask the moms out there for comments.

Sometimes people do things before Dad gets home to effect some kind of mood-changing miracle. For example, a plate of cookies strategically placed so it is seen upon entering the house might make the news of a speeding ticket easier to take. Or maybe Dad will walk through a spruced-up garage, completely oblivious to the fact that his brain is being magically programmed to tell his mouth to say, "Yes," when his son asks for a new pair of shoes. Such Jedi mind tricks are commonplace in homes where dads come home from work day in and day out. Other times it's only for the sake of getting a laugh.

I recall one particular day when I had a stroke of pure, unadulterated genius. Our cat, Sophie, about whose fate I may write at a future time, had killed a mouse. She would not eat it, however. The carcass just lay on the back patio. It had died for Sophie's entertainment. And what's up with cats, anyway? Why do they batter a mouse to death, only to walk away from it? I digress. So there lay the dead mouse. I thought about the mouse. And then it hit me. I decided I had to act. Never before had any opportunity like this been placed before me. It was perfect. And I did not have much time. It would not be long before my dad would be home. I grabbed some string. Scribbled a tiny note. Set everything up.

I watched secretly from inside the back door, waiting for my dad's car to appear in the driveway. I looked over at the garage door, through which he would enter the house. The mouse was positioned perfectly. I grew very excited. I considered the idea that what I had done was twisted and insensitive. I did not care. This was right up my dad's alley. As in a perfect strike. As in I'd be bowling a 300. That's how good this was. So the car appeared. My dad got out. Walked through the garage toward the door. He began to slow as he saw the mouse. It was hanging, by its neck, from the rafter right in front of the door, on a long piece of string. He stopped. Bent a bit to look at the mouse, to read the note tied around its neck. I just can't take it anymore.

The discovery lasted only seconds. It seemed like hours. I felt like a comic trying out a joke for the first time on stage. The second, or two seconds, between punchline and audience reaction must seem eternal. Will they like it? Will he think the mouse is funny? And then payoff. The smile. The laughing. I couldn't hear it. I was standing inside the house. But I could see it. The shoulders moving up and down with laughter. Score one for the mouse. And Sophie.

And so I reckon there will be days when I come home to messes. Days when I come home to some cooked up scheme that will cause me to agree to some crazy kid-request to which I would normally say No. "What's that, son, you want me to buy you a BB gun for, for, for, well, it's not your birthday, now is it? I really want to say, 'No,' son, but these cookies are so good that my brain is telling me that I should say, 'Yes.' I don't know why I'd say, 'Yes,' but I'm going to. You see, I really don't understand it, but I'm going to say, 'Yes.'"

For now, I'll settle for the two-year-old's daily celebration. In fact I'll look forward to it. I'll relish it. I'll deal with the Jedi mind tricks later. Hopefully there will be more funny discoveries than tricks.