Both these stories were in the Tulsa paper
this week.
I'd like to tell you a couple of true stories.
These are both about Tulsa public servants.
The first guy's name has been kept a secret, I'll
tell you why.
In 1996, an undercover cop started dropping by
a small Tulsa tavern.
For three years, this guy sat on a barstool,
drank beer, told jokes,
bought drinks for his new buddies, and became
an all-round friend
and good guy to the owners of the tavern.
Having owned two clubs, I know how easy it is
to get close
to regular customers. Regular customers mean
everything.
Small bars live and die by their regulars.
Problem is, over in the corner, the small tavern
had illegal video
poker games. When you play these video games,
you rack up
points instead of having the coins come clank-clanking
out.
The club owners know that the local police, or
the county
sheriffs, will send in an undercover officer
now and then
to try to get the owner to pay off on these video
games.
As a result, the owners don't pay anyone they
don't know.
They only pay the regulars. If they don't know
you,
and you win 100 credits, they say, "Good for
you,"
and wish you good luck playing off those 100
credits.
To get around this, the Knuckldrag county sheriff
sent an
officer into this tiny tavern a couple of times
a week for
three years - three years - to gain the
owner's confidence.
After three years, he finally got paid off on
a poker win
and then busted his friends for finally trusting
him.
Granted, this is the cop's job but,
we're not talking about breaking up a baby-selling
ring.
We're not talking about breaking up a crack cartel.
We're not talking about breaking up a kiddie-porn
ring.
This is a Mom and Pop small business, trying
to stay open.
It's not right.
It's horseshit to spend three years trying to
bust a couple who are,
granted, skirting the religiously-engineered
gambling laws.
Koresh forbid, what if they have a football pool
for the Super Bowl?
It sounds like Barney Fife overkill, doesn't
it?
OK, that's story one.
Here's story two.
A man who lives in a Knuckledrag apartment complex
woke up
to find his apartment in flames. In a panic,
he was able to get out of
the building, but then noticed the boy who lived
next door wasn't
standing outside with his other neighbors, so
he tried to go back for him.
The flames and smoke were just too hot, he couldn't
go back.
Minutes later, firefighters arrived and the man
told them he thought a
child might still be inside. Firefighters Travis
Fry and Bryan Hickerson
fought their way into the burning bedroom of
an upstairs apartment at
the Bradford Creek Apartments as they searched
as fast as they could
for the child the neighbor said might still be
left inside.
Flames were crackling and melting the walls.
Thick, black smoke was smothering everything,
destroying visibility.
Some of the firefighter's equipment began to
melt.
Fry expected the worst.
Hickerson was working the hose while Fry searched
for the child.
"It seems like forever when you're searching
for somebody," Fry said.
Then he spotted him.
A small boy was unconscious, lying halfway under
his bed.
He grabbed the boy, who was no longer breathing,
and worked his way
past the flaming walls, down the steps and out
of the building
He gently put the boy on the ground. Paramedics
who were on
the scene immediately surrounded him and began
rescue breathing.
Fry and Hickerson stood by helplessly and watched
the medics work.
After what seemed like an eternity, Fry heard
the boy begin to cry,
which meant he and his fellow firefighters had
just saved a life.
Afterwards, Fry wasn't bragging. In fact,
he understated his role
when asked to describe the scene for reporters.
"It just happened that I was the one who got
to him," Fry said.
Fry, who's only been with the Tulsa Fire Department
two years,
said he wasn't even sure there was a child in
the room when he
and Hickerson, who is a captain, first went inside
the apartment.
Hickerson guessed that the boy probably only
had three or four
minutes to live when he was pulled from the building.
Fry shook off any attempts to paint him as a hero.
"I'm just lucky to work with a good captain and
an agressive crew,"
Fry said. "It wasn't like I did any more than
anybody else."
===
So, we have two Tulsa public servants.
One man sat on a barstool and drank beer for
three years
so he could bust his friends for trusting him.
The other man entered a burning building and risked
his life
to save a child that had only minutes to live.
I think every firefighter deserves a raise.
Thanks to that terribly immoral satanist Bill
Clinton,
sufficient money exists to give these heroes
a raise.
And if there's not enough money to give 'em a
raise,
let's take some money out of the budget of the
beer-drinking
"guardians of gambling" police and make it happen.
Firefighters are the best.