Dirty Harry He Ain't......

Just west of where I live sits the Village of Blue Mounds, a small hamlet of about 700 people featuring a trailer park, a few scattered subdivisions, a laundromat, and not a whole helluva lot else.

It also has one full time cop.

Now, short of breaking up the occasional drunken domestic disturbance at the trailer court, there's not a whole lot for this guy to do. Anything bigger, and the County Sheriff takes over. So how does this protector and servant spend his days?

Sitting on the interstate, about 1/2 mile from the town center, trying to nab speeders.

If you're local, you know he's always out there, and if he nails you, you're a goddamn fool for not knowing better. Instead, his bread and butter are the poor saps from Iowa, trying to make decent time from Madison out to the state line. The revenue generated by issuing speeding tickets to folks from the Hawkeye state has to rank right at the top of Blue Mound's yearly municipal income.

I used to be infuriated every time I passed old Barney Fife parked out in that median, aiming his phallic radar tube at me. Lately, though, that fury has been replaced by a sense of absolute wonder; as in, how can this guy stand going to work every day?

I'm sure he started out with intentions either noble ("I'm going to protect society!") or sinister ("I get to carry a gun and bust people!") But I'm guessing that nowhere in that dream was there a vision of spending entire days sitting in a hot car on a flat stretch of exhaust-choked highway, holding a radar gun and asking dozens of people, 'Do you know how fast you were going back there?' until it was time to punch out and go home.

Which is what he does, all day, pretty much every day.

For as long as I've lived here, the same guy has held the job, so either he's learned to swallow his humiliation at being one micro-step above mall security and is just glad to get a paycheck. Or, he's totally delusional and thinks he's the last line of defense between the good citizens of Blue Mounds and .....well, I guess from some poor farmer from Iowa drifting off the highway, somehow maintaining a straight line across three cornfields and a graveyard, and plowing into the laundromat?

OK, I fully admit that I have no idea what he thinks he might be protecting the town from.

Regardless, much like those "Real Men of Genius" radio ads, I shake my head and lift my glass to you, Mr. Blue Mounds Serial Speeder Apprehender Guy!

Still, I'll never know how you can stand going to work every day.....