I met Tom when I was working for Coconut Creek Police Department. I'd been there for about 2 years when Tom started and we hit if off from the get go. Probably because we were both the "old guys".

Tom hated working car crashes and I loved it, so I always "showed up" whenever he got a crash, hoping he'd let me do the paper on it.

He moved in with a buddy of mine who lived across the street from me. We spent more time together and got to know each other even better. Tom was a good cop but for some reason never quite fit in at Creek. It was Creek's loss when Tom got hired at the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. Now his career in law enforcement is starting to take off and I'm sure he'll go far in Palm Beach.

Naturaly, being the new kid on the block, he got stuck on the midnight shift, and way, way out west in Belle Glade. For those of you that don't know about Belle Glade, it is the AIDS Capital of the World. Full of migrant workers, low income residents, and just about every kind of person that would scare the crap out of most of you. He called me his third day on the job and told me he was thinking about going back into landscaping. Fortunately he stuck it out, learnd a lot, and got transferred, first to day shift, then to Pahokee.

He has given up on the landscape career and seems to be a lot happier now than when he first started up there. PBSO has a lot more toys than Creek did. But...if you want to play, you have to pay. They also have a LOT more crime, serious crime, up there!