rlfj: Blog

Time to get serious again. Riley is growing up, and the parental units are having to deal with it. Enjoy!

A couple of British readers noted that bobbies and peelers are now considered archaic terms for police in Britain. Some of the replacements are American names (coppers, fuzz, pigs, feds, po-po, five-oh, etc.) undoubtedly taken from American television and movies. Anyway, I did a quick edit to specify they were common names. "In Britain for many years the two most common nicknames for policemen were Bobbies and Peelers, named after Robert and Peel."

Everybody seemed to like how the boy problem was handled. I think Grim showed a lot of restraint compared to some fathers. I'm pretty sure my dad would not have appreciated finding his baby girl in a compromising position with a young man! I would bet he would have thrown him into the creek next door; said creek had a twenty-foot drop and was mostly rock and gravel.

Anyway, time for some more fun and games. Enjoy!

More than a few people enjoyed the end scene in the last chapter. Some asked if it was something I had ever gone through. Sorry, nothing quite like that. Back when my wife and I were dating in college, we got busy under a blanket in the living room of her parents' house late one night, and a couple of her younger brothers wandered in. They just laughed and went to the kitchen and we quickly redressed. No shotguns were brandished. We didn't have the same problems with our youngest, but she was incredibly headstrong and basically told us she was going to see her boyfriend with our knowledge or do it anyway and lie to us. That being said, she never got into any trouble and has grown up to be a great kid, wife, and mother.

Gnius1 informed me: "Wow - assault, domestic abuse and brandishing - quite an episode for Grim. Of course, being an ex-cop, he won't end up in prison as he should." Glad to see how well I write evil criminals! I suppose throwing Romeo in the lake was the assault and throwing Juliet in the lake was the domestic abuse. Under the circumstances, Grim can probably get those laughed out of court. Brandishing is going to be a real stretch, though; Grim never took his weapon from his holster and Georgia is an open-carry state. While I'm not a lawyer, I doubt any DA is going to want to take any of this to trial, especially when Riley files much more reasonable charges of statutory sexual assault. (She's under the age of consent in Georgia, 16, so even though she didn't have sex with him it still qualifies as sexual assault.)

Multiple people commented that biologically speaking, it is the male that determines the sex of the offspring. Not sure I believe that, considering the arguments my wife and I have had about our own kids. I know that nitwits of that caliber couldn't have been from my genetics!

Anyway, enjoy!

Mistake - I wrote Walpole NH was in eastern NH. It's in western NH. Fixed. Sorry. Also, a couple of readers familiar with the area pointed out that a better trip would be to fly to Hartford and travel north up I-91, and not via Boston. That took a larger rewrite.

Still getting people asking if I am going to incorporate the current racism-in-police issue in the story. No, I am not rewriting the story. Remember, the story is in 2025 at this point. 2020 was back in Chapter 12, which ran through 2022. He was not an active consultant during those years but was working on his doctorate. Regardless of the reforms being pushed and promised, we will still have police forces in the future. The crazies are pushing for police forces to be dismantled, but that simply won't be happening. Defunding is a definite possibility, but that isn't crazy. The largest mental health system in the nation is the prison system, which is also the largest drug treatment system and the largest homeless shelter system. The police and the prisons are the most expensive and inefficient way to do these things. Putting more money into these types of social programs makes a considerable amount of sense. As to what Grim would do differently, as early as 2019 Grim was giving lectures at the Athens and Forsyth academies on topics like PTSD, Use of Force, and Autism/Mental Health (Chapters 8 and 9). Those are the types of things that will be much more important in the future, at all academies.

I need help on a future project - Anybody out there with experience on an Arleigh Burke destroyer? How about any American destroyer? I need some minor technical details, slang, and nomenclature. Thanks.

Anyway, Chapter 27 should be fun. Enjoy!

Several dozen readers commented on killing snakes. It seems that there is an ammunition for the Glock .40 suitable for snakes, rats, and other pests. It's called shotshell and is made by CCI in a #9 size. For those wondering why Grim didn't kill the snakes with that, there's no reason to think he would have that sort of ammunition. There are many different types of ammunition. I googled '40 S&W ammo' and discovered the following types: target, full metal jacket, jacketed hollow point, ball, shotshell, fragmenting, lead free, and round nose flat point. There are probably more. While I can't speak for all police officers, I would think it unusual for a single officer to have every single type preloaded in a magazine for emergency home use.

I learned one odd thing in this chapter. One of my readers pointed out that the San Francisco PD doesn't have detectives. They call them inspectors there. I had to do some research and an edit on that. In most other American departments that have the inspector rank, it's a much higher level, captain or above.

Some readers want Grim to donate his remains to science or a body farm when the time comes. The shot glass idea is my thought, which I trot out occasionally when I want to gross out my offspring.

A few readers wondered if the story would be different considering what is happening with the George Floyd crisis. All I can say is that the summer of 2020 occurred while Grim was working on his PhD. By the time he graduates in 2021 and goes back to being a consultant, whatever will happen will probably have sorted itself out. No matter what happens, we will still have police forces in the future.

Several typos or continuity errors in this chapter. Fixed. Sorry about that.