EXPERIENCE

I busted my rear to "survive" Highway Patrol School. Physically, psychologically, and spiritually, it dang near drained me. When I "made it", I felt that my just reward was on its way.

They had us fill out a "Dream Sheet". We got to list three areas of the state we wanted to be stationed in priority order. I listed Tyler, Dallas, or Beaumont. They sent my country butt to San Antonio. Devastation! Far from home, a BIG city, and too few who spoke my native tongue in their daily conversation.

Guess what, I loved San Antonio, I learned more about my profession than I ever could have imagined, and when I moved due to promotion SIX years later, I had genuine regret upon leaving.

I left San Antonio because I was promoted to Highway Patrol Sergeant. What I "wanted" when I made Sergeant was to go to some Northeast Texas small town and settle down to enjoy life until I reached retirement age/service. NOT. I was sent to Houston. The cost of living was astronomical (my pay raise for promotion was only $76), the traffic, population, pollution was overwhelming, and twice during my year there I came as close to losing my life in the line of duty as I could ever imagine/fear.

After one year, I asked for transfer to Marshall to help care for my terminally ill Mom. I was glad to leave Harris County, but you know what, I learned more about being a supervisor in that year than maybe all my later years put together?

While at Marshall, I decided I would apply with the many other applicants to attend the Northwestern University Police Executive Management Institute in Chicago (nine month program). I merely "wanted" to apply to get my "name in the hat" for some future year when I might be serious about the deal. Guess what, I was the only person in DPS to apply that year, management signed off on a federal grant to pay for it, and I was ordered to attend (Be careful what you ask for sports fans). That "adventure" put me figuratively on the other side of the world, in a strange COLD land with folks who "talked funny" and in a program that taxed the limits of my brains and endurance.

Again, when it was over, I felt this experience that I had not really wanted had allowed me to grow professionally more than anything I ever could have imagined.

My life since that "yankee" experience has been a series of events that were not my conscious want/need/desire, but that turned out to be "just what the doctor ordered" for my long term benefit.

Bottom line children of mine: EXPERIENCE IS WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU DON'T GET WHAT YOU WANTED.