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The old guy who got mad at a neighbor who was complaining about tree cutting and trimming. The old guy growled at the
younger man to get off his doorstop or he’d hit him. The younger man didn’t move. The older man punched him in the nose,
bloodying it. I got called. I took the older guy to jail. The case went to trial and the old puncher was actually acquitted; the jury
thought the younger man should have left when warned to.

Old man living in an old house on the waterfront had lit a small burn pile on the back patio. Ok idea but terrible execution
because he did it directly underneath the deck above his head. The flames got too high and hit the 2nd floor deck overhead,
from there it went up an outside wall and quickly spread to the cedar shake roofing. I got there before the fire department, and
convinced the old man to not go up on the roof himself with a garden hose. Fire department arrived, chain sawed some vent
holes in the roof, charged up the fire hoses and blasted the roof and attic, and eventually put out the fire. Adult son shows up
and confirms his father has dementia and is not the best decision maker in the family about making fires. The next day I wake
up and realize just how badly my uniform had been infused with smoke; my whole house smelled smoke funky. Especially in
the closet where I had, uh, regrettably hung my uniform up. Next to all the other clothes. Including, yes, my wife’s clothes. This
was the same day that I realized that day-old house smoke fire smell in clothes does not smell anything like campfires; it’s much,
much worse. After that time I learned that whenever I got anywhere near a house fire I should wash my uniform as soon as I got
home.

Me talking to a young woman, crying because her boyfriend broke up with her. (She was crying about it, not me.) She feared
loneliness so much that she preferred a loser abusive boyfriend to nothing at all, but he was finally done with her so he had
pulled her out of his car and dragged her up her driveway to her front door to ger her away from him. In a desperate attempt to
keep him from leaving her she had grabbed his wallet and phone, to take hostage, I guess. “That was a stupid thing to do, huh?”
she later asked me. Now, it’s generally bad form to blame victims but sometimes the cleanest cuts are made with a sharp knife.
“Yep,” I replied. “That. Was. Really. Stupid.”