I HAD TO DO IT

After Cris sent his memories I got to wondering about the other members of our team and tracked down this guy...it was easy, thank you, smart pages.
I woke him and his wife up in my zeal, but he was good enough to send me this email that I got today.
This part of my life has been difficult to reconstruct, and not because of memory issues.
They were heady times, and to have other members of the team available to share memories was just, well, the shizznit.
So, here it is...the CSO according to Stephen.



Rob:



Hope things are going well for you. My XXX time lead me to law school and eventually to working as in-house counsel for a large physician practice management company. I focus mainly on employment law (hiring, firing, contracts, etc). Whenever I handle a particularly difficult situation with an angry or hostile employee, I remind myself that it is a hell of a lot easier than tackling enraged 17 year olds for $9.50 an hour.



There are a lot of things I remember about CSO. In fact, I still have a picture of us in our grey jean jackets, wearing badges and holding a gun. I think we took that the night you were officially moved from the float pool to CSO. My wife gets a kick out of that picture. Anyway, the first memory that came to me was "capturing" that kid (Matt, I think) at the apartment complex. He and another kid (Joey, I think) had run away a couple days before. They had already landed a job with some derelict maintenance guy who had befriended them. It turned out that he worked at an apartment complex were one of the MHWs lived. We got the report at CSO, rounded up our usual collection of "thugs", got in the van and went out to retrieve the young lads. We show up at the complex, and there they are, in the process of moving some steeping stones near the pool. The maintenance guy is giving them instructions, when out of nowhere come six guys who proceed to chase after and eventually apprehend these two. As we are dragging them back to the van, the good Samaritan begins threatening us. He sends his girlfriend back to the apartment to call the police and get his gun. We have our hands full dealing with two mental patients, now this bozo is threatening to punch someone and may have a gun on the way. Ultimately we talk sense into him (you and I were at full BS capacity). We agree to let him visit the kids the next day and directed him to speak to Charlene. Needless to say he never got to see the boys. We laughed about that one for a week.

There was also a memorable retrieval involving some Twin Oaks kid named Chris. It was the holidays and he was on a home visit with his dad. I don't know if you remember this guy, but he looked like Johnny Paycheck. Chris was apparently not listening or behaving at home, so dad called us to pick him up. We show up in the van in some north Austin suburb. Chris is laying on the couch watching Danger Mouse at about 100 decibels. His dad is yelling at him. We do our normal first rate intervention, then walk the boy to the van. Chris and dad are exchanging pleasantries as we are walking out. About the time Chris gets in the van, dad has decided he's had enough. He reaches across me and grabs Chris by the hair. He is cussing a threatening to "kill the little son of a bitch". I push dad away. You yell "close the door" and pull away. Everybody in the van is pretty freaked out at this point. You and I are doing our best not to bust out laughing. I remember saying "nice work, man" to you shortly after we pulled away. One of the MHWs looked at me in disbelief like "what do you mean 'nice work'?" That's why it paid to have a regular crew. This scene wasn't over anyway. Dad calls the Oaks a few hours later and announces that he is coming to pick Chris up. We decide that it might be time to bring Arnie in the loop on this one. So Arnie shows up shortly before dad. We have moved Chris to ICU for safe keeping. He had been talking about his dad having a gun, so we were expecting pretty much anything. Dad shows up drunker than Cooter Brown. Arnie tries to reason with him unsuccessfully. Arnie's "I'll lose my job if I release him doesn't carry much weight". Dad responds, "I don't give a good goddamn about your job, or your job, or your job" looking at the three of us. "I just want the little son of a bitch to have a good holiday." Eventually he took the kid home.

There was some kid named Joe, who used to eat his feces. There was also some kid on Great Oaks whose feet stunk so bad that it was almost unbearable when he was in a security room. I convinced his staff into keeping him on the unit once because I didn't want to smell his feet all evening. We used to watch that Vietnam TV show (I don't remember the name)("Tour of Duty"-R) when we worked together, and you used to retell some story about a soldier holding up a dead gook from a hole a talking through it. You told that story about twenty times to anyone that walked in. I finally snapped and told you the story was driving me nuts. We also had a communication book. We did top ten lists and photo captions that were absolutely hilarious. I used to come by your house after work several times a week to "process". We laughed and partied pretty hard. I remember watching "Buster and Billie", some old Jan Michael Vincent movie. I still use a line out of that movie. "Could be another one of them hook murders." You had a memorable comment when Buster gave Billie Jean a Pepsi while they were making out. "Just clearing the deck for you, Buster".

I'm sure a lot more things will come up. I'll shoot you another email when they do. That was a great time in my life. I wasn't going in any particular direction, but I had a lot of good friends. I was usual playing softball or golf and partying. I was at the XXX for six years, but the two at CSO were the most memorable. The amount of power they gave us from 3-11pm was ridiculous. We did a lot of crazy things and resolved a lot of bizarre circumstances. You and I were a good team. I never had to worry whether you had my back, and I hope you felt the same way.

Take care.

Stephen

And there you have it...and yes I did.