Michelle and I have been living in Hiawassee for over a month now. We moved from Kennesaw on March 27, and I started with the Towns County Sheriff’s Office on March 30. I started out riding with another officer on day shift (6:00 am to 6:00 pm). Once they figured out that I knew what I was doing, they put me out on my own. I stayed on day shift for a couple of weeks until an incident occurred on night shift that left two officers on administrative leave. Once the GBI completes their investigation I’ll be able to say more. In the mean time, I’m working night shift to help cover the beats.

A self portrait from 2:00 am. I felt as tired as I look.

It’s nice though. I use to get terrible headaches everyday and I lived on migraine medicine. Since moving back to Hiawassee, I haven’t had any bad headaches. That either means that the headaches were stress induced, or the tumor that was causing them miraculously disappeared. It’s also been greet to be able to stop at home and eat with Michelle or stop at my parent’s house for coffee.

There are some drawbacks to moving back to Hiawassee though. I took a 50% pay cut. This blow was softened with a take home car, a county cell phone, and a free house (provided by Michelle’s grandmother, not the county). It’s also difficult to police in the town you grew up in. I’ve had to arrest a former classmate, and I know most people I pull over. If I don’t know the people I come across at work, then they either know me or my family. I’ll be talking to someone, and they’ll suddenly say, “Are you Stephen Smith’s son? He taught me algebra when I was in high school. He was the best teacher I ever had, and the best thing to happen to the school.” It’s hard to write a ticket to someone after they say something like that, but I manage anyway.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 1:43 am and is filed under Daily Life, Family, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.