No big secret. I was meeting a property owner in St. Louis to review a repair procedure for his boiler. As I've stated before, I always carry. On my way to meet him, I parked my truck in a lot and had to walk through an alley to get to the location of the meet. At best, describing it as a rough neighborhood would be an understatement. On the way in, several youths were in the alley but didn't say anything when I went in.

On the way out, however, one of them took a liking to my leather coat. He pulled out one of those OTF switch blades and told me to give him my coat. I already had my hand around the butt of my Mdl 36 so by the time he finished his demand he was looking down the barrel. I still have that knife.

#2 was at my home in the city. I had a neighbor who was a survivor of the Bataan Death March and subsequent prison camps. He was crippled and I kind of adopted him and his wife. He would come out on his back porch and smoke a pipe (his wife wouldn't let him smoke in the house) and the aroma would come in the window so I'd know he was out there. So I'm sitting at my desk writing a report and I catch a wiff and know he's out there. All of a sudden, I hear someone shouting, but can't make out what they're saying.

I get up and go to the window and see an "urban youth" jump my neighbors fence from the alley while yelling at my neighbor. I pick up my Goldcup and head out the back door in time to hear the "youth" say "Expletive, I told you to give me a light!" I say "Whats going on here?" and I'm told "Expletive this aint none of your bidness" and he's now just a few feet from my neighbor. I slid the Goldcup out of my waistband and told him to not take another step closer.

One of my best friends is an old Copper, now retired. He used to tell stories about suspects "rabbiting" on him. Well I'm going to tell you, that dude vaporized! Just a couple seconds and he was out of sight.

I hope that satisfies the curiosity.

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James L. "Jim" Rhiner