This book is a chronicle of sorts, a year in the life of an ordinary American High School. As a school-based police officer my days were never dull and I kept a diary of my experiences at school with students, faculty and staff. Students that earned a place in my journal, and into my consciousness, were the characters that bring life, laughs and stress into every school day.
We know them as the ones’ that doddle in notebooks, scratch up desks; stick gum where they shouldn’t; create drama, cry wolf and bring fresh ideas to the title of class clown. They tested the strength and the resolve of teachers and parents and me- the school cop. They are the ones that live internally in yearbooks and ones we never seem to forget. Regardless of time and generation, they are our usual suspects; the one’s that could never stay out of the spotlight, the ones’ that broke the law and broke hearts. It’s their stories that are the life blood of this chronicled, roller-coaster school year.
Drifters is a collection of stories about my most memorable characters and their tumultuous drifts between the worlds of right and wrong and good and bad. This book is literally about their trials and tribulations, their punishments on a school level and for some, their follies with the juvenile court system and beyond.
But Drifters is not only for my “knuckleheads,” or their parents. It’s intended to be a glimpse of everyday high school life through my eyes and my perception of things. A cop’s eye. It’s about how I acted and reacted to their behavior.
This book is for everyone and anyone who struggled to survive high school, and it’s for those who spent the glory days of secondary education taking up space in classrooms, in detention or in the principal’s office.