Pining for the Pine Cone police log

Yes, they don't need anything quite as high-brow down there in the land of Clint Eastwood and golf as a paper whose mast includes the words "times," "news," "chronicle," "tribune," or - sadly - even the highly esteemed "journal." They keep it simple with merely "pine cone." And, they should keep it simple, with that burgeoning crime scene being nurtured down there.

For instance, a 3-year-old child was found unaccompanied at a church following his father's wedding. It appears in the hustle and bustle of getting to the reception, the little boy was forgotten. A kindly person contacted authorities about the boy who, when asked his name, promptly replied, "Shark!" The father was found, the family was re-united and sadly us readers never learned what the child's real name was (that is assuming that his parents were not so influence by the movie "Jaws" prior to filling out the birth certificate as to actually name him "Shark.")

On St. Patrick's Day - which might explain this next police report - a man reported that his dog was taken from outside a downtown pub. The previous day the big police news was somebody reporting that his black husky had wandered away from home. The dog, the blotter noted, was "hard of hearing." Perhaps the disappearances are connected; perhaps there is some large-scale dognapping ring.

With crime like this I'd be surprised if anybody on the Monterey Bay failed to lock their doors and windows at night.

I must say I felt much more comfortable returning to San Mateo County after my brief weekend trip. I don't know what to do with a blotter filled with windows that are left slightly ajar or purses that are temporarily misplaced. I've been conditioned to expect battery and theft and general mayhem throughout the greater Bay Area. Thankfully upon my return I saw that the criminal element of the county worked overtime to make sure I felt right at home - two fatal stabbings, two unidentified dead bodies on the beach, even more damage from BB guns and a handful of domestic disturbances.

These criminal acts are the things that help safeguard my job in the news field. They also used to give that type of job security to local police forces - at least that is until the economy took a nose dive and cities sadly announced the need to cut down on personnel.

Maybe that's why it is so intriguing to check out what is going on in other towns and cities: it gives you a new perspective on your own home base. The towns of Monterey County may or may not be facing their own bundle of budget cuts; that information would be on the front page which I promised myself I wouldn't tackle on my days off. But, the colorful blotter is a better example of what those officers and personnel are faced with. The police log in a village like that shows us out-of-towners that our public safety personnel deserve far more accolades for what they are handed than those who are filling out missing dog reports or checking on residents who forgot to turn on their porch light.

Of course, there are some things listed in the Carmel Pine Cone that I could see being in our local papers. There was, for instance, a man waving his arms and yelling while waiting at a bus stop. Police found that he was speaking to a TV remote control and told him that he wouldn't get any reception. He was advised to control his actions so that others wouldn't be concerned.

Maybe he is like the San Mateo, Hillsborough and Foster City residents who couldn't find NBC on their local Comcast cable connection two weeks ago. Something tells me they spent some time yelling at a remote control, too, although I'm sure it was done in the solitude of their own living rooms.

Perhaps, after all, there isn't such a wide gap between Carmel-by-the-Sea and San Mateo County-by-Highway-101.

Michelle Durand's column "Off the Beat" runs every Monday and Thursday. She can be reached by e-mail: michelle@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 104. What do you think of this column? Send a letter to the editor: letters@smdailyjournal.com.