Neckties

My daughter adores firemen. She remembers that firemen came to her rescue when she dislocated her knee. The only time she’s had contact with policemen was when she was a toddler. She’d wandered away from home one morning and police scoured the neighborhood to find her. They saved her as surely as the firemen did, but she was too young to remember. I’ve no idea why she’s afraid of police. Maybe it’s because in many of her cartoons, police are the bad guys. These days the news tends to paint police as villains, too, especially when they deal with young men of color. In July the organizers of a planned Black Lives Matter protest march met with the Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsay (?!) and decided to throw a picnic instead. Hundreds of residents – black, white and Hispanic – showed up to chow down on burgers with Wichita’s finest. There’s no better way to make friends than at a cookout.