We, "rookies," as we were called, were eyed with suspicion by the "Old Timers." I recall my first assignment in uniform. All the rookies stood at one side of the muster room while the old timers ignored us as if we didn't exist. When I was ordered to take my post I went to the far reaches of the command by myself. Half an hour into my tour another foot patrolman comes up to me and says, "Hey, kid, come with me." I followed him like a puppy dog into what I thought was a police job. It turned out that it was a Bar and Grill. The bartender whipped out a couple of shot glasses as soon as we walked in the door. I said, "No thanks, I don't drink." With that the officer that brought me into the place says, "Look, kid, never trust a cop who doesn't drink." He brought me back to my post and that was the last time another cop had anything to do with me for a long time.
I soon realized that every cop drank in that command. They were "three sheets to the wind" when they went on duty and were that way when they returned to the precinct upon completion of their tour. The drinking continued after work in the gin mill located directly across the street from the station house.
The Bosses had their own places to drink and the rule was never to go into their haunts under any circumstances. After this silent treatment from my fellow officers, I decided to stop at the local "watering hole" upon completion of my tour of duty and be one of the boys. In short order I was accepted and I got assigned a seat in the radio car as a fill-in. Then I was assigned to better posts. But I paid a price for being one of the boys. First, as the saying goes, I took a drink, then the drink took a drink, and then the drink took me.
The job was 75% Irish Catholics when I was sworn into the ranks and it seemed they all loved to drink. The cops used to kid each other about the "Irish Virus." To illustrate the point further, the seat I got in the radio car was vacated by a cop who lost it because of booze. The locker I was assigned to became vacant because the cop who used it before me died of booze. I was walking down the same path as they.
The events that I will share with you I vividly recall as if they happened yesterday. As you see, I was blessed with a photographic memory.