The man the kids love

By MARY JANE HOLT
Contributing Writer

There are those who say he had his 15 minutes of fame the day he shot and killed professed serial killer John Paul Knowles in his infamous escape attempt of 1974. Me? I figure the man was just doing his job. I can say this because I’ve witnessed Ronnie Angel’s true calling over the years.

You see, he’s the man the kids love.

I watched it all unfold yet again just this past Saturday. We were having another of our family gatherings with lots of down home cooking, back/front porch singing, and 50 to a 100 folks coming and going all during the day. Yeah, an all-dayer. In fact, some of us lasted well into the early morning hours.

It was early on Saturday afternoon that my sister turned to me and asked “Is it okay if I give the kids some balloons and bubbles and sidewalk chalk?” Balloons and bubbles were a yes. Daniel forbids sidewalk chalk, I told her.

Already, you can see Daniel and I fail the kid-friendly test. But not Lynda, she’s always ready with stuff to entertain the kids, make them feel special, let them know they were thought about, and planned for, etc.

So she passes out bubbles and balloons. Bubbles are a no-brainer. A kid of any age can master blowing bubbles. But blowing up balloons — the long skinny kind that clowns shape into all kinds of creatures — well, that’s another story.

So, shortly after Lynda passes out her treats, one of those precious little faces looks up into my eyes and says, “we need help with the balloons.” Now, that was an understatement, if I had ever heard one.

My eyes scanned the crowd and I quickly spotted him sitting under the blue canopy we had put up in the front yard. There among a circle of menfolk, where the stories were just starting to get good, sat the perfect fellow to put in charge of balloon detail.

I don’t know why I know that. I just do. You see Ronnie has the darkest, brownest eyes I’ve ever seen on a white man. And those eyes are set deep into an absolutely perfect poker face. They reveal nothing.

I’m betting that both those eyes, and the face in which they are set, could hold their own in any gambling establishment. One positively cannot guess what he is thinking, much less what hand he might be holding. In fact, I’ve always thought he would have made a great CIA operative!

So I point the inquiring kid in the direction of Uncle Ronnie and I say with absolute assurance, “He will take care of you.”

And that, in my humble opinion, is Ronnie’s true claim to fame. Clearly, he knows how to “take care.” He doesn’t do it like I do. Or like most folks do it for that matter. He has his own unique, cut and dried, black and white, let’s cut to the chase manner of taking care of things.

I can only imagine how superbly that personality served him during the 30 plus years he served his state as a very well respected law enforcement officer. In fact, shortly upon his return home on Sunday following our family thing, he got a call that a fellow state patrol officer had died. He and another comrade headed north within a matter of hours to show their respect, to give support and “take care” of whatever needed taking care of.

Ronnie was one of the first folks in my husband’s family to make me feel welcome. Most folks usually tell me I’m different. I always wonder what they mean by that. Straight shooters like Ronnie just come right and tell me I’m weird. And some of them, those who have a heart and know how to shoot straight from it, like Ronnie, sometimes add “but I like ya anyway!”

Maybe the kids know that he “likes them anyway,” that he cares for and about them Ð no matter what. I figure he just did society a favor when he shot Knowles that day in the line of duty, but Ronnie Angel’s true claim to real fame shows every time one observes him interacting with the children.

As I have watched him patiently and tenderly care for the various needs of the little ones over the years, and almost envied the inside track he seems to have, I often have been reminded of the truth of Matthew 18:1-7 Ð a truth that too many of us too often overlook, the truth behind that “no matter what” kind of caretaking.