EXPERIENCE AUTHORITY FIRST HAND

via duluthtrading.com

The truth is powerful after you experience authority.

From your private life to public life, things change. You can’t always express that unique feeling you need to share.

If you talk your talk and nobody listens?

If you talk your talk and the wrong people listen?

If you’re afraid to talk your talk? That one sort of flies in the face of ‘living out loud.’

If anger and fear kick in, then what? You may need to experience authority first hand.

As children, my Dad took us boys to visit the local jail. He knew North Bend Police Chief Wally Lee and set up the jail tour. They seemed happy to see kids experience authority from the inside.

Jail tours seemed a constant.

We drove a Volkswagen camper with no air conditioning all the way to Dallas, Texas to visit my Mom’s family.

Granddaddy’s seventh wife worked in the Dallas County Jail and arranged a tour. She was a matron on the lady’s side of the business.

A thick Police Captain met us and explained the routine. He showed us a prisoner being processed. The captain looked wary, the prisoner looked angry. We in the audience looked on.

Someone asked why the police boss didn’t carry a gun? He smiled and pulled a stiletto out of his pocket, a real sticker.

On the lady’s side we took a look through the slide vent at a huge cell with dim light where women walked around. Some waved at the vent. It looked like a version of hell you’d never want see from their side.

After that we walked the path where Lee Harvey Oswald met Jack Ruby. This was 1969 and creepy as anything I’ve seen since. Historically creepy.

If you’ve never experienced authority, it’s a foreign thing. Experience authority straight up and it changes.

Anger and fear? Authority speaks to that and it’s not a comfort. You might come away angrier and more fearful.

From family, to school, to sports, you can experience authority. Some carry more weight than others. Why do people run away from home, quit the team, drop out of school? Authority chafes them too much, or it’s an unfair authority.

Go ahead and join the service, like the Army, and unfair authority gets in you face. You’ll get spit-sprayed by a crazy acting Drill Sergeant while he woodpeckers the brim of his Smokey The Bear hat into your forehead.

Tell your leader you don’t want to take another hike, that you’re quitting the hike you’re on, and they can’t do a thing about it. Say it loud in front of your platoon and the Drill Sergeant provides an authority experience.

Eventually you learn to handle authority, you learn to accept authority, maybe you become the voice of authority yourself. Older people often get that credit.

If you’re a baby boomer who heard the idea of ‘don’t trust anyone over thirty,’ and ‘question authority,’ and now you’re over thirty and an authority in your field, those words ring hollow.

If you’ve never experienced the full range of authority, as in “Do what I tell you and shut up,” your words might ring hollow too.

More important, if you decide to proclaim your authority when you have none, be a good scout. Be prepared.

Question authority with respect. Keep your pants on.

Live to question another day.