New Neighbors

 

New Neighbors

 

A chance meeting with my new neighbor reminded me that I haven’t written about my neighborhood in a long while. Accordingly, I decided to look it up. My last neighborhood report to you was August, 2019 when I reported on the happenings at my regular coffee-drinking morning meeting where we discussed the ongoing absurdities of modern-day life and its politics. A lot has happened in the neighborhood since then, so it seemed time to update you.

As you will recall, my neighbors and I live on a sparsely settled road roughly 7 miles from the sole village in our county. Roscommon, we call it, despite the confusion resulting from the overuse of one name for three entities: Our county is named Roscommon, our only village in the county is named Roscommon, and our southwestern-most township in the county is also named Roscommon. Since names are so cheap, you would think our previous state and local leaders could have spent a tiny more time for another name or two to avoid the obvious confusion of our same names for three separate entities. As an aside and an example of this, I should tell you that a purchaser of my book, Early History of Roscommon County, wrote a review of this book. He said he liked the book, was glad he had read it, but still disappointed when he determined the book was about Roscommon, Michigan and had nothing whatsoever to do with County Roscommon in Ireland as he had expected.

But back to my new neighbor who lives one door down from the neighbor next to me. The interesting thing about him is that he is a state employee – a uniformed member of the Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources, more specifically, a Conservation Officer. Conservation Officers are a special breed in Michigan with a rich history of law enforcement. “Woods cops,” they are called by some as they recall images of solitary peacekeepers of times gone by.

Their jobs are unique as they work alone, one officer, without direct supervision in a headquarters office, patrolling a county alone. In Roscommon, approximately 50% of the total land area is public land, mostly forested or covered by lakes, streams, ponds or rivers. These uninhabited lands, around 180,000 acres in total, are the domain of our single Conservation Officer neighbor. He is responsible for enforcing the law in these areas across the entire county and he roams the area using his assigned four-wheel drive truck, equipped with weaponry, communication tools and whatever other law enforcement tools that he needs. Depending upon circumstances he may also use a snowmobile, four-wheeler, boat, or plain, old-fashioned shoe leather in the form of water-proof high-top boots.

You might be surprised to learn that Conservation Officers have more authority than regular policemen. For one thing, the CO’s can enter your house uninvited if they have reason to so do – examining the inside of your refrigerator to look for recently taken game, for example. CO’s also have the authority to enforce all laws, not just laws concerning wild game or other activities involving outdoor, natural areas that other law enforcement officials generally ignore or defer to the Department of Natural Resources, better known as the DNR.

A DNR Watercraft Often Used on Major Waterways

 

The Conservation Officers investigate natural resource and environmental protection law violations pertaining to land, air, water and waste, and they are an important resource for local communities faced with environmental conflicts of a criminal nature. Emergency management situations often include the need for CO’s to become involved with other agencies. Forest fires are a continuing concern where I live and the CO’s often are deployed to help local firefighters if their expertise is needed.

 Other emergencies also can activate CO work. During the early days of the Covid emergency Michigan experienced severe weather, extreme flooding, and civil protests, keeping Michigan’s emergency management staff busy throughout the state with response and recovery efforts.

The chance meeting between me and my CO neighbor occurred while he and I were trekking in opposite directions down our road, he running and me walking. Later, I met both he and his wife at our local gym where both were exercising, he with the heavy weights and me with lighter versions of the same weights that I quickly set aside before their diminutive size could be discovered. We had a nice chat and I learned about the Conservation Officer job. I was impressed.

I thought you might like to know.