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Firstly, I was young, pre-puberty, when my criminal involvement began. I didn’t intend it, but I didn’t object, either. 

Truth is, I went gladly, greatly enjoying my innocent evil. I can point a finger of blame at dad, at one time held overnight in the Joliet Prison. Did father’s teenage incarceration, guiltless though it was, poison, so to speak, the well of my childhood virtue? 

We’ll never know for certain. What is sure comes down later to my willing foray into spying. Why corrupt at so young an age? It was fun.

The treasonous spy angle comes in because I so often slipped inside a secure facility. Not the first time. At first I only lurked, waiting for dad (very often late as I recall) to pass through the guard station protecting the security at the Ford Aircraft Engine Division (formerly Tucker Plant and WWII bomber production before that). 

All workers, visitors and guests had to have security clearance. No exceptions, except as it happened, for a four-foot-tall boy in school uniform. Having escaped our car to avoid further criticism of dirty hands, scuffed shoes and persistent cowlick resistant to mother’s spit-wet fingers, I was happy to see the old man’s wave. Yippee! 

I skipped past the guards. The breach once established, I was then able to go deeper and deeper into the forbidden facility.

No error. Without the proper FBI check and other clearance I was not supposed to go beyond the guard station into the security-controlled interior. But, brazen broad day sleuth, I waved at the guards and skipped my way inside the tunnels leading to the plant’s various production, testing and design floors. Not pushing my spy luck, I knew how far to go, waiting for dad to show up. 

A time or two he took me up (place was way too big, I’d have got lost otherwise) his work area in design and prints. On the many high tables there could easily have been  top secrets, too far up for me to see and not something a kid could roll up and stroll out with. 

I did on one occasion pick up a ¼ 10-32 pan head screw carelessly dropped in a tunnel. Spy gold! Except that same basic screw was available in hardware stores open to the public.

Why talk of this? To impress you as I was once impressed by the size of the place? (You can likely find pictures online of the huge WWII bomber factory – Run by Chrysler during the war, then became the Tucker Works and then Ford Aircraft.) 

Did I regularly get inside a restricted area? Yes. Was I a danger? Lacking keys or combinations to secret blueprints, not knowing what was important and what not, plus looking suspicious had I tried stuffing blueprints down a pants leg, I’d say no. 

I was allowed to steal inside because I was profiled as a nonthreat. According to some (we now approach the topic’s meat) enforcement must be neutral. None should be suspect. For suspicion to be real there must be a probable cause. On paper, all well and good. All are innocent until found guilty. Go in peace my child.

Profiling suspects by race, language, age and so on is supposedly off limits if not forbidden. But, of course, here’s a rub, everyone equally innocent is the same as all being seen as equally guilty or suspect. For convenience let’s term it the airport rule. 

Does the person in the wheelchair have exploding shoes? All water bottles are possible threats. That’s one aspect (for discussion not criticism) of not profiling. 

On the other hand, you could find profiling much alive and prospering because you’ll not encounter s speed trap in a produce department or need to inventory the blind when investigating cases of Peeping Toms. 

Not judging the book by the cover or the inside by its exterior. But true and useful as it is to remind one’s self to not be fooled by appearances, living by that guide is not only not easy but is apt to be voided for reasons of practical convenience. 

As some would see me, a dumb Pollack I early on met that kind of profiling, often coming from folks who were otherwise nice and were coasting along on the ease of stereotyping (another way to see profiling). 

Also in the mix of human behaviors is experience. In good-ol’ Chicago where many of my relatives lived it wasn’t rare for an Irish cop to have a run in (especially in a predominantly Polish neighborhood) a drunken Pole adding support to the drunk dumb Pollack profile. 

Likely there were Irish who simply disliked Poles. But it’s as or more likely stereotypes (or profiles) built from what was observed. Soused on vodka – drunk Pole. Speaking broken English – dumb Pollack. 

Animosity alone does not drive prejudices. Remembering I have prejudices and not allowing myself to accept them as 100% is a reasonable response.

It’s not that big a leap from dumb Pole to dumb Ranger, to snobbish Duluthian or supremacist Superiorite. The way is easy and as humans we’re inclined to go the route of greater ease or lesser troubles. 

In my experience, a reliable way to mask, excuse or ignore one’s own ill bias is to call out the failings of others. Once upon a time I was strip searched in a foreign capital under Socialist, Communist control. Secure in knowing the wishes of the State were more important than my inconvenience in searching for whatever they thought I might be smuggling. I could go s’ far as thank them for lightening me of much water weight lost in sweat.

There being a soup bone under the meat, what do you think my chances would have been trying to use an “I’m on your side” espionage card with my socialist brothers? 

That’s right. Zip. 

Any major accomplishment or lifestyle, etc., needs more than claims to make it real. Accomplishing something and/or being something of note (I think especially apparent this Pride Month) requires more than a parade, claim or label to separate an actual worth/value from speculation.