I received my first book, Waltzing Mouse (chosen at random from the Montgomery Ward's Christmas catalogue), for Christmas in 1964.  I was a 7th grader.  I didn't get around to reading it for several weeks.  But when I did-just as everyone else-I was immediately hooked. I had always liked to read, but that was the first time I had ever read a book in 2 days.  I had to have more Brains Benton!  Unfortunately, Montgomery Ward only had one book left, Painted Dragon.  As mentioned earlier, it became my favorite. Thus began a 2 year search for Brains Benton. They weren't easy to find, but I eventually found the rest.

Like a lot of us, I had read other children's mystery series.  None captured the imagination that Benton and Carson inspired.  My buddy and I wanted to emulate them, so we formed our own private detective agency as 13 year-olds will do (a recurring theme among this group). We even had a minor mystery in the neighborhood to work on for a few weeks--but that's another story. We quickly grew out of that. 7th graders have more pressing issues to deal with.  But the more Brains Benton I read, the more I became interested in science, criminology, and crime detection, even through high school. I started college as a chemistry major with the goal of working someday in the state police crime laboratory.

Somewhere along the way my fascination with criminology and scientific crime detection evolved into a genuine interest in law enforcement. I graduated from college and eventually became a career police officer. As a rookie cop I channeled my energy into learning as much as I could about evidence collection, fingerprinting, photography, and overall crime scene processing. I became a detective and later volunteered to be the evidence technician.  That was a great assignment: collecting and analyzing fingerprints and evidence, surveying suspects, arresting bad guys-the stuff 13 year-old would-be detectives dream about. And best of all, I met my wife through work. So you see, in a way Brains Benton was the catalyst for my choosing  this career and finding the best wife a guy could ever have.

And now that I'm all nostalgic and sentimental, I can attribute another influence to Brains Benton. Adolescence is a time of life when young persons make some critical choices, some of which can lead to unpleasant consequences.  This sounds corny, but there were a few times when I was presented with choices, and I recall thinking, What would Brains Benton do? Thinking that way probably helped me take the right path and kept me out of trouble. Hmmm. This makes me think of another topic for discussion: "The Moral and Ethical Lessons Presented by Benton and Carson."

Well, you can see this is getting long winded and rather out of hand.  If you know anything about police culture, then you know that this is the not usual the kind of stuff cops sit around and talk about.  But I promised Charles I would share with the group. I hope I haven't put anybody to sleep. Keep those emails coming in!

Joel