SEPT 2023. Blues Vol 39 No. 9

FROM THE PUBLISHER’S

FROM THE PUBLISHER’S DESK yrs. The Countdown has Begun. In 90 days or so, The BLUES will reach a milestone that no one, including myself, thought possible when we published the first issue in December of 1984. Yes, that was 40 years ago. Way before most of our readers were even born. In other words, a long ass time ago. A lot has changed in the past 40 years. For one, we are no longer that 20-page tabloid officers used to see laying around their offices. For more than 35 years, officers throughout Texas relied on The Blues Police Newspaper to bring a little levity into their somewhat routine lives. To read the latest war story with parts that were obviously embellished to the latest gossip from police agencies across the Lone Star State. Every cop in Texas has heard of The BLUES. If you’re an old head, you read it back in the day. If you’re a rookie, you’re reading it on your phone. The World has evolved in ways our parents and grandparents couldn’t have possibly imagined. Or is it exactly as they imagined it would be. Flying cars, communicators on their wrists, spaceships flying to far away planets. Google the “jetsons” and watch one of the old cartoons from the 60’s. It’s as if someone used a time machine to jump ahead 60 years, took a snapshot and returned to create a cartoon about life in the future. I’m sure every generation has at one time or another looked back at their past 40 years and said, “damn we’ve come a long way in forty years, who could have imagined all this.” And that’s exactly what we are going to do beginning next month. We are going to relive the past 40 years of The BLUES beginning in December of 1984. From the patrol cars of the 80’s, to the electrification of the modern patrol car. From telefax machines to the latest electronics. The bag phone to the iPhone 15. From the design and layout of 20- page tabloid printed on newsprint to a 250-page all-digital platform read by over 1.5 million cops literally around the world. We will cover it all. And we need your help. We want all your old photos. Your first patrol car. Your grandfathers patrol car. Your first uniform. Every old photo you can dig up. Scan them and send them to us. If you have a war story you’d like to tell, send it. Featured in a newspaper or magazine, we want a copy. Tell us if you liked the BLUES or hated it, either way it’s part of our history and we want to include it. And finally, to the dozens of folks who had a part in producing the BLUES over the past 40 years, please, please send us your best and worst memories. The first unsolicited email from a former editor arrived just last week and is presented in its unedited form: “I remember working for Mike Barron in the late 80’s. Trying to read the chicken scratch he scribbled on the back sides of old offense reports, legal pads and anything other blank paper he could steal and typing it on a 1980’s typewriter. And he couldn’t spell for shit. On deadlines, he was screaming constantly about how we were never going to press on time. But we did and I remember when the paper was printed, how proud we all were to see our hard work turn into something that people could SGT. MICHAEL BARRON RET hold in their hands. To see people reading what we had created was really pretty damn cool. Barron was still an asshole most days. LOL. But I will say this. Regardless of how much pressure he was under from the sheriff that wanted him fired and the newspaper to just die, he never gave up and he never walked away. Some months, we didn’t even make enough money to pay the printer, and Barron would pay for it out of his county paycheck. So yeah, I’m damn impressed The BLUES is still around and that Barron is too. I say congratulations to Mike Barron for what he’s managed to accomplish…. took him forty damn years to do it… but nevertheless…it’s pretty damn impressive.” Send what you have to: michael@ bluespdmag.com or mail it to: The BLUES, PO Box 2733, League City, Texas 77574. 6 The BLUES

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