I was fortunate enough to be born to a father that loved law enforcement. He was a police officer for a short stint before he was accepted into the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. He was assigned to our town of Sayre Oklahoma when I was one year old. From then on he patrolled Beckham county for 26 more years.
The law enforcement life made for an interesting childhood. He wasn’t a 9-5 dad he worked all different shifts and quite often called out in the middle of the night to work accidents. When my brother and I were quite young he took us out to the country and let each of us shoot his service revolver. Once we saw the damage it could do we knew not to ever touch it! So every time he came home he would place his Sam Browne with gun in holster across his chest of drawers. He knew it was safe from his children because he had made certain we weren’t going to touch it.
I was proud of the times my dad would come to school and assist with drug awareness programs. He was a tall very striking man in his uniform and my high school friends would always remark how good looking my daddy was. Others were a little scared of my dad. Can’t say as I blamed them, I was a little too.
He had this patrol car one time that had some sort of short in a wire. When the temperature would drop to a certain degree it would set off his siren. It’s funny now but wasn’t so much to him back then when he had to run out into the freezing cold in the middle of the night to shut it off. The neighbors weren’t so thrilled either.
Halloween’s were always problematic around our house. Young no good punks with a vendetta for prior tickets would invariably come sneaking around for some kind of revenge. The egging of the vehicles wasn’t as bad as the sugar in the gas tank. Eventually we just started hiding all our cars on Halloween.
Having a father in law enforcement wasn’t an easy life. It was hard seeing some people dislike him for what he had to do. They didn’t realize the many times he’d come home for a meal after having worked such a horrific accident that he just didn’t have the stomach for food. Or the times he had to be the bearer of the worst news possible to a family expecting a loved one to return home.
At one time some of the state troopers were called to assist in the McAlister prison riot. Word got back to us some had been killed. I’ll never forget the tears of relief my mom shed when the police officer came to the house and let her know daddy was ok.
Then there was the night when some took vengeance too far. I was awakened in the middle of the night by someone furiously knocking on our front door. I opened the door to see smoke billowing. I was afraid our house was on fire. But it was our wooden carport out back that was ablaze. Along with my brothers car, motorcycle and my dads boat. Someone had chunked a Molotov cocktail in there. It caught the telephone pole on fire as well and cut out phone service for a lot of the town. No one was ever prosecuted for that.
We lived on 4th street which is a part of the towns main drag. I used to get a kick out of watching my dad sit in the dark in our driveway and as soon as someone sped by there he’d go lights and siren. You’d think they’d learn at some point that Trooper Mayer lived there and he might still be in his patrol car.
I’ll never forget a funny time though when I was in Jr. college here in Sayre. I met this guy and we were chatting after class one day. He asked if I’d like to go for a coke. I said, sure. So he followed me home where I left my car and got in with him. We got a coke and cruised around for a while. My dad had came home from work before he brought me back home. So as he was bringing me home he noticed the patrol car in the drive. He said, “oh man the cops are at your house. “ I laughed and said, no that’s just my dad. The guy never asked me out again. I believe he was a bit of a pot head so that explained that.
Being a cops kid I was never invited to the parties the high school kids had. It was ok though. I do remember being out with some friends one evening that were enjoying some marijuana. Boy was I terrified to go home and let my dad get a whiff of me!
Other than the few lawless individuals my dad was/is well respected by many in this community. It seems everyone in this county has a Frank Mayer story to tell about the time he stopped them. And I’m always proud to hear them!
That's what I thought 