Heat

Sunday was a nice day. I was scheduled to work "off duty" at the Greek Festival in Northeast. When you are going to have a large gathering and want police there you can hire the police department to provide officers. We call it "off duty" because you aren't scheduled to be working your regular job. We work these assignments in our regular uniforms and provide the deterrence of a cop hanging out at your function.

So I signed up to work the Greek Orthodox Church festival for Sunday and then report to my regular shift that night. What I didn't plan on was the 95 degree heat in the middle of September. What happened to our beautiful fall days of 75 degree weather?

Our uniforms are polyester. Dark blue polyester. Plus nearly 30 pounds of metal and leather, high top leather boots and body armor. Body armor is a woven fabric called Kevlar. It's about half an inch thick and surrounds your upper torso. And it has a big metal plate in the front covering your heart and other important stuff in there. It doesn't breath. And there's nowhere for your sweat to go.

Within the first few minutes of the festival while I was walking around I could feel the beads of sweat running down my back under the armor. It didn't take long for my undershirt to get soaked. I like wearing the compression Under Armor stuff. One of the main selling points of it is that it wicks moisture away from your body. Under the body armor though there's nowhere to "wick it away." It didn't take long to feel like I was wearing a soda can. And the heat. There's nowhere for that to go either. When I raise up my chin and pull the top of the armor away from my body I can feel the hot air come out like a hair dryer.

I drank a lot of water. Gallons.

Despite the intense suffering from my uniform this is the kind of job that helps fight off some of the cynicism of this job. You deal with the dregs of society so much you forget that 90% of the community aren't crack heads and thieves. So this kind of job is good for curing your outlook on humanity. People wanted to talk to me and shake hands. Kids are nice and want to talk to you because their parents haven't poisoned their minds to hate the police. I saw people I know from my life and they talked to me. It was very nice.

Of course by the end of the day my feet were killing me, I soaked through my uniform with sweat, and my skin was caked with sun lotion. And it was time to start my regular job for the rest of the night.

I used my "lunch" break to take off my shirt and body armor and air dry it. Putting it back on with everything dried off made a huge difference in my comfort and ability to continue working. Thankfully it was fairly quiet for me. Getting home and showering and getting into a clean bed was the remedy for aching feet and a tired soul.