The Park Forest Police Department does not permit facial hair for officers. No beards, no mustaches, and you’d better watch the length of those sideburns.
The ban is standard operating procedure for many police departments, and until last month, it was dutifully enforced in Park Forest. That was changed when 22 members of the department were allowed to grow beards for the month. Permission depended on a donation to benefit breast cancer research.
By the end of the month, officers had raised more than $1,500. In a vote conducted by the village on its website, Officer Tim Jones was named the winner, getting 132 of the 400 or so votes cast. He gets a plaque, bragging rights and, hopefully, some new razor blades.
Police Chief Pete Green came in fourth with 32 votes for his beard, which we hesitate to describe as “cute.” It was dyed pink, the color symbol for the fight against breast cancer. One woman said that although she cast her ballot for Green, she believed it was no accident he lost. Everyone knows green and pink clash, she said.
Halloween made happy
Halloween was miserable. A cold rain most of the day reduced the number of trick-or-treaters to zero. The bags of bite-size candy bars remained unopened by nightfall and were chucked into the freezer.
This was the year Park Forest had a “haunted house.” Admission was either $2 or a nonperishable food item, which would be sent to either the Rich or Monee township food pantry. It was part of the Haunts Against Hunger campaign that gained a foothold in the community through the efforts of Chuck and Kim Schaefer. We wrote of how they were able to donate more than 1,500 food items last year, either by what was dropped in the barrel in front of their decorated home on Shabbona Drive or through donations at Calvary United Protestant Church’s haunted house display.
This year, the cause was taken up by Park Forest with a two-day drive. While Halloween literally was a washout, there were more than 2,900 items of food stuff donated by visitors or bought with the $2 haunted house fee. The food was distributed equally to the two townships.
Good going, people. Come to our shack next year. Those candy bars should be thawed by then.
2016 and all that
Shortly, we can close the book on 2015 and hope that the new year will be more of a blessing and less of a curse, especially when it comes to putting in the correct date on our checks.
We live in perilous times and every so often we need to understand the words of a great rabbi who said the world is a narrow bridge and the most important thing is to not be afraid.
We’ve written this before, but it bears repeating now more than ever. Some years ago, we came upon words by Eugene Pickett that seem appropriate at the dawn of each year. Pickett begins with homage to the universe and moves to a celebration of our world, our lives and our beliefs, concluding with a plea that we live “not by our fears but our hopes, not by our words, but our deeds.”
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The year 2016 might be a good time to start.
Happy New Year.
Jerry Shnay is a freelance journalist who covers Park Forest for the Daily Southtown. He can be emailed at jerryshnay@gmail. com.