Cop's Kid : A Milwaukee Memoir

B-Day, as it came to be known, finally arrived. It was a Friday. A school day. I identified with Cinderella as I watched Dad get ready for work.

Holster, check. Gun, check. Billy club, check. Handcuffs, check...Saturday morning I got up early. Dad was already gone. Back to work. Ushering the Beatles out of town. On the table there were two small bars of soap, slightly used, the words "Coach House Inn" still legible.

One book of matches with four missing. And a note from Dad, "From their room." No one else's dad comes home from work with something that might, just might, have been intimate with a Beatle. - excerpt from Cop's Kid Growing up, Mel Miskimen thought that a gun and handcuffs on the kitchen table were as normal as a gallon of milk and a loaf of Mrs. Karl's bread. Her father, a Milwaukee cop for almost forty years, was part Super Hero (he simply held up his hand and three lanes of traffic came to a screeching halt) and part Supreme Being (he could be anywhere at anytime - she never knew when or where he would pop up).

Miskimen's memoir, told in humorous vignettes, tells what it was like for a girl growing up with a dad who packed a lunch and packed heat.