A Day of Cops and Popsicles

When L.A. is mellow, no place in the world is mellower.

I’ve never seen so many meandering gaits and loopy expressions in my life as I did over the holiday weekend.

Well, OK, maybe some were either drunk or stoned, but I’d guess the majority were just kind of loosey-goosey, if you know what I mean; taking it easy in the buttery sunshine.

There were exceptions, of course, like the two cops arguing with a cluster of people near Venice beach over who was doing what and to whom.

It got rowdy enough for the officers to summon their field supervisor, Sgt. George Aitchison, patrolling out of the Pacific Station.

He’s a tall, trim, no-nonsense kind of guy from the south side of Chicago who’s been a policeman for 34 years and doesn’t let life rattle him a lot.

He stood in the middle of the noise like a wall of mediation, told everyone to be quiet and straightened things out in the manner of a schoolmarm separating kids battling on a playground.

Then he pulled the two young cops aside and told them the next time the hell-raisers they’d been debating gave them trouble, they were to haul someone off to jail.

“If you’re not going to take action,” he said sternly, “don’t go there.” Walking away he added wryly, “Or else join the Fire Department. Everybody loves a fireman.”

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The reason I mention Aitchison is that I spent some hours riding around with him that summery afternoon. We’re both veterans of the Korean War and he wrote me a letter saying too bad things weren’t like they used to be.

He was talking about the city mostly but also about the relationship between cops and journalists, because he felt the guys in blue were taking a bad rap from those of us behind cameras and microphones and word processors.

I agree with the too-bad part, but I’m not going to try to simplify either the reasons the city’s in trouble or why the relationship between cops and journalists seems to have deteriorated.

Both Aitchison and I have been around a long time and things always seem better in retrospect. But, who knows, these might be the good old days compared to what lies ahead, so we’ve got to enjoy them while we can.

That’s exactly what I did on that sweet, playday afternoon when Aitchison invited me to ride around with him on a patrol that took in a tiny square of L.A. from La Cienega to Venice beach, and from the Santa Monica Freeway to Imperial Highway.

Aitchison loves being a cop and is exceptionally good at it, but that’s not what I remember from the ride. He and his wife Judy, a PhD in psychology, take in children with special needs and raise them as family.

These are kids from ages 8 months to 12 years who have been sexually or physically abused or born to chemically addicted parents. They’re little people who come into the world with more troubles on their small shoulders than anyone of any age ought to bear.

Aitchison tries to ease those burdens.

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The little ones call him “Papa George” and dance around him like mischievous elves when he enters the backyard play area of his house in Westchester.

We stopped there so he could show me some of his children, a half-dozen preschoolers who kept offering him bites of their Popsicles as an expression of love only a kid could understand. One’s Popsicle is not given away to just anyone.

They kept hugging Papa George with sticky fingers and at first he tried half-heartedly to protect his uniform from the stickiness, but after awhile just gave in to the hugs.

It’s an image I’ll always keep, of the tall, proud policeman who’s been on the street for almost 35 years with his arms around the tiny children of despair, a blue knight doing what a knight ought to do.

The courts have been placing kids with the Aitchisons since 1985. They’re compensated for care of the children, but it’s obvious this is more than just a business. It’s a commitment.

“We’re family,” he said as we hit the streets again. “When some of the kids come here they can’t speak or smile. We try to teach them it’s OK to do both. There are success stories, but there’s sadness too.”

At 61, Aitchison has weathered periods of tranquillity and violence patrolling both the good streets and the bad streets of a city in wild transition. We owe him for that.

But his greatest contribution, one that will endure beyond him, lies in the moment he bent down to hug a child holding a Popsicle on an afternoon made in heaven.

It may not bring back the good old days, Papa George, but it helps make today a tiny bit better for some little people with heavy burdens.

Al Martinez can be reached through the Internet at al.martinez@latimes.com