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Gordon Greeno worked for 60 years, but he was always a policeman.

Just as humans are comprised of many components, Greeno was also a poet. Some of his writing talent is compiled today in a hefty folder of poems written mostly after Wolfville began to be policed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 2000.

During those days, I stopped into the Wolfville detachment twice a week collecting news for the Cruiser Report. I got to know Greeno as the commissionaire who patrolled the downtown and wrote parking tickets. “It’s always the same wherever you are; always conspiring against you and your car.”

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Then I was presented with some verse he wrote.

Wendy’s Work World declares: “She has zeroed in on the Police Beat, Exposing the Valley’s underside. For the Rummies and the Dummies, There’s no place you can hide.”

And oh there were some dummies.

The man noticed everything – even bird poop and a murder of crows. Of course, many of his poems reflected on the RCMP members he worked with and their challenges.

Retired officer Mack Routliffe sings his praises today and cherishes some of Greeno’s poems.

The report of a truck with a bare human foot hanging out had those officers worried about murder. But investigation resulted in five verses about the reveal of a soft and gummy rubber dummy.

There’s a fun one about a woman reporting worms in a chicken wrap and another about officers wiping out a field of marijuana under a harvest moon.

“Now the field is bare with only one to care, That the mounties have it all.”

He described a stormy winter day when an officer found himself in a ditch on the Old Post Road.

“He was disappointed with his trip to Grand Pre, And the obvious fact there was nothing to see. There is little doubt that he will go there no more, After learning the Acadians left in 1754.”

In Nightmare Traffic, Gordon relates a bad dream about traffic lights being installed at Gaspereau Avenue and Main Street in Wolfville. He envisioned mass confusion.

“It was the wildest traffic tie-up, These old eyes had ever seen.”

I’d like to reassure him that despite many, many discussions, traffic lights haven’t happened yet.

In A Parking Lot Personified, Greeno described the dancing vehicles do west of the Subway shop.

“It’s no place for slow dancing, It’s up beat all the time, It’s bump and grind in Wolfville, For all who are inclined.”

He also lamented ‘pissed-off people’ in a poem marked: not for publication.

I imagine Greeno strolling the town’s sidewalks looking for parking offenders, while putting words together in his mind. Weather, naturally, was a frequent topic. When overhanging icicles were pointing groundward, he wrote: “the memory of apple blossoms, Will warm a depressed winter heart.”

Snow was definitely not appreciated.

“Snow makes no exception, So, it can be considered at least fair, Cause when fluffy snowflakes tumble down, They land on Everything Everywhere!”

A proud patriot, Greeno wrote a Canada’s Birthday 2008 poem. It certainly resonates today when we have rediscovered our love of country.

“A time for all to ‘make the team,’ Standing tall while viewing our flag with pride.”

This commissionaire’s work life was augmented by desserts provided occasionally by detachment administrator Bev Elliott (no clan relation). She brought in blueberry pie, peanut butter pie and something called grizzly green pie. They all merited poems from a sweet tooth. There’s even one written on a paper napkin. As she’s about to retire, I have to hope her replacement also bakes.

I loved Greeno’s lengthy tribute to Mac Coldwell, an old soldier, woodworker and kind man.

“These were the hands that helped his heart, To know the joy that creating brings. These Hands made toys for children, Fashioning wheelbarrows day after day.”

My kids were blessed with a red wheelbarrow.

Doubtless the 23 years he served in the army as a military policeman were the highlight of his working experience. Coldwell told me Greeno even wrote a small book called Flash Backs about his time with the U.N. Provo Corps in the Middle East.

One of his expressions was “Soldiers – it’s not what they do, it’s what they are!”

After retiring from the military, he worked for the Canadian Department of Immigration and later served as a commissionaire in both Kentville and Wolfville.

Born in Mount Denson, Gordon was 89 when he passed away in 2022. The man had such unique talents.

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