Being there makes me nostalgic.

There is my old stomping grounds where I spent so much of my professional life.

My beat.

In another time I was a street cop Out West so a trip down this particular memory lane requires mentally negotiating a few dark alleys, brutal back streets and crack houses.

Sounds like loads of fun, right?

Not always, but still, sometimes I miss the urban wars.

Recently I revisited the city where I played "cops and robbers" for over twenty years.

The human memory bank is a hodgepodge. A jumble. A medley of tunes of all kinds.

Good. Bad. Tragic. Sometimes funny, but all forever etched into the recall.

One day I drove down a street where Fish and I once confronted a drunk woman armed with a rifle. She'd barricaded herself in her townhouse so we spent some time negotiating from cover.

At some point Fish, a sergeant, lost patience and decided enough was enough.

He hurled a shoulder into the door and when the dust cleared all that was left around the edges was broken siding and sheetrock. The whole frame was ripped from the wall.

I should mention that Fish has the size, build and occasionally the temperament of an aggravated grizzly, only stronger.

Down the street is the Taco Bell where Mad Dog, my partner at the time, drove through and bought burritos three times in one shift. M.D. is an even tempered fellow who looks like Kevin Costner with the eating habits a starving jackal. The car we were driving smelled foul when we signed it out, but it was exceptionally rank by the end of the shift.

The same night he intentionally parked my side of the car so close to a hedgerow that I had to claw my way through it before I could chase a burglar. Later I spiked his Mountain Dew with hot salsa.

I passed the spot where I found my first dead body laying in a gutter. Despite dying in a hit and run accident the old man appeared to be smiling.

I'll see that smile forever. In the north part of town there is the apartment complex where Michelle and I, along with her police dog and several other cops, lay on our bellies in the bushes waiting out yet another armed suspect who had fired several rounds at us. It was eerily silent when somebody, I never knew who, did his best Elmer Fudd impression.

" Be vewy, vewy quiet." Everybody who heard it cracked up laughing. The shooter, who'd hidden behind a brick wall, took umbrage.

"What's so @#*&$%^ funny? I've been shot you know!"

I knew. It was my bullet. I didn't feel sorry for him. He started it.

"Toss out the gun and we'll quit teasing you, you big crybaby," Michelle responded.

West of my city is a foothill ridge known as The Hogback. Pat, an officer from another jurisdiction, and I chased a stolen motorcycle over the Hogback and arrested the driver. There's a fraternity among all cops and Pat and I, strangers until then, became friends that night.

Six days later he was shot dead by a thug in an ambush.

I found the yard where Street and Mongo accidentally released a huge frog they intended to stash in Fish's desk at the end of the shift. I stood on the front porch reading several rowdy partiers a riot act while they chased their slimy quarry around the lawn.

Down south is the old Bennigan's where two partners and I went in to make an arrest. The whole bar turned on us and we had to literally fight our way back outside.

Fifty against three.

We won.

One night I attended a roll call with most of my old teammates.

Donn. A skinny cop with thick glasses and a Hawkeye Pierce haircut, who knows more about law enforcement than anybody I know.

John. A real life CSI who has probably contributed to more crimes being solved than all those fictional TV accounts combined.

Dawn, who I spent many hours talking to between four and six in the morning after we'd tucked all the criminals into their cozy little jail cells.

Missing was Mike, who was a better tracker than most of the K9's. This summer, cancer did to Mike what hundreds of really bad people never could.

And Steve, our leader, who could chew you a new earhole at work then buy you a cold one after.

Yes, it's a fraternity. A brotherhood where sisters in blue are also welcome.

See why I miss them?

Stay low and keep moving, boys and girls.

Don Lively is a retired police officer and freelance writer. He lives in Shell Bluff. Email Don at Livelycolo@aol.com