| In the Souvenir Program for the First Annual Police Ball in 1932, Chief Bodell thanked Boulder City for the “splendid cooperation our department has received from the people of the reservation.” On the opposing page of the program, there appeared the following poem:
IN MEMORY
“You think I’m a hard-boiled copper
For writing a mere “forty-three”;
Well perhaps I’m thinking of Sonny
And all that lad meant to me.
How’s that? Tell you all about it?
Well stranger that boy was my son,
God! What I’d give to hear “Daddy”
Once more when the day’s work is done.
That driver was just in a hurry,
He didn’t intend any harm.
But the sun and the stars quit shining
When I picked up my boy’s lifeless form.
Well mister, I’ll tear up this ticket.
I’m not stuck to pinch anyone.
But I’ll ride this motor through hell fire
To protect another man’s son.
So the next time you feel like speeding
Or running a boulevard stop,
Just pause and remember my Sonny,
The son of a hard-boiled cop.”
The poem is, among other things, a defense of sorts for what must have been perceived as some heavy-handed policing methods by a “hard-boiled cop.” As Bodell also explains in the program, the Boulder City Reservation had been “credited with an unparalleled record for policing… according to police magazines and official quotations.”
On behalf of the Boulder City Museum and Historical Association.
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