Police Unit y Tour Wildwood Local 59
Greet Scene
The thousands of fans filling the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, the swell of their cheers that sounded like a locomotive approaching and the kids reaching out to high-five riders created an unprecedented greeting for the Unity Tour arrival. The magnitude of such a showing left Wildwood Local 59 member Bill Barkas with a view obscured by emotion.
“ I got very overwhelmed. That’ s why I have my sunglasses on,” confided Barkas, who has been on with Lower Township for 16 years.“ Just seeing the kids, I wish I could high-five every one of them here. Just seeing that they’ re coming out, taking their time out of the day, standing in the heat just to clap and applaud for us. And all we did was just ride a bike.”
The Local 59 contingent included nine riders from Lower Township, Middle Township and other departments throughout Cape May County. When they arrived at RFK Stadium on the final day to stage for the procession to the Memorial, they shared handshakes, congratulations and plenty of reasons to be overwhelmed about how far they rode a bike.
And then seeing people lined up for blocks and blocks leading into the Memorial ratcheted the emotion off the charts. Part of that, of course, was due to the sisters and brothers whose names were
added to the Memorial walls this year for being lost in the line of duty. And part of it came from an appreciation for law enforcement that Barkas admitted he didn’ t know was out there.
“ A lot of people just want to come out and let us know that they like us, and they care,” observed Barkas who made the Tour for the third time.“ When we lined up at RFK, I was telling our guys this is what it’ s about. This is why for the last three days we sat on a hard, plastic seat and rode 200 some-odd miles.” �
Mitchell Krugel
www. njcopsmagazine. com ■ JUNE 2018 41