When I went to the Sheriff’s Department and showed them the version that I had made especially for them, many of them told me that they really liked it and appreciated something a bit enhanced just for them. I made a bracelet on the same theme of the “Thin Blue Line”, but I added a brown stripe woven in. I called it the “Sheriff’s Edition” and it was really well received. A few of the deputies still desired to have the more traditional version, but I bet 75% wanted the unique one.
It’s funny. When I first put that design together earlier in the year, I initially made a bracelet with just the brown line on a black bracelet. It looked a little mundane, so I chose not to go that route. It looked much better in conjunction with the blue line. I also had a time coming up with the name. I’ve always felt the deputy sheriff is most definitely a part of the thin blue line, so it didn’t seem right to isolate them and push them away from that rich tradition. I wanted to include them, but in a slightly different way. I also wondered what to call it. I thought of the “Thin Brown Line”. That didn’t sound too good. I’ll let you pause for a moment and think of what comes to mind with a thin brown line. I even thought about calling it the “Skidmark”. I thought that would be disparaging and that is not what I wanted to do. Then it hit me. Keep it simple and called it just what it is.
When I first presented the bracelet to the deputies at the jail, one gentleman in particular raved about the unique design and commented that Sheriff’s around the country may be interested in this. He asked me if I had a website. Crickets. All I could tell him was that I was working on it. Actually I was. The site that you are reading this on is what I was creating, but I hadn’t finished it yet. I wanted so badly be able to tell him to check out my site at…fill in the blank. This was good though. It sparked a fire in me and reminded me if I truly want to do something with this endeavor, playing the game lightly would not work. I have to approach it with a reckless abandon, even if that means learning many things that I don’t know or have never done. I talked to this deputy I believe on a Thursday. By Sunday, my site was up and running. My wife Amy really helped me fine tune some of the more visual details.
On my next entry, Constant Reader, I will let you know more detail of the “Sheriff’s Edition” and how it panned out. See you then.
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