A Christmas Story – of a Warren County kind

I moved to Front Royal from Ottawa, Ontario in early 2018, after accepting a consulting job with the National Science Foundation. I have never been happier in my life, and one of the reasons is because the people in this town are friendly and easy to talk to.

About an hour ago, I was aimlessly walking through Walmart looking for a Christmas present for my girlfriend while she was grocery shopping. While walking through the electronics section of Walmart, a Warren County police officer changed direction and started following me. I didn’t even know he was a police officer until he said while walking behind me, “don’t worry, I’m not following you.” I looked back to see who was talking to me and said as a joke, “That’s ok, just maintain the 6 feet between us.” At that point, the officer and I started chatting. The first question I asked was, “Are you patrolling inside Walmart today?” The officer said, “Well, kind of.”

This is where this story gets very interesting. The officer started to explain how much Walmart gives to the community and that he was there because there was a shopper in Walmart who is well known and is having difficulty making ends meet. The individual was walking up and down the Walmart aisles with a handheld calculator pricing things out because she clearly didn’t have enough money to buy everything she needed for Christmas.

At first, I thought the officer was there to make sure the individual was not going to shoplift. Well, as it turns out, Walmart management called him in because the officer arranged to pay for everything she had in her cart.

I asked the officer who funds these types of community activities, and I was stunned to find out he was using his own money to pay for the woman’s purchases. I immediately wanted to help by trying to donate some cash, but as I opened my wallet and displayed a lonely $20 Canadian bill, the officer said, “no, that’s ok, but if you want to help out, you can do the same.” He also mentioned that I should come to visit the Warren County Sheriff’s office if I ever want to get involved with the community.

As we parted our ways with an elbow handshake in the automotive section of Walmart, I walked away with a new appreciation for the Warren County Sheriff’s Office and certainly even more of an appreciation for a Warren County Sheriff’s officer by the last name of “Holzbauer”.

Pat Devaney
Front Royal, Virginia