@Robert M posted:When I first started in law enforcement we had to use a Thomas Guide. You spent your early days in the training program putting dozens and dozens of tabs on the different pages based on the different beats. You also went through the back pages highlighted all of the streets in the county islands versus the rest of the city. You had to be quick when a call came in if you had to look up the particular street you were headed to. You had to make a quick list of directions to get there and of course you had to get there. All the while your Training Officer was yelling at you to get going. Ah yes, the good ole' days.
Now when a deputy gets a call the whole thing comes via the in-car terminal and it even routes them to the call from their current location.
Thanks, Bob, for reminding me to dust of the old "Memory Bank." For me, those good ole' days were from '75 to '94, and during those years I think I musta worn out several Thomas Guides while "on the job" in the San Francisco Bay Area. Now, I'm gonna go look around "in all the right places"...'cause I'm sure long ago I squirrelled away a couple books. Unfortunately, Thomas Guides started down their own road-map to hell in 2003, when all its data edits were outsourced to Bangalore, India. That road ended when the company "died" in 2009. Occasionally, I'll get befuddled with Google Maps when I can't read the little print and I find I don't have my reading glasses handy... that's when I might reminisce about those good ole' days....and the Thomas Guides. 