Per aspera

So I have this friend named Graham.

No no, let me revise: Massachusetts has this friend named Graham.

At your service

Meet Graham Campbell, a top 10 kind of guy

…

Campbell wanted to be an officer, not a white-shoe lawyer, from the time he was 5. Loved the sirens. At Buckley, voted “Most Likely to be a Civil Servant.” Became a volunteer firefighter at Vassar. Took the police test before his senior year and went to the academy after graduation.

Later, a funny thing happened. Kith and kin decided what he had done was very cool. He became a rock star among friends. He met a terrific group of guys on the force. What mattered to him most was that they not dismiss him as a dilettante. “I wanted them to say, ‘I’ll go through a door for you.’ ” They did.

He and his partner saw a lot. They answered a call from a woman who screamed that her boyfriend had hit her. They found the guy and he admitted he had. Then Campbell noticed a knife sticking out of his back. He had hit her after she had stabbed him.

I, of course, am already composing my rebuttal letter to the editors.

Seriously, a love note across the top of page A3 in the Sunday Globe? I’m cutting it out and putting it on the refrigerator. Way to go, you charming bastard.