Editor's Note: This is the second in a two-part series on a community speaker series at the former Fitch Junior High School. Read the first part here.

Most folks in the 1980s had never heard of the Postal Inspection Service. When I contacted the agency about providing a speaker at Fitch Junior High they put me in touch with Mike from New Haven.

Mike, as it turned out, was a former teacher who had lost his position because of a reduction in force and took a job delivering mail. He eventually became a postal inspector and was one of our most popular speakers during a period in the 1980s when various law enforcement personnel were frequently seen at Fitch Junior; not as investigators or to make arrests, but as instructors.

One year Mike showed a video of a postal employee who was stealing cash from birthday cards sent to kids by loving grandparents and aunts. Needless to say, the employee not only lost his job, he went to jail.

Mike also talked about other topics such as mail fraud that were certainly not covered in our textbooks. I guess he enjoyed coming to Fitch because when Bob Allin called him the next year, his response was that he wondered when he would be called and was eager to appear.

All of us were fascinated when we had a lie detector technician with us one Friday morning. She explained the machine and then asked for volunteers to take a test. Her first question to one boy began, “When you were a little boy…” The kid pegged the needle! As she said, “You must have a guilty conscience.”

Speakers often recommended other folks with whom they worked and thought might be interested in joining us. We had met the late Leo Barron, the special agent in charge of the Naval Investigative Service on base. This organization is now known as NCIS.

Since at that time I was still active as an officer in the Naval Reserve Security Group, I had occasion from time to time to drive past the NIS office on my way to the lower base to meet with my active duty counterparts. In fact, I generally parked in the NIS lot because I knew that parking on lower base was at a premium.

I always smiled when I went past the sign for NIS since it was printed with a Cyrillic N, the letter being reversed.

Leo once invited Bob and me to a holiday party for regional law enforcement personnel at the officers club on base. I mentioned the “Russian” sign to him. He replied, smiling, “You spooks are the only ones who’ve noticed it!”

At that party we met several other folks who agreed to speak to our kids.

At Fitch Junior, the ninth grade Social Studies classes met periods 1 and 3 on Fridays. Unfortunately, all the Social Studies teachers had a 7th grade class during period 2. This meant that when a speaker was finished either Bob or I would shepherd him or her to the faculty room, pointing out the restrooms, and making sure they had coffee.

What we didn’t realize until much later was that the Industrial Arts department had its preparation time second period. Those teachers took it upon themselves to make sure one of them (we had three shops; wood, metal and graphic arts) was in the faculty room while our speakers were waiting.

In one instance, that really paid off. The presenter that day was a Secret Service agent who had recently made a counterfeiting arrest. When the trial was over, part of the evidence, a really nice color enlarger, found its way to the graphic arts shop.

Holders of TS clearances are required to have their background investigations updated every five years and I was due. Because of that, a Defense Investigative Service agent came to interview some of the staff at Fitch Junior. One of them was Bob Allin.

The next thing I knew, Bob had him on our speaker schedule. The advice he gave the students still holds true: “Keep your nose clean. You never know when a job you’re applying for will require a clearance.”

One of our speakers, the parent of a ninth grade student, had a very interesting job. He was an arson investigator. We all learned a lot that day, and the kids were particularly interested in the rewards offered for arson tips.

One of the questions a youngster wrote was, “Can you have too many smoke alarms in a house?” The firefighter read the question, looked at his daughter, and said, “No.”

One group of speakers had their shackles removed when they entered the school. These men were inmates in the jail in Montville. We knew one of them. He had been a Fitch student.

Their message was plain, “You do not want to go to jail.”

Not all our guests were involved with criminal law. One speaker didn’t have far to go. That was the late Fred Palm, a classmate of mine at Fitch Sr. High, who was the Judge of Probate. His office was in the town hall, only steps from the cafeteria.

The kids were very interested in Fred’s discussion of adoptions, name changes, and emancipated minors. Not surprisingly, they weren’t very interested in wills.

An individual who impressed all of us was a lawyer by the name of Leeland Cole-Chu. Readers may recognize that name as Mr. Cole-Chu is now a judge.

The kids had so many really good questions that he didn’t have time to answer them all. He took the 3x5 cards with him and several days later someone delivered a couple of reams of paper to the school. Attorney Cole-Chu had written answers to all the questions and run off copies for each student.

When I distributed these two page documents to my kids, I explained that if they had sought this legal advice, they would have paid a very tidy sum for what our speaker had done for free. Interestingly enough, I later had his two lovely daughters in Summerfest, a Project Learn activity at Grasso Tech.

There were lighter moments involved in our program. John, Kelly and I were invited to a statewide conference dealing with police in the schools. We were seated at a table with Murray Pendleton, the chief of police in Waterford.

We told him what was happening at Fitch Junior. He asked us how we were able to get the board of education to approve it. That’s when the three of us went into the old “Who’s on first?” routine.

“Bob, did you ask the board?”

“No, I didn’t ask the board. I thought Kelly asked the board.”

What we finally told the chief was that nobody asked the board. We just did it.

As former service members will tell you, it’s easier to say, “I’m sorry” than it is to ask permission.

All told, I think it was a good experience for our ninth graders. It opened kids’ eyes to a variety of careers that they probably hadn’t ever heard of, and it let them see that a lot of professionals were willing to take time out of their jobs to meet with young people.

Unfortunately, when Groton went to the middle school system and the ninth grade moved to the high school, the program met its demise.

Robert F. Welt of Mystic is a retired Groton public schools teacher.