I was chatting with an old friend from grade school through college on Facebook this morning, and learned through her that the man who had been a police officer and later police chief in our little village has died.

My friend had posted the message out to all her Facebook friends who formerly lived in that Village, as the man undoubtedly had an impact - at least once - on each of us. She invited stories to be shared...

This man, Chief Al Frazier to all of us, worked at the same police department for 30-some years, starting at age 22. He joined the staff after serving in Korea.

It is mind-boggling to think of how many people's lives he impacted. Our village was a bedroom community to Madison, Wisconsin, so we didn't have too many businesses within our perimeters - a drug store, a gas station, a beauty salon, a meat market - as I recall. Plus a school which started out as K-12, a country club with golf course and pool, and a lot of very nice homes. The closest liquor store - this was Wisconsin so booze abides there - was across the street from the meat market, so technically not within our village walls. But close enough...

One thing that made Maple Bluff significantly different than Sheriff Andy Taylor's Mayberry, was that The Governor's residence for the State of Wisconsin was contained within our village perimeter. And a lot of the city's banking and industry titans also made their homes in this community, so the property values were high. And significant deals were regularly made at the Country Club.

Not to mention that there were a lot of bored, well-educated wives, who stayed home -- and often found themselves with time on their hands. To use doing good works for the community, serving on committees, playing golf and tennis -- and sometimes fooling around with the tennis pro or "pool boy."

What an interesting life it must have been to be policing this community! I'm realizing how many stories he saw and secrets he must have been a part of keeping... Not to mention having to decide when to keep a secret vs. realize intervention was necessary.

I will miss this man despite the fact that I haven't seen or thought of him since I was 22.

How many of us have people like this in our pasts? People who were a significant and yet peripheral part of our lives -- and the lives of a community? Do you have a person like this in your past?