Policemen on television are oafs who couldn't find a bull fiddle inside a telephone booth. To little kids he is either a friend or a boogey-man, depending on how the parents feel about it. When a policeman is good he is a grafter, and that goes for the rest of them too. Policemen have homes, some of them are covered with ivy, but most of them mortgages. His credit is good - that is very helpful, because his salary isn't.
Policemen raise a lot of kids, mostly they belong to other people.
Policemen see more misery, bloodshed, trouble, and sunrises than the average person. Like the postman, policemen must be out in all kinds of weather. His uniform changes with the climate, but his outlook on life remains the same, mostly a blank, but always hoping for a better world. Policemen like days off, vacations and coffee. They don't like auto horns, family fights and anonymous letter writers.