By Bern Zovistoski

While I spent decades as a journalist, I almost didn’t.

In the early days, before I’d committed to a life as a journalist, I had a conflicting interest – to serve as a police officer.

It was about the time that I decided to apply for a reporter’s job at The Post-Star in Glens Falls in 1963.

Earlier, when I was a reporter at The Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey, I had considered applying for a job with the New York-New Jersey Port Authority police force.

After I moved back to Granville, I was drawn to the notion of becoming a New York State Police trooper.

I applied to take the State Police’s qualifying written test at the armory in Glens Falls. I was the first to finish the test among the 50 or so candidates there.

Soon after I was informed that the State Police would do an expansive background check on me, talking to many of my friends and acquaintances and others who knew me. This took a period of several weeks.

A physical followed and then came the interview. Four senior State Police officers sat at a table in Albany and asked a ton of questions.

The answers must have been suitable because before long I received notice that I had been selected for training as a trooper.  I was to report to a training site in Oneonta because the department’s training academy hadn’t been built yet.

It was decision time: As I weighed the pros and cons of the two opportunities, my relationship with my future wife, Paulette Lee, was strengthening.

In the end, she helped me make the right decision. She simply didn’t want me to become a policeman, so I declined the State Police offer.

I’ve never regretted that decision – but I’ve often wondered what that life would have been like.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Bern Zovistoski is enjoying his retirement in Arizona with his wife Paulette and may continue writing columns in the future. He would enjoy hearing from friends and associates in the Granville area. His email is [email protected]