 A recent TV series about main game wardens has brought some long overdue attention to the men and women who serve our state. John Ford is a 20-year veteran warden who kept journal entries throughout his career and has turned his collection of stories into a new book entitled Suddenly the Cider Didn't Taste So Good. In it, Ford recounts his adventures that are at some times serious and other times touching. He spoke with Brian Knoblock at his brown bag lecture at the Portland Public Library. John, you spent 20 years as a main warden. Did you start out to be a main warden at the beginning? Yeah, I did. I first, I left York County and went right directly to Waldo County as a game warden and actually worked for three or four months before I went to warden school. So it's kind of on the job training. Talk about what it's like at Waldo County where you were. Waldo County was a lot of old family land. It was probably some of the prime deer country in the state of Maine, some of the best deer country. The reason I went there is a warden that was in that area before I arrived. They shot the windows out of his camp at night with his wife and daughter inside. So she obviously wanted to move out and they wanted a single man to come in and I got hired and that's where I ended up. But it was an area where wardens weren't popular. The town of Burnham was quite noted for its night activity and it was an area where I had to go in and make a new beginning and get to know the people and start out fresh. How big an area did you have to cover? I had almost 15 to 20 towns and we was responsible for coverage in those towns. 24 hours a day, six days a week and was getting, I think, $78 a week at pay at the time which I figured out I was working anywhere from 110 to 120 hours so I really wasn't getting rich on it but it's a job I loved. The Maine Warden, it's really a varied job. You never know what's going to happen. You could be trekking in the woods one day and doing dives out of Lake the next day. Exactly. It's quite varied. The thing I found out about it is I kind of liked it because it was like going to the movie theaters. Every time I put the uniform on and went outside I knew there was going to be a show. I just didn't know there was going to be a comedy or a horror show. It may end up being a wildlife program but there always was something going on one minute to the next and you didn't know what you were going to be involved in. That's Roger Carrera. You kept a journal which is what evolved into this book. That's the source of this. Did you intend to write a book in the beginning or you just kept a journal for yourself? Actually, when I left York County, my stepfather's game ward in York County down in the Sanford area for 23 years and he gave me good advice when I went up there. He says, John, you probably ought to keep a diary and keep a diary of the things that you really enjoyed because when you retire he says you probably forget what you did yesterday and having that diary he says you never know, you might want to write a book someday and I wish he was alive today to see the results because I think it's gone fantastic and I'm quite pleased with that. A lot of the stories in the book they range from very dangerous situations to sort of very humorous situations. Does that reflect sort of the day of life of the game warden? It does. I mean you never knew and like I said before you never knew from one minute to the next what you were going to be involved in but I tried to keep, I didn't want to humiliate anybody with all the humorous things. As far as the tragedies, the drownings, the hunting accidents and all the rest of that I didn't want to think about that later on. I wanted to forget it but those funny things is what I wanted to record and that's what I ended up doing. You eventually became part of the community and you talk about how many of the people that you've arrested or encountered were friends and acquaintances, that thing. How do you deal with that? You know I think it was quite a feat to be able to sit down with someone you've had in court afterwards and go and have a coffee with them. I mean most of the people I tried to treat them as fair as I could. I always had on the side of them personally. I mean if I thought they was making an honest mistake I'd kind of try to overlook it but I think that by doing that I didn't come across as being better than they were having a chip on my shoulder and I think that's the way that law enforcement ought to be and I had a job to do I was working for the state of Maine and the sportsmen of Maine but I also was a human and I tried to treat those people the same way. There's been a lot of popularity about Wardens now the TV series Northwoods at Law. Do you think Wardens are now getting a little bit of their moment in the sunshine here? Oh I definitely do. I was talking to Chandler Woodcock the commissioner not long ago and he said just the interest generated in the employment aspect alone from that series has been unbelievable and I think it's time to have a book come out. I mean I understand they may do six more series for next year but the timing of my book coming out and this couldn't have been better. And you think you have enough stories for another book? Oh definitely. I could do two more books and I really enjoyed doing it. The kind of thing I like is like reliving my career all over again and every time I write one of those I feel like I've relived the career all over again of the good things that's happened. The thing was being outdoors and having the freedom to come and go when wanted to the luxury of most people they couldn't wait for a vacation to go hunting and fishing and being outdoors I had all that stuff provided to me and I was getting paid for doing it so how can you beat it?