SHAMOKIN - Cpl. John Brown admits he doesn't want to stop working at the police department.
After 20 years on the job, however, he says retirement is an opportunity to devote more time to being a husband and a father.
"You put in 20 years here and you miss a lifetime," he said of time spent away from his wife and three children.
"I love Shamokin and I love the people who live here," Brown said. "If the city ever needs me for anything, my God, I'd be back in a heartbeat to help them out."
Brown is only 43 years old, and when he turns in his badge this week, he's not exactly heading to his Shamokin home to man the rocking chair. He will take a maintenance job with the Lincoln Towers elderly living apartment building. The hours are during the day: No more swing shifts, midnight shifts and 16-hour shifts, like the one he'll work on his final night that was to begin Wednesday and carry over into this morning.
"I'll be like a real human," he said of the daytime hours.
"I'm going to miss him. We came on together, we're working midnight together to finish up," said Chief Edward Griffiths.
Brown graduated the police academy in 1992, and his first job in law enforcement became his last when he was hired by Shamokin Police Department.
He rose as high as the department's top cop when former Mayor Ronald Bradley appointed him police chief in January 2006, a position he held until a new mayor took office in January 2010.
Brown says he'll miss interacting with city residents most, and he'll miss the camaraderie with his fellow officers. What he'll miss least is losing out on time with his family - a solution found in retirement, even if reluctantly.
He and his wife, Denise, have been married 19 years. They have three children: Dallas, 23, John IV, 15, and Katie, 13.