It was a white, quiet Christmas for Timothy Ontengco.

When the corporal for the Oxford County sheriff’s office opened Brownfield home’s door that morning he found a surrealistic fog curling around everything it contacted.

Didn’t matter. He had to work. Christmas, fog, ice storm, it didn’t matter; it was another shift on another day.

“Crime doesn’t stop because it’s Christmas,” Ontengco, 32, said.

This Christmas it certainly slowed down.

As he warmed up his cruiser Christmas morning he thought about Christmas Eve, an 11-hour shift done on short sleep.

Day-shift deputies are on call from 4 a.m. until they go on the road at 8 a.m. When there’s a problem, the radio communication center calls them.

At 4 a.m. on Christmas Eve a woman motorist reported “suspicious activity” in Otisfield to the center.

Ontengco, who has been with the Sheriff’s Office since 1991, was immediately out of bed, dressed and out the door.

“The woman reported that someone tried to flag her down. She said it looked like they were stuck in a snowbank,” Ontenegco said. “On the drive over, I kept thinking that this could be a wasted drive. But, someone may need help. I had to check it out.”

Nobody was there when he arrived.

He could have returned home for more down time until 8 a.m. Ontengco opted to stay on patrol.

“The roads were icy,” he said. He thought there could be traffic accidents.

He handled three crashes by noon.

Christmas morning was quiet. That is until some folks in Otisfield woke up to discover their mailboxes were smashed.

Ontenegco called the victims at mid-morning.

“Most of the folks who called in said, ‘We don’t like to bother you guys on Christmas, but …’ ” Ontengco said. “I tell them that that’s what we’re here for.”

That was the only activity he had during that shift.

He patrolled Brownfield, Otisfield, Lovell, Sweden. Norway, Oxford and Albany. Then he drove through them again and again.

Ontengco set up a traffic watch and did some paperwork – the cruisers have laptops so deputies don’t have to go to the office to do reports.

He stopped at a couple of convenience stores, but not for coffee. He said he learned a long time ago that coffee stains are hard to get out of uniforms.

Ontengco prefers water.

He also called his wife, more than once throughout the day. When he made the loop through Brownfield he stopped in to tell her Christmas plans of visiting family still looked good to begin after 5 p.m.

“It seems that whenever you make a plan for after work, something always happens,” Ontengco said. “This was a boring day, but it was good that people were at peace with each other.”

As he drove his route, keeping one eye on a clock that moved painstakingly slow and both hands on the wheel, Ontengco thought about home and how nice it would be to be there.

“You drive by homes and see the Christmas lights, remember your childhood,” he said. “But I’m in the area. I’m not away from home. Some people are really away from home.

“We have troops overseas. I don’t have it so bad,” said Ontengco, who was in the Marines in North Carolina during U.S. Operation Desert Storm.

Ontengco is married. He and his wife Julie have no children, yet. Julie is a nurse practitioner, and Ontengco said she understands about long hours and unpredictable situations.

Sometime after 4 that afternoon, Ontengco began his final patrol of the day, heading toward Brownfield and home.

One town became another as the hands of the clock struggled forward. Most importantly, the radio was quiet.

He said his family and Julie’s family knew his schedule for Christmas.

“It was Christmas at 5,” Ontengco said.

jsmedley@sunjournal.com

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