Gas of Tank: A Canadian Law Enforcement Odyssey 1979 - 2019
About this audiobook
Todd Ternovan believed in keeping things simple: Marrying his college sweetheart, studying Early Childhood Education at Ryerson University, spending his professional life as a daycare teacher. It was a tidy plan. Except for one thing: Man plans and the gods laugh.
To fund his life and education in Toronto, Todd worked a part-time job—as a corrections officer at the infamous Don Jail.
Although he spent a few years working with kids, Todd’s experience in corrections propelled him into a 30-year career with the Ontario Provincial Police.
Small-town policing isn’t just rescuing cats from trees and performing wellness checks. The concession roads and rural routes of southwestern Ontario are home to some incredibly kind, resilient people, and scene to some strange, tragic and heinous events. Todd dealt with them all, from the naked machete-wielding man who claimed to be Jesus Christ, to armed American fugitives, decades-old sexual assaults, harrowing traffic accidents, and even a year spent “Uncle Charlie” (undercover) investigating drug traffickers.
The title derives from a motorcycle gang member who demonstrated his disdain for police by pulling a “wheelie” on his motorcycle following a traffic stop. The biker was charged with stunt driving. In his defense in court, the biker said, in a thick French accent: “It was not possible for me to a pull a ‘wheelie.’ I had a full gas of tank!”
“Gas of Tank” embodies, for Todd, all the surreal, upside-down, unbelievable, description-defying experiences police face daily.
About the author
Matthew St. Amand is a life-long resident of Essex County. His two most recent published books include The Kilominator: Cycling Through a Global Pandemic In Search of Sanity & Stability (www.kilominator.com), telling the story of his obsession with cycling that began during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Gas of Tank: A Canadian Law Enforcement Odyssey 1979 – 2019 (www.gasoftank.com), which chronicles a friend’s four-decade law enforcement career.
Matthew has also authored seven plays (two of them performed by Post Productions: Shelter in Place, 2018, and Negatunity, 2021—his play Tether will be produced in 2024).
Beyond these works, Matthew regularly contributes articles to The Drive Magazine and Windsor Life Magazine.
Over the past thirty years, his short fiction has appeared in The Toronto Review of International Writing, Opium Magazine, FRiGG Magazine, as well as numerous online publications. His prose poetry has appeared in The North American Review, Agni, and Phoebe. His other books include a collection of short fiction titled, As My Sparks Fly Upward (2004), a volume of poetry, Forever & a Day (2004), a suspense novel, Randham Acts (2006), and a comic novel, Loitering with Intent to Mope (2009).
His blog, The Kilominator Chronicles on Wordpress (www.kilominator.wordpress.
Matthew lives in LaSalle with his wife and two sons.
As a student at the University of Windsor in the late 1970s, Todd’s first career ambition was to be a daycare teacher. He studied Early Childhood Education at Ryerson University, funding his education by working as a jail guard—first at the Windsor Jail, and then spent four years working at the infamous Don Jail in Toronto. When he graduated from Ryerson, the guards with whom he worked at the Don thought he was crazy to turn down an offer of a full-time position at the jail, and to go to work with children.
After five years working with at-risk youth, Todd applied to join the Ontario Provincial Police.
In September 1990, Todd became an OPP constable assigned to the detachment in Merlin, Ontario, where he began his 30 year career that saw him move through various divisions, such as the Drug Squad, Undercover, the Windsor Casino Enforcement Unit, and Intelligence.
He retired in 2019, and spends his time on photography and record collecting.
