If it hadn’t been for softball, Thomas Newton might never have become an Old Saybrook police officer.

Thomas, who joined the Old Saybrook Police Department as a part-time patrolman in 1969, eagerly tells the story of how his skills at softball led him to the police force.

“When I was a [volunteer] fireman, we always had a beautiful softball team. We always defeated the [Old Saybrook] cops team. So Police Chief Ed Mosca asked me to join the Police Department so I could play first base on the cops softball team,” says Community Service Officer Newton.

“Originally, I didn’t think about being a cop, but he convinced me. And then the Police Department starting winning games,” says Thomas with a huge smile and a laugh that lights up his face.

As much as Thomas has loved his career as a police officer—and he has no plans to retire from that role any time soon—it actually was his second job. His main job throughout his 63 years living in Old Saybrook was working for utility companies, first for Connecticut Light & Power as a lineman and later at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant as a master electrician and in quality control. He acquired his electrician skills while working in the Navy during the Korean conflict.

“I can fix anything,” says Thomas.

Early on in his career with the utility, he was a lineman before the age of bucket trucks. That meant that to do his job, he had to climb the poles, often in stormy or snowy weather, using hooks and boot spikes to bite into the wood. If someone had put a nail in the pole to post a sign, the hooks wouldn’t hold, and it made climbing the poles dangerous—that’s why it’s still against the law to post signs on wooden poles, he notes.

In 2005, Thomas stepped back from his patrolman duties to become a part-time community service officer. In this role, he provides police support for functions like the Torchlight Parade and the Stroll, and does traffic control. But for more 30 years prior to that, he held down two major jobs: 40 hours a week working for CL&P as a lineman and electrician and then also several shifts a week as a police patrolman on the 4 p.m. to midnight shift.

Like getting power back on for folks in a storm, police work for Thomas has always been about helping people and using his skills at talking with people to glean important information.

“I’m a talker. I love to talk,” says Thomas. “Being able to communicate with people. I get joy from that. I love to listen, too.”

He’s also known for what is now a singular and unusual talent: perfect penmanship. He recalls that when his Hartford schools’ teacher Mrs. Simmons taught the class cursive, the students had to make the patterns of the letters in time with the music she played on the Victrola. He’s proud that he can still make his cursive letters perfectly.

Although he attended Hartford schools, he graduated from Old Saybrook High School (then on Main Street) in 1953 before moving on to join the Navy.

Recalling the early days of his police patrol career, Thomas recounts what was different then.

“Back when I started, you did normal patrolling duties like checking doors and sometimes, you even worked dispatch,” says Thomas. “We didn’t have sophisticated radios and our cars were terrible. The town wouldn’t pay for A/C in the police cars so in the 1970s, the PBA [Police Benevolent Association] paid to put in A/C.”

And without cellphones, computers, and social media, collecting critical information about the town, incidents, or even just what was happening was a whole lot more difficult.

“Back then when the town was smaller, you knew half the people in town so we would stop to talk with people. By building a network, you know of people and that’s how we got information about incidents, about people.”

He recalled one night when he was called to Brad’s, a bar on Main Street, to break up a bar fight that was fueled by too much alcohol. “They were throwing chairs like it was Dodge City. I had to go in by myself. I was just lucky that nothing happened. I just figured my way out of situations,” says Thomas.

Thomas holds an unusual record in the town’s Police Department. As part-time patrolman and then as community service officer, he has worked under the roof of four different Old Saybrook police stations: the basement of Town Hall, 225 Main Street, 6 Custom Drive, and now, 36 Lynde Street. Aas he walks through the new police station, the respect and affection from everyone for this man who’s worked for the department longer than anyone else is obvious.

“Tom Newton is a department treasure,” says Police Michael Spera. “We hope he puts in another 25 years.”

And as Thomas says proudly, he doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, and enjoys spending time bike riding in the beach areas, so he likely will stay active and continue to serve the town he loves for many years.