I was paired up with Ben Turpin in a weekend outing of Christian guys. Turpin is a public-works director for the city of Lexington. As we played, he told me great stories about once being one of only two black cops in small-town Richmond, Ky. - imagine Deputy Bernie Mac arresting "Otis'' in Mayberry.

Turpin is XXL, and launches a ball like a cruise missile when he gets all the moving parts of his swing working on the same deadline - but this is not a golf story. It's about something else entirely.

A Cincinnati friend of mine, who is black, had recently been stopped on I-71, late at night. The cop said he was weaving. But he's no drinker. They called the drug-sniffing dog and tossed his car as he stood by the edge of the road, asking for a police supervisor who never came. Then they let him go without a ticket.

When I called Blue Ash Police, they had good reasons for everything. Cops usually do. It came down to my friend's word against the cop's - inconclusive.

But I was curious. I've heard lots of reports of profiling. Many have been exaggerated beyond recognition. Others sound like made-for-TV dramas scripted to extract lawsuit jackpots. The ones Cincinnati paid $4.5 million to settle sounded as bogus as lawsuits over spilled coffee.

Cops are paid to be suspicious. Black men cause a disproportionate amount of crime. If most of the criminals you arrest have red hair, pretty soon every redheaded guy looks like a perp.

But still ... I wondered what a black, out-of-town ex-cop with no dog in the fight would say. So I told him about my friend.

"It's happened to me four or five times,'' he said.

Here's a guy who is a rock-solid cop supporter. He's a respected man in Lexington. And if a few hours on a golf course takes an X-ray of a man's character, he's one of the nicest guys I've ever met.

I asked him to tell me more.

"The truth shall set me free,'' he replied with four exclamation points in an e-mail. "It really makes me sad when I'm stopped by my brothers in blue. I think some of my brothers in blue feel that a black man with a Mercedes, BMW, Porsche and several old cars MUST be doing something illegal.''

Turpin drives a classic deep-purple 1974 Porsche that he restored from the rocker panels up. "I have two jobs and my wife is a deputy warden at a state penn. I like nice cars,'' he said.

"When I'm pulled over, I'm told it is because I look suspicious. What does that mean? How does a suspicious person drive? I'm asked to step out of the car. My car is searched and sometimes the K-9 unit is called. I comply because I have nothing to hide. This process has taken several hours. I have a permit to carry a weapon, so when I tell them I have a weapon, the drama really starts. I still respect my blue brothers, but like large families, we have dysfunctional family members.''

It's amazing what you can learn on a golf course. I learned there's a 3-wood distance between how white guys like me see the world, and how black guys sometimes see it from the back of a squad car beside the highway. But the real difference between us is just a gimme putt.

Truth can hit you from nowhere, like a stray golf ball. But there's a big difference. The truth is not all white.

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E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 768-8301.