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 |   On a daily basis... things that bump around in my head and make me go... hummm! |
My new blog:
This is not just a collections of personal musing but it is a place where I can vent. Talking about daily events on the local, state, and national scene is my way of letting off steam so I don't come home and kick the dog! We are all the Captain of our own "Ship of Fools." We go where the current of the times take us and we do what we must to be able to sleep at night. Now this Captain will speak his mind about that current and about the ocean on which we each sail....... ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** {image: ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** PLEASE MAIL ME YOUR VOTE FOR BLOGGER OF THE MONTH OF AUGUST. This is a shot of Me and Mel at our wedding. We were married in a simple ceremony on a deck overlooking Lake Livingston. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** I am so proud of my new Siggy which was made by the very talented vivacious   . Thank you so very much for all the effort that went into this.** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** This was taken from the wall in the Blogville Post Office. If you see this fugitive, please do not approach, he is armed and stupid. Contact the Blogville sheriff's office at once, then take cover! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** } ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I was talking to a buddy of mine today back in the breakroom at lunch. I made the mistake of mentioning that I had started a blog. There's nothing like watching a room full of bubbas who have heard something new. None of them had ever heard of a blog and they sat there and worried the word around in their little heads like a dog with a new bone, trying to make some sense of it. James: You started a LOG? Whadda do, plant a tree? Me: Not a LOG, A BLOG. Randall: Oh, you mean a BOG. You left the waterhose running all night and you gotta BOG in your front yard? Me: NO, LISTEN CLOSELY....BLOG, with a B. James: Give us a hint. Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral? Me: Uh....none of those. Randall: You didn't go out with no strange woman and catch sumptin did ya? Me: NOOOOOOO! It's an online journal. I started a journal. Now there was a moment of complete silence....they were studying the implacations of such a deed. I could almost SEE brain cells self-destructing. Then they found their voices again. James: A journal is like a diary ain't it? Me: Well yes, it is like a diary. James: YOU MEAN YOU GONNA WRITE IN YOUR DIARY AND LET EVERYONE READ IT????? Don't you get all personal and stuff in a diary? My little sister use to keep one. I snuck in and read it....I told momma and she WUPPED my sis real good! Me: Well, you don't have to get that personal I guess, it is up to the writer. Mainly though it is practice for me. I need to keep writing so I don't get rusty. This will help me write my stories. Randall: YOU NEED PRACTICE? Hell boy, at your age you should know how to write. But maybe you're right, hell I could use some help making those long hand "J"s, you think that Blog stuff could help me? Me: Gee, I don't now Randall, after all you TYPE the blog you don't write it out long hand...so not sure if that would help you. As I left them to go back to work, they were busily discussing the possibility of getting into blogging themselves. Randall was asking James if he was gonna buy a computer just to try the bloging thing out. James said he was thinking about it but he would have to find one with a "Blog" button, or maybe a special program. I tell ya there is nothing like an intellectual discussion to stimulate one's afternoon. I guess my buddies at work think I am a little strange, and by their standards, I am...go figure. I will never forget the time I let one of them read one of my stories. I did it because he just would not believe that I actually spent time writing down make believe stories. Well, He read one and it convinced him........that I was, in his words, "ONE SICK PUPPY!" I guess I should have never let him read the story about the genii in the computer.....He just didn't grasp the notion! ROFLMAO! He was irate that the story didn't have not one cowboy in it, nor did it have a single shootout on main street at high noon. He informed me that I should read more Zane Gray, so that maybe, if I just HAD to write, I wouldn't be so prone to writing wierd stuff or mushy love scenes and such..... Welcome to my world...lololol! |
| I have spent the last two days struggling over a new project. My second novel. This one promises to be a real beast I fear. The Title is The Bygone Heart and I have just posted the prologue in my port. This is going to be the story of a man who found and lost his first love amid the horrors of the Vietnam war. He survives, thinking his lover is dead and he goes home and rebuilds his life. Marries a girl from his hometown and raises a family. Brian Slaydon's life is turned upside down after the death of his wife, when he recieves a mysterious letter telling him his first love, whom he thought dead all these years is actually alive. She believes that he too is dead, and has rebuilt her own life. He knows she is alive but he doesn't know where she is. So begins his efforts to find this woman. What will he do when he finally does find her...He has no idea, only that he must try. So, now you see what I have been doing..if you get the chance drop by my port and check the beast out, I promise to put more in as soon as possible. Something tells me that The Bygone Heart will be my most important story I ever write. There is so much I want to say in that story, I just hope I am able to do it justice...that's where you, my friends here in writing.com will come in handy...keep me on the right track and let me know when I make a mistake. When this book is done I am going to begin to seriously begin efforts to get it published. I see a long and twisting road ahead...it is a road I want to travel with my friends here. |
| Wow....I missed a day at my blog and that sucks. Health issues also suck. Sooner or later I am going to have to get this blood pressure thing under control. Oh well, on to more interesting topics. Fishing, now there is a topic near and dear to my heart. I love all kinds of fishing, catfish, striper, Crappie, but my all time favorite is black bass. I was asked once, by a non-fisherman, what was so great about bass fishing. Well, that was easy, I told the guy. Bass fishing is as close to big game hunting as you can get without a gun. You have to stalk the bass and once you find him, then you have to coax him into taking your bait. If you are lucky enough to find the bass and then luckier still to bring him to strike your bait, then the battle begins; you against the fish, one on one. It just doesn't get any better than that. Now there are many different baits and strategies used to capture the wiley bass but my favorite is to fish top water baits. Now picture this. It is early morning and you are easing your boat amoung the flooded trees of a lake. The water is as calm and slick as glass. Dead trees and cypress knees are sticking up all around you. Then you see it....there up ahead of the boat is a narrow lane of open water, barely two feet wide and lined on either side with stumps and cypress knees. You slowly float up abreast of the lane and you cast your bait in a perfectly straight arc. The heddon chugger drops with a soft "plop" right at the spot where the open lane ends, at the base of an old tree. You let the chugger sit there quietly for the count of four, letting the ripples of distrubed water from it's landing dissapate. Then you softly flick your wrist causing the chugger to dip and rise again. Then you slowly begin to retrieve the bait, making it "chug" every few feet. Before the bait is halfway up the lane, the water under it suddenly explodes! A huge black bass has attacked the bait. The hooks of the bait bites into the fish's mouth and he drags it under the surface. The battle is on! I can tell you there is absolutely nothing like battling a black bass hooked on a top water bait. I would rather catch one three pound bass on top water than a half dozen five pounders on a worm...but that's just me. You see, catching the fish is not the only good thing about fishing top water. It is therapeutic just to spend a few hours on the calm water making, or trying to make "the perfect cast". Catching a fish because of the perfect cast is just icing on the cake. There is nothing like crowing to your fishing partner: "WhaaHoo! That's a five pound cast." And then actually having a five pound bass hit the bait! I guess you just have to be there. |
| In the category: How Low Can We Go.... I saw a report on "The Today Show" the other morning that simply floored me. It was reported that some Walmart stores in Europe were getting into the dating game. It seems that in some stores after eight o'clock at night, single women who were looking for a man can come in the store and as they shop, they push around a shopping cart with a red ribbon on it to announce to all the other shoppers that she is indeed single and looking. Men too could do the same thing. I guess then all that was required was to shop the store until you ran across the ribbon festooned cart that caught your fancy! Good Lord, do we really need this? I got to thinking how that idea would go over here in Texas. I think we would have a different color code for the ribbons here in Texas. For example: 1.A red ribbon for single 2. A red ribbon with one star for single female who owns her own bass boat. 3. A red ribbon with two stars for Single female with bass boat who is new to town and not related to anyone! 4. A red ribbon with three stars for any single female with all her teeth. 5. A blue ribbon would signify Married but willing to fool around. 6. And finally, a red, white, and blue ribbon with five stars which tells everyone: "I'M EASY AND I HAVE AN HOUR TO KILL! Ya know this gives a whole new meaning to the term "Customer Service." |
| You know how it is some days when everything comes into place. The planets are aligned, the stars are in your favor and it just all comes together! Today was such a day. Wait, a little bit of explanation is in order here before we go on. At my store, where I am the door greeter, we have a cart-pusher who is, you might say, "special". Now Bobby is one of the nicest young men you will ever meet, he's just not the brightest bulb in the package. But, like I said, he is a really nice guy and would never knowingly insult another human, it's just not in him. So, you can imagine my surprise today when this guy came walking into the store and pulled me to the side. He wanted to complain about Bobby. He said that Bobby, the cart pusher had insulted him and called him fat. Well I found out that what Bobby had done was to greet the man as friendly as he knew how, he waved and yelled "HI big boy!" Now bobby didn't mean that as an insult, it was just that in bobby's mind the man was BIG so he called him big boy. In fact the man WAS fat. He tipped the scales at over three hundred pounds at least, and he wasn't all that bright himself. So, I told him, in my most consilitory voice: "Well sir I think it was more a case of observation than accusation." To which the man said he didn't care what Bobby meant he wanted him punished. So I promptly told the man that I would give Bobby a stern talking to because this wasn't the first time he had been guilty of UNDERSTATEMENT! Well, the big slob didn't realize I had slammed him not once but twice and he went on with his shopping happy in the knowledge that the cart pusher would be chastised! I have to admit....this episode gave me the warm fuzzys for the rest of the day. Do I seem overly harsh toward some shoppers? Well there is good reason for that. Some of them deserve harsh....hell some of them deserve thirty lashes with a wet noodle, but I respect noodles too much to do that to them. I wonder if anyone has ever done a study on the shopping habits of the avarage american? I bet a study like that would be fascinating. For example, The worse the weather, the more driven some people are to shop. It's true. It's like they watch the weather and see a storm in on it's way and they are seized by an uncontrollable urge to buy crap! They will jump in their car, drive to the store, charge inside through a driving rainstorm and then complain bitterly if their shopping carts are damp. What do they think, we have a magic paint we use on them to keep water from getting them wet? I have actually seen people get out during a hurricane to come to Walmart to have their OIL CHANGED! This, my friend, is the closest humans come to the behaviour of Lemmings. You know, those little critters who follow in a blind stampede over a cliff as if driven by an inner compulsion. Maybe God will be good to me and allow me once, before I die, to play the ultimate joke on shoppers. One Christmas eve I would love to super glue every item in the store to the shelves.....then stand back and watch the people go into a frenzy trying to free the stuff and make it to the registers....is that sweet or what? Oh, before I close I would like to share with you a bit of country boy humor that is so prevalent where I live. Last week I was standing at my door when a young man, no more than twenty five and his wife who could not have been more than twenty, walked into the store and with them were their FIVE kids, the oldest of which was about five. The wife looked to be about seven months along with number six also. Well, right behind this group and old man walked in. He was dressed in faded jeans, old straw hat, and scuffed and run over boots. He walked with the bow legged rolling gait of a man more use to being on horseback than afoot. He sauntered up to me and, still watching the young family in front of him, he leaned over to me and said in a stage whisper: "Boy, I bet those younguns don't own a television." I damn near fell on the floor laughing. I had tears in my eyes as I readily agreed with the old man that, yes, he was right. They seem to have only ONE source of entertainment! |
| Well here it is Sunday afternoon and I have finished my duties to my masters, the Walton family and now I am free until the morning. As you are reading this, I have to assume you are sitting at your computer(see how smart i can be)and killing time reading, perusing varied blogs here for words of wisdom. Wait. Wisdom? Boy did you come to the wrong place. Well, since you're here you might as well forge ahead and get a glimpse into the somewhat twisted mind of a Texas storyteller. How many of you are going to be glued to the television tonight watching the Discovery channel? They are going to show their much ballyhooed movie Super Volcanoe. If this is the one I'm thinking of, it is supposed to show us what happens if we have an eruption ten times larger than Mt. St. Helens. What if......somehow we could actually pinpoint the time of that giant eruption? What would we do with that knowledge? I say we keep it secret and organize a meeting of Liberal Democrats at the site! All that hot air meets all that lava flow....it might serve as a "backfire" and even halt the destruction. Well, even if it didn't work what would we lose? On the nightly news: A fight is brewing over the President's nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the UN. They're gonna fight over this? Give me a break. What difference does it make who we assign to the UN? Who actually CARES what the UN does? I personally believe that the UN should move it's headquarters to France. That's a much more suitable spot for that august body than New York. At least in France, someone might give a damn what the UN does or says. Just saw, on the news, yet another reason I live in Texas. A snow storm in Denver dumped thirty inches of snow on those poor folks. Did I mention that I have been running my air conditioner for the past two weeks? It is my own personal belief that Hell is not really made up of fire and brimstone but rather ice and snow. but that's just my own opinion. Well we finally got the Pope buried. I'm sorry but I just do not understand why there was such a big hoopla made over the man's death. Yes, he was a good man. Yes, I agree, he was the leader of the Catholic church and as such was held in high esteem. But, really, was his death reason for such an outpouring of grief? I mean it wasn't like it was unexpected, the man was in his mid eighties for God's sake, his followers should have been prepared for it. Now we will have go through the whole election process as they chose another Pope. And what about that group that actually choses the Pope, the Cardinals. I saw a group shot of them on the News and I swear, if you take away the robes and badges of office, they all looked like just another bunch of fat cat businessmen, meeting to elect another CEO. The other big deal in the news today: Prince Charles marries Camilia Parker Bowles! So what! Give the guy a break. His first wife is dead, and he gets married again, big deal. Why are so many people taking this thing so seriously? Personally I think that with his money and aura of power, he could have done a hell of a lot better, but there ya go. It's what he wants so what business is it of ours? Ok, here is the most damning indictment on Americans and their way of life. We spend over 34 billion dollars a year on pet products in this country. People in this country are homeless and eating garbage. Children are thrown away like yesterday's leftovers......and we spend this kind of money on dogs and cats...not to mention parakeets and hamsters. Only in America.....ya gotta love us! |
| I think there should be a law passed that ensured every man and woman on earth would get exactly one year free to chase their dream, no matter what the dream might be. Think about it a minute. What is your dream and how wonderful would it be if you had one whole year to pursue that dream. To be free of the job and the responsibility, free from worrying about others...365 days to chase a dream with singleminded determination. What if a year is not enough time? Well, heck you gotta draw the line somewhere I guess, besides, if you are really consentrating on something why couldn't you get it done in a year. What happens at the end of the year? That depends on wither or not you succeed I guess. Either your dream comes true or you go back to being a wage slave at a job that sucks the life out of a stone. The important thing is that you had your shot. You can die knowing you had a fair chance to be what you wanted, to be happy. That knowledge alone should be worth your weight in gold. Peace of Mind. At least you would have that. I read somewhere, I have no idea where, a phrase that stuck with me and made me go hummm..... Why is it thought of as only natural for birds to be free, but for the souls of man to be caged LOL...I must be feeling exceptionally philosophical today or something. I can't help but wonder if I will ever see that year. If not I guess I will keep doing what all the rest of you are doing...just keep trying. The rest of you have a good weekend, I go back to work tomorrow. |
| If, by chance, you have the opportunity to go to your dictionary today, please take the time to look up the term "Dumass". You will see an 8X10 glossy of me there!! You see yesterday I wrote a new little story. Not the one that has been giving me fits, just a story that popped into my head at the moment. Well, I posted said tale and went on to other stuff. Later I came back and checked on how it was doing, I had placed it on the Review Request page, and it had garnered a few reviews. The problem was, every person who reviewed it asked questions. Now that is not that unheard of, but these questions were strange because in each case, they were about things that I had described in the story, near the end. I thought, "Geeze, didn't they read the whole story? I described in detail the things they are asking about." Well after reading the third review like that, I went to the story to check it out, maybe I hadn't been as clear as I thought. I almost fell out of my chair when I looked at the story. I HAD LEFT OFF THE ENTIRE LAST THIRD OF THE STORY!!!!! I guess when I copied it from WORD and pasted it in the portfolio I somehow dropped the last third of the story! No wonder these poor folks were confused! I am surprised it fared as well as it did considering they never got to read the whole story. To each of those reviewers, my sincere apologies for making you read two thirds of a story....then leaving you hanging. The name of the story is THE LETTER and it is now in it's complete form....gawd! If any of you get the chance please give it a read....and don't hold the fact that it's author is a dufus against it. |
| Well the cyber gods have stepped in and redirected my blog this evening. I had one all written dealing with our dear friends in Europe who do so love to bash Americans, but for some reason, when I hit "send" I lost the text. So I figured it was fate. I guess I wasn't meant to write about that....right now. So let me move onto one of my favorite subjects...Liberals. Very few things bug me more than liberals and their single minded quest to make over all of this country into a mirror image of themselves. If liberals had their way, political correctness would be a national religion. Have you ever looked at a list of things you can no longer say? You can no longer speak plainly in this country, you have to use Mask Words...You can't call someone fat...you might insult them. You now have to say they are calorically challenged. Maybe if they got insulted a little more they might get mad enough to lose the weight and live longer. Short people are now known as: Vertically Challenged. Retardation is referred now as being "special" The exception which liberals don't seem to whine about are comedians. These folks can make big money being politically incorrect. The reason for this is because liberals love to go to their shows and sit in the darkened audience and get to laugh at things they would never consider saying themselves. The other big liberal thing is: Nothing is ever anyones personal fault. No one should ever take responsibility for anything bad that ever happens to them. That is why we have all those syndromes. Everytime someone screws up now it is said they must have this syndrome or that syndrome. The Liberal's answer to this....SUE WHOEVER MADE YOU DO THE STUPID THING. Kids act up in school then they automatically have ADD. If grown people act the fool then they must have AADD (adult attention Deficit Disorder) Attention Deficit Disorder? My God, that reminds me of something my Uncle told me once, about Sam Murry's mule. Mr. Murry bought a mule real cheap once. When asked why he got it so cheap Mr. Murry said it was because the mule never listened to his old owner so therefore could not be taught to pull a plow or a wagon. When asked what he was going to do differently to train the mule, Sam Murry said. "I'm gonna get his attention." When my uncle asked him how he was gonna get his attention mr. Murry just smiled and showed him his ax handle. A week later Mr. Murry was plowing with the mule. Sometimes you just have to get their attention. |
| Well it's friday, that magic day that marks the end of another week and, for most of you, it is escape day. By this afternoon you will be free of the job, or school and you will have two wonderful days to forget the hum-drum and enjoy yourself. What will you do? Will you do fishing? Sitting on the grass covered bank of a slow moving river with your fishing pole stuck in the ground and the line snaking out over the calm water does sound like heaven doesn't it. Or maybe you will jump in the car and drive to the city for some marathon shopping and people watching, that too sounds like fun. Personally I will be sitting at the computer trying to give birth to a story that, at the moment, seems to be in the breach position. Ugh....this is not going to be fun. I wonder if anyone would miss me if I just jumped in the car and took off for a drive.....for a week or so! It would be nice to do a "walkabout" as my aussie friends call it but instead of walking, I would drive. Ok, so I'm lazy, sue me! No, I will end up sitting here and trying to work on my writing and I will take time off, from time to time to read some of the great stories in writing.com by some of the really talented authors we have here. I would like to suggest, if you have the time, to read one particular author in this site....W.D. Wilcox. I discovered him while doing some work judging a contest. He is one of the best I have found on this site and I can only hope that one day I even come close to creating the kind of entertaining storys this man turns out every single day. Ok, it's time to go back to work. Get your weekend plans in order, go out and enjoy the time off or just do what makes you happy. Who knows, maybe I will bump into you as I wander the many halls and rooms here in writing.com. I will be the guy stumbling along with head down and mumbling to himself....don't be frightened, it's just my way to spend the weekend. |
| Due to health issues, I am staying home from work today. So I figured while I was able to sit up, I would add to the blog. I realize now that yesterday's entry might need a little explaination. I was talking about the difference in deer hunting today virus when I was a young man and it dawned on me that a lot of you out there might not know that much about hunting, either how its done today or how it was done back in the dark ages of my childhood. In my last entry I touched on how it was done in the past. The hunt was planned the night before. A likely spot was agreed upon, then the next morning the "standers" were put into place and then one or two men would take the hounds and go to another place, usually a mile or more away from the standers and release the dogs. They would make their way toward the standers and the dogs would hopefully strike the trail of a buck and run it out past the standers. So what you got was a deer who was running flat out to escape the hounds and if you saw the buck at all, it would only be a very fleeting glimpse with only time for a very quick shot. It is no wonder that many people went years without killing a deer. Add to that the fact that not all the deer ran by the dogs were bucks and therefore could not be shot anyway. So you can see how diffucult the hunting was. Now today it is vastly different. Before the season even starts hunters go out and pick a likely spot, or actually clear an area of ground and PLANT oats or put out a feeder to feed the deer. Then these "sportsmen" will back off about seventy five yards or so and put up a nice enclosed stand, some of which boast easy chairs and heaters of all things. Then they take up their high powered rifles with powerfull scopes attached and wait for the deer to come walking out calmly to eat the corn. Seventy five yards with a rifle and scope? It would take a villiage idiot this day in time NOT to kill a deer. I never saw the sport in that. The deer don't have a chance. As you can tell, I am not a fan of this kind of hunting and in fact I haven't been deer hunting in twenty years because of it. I was raised to have a deep and abiding respect for the animals I hunted. I was taught never to kill another animal unless you planned on eating it. Trophy hunting was aborant to my father. He taught us it was a waste to kill an animal just to display his head. Nowadays I pefer to do my hunting with a camera not a gun. This way I get a "Trophy" and the animal gets to live....not a bad trade off I believe |
| As I have said before I consider myself a storyteller first and a writer second. I learned the art of storytelling from my uncle Frank who wove his tales around the campfires throughout my childhood and beyond. Since beginning this blog I have felt that this is as close to telling stories around a campfire as one can get in this internet age. Sometimes, when I am writing here, I can almost picture you, the reader, sitting around a roaring fire and listening instead of reading the story I am sharing. So I thought that tonight I would share an old story with you all. So pull up a chair, or sit down on the ground near the fire pit. I will throw another log on the fire and as you stare deeply into the dancing flames I will tell you about Mr. Jack and the Deer that Got Away. I first heard this story told by my uncle only weeks after the incident actually happened. I was ten years old and, because Mr. Jack was actually sitting at the fire as the story was told, I almost busted a gut trying not to laugh at one of my elders. Mr Jack was one of a group of men, that included my uncle and father, who always hunted together every year. Now you must understand that deer hunting in those days shares little in common with how it is done today. Many men went for years, and never killed a deer. Not because there was a dirth of animals, but because the hunting was a lot tougher than today. Back then, in the deep Piney woods of East Texas, almost everyone used a shotgun to deer hunt. Shotguns were used because of the dense cover of the woods, where there were very few clearings and what clearings existed were very small. Add to that, the fact that deer were hunted with dogs, and you had the ingredients of a tough shot to make. With a pack of dogs baying at it's heels, the deer would hit those clearings running flat out as only a deer can run and a man had only a split second to aquire the target and make the shot. So because of this, Mr. Jack, who had reached middle age by the time of the incident, had yet to be lucky enough to bring down a buck even though he had hunted each season for his entire life. Being the only hunter in this particular group who had not yet made a kill, Mr. Jack had vowed that this season would be the one in which he broke the drought. On the opening morning of the season, my uncle and my father who were making the drive with the hounds, put Mr. Jack in the best spot they could find to give him a chance at a good shot. They placed him at one of the few large clearings at the edge of the forest. After settling him in at a likely spot, the two men directed the other hunters to widely spaced positions on either side of Mr. Jack. Once all the "standers" were set, uncle Frank and dad released the hounds and the hunt began. Sure enough, the dogs struck the trail of a buck almost at once and the deer made a bee-line toward the very spot where Mr. Jack waited. Well, there was Jack, standing at the edge of the clearing, listening to the baying of the hounds and getting more nervous by the minute. He knew that the deer would come out any second and when it did, it would be running at top speed. He stared left then right, trying to pierce the thick cover of brambles and bushes between the trees, trying to pick up the slightest sound that might announce the approach of the deer. Then, it happened. The buck, a nice six pointer, bounded into the clearing. Mr. Jack almost fainted, but managed to throw his shotgun to his shoulder and fire a snap shot. Then a strange thing happened. The deer dropped like a stone! HE HAD DONE IT! MR. JACK HAD KILLED HIS FIRST BUCK! To say that Jack was excited would be a gross understatement. He was shaking like a leaf, his heart was pounding, his hands were shaking. All he could think of was getting to the deer and cutting his throat. It was then that Mr. Jack made his first mistake. He propped his gun against a tree, took out his knife, and ran up to where the deer lay. Mr. Jack was beside himself with glee as he got to the fallen deer. He grabbed the deer's horns and lifted his head with one sweaty hand as he brought the knife to the animal's throat with his other hand. It was about then that things went to hell for Mr. Jack. The "dead" deer jumped to his feet! It seems that the deer had only been hit a glancing blow by one of the buckshot and knocked out momentarily. So there was our hero, one hand griping the horns of a deer which was now standing looking eye to eye with him. The deer was not real happy with the whole thing either. What happened next was a sight to behold. Man and deer locked in very unequal combat. Mr. Jack had a desperate grip on one horn while tring to slash at the deer with his pocket knife and it's puny five inch blade. Mean while the deer was busily hooking and pawing Mr. Jack from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. Finally, after what seemed to Mr. Jack like hours, but in reality was only a few seconds, the deer tore loose from the hunter's grip and bounded back into the forest. Mr. Jack was left laying in the middle of the clearing almost completely naked, having had almost all his clothes hooked and kicked off of him, and bleeding from a dozen horn and hoof wounds. Mr. Jack, to his credit, had never lost a grip on his trusty pocket knife and, when my dad came upon him, he was sitting on the ground trying to pull what was left of his clothes back on. It was my Uncle, who arrived shortly after my dad, who pointed out the blood on Jack's knife. All three men looked around on the ground until dad found part of the deer's ear. Seems that Jack had been able to land at least one blow in the one-sided battle after all. They helped Mr. Jack back to camp then took him to town and to the hospital to be patched up. My Uncle Frank took possession of the severed deer ear while Mr. Jack was being ministered to by a very amused doctor. My dad and uncle mounted the ear on a plaque and presented it to Mr. Jack the next day back at the deer camp and in front of the rest of the group. My Uncle said he wanted Mr. Jack to have the trophy because it was probably as close as he would ever come to a real kill. Mr. Jack was not amused. Everyone else was in stitches. |
| Ok, I am just a country boy so bear with me here. I ponder some strange things sometimes. For instance, without the mass media we have today to give us all the news as soon as it happens, what would we know? Did I lose you with that one? Well let me give you an example. Iraq. For months before we went to war this last time we were bombarded with dire warnings about Saddam and his Weapons of Mass Distruction. We were told, and shown graphic pictures of how he was killing his own people and he was compared with Hitler. As a result of all this news coverage, and in the wake of 9/11 we rose up and demanded that he be smote a mighty blow, hip and thigh!! And he was. He now sits in a cell waiting for judgment to be passed on him. Now don't get me wrong. I was in favor of the war. I still think it was nessary but odds are, without the press to stir up feelings, it never would have happened at all. I was and am for the war, but for a very simple reason. My daddy. My daddy always drilled into us boys that if there is a bully making life miserable for folks and we can help, then we better dang sure step up and take care of business. He said that if we don't take care of a bully hurting other folks then no one will help us when another bully comes to call on us. That's just the way I was raised. Saddam had to go. But what about all the other bullies out there? How many of you know anything about Zimbabwe, Africa and what is going on there? Not a lot I bet. Why? Because the press and the Networks have pretty much ignored Africa. So therefore we are ignorant of what is going on. People are being subjected to persecution and denied due process...so where is the moral outrage of the rest of the world, the same outrage we felt in the case of Iraq? The media ignores Africa and the Government turns a blind eye for a very good reason. There is no profit in getting the masses all worked up over Zimbabwe because there is no oil flowing under it like in Iraq. So we are kept in the dark. The Sudan is another example of a bully on the block that needs taken care of....but they too go ignored by the media. I ask you, if we are going to fight one bully, should we not fight them all? Someday WE might need help with our own bully. Who will be there to help us? **************************************************** On a different note.... Today marks my first day of class!! Yes, this old redneck has signed up to take a college course online. This is a grammer course that is supposed to help me with my writing. You gotta understand what a big step this is for me. The last time I sat in a class room (even a cyber one)The Jefferson Starship was still an airplane, the Beatles were still a group, and the information highway was the road you took to get to the library! Wonder where I can get a cyber apple for the cyber teacher? Hell, it can't hurt. |
| Can a man’s head really explode because of a story that refuses to be told? I think I am going to find out if this keeps up. You see, I have this story in my head. It is going to be a novel, not a short story like I usually do and I have had more trouble with it than anything I have ever tried to write. Maybe it is because the novel is going to be a love story, that might be what is causing me trouble. I rarely ever write love stories. Perhaps I should revert to form and write it as a short story. I seriously don’t know what to do about the story, but somehow I feel that this is going to be the most important thing I ever write…..if I ever write it. On a brighter note, I have learned that I have been accepted as one of Lady Agatha’s Henchmen which means I will now be a judge in one of the best literary contest on writing.com. I am very excited at being considered and accepted for this honor. Work was not bad today, I only had three or four occasions to contemplate manslaughter. One lady in particular tried to fray my last nerve. She probably tipped the scales at five hundred pounds and she came walking in the store and promptly plopped her wide load down on one of our electric carts we have for the elderly and infirm shoppers. She looked for all the world like an elephant on a unicycle and when the poor overloaded cart just barely inched forward under the load she began to complain loudly about the shoddy performance of the machine. “WHY DON’T YOU PEOPLE GET CARTS THAT WILL MOVE FASTER?” She yelled at me. To which I answered: “The only way that cart could go any faster right now is to put a cummings diesel motor in it and mount 16” tires on it!” The sweet lady gave me the single finger salute as she inched down the main isle. My Exit greeter, and partner told me I really should make sure my rabies shots were current before I angered the customers in that fashion. I guess I just live on the edge, what can I say. Oh well, maybe one day I will finish this damn novel that is driving me crazy and I will be able to afford to just sit on a beach and watch the sunset with the lady I love. Until then though…..I better get back to work on it. Hopefully I will have something more interesting to say tomorrow. |
| At work today I wondered what I would write in my blog today, nothing jumped out at me as interesting. Then, when I came home, I went directly to the computer and logged into writing.com and opened my email. Yippie! I had a couple of new reviews, which is always exciting so I opened them up. Instantly I had fodder for my blog. Like most writers I live to have my work read and commented on by others. When the reviews are good I do the happy dance and when they are bad I strive to follow the reviewers suggestions, if I agree with them, in order to make my story better. This is the strength of writing.com; getting input from a varied group of your peers in order to make your writing all that it can be. But every once in awhile I get a review like the one today and I am reduced to spending precious minutes banging my head slowly against my desk in frustration. Here is my review in it’s entirety without leaving out one illuminating word: needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!!needs work!!!! Ok, I think I get the gist of what this person is trying to convey to me…..It needs work! See I can be very insightful when I want to be. Well after reading every word of this pithy review I scroll down and see what rating I got from him. I figured that maybe I was about to become the first writer in writing.com to garner a -1 for a rating. HE GAVE MY STORY A 5star RATING! This is the kind of schizophrenic Reviewing that drives writers to commit seppuku with a dull pencil. If it needs work, then tell us what it needs in your estimation. It’s like being slapped and then kissed and I am not a fan of rough sex! On a more serious note: Terry Schiavo is dead, the pope is dead, both deaths raise interesting questions. First of all Mrs. Schiavo’s husband told the world that she really didn’t want to live in the state she was living in after her heart attack. Supposedly she had told him this years before she became ill. Now Mr. Schiavo had already moved on with his life. He had another woman he was living with and they had children. Of course he couldn’t get married to her as he was already married to Terry. So why not just divorce Terry and move on? Was killing her his only way? This case was different in that she was not brain dead. Machines were not doing the work of her heart and lungs. She was taking nourishment from a tube and that’s all. They pulled the tube and let her starve to death. I am not sure I could do that to a family pet much less another human being. If I sound like I am pro-life, well, that is because I am. I have seen too many young men scream and fight for life even as their blood stained a foreign soil to believe in throwing away life needlessly. Just my opinion: God gave us life and I damn sure don’t want to ever throw it back in his face. The pope, who died yesterday was a kind of counterpoint to the Schiavo case. They inserted a feeding tube into him to keep him alive at first. Was it right for him and not for Terry? Things that make me go humm……. I guess, in the final analysis the thing for each of us to do is make sure we leave a Living Will directing doctors as to our wishes if this same problem overtakes us. Oh and if someone you really hate falls ill, then go tell the doctor you heard the patient didn’t really want to live like that….who knows, it might just work! |
Retail is a funny business but sometimes it’s hard to find the humor. I have held many types of jobs in my working years but most of them have revolved around retail in one form or another and the one truth that I have learned over the years is: Shopping can bring out the worse in human beings. If any of you out there doubt this statement just spend a few months working in a large retail outlet, you will see the truth. As I said the other day, I work at a Walmart Superstore and I am afforded a glimpse of human nature that folks outside of retail rarely get to see. I wonder sometimes if this phenomenon is prevalent only to America or does it exist in the rest of the world. I say this because America is such a consumer driven society, maybe the rest of the world doesn’t go crazy when they enter the portals of a store. Of course the holidays are the worse. There is nothing more frightening, from a salesperson’s point of view, than a crush of people on Christmas eve, in the throes of a shopping frenzy. I think a school of hungry sharks swimming in the midst of a group of hapless seals show more restraint than people do at this time. Last Christmas I actually saw a man walk up to a lady who was shopping in a wheelchair, the kind the store offers to the disabled with a basket on the front for their purchases. He just reached down and snatched a DVD player from her little basket and walked toward the check out line. It was the only one left and he wanted it….so he took it. Unfortunately for him too many sales clerks saw him do it and he was forced to return it to the lady. Right after Thanksgiving Walmart has what is called “The Blitz Sale”. This is the big kick off to the Christmas shopping season. Selected gift items, usually high end merchandise, is marked down to ridiculously low prices, placed on wooden pallets in the middle of the store, then the doors are thrown open and the stampede begins! It is like watching a herd of wildebeests stampeded by a pride of hunting lions while trying to negotiate a river crossing. And that is just them trying to get through the front doors. We once had an employee almost trampled when she lost her footing and fell in the mad crush of shoppers. Had it not been for a fellow sales clerk standing close by and grabbing her hand to help her up she would have been seriously injured. As it was she escaped with only minor bruising and nightmares for a few months afterward. For this they get paid minimum wage? Go figure. What is it about people and Christmas? Let us celebrate the birth of our lord Jesus: Go bankrupt buying gifts. Am I the only one who finds a problem with that philosophy? But there it is. People in America will go into serious debt for years just so their kids can have toys that they will use for a week tops before deciding they want something better. This is why, during the Christmas shopping season, I detect an underlying sense of quiet desperation among the people who wander our isles. They are driven to these excesses but they also want desperately not to have to do what they are doing. I can not see where the joy of Christmas comes to play in these people’s lives. This sad state of affairs is no longer confined to Christmas. Now even Easter has become an excuse to BUY, BUY, BUY! Can someone tell me when it became custom to buy gifts for Easter. We use to get together as a family, go to church, have a large dinner, and hide the Easter eggs for the children to find. That was it. You might buy extra eggs, some dye, and a Easter basket for the kids to put the eggs in. Now children expect to get GIFTS for Easter. MORE TOYS. MORE JUNK. More to be discarded weeks later. Why? I know, I know. The answer is simple. Big business tells us all the time on Television with their many commercials: CHRIST DIED ON THE CROSS AND ROSE FROM THE DEAD…SO BUY, BUY, BUY GIFTS! Simple isn’t it. Ok, I am rambling. I do that sometimes when I try to share my impressions of what must be the modern version of Dante’s inner circle of hell…uh…I mean retail. I will stop now and maybe next time I will discuss something lighter, like the Great Depression….Good lord! |
| Ok, someone tell me: When did we become a nation of cell phone junkies? It just seems to me that I woke up one morning and everybody had a cell phone glued to their ear… everyone but me that is. I refuse. I mean it’s ridiculous, you get twenty five third graders together and over half of them will have a cell phone! When I was nine years old we only had one phone, it stood on a stand in the hall and I damn sure better not get caught messing with it either! One of the most irritating things I have ever seen and I see it often; grown men pushing a shopping cart down the isles of walmart while talking to the wife on the phone and getting instructions on what to buy. I want to yell at them: “Grow a pair! Make your own decisions. If she was that concerned about what you were buying why didn’t she drag her butt out and come with you?” I remember the good old days when the cell phone was the size of a WW2 vintage walkie-talkies and guys use to carry them more for show than anything else. You know the type of guy I’m talking about, they would whip out the cell in a crowded café and PRETEND to make a call just to look important. Now I see people walking around with these little metal things sticking in their ear and looking like a victim of the Borg who have been assimilated. No, they haven’t been captured by aliens, they just have the latest word in cell phone communication. Where will it end? Will they start implanting tiny cell phones under our skin and all we have to do is push our belly button to speed dial our friends? I admit it, I am uncomfortable with the 21st. Century. My biggest concession to progress was finally getting voice mail for my home phone. It was not my idea. I figure if someone calls and misses me, if it is important they will try again. Seriously though, if something ever happens to interrupt this wonderful technology to the point where instant communication is impossible what will we do? Have we become so dependent on our “toys” that we will be unable to function without them? To me it is important to retain some independence from technology so that if worse comes to worse at least I will be able to buy food without consulting the wife! |
| In the break room today, on my first break someone mentioned again about the guy in California who was attacked by two escaped chimpanzees. Now I’m not sure if anyone is familiar with the case but it was definitely bizarre. Seems this guy and his wife were at one of those wildlife parks that abound in the US and two chimps escaped from their enclosure and came upon the couple who were standing outside at the time. Now these two chimps weren’t like that cute little fellow in the Tarzan movies, these were two full grown, powerful and obviously hungry primates. According to experts the chimp is seven times stronger than any man and the human couple didn’t stand a chance. The monkeys attacked them both, but the man pushed his wife out of the way of the rampaging simians and in turn was attacked by both animals. The man suffered terrible wounds as the chimps ate one foot, the fingers off both hands, half his face, his groin, and a large portion of one buttock. Now the first time I heard about this I was sympathetic toward the poor guy but then I read a short piece in the paper about the attack and his wife was quoted as saying “The whole time the chimps were attacking him he was trying to reason with them.” she said, speaking of her husband. I was flabbergasted…….Only in California could this happen. A guy is confronted by two hungry chimps who see him as their own personal “happy meal” and he TRIES TO REASON WITH THEM? Did I miss the big announcement that told us Chimpanzees were now able to speak our language and converse with humans? Folks, when faced with a situation like this, normal people will undergo the flight or fight syndrome. Namely, they will instantly access the problem and either fight like hell to survive or they will run like hell to get away. They will NOT resort to close combat debate with their attackers. As I said above, only in California among the liberal, tree hugging, new age wackos would this ever happen. Now I’m from Texas and I promise you those two chimps, had they escaped from a zoo around here, would have been too damn busy dodging the bubbas and their guns to even think about taking time out to munch on a couple of humans. Ok, Ok, to all you liberal, tree hugging Californians who might be reading this I do apologize for calling you wackos. You just march to the beat of a different drum….I just can’t understand the beat. Well I think I have done enough damage for one night. I will wait until tomorrow to add to this blog. I'm starting to like this thing. |
| Today is the first day of my blog experiment. To anyone who stumbles in here: Beware, this is just the random thoughts of a country storyteller. If I offend anyone, well please forgive me then retreat quickly and don't look back. I have a day job since, unfortunately, I can't yet support myself with my writing. Well I could but for the fact that I have grown accustomed to EATING. Five days a week I am to be found standing at the door of a Walmart SuperCenter greeting the masses as they make their way into our domain to satisfy their lemming-like impulse to BUY. As a door-greeter I am able to fulfill the requirements of the job with little thought, thus freeing my mind to work on important things such as whatever story I am working on at the moment, or maybe just mulling over things I have heard on the news or read in the newspaper. Now don't get me wrong, I actually enjoy the job. you see I came to it quite literally by accident. I was working in the meat department of the store when I tore my rotator cuff lifting heavy boxes. I was placed on "light duty" and put on the door greeter job. I so enjoyed it that when I was healed I asked to be transfered there permanently. It was great.....the other door-greeters, all over seventy called me "kid". I hadn't been called that in years! So now I spend my days observing the human condition up close and personal. This is sometimes funny, sometimes down right scary. You would not believe the wide range of human specimens which parade by me each day. There are days when I truely have a deep understanding of Darwin and his Theory of evolution. So this is what I do and this is what I will subject anyone who dares to enter here to....a glimpse at the human comedy. I will also, from time to time, delve into problems I may be having with a particular story I happen to be working on. For those of you who stumble in here, welcome...but don't blame me for whatever weirdness you find yourself embroiled in. That's just the way I am. |
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Congrats on 500 entries, and we are all looking forward to the sequel.