Yesterday, just a sleep ago...

The rain was at a temporary truce, fog bound the Western Washington, so the Trusty Triumph rolled out of the garage and turned on to warm up. At nine thirty in the morning I wondered at the number of fools running without headlights, it was thick fog. Interesting trying to gauge where I am in the ride when I can only see the road just around me, makes the journey a bit longer. I seem to be one of three riding a bike to work. Park it 'til evening return trip - what was that point about Daylight Saviings Time? It is so dark so early I have completely forgotten.

My sister mentions walking through the fallen leaves, the fat Maples await the stirring of my feet, and I am always taken back to the mountains of Pennsylvania and their colors for the weekend tourists. Homeboys soak it up while looking for deer. Which reminds me that it is hunting season and I haven't seen one - but as I look into a little valley in the woods, there she is. Looking back at me, pistol range and I am not carrying, So I talk to her about where she is, how she looks and wish her luck. Wondering if the hunters of yester-year would have let her go for another year or a bigger one around the corner, and would they have talked to her - probably.

In the evening as I walk out the gate of the prison and across the road I find another deer waiting for me - must be a sign, this one is feeding on a particular clump of vegetation and ignoring me, but most long legged females do so I am comfortable being a fleeting distraction. Again, we are talking short pistol range - less than twenty-one feet, and silly me, I start talking to her, too. Since the island is a National reserve there isn't any hunting on it, the deer population is large, only the coyotes and bumbling bears make an attempt to thin the population. Maybe I should think about hunting this weekend, enough to find some I could shoot, for me it is the time on the hunt more than the meat, I wonder if I can pick up a cougar instead. I wonder a lot.

I can't tell who is happiest... the birthday boy or

his mother. But I know it is all good. Seems the only serious human face in the whole transmission is the baby boy, wondering why he was being shoved towards that Apple logo and why that machine was laughing at him... I really do wonder what it came out in the tiny one's mind.

To think I have to go back to work tomorrow and Wednesday, two days worth of Institutional Library Services training conference in Federal Way and then we get to travel to Hawaii on Saturday. By air of course.

Take care out there and watch out for all the little ones - they have to pay off the Bush-Obama debts... or not.

Amazing changes in my son - all around his... ain't it a wonder?

Easter in the Great Northwest, and my heart...

It is raining on Easter and the Sunrise in its glory is behind the clouds. Don't you know it is beautiful above the clouds and beyond the bounds of Gravity and Earth's grip? So often one has to be a pilot to see the beauty of our home -- far from the grit and grime of our lives. It rains here on Easter. A cool refreshing rain, turning the grass and moss into a gleaming green, rich and alive. The flowers are blooming, birds courting and flying off to safer nesting areas. It is Easter and I am reminded that Spring is a new beginning, to get started on that harvest for the returning Winter. We are blest with the opportunity to do it again, to do it even better; it is time to be about Love's business.

Time sure flys when we're having fun...

Yeah, even a quiet day - aside from going out to have a nice dinner - goes too fast, most of today has been talking about our dreams and nightmares, our better past and all the blessings we have had. The missed opportunities and the funny way we got more than we deserved and the laughter and warmth of three or four different cultures, hundreds of friendly good folks we met and the things we need to do as we shut down the operations as the body gets older and slower and the heart pounds on steadily. As long as it is together we will be okay - either of us alone is a danger to society, luckily we aren't as dangerous as we once were, and certainly better that we behave because love and laughter has been our brightest spot in the darkness of "THEY" and their conspiracies against our happiness.

I wrote that I wasn't aware that I was surrounded by so many beautiful women when I was younger, but I was totally aware, in the picture my sister Joy, my mother holding Paula (who was a knockout then and now) and behind the camera I figure my little sister Nanette (as an angry teenager). Best part of it that their hearts are what is the most beautiful, lasts long past the earliest wrinkles and the nightly removal of makeup.

Dreams and reality... could be important...

The American Hunters and Shooters Association sent me the bumper sticker.
It won't go on my vehicles, but I was glad that they delivered on their promise, which makes me wary of all their other agendas and promises unsaid.

I woke from a wonderful dream this morning, and I am fat, the dream was of the military I am old but not as presently useless, and competing gently with young skinny kids in running, swimming and shooting. When a young seven year old girl comes up and introduces herself and we talk, as soon as I hear her name I remember her mother's name and she leads me away to meet her mother, so we go and I do. Too much about dreams may be about the me that never was but could have been, but the child was beautiful and so was her mother and that works. I am reading Daniel in devotions, which means one shouldn't dismiss dreams some times.

In the basket of daydreams is going to the NRA convention in Phoenix, Arizona, on my Trusty Triumph - day and a half down, two days coming back against the wind and the fatigue (information from another motorcyclist that has done it the same way I would - yes, he is a current inmate). Also, a more reasonable ride, to Boomershoot 2009, I have to ask for media pass - I don't think I am ready for the Precision Rifle Clinic - another year perhaps. But I would like to ride, watch and take pictures, and meet those that are enjoying the weekend. Yeah, where is that application for someone to pay attention to my dreams? Oh, email Joe Huffman. Thanks.

What time is it?

I woke this morning to the alarm cutting into my dreams, at 4:30, got up and walked across the room to the clock and shut it off. Turned around and felt it was Saturday, and I crawled back into bed and went back to my dreams. I woke to the nagging suspicion that it was time to get up, or else, 5:35 the clock laughed at me. I had twenty minutes to be out the door and on the road. Skip the shaving and I make it, eating my bowl of gruel in the Caravan, then washing it down with my microwaved last night's brew of coffee. Didn't want to fall too far behind, when I get old it is more difficult catching up to the young'ns. Work was fine, day just enough, and I come home to see the Snowcat lurking in the holes to the water meters, with just the head raised above their berm, looking for something to stalk and kill. When I return to try and get the picture the cat is coming out and I will be going in for more adventures in the morning, my supervisor is supposed to be there, and I have only one worker to man the counter - still it is Friday, we might make it.

Dear Senator, about Law Enforcement & Firearms...

Taking the time to ask your support of the 2nd Amendment. Especially the first part of the well regulated militia defending the free state. I believe that is often glazed over, but all your voters and potential voters are supposed to be in that militia and there aren't enough public shooting ranges, common use weapons and ammunition in storage for the citizens that don't have their own. This is something that should be fixed pretty soon, one never knows when the militia would be needed. Certainly need a participating public in securing the defense of the nation. We also need to get rid of all the laws that infringe upon the right of the people to keep and bear arms - some of us can afford the weapons and the ammunition to maintain our proficiency. Thanks for your time and your great service. Earl

Time to get out of the home and into the world...

Funny night, I dreamed about libraries - now that is different and I haven't checked the blood pressure but since my weight was down - I will pretend until later my bp is also. Off to church for my quiet time. And after-- this was my afternoon.

It is the twelth day of my Christmas... emails...

Today the last Christmas email note goes out, and it will end with 0001, and officially the idea of giving my family, friends (all two of them) and especially my mother a note a day to share my thoughts and holiday with. I know some of them were busy enough they never looked at email, and some of their addresses are work related so they only get them if they had to work, and some are away from their home computer station and aren't packing - but the internet is eternal as long as electricity throws current and EMP doesn't rule your area of the universe. They can catch it on DVD (no! just kidding those people that miss television shows and then have to buy the series in DVD - think of the commercials they miss - aren't they blest?).

I wake from long military dreams of getting back into sleeping on the floor or bunks shoved into hallways, issued uniforms, able assistance from civilian support staff to get it right. Of course, I am surprised the uniforms weren't blue or gray (I am so old) but they were OD and NATO camo - that still does date me, sigh. If there were any younger guns reading this I know y'all will be doing it right and for all the best reasons and that you don't need more than my support, and you always have that. I could jump out of aircraft, but what I would do upon landing is no longer up to the standards of a combat drop zone. Guess I will work on sharing my love of shooting and some basic skill transference to those starting out.

End of the year and I had best get a calendar out and plan a bit of the next. My Program Manager at work has our training days laid out, I think I might have to miss one of them - but don't really know yet. In June, the 19th thru 21st, the Dungey Reunion is planned in Green Bay, Wisconsin. And in May, the NRA Annual meet is in Phoenix, Arizona, then Camp Perry National Matches run five weeks starting in June 13 through August 19, should stop and watch some of that. I need to get out to see my mother in West Virginia, the neice in South Dakota, my son and his wife in Hawaii (have trouble imagining my riding the Trusty Triumph that way). My wife has a trip to Korea planned for 2009, but her brother hasn't come up with a date and plan yet so it isn't locked in either. There will be some motorcycle runs on some weekends, just because and if you don't know the because then I can't explain. There are some weekend Appleseeds they may want my help with (more opportunity to ride the Triumph and sleep on the ground, hurrah!)

So I expect my coming year to be busy, I expect to need a long vacations a couple of times this year, I have about 90 hours now and get 11.33 hours a month - so I will have to hold it close and schedule medical visits to clinics in Rochester Minnesota or Pittsburgh Pennsylvania - do you think? I have over five hundred hours of sick leave, if only motorcycle riding were a treatment for my condition I would be so out of touch... with reality.

About the coming year, my wife brought the turkey wishbone over to break with me - and it split exactly in half - don't tell me that is anything more than our luck will be shared, our blessings always have been. Take care out there.

It's time to get up and make the doughnuts...

The alarm wakes me from a sound sleep and dreams where you were there. A dusting of an inch of snow waits to cushion the fall upon the icy driveway or not, but it sure is pretty, the tree sparkles so I open the blinds for the world to see, but only the cat's paw prints tracked the snow outside, the world will wait for my first coffee.

Y'all have a very Merry Christmas! Earl

A Soldier's Christmas Eve
Sharing Gifts at Christmas

Uglies keeping one awake at night?

Well, I guess next Halloween we'll see Earl "sitting out ... on a rocker
on the porch, with a beat up hat, corn cob pipe, jug of moonshine
(almost), shotgun and hound at my feet with the King James Bible open
before me - and giving out candy and grinning at the kids with my teeth
out. That should scare them well enough... one of those rednecks that
the fellow fears while among the cultured of San Francisco."  Should be
an interesting sight - I'll have to see if I can manage a visit to him
then!



Well, y'all come, y'hear? The above picture was lifted from
Hillbilly Beans Espresso, of Little Rock, Washington.

Anyway, don't be bitter thinking this is King Charles the First
against the Parliament, nor are we going to go from Rhodesia
to Zimbabwe anytime soon. The fools and the stupids that
aren't locked up already will attack like the fellow in the one
of my comment responses - a college educated fool with bad
language and attitude but I am already on record against bad
language, I can't help his stupidity, but I try. Time to return
to bed and better sleep. God loves us, even the worst of us.

The best I get is name calling and bad attitude, nobody knocks
on the door to ask me to come out and fight in their joy about
the election?  No one fights anymore, wonder why that is? It
isn't civilization, and he already has bad manners - must be
fear... pure fear. And the worst that could happen in a fight is
to die, everything else heals eventually... even pride, go gently.

Poetry day in the library...

I know, no one really understands poetry - which is why Rap works for them that don't want to strain to understand. No, I really don't listen to Rap, and cannot say it isn't music nor poetry - if I had heard it I might say that, but I haven't. Still, one of my inmate workers wanted to know which poet said something like "To strive, to seek, to find, and..." or something like that. I have Google and I found it quickly and was amazed at how the poem spoke to me. That guy was almost me telling my story.

I am a big follower of Kipling, and e.e.cummings and Kim Addonizio but I am always willing to listen and read another that someone finds fine and listen to another melody in life's verses. So this should be on my epitaph - it won't be, too many words for the veterans marker, but if I think it should be required reading for all Social Security applicants, it would be a fine tribute to what I thought of this older elder me.

Tho' much is taken, much abides;
and though We are not now that strength
which in old days Moved earth and heaven;
that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Good morning, too early but sleep is done...

Time to run, haven't gotten the blood pressure measured yet, but I am very heavy, although a half pound lighter than yesterday morning. Imagine that, change to fresh batteries and the air pump and measuring stuff hummmm, right along and find the pressure and the heart rate in record time. Duracell, not that Energy Bunny.

Dreams were different, a bit, there was a military overcast, but a church was much more central than barracks with broken plumbing. The church was a bit disorganized, but the ladies of the church (and this was a kind of country church) rode around in shiny aluminum camper vans with busy hens painted like nose art on the rear end in eight foot by seven foot size - nothing 'chicken little' about that, and they were busy. There was singing, picnicking and good works being done, but there was friction and the minister was in shadows and not leading as much as led... I did get to slide my M1 Garand into the dream, to take shooting, right up there with the other church activities. I have thrown darts, played cards, dominoes, volley ball, softball and pitched horse shoes - but have never shot targets with the church. More the Boy Scout activity, is my life that compartmentalized? Is compartmentalized a verb? Don't forget the Girl Scouts need to learn how to shoot, too. Breda would never forgive my lapse.

Big day today, register the newer rifle on Fort Lewis, registered weapons hurt so many fewer people than unregistered weapons - look it up (everyone has an opinion). Then drop off twenty-six dollars in rolled coins for my savings account - every penny saved today will help the credit crunch. Bankers know if they don't have money to move and if they don't move money quickly that they won't get rich and be able to send their grandchildren to Ivy League schools - because bankers only get paid by the number of times they assist in moving money - more times equal more money (successful moves, not the throw away kind). And it doesn't matter what kind of money - drug money, thug money, tax money or Zimbabwe's best fresh printed. The only thing the government needs to do is make sure the money is sound - but policy seems to dictate that is really beyond the control of the government, or they pretend it is. Although the United States is my country and is BIG, STRONG and wonderfully Democratic as an evolving Republic/Empire - the current policy of printing money to pump up the volume is exactly what little ol' Zimbabwe does to keep the population placid... along with thuggery. We haven't gotten to the laws making us behave better yet, but they are right behind the bail out. Anyway, back to my last positive thought - put your loose change into a bank today, help jump start the economy (no, don't go buy anything on credit, pay all that off!).

The visiting English librarian visits today, this afternoon, the crew cleaned up and we look okay. I have eleven boxes of almost new books, donated by a citizen probably because our library was in the newspaper and he was reminded that not everyone was as fortunate as he. So he shared, and it adds to the work day, but he is a man and the books I have looked at so far will circulate well in my reading population. Still, there are too many for just my library and we will list and ship to other libraries and camps over the coming weeks.

My wife has finally paid attention to my being gone this weekend -- off to shoot, wondering if I was going hunting. Nope, just shooting. She has the estimators coming on Friday morning before she goes to work. She had yesterday off, Federal Holiday, and was housemaking and humming along. I got the Kiwi, Strawberry, Pineapple, Cherry shortcake for desert last evening - which is why I am not two pounds less weight this morning, but it was so good - yes, Cool Whip could have added a pound but she didn't add that and I like real whipped cream - but no one does that anymore do they?

Good enough or do you really need more?

There is a lot of stuff in my life, sixty years worth and adding to that every day. Looking at some blogs I notice that one gun is better than another - or so some would say. I like my two forty-fives and if I am serious about shooting I will drag them out and wear them. I didn't feel they were concealed carry so I went looking for smaller and still troublesome to those on the other side of my pistol. Got me a 9mm, and it almost disappears - with a pocket protector with pens no one notices. Just have to watch the happy huggers. But I was reading about my pistol on blogs and I got all kinds of comment - good and bad.

So I take it to the range and shoot, and don't find any of the problems mentioned. It is double action, and I take up the trigger and look at the target and hit the target when it fires, just like I was supposed to... out of the box, into my hands with full metal jacket. It does everything I ask, if I care for it properly it should for a long time. That takes care of carrying, then the only question - as in all heroic things - is opportunity and stepping up when it knocks.

Lately I get an urge to have a military rifle (who me?) I like the M-14 (with a 10 round magazine), can use an M-16, and love the looks and feel of the M-1 Garand, and a Springfield '03 would fit me - I just know it. So I start to look and hunger and want to buy... but wait, I have two 30-30 lever actions, and a Model 70 in 30-06. What is the reason I was hungering for a military rifle? Because I could - there is no need in my life for one, I could be pleased just firing one once in awhile but don't even have to do that. Okay, maybe I NEED to have a semi automatic rifle, but you are going to have to sell me that real hard. I know how to use a machine gun and automatic fire in combat, defense or offense, but I don't need a BAR or any of the machine guns. Not until the war starts and I figure I will get all the bullet launchers and ammunition I need, because I will be more willing to step up than many... So I will fire my rifles like I fire my pistols - with love, care and affection. And they are all straight out of the box, and they all shoot straighter than I can aim them - but I don't need Olympic precision, I only need combat effective and until the lights go out, I will always have that... or so I seriously believe.

The side of me, I will never see...

Quality time, with my wife and she wants to go to the YMCA and soak up heat, and I want to go shoot my pistols. So we do a little of both. She snaps some pictures of me shooting and this one catches my eye - since I never see this side. One never really knows how the world sees one, looking in a mirror helps get the hair straight and eye brows swept up but it is backwards from what you really are. So pictures have to cover the real you - and you do keep throwing away those that don't make you look good, tough, resourceful and brave (or at least I do). Some will worry about sexy - but that is so young in thought and foolish I am above that now, so above worried about looking sexy. But I do still look.

I, of course, am looking at how fat I am, hoping I still fit my pants and the spare tire isn't bulging too much (suck that stomach in, way in!). I was going to the Y so I will get a workout in, twenty-five minutes and nine seconds to row 5K, and thirty minutes on a step-strider for real sweat. I shot my KelTec PF-9, thirteen bullets, last seven all in the black. I also fire my favorite Colt Mark IV, Series 70, Government Model, .45 cal -- the last twenty only missed the black seven times, must have been rushing. It makes me happiest that all the bullets hurt the target aimed for, and although I couldn't charm my wife into shooting more than pictures I was very happy that she liked how well I perforated the paper and wants me to invite one of her ministers to come shooting one Saturday - I am all for that.

It is very difficult to be really objective about one's self and images. One of the reasons we test ourselves so often as we learn skills or achieve new levels of proficiency - we want to see how we are doing against the others in the race - The HUMAN Race, of course. I heard so many times yesterday that we were in the best country in the world, and although I know it is my country I have been in others and don't find this one the best at everything - there are some really great ideas that our country should consider. That goes back to my point about not seeing some sides of me - beyond my back, just in how I am in a social situation, how my critical comments will be received by people with other agendas, how I look to those afraid of weapons in my home, hands and head, how I look to those that knew me way back when -- that is a side I will never see. Everything about me I see through my mind's eye first; colored by trauma, emotion, desires, fears and dreams. I will never see your real "Earl" (me), I just hope I am better than either of us have noticed and remarked on in my life.

Problems with blogging are keeping me up...

I am, and I think therefore I 'really' AM, and I blog (verb) so y'all know I AM. Just remember I ain't the Great IAM, I always will. Yesterday was a bad day, spilled fuel on my motorcycle, left the receipt in the machine, rode off to work and other minor failures too numerous to mention. The calendar called me to the Institutional Library Services blog, another presentation to THOSE IN CHARGE next week on my time and their dime. It only exists on Wordpress and is totally private, even when we want to invite other Library Keepers from ILS they have trouble getting in and on and being so amazed at the good work. But I am getting my fill of being protected for my own good.

Wasn't Mayor Daley, of the noble Chicago dynasty, challenging me to get my gun and meet him with his in the street for a shoot out? I saw it twice on the telly and felt he thought we had to settle our differences that way. I wasn't interested, he wouldn't stand a chance against an old former paratrooper with one of Browning's finest designs built by a formerly wonderful arms manufacturer (given to me by wonderful loving wife for my birthday long ago). He knows that good law biding folks won't be coming anytime soon, he has disarmed us for his protection - although I do understand some criminals are still walking around armed and he might watch those times he goes out into the streets, but he has personal body guards doesn't he?

I fell asleep on the ferry ride away from the prison, the horn woke me and I was startled into getting oriented and off the boat before it returned to McNeil Island, I was so gone that I left my backpack with helmet and rainsuit on the boat. It had to be treated like a potential explosive package - thanks to quick radio call and my response they held it for me until I could return for it and get my chastising for making their shift less smooth than they wanted it. In Iraq the engineers would have blown it up, righteously. I couldn't have ridden my trusty Triumph down to pick it up, since I wouldn't have been wearing a helmet, so I accepted the ride in a big GM truck like the one that almost rode me down last week. Better driver and happier ending since I got my gear and rode on home. The State is certainly watching over me.

I have a anxious wife, she knows exactly how long it takes me to get there, the garage door is open and she hovers. We greet and go on in and start catching up, restoring links and covering our domesticallity. I am in for a treat, Vietnam noodles, cooked by the Korean lady love. I also get sliced cucumbers in vinegar with sesame seeds (the perfect Summer cooler) and a mug of coffee. All so welcome and totally undeserved for my wife has ripples in the harmony of our universe. She is still looking for closure on my going out and meeting two guys I don't know from anywhere for dinner on Sunday. (In Korean society if you don't have a proper introduction by people of responsible manner you are not to be trusted - ever!) Well, Sailcurt is out of here today, safe voyage, and Big Bad Wolf is so busy he hasn't written on his blog and I am okay being me mostly alone; cutting the grass, riding the bike and shooting straight all for the best reasons. But it calls me to my ripples in my harmony of our universe. The blogs that die along the way...

Skywriter was great, I looked forward every day to what wonder I would find on her blog - then something ugly came along and she said good-bye. I believe she is fine and I know she never knew I existed but I have faith that she will be rewarded in Heaven no matter what happens on Earth. About the time I start following the War on Terror in the Sandbox and various military and supporting military bloggers I find that those same stupid (did I call them stupid? they just stopped reading this) officers, that I would never follow in combat anywhere (because they don't ever lead and never know the price and can't count the cost), those officers still wear the uniform and stomp out life where ever they can't stand it. Ka-BOOM of Gravedigger fame - written by an officer not like the other ones, is dead and destroyed - only in the blogging universe. I know now why bloggers steal real blogs for archiving, since they can really disappear from the cyberspace - they are only binary code when looked at very closely. Being a prayer I honor his request and will continue to pray for him, the Gravediggers and City Girl, just because it is right and I can do no more. I also hope the fool (read stupid) officer that kicked over the switch gets smarter or sent off to a corner where he (or she) can't hurt real combat operations. But I am too much a paranoid pessimist to put any faith on that happening.

Well, only sixty minutes and one mug of coffee, black, to get my mind back to empty and greet the remainder of the day, oh and I have to go, someones are out there waiting for me. I may get a chance to greet the last of the returning 4th of the 2nd ID, but they might get in early and the evening commute may get in my way. As long as they get back safely and rejoin America at the Mall well, God Bless'em All.

What are dreams made of?

It has been a rough day; too much anxiety and restless feeble fears, the work was huge, the pace meaningful and most is done. I was caught by The Aboves in my lapses, the fax machine didn't connect even once, the telephone kept getting busy signals and the internet alone made me linked. So I close shop and head for home, thinking of girl friends - isn't that what men are always supposed to be thinking about? If they only knew the truth...

Roads were dry, I could have been going home on the motorcycle, but didn't take it to work today. I talked with another motorcyclist, has had his for two years and now has a thousand miles on it, since he only rides in the Sun, and you don't want to know how infrequently that happens up here. I have a long ride on Saturday, no girl friends there, going around Mount Rainier, poker run and barbeque. I drive to my home, and open the garage door and see that I am alone - ever wonder why I would think about girl friends? I don't get dinner tonight, have to fast for the blood work tomorrow, the final check. Still I notice my wife has done wonders and there is a picture I will share.

She has always worked, and even in our ancient aged condition she continues. And some people are blest to have the perfect profession that fits them - Joy in the Job! Meet my wife and her passion. And if you don't know that she is beautiful, you aren't looking at her heart and have missed the best part of my life.

What is picked up and what got left behind...

Monday was a good day, my foot was bad but better, my attitude positive and work went well for such a small crew. There are rumbles of things getting done. I went home and didn't turn on the computer, I already knew what was in the email and could answer it later. So I spent time with self, thoughts and worn wife watching wrestling. Wondering if the Divas get the same pay scale as the male wrestlers. She slips gently to sleep so softly snoring. I get the dishwasher loaded and soaped up then push us off to bed and better sleep under downy comforters - such little old people.

Dreams of military and large family and I get so much younger there, a celebration and a toast - and my parents disapprove of my using water to toast with - so I decide to show everyone what a drunk I can be after toasting with wine and then pouring much more alcohol upon it. I woke, because that was so not my parents, not me and definitely so young - but I did recognize that fool drinking to drunk to prove something, he was destroyed somewhere along my way.

I take my morning medications (I take everything at once - short memory) and putter around making coffee and weighing self and taking blood pressure. Then I start to unload the dishwasher and put stuff away, I could leave it for my wife - some of the stuff only she knows where it goes - but I have time and will like being thanked for it later. I notice the strange spoons, not part of the sets we have been given or we purchased, not belonging but with our stuff now. As I do coffee cups I notice the variety and the marking from different places and times far away and so long ago. Even from Grandmother's after I returned from Vietnam, but I think professional military types pick up coffee and beer mugs along with strange ways of looking at life. I know I drank lots of hot tea with honey and lemon from the beer mugs - not being a beer drinker, not being an alcohol drinker at all most of my life.

I sent my first HERO mug from McNeil Island to my son in Iraq, he complained about lack of ceramic mug for coffee - or what the Navy says is coffee. I got myself another later, I liked helping the war effort and it was just another item he could leave behind as he packed out to return to normalacy, if one ever does. We leave a lot behind, moving quickly between postings and operations and deployments and detachments. We miss some of our loved one's best moments, we are there for the other times, and it is like that dance sometimes too close and sometimes too far away, but we dance and leave behind a touch, a look and make a memory.

Nice thing about being dangerous is...

Not too much. I think babies have it right, the first line of defense is a smile, the second is the loud red faced crying to gather helpful adult attention. I did grow out of the baby thing, and took to being me - fighting wasn't automatically a sin in a boy growing up - so I fought for fun, dominance or fright. I often wished I was still working on that smile, but other boys don't tolerate boys smiling at them... but they respected me when I could take my lumps or dish them out in return. I started carrying knives somewhere along the Cub Scout Boy Scout period, by junior high and high school there was no doubt that I would have a folding knife in my pocket, even owned a switchblade once, but never carried it - that was against the law.

I did get cast out of my second family's home for almost a year, because someone said I had used my knife in a fight or scuffle - I hadn't, and I don't really remember a fight or a scuffle with the people that said I had been there and had pulled a knife. When I was growing up a knife was something a Mexican would use in a fight, and like kicking (before Martial Arts boom) wasn't a MANLY way of fighting. The truth came out and I was re-invited to my second family's home again - which was always wonderful for me.

As an Airborne Artillery First Sergeant I allowed my paratroopers to carry knives and drape them on their combat gear. For three years we never had difficulty doing rigging nor de-rigging our equipment for or on airborne operations. Of course there would be excesses in size of the blades, cost of the blades, numbers of the blades - but I never had a problem with the blades being used in anger or assault of another paratrooper. Two First Sergeants after me didn't change the knife situation, but finally a good First Sergeant showed up and in six months he had them back to a proper size, and number of blades for real work instead of posing as some really bad airborne dudes.

In Hawaii, when my mother wanted to peel an apple she asked for my knife, my brother wondered how I had gotten a knife through the airport security, and I wondered how my mother knew I would have a knife to borrow. Some things are probably certain about some people, and I will have a blade or a reasonable replacement - I have been watching inmates with their house key, what they can cut through is almost amazing... technique not edged. Rogue Gunner has a nice blade and story I think worth the time.

So now in the days of the Second Amendment, and the contest between the gun lobby and the anti-gun gaggles (yes, I am allowed to chose the terms I label them with - they will do it to me) I am still encouraging responsible knife ownership and use. You see, I know about cutting flesh and blood flow - do it every time I really get to sharpening my blades, and I also know that one must get close and personal to fight with a knife - Jim Bowie is one of my heroes, he was great with the blade. The problem I see with pistols, in today's age, is that most people haven't gone to that level where they understand death done with guns, bullets striking flesh and breaking bones, and such -- too much Hollywood, and not enough time in the field taking down animals in the hunt (then picking them up and gutting them or butchering them for food). Somethings just don't happen as cleanly nor as ugly as film has made it.

But to be really dangerous one should know how dead a human will be when shot properly - they won't come back in next week's episode, or the next blockbuster hit - they will be waiting for you when you go to sleep and dream, as you start to accept them being there -- then you will be dangerous.

Getting up to think, getting up to think...

It isn't really fair, once I was young, gallant and could sleep anywhere, anytime and in perfect comfort, now I have to think and that calls me from the land of Nod. Oh, I can still sleep on floors (heated better than not), or ferry boat rides, or while driving down the long highway (watchout!!) but eight hours in my bed doesn't seem possible. I take four for the body and reptilian- animal brain and then the higher levels of mental activity go from just dreaming to demanding logical functions with permanent solutions... the dreams are better entertainment, and I don't dwell on them except to laugh, the real thinking I will be stoking the fires and fueling the waking in the middle of the night tomorrow. Do I wake more in thought because I am driven to complete my quest? and I am running out of time and feel it? If I became more hormone imbalanced would the dancing girls come back and the frightening logic kindly step aside?

Ah, the picture? young paratrooper preparing for the Yom Kippur War

"What? ME worry?" not when I was young and foolish, what were those hormones?