Back when I raced my sailboat

 years ago I went into it with a somewhat different attitude than a lot of other people.

I simply hopped into it and raced it the way it was.

A lot of guys would empty their entire boat into their pickup for the race to save weight. It was bare bones to the point where they didn't even carry ice to chill their beverages.

For me that sounded ridiculous.

I did race under the handicap system which kind of (theoretically) evened things out a bit. 

Hull speed on a sailboat can easily be calculated. It is a formula of the square root of the waterline X 1.34.

This means that bigger boats simply go faster. My 18.08 waterline calculated out to a hull speed of 5.7 knots. It is supposedly how fast the little boat could go. It doesn't matter how much wind there is.

I also had a couple of other handicaps like the fact that I didn't retract my outboard and that created drag.

Because of these factors and a few others I didn't really have much of a chance at line honors. I also didn't have much of a chance winning under the handicap system, either.

Still, all in all I entered and raced her as she was. I didn't strip her down or play the silly little games some of the others did.

Truth is there wasn't any real prize other than bragging rights.

The racing circuit I was in was nothing more or less than an chance to go out in my boat and sail my heart out.

I remember one start I made. It was a real circus. It was a case of a much bigger boat trying to intimidate me into giving up the right-of-way which I had.

We were slowly getting closer and closer and one boat had to give way. He was supposed to but thought he could intimidate me with his size.

The guy sailing with me had extensive racing experience and quietly told me to hold course and speed.

When we were about five or six feet apart he looked at the skipper of the bigger boat, took a pull out of his beer and threw the can into the salon. He looked at the skipper and calmly spoke.

"You DO realize that Piccolo has a minimum wage job. He lives on the boat because he can't afford a place to live and doesn't have a dime's worth of insurance."

While I didn't live aboard and had a better job than that I didn't have insurance. Still, he didn't know that. He promptly panicked, threw off his Genoa sheet and turned to starboard. I simply whistled on past him. He wound up going past the starting buoy on the wrong side and had to go around it again and lost a lot of time.

After the race he protested. When they heard my side of the story they actually broke up laughing.

The truth of the matter is that I generally came in last place after all was said and done. I could live with that because I was running a cruiser in a racer world.

They also didn't give me any disrespect, either. That's is because they knew I had more offshore racing experience than many of the others. I had cruised the little boat extensively.

Most of the racers there were pretty much racers that had careers and were chasing the brass ring. They had no time to cruise. For them it was a dream. For me it was a reality simply because I was not tied down to a career.

Most of the people in the circuit knew this and respected it. 

The truth is I raced for the same reason a guy with a game leg enters a foot race he has no chance of winning. He enters it simply for the joy of running and improving himself.

I entered the racing circuit simply because it was a chance to sail my ass off in an organized setting against better racers than me. It was an opportunity for self-improvement. 

I suppose it is the same reason I shot competition for so many seasons. I simply wanted to get better at it.

I learned that in order to improve myself I had to shoot against people that were better than I was in an organized situation. It worked. I got a lot better after a while.

One of the biggest things that people have to get over is that there is nothing embarrassing with entering a contest that they are not going to win. I figure that it is a bigger personal embarrassment not entering and using the experience to improve one's self with.




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The other day I referred to the President of the United States as 'Old Jug Ears'.

It really wasn't long ago that I would not have even considered referring to the POTUS with an insulting name like that. At least publicly, anyway.

I don't think it is because I am gtting old and cranky. I just thin that after seven plus long years of his incompetence I've had it.

I used to avoid public slights to the serving president out of respect for the office. However the present occupant of the office has just made me sick and tired of him.

Seven years ago things were not too bad. Now we don't even know which bathroom to use.




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If gun owners were as crazy and dangerous

 as liberals claim, there wouldn't be any liberals.

It's true. If gun owners were crazy and as dangerous as liberals say then the liberals would have been gunned down years ago.

There is another school of thought to that.

It's too bad gun owners are not as crazy as they are reported to be because if they were they would have gunned down liberals decades ago. Then we'd probably all be a whole lot better off.

We'd likely have little or no national debt because we wouldn't be giving the entire national treasury away to people too lazy and stupid to take care of themselves for one thing.

I think liberals ought to shut the hell up and count their blessings.




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Well, Old Jug Ears went to Hiroshima

 and started blubbering about how the bombing of Hiroshima was evil.

Listen, Jug Ears, a far better president than you anguished over the decision to drop it over 70 years ago and he made the right decision. Period.

One of the things President Harry S. Truman looked into carefully is how many lives of BOTH sides could be saved if the bomb shocked the Japanese into surrendering.

MacArthur estimated a million GI casualties.

The Japanese themselves estimated that they would lose at least 20 million people if the Allies invaded Japan. They knew there would be no divine wind to blow up a storm like what happened in 1274 and again in 1281. Both of those times Mongol invasions were stopped cold by storms that tore up the Mongol fleets. 

They knew that it wasn't going to happen in early '46.

The truth of the matter is that while the Japanese lost an estimated 80,000 people when Hiroshima was bombed. However, a few months earlier the Tokyo firebombing on 8-9 March, 1945 caused the Japanese to suffer 100,000 deaths.

All in all a better president thant the one we have now took the bull by the horns and ordered the bombings in a serious and successful attempt to stop the bloodletting.

And now you want to apologize for it.

I bear no ill will toward the Japanese. In the contrary I have met any number of Japanese over the years and for the most part they have been polite, decent people.

Still, in 1945 we were at war with them and it was a war we did not start. They did. 

I'm not here to dig up a lot of histroy and open up wounds between us and the Japanese. They are a wonderful ally these days and we ought to stand by them if they need help. For one thing the Japanese PEOPLE--not the government--the PEOPLE drummed up $13 million for disaster relief.

In short I am not here to bad-mouth the Japanese.

Still, this is now 2016 and not 1945. The war has been over for over 70 years and we bear no animosity toward the Japanese.

On the other hand, back in 1945  REAL American president made a decision that actually saved Japan who at that time was a belligerent nation in a war with us.

Harry Truman made a decision that saved a Million GI casualties and probably over 20,000,000 Japanese deaths.

For that we owe nobody and apology.

Jug Ears should have kept his whiney, pouty fat mouth shut.

One other thing, Mr. President. You ain't a pimple on Harry Truman's ass.

********************

When I heard the Japanese prime minister groused about a serviceman on Okinawa murdering a woman I thought it was a cheap shot and showed Obama (and by extension Americans in general) disrespect.

I do believe I would have quietly told him he was lucky I chose to arrive on Air Force One instead of a B-29.




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Political statements at work.

How about no?

You are there to work and you don't have a right to express your opinions on their dime.

What brought this on is there's an article I read about a women that wore an "America never was great" ball cap to work at Home Depot. It caused an outcry from customers and the Home Depot people told her to ditch the hat while at work.

Fair enough. Their business, their rules. Most smart businesses steer very clear of the social and political arenas because it's bad for business. Chick-Fil-A and most recently Target are a couple that entered the fray and it cost them a lot of business.

They don't need some entry level employee dragging them into it.

She got off light. She kept her job. Most places would have outright fired her and I am surprised Home Depot didn't for all the stir she caused. My guess is that they figured that simply telling her not to wear it would cause the smallest amount of furor.

I do believe she is a dumbass, though and will likely get canned because I read in an interview she intends to wear it again at work.

I would imagine her days at Home Depot are limited because if I were running the store I'd find some legitimate reason to get rid of her. What? Late for work? Adios.

If or when she does she'll probably get canned and won't have anyone to blame but herself. It's fair. She's been warned.

Personally I wish she'd just leave but people like that won't because they have it too good here.




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The following is someone else's opinion.

Look.... I don't care who a person sleeps with. I don't care if they think they are something or someone they are not. I don't care if a person dresses up as the opposite sex. Why? Because ultimately, all of this is between you and God, and is not my responsibility. So, live and let live. 

But when you shove it in my face.. When you (or the .gov) demand that I accept this behavior... and demand that I compromise my beliefs and values to embrace these.... And tell me that my own religious beliefs are not a valid reason to oppose such deviant behavior... Well, Houston... we have a problem!! A line has been crossed. 

You have now taken a person who was neutral to your cause... and could've cared less... and have made him an "Anti". I was pushed here... you backed me into the corner. I'm being pushed to take a stand for my own beliefs and principles. By demanding that people with a penis have a "right" to enter the woman's bathrooms. locker room, and dressing room... You have made it my business as my wife and children use those facilities, and they shouldn't be subject to having to see your junk, in order to make you feel better about yourself.

******************************


To a great extent I feel pretty much the same way. I have been pushed to take a side and the interesting part I am not going to side with the LGBT community OR the straight community. I'll side with both of these two factions.

I'm pissed off and both the Social Justice Warriors that started this mess and the government for being stupid and power hungry to get involved.

It's time to rein in the little troublemakers that call themselves Social Justice Warriors. They're the ones that started this mess. They don't realize it but they have harmed the LGBT community a lot more than they have harmed the rest of us.

Things were pretty much under control and transgenders were pretty much left to themselves until those twisted little dweeb do-gooders started the fray.

No, I am no advocate of violence but I do believe in social justice. If a group of the LGBT community were to find one of these jerks, soak them in gasoline and throw a match at him or her I would have to run away before it happened. That way I could not be forced to testify against anyone.

Their screams would be unheard by me. I would not dial 9-11 and I would actually have the nerve to tell a policeman that I ran away specifically so I didn't see or hear anything.

I'd do the same for the straight community.

Now the next group to feel my wrath is North Carolinian state government and the feds for getting involved in this issue in the first place. It's not a governmental issue.

I do agree with the State of Texas for telling the feds to stuff it, though. It was none of their business.

This issue had been settled at a grass roots level for decades before the feds stepped in.

Men's and woman's rooms actually had a little flexibility before Big Brother stepped in. Women occasionally took their small sons into the men's room and sometimes dear old dad took darling daughter into the woman's room to help their toddlers out. It is what parents do and nobody objected.

Most men chuckle when that happens. Either they have or have been around little kids. They know what's going on. I'm pretty sure woman are as compassionate. They probably respect the father for taking such good care of the daughter.

There are not too many guys that travel extensively or attend sporting events that haven't had the sanctity of the men's room crashed by women that just couldn't wait because the lines at the woman's room were too long. Most men pay them no mind.

One time I as I was standing at a urinal I had a woman come in griping that the woman's room was a pig sty. I laughed as she headed to a stall.

There it was until a few weeks ago. A grass roots issue that seemed to have been settled for decades. A sleeping dog.

As for the transgender community?

They were discrete and used whichever room was appropriate and headed straight to the privacy of the stalls. Either nobody knew or nobody seemed to care. Nobody I know of had any objections...until the Social Justice Warriors created a problem where there wasn't any.

Personally I would like to see both the LGBT community and the straight community chase those little social justice dweebs out of their mama's basements and into the streets and give them a chance to show us how tough they are.

Show them that there are no campus 'safe spaces' in the alley behind the Chinese restaurant and leave them beaten senseless.

The guilty party here isn't the LGBT community. It's the social justice types that start this stupidity to begin with.




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The email that led to a post

 I made a couple of days ago opened a whole lot of memories, mainly of mischief.

I remember the time a young woman in her early 20s settled an old score with me and I do have to admit that it was hilarious. I had teased her as a kid and she got her pound of flesh out of me.

She knew I was headed to the mall and ran into the house and dolled herself up in her shortest skirt and put on her makeup. The she waited abut 5 or 10 minutes until I left and followed me.

She knew where I was going and 'accidentally' ran into me and gave me some excuse or another as to why she was there and said her car was dead and needed a ride home.

As we were walking along she saw what she was looking for. It was a nosey looking group of three or four old ladies. That's where she sprung her trap. 

She held up her car keys and squealed. "A brand new Corvette for me? How sweet!" and planed a kiss on me. "Can we pick it up now or after we get back from Hawaii?"

I had been had and I knew it. I recovered as best I could. "Let's go pick it up now!" I said, trying to recover.

The look on the old woman was priceless and I knew they thought I was an old fool chasing a young girl less than half my age. I admit, I laughed. I had been had and a joke on me had cost me nothing.



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One of the drawbacks

 to running Milspec gear is getting repairs done.

It can be a bitch because most people in the various repair field don't seem to understand things. They get confused with things because most military field gear is built differently. It's built to be used in the field out in the weather.

Much of it also uses propriatary accessories like plugs, batteries and so on.

I have had an Itronix GoBook destroyed and a Clansman radio battery improperly rebuilt over the past couple of years because the repair people just didn't understand that much Milspec gear is very different than the normal Joe Homeowner/Suzie Housewife type stuff.

The idiot that told me he could fix my GoBook ended up handing me a box full of small parts and asking me why all the screws had watertight gaskets on them.

I had carefully explained that the laptop was Milspec and that he could expect to find gaskets on all of the outer screws before I turned it over to him. I was livid. The cocky little know-it-all hadn't even listened.

That really let me angry because I had carefully explained that this was not Joe Businessman's typical take to the office laptop and he said he understood.

Needless to say he went unpaid after an epic lecture on the stupidity of taking on a job on something he knew nothing about.

I did manage to salvage the hard drive, though.

Another thing I had a problem with was getting a military radio battery rebuilt. 

I carefully explained all of the details to the head rebuilder and specifically told him I wanted the ni-cads replaced. I also said that besides polarity being important, I wanted to make damned good and sure the thing could be recharged with the military charger. That way I didn't have to remove the battery from the rig to recharge it. I could recharge it in place and still run the rig while it was charging.

Then things went straight to hell. He delegated it to an idiot that had no clue.

While the battery got back to me rebuilt the dumb assed kid said he didn't know what the four little wires were for so he cut them off. I blew a fuse.

"How am I going to charge it?" I asked.

"Oh, well we can sell you a charger," he said brightly.

"And where do I get the energy to run siad charger?" I asked. My voice was getting to sound like Jack Nicholson getting ready to lash out.

"You plug it into the wall," he said, like he was explaining something to a small child.

I kept my temper. "And just where do I find this wonderful wall outlet when I am on top of a hill out in the middle of nowhere?"

He looked confused. I grabbed a pencil and paper and drew a quick sketch of a small island with a palm tree on it. "And now, Junior Rocket Scientist, where is the outlet on the island? This is the kind of place I want to be able to operate out of. I use the military charger for that kind of place."

He looked like he had been slapped hard. Completely stunned. "Well, I thought..."

"You didn't think because if you did think you would have asked," I interrupted. I turned to the boss.

"You should have explained this to him a lot clearer. You knew I wanted it to be operable with the military charger. We discussed that."

I did pay for the battery rebuild itself but I also left with one of the NiCad chargers for free. Still, I can't use the OEM charger on the battery which leaves me with three batteries I can use the OEM charger on and one I can't.

Still, I guess I can recharge the battery with a seperate hand generator but that can take hours. 

After those two experiences I am going to have scout around a little more to get things done. I'll have to start taking stuff to either specialists or people that have actually done the particular operation for themselves.

Truth is, the other day when I got a modification done to a PRC 320 I made damned good and sure the person had done the modification to his own rig and knew what he was doing.

I just wish people would think before they say they can do something.

Still, ultimately I suppose it is up to me to dig a little more and make damned good and sure the repairman actually DOES know what he is doing.




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My nephew is boiling water.

.

His wife just went into labor so the woman folk are keeping him in the kitchen boiling water. Women folk do this with the old man to keep him out of the way so he's not a PITA. That way the woman folk can deliver the baby without distraction.

At least that is what happens in old westerns. The old man boils water while the womanfolk deliver the baby.

These days most fathers accompany the wife to the delivery room, actually.

I just got word that the nephew's wife is in labor at the hospital but will likely give birth in several hours. So I gave the nephew a quick call.

"Boiling water?" I asked.

"Yup," he replied. He picked up instantly on what I had asked. He'd heard it mentioned before. It's an old family tale of my father in an expectant father's waiting room. My father actually brought a hot plate and a big pot and boiled water while he waited to hear that my baby sister had arrived into this world.

"Don't tell me, let me guess," I said. "You're in an expectant father's waiting room full of thick cigarette smoke pacing back and forth."

Back in the day this is the way it was. Expectant fathers paced around waiting nervously running up to the desk every two minutes to bug the nurse for news of the delivery. All the while they wuld be chain smoking cigrettes. The waiting room was generally so smokey it put a pool hall to shame. 

He laughed. "Actually no," he replied. "I'm in her room in a chair that converts to a sleeper. I'm working on a project until the time comes."

Anyway, as I write this it looks like I am going to be a grand uncle again to a little girl. 

This is an amazing age we live in. As I type this my cell phone went off and I have a text.

I am now a grand uncle to a 5 pound 2 ounce baby girl!

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
I told my shipmate and he simply said, "Come back when you're a great grandfather! Great uncle! Sheesh! That's like telling me you know someone that just had a baby!"

SOMEONE had to rain on my parade.

Better him than some jerk. He's a damned good shipmate.





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I just got a funny email from a friend.

"Hey, when can the wife come over your place to get some peace and quiet and figure out the family bills?" he asked. "She'll put on her hooker outfit."

I laughed and now that I think of it it's likely that his wife told him to ask me that. She's s character.

I really like that woman. She's got a pretty damned good sense of humor. There is quite a difference between tawdry and earthy and this woman is totally classy yet down to earth. It's rare and a joy to run into.

They were over the house a while ago and we were doing a ham radio thing. Dinner was here but served as a catch as catch can deal. It was a working dinner. She grabbed a plate and loaded up. I grabbed a stainless steel GI mess hall tray as it is easier to move around. She didn't bat an eyelash at that. She knew why I did that without asking.

I was on the laptop, he was on the rig and she was generally taking care of odds and ends. The phone rang.

"Hey, someone get that. If they want me tell them I'm in the driveway with some babe that just got out of a Ferrari sportin' a $40,000 boob job!" I said. I'm an automatic smart-ass, especially when something annoying like a poorly timed phone call comes up.

She laughed and simply answered the phone and told the telemarketer that had called just that. She reported that the telemarketer seemed sort of shocked and had cut the call short.

She's rather busty and after she got off of the phone she came over to me and stuck out her chest and asked me to appraise them. "What are these worth?" she asked, impishly, but in kind of a Mae West tone.

I didn't expect that and was glad I didn't have a mouthful of anything. I would have snarfed so hard that barbecued ribs would have shot out of my nose. It was her humorous way of coming back at me for the $40,000 boob job line I had told her to give to the telemarketer.

I grinned and replied, "Those are priceless!" and we all laughed and went back to the project. She pitched in where she could and things went smoothly. 

Later after things settled down the subject of neighbors in general came up and I laughed and looked at him. "You do business around here ever?" I asked.

"Occasionally," he replied.

"Bring her with you," I said. "Stop at the bank first and break a $100 bill into one fifty and fifty ones."

I looked at her and asked her, "Could you conjure up a really trashy outfit somewhere? You could come over read, watch TV and do bills for a couple hours when he's doing business and I'm working in the basement. Then when he's ready he calls you on the cell. That's when you muss yourself up. Slide your skirt off center, muss your hair and maybe pull off one false eyelash just before you leave. Then dig the wad of cash out of your bag and walk out with it in your fist."

She blushed and laughed. "Maybe leave one stocking ungartered so it slips down and I have to lift my skirt and fix it in the driveway?"

" You know the drill. Perfect. Look like you have earned every dime of that money." I said and we all laughed. "Hell, I don't even have to be home. I'll take the Miata out of the garage, leave the truck in the driveway so it looks like I'm home and leave the key someplace."

"What would the neighbors do?" he laughed. 

"Truthfully most of them wouldn't bat an eyelash. They know me too well but the one over there would go completely nuts," I said, pointing to a house nearby. "She'd be on the phone before you even drove off!" We had a chuckle and finished the evening project up and they left.

It was a memorable evening partly because of the project but mainly because of the great company. He was great and so was she. 

It's rare running into a woman like that that is comfortable around men and can share humor and still stay truly classy.

The email he just sent me caused me to chuckle and remember a fun night with good company.

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One of the things I can't wait for to happen

 before the general election is the celebrities to start threatening to leave if Donald Trump gets elected.

I wish there was some way we could hold those spoiled brats to it. 

Truth is that it becomes just one more reason to vote for Donald Trump. I wonder if Trump is going to use that in his campaign?

"Here's the latest list of celebrities that are going to leaveif I'm elected," says Trump. He starts reading the list and commenting.

"Hmm. Rosie, huh? Good. We'll all be glad to get rid of her fat ass and big mouth. Oh yeah. Here's another one...wait a minute...What's he doing on the celebrity list? Has anyone ever heard of this jerk?"

Trump is probably too smooth and polished to do something like that but maybe not. I seriously think an awful lot of us would be amused to hear a presidential candidate actually do something like that.

However, it Trump does win I hope he makes an offer to fly these people out of the country on an old C-130 or something. I'd love to hear these people shamed like that.



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The thing that made me lose all faith in the mainstream media was

 the way they handled the Trayvon Martin shooting.

The whole thing was a series of lies, half lies, half truths, omissions and just about ever cheap shot you cold imagine.

George Zimmerman was painted up as a fiend that sneaked up on a cute little child and gunned him down in cold blood.

I would imagine if it was not for the Internet they could have gotten away with it. The pictures the MSM showed were all of a 12 year old cute little kid in a hoodie with an angelic face.

The pictures floating around on line showed a belligerent teen playing with guns, making gang signs and generally acting thuggish. They painted an entirely different picture of Martin.

George Zimmerman probably isn't going to find NASA at his doorstep looking for help with the re-entry vectors of the Space Shuttle. That's a given. I also don't expect the Pope to canonize him in the near future, either. 

I figure Zimmerman is just some dumbass that got himself in a jam of sorts by legally following someone that looked suspicious around. He got cornered when Martin assaulted him and used whatever was at hand to defend himself. He had a gun and used it.

According to Florida law and the evidence the case probably should never have come to trial and likely would not have if the MSM had been honest about things.

With the media circus going on and the President's anti gun ownership policies, Obama saw this as an opportunity to make firearm owners all look bad.

Of course, the MSM and president wanted to paint Zimmerman, a Hispanic, as a disgruntled white guy to play the race card with. Being Hispanic didn't fall into their category so they created one. Zimmerman got labeled as a 'White Hispanic'. That was a new one.

He wanted Zimmerman to burn for simply defending himself against an assailant. He wanted Zimmerman burned to the point that he sent the Department of Justice to see what they could trump up against him. The DOJ found nothing.

I suppose they found out Zimmerman was not the sharpest tool in the shed but that's not illegal. If it was most of our elected officials would be in jail now.

Between the MSM and the President sticking his nose into what was strictly a state level issue they in effect forced the State of Florida to charge and try Zimmerman. 

Zimmerman was found not guilty.

Of course, the MSM and the President were outraged but that's because their little agenda went sour on them. Truth is they all looked like fools.

From then on I have never trusted the mainstream media to do anything but push their agenda. For what it's worth, that includes Fox News.

In my opinion they are all liars.



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PRC 320 (RT 320) OWNERS CHECK IN!!

If you own one you will understand this. It is about the LSB mod almost everyone would like to have done to their rig.

For non PRC owners and non hams the deal with these radios is they are a strictly upper sideband (USB) unit. This renders them next to useless on the 40 and 80 meter bands.

There are a number of modifications that can be installed in these sets to get them to be switchable to (LSB) lower side band.

For those  of us that are not technicians there are few people in the States that do this modification. Most of them are pretty damned expensive.  

I have found a reasonably priced source of this modification.

The man is N4RMT and if you are a ham you will know how to contact him. His email listed is valid and he understands these rigs. He made sure the gasket was in good shape before he reassembled it so I can still take it out in the rain.

It now works in LSB using what is commonly called the 'Battery check' method. No holes are drilled it is a simple case of turning the control to 'battery check' to put the rig on LSB.
As '320 owners know, on USB there is a 2 kHz up offset. For example to go to 14.332 you set the rig to 14.334, USB.

The offset for LSB is DOWN 1.2 kHz. An example of this would be to go in 7.175 you set the decade switches to 7.1738.

I am not posting the man's name or address here simply to cut the number of emails down that he will get.

He made me a video demonstrating mine. If you are a ham and a reader shoot me an email via my QRZ page or an IM through Arfcom if you are a member there. I'll send you a link.

I won't post the video here because my call sign is on the video and I keep that only for ham use. It's a PERSEC thing.

Anyway, this takes the as issued PRC 320 and makes it ham friendly on the lower ham bands at what is a reasonable price.   

Anyway, if you want the modification done simply email N4RMT. If you are a ham you know how to get in touch with him.

If you are not, please leave him alone.




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I read where a bunch of climate activists

 blocked off a train for quite some time.

I have seen a number of protesters block off interstate highways.

I have seen protesters block off military convoys carrying much needed supplies to a port of embarkment.

I have a solution for this.

We permit those that are being inconvenienced to pass through these blockades by any means necessary and then hold a Darwin Awards ceremony afterwards.

I can see it now. The emcee (Let's dig up the late Ed Sullivan for this one!)stands up and says, "We have a new roster of Darwin awardees. We have a really big shew tonight! Seventeen protesters tried to stop a train!"
Then Ed shows before and after pictures of the seventeen Darwin winners for our viewing entertainment along with a running commentary of what the train/convoy/angry people driving to work/whatever did to them. 

It's break 'em of that habit quick.






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When Texas

 told the feds to keep their money so they could leave the school bathrooms the way they are I took off my hat to them.

However, it's not only bathrooms but the schools themselves that are the subject of today's grumblings.

We ought to do away with the entire Department of Education because it is nothing more or less than a big pain in the ass. For one thing it hasn't educated a single kid.

(While we are at it, the Department of Energy hasn't produced a single kilowatt.)

It is nothing more or less than a government bureaucracy that gives away money to the states, counties and municipalities to get them to tow the line of whoever is in power. It is nothing more than a bribing bully.

In order to get the money from the feds the schools have to meet certain requirements. These tend to change depending on which party is running things and how congress feels about whatever that particular day.

What bullshit!

If the DOE was eliminated it would cut a chunk out of the federal budget and push education down to where it belongs. Education belongs at a state or federal level. That way the residents of the municipality can make sure the kids are getting the kind of education they want them to get.

Yes, it WILL increase local taxes but you have to realize that it will (or should) decrease federal taxes a bit. I know it likely won't right now but if we begin as a people to stop looking to the morons in Washington DC to solve our problems and we start solving our own problems we would be a whole lot better off.

For one thing the kids would be closer to getting the kind of education the parents want their kids to get. Right now they get what 535 stuffed shirts in Washington decide they should get.

What in hell does a guy that represents a major city area know about the needs of a dairy farming community in Kansas? Not a damned thing. Yet he sits in his seat in congress and decides what is good for them. If you asked this big city congressman to help himself to a drink of milk he'd probably get kicked in the head by the cow...if you could get him within 50 feet of the hapless animal.

Kids do need an education and even though I don't have any I have no problem with paying the school tax. Of course, I would like to see some sore of reasonable results. Can the kid that just rang up my groceries at least give me the right change?

People reading this might be fearful and think that the quality of education would drop if the DoE was eliminated but I don't. It would probably improve. The local parents, city and townspeople would probably see to that. If they don't, it's on them.

We send a lot of responsibility up the chain and this is wrong. How can someone so far away and insulated meet our needs when he is so far away?

There is an old saying I have heard for years and we have to bite the bullet and start doing things right. We all know that if you want it done right you have to do it yourself.

This holds true even in educating our kids.



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Hiroshima.

I just read where President Obama is going to visit Hiroshima, Japan.

For those of you that have gotten out of school recently you may not know what happened there. I hear they gloss over WW2 in school these days. 

Anyway, in August, 1945 the first atomic bomb used in warfare was dropped there. A few days later another one was dropped on Nagasaki. It ended WW2 pretty much right then and there. Of course the casualties were pretty horrendous. However the casualties of the night the Air Force firebombed Tokyo were higher.

Still, the atomic bomb ended the war.

Now there is one interesting thing President Harry Truman said years afterward. He wanted the war to end so as to preserve human lives. That included Japanese lives and from all I can tell it did save lives on both sides.

I have read where Douglas MacArthur estimated Allied casualties to exceed one million in the invasion of Honshu. That's just one island in Japan. It doesn't include Japanese casualties.

Japanese casualties were estimated to be well over 20,000,000. That was an estimate made by the Japanese. They anticipated that many if there was an invasion. It would have been a bloodbath of epic proportions.

The bomb shocked the Japanese to the point where they saw resistance was futile and that as a people the Japanese would have come damned close to extinction.

Of course, many Japanese lost friends and loved ones in these two bombings. As a people they seem to have been somewhat resentful.

Still, the United States did not start the war, the warlords of the Japanese empire did. The Japanese people were nothing more or less than victims of a government gone bad. The warlords started the war and, as usual, the little guys paid the price.

Anyway many Japanese have felt that the United States owes Japan an apology over what was nothing more or less than a military decision made in a war between two belligerents. I say no apology is in order. It would be an insult to any American that ever wore a uniform.

However it seems that there is a pretty good possibility that the president is going to get all blubbery in Hiroshima and apologize for the United States winning a war we did not start.

Any human being with any sense of humanity is damned sorry that there was a war like that to begin with. I can see the President making a statement like that. It's a truth.

However, I can not see apologizing for a strictly tactical decision made by a head of state during a conflict. Especially a decision that in the long run saved millions of (then enemy) Japanese lives.

From my reading and having grown up with innumerable WW2 veterans I have come to the conclusion that dropping the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not only the correct thing to do tactically and strategically as a belligerent in a war, it was ultimately the most humanitarian thing to do. It saved countless lives.

Apologizing for this would only stand to make the United States look stupid and weak. Then again in the past seven years of the Obama administration the has gotten the country noticeably stupider and weaker.

Then again I read where a B-29 called 'Doc' is getting ready to fly after being refurbished. If Obama wanted to do his trip to Hiroshima he could borrow hat and give it the Air Force One call sign, greeting the Japanese officials with a smug look.

Maybe if he did that I would at least know he had some balls. I would consider it as tacky as the rest of his administration but would recognize he at least had a little moxie.




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Well, well,well! My, oh my!

Now President Obama has gotten involved in the great bathroom bally-ho and laid down the law!

Now ya went an done it! The prez just got pissed and is laying down the law...except for in Texas. They just told the feds to take their government money and shove it.

God bless Texas!

President Obama has stuck his nose into things since practically Day One when he stepped into a minor police-citizen understanding early in his presidency.

A white cop stopped and interrogated a black resident in a white neighborhood. Blacks in that particular neighborhood were scarce and the cop simply obeyed his training and saw something out of place and checked the man out.

I suppose it would not have been too long that the cop and resident would have gotten along well if the situation had run its natural course. Instead, grandstanding Obama dragged the couple to the white house and forced the two of them to meet each other in what was likely pretty uncomfortable circumstances.

I doubt either the cop or the citizen could open up at the White House and everything was choreographed. 

Anyway, it seems that President Obama has had a habit of thinking that getting the feds involved in every highly publicized boo- ha is a stroke of genius. Piccolo thinks its a stroke of stupidity.

The president dragged the feds into the Treyvon Martin shooting and took what was likely a simple state level case of a self-defense shooting and turned it into a three ring circus.

The shooter, George Zimmerman, was found not guilty by a Florida jury. That should have ended it but President Obama sent the justice department to investigate. When all was said and done,  the DOJ couldn't find anything to pin on Zimmerman.

The entire mess was strictly a state level situation that should of been handled with no federal intervention.

The truth of the matter was the president was looking for something to make him look important. Instead it made him look meddlesome which he seems to be to me.

Just the other day the damned fool came charging into the so-called bathroom controversy. North Carolina (in my opinion, foolishly. I'll explain later) enacted a law regarding public bathrooms. The president has ordered the DOJ to sue the state and the state has counter sued.

Again, Obama has stuck his nose into the business of the state where it doesn't belong. He has ordered the public schools to let people use what ever bathrooms they self-identify with. It is assumed that if this isn't obeyed than the state will lose federal educational funding. Texas has told them to keep their money. I wish more states would.

The way I see it this whole bally-hoo is a bunch of nothing that has been drummed out of thin air. It wasn't an issue two months ago. It is probably just some kind of created out of thin air controversy to both keep the people divided and fighting while they sneak something else we don't like through.

A couple of months ago everyone seemed to quietly know which bathrooms to use and whatever the public was doing they seemed to be doing well. People would go to the bathroom to relieve their bowels in peace and quiet. instead they now get them in an uproar. It really was that simple.

The last thing we need now is for the feds to get involved in an issue that really isn't even a state, or even county issue. It's a very, very local issue.

When you think about it and look at places like San Francisco and Atlanta and compare them to Cut and Shoot, TX or Intercourse, PA you are going to see a very different set of values in a lot of things.

Atlanta and San Francisco have fairly large gay populations. Cut and Shoot is just a little hole-in-the-wall in Texas and Intercourse is right smack dab in the center of Pennsylvania Dutch (Amish) country.

Their local manners and customs are different. Never having been to Cut and Shoot, I really can't say a whole lot about what goes on there but I would likely say that the people there have their local customs established. After all, I have heard of no cutting or shooting coming there so I presume that they are at peace with themselves in spite of their colorful names.

I have never been to San Francisco per se. I would imagine the gay and straight community pretty much have their differences sorted out.

I have been to Intercourse and stopped off for a meal or three there in one of the restaurants serving Amish food. I used the men's room there with no problems and from what I saw people just seemed to use whatever was comfortable. I didn't grope anyone to see what was under their clothing so I don't really know. 

All I can say about the limited experience there is that it seems that things to work fairly well both inside and outside of at can.

In Atlanta I was the guest of a friend there and we wandered through the downtown area and took in a few night's worth of entertainment. The music is pretty good there.

One night we took in a pretty good band in a gay bar and as a male I simply used the men's room. My lady friend came back from the lady's room once and grinned. She said she noticed the feet in the next stall were pointed toward the toilet. We chuckled and that was that.

Incidentally for those of you that have never been in a gay bar I'll let you in on a little secret. The beer there actually tastes the same.

Maybe seeing a set of feet pointed toward the toilet in the lady's room might stir us some consternation in Intercourse or Cut and Shoot, maybe not. I can't say.

Still, what goes on in different towns is really the business of the town's residents. The federal government has no business stepping in. Frankly I don't even see where the state government should occupy themselves with the issue as it has been settled amicably since Day One on a local basis.

If the feds jump in on this stupidity the law(s) will simply be flouted. People will likely continue doing what they have done since the beginning of time. All it is going to do is make the feds look stupid...again.

Of course looking stupid is nothing unusual for the present administration.

Incidentally I think that Donald Trump had the right idea. When asked, he simply said, "Leave it the way it is." It makes sense to me.




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Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss

I have said there is a very good chance the Republican party will, as we know it, disappear.

It will be replaced for what a brief period will be a party demanding fiscal responsibility,  personal liberty and personal freedom.

Of course, most disenfranchised Republicans will come charging in to join. It will be looked at as a very growing concern and will probably have a lot of clout at first but it won't last very long.

What is going to happen is the usual gang of do-gooders, religious right types and other agenda types will decide to start chipping away at personal liberty just the way the Republicans have done for years.

We'll have another party exactly like the one we have now that really doesn't have a clue about what liberty is all about. They seem to forget that liberty can be a bitch and we will likely end up at Square One all over again.

I am sick and tired of people that like to tell other people what to do.

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Combat engineers up front!!

Secure the perimeter, get the bridging crew together! The crybabies have cried a river and your assignment is build them a bridge so they can GET OVER IT.

Colleges are supposed to be places of higher learning and places where they are exposed to ideas from all over.

It sure looks like they are being turned into sissy camps. What in the hell is a 'safe speech area'?  It sounds to me like the antithesis of what college is supposed to be!

I see where one of the little cherubs went to pieces when someone wrote 'Trump 16' on the wall in the safe speech area. Boo Hoo! Cry me a river!

What's going to happen when you get out into the real world? 

Have we really created a generation of sissies of that magnitude? If so, stop the world because I want to get off!

That little girl should be sterilized so her DNA can not infect the rest of us!

And that is all I have to say about that.

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I was reading an Elizabeth Warren meltdown on Twitter earlier tonight.

She was playing the race and xenophobic card toward Donald Trump which sounds about right.

This is getting more and more interesting because I am beginning to believe that a lot of people are getting sick and tired of the lame old xenophobia, homophobia and race cards getting played all the time.

I think that people are starting to ignore those tired cards. Hopefully they are.

I saw a video made by one of Trump's CEOs of part of his holdings and she stuck by him as being very fair minded. In spite of his other faults he isn't a racist. Whatever. Still it was refreshing seeing a black female defending him on those bogus, tired old charges.

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Any of you readers know what an Old School zoot suit is? 

Google images is your friend if you don't. 

Someone referred to a set of coveralls as his zoot suit and it reminded me.

I have a footlocker at home with a bunch of crap I've collected and I do believe there is one in it. I picked it up somewhere. I've lost some weight recently and I ought to dig it out and see if it fits.

That would be the thing to wear the next time I have to shuffle through the mall. There it is, a 64 year old nasty old sailor dressed in an El Pachuco zoot suit with a big chain hanging down to below the knees, clipped to the waist and pants pocket. What's funny is  I believe my dad had one in the early 40s before he went off to war. He was a musician and it would not surprise me at all to have found a picture of him at a gig wearing one.

For what it's worth, when dad was in the service he wound up in a small skirmish in the so-called zoot suit riots. For the most part it was between servicemen and so-called zoot suiters. The latter were looked down upon because zoot suits used more cloth and were perceived as wasteful and therefore unpatriotic.

Most likely in southern California most of the damned things came from Mexico anyway. Mexico was neutral in WW2 and cloth wasn't rationed down there. SO where's the big deal? 

He was off post with a buddy and was confronted by a small group of disgruntled Chicano zoot suiters. His buddy was from that neck of the woods and simply pulled out a switchblade knife and asked them if they were coming at him all at once or one at a time and things settled down right then and there.

Stuff like that is so stupid and my guess is that if you dug deep enough the entire thing was over some couple of GIs that were prejudiced toward Mexicans or were just looking for someone to beat up. But whatever.

Over the years I suppose I have managed to accumulate a lot of off the wall stuff.

While I am not too likely to don the zoot suit and head off to the mall, having a pair of jodphurs and boots came in handy when I decided to rent a Stearman some time back. There are some things you just HAVE to dress for and an open cockpit biplane is one of them.

Anyone that gets into one in a ball cap and jeans ought to get a boot in the ass. They should, at the very least, be wearing a leather jacket, white scarf, helmet and goggles.

Anyway, thinking about it, if the zoot suit fits it might be something to wear to my 50th high school reunion.

I ought to go through that footlocker sometime soon and see what kind of off the wall crap I've accumulated.






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Mutiny!

Not a whole lot of people understand what is going on with our political system. Both parties are in trouble. The Republicans are in the most visible trouble, but there are a lot of fuming Democrats.

Donald Trump is the product of pissed off Republicans telling the GOPe elites that they are fed up and pissed off with the them. They are tired of the elites looking out for their own agendas and not the membership.

The Democrats, with their present slate of possible candidates are pretty pissed off, too. Their two candidates are a socialist and a criminal.

You have to remember that there are an awful lot of Democrats that are moderates and they are not fervent socialists. They are middle of the road union employee working stiffs. They pack a lunch pail to work like most of us do.

I've personally heard a few say they do not like the present slate of Democratic candidates one single bit.

It you look at the momentum behind Trump becoming the presumptive candidate you will see that GOPe fought him every step of the way. What happened is the harder the GOP elites tried to trip Trump up the harder the Republican rank and file fought back. The percentages of his victories at the polls grew with each passing. 

Right now I read where one of the Cruz superpacs is funnelling money to the Hillary campaign. I'm not surprised. GOPe would rather lose the election than see Trump elected.

GOPe is terrified of him and so are the elites in the Democratic party. They are terrified of him and I see why.

Right now if people can stop and think for a second and take their blinders off, voting for Donald Trump will send a powerful and clear message to the party elites of both sides that we, the people are sick and tired of them. We're sick and tired of party bosses running the party for their own agenda and profit instead of the benefit of the rank and file.

Right now the way I see it, a vote for Trump is a vote for mutiny against the elites of both parties. The average guy has been getting screwed for years. The party bosses have been selling our rights away to the highest bidder for decades.

Trump's politics really are not aligned with mine 100%. He's actually somewhat in the middle of the road. My politics are actually to the right of Ted Cruz. I'm a Constitutional Libertarian of sorts. But that's OK. I realize I am never going to see someone like that run much less win.

Right now I'm willing to put that aside for now and tell those bastard party elites of BOTH sides that I'm sick and tired of them.

The American people gave the Republican party BOTH houses of congress to slow the spending and policies of the Obama administration down. They have done nothing but rolled over and become the president's lapdogs. Spending has continued unchecked. More and more we are losing our rights.

The Democrats are selling us a socialist and a woman that wants to destroy our Constitutional rights. For an awful lot of Democrats, that's not the party of Harry Truman and JFK that they joined.

Right now Donald J. Trump is the vehicle that the American public can use to tell BOTH parties to go to hell.

I do have to admit that there are two things I like about him. He supports the Second Amendment and he has all of the right enemies.

I don't judge a man by his friends. I judge him by his enemies. If you look at Donald Trump he certainly seems to have all of the right enemies.

Truth be known, he's a brash, loud asshole. I won't deny it. He's not regal and presidential but he has taken a position on national security and immigration that none of the other candidates have. 

I do believe he is putting America first unlike the rest of the candidates. He has our best interests at heart which is more than they can say for Hillary and the elites of both parties that are there for themselves.

I think it's high time to get behind Donald Trump and send a loud and clear message that we are tired of business as usual. For that reason I'm putting my personal politics aside and sending a message to the elites of both parties by supporting Trump.

I saw a bumper sticker that said: Trump. Not the president we want, but the asshole we need.

I can live with that. There's a lot more than a germ of truth to it. 


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Quick post.

Today and tomorrow are going to be very busy days so this is likely going to be brief.

I just saw an interesting cartoon this morning. It is of a guy that states women have no rights and gays should be hanged. The woman goes off on him and rants and raves until the guy explains that he is a Muslim.

Immediately she back peddles and  says she hopes he doesn't think she's Islamophobic.

Par golf for a lot of people.

While this kid isn't anything phobic, I am a supporter of liberty and equal rights. If your religion (or anything other beliefs you have) can't support the concept of liberty then leave it back home when you come here.

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It's a bit overcast

But maybe it will burn off later. Yesterday was a glorious day,

I restrung my longwire yesterday and it seems to be doing OK as when I tried it out I got a good signal report from Argentina.
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Yesterday on Facebook we were looking at old photos of relatives and someone said that the photographers should have written who was who on the back.

I wrote that every time I get my picture taken I hold the booking card carefully to make sure it will be easy to read.

Someone picked up on it immediately but I think my cousin had to think about it for a minute. That is because her side of the family is not afflicted with 'The Disease'.

I think it is hereditary because symptoms of it are showing up in my grand nieces. 

I know I have it bad.

Yesterday I found a great target of opportunity. A nebby neighbor was at the local 7-11. There was also a police officer I know.

I walked up to the cop and quietly whispered, "I got a nebby neighbor in here. Work with me."

He looked a bit confused until I said in a loud enough voice for her to hear. "Hey, how come every time you guys throw me in jail you always put me in between two raving lunatics?"I asked. "I always have to sleep on the floor in the middle of the cell to keep from getting groped. How about you put me on the end for a change?"

That poor cop had a hard time keeping a straight face but looked at me and said, "Next time I'll see what we can do."

It took a couple of hours but it got back to me. I got a call from one of the good guys letting me know the story is all over the neighborhood. Of course, nobody believes I get thrown in jail all the time and they think it's funny watching her make a fool of herself.




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Happy Mother's Day

If any of the cousins drop by here, when I was on the road I'd do my damnedest to get to a phone on Mother's Day and sing this to her.

Clare used to laugh like hell when I did that.

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It is still dark and I am awake

which seems to be par golf for old men. I have not slept in to any extent in several years. I guess it is a part of getting old.

It is too damned early to be doing anything. Stores are closed and will not be open for a few hours. It's dark out so that precludes doing anything outside. 

The house probably should have gotten a spring cleaning but I was too damned busy outside and have not gotten to it yet. I suppose this might be a good time to get that done. I have done this before. Early mornings are good for getting things like that done.

888888888888888888888888

There are three messages on the new answering machine. I just replaced the old one that finally crapped out. "You know how it works. Use it." is the message I put on it. That's probably about as good as any message I can think of.

Those machines have been around for decades yet everyone seems to put instructional messages on them like they are the first kid on the block to have one.

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I am rapidly losing faith in the government of the United States of America which is one thing. What is truly scary is that I am losing faith in her people.

We have an economy cratering, a massive illegal immigration problem, a government that insists on bringing in people that are incompatible with western civilization at an alarming rate.

The government has been trampling our rights and it looks like the basis of our freedoms is going to be challenged by Hillary if she gets elected.

Yet everyone seems to want to fight over which bathroom to use.

Like it or not, the only one of the three candidates in the running that seems to be willing to tackle any of these problems is Donald Trump.

Yes, it's sad.

Had you told me seven or eight months ago that he was going to run for president I would have died laughing. Now it looks like I am most likely going to vote for him.

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It is now getting to first light and I think I will get dressed and head outside and tackle a small project.





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I have an aunt that just got relief from Alzheimer's. She just passed.

I'm going to miss her.

I'm the oldest of the generation and she was 13 when I was born. I guess she was excited because nothing gets a young girl as excited as a new baby. I suppose it is a maternal thing.

So my Aunt baby sat me, fed me and changed my diapers and did what the kid sisters of new first time mothers do. She was great and probably fawned all over me.

I do remember her making me chocolate milk sometimes when my mother wasn't looking when I got a bit older.

A few years later I had a great aunt the was a retired old maid school teacher. I think she retired before World War One. She actually should have retired before World War One. She was a frumpy old pain in the ass. 

When she annoyed me I would tell her some wild tale or another about having a fight at school and she'd go straight to my mother who would say, "Oh, he did not!"

While she was running over to tell my mother I would bolt and make my escape. I'd head straight to the woods until it was time to eat.

This went on for quite a while and even my dad thought it was funny. Of course, my mother got tired of it. She asked my father to get me to stop and much to the credit of the old man he evaded the issue as best he could because he was smart.

He knew better than to give an order that would not be obeyed. He knew that if I stopped telling the old Aunt wild tales I would simply do something else. Besides, he knew I only did it to her to get rid of her when she was being an old frump which was most of the time.

Anyway, we were visiting Grandma's and my mother asked her kid sister who was probably in her early 20s by now to give me a talk and tell me to leave the old aunt alone.

Now my aunt thought what I was doing was funny. Still, she decided to help her big sister out by giving me a talking-to about how I ought to stop telling the old great aunt about stabbing classmates, stealing projectors or letting the air out of all the tires in the teacher's parking lot.

It didn't really go as planned because she couldn't keep a straight face. The whole thing came off more like the Monte Python skit about how ignorance is nothing to laugh at. Then she asked me if I really told her I had stabbed a classmate. I told her I did and she laughed at her mental picture of the old great aunt running off to tell my mom.

She reported to my mom she'd try again later.

A couple of hours later she sat me down and started to give me a straight faced lecture on the matter and she became the second person I ever truly communicated with wordlessly. The first was my father. 

She told me that I should yada yada yada and so on but I knew exactly what she was telling me was complete bullshit. In fact the sterner the lecture the more I knew it was simply canned rhetoric.

She was in complete control and gave a damned good serious lecture to me. My mother in the next room heard it and out of the corner of my eye I saw my mother looked pleased.

During the lecture I looked into her eyes and we shared the look during the lecture. It was a very unspoken thing and the look told me that she was simply doing her big sister a favor by giving me a lecture. She thought that what I was doing to escape the clutches of the dreaded great aunt was pretty damned funny.

Later my Aunt became my counselor of sorts in all matters of the family tree. She helped me figure out why somebody was the way they were. She knew it all cold. This is incredible when you think of all of the ins and outs of an Irish family tree.

She was also great at family gatherings, too. More than once she did something to facilitate my escape from the dreaded Great Aunt. She'd do something like interrupt the two of us and ask me to get something out of the car or some other thing and with a certain smirk I would know I was not really expected to return with it.

Later on before I went into the army she laughed and told me to expect fruitcakes from the Great Aunt.

Sure enough she was right. As soon as I got out of basic the damned things started arriving on a regular basis. A few years later I remember telling my aunt about how I got the old woman to stop sending the damned things. It is the basis of another story I have already told. Here is is. It's hot, just click it.

Anyway, after I got out of the service I visited her and my uncle. 

When she saw me at the door her face lit up and practically the first thing she asked me while laughing was if I really had sent a letter to the Great Aunt telling her I was on a secret mission. I remember her howling gleefully when I said I had.

She's gone now and I miss her.





To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY