After the Pulse shooting a number of the LGBTQ community

went to a couple of shooter websites and asked for help.

They wanted people to teach them how to use a firearm to protect themselves. I added my name to the list of people willing to provide instruction.

Yesterday I got an email from someone that wanted to know if I was available to help them. I said I still am good to my word.

I have not got an answer back yet but the 2nd Amendment applies to everyone and everyone has a right to self defense.

I'll train the woman if she's reasonably sane. 

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busy

today

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I just watched the old Rodney Dangerfield movie 'Back to School'

and the part where he had to take a business class from an idiot that had never been in business and was teaching theoretical crap cracks me up.

Here was a idiot teaching a class with no practical experience and the student was a self made millionaire that had made more money than God.

There's a lot of that going around these days. 

Some wag just pointed out that if classes are not being held because of COVID that that meant that we were going to be better off because that meant that they would not being taught comminism. 

Interesting point.

Communism is far superior to capitalism in the classroom but it doesn't work very well in real life.

We've already tried that in this country with the Pilgrims. The Mayflower Compact had an agreement in it that people would put 10% of their crops etc into a common warehouse of sorts to be distributed to those in need.

After a couple of hard winters where everyone starved the Pilgrim fathers in desperation gave everyone a parcel of land and said it was theirs and they were on their own. Plimoth colony then thrived! 

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Do ANY of our lives matter?

When you look at the big, big picture, probably not.

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She's not a good kid, mister. You are the father of an attractive young woman. Deal with it.

One of the things that parents never see is when their kids grow up.

A few years back I said something to a then about 14 YO man in front of his father. "YOU are not a child anymore. YOU are a man. I will NOT call him when you screw up. I will deal with you myself. Furthermore what happens between us stays between us. If you f*** up will NOT rat you out to your parents. You're on your own."

The father sat there thoughtfully and finally he spoke. "Fair enough," he said.

He's 18 now and doing well. I think I have had to give him a raised eyebrow once and that ain't bad. 

The other day I had a delightful chat with a wonderful attractive young woman that is in her first year of college and apparently doing reasonably well there. I remember her when she was a skinny kid with a wonderful optimistic attitude. It kind of scared me in a way because in my line of work there are only four kinds of sailors. They are dead, retired, novices and pessimests. That kind of youthful optimism is sometimes scary.

We talked about her hopes and dreams and school loans and a few other things and she seems fairly level headed. She has high hopes of going on for graduate work afterwards.

I didn't get into anything political because she's a college kid and I figure because of that she knows everything or thinks she does, anyway.

I didn't fail to mention that loans are loans and are to be paid back and it is in her interest to take out as little of a loan as she can. I think I was probably preaching to the choir, though.

I also told her that it was probably OK to change her major if she decided her present career goal changed but before she did she had best investigate the marketability of whatever she decides. She is smart enough to know that Woman's Dance Studies are not going to get her very far. I also told her about the guy with an MA in puppetry that I hear whining because he didn't get to start off at $175K per year. 

Right now things look pretty good for her and I do hope she does well and doesn't do anything stupid along the way. I think she'll make out in the long haul.

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I remember when a 14 year old kid could drive from coast to coast on a farm license.

Of course that got changed. The city folk saw to that.

Some states have the driver's license age set at 16. It used to be 16 practically everywhere for a full license. I got mine shortly after my 16th birthday after having my learner's permit for a couple of months. It's changed a bit and now entry level drivers are a little older in general.

Then of course I had been driving with my father illegally for years.

Anyway it used to be that some agracultural states would issue a 'farm license' to youngsters that lived in rural areas so they could pitch in with the family farm and make runs to town or whatever. All this seems to have been done away with, probably because of complaints from city people.

A while ago there was a federal movement to not permit people under the age of 16 or 18 to run farm machinery. I do not know how it worked out but when I heard about it I was kind of irked.

It was just one more case of city people trying to run the affairs of rural people, a group that they don't understand. Another case of ignorant people trying to impose their personal values on someone else.

Someone saw a kid running a tractor and thought of their own kid and could not picture their kid running a piece of machinery like that at such an early age and decided it was wrong.

It never occurred to them that that kid started learning as a toddler while sitting on his father's lap while he was plowing the lower 40.

Farmers are not entirely stupid. They are not going to turn an untrained person loose with an inherently dangerous and extremely expensive of equipment. That youngster has been extensively trained on that unit for years before being loose on the Lower 40 to plow.

I would imagine that the person that doesn't like what they see is judging based on his own kids. While his kids may be honor students at some private school they probably can't operate an unpowered push mower safely. Or maybe his kid is just a dolt.

A lot of farm kids are different. They are expected to pitch in on the family farm because it generally needs all the manpower it can get. In fact the teenager on the plow may very well he the farmer's daughter.

It's a different world out on the farm. Kids there often learn different skills at an earlier age and it's not fair for them to be judged by those that have no clue.

I'm somewhat surprised that I didn't hear that legislation of some type prohibiting teenagers from running farm equipment hasn't been enacted because in general Congress seems to come charging in and enacting a lot of laws on things they do not understand.

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You catch more flies with honey than you do vinegar.

That's pure unadulterated bull$hit. I know. I tried it.

I put out a dish of honey near a dish of vinegar and not a single fly was interested in either of them.

They were all too preoccupied with the fresh dog turd fifteen feet away.

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One of the best ways to see who has a sense of humor is to ask

Is anyone having a hard time uploading nude selfies to Christian Mingle?

Try it on a forum like Nextdoor and watch it whistle right over the heads of every idiot in town and sit back and enjoy the meltdown. They will go stark staring ape$hit and accuse you of being a sickie when all you have done is ask a simple question and admitted nothing.

Of course there are a few intrepid souls with an Irish sense of humor that will reply that they have no problem. (The reason is because they are not trying to.)

On the other hand I am the one that told a cop that the reason I was speeding is that my sister had called and told me my mother had just won $800 in a wet T-shirt contest and I had to get it from her before she spent it on cocaine. 

That was about two years ago and I'm 68 now. Do the math to figure out how old my mother would be if she was still alive.

The cop did have a sense of humor. Sharp officer. He could count.

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How to get your nephew a BB gun with no headached from Mom.

The first step is to tip the youngster off and give him the score. You are going to give him two choices and he is to take the BB gun.

The next step is really quite simple if there is someone in the area that sells pony rides to little kids. You beg, borrow or otherwise get your hands on a pony. You leave the BB gun in it's original packing.

On his birthday you crash the party by simply walking in while leading the pony and carrying the BB gun. You announce that your favorite nephew can have his choice. He can either have the pony or the BB gun. 

Of course, Mom will snatch the BB gun out of your hands, and give it to her son and tell you to gt that damned pony out of her house immediately. She will be so grateful to get the pony out of the house whe will forget entirely that she has just handed her son an evil Daisy Red Ryer BB gun.

Even though you will get your ears beaten to death about the pony for the next 25 years you will never hear a word about the BB gun if you got the pony out of here house quickly.  Don't worry about this. For the first couple of years the pony will be a sore subject but over time things will change. It will eventually become another piece of hilarious family lore.

That's how I got my first BB gun and I never anyone know Uncle Mike and I had that one planned out weeks in advanced.

I remember finally letting the cat out of the bag maybe forty years later at one of the last Thanksgivings I ever spent with my mother before she passed. Uncle Mike had been dead and gone for years.

Mom brought up the story while we were sitting in front of the fireplace just before dinner. Whe whole family laughed themselves silly picturing my mother as a younger woman raising five kids and having to deal with a pony in the living room at her oldest son's birthday.

I told her about Uncle Mike and I having planned the event a couple of months in advanced. I really wanted that BB gun. I was afraid my mom would not let me have it. Uncle Mike told me to let him do the thinking.

Mom's jaw dropped and she fell into laughter realizing all this time after the fact that she had been fooled. 

Then Mom asked if my father had been involved.

I explained to her that Uncle Mike and I told him about the plan. When he stopped laughing he looked at us and said we were on our own because he wasn't touching that one with a ten-foot pole!

Rain today. A good thing.

Hopefully it lasts and we get a good soaking down because we can sure use it. It's been pretty damned dry for too long. 

The lawn needs it, the gargen needs is and a good downpour is good for the earth. 

Too bad. It was a passing minor squall and we just got a small hit. We could have used a real good soaking. It'll probably dry up by the afternoon and I'll be able to mow the lawn it will be so dry. 

The earth now is a real sponge and needs a serious dousing.

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I am spending lesss and less time on Nextdoor because I am tiring of Forst World problems.

Like the woman that wanted everyone to pain their houses a certain color a certain color she liked. She was buying a home in a certain area and refused a few because she didn't like the color of the living room.

What an idiot! Paint is the easiest and cheapest thing you can put into a house. You can paint or repaint two coats in a room for about $50 and in less than an afternoon. Start early and you're done before lunch.

Another woman griped because the houses she looked at had the living rooms painted the wrong color which is outright stupid because for about $100 ot less you can probably paint the entire downstairs af a reasonably sized house.

First world problems.

I have to admit that First Worls problems tend to bore me.

On thing happened that was funny, though. I'd post a ridiculous solution to someone's minor problem or another ridiculous answer and this woman would start riding me. She actually started stalking me and writing that I am suffering from dementia. It got old after a while so the following posts took place.

Me: Assuming I am suffering from dementia, then why are you trying to torment me? Are you one of those people that thinks it is funny to steal the wheels off of a handicapped person's wheelchair? You must had a self esteem problem of some sort. Perhaps you are flat chested. When I was young my mother told me never to tease flat chested women because it could lead to self esteem problems in later life. I don't know what your problem is.

Her: I'm not flat chested. I am a 36C.

Me: And I am now fifty bucks richer because I just bet a friend of mine that I could get you to post your cup size on an open internet board. I have taaken a screen shot to print up so I can collect. Thank you very much.

I have not seen her post since but the mods did delete that part of the thread a day later. 

As for the screen shot, I actually didn't know how to do that and have since learned.

I admit that I am hoping someone asks what is a suitable birthday present for a nine year old boy. I could have a little fun with that one and watch a lot of Karens go stark raving mad.

I'll leave that to your imagination.

 

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Pea gravel

What? Pea gravel?

Yes. Pea gravel. It is what I have in my driveway and it works quite nicely.

Concrete lasts for about 25 years and then one has to break it up and replace it. Asphalt lasts about 15 or 20 before it needs to be replaces.

A pea gravel driveway lasts forever if you are willing to spread a truckload of fresh pea gravel on it every few years and spread it out. It doesn't take too long to spread it out, either because unlike the normal crushed limestone a lot of other people use, pea gravel can easily be moved with a shovel.

I just finished recoveering the driveway and it's kind of puffy because when you walk across it you sink into the thick layer. Someone said I put down too much gravel but he's wrong.

If you don't put down too much gravel you have not put down enough. It doesn't take too long for foot and vehicular traffic to tamp it all down.

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I get a boot out of the guy that pulled a gun on someone that complained he wasn't wearing a mask.

Someone nearby pulled out a camera and took his pisture, turned it into the police and he was promptly arrested.

Just think! If he had a mask on the police would not have recognized him and been able to arrest him.

Idiot.

If you're going to do something criminal then you really should wear a mask. 

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People complain about the post office but

they actually do an amazing job when you think about it.

Try tracking a package some time and almost always the thing moves right along and get to you at the expected time. It's interesting to watch its progress as it moves right along. It really is quite organized.

I recall a while ago that I sent a package from Fedex  Air (IIRC) once and noticed that it took off in the wrong direction. It went to Memphis and I wondered why until someone told me it was their central hub and virtually everything went there for distribution.

Still, tracking a ground shipment is interesting to watch as it comes closer and closer. I'm impressed.

But then again I was a kid before the age of computers that probably have a lot to do with being able to make this all happen with such speed and accuracy.

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Always bring something to the negotiating table with you.

Some guy on Nextdoor was griping about the noise a couple of kids were making in the pool the other day. Yeah, he was just a grouch asking for advice and yeah most everyone sided with the kids.

Here's the advice I gave him:

The reason you can't seem to get the kids to quiet down is because you didn't bring anything to the negotiation table. You need something good. You need a siren.

Not some piddly little police car siren that you can only hear for a block and a half , but an honest to God AIR RAID siren with at least a 5 hp motor. The kind of siren that would send the entire city of London scurrying for the subway tunnels back in 1940 about 10 seconds after it was turned on. The Londoners were not afraid of the Heinels bombers that would soon be roaring overhead. They were trying to get away from that damned racket the siren made. That kind of siren.

 You now have something to worthwhile negotiate with.

As soon as you hear the kids just spool the siren up and keep it on until the mother comes over the house all wild-eyed and screeching for you to turn it off. Then turn it off so you can hear each other and explain that if she keeps the kids quiet you will keep the siren turned off. 

She'll keep the kids quiet, guaranteed.

As for dealing with the other rabid people you have created that are living inside a three mile radius of your place? 

You're on your own!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Needless to say, a few Karens went ape shit.

Of course they don't know how to think. Where in the hell are you going to even get a siren like that?

I suppose they can probably be found but I'd bet a museum piece like an old Civil Defense leftover would cost a fortune and even if you found one it would probably need extensive rewiring.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Speaking of air raid sirens, I'm thinking of buying one for my grand nephew for Christmas. 

It will even the score with my nephew for glomming my flip-flops and making me have to walk across a hot parking lot barefoot a couple of summers ago.

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Here's a letter I sent to a woman.

Apparently she came across some "gold false teeth" in a vial of some sort and asked about them. I asked her if a relative had served in the Pacific during WW2. Her father had served in Europe.

She asked me, and I'm sure she was shocked , if they were some soldier's teeth. I sent her the following email:

Your father was stationed in Europe. That was rough but at least there were a few vestiges of civilization there. The German PEOPLE (as opposed to the leadership) for the most part held pretty much the same views as we do. At that time Americans were mostly European by origin.

A GI in Europe would certainly kill a German and take his helmet, rifle and belt as a souvenir but that's generally about it. (One time in Congress Harry Truman said, "The Germans fight for the Fuhrer, the British fight for the King and Americans fight for souvenirs.")

Prisoners of War were treated fairly and actually quite well. Many former PWs moved here after the war.

The Pacific was entirely different. The Japanese had an entirely different culture and after the Guadalcanal and Tarawa campaigns the servicemen had figured out the rules the Japanese played by and joined into the gala festivities. The Japanese considered being taken prisoner to being a worse fate than death. Atrocities by both sides became the norm. 

While most GIs didn't reduce themselves to that kind of behavior MANY did. Collecting gold teeth from dead Japanese soldiers (among other things) became a hobby of sorts for some.

One time I saw a letter opener and asked about it. The woman said her father had gotten it during the war when he had been in the Solomons. I didn't have the heart to tell her it was likely made out of a Japanese thigh bone.

We get pretty damned self righteous with the troops. We condemn them for painting a seminaked woman on their airplane and say it's obscene and then send that same aircrew up to drop fire on their fellow man.

We condemn a GI for urinating on an enemy corpse even though ten minutes earlier the now dead enemy had left the GI cringing in a hole covered in the goo that was his best friend's brains.

We sit in our lovely homes that are secured by the young men we send into battle and then have the downright gall to question the way they secure our way of life. What hypocrisy! 

Do you remember the Disney 'Swamp Fox' mini series? 

Leslie Nielsen, all American clean cut hero. Francis Marion.

Well the real Francis Marion used to treat snitches by waiting until they were not home and then burning their homes with the families still inside. The snitch would come home to the charred remains of his home and family.

Our freedoms were gained for us by men now roasting in hell.

As far as judgement goes, none of us have the right to judge the battlefield conduct of a soldier.The ONLY ones that can do are the people he served with. 

Nobody comes home from a war the same person they were when they left and most of them quickly morph into something different than they were as soldiers.

Actually most GIs were just people that were given a dirty job to do. They did it as best they could and simply wanted to go home, get married and raise a family. 

As for your father? He simply is what he is. He has his memories and maybe his demons. They are his and his alone to deal with. If he feels like talking then listen. If not, don't pry.

He also has the joys of fatherhood and treats you like a princess, no doubt. Just go with that.

As for the teeth? I don't have a clue.  

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I see where some Florida candidate has said he was going to expose celebrities.

which is fine by me.

Maybe we will get to see Cher or someone like her under a pony in Tijuana or some other disgusting thing.

Who knows.

Come to think of it, Hollywood has covered for people for decades. It would be interesting to rip the lid off of it and watch the cockroaches scatter.

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Ham and eggs sound somewhat decent this morning.

I have arisen and am hungry for a change. 

Yesterday I breakfasted at about noon as my body has been being weird lately. I have been intent on losing weight and have started with the low carb route. It's worked before.

Anyway when I go that route there are always a few people out there that give me health lectures on how I'm supposed to live on grains and spaghetti and so forth. The antithesis of a low carb diet.

Sometimes I do break down on Sunday mornings, though. Biscuits and gravy are too much to pass up once a week. Still, even then I cut the portion size in half. 

This morning I made a small omelet and that should hold me a while.

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I see where Quora has gotten mad at me because I told the truth again.

Nextdoor is also upset with me.  On Nextdoor someone said they heard fireworks and asked where they were coming from. I suggested it was most likely China because that's where most of them come from.

Quora is miffed over something they won't tell me about. I got an email saying one of the mods didn't like something I said and when I tried to look it up I couldn't get into the thread. It was like something out of Kafka. I was guilty but they would not tell me what I was guilty of. So how can you correct it if you don't know what it was?

The internet used to be pretty non political but it is getting to be that way and pretty fast.

 

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People sometimes forget that you can do ANYTHING YOU WANT

 to a house to make it into a home. I remember when my wife cringed when she gave me a bedroom to turn into a man cave. I went in, emptied everything out, closed the door and locked it and went to work. 

I had a stack of mahogany and mahogany plywood and went to work. When I reopened the room it was like going through a time warp.  You went from Leave it to Beaver suburban home straight to an officer's room in a Liberty ship in 1943.

The devil in a project like that is in the details. The yellow rain gear hanging on a hook of the closet...the tarnished brass Zippo next to a green pack of Luckies. The sound powered telephone on the bulkhead, the battle lantern clipped to the side of the bunk. A 40s communication receiver sitting on top of a short locker.

The thing that really sets it off is three PVC sprayed grey and stenciled pipes running across the overhead supposedly for potable water, fuel oil and a vent. It give the room a sense of utile. 

One step out the door and it's back to the world of June, Wally and the Beav.

People often forget the difference between a house and a home. A house is a few walls and a roof. A home is what you make out of the house. 

You could give some people a million dollars and a house and they'd still wind up with a house. A sterile, pretentious palace. They would cast off the well made wooden table with the finish rubbed off by three generations of cleaning and kids doing their homework sitting at it. They would cast off  three generations of love, understanding, misunderstanding and generally family events in exchange for a flimsy table of chrome and formica.

Yet give another person a house and $200 and they'll turn it into a warm home that is a joy to enter and leaves you feeling good. Most likely you'll see the wonderful wooden kitchen table she bought for $5 from the person that owned it replaced it with a table from IKEA.

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There is some idiot that keeps calling me even though

I have told them not to.

I traced it and it is a mobile phone, or supposedly is.

Anyway, there are getting to be too many internet things that want one's mobile phone number and a growing handful are requiring it. I'm not giving mine out and getting bombarded with texts.

Guess what phone number they get?

Enough is enough.

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Back to a keyboard.

or at least a laptop keyboard which is a damned sight better than the little keyboard I have with a Kindle Fire. I can at least make a post in a reasonable time.

I had the Kindle keyboard get soaked in coffee the other day like an idiot so I replaced it. It wasn't too bad as it only took me a few minutes to figure out how to sync it to the Kindle. 

I do admit I like Windows better than the Android system but I suppose Android makes things like tablets and cell phones work even though it isn't as handy as Windows. 

Maybe more later today.

It's later today and I grub shopped at Walmart because of prices. I also decided to check in and see what the story is on their Capital One Mastercard. I have a VISA and should have another card as a backup for when I travel. I've had VISA shut itself down on me a couple of times while traveling and even though I have explained that I am somewhat of a professional traveler the VISA gods have left me hanging a couple of times.

Of course when I went to the help desk it was mobbed. The store started to get a bit crowded so in the interest of Covid I left.

I know I could apply on line but I have a couple of questions to ask and the FAQ section does not address them. It's essential to me that I get a paper bill monthly. From what I understand some places don't do this anymore. They don't mention it in the FAQ section.

Hey! If anyone out there knows leave me an answer in the comments section, please.

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It is Sunday morning which generally means

biscuits and gravy but not this Sunday.

Piccolo has put on too much weight recently and it's a low carb diet for this kid. As usual someone always tries and help me out when I decide to lose weight. They bring me all sorts of things like 15 grain bread, cereals and spaghetti which, of course is the antithesis of what I want for a low carb diet.

This morning it will be a piece of ham and a couple of eggs. Lunch and supper will be a salad of some sort.

A lot of people look at a low carb diet as something that goes on for life. It isn't. It is a means to and end. You use it to lose weight. Once you have lost it you eat sensibly to keep the weight off. 

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Another day another dime

I just spent the day taking care of a bunch of picky little stuff and it got pretty old fast.

I did take a minute to follow someone's thread on Nextdoor for a minute or so. Seems she wants to buy a house in a certain neighborhood and is complaining about the colors the walls are painted in the houses she has looked at.

Apparently she want them painted her way before she goes to look at them.

Sounds like an opportunity to get rid of a place that needs plumbing or foundation work or maybe a new roof. Just slap a quick coat of the paint of her choice and she'll likely bite.

Painting. It the easiest and cheapest fix you can do to a house. 

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still busy

maybe tomorrow

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Total cost of something.

I decided to roast a post Thanksgiving turkey to put meat in the freezer and the fresh turkeys were going for a song so I grabbed one.

Of course someone had swiped my roasting pan so that added another eight bucks to the cost and storage bags added another couple of buck to the total cost of putting turkey in my freezer.

Ten bucks cut into the savings I had planned on and suppose I broke even.

All in all, though I guess I made out in the long run because good meat in the freezer like that tends to keep me from eating out.

Still, I kinda wish I had bothered to look ahead at things first to see what I really would/would not have saved.

Actually when all was over and done with I managed to clean out the throwaway pan and I can re use it again so that's not a bad deal.



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Still.busy

Maybe later tonight.

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No surfing today

Sorry.

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Someone asked me about how much time it takes me to keep this blog up.

Answer: Varies. Generally about 10 to 15 minutes a day.

I have done it in under two minutes and there have been posts that have taken me hours to write.

The general rule is about 10-20 minutes a day.

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I see where the governor of Minnesota has been handed the bill for the rioing

and has asked for federal help. He wants a part of it to be declared a disaster area.

No way! No way in hell! Not one single nickel!

He had the tools to make the rioting stop and he didn't use them. President Trump even offered him help.

 He owns that one and that's the way it is.

Make HIM answer to the good people of Minnesota. He wanted to be a big shot governor. Make him live up to his resonsibilities.

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I have not seen my favortie WW2 vet is some time

Maybe time caught up with him and he's gone. It happens to all of us.

I didn't know him very well but I knew he was a real character. He was a Japanese-American that served with the 442nd RCT and had a truly wonderful deadpan sense of humor.

He told me about how occasionally he would drop in to the VFW and have a drink. Occasionally one of the younger guys would talk to him and ask about his service.

When that happened I would imagine most of the ears would strain because sometimes with a deadpan face he would tell the new guy he served in the Japanese Army as a supply clerk in charge of handing out crash helmets to Kamikaze pilots.

It would often stun the new guy who would ask how he got into the VFW.

He'd reply that they never asked him what side he was on when he joined.

He wasn't getting around too well when I last saw him so I guess Father Time has probably caught up with him.

If he's gone I hope he didn't suffer.

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I see where the mayor of Seattle may (or may not have) learned a lesson form the Marxists

after they started protesting outside of her home.

She permitted the CHAZ/CHOP people to occupy six blocks of Seattle for several weeks. After a number of deaths she has decided to clean up the area.

Many of these people have started protesting outside of her home. I'm not surprised one bit.

I've seen some ANTIFA graffiti comments that say 'Liberals get the bullet, too' which doesn't surprise me even a little bit.

Marxists have a record of turning on the very people that put them into power. They generally don't like competition.

Anyway, the Mayor of Seattle seems to have outlived her usefulness and the CHAZ/ANTIFA people have decided to cast her aside.

Of course needless to say when the protesters showed she decided to shut the occupied area down which is what she should have done in the first place. Actually she should have never let them occupy it in the first place. 

It's actually Seattle is national disgrace but that's not the point. Point is that the Marxists behind the ANTIFA/BLM group will turn on their supporters after they have finished using them.

That's what Marxists do.

Joe Stalin referred to those people as useful idiots.

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PTSD...that card gets played too damned often these days.

PTSD is a bitch for some. It really is.

I was briefly rooming with another more senior NCO for  a while. He was afflicted with it horribly. This was before it was diagnosed as what it is. Back then it was called shell shock or combat fatigue or whatever.

It really wasn't until after Vietnam had totally settled down that the government started to truly address this serious problem

This poor man would wake up under the bunk about three times a week when the demons visited him in the night.

He was hurtin' for certain and I never did find out what happened to him because he got sent overseas at his request. He liked duty overseas but I digress.

I had a talk with an old First Sergeant about it once. He said he would sometimes have a couple of recurring dreams from Korea but said they were not too bad. Another senior NCO said he slept like a baby which sort of surprised me. He had seen a lot of action in Vietnam.

Still, where there is no shame whatsoever in suffering from PTSD there is another side of the coin.

I'm watching a Nextdoor thread on fireworks. I really don't want to get into it too much but I do point out that fighting fireworks when the 4th comes around is going to be like fighting bees or shoveling the incoming tide back out to sea.

There's no real stopping it. Fireworks people gotta firework. It's simply the way it is. It's going to happen. especially now because we have been pretty much cooped u for too long.

Besides what do you really expect with everyone caged in during the Covid pandemic? People have to vent someway or another.

A couple of Karens screamed that they should be outlawed but it was pointed out that until recently they WERE outlawed and the 4th still happened anyway, fireworks were lit off and the usual din lasted for a few days before and on the 5th things petered down.

The big difference was that the state wasn't getting their piece of the action. The states nearby that sold fireworks were making a killing. The state figured they'd get their cut so they were allowed to be sold in PA again. 

Actually it was somewhat worse when they were outlawed. 

Anyway, a couple of the Karens that are screaming for peace in the valley did what a lot of Karens do. They dragged someone else into the fray.

"What about the veterans with PTSD?"they scream.

Of course some of these idiots think that PTSD is military issue. You get it in boot camp. They issue it with your uniforms.

Boots, combat, 2 each pairs.

PTSD, 1 case.

Shirt, dress, two each.

The truth is also that an awful lot of these nasty little bitches don't give a damn about some poor shell shocked veteran unless it's to their benefit and they can use them as a shield of some sort to hide behind. 

The truth is that if they were living next to someone diagnosed with it they'd be terrified the person might 'go off' and attack them. They know nothing about it, really.

They'd tell their kids to stay away from Mr. Smith. He has PTSD! We don't want you to catch it! Or maybe She's afraid Old Smitty will pitch a PTSD fit and carve them up or something.

But for now we can speak up for Mr. Smith and drag him into the fray to gain sympathy for our side! Never mind that maybe he doesn't want to go along with it.

That very guy that woke up under the bunk next to me was always the first in line to go to the firing ranges and always took more than his fair share of pyrotechnics on field problems. He LOVED things that made a loud bang.  

Another thing about PTSD is that it is a disability from the point of view of the VA. That means a disability check every month for life. The worse the PTSD the bigger the check.

It actually pays cash money to be diagnosed with it and I really can't blame a guy a whole lot for trying to hop on the bandwagon. While I wouldn't, I can easily see how a guy would want to over play or even fake the affliction. It's a slam dunk check for life.

It would be interesting to find out how many former GI payroll clerks and typists are collecting PTSD payments. I'm sure there are some that are collecting never saw combat if one digs deep enough.

There are also a few vets out there that hide behind PTSD to cover for outright poor behavior. Vets are not all saints.

There certainly are a number of vets out there that have been hit pretty hard by the affliction, there's no denying that. Everyone has their own breaking point and there's no shame in something one can't control. I'm not slighting the poor vet that honestly suffers from PTSD in any way.

What has been seen can not be unseen. Incidentally some people of both sexes should remember that when they go looking for swimwear.

It's also a shame that it wasn't diagnosed a long time ago and help offered to the WW2 and Korean guys that toughed it out for decades hiding it from everyone because they didn't want to be called weak. Many of them were jumpy until well into the late 50s and even after that.

It effects different people in different ways. While loud noises is the stereotype I've met people that suffer fearful dreams, one person I met that spoke of it said a type of metallic click would make him jump out of his skin. A bulldozer crossing pavement might trigger someone else as may an airplane passing overhead. It's different for everyone.

If one is afflicted they ought to seek help. No problem there. On the other hand I know of a number of sufferers that won't because during the Obama administration there was talk of taking gun rights away from people suffering from PTSD. What a slight! Serve your country to defend our rights and then lose yours! 

One thing, though. PTSD is nothing for the Karens to use as a shield to hide behind. If a vet or anyone else for that matter  doesn't like fireworks it's up to him to speak up.

On the other hand if he does like the racket of an Old Fashioned Fourth, he also ought to speak up and tell the Karens that his affliction is nothing for them to hide behind and to stop dragging him into it.

It's HIS personal affliction and is not there for someone else's personal gain.

While we're at it, stop dragging veterans in general into things. While we all served for our own reasons one thing we didn't serve for is to be used as pawns for someone else's personal political and/or social agenda.

 

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