A flash of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty "Hi-Ho Silver!"

The Lone Ranger rides again!

I just found a channel that shows all of those old western TV shows, some older than I am! Hopalong Cassidy was on TV between 1949 and 1954. I was three when it went off the air. Gene Autry, America's favorite cowboy was on the air between '50 and '56. I was five when it ceased production.

The Lone Ranger ran '49 to '57 and for a few years afterwards as reruns. I might have caught the last season but saw a lot of reruns as a kid.

It's refreshing to see how wholesome Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry and the Lone Ranger were.

I very well remember the Lone Ranger's Creed. At one time it was recited almost as often as the Boy Scout Oath.

Erased link here. Image posted below.

I'd just love to binge watch the channel for about a month but I'd get too damned fat.

I did watch a couple of Hopalongs, Gene Autrys and Lone Rangers, though just to see something wholesome for a change.

I do have a pretty good eye. I picked up that one of the episodes I watched had Tom Hart playing the masked rider of the plains. On Season 3 Clayton Moore didn't play the Lone Ranger because of contract disputes. His voice tipped me off because with the mask Hart's face looked damned close to Moore's

One thing is that it's amazing how clear many of those old shows look even though they were made 70 odd years ago. On my TV they look like they were made last month.

Unknown: FIFY

   

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While I'm going down fighting I can see the writing on the wall.

Historically democracies last about 250 years and are generally replaced by a dictatorship.

The basic cycle is as follows.

Hard men create good times> good times create soft men>Soft men create hard times> Hard men create good times>ad nauseum.

Life has gotten far too easy for us and created a soft people. Coupling that with internal corruption and we're well on the way to chaos.

Sounds about right if you've ever studied history.

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A couple of life with Dad stories.

Most of the time he'd address me as 'Kiddo', 'Son' or my given name but not always. Dad could come up with all sorts of off the wall crap off the top of his head to call me depending on the situation. None of the names ever stuck but the list never ceased to amaze me.

Things like 'Hey! Bazoo Botts' would pop up out of nowhere.

Looking back on it, one of my favorites was when he addressed me with "Hey! Almost a plumber! What the hell are you doing?"

He saw a copper coupling, flux, a torch and a tubing cutter on the top of the stepladder. The cold water pipe had already been cut and I was draining the pipes into a bucket.

I explained that the copper had sprung a pinhole leak and I was going to fix it with the coupling.

"Well, you could have at least let us know!" he said. He looked pretty comical with half a face covered with shaving cream.

He had been shaving when the water stopped and a few seconds heard air sucking back into the faucet as the line drained. He had come straight into the cellar only to find me.

He just shook his head and went upstairs and wiped the shaving cream off of his face and told Mom to wait a few minutes before she used any water.

I was done in about 10 or 15 minutes, turned the water back on and put everything away and came upstairs. Dad turned to Mom and said, "Almost a plumber  here has it under control."

Mom asked Dad if he was going to inspect my work and he simply replied, "I don't have to. Your son is perfectly capable of sweating a fitting."

I became 'Almost a plumber' for the next couple of days.

I recall things got busy and Dad didn't get to finish his shave for a few hours. Dad had a very heavy beard and looked funny half-shaven.

If I recall the only name he ever used more than once was 'Pimplebrain' which got occasionally used after I'd pull a pimplebrained stunt of some sort.

It was an amazing gift and I'll be damned if I ever figured out where he could come up with stuff like that but it was pretty entertaining.

 

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The Marine shooting team didn't show up at Perry this year.

which was a world class screw up on the part of the Weapons Training Battalion CO.

Most people think that the Nationals are where the Army and Marines square of and compete and they do but the Nationals are not all about that. 

The big thing few realize is that it's about recruiting. Many states send Junior teams and the junior team clinics are traditionally run by the Marine Shooting Team.

This year CMP had to cobble some kind of junior clinic together at the last minute as the team was a no-show.

The Army Marksmanship Unit (AMU) runs the Small Arms Firing school (SAFS) and the Marines run the Junior Clinic traditionally.

The  AMU is under the Recruiting Command and the Marine team is under Training. Needless to say recruiting isn't a priority of the Weapons Training Battalion. 

FWIW among shooters the general consensus it's a given the AMU will beat the Marine team. That's because the AMU is a dedicated full time unit. The Marine team is a group pulled from the Marine Fleetwide matches. The various winners of the fleet match are sent to Quantico and cobbled into a team. After the shooting season most are sent back to their units. The part that is pretty surprising is how close the Marine teams come to winning.

A big part of what happens at Perry is that an awful lot of young people get exposed to a lot of servicemen. While the Navy and Air Force are underrepresented, the AMU and Marine team are fairly numerous. They interact with the young people constantly.

The really sweet part of it is that these kids are generally in the 23% of youngsters eligible for military service without a waiver! They are fairly smart, generally in good physical shape and have no drug habit or criminal record or they would not be on a state team to begin with.

It's a recruiter's paradise!

The AMU houses their people off post, the ever so frugal Marines house their people in the barracks on post where they are generally available to answer questions and interact with the young people. It's a pretty good idea and over the years I've watched any number of friendships between Marines and youngsters develop. The Marines at Perry are pretty slick. They mentor a lot of these kids because they know where the next generation of Marines. 

It was common to see a Marine post match helping out one of the young people that had shooting related questions. It should also be noted that these are not run of the mill Marines. They have been chosen not only based on their ability to shoot, but their ability to represent their organization.

One year I asked a Master Gunnery Sergeant what the requirements were to be on the team and he replied, Squared away Marine is a given. He said they'd rather lose the whole shebang than have some idiot  get up on stage and embarrass them. In short the team has served as ambassadors of goodwill and as a result gotten any number of young people through the doors of recruiters.

Another year I saw a Gunny that was mentoring one of the youngsters. The kid was like a shadow to the Gunny, who had a family and kids of his own. Dollars to doughnuts the kid headed straight to his recruiter and enlisted the day after he finished high school.

THE all time slickest trick I ever saw the Marines pull was the youngster that was already on contract with the Corps that attended the Junior Clinic. A few days afterwards he shipped. He went through boot camp, his MOS school and shot in the fleet matches where he was picked up for the team.

The following year he returned to the same clinic he had attended only this time as an instructor! Needless to say, every youngster on post knew about that situation instantly, even if they didn't attend the clinic!

If the team picked him up based on his high shooting scores only then the numbers are responsible. If they picked him up with putting on as a clinic instructor it was a stroke of genius on someone's part.

I'm sure the Corps got an inordinate number of enlistees shortly after that clinic was over!

I dug around and asked people why the team didn't go to Perry this year and got two stories, one is that the WTB was being petty toward the team because they didn't accept a dinner offer from him.

The other reason is because the Corps is changing from the Old School known distance (KD) type of shooting to a more practical type.

Frankly I think it's a combination of the two. My best guess is the team simply wanted to go home and begged off and the CO got offended and used the excuse of the Corps changing shooting styles to dissolve the team. I could be 100% wrong, though. 

That's based on taking the two biggest stories and combining them. It's been my experience that it comes closest to the truth although I have certainly been wrong before.

While I was at Perry word spread that the WTBCO had just either been relieved or retired. (Rumor control is FAST!)

Another thing I heard from an NCO is that the basic KD shooting is now only taught at the Officer's Basic School (TBS) and at boot camp.

If so, they should not replace it as the KD course at boot camp or the TBS because it teaches the basics that create a solid foundation for all other types of practical shooting. 

Personally I'm good with using it only at TBS and boot camp because it lays a solid foundation for other types of shooting. 

As far as the team goes I think the Corps made a mistake this year and that possibly the team be placed under the auspices of recruiting instead of  under teaching and training in the future.

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I sat down earlier today and blubbered for a while.

I've just come back from a 36 hour whirlwind road trip. From here to Camp Perry to the Air Force museum and home again. Perry was rather depressing and the Air Force museum was a VERY emotional experience. Why later.

Four active Marines had been sent to Perry this year and a couple went to shoot on their own leave time and their own nickel. Three of the four were armorers.  I did leave my obligatory case of beer with the armorers. We'll talk about the team (or lack of)sometime later on. 

Late afternoon I left Perry and headed towards Dayton and about an hour out of the Air Force Museum I grabbed a fleabag in Sidney and camped in for the night. I needed a double shot and a beer to settle down and get some sleep because I was keyed up with white line fever.

I hat the rack early and woke up early. After a breakfast of gas station sushi from some third rate gas station specializing in booze and various tobacco products I headed to the museum.

For the entire last half of my life I had wanted to see a live and in person B-29 and that's what I was headed to do. After all these years I wanted to see the airplane I had learned to navigate as a child. At one time I could navigate a flight from Tinian to Osaka, Japan round trip because I was doing poorly in math and it bothered my father.

I was either in 8th or 9th grade when Dad casually asked me if I wanted to learn to navigate a B-29. Being a sucker I took the bait and found myself at the kitchen table with him between 3 and 6, sometimes seven nights a week. Over about the next year I (literally) amassed a pile of Big Chief writing tablets four feet high full of calculations. 

My final took me 21 long hours at the kitchen table and started at 0100 and ended at 2200. 

During my 'final' Dad had thrown every single wrench he could think of at me and had me on my toes.  Jet stream, cross winds, vectors and the whole mess of navigation over oceans. We 'landed' at about 2000 and then there was the debriefing. Like the aircrew were I was given a double shot of whisky to settle me down and debriefed. I choked it down and almost heaved. It DID settle me down. Big time.

Questions about cloud cover, fighters, flak, and a bunch of other things that I answered.

At 2200 dad gave me a wide grin and said, "You did it son! You passed. Now hit the rack."

I was probably 13 years old with a double shot under my belt following a 21 hour day and I went out like a light. I slept like a log for probably twelve hour and woke up feeling like a million bucks. 

Because I learned to navigate that damned thing I was set for life and got three careers out of it, surveying (spherical trig), carpentry (applied plane geometry) and my captain's license. When I tested for my captain's license I didn't have to study the navigation and I aced it.

Here I was at Wright-Patterson sitting in front of the airplane that I learned to navigate as a child from my father. I welled up and the guy near me asked me if I was going to be OK. Yeah, I just need a couple minutes. Help me be left with my thoughts.

"I got your back," he said.

What a kind, understanding soul he turned out to be! I sat down for a minute or two and blubbered my eyes out for a couple minutes and he kept the 'want to be helpful' types away from me. He gave me my privacy. After a couple of minutes I got up, dried my tears and thanked the man and walked off to a quiet corner for a few minutes.

My mind was on the wonderful gift my father had given me as a child.

Incidentally , the fact that it was 'Bocks Car' and had dropped the bomb on Nagasaki meant little or nothing to me. It was simply about seeing the airplane Dad had taught me to navigate one. 

After I was back to normal I wandered around with specific goals. I wanted to see a SPAD, a Gooney bird and an SR-71 Blackbird.

Actually the museum itself is totally overwhelming and  I could have spent a week there and only scratched the surface. The place is totally amazing and if I can find a week I'll return.

The staff is amazing, too. As usual I asked a trivia question and was surprised he knew the answer.

I asked him if he had the airplane that shot King Kong off of the Empire State building.

He said there are none inexistence today but they have the later model of the aircraft and pointed it out to me on the map.

That was pretty sharp if you ask me!  

An add-on. A friend just asked me about the wisdom of giving a 13 year old boy whiskey along with a 21 hour final exam. Years later I asked dad about it.

He laughed and said it was a last minute decision made when he saw I was pretty punchy. He figured I was going to have one hell of a time getting to sleep because I'd be too damned tired to sleep coupled with being excited about acing my final. He said he did it simply to knock me out when I hit the rack.

Looking back on it, doing that proved to be a pretty good idea because I went out like a light!

As for the 21 hour final? My mother was upset about it after about the first 15 hours and he snapped "The boy won't know what he's capable of until he's pushed!"

 

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Scout and Jem live near me. They are a joy to watch.

If you ever read 'To Kill a Mockingbird' it was written from the point of view of an older woman who was named Jean Louise Finch.

She and her big brother were raised my their widower father.

Anyway, she and her big brother were close growing up and I see the similarities of  two children growing up nearby. I call them Scout and Jem.

It's really quite a joy to see two siblings working as sort of a team and helping each other out. She pitches the ball, he hits it and they trade off. That sort of thing. 

More often than not siblings don't really get along that way. The differences in age and whatever  often preclude it.

Three or four years early on often makes a big difference and while maybe later in life they may go closer, often in childhood they don't.

Yeah, I know. It's hit or miss but I truly love watching Scout and Jem helping each other out at such an early age.

Sometime if I ask for Scout to give an old man a hug she lights up like a Christmas tree and wraps her little arms around me and I melt.

One of the things that has given me great satisfaction is watching people I have seen since infancy grow up. 

It should be interesting to note that I actually hired a ten year old boy man to take complete and total care of my animal and home while I was off to sea. It proved to be a damned good choice. II C he was 12 when he took kitty to the vet entirely on his own and when I got home he reported it to me. He just dealt with it like it was another bump in the road. Cat's sick? Get kitty fixed. He's 22 now and on an internship through Embry-Riddle.

I hope I get a few more years to get to watch those two nearby kids   grow up together. It's just too precious.

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A phone call to the Social Security people

I had to deal with the Social Security people on the phone a couple of days ago and decided that I wanted to get things done and done right so I did NOT want to deal with a government automaton in flesh tone paint, thermostatically heated to 98.6.

The FIRST thing you do is ask them how they are and listen not only to the answer, but the tone and inflection. Even though the wait time was 15-20 minutes I simply hung up on the first two. When I asked the third person how they were doing he responded, "Not bad, considering it's a Monday." That told me he was my man. It was worth the extra time and effort.

I explained I was currently on my wife's insurance and she was retiring and I wanted to go on Part B. 70 is the magic age for SS. to let him know I was over 70 I said to him, "I am over 70. In fact, I am 144 years old."

"How did you make it to 144 year of age," he asked.

"I don't drink no cheap booze," I replied, "Just the good stuff off the top shelf."

After he stopped laughing we put the bullshit aside. I knew I had made his day a little nicer and in turn he walked me through everything, taking his time with me. He made sure I got his email and got the proper forms (which I could have done on my own) and walked me through them. THEN HE TOLD ME WHAT TO PUT IN THE REMARKS BOX TO INSURE IT WENT THROUGH THE FIRST TIME!

He also told me "Don't file electronically because about a quarter of them get screwed up. If you can, go to your nearest office and PERSONALLY hand them your forms."

He didn't have to do that and I'm sure that if I had acted just like another angry taxpayer he would not have. He'd have just sent me the forms and scratched me off the list as another piece of meat processed. The difference between me and Joe Pissedofftaxpayer is that I had made a HUMAN connection with him. That man realized I was a human being and as a result he WANTED to HELP me instead of simply process me.

We now live in a world of "I need a new saucepan. Amazon. Click, click" and the saucepan arrives the next day out of magic.  As a result we are losing our humanity. We don't have to deal with the clerk at the store very much anymore. Many of us have turned into zombies, slaves to our phones. It's sad.

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Getting defriended on Facebook that time was a hoot.

Back when it came out I posted the April Fool's Day Duffelblog article of the day on Facebook. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:April_Fools/115th_Mobile_Abortion_Detachment

It was hilarious and some of the imaginary quotes were outrageous. 

"This way my husband doesn't have to know and when I get home we're going to have a real baby." was the one that comes to mind.

Anyway, an old (liberal) classmate of mine read it and screeched off at the keyboard that it was tasteless as hell and so on and so forth and that she was going to forward it to her congressman which apparently she did.

I think she thought the Duffel Blog is an official military publication along the lines of Stars and Stripes or Yank. 

Anyway putting things together the congresscritter wrote her back and explained that the Duffel Blog is a spoof website like the Onion.

Looking back on it, my guess is that it fooled the staffer that read it for a while and he called the Army to find out about it and he/she felt foolish when they found out they'd been had.

She probably got an email or possibly a letter back explaining the DB was a spoof site and then she got pissed off and defriended me.

I laughed myself silly.

I would have posted a link to the original post but it's now a pay site for the archives. Sorry.

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What laws don't I enforce?

"Most of them," replied a police officer.

Interesting and honest answer. I believe him.

Most laws on the books are bull$hit when you stop and think about it.

Wear a pair of cargo pants on a Sunday and  you have broken the law and could be fined because they have a pocket in them big enough to hold a pint bottle. Granted, it's an antiquated pre revolution Blue Law but it's still on the books somewhere.

I can't sing in the bathtub. I can sing in the shower, however and occasionally I exercise that right. That was enacted in PA in 1969! Why?

Of course there is (as with a lot of laws) there are grey areas. If you are standing in the tub taking a shower are you taking a shower or are you in a bathtub? 

I won't get started because the list is pretty endless. The books are chockablock full of all sorts of stupid stuff. Actually some of them actually made sense when they were enacted. For example, the wool subsidy. It was enacted to insure we had a good supply of wool that was to be used for military uniforms in time of war. Now we use synthetics so the subsidy no longer makes sense.

My favorite imaginary subsidy is the Zeppelin subsidy. I seriously doubt that there was ever one because if there was one we would still be subsidizing Zeppelins.  

One thing I have run into over the years is a fairly large number of LEOs that have their heads bolted on properly and realize what they are doing.

One of the things that we ought to do at both a state level AND a federal level is sift through all this bull$hit and repeal about 95% of it.

Early on in the Trump administration he was pushing to have 2 laws repealed for every one that was enacted. I don't think that got very far, though.

Personally I believe every single law enacted should sunset (with an option for renewal). The sunset should be 50 years or less.

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One day at work. (2nd post of the day)

I had to go get something medical checked out while I was in CA and there was a block that I supposedly had to fill out on a hospital form.

It was my Social Security number and I put down 000 00 0006 which raised eyebrows so I whipped out one of these that I had engraved with my name and 000 00 0006 that I have purchased on eBay for a couple of bucks.

I had been out of the hospital for maybe 15 minutes waiting for my ride when my phone rang. It proved to be the woman in charge of taking care of us. She's one of the good guys because when someone needs anything medical she becomes an attack dog and when her name gets mentioned everyone within earshot grins because we know she's on our side.

Anyway, in an amused voice she asked me if I had really given my SSN as 000 00 0006 and I fessed up.

"God bless you," she said. "They're not supposed to ask for it. When I get anything with someone's SSN on it I redact it with a sharpie." She was clearly amused.

Then she asked me if I'd take a call from the insurance company. She said the person in the insurance company that she worked with wanted to 'meet' the guy with 000 00 006 for an SSN. I agreed and in a few minutes my phone rang.

It was the insurance company agent and she asked me how I got 000 00 0006 as a SSN.

I spun her the yarn about getting it personally from President Roosevelt back in 1935 as she listened while laughing herself silly.

I believe I have posted that yarn here and if I haven't let me know and I'll post it.

If any of you get the bright idea of doing the same thing please pick another number. MINE is six. Please pick another number.

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Tina Live!

Recorded at Arnhem, Netherlands a few years back when she was just short of 70 years old.

She should have been sitting in a rocking chair at that age with her white head in a bun posing for Mother's Old Home Bread or something but not Tina!

There she was singing 'Nutbush City' from a platform 40 feet above and dancing on the no rail scaffold wearing heels and as sure footed as a mountain goat.

I would like to bring the DVD over to my BILs to see it on a big screen.

(Yes. I know she died fairly recently but she sure used to put on one helluva show!)

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One of the things in life I really enjoy is

watching two guys that made a $1 bet.

It's hilarious over what lengths both parties will go through or spend just to win.

Competition at its finest.

"Spent $247,954.11 but by God I won the bet!"

(Yes, I'm guilty of it also.)

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I think I am going to go shopping for women's XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXLarge woman's panties.

or some damned ridiculous thing like that.

Some day when I decide to spend a few hours on line that's what I am going to do. I'll order a set, put it in the cart and simply close the window and write down the time.

Then when the advertisements start I'll log the time and see how long it takes to start getting ads for them.

This is a scientific experiment to see if there is a faster mode of communication than Rumor Control.

This one's probably going to be a horse race. 

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Convention time! (2 posts today, keep reading after this one)

which means the $5000/ night whores are hanging out in every expensive hotel in town.

I always liked to watch conventions. They're so predictable. 

There's always the pompous ass in the cowboy hat that's bigger than Carmen Miranda's fruit bowl lid. Little shots running around trying to get their picture taken next to medium shots who are trying get their picture taken next to big shots.

The whole $hitaree. It's always the same.

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I'm tired of it all.

While I am certainly going to go out and vote for the candidate of my choice, I am getting sick and tired of the constant email I am getting hammered with. I delete almost 100 pieces of political crap daily and most of it is a waste of time.

Tomorrow I am going to start opening each and every one and unsubscribe to them. I figure it's going to be a pretty uphill battle but we'll see what happens. 

It's all getting so tiresome and little of it if any actually has any  hard news. Most of it is I heard, word has it, someone said, they say and so on. Little of it is actually honestly attributed.

Joe Blow says there's a chance that Joe Biden is dropping out and endorsing Kamala Harris. I would imagine that the Joe Blow that said that is just the guy across the desk from him at work and he and Joe are swapping quotes to write about.

Yes. This is an important election and yes I want my candidate to win but enough bull$hit is enough.

It wasn't long ago that we got phone calls from people trying to tell us who to vote for. I used to tell the caller that I was voting for the candidate that bugs me the least and that his guy was six phone calls ahead.

Incidentally I just unsubscribed to about 40 emails. It took a while and I imagine it'll take a few days before they stop bugging me which is kind of a piss me off. Instead of the 'wait 24 hours' or 'wait a few days' it should stop instantly.

Oh yeah, I answered one from Marco Rubio and called him a slimy little dwarf.

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I see where the right has finally come to and is fighting back.

A number of people since the Trump shooting have made social media comments saying they wished Crooks was a better shot, etc.

This time the right has started to retaliate. Some people on X have started doxxing campaigns over those comments and from what I have read a number of things have happened to the people that made the comments.

A number of teachers have been fired, some have had their certificates yanked and I see where a few businesses have been hit and are now probably going to fail. A number of people have been fired.

Here's a post from X you ought to read.  It is spot on and true.

Needless to say, the schoolteacher, call her Ms. Crunt is going to bellyache, piss and moan over having her livelihood cut off. Her career is useless and doesn't she have the right to express herself?

She does. What she doesn't have the right to do in her position is to advocate the cold blooded murder of a legitimate political candidate (Or for that matter, anyone else.) As a teacher she's supposed to be held to a higher standard and anyone advocating the murder of anyone else on social media is completely unfit to teach children.

I suppose if Ms.Crunt is a popular teacher there will be a hue and cry of some sort but that can generally be shut off by simply asking the parents if they advocate the cold blooded murder of another human being. Put in that light I would imagine that would be the end of it because it's a hard position to talk your way out of.

Someone pointed out that Home Depot fired a woman for posting a similar thing on social media and how she was old and needed her job. 

Home Depot is a business and they don't need their employees running their keyboards and giving the place a bad name. This is ESPECIALLY true when it causes a number of their larger customers complain. Sorry, Grandma. Adios. Sucks to be you.

Maybe you can tell your grandchildren the story of the time you did something stupid and got fired. They'll be thrilled.

Cancel culture has been going on for some time now, at least a decade and it's been much less than a week that the right has been fighting back and the left is screeching blue bloody murder.

A number of businesses have reported firing people over their social media posts. One of them a Harley dealer reports canning an employee over it after getting bombarded by people that have threatened to boycott the place.

A fireman is now in tears after being hit after posting a comment. He made a tear soaked post of all the awful things happening to him and his family. Yeah? So? What did he expect?

The left has been doing this for over a decade and as if this writing it's been less than a week and the left is screeching.

The first thing their screeching reminded me of was an old Charles Atlas ad out of a comic book when Mac, the 97 pound weakling clips a longtime bully in the jaw. (It wasn't even a haymaker, just a pretty good clip in the jaw)

The bully stumbles away, in shock and the next day probably tells his classmates what an a$$hole Mac was for hitting him, looking for sympathy and gets none.

One thing is certain. The bully never kicks sand in Mac's face at the beach again.

Too many people have had their lives totally destroyed for a simple comment like 'There are two genders and the state doesn't own my children'. That's a pretty petty comment in my book. So is admitting your preference for a political candidate.

On the other hand when you advocate murder on anyone (much less a legitimate political presidential candidate) you have crossed a line. 

No. I have no sympathy for Ms. Crunt. Sorry. She broke the rules.

In short, they are using their own tactics against them and making them play by their own rules.

Here's another freebie. It's on PDF so it won't cost you a dime to read it.  You guessed it. 'Rules for radicals, Saul Alinsky  It's the rulebook the left has been using since the publication in 1971.

I, for one, have grown sick and tired of taking the so-called 'High Road' and it's well past time to make the other side play by their own rules. 

Actually retaliation in kind is still the high road in a sense. You're fighting them on their own ground on their own level. That's fair enough. 

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I spent my entire career trying to stay dry

and I just came inside and I am soaking wet.

Funny how that works. 

I happened to look out the window just after the cloud overhead let go and started pelting down a rain of monsoon proportions and saw the two little kids from across the street running through it and laughed.

Then I got the idea of donning my ratty old bush jacket and safari hat and going outside to enjoy a hard, warm summer rain.

It was rather nice for a change of pace. I enjoyed it even though I spent my entire career trying to stay dry.

Now I sit here soaked to the bone but feeling pretty good about myself and in a minute I'll take a shower and dry off.

 

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I am now getting old and have to lose weight because I am now fat.

This is going to be a royal bastard because over time my metabolism is a lot slower than it was even a couple of years ago.

Couple that with probably not getting enough exercise. My last year at work as a watchman started that because I was constantly on my feet when I worked.

I don't eat out very much but did today because Panera Bread has a certain salad I like that's not only healthy but actually tastes good which is a rare thing in itself.

Anything that is good to eat is bad for you with damned few exceptions. 

Needless to say, my freezer is full of all sorts of good but bad things to eat and I think I'll get to them over time because I do have one rule I have always followed when I try and lose weight.

Sunday breakfast is still going to be a garbage gut morning. 

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"Oh, poor me!" she said. "Dating is so difficult in one's 30s"

"How do you thing I feel?" I shot back. "I'm 72 and the only women that want to date me are a bunch of nasty old hens looking for me to support them!"

Of course I am married and want to stay that way, it was a shot I could not resist taking. As you may or may not have figured out sometimes I can be sarcastic.

Still, after she stopped smirking I was left with the feeling that had I made an offer to do something with her she would probably have taken me up on it, especially if I had offered to do something interesting with her.

"Have you ever been in a submarine?" probably would have gotten me a date to visit USS Requin at the Carnegie Center downtown (had I been single).

To any of you single guys a piece of advice here.

The usual movie, dinner and drinks, or whatever today's mating rituals seem to be too mainstream. Instead think of something interesting or at least something that's different.

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Even if I was single, at this late stage the last thing I would want is a hot younger woman. Having her have to go to court and defend herself on a first degree murder charge is not a nice thing to do to someone.

On the other hand, if she can convince the jury that it was MY idea she could probably have it ruled suicide!

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Missed the Butler Trump rally but have some inside dope from a LEO that was there.

It you see the Secret Service surrounding Trump instantly after he was hit and when he was on his feet shaking his fist being surrounded by the SS guys look at his feet. They were firmly planted and he was shaking his fist.

He wasn't going anywhere and the SS was trying to get him off the stage and down the stairs and he wasn't budging. He was pissed! That's why they rat-packed him for his protection. They didn't want to shove him down the stairs.

At this time nobody even knew if the sniper had been eliminated yet! For all anyone knew, including Trump, they were still under fire.

The SS people were between a rock and a hard spot. They didn't want to shove him down the stairs.

What a badass! He handled it like a BOSS!

My source is a ten year street cop of an undisclosed agency and this was told to me off the record so I can't (won't) name him.

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My source opined that that attack most likely won him the presidency because he says that many of the Black and Hispanic community will now support him. He picked up a number Black and Hispanic votes when he was found guilty in New York and now that he's actually been shot he just earned some serious 'street cred' with them.

I've always said that if a Republican candidate can get over 20% of the Black vote they would win easily. I'm interested in finding out how much Hispanic/Black vote he picks up.

I'm also interested in how much money he will over the next few days from supporters. After he was found guilty in New York he made MILLIONS in the 24 hours immediately after. I wonder if this will beat that. 

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He also told me that the crowd of about 40,000 managed to evacuate the grounds in about 25 minutes or so although it took more time for them to drive away because of the traffic situation.

While there were some emotional people leaving, there was no sense of panic and everyone left in an orderly manner.

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There are a few more things I am privy to but can't (won't) post here.

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I live about 35 minutes away from the Farm Show Grounds and seriously considered attending. Beforehand I did my homework and decided against it the morning of the rally.

PA 68 had too damned much construction on it, PA 8 was likely to be a circus and the heat was predicted to be around 90 degrees. I simply didn't want to get into the expected traffic jams and stand in the sun roasting for the better part of a full day.

I suppose of I was even 5 years younger I would most likely put up with it all and attended but at the last minute I added everything up and decided against it.

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One of the things I did in my delightfully mis-spent youth is straight out of an old B Grade western.

I can say I 'ran whisky to the Indians'.

I was sailing my 24'7" sailboat south from Kodiak and we were in British Colombia and (as usual) scratching out asses financially.

While we still had some money, we knew that it really wasn't going to last very long and from firsthand experience that poverty sucks.

Time to crank up the lifestyle. 

I don't remember the who/what/when of the idea but I think it came up when one of the locals along the line mentioned that one of the Indian villages was dry.

That's when the idea popped into my head. 

I was smart enough to know that if we showed up and started selling whisky in one of these villages we'd be thrown in jail and they would throw away the key. I also knew that I would probably have a brief window before word got out that two white guys were selling hooch out of a sailboat. Probably less than 30 minutes.

We pooled out meager funds and bought 2 cases of cheap whisky from a village liquor store, set sail and found a place to hole up for a day or two.

The salmon boats were having a pretty good season that year and were due back into their various villages inside a day or two.

With the arrival of the salmon fleet into the village the two of us ghosted in and came up alongside a drum seiner. The first thing one of the crew asked me is if I had a beer. I didn't. I told him I had a bottle of whisky and he promptly offered me $100 for it. Done deal.

Inside of a minute I had sold 6 bottles to the rest of the crew and raked in $600. The first $100 offer had set the price. Two minutes later the crew of the seiner next to them swarmed aboard and bought another $600 worth and then the skipper of the third boat offered to pay $1000 for the second case. Done deal.

Instantly I threw the money in a drawer, hopped out on deck and fired up the engine. My mate threw off the lines and we disappeared with $2200 our coffers. Less the outlay we were about $2000 ahead of the game.

We moved at flank speed south and didn't even slow down until after dark and anchored up in a small cove somewhere. 

The next morning we looked at our situation. We were about 75 miles from the 'scene of the crime' and were just two guys in a nondescript small sailboat cruising along. We'd been in and out of the village in under 20 minutes and had not checked in with anyone. The quantities we had sold were fairly small and the likelihood of the RCMP making a major case out of our misdeeds was small. While a handful of fishermen probably got pretty plastered, it wasn't like the entire village was trashed and on the warpath.

A couple of days later we found out just how lucky we were from a troller we met that told us a wild story about two white men that got the whole village plastered and sailed off. 

Apparently according to Rumor Control had it that two white men brought cases and cases of whisky into the village and the whole place went completely crazy. I attributed that one to the growing of a story with each retelling.

However, I do think, looking back on it is that we got away with it only because we were in and out of the village so quickly and the quantity we sold was relatively small.

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I just did a Google search regarding the dry Indian villages in British Colombia and discovered that the dry villages are no longer dry. I think this took place in the late 90s because the remaining few of them started getting ferry service and people would just bring liquor home with them when they visited people in wet areas. Better to keep the money in town.

It's probably easier to enforce laws like that in remote places because travel to the outside is a lot lower.

 

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Ahh, yes. The Big Stop Sign Ballyhoo. Enter Seasonal stop signs.

As a general rule I do stop at stop signs, especially in residential areas and double especially if there are a lot of kids in the area. And Triple especially if there are a lot of adults that walk in the area because about half the adults are staring at their damned phone and are far more likely to wander into the street because usually the kids know what they are doing by the time they enter school.

Now let's go out into farm country.

As usual, everything is based on a lowest common denominator/worst case scenario. During the growing season a good farmer uses every square foot of his fields and that means right up to the street corners. The view of the street you are going to cross is blocked and a sigh is warranted. Actually not having a sign there during the growing season would probably be negligence on the part of the municipality/state or whoever is responsible for posting it.

I'm pretty religious about showing caution at an intersection like that for more than one reason. Rural areas are generally 45 mph zones and an accident at speed can be rather painful and damaging.

Now the weather changes, the crops are harvested, the stubble is plowed under and the driver has a view of well over a quarter mile in either direction of the street he has to cross.

A stop sign at that time of year makes little sense except maybe to serve as a warning that one is nearing an intersection and should pay attention. 

Still, the usual Official Come to a Complete Stop and count to whatever scenario really doesn't apply here from a practical sense and as often as not, I do slow down. However I seldom come to a complete stop under these circumstances. It serves no useful purpose.

If I had to venture a guess I'd bet that's the way the locals deal with it.

Still, I can't help but wonder if there's a stop sign like that somewhere and some Rural Karen doesn't watch it through a telescope from a distant farm house somewhere, screeching and dialing 911 every time someone doesn't come to the Official and Complete Stop.

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Rural Karens? you ask.

Yeah. Every now and then some 'work from home' type decides to pull a 'Green Acres' and move to farm country. Many of them quickly become a pain in the a$$ for the locals.

Some adapt.

I've read the adventures of one guy that did that. He was no fool, though. He wasn't going to try and pass himself off as a farmer. He was simply an engineer and didn't try to hide it. He said it didn't take him long to fit right in with the people and with the sense of humor he's displayed I can certainly see why.

He leased out his fields at a very reasonable rate to a couple of the locals and even let them store machinery in his barn while it was being used on his acreage. This was actually done just before me moved into the farm house.

He said that almost every time he'd go into town to go shopping he'd don a suit and tie and be pleasant. Needless to say, it wasn't long before someone kidded him and said, "Helloooooo, Mister Douglas!" and the moniker instantly stuck.

Almost instantly he became a respected part of the community because he decided that HE was going to adapt to his surroundings and not demand everyone adapt to him.

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I didn't work 9 years past early retirement,

pinch pennies, take the cheap seats and scrounge for freebies all these years for nothing.

While I'm certainly not going to buy a Ferrari or something and I plan on keeping my 15 YO pickup, I'm going to do things like upgrade airline tickets and be a little more comfortable when I travel.

The old days of sitting in the back of the plane near the toilet and having to smell crap across the country are over with.

I've paid my dues and I fully intend to collect.

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Nice morning, really.

as I sit here looking out back. It's 0600 local.

The deer will come traipsing through any time now and I think the sun will break through and dry the lawn up before long.

Today I mail off for my 13 Colonies certificate. It's the 13 Colonies Special Event that takes place every 4th of July week.

There's a station in every one of the original 13 Colonies and if you can work them all you can put in for a certificate that looks pretty cool. Bonus points for working a stateside station, one in England and one in France.

I had forgotten about the bonus stations and at the last minute squeaked in the English station. Oh, well. It's still a clean sweep.

I've worked all 13 before but never put in for a certificate.

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You NEVER lose your right to self-defense. EVER!

I just listened to a horror show that took place on a school bus recently. It was on the special needs bus where they have both a driver and an assistant. Of course, the driver drives. That is their responsibility.

The assistant keeps an eye on the kids.

In their infinite wisdom, the school put a 70 something old woman in the assistant slot. 

She found herself in a wrestling match with one of the special needs kids that decided he didn't want to be on the bus anymore and figured that the emergency exit was the fastest way off the bus. 

The kid was swinging and somehow the old woman managed to turn a boxing match into a wrestling match, much to her credit. Personally I would have just smacked the kid using the minimal amount of force needed to change his behavior. Of course, I would have been immediately fired but then again, I don't need the money. Maybe she does.

She explained to me that they were issued 'punching pads' to put between them and the attacking kid. This supposedly protects the assistant and allows the kid to expend his energy.

It also serves to reinforce the kid's belief that hitting is OK because there are no consequences for their poor behavior. In short it encourages poor behavior.

Special needs or no special needs, I don't care. Kids need discipline and even though some are slow learners, being brought up short a few times will make any kid decide that hitting someone isn't a very good idea.

As it was, the old woman on the bus kept the kid from bailing out and managed to get him seated and stayed between him and the escape hatch but the fact remains that she should never have been put in this position to begin with. Had the kid been a year or to older the woman might have wound up taking second place or she would have had to put on brass knuckles and knock him out. Had it been the latter I would have defended her. Nobody loses their right to self-defense.

The whole thing was wrong in so many ways.

Why was a fairly small old woman put in that position to begin with? Why was a kid with a history like that even allowed on the bus? Why do they feel that a 'punching pad' is adequate protection? 

Special needs kids seem to be a sacred cow and Piccolo doesn't believe in sacred cows. Sorry about that. If the kid is incapable of behaving then put them off the bus immediately and call the parents and give them their kid's location. It the kid has a history of not behaving then don't let him board to begin with. (Needless to say, this is not permitted although it ought to be.)

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Back in the mid 80s I was living in an Alaskan small town and there was a woman that foster cared for a number of Down's kids. Frankly I think she did this because she had an overwhelming 'need to be needed' but that's neither here nor there. Frankly I thought she was a PITA so I tended to avoid her.

Anyway one of the boys she was attending to was pretty much untrainable and when he reached puberty he'd start publicly masturbating whenever he felt like it. 

Needless to say, the police got calls and the woman promised to keep an eye on things and yada yada yada. 

Anyway, one day she wasn't paying attention and the kid whipped it out in front of a father/daughter and dear old dad went through the roof as to be expected. 

I never got the details most likely because I wasn't interested but IIRC the end result was the father got charged with disorderly conduct and got a $5 fine or some damned thing. Personally I think the reason the police charged the guy was to protect him from being charged with something serious further down the line. 

I don't know what happened afterwards but I don't think she took the kid with her in public much, if at all afterwards.

I do remember her telling someone else that "It wasn't fair and

yada yada yada" but she was the responsible adult that didn't do her job. 

Tango Sierra.

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As for the bus driver's assistant? 

Give her a can of Mace. She has a right to defend herself, just like everyone else.

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Why do the powers that be enact legislation

that is more than likely to be ignored?

For decades there have been murmurings of a so-called 'assault weapons' ban in PA.

Why?

If one simply looks at how it has worked out in other states and gave it thought they would not even bother. Compliance in other states seems to run single digits.

Fact is that the American people generally only obey the laws they want to.

Enacting laws that people are not going to obey makes our elected officials look foolish.

I remember a state governor running his mouth and carrying on about how the State Police were going the strictly enforce the new 'assault rifle' ban and shaking my head because the governor was so out of touch that he didn't realize that probably half of the state troopers owned one.

He sure looked impotent and stupid.

All bans really do is create more crime because black markets spring up and black markets are not controlled by governments.

The classic example is prohibition.

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Thank you, Yogi Berra.

Yogi Berra has given some damned good additions to the English language, say what you will.

"The game ain't over 'til it's over" is probably his most famous and he was spot on. He hit the nail on the head. The entire world is full of last minute triumphs.

Still, I think my favorite is "We went to different schools together." although I can not be sure he actually said that. Still it sounds like something genius he said so I run with it.

"How come you know so and so?" someone will ask and that's my answer.

If he actually didn't say it, it sure sounds like a Yogi-ism.

Close enough.

 

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Tropical paradise...yeah, right. Equatorial hellhole is more like it.

An awful lot of people think that just about any island in the Pacific is a tropical paradise and would likely jump at the opportunity to either take a vacation or a job in one without a second thought.

I just finished a book, 'The sex lives of cannibals' which has nothing to do with sex or cannibalism and everything to do with living on the island of Tarawa for a couple of years.

Tarawa is damned close to the Equator and is damned hot. 

To clarify, the Battle of Tarawa was fought on another nearby island, Betio, which is a part of Tarawa Atoll. 

The book was a tale of heat, insects, poverty, pollution, disease, bad food, sketchy off and on electricity, corrupt and inept government. Not really a paradise or even remotely a good place to live.

There are certainly a lot better choices that a coral atoll on the Equator.

Anything between 15 degrees north of south of the equator doesn't look very good to me at all.

I can see why the crew of Bounty chose Pitcairn Island to hole up.

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MAGA

Maybe Afford Groceries Again.

Make Affordable Groceries Again.

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They ought to make it a flogging offense to share email addresses without

explicit permission.

And explicit permission does NOT mean fine print or easily misunderstood gibberish. 

Emails should all have a box that says "Can we share your email address? If so check box."

My account (like most everyone else's) is constantly hit with crap I'm not interested in.

Anyone that sells an email address should have their internet privileges taken away from them by having their fingers amputated.

The other thing that's annoying as hell is if you buy yourself something on line the merchant keeps stuffing your inbox with his advertising.  Of course you can often unsubscribe but sometimes that takes quite a while.

When you DO unsubscribe it should be instant. Right fu**in' now.

The company should be forced to cough up, say, $20 for every unwanted ad, email or jack-in-the-box sent an hour after one unsubscribes. The 'wait for a few days until we process' is a bunch of crap. Their software was set up to bug you the instant you made your order. It can be set up to stop bugging you the instant you tell it to. 

Selling emails should be immediate castration.

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