Someone asked me where I got off being a tough guy.

It goes back to the time of the Oklahoma City bombing.

Shortly after the bombing the media decided to make militia groups pop out from behind every tree so as to further whatever agenda they had against the right.

The CMP marksmanship program came under subtle pressure and local TV stations would show up at matches and take videos of the rapid fire segments to palm off on the gullible public as being militia training instead of what it is. It is nothing other than a sport.

The guys generally wore old BDUs to shoot in because they have a lot of room in them and are pretty comfortable. Truth is it added to the militia scenario the media was feeding the public.

Some of the guys in the program were stubborn stupid and refused to trade the BDUs in for jeans. The dumbasses played right into the hands of the media and a local club's program had to go underground for a while.

At a local club I started showing up in hot pink camo to aggravate the BDU wearers and it actually did some good. A couple of the stubbornest BDU wearers told me that if I'd ditch the neon pink camo they'd fund non-camo BDUs.

Shortly thereafter someone I didn't like very much bet me I didn't have the guts to wear the pink BDUs to Camp Perry. 

Normally I wouldn't have taken him up on it but I knew he'd try and squirm out of paying me and i wanted to embarrass him. Bam! I wore them to Camp Perry and the women that run things there loved them and asked me to wear them next year. 

For years they were my trademark.

Shortly thereafter pink became the breast cancer awareness color and I can sure support that. I'd don a pink ribbon or something. 

Occasionally some insecure guy would give me a little crap over it and being the kind of guy I am I decided to make pink a routine part of my wardrobe.

Actually for years beforehand I'd wear a pink shirt and a black tie to some events so adding a little more pink wasn't much of a change.

What cemented it firmly was when some snot nosed kid started flipping me crap one day. I guess the gay rights people were in the news and he was probably a homophobe.

A friend of mine stepped in and pointed to the youngster that any guy like me wearing pink was likely bad enough to be able to take care of a whelp like him and that further pestering would likely land him in a deep quarry somewhere wearing concrete golashes.

The kid looked dubious and my friend told him I was an Old School Tough Guy that didn't play games.

While he was doing this I flipped out a knife and started cleaning my fingernails and the kid fled. All in all it was an Academy Award performance and from then on I became a self-appointed Old School Tough Guy.

It's been fun.

What was funny was the time at Camp Perry I was wearing my neon pink BDUs and a young private asked a senior NCO about them. The NCO told the private that I didn't have a whole lot of marks on my face and that the best thing he could do is leave me alone.

The private avoided me and the NCO met me later and we shared a laugh. A couple years later he saw me in a pink CMP ball cap and told me he was going to get one for himself.

He did, too. He wore it the following year after he retired and came to Perry as a civvie shooter.

Tough guys wear pink... if they feel like it.

Actually, tough guys wear whatever the hell they want to.

They also do whatever they want to. If a tough guy decides to feed a baby who is going to stop him?

Tough guys mop floors because their mother is not there to pick up after them and they are not pigs.

My favorite wannabe tough guy was a sailor that was on an aircraft carrier running a mop and decided he wanted to be a badass. He put in for SEAL training but his division officer wouldn't approve it. He told the wannabe that before he could go to badass school he had to prove he was a tough guy by taking care of himself and his shipmates first.






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