The road is a lot shorter than it used to be.

I think back to Nickerson and Strong Street and as I recall, my future stretched before me and the road was very long.  Days were filled with running up and down the dirt road barefooted and playing "Kick the Can" at night.  That was summer.  The sand pit was up the road behind the house.  We were not allowed to go there.  We knew that.  So where do you think we spent the hot afternoons?  Correct.  The sand pit was cool.  We knew we would get a lickin' sure as shit if Momma knew we were in that water, so we made sure we were dry before she got home.  Seems like the name of that sand pit was Vincents.  Athey's sand pit was over on the highway and Mummy's was outside of town near the Arkansas river, so this one had to be Vincent's.  It was not a working pit, so no one was ever around.  Of course there was a "No Trespassing" sign, but we were too little to read it and if we had been able to read it, we had no idea what trespassing meant.

I could not swim when I was little so I always stayed in the low part with the little kids.  To be honest I did not learn to swim until about 10 years ago.  Kenny did not know how to swim either and we took the boat out every weekend in the summer.  I think we were pretty naïve in that area, but it all worked out.  I had made sure that all my kids knew how to swim, but I never thought it was important for me to know.  About 10 years ago, I decided that I should learn the art of that and off I went to the warm water pool at the "Y".  I learned the art of survival and decided that swimming was not for me and I gave it up for other things.  I just never liked the water up my nose or in my ears.  Sorry.  Just not my bag.

I do not think most of you know just what Kansas weather is and how we survived back then.  It is hot in Kansas.  Hot and humid.  There were no air conditioners in those days.  The best we could hope for was to lay under a tree in the shade and with a little luck, a soft breeze would blow across our bodies and that was how we cooled ourselves.  Churches used to have cardboard fans in the rack where the hymnals were kept.  We were not allowed to steal those either.  It was not unusual for the temperature to soar above the 100 degree mark.  And of course on days when it was that hot and a cloud came up there was a damn good chance that it was bringing a tornado.  Feast or famine.  We knew if  a tornado came we were to run for the cellar, but I have already told you that no way in hell was I going down in that hell hole.

If we thought summers were bad, we knew winters were worse.  We had a wood stove in the front room, but it burned out in the night and had to be rebuilt every morning.  That was Jake's job.  Since we walked to and from every where.  When it snowed we followed in Jake's footprints going to school.  I do not remember having boots when I was little, but I do recall at one point Jake grew out of his and they were handed down to me.  Does anyone remember galoshes?  They were black and had 4 or 5 buckles on the front to hold them on.  I would rather have been caught stark naked in a snowbank then to be caught dead in those things.  Of course mother gave me that lecture on "pride going before the fall and a haughty spirit before destruction" and I wore the damn things to school.  In later years I worked and made enough money to buy my first new pair of boots.  I went to Warringtons Dry Goods and they had two pairs in my size.  One pair was brown rubber and the other was white with fur around the top.  I wanted the white pair so bad I could taste it, but I bought the brown pair so as not to be prideful.  What a friggin' moron I was in those days!

I recall mother making me a new coat.  It was light teal corduroy and had been something else previously, but she carefully took it apart and cut a pattern to fit me.  I was so proud!  I wore it to school as soon as it was finished and some boy said, "So you got a new coat.  It is still old and it is not pretty."  Kids are so mean at that age.  I would like to say it did not bother me, but it did.  Until you live in a world where everything is hand me downs, you can not know the feelings.  I tried to just be happy that I had a coat that no one had worn before me, but somehow the joy was gone.

When I entered high school it was in Plevna, Kansas and I lived with my Grandma Haas and Great Grandma Hatfield.  I stayed there for 5 months until Grandma Haas passed away.  Then I was moved back to Nickerson and enrolled in Nickerson High. 

I would like to say that my life got better and I was happy at school, but that would be a lie.  I do look back on my early childhood in Nickerson as the happiest time of my life, but not at school.  I was happy at home, but I was an outcast at school and I grew to resent the snobby kids.  My best friend all through grade school was a girl named Barbara, but when we left grade school she drifted away.  By the time I reached my Sophmore year I had new friends and weekends usually were spent sneaking into Duke Bankey's home brew.  We moved to Hutchinson the year I was a senior.  I dropped out of school and my formal education was behind me.  I was now an attendee in the school of hard knocks and I graduated at the head of my class although I was never sober enough to know it. 

And then life picked me up and spun me around and landed me here on the Mesa.  So here I set looking down a very short road at what remains of my Golden years.  Sorry, but that is such an asinine statement.  I am once more reminded of one of Mother's jewels of wisdom.  I was beating my chest once and she had told me I was my own worst enemy.  At the time I thought she was nuts, but as I contemplate that next hill I have to climb I hear the echoes of another of her adages and I think this was her best.  It was "Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind."  She was right.  I spent many years sowing the wind and now it is time for my harvest.  I gotta' say, it got here a whole lot faster then I thought it would.  Yesterday I was young, but the stop sign is coming up fast!

The hands of time are kind.

Has it really been 15 years?  Thanksgiving is a bad time for me, but then most days are anymore.  It was a couple days before Thanksgiving 15 years ago when my husband was taken to St. Mary Corwin hospital, brought back to life and started the journey to death.  There is no other way to put that and it was what it was.  I could not find his DNR so the rescue squad did what they do.  This has been a lesson well learned.  I have a copy of mine stapled to my head.  This began 3 weeks of ICU and then transfer to Colorado Springs to try to wean him off life support.  Needless to say that did not work and 2 months later I was a widow.  It has been a long 15 years.

I look back  on those years and it is almost like it was yesterday.  We had adopted Bret, so that kept me busy.  He was 10 or so when Kenny passed.  I sent him to public school.  I sent him to charter school.  I sent him to private school.  The little fellow kept me very busy.  I would have no doubt went nuts had I not had him, so for that I am grateful.

Being a 60 year old widow with a 10 year old son was not conducive to dating, so I did not do it.  After 9 years I put my toe in the water and met Sherman.  We know how that turned out and 3 years later he was gone.  I miss having someone to lean on, but I get by with a little help from my friends (I heard that in a song.)  There was one guy that I cared about, but he turned out to be not at all what he presented himself to be, so that fizzled out.

I think about dating some times, but not very often.  It would be nice to have someone that would call a couple times a week and maybe take me out to eat once in a while.  Or a walk along the levee.  I really miss that.  I have lady friends that I go to lunch with on occasion, but I still miss having a man to open a door for me.  I miss having a conversation where I say something and then he says something and then we both laugh.  A sense of humor is so important to me.

Kenny and Sherman were both very intelligent and witty.  They both loved me although not in the same way.  Kenny was fishing, bull riding, family, cooking, gardening, and country music.  Sherman was more high brow, sipping wine and old motorcycles.  We watched a movie once a week and one night we were watching "Cheech and Chong", which was my choice and he told me "Fiddler on the Roof "  would be wasted on you!"  I laughed at him, but I never chose Cheech and Chong again.  I did try to watch Fiddler on the Roof, but it bored me to tears.  He was right about that.

If I could meet someone like either one of those two, but I think God  broke the mold after he made them.

So, Thanksgiving is over for another year.  I had lots of company and they are starting to leave now.  Patty is going to stay a couple days extra so there is that.

I am changing my life and the process is already started.  I am sorting my possessions into 3 piles.  One is to keep and one is to sell and one is trash.  I guess there 3 more piles.  Those piles are "stuff" that belongs to other people.

There are books that belong to the college and are supposed to leave when the book sale is held in the Spring, but I hear the sale is not happening this year. Ever hear of a "book burning".

 Another pile belongs to a guy in Pueblo West and is stuff he wants, but not enough to take it home.  It has been in my garage for about 9 or 10 years.

 And then there are 2 piles that belong to a kid on the west side.  He wants his stuff, too, but not enough to come and get it.  I call it "garage sale shit."

I want to downsize.  Frank and Cliff brought me a roll off this summer and I filled it.  I may need another one of those.  Right now I am sorting and boxing.  I have a pile in the garage that grows every day.  In the spring I am going to have a junk sale and get rid of it.  What does not sell goes to the ARC.   My dogs are old.  If they make it to Spring it will surprise me.  When they are gone, I am gone.  This house will be put up for sale and since it is prime real estate, it will sell quickly "as is, where is, with all faults and weaknesses."

Some where there is a place for me in this world.  Course I come with a cat.  That cat and one suit case is about all that I need.  I suppose I can not completely change everything and I am sure wherever I am and what ever I am doing, I will pause for a run out to Los Pobres to see Sister Nancy and Rosie.  I expect I will still be gathering wax for the candles for the homeless.  I expect I will still have a crochet bag to work on, but who knows.  I guess I will just set back and see where the tides of life blow me.

In the meantime, if you see me on the street, I can sure use a smile and a hug.

Over the river and through the woods.

Nickerson was always cold in the winter and snow was always very deep.  I do not know when winter started exactly.  It was some time after school started and before Thanksgiving.  We lived in a house out at 709 Strong Street.  I would like to say it was a "clap board" house, but I am not sure that was accurate.  I think it was called a "clap board" because somebody took boards and "clapped" together and then hammered in a nail for good riddance.  5 rooms and not a bathroom in any of them.  The front room had a pot belly stove that we built wood fires in for warmth.  The kitchen had a giant wood cook stove.

The front of our house faced east toward town and the back faced west toward the cemetery.  The front of the house was the "front room" and Dad's bedroom was on the south with 2 beds.  One was for him and the other was for all of us kids except the 2 little ones and mother.  The next 2 rooms were the dining room and on the right was Mom's bedroom.  The dining room had a built in cupboard and yellow glass dishes were there.  We had a whole set.  They may have come from the oatmeal and corn meal we bought.  I wish I had a set of those dishes today.  I would sell them and retire on a tropical island some where. 

The kitchen ran the whole length of the house on the back.  Well, that is not quite true.  The back door of the kitchen led to a back porch.  One side of the porch was for stacking wood and on the other side was a door that lay at about a 30 degree angle and covered the steps down to the dreaded cellar.  I am sorry, there is no pretty way to put this, but that cellar was the scariest place in the whole world and we lived about a quarter of a mile from the cemetery.  Mother stored sweet potatoes, apples, white potatoes and canned fruits and vegetables down there.  There were spiders down in that hell hole bigger than I was and deadly as shit.  Black widows loved that place.  One of the first lessons I learned was how to take a stick and poke a spider web.  Usually it just broke loose and floated off, but if it were the web of the deadly black widow, it was shiny and crackled when you pulled.  When that happened we were to get the hell out of wherever we were at.  Being a good daughter, I did just that.  It was called a black widow because after breeding and to provide nourishment  for the babies, mother black widow killed and ate her husband. Praying Mantis's do the same thing.  I guess the kid's dad was lucky, huh?

The kitchen was one step down and could be accessed either through the dining room or mom's bedroom.  The floor was concrete, which was one step above a dirt floor.  The wood cook stove took up the whole corner.  Of course we had a wood box, and an ash bucket there by the stove.  Very little cooking took place through the week.  Mostly we ate cereal, raw potatoes, apples, sweet potatoes or a bread sandwich.  Sundays we cooked.  We had either fried chicken or roast beef.  Supper was stuff like scrapple if mother was lucky enough to score a hogshead.  Fried carp was regular fare and apples in about any method were an everyday occurrence.  I ate raw apples, fried apples, baked apple, boiled apples, sliced apples, dehydrated apples and rehydrated apples.  I made up my mind that when I grew up I would never eat another damn cooked apple and I have managed to keep that vow.  Marriage vows were easily broken, but the vow to never eat a cooked apple has been respected and never broken.  For the record, I do not eat Carp either, but that is just because I never ran across one since mother used to seine for them in Nickerson.

I started this to tell you about how hard the winters were back home.  Our walls had cracks where the boards came together and some times when the wind blew snow came in.  Not very often because mother did paper the walls, but sometimes the paper cracked.  I can remember once when we drove to Hutchinson to have Thanksgiving with my half brother, Earl and his wife and kids.  It took us most of the day to go and come back.  The roads were very snowy, but the cars back in those days were very heavy and pretty much mashed the snow.  If we slid off the road, sooner or later someone would come along and help us out of our dilemma.  We were in turn supposed to do the same for anyone we found in a predicament like that.  That was the good thing about the good old day.  We helped each other.  The "haves and the have nots" were not so far apart as they are today.

The thing about going to Earl's was that he had a house with a furnace.  It was an actual furnace and blew hot air through a grate in the floor.  We were amazed at how hot the grate was and Gertie showed us one of the boys leg where he had been burned by it before he learned.  He had a series of little squares on his leg and we "oohed and aahed" at how lucky he was to be alive.  We then ate whatever we ate and after a little small talk dad "allowed as how we ought to get on the road for the long drive back."  ( I made the drive in later years and it took about 20 minutes and that was driving slow and gawking at everything."  Of course that was not in the old Studebaker now was it?)

Thanksgiving had been great that year.  I do need to tell you that back in those days at the family dinners the order of plates being filled was different than it is today.  First the men filled their plates.  Then the older kids.  Then the mothers fixed plates for the young kids.  At that time it was time for the women to get their food.  When the meal was over, the women folk washed the dishes, dried them and put them away.  Floors were swept and the kitchen "redded up" for the next meal.

I wonder if the kids today know how Thanksgiving came to be a national holiday?  It is this time of year that I pause to think about how the people who were living here in America and surviving for so many years welcomed the newcomers and brought them food.  Guess they kind of thought these people needed help to survive.  I am betting that if they had known then what they know now, there sure as hell would not be any Thanksgiving dinner on the horizon.  But here we are in 2017 in the land of the free because of the brave with racial bias and hate swirling like snowflakes looking for something to be thankful for and coming way short of the goal.

Damn, I wish I could go back to that little shack on Strong Street and get my tongue stuck to the flagpole just one more time.

The straw that broke the camels back.

I am a patient person.  Really!  Through my life I have tolerated things that went against my grain for the sake of  "peace in the marriage," "peace in the church,"  "peace in the job place, "peace on earth," and the whole nine yards.  I am generally a peace loving person, but when I get a belly full, I am done.  I tolerated my first husbands drinking and general bad behavior for 10 years and then I was done.  Kit and caboodle was out of there.  I lasted 6 years at my first job until the boss got under my skin one too many times, and out the door I went.  It took me 2 years to leave the church I attended for 15 years before I started attending First Church.  I was seeing a guy for the last 5 years, but then I reached the point where, "Nope!  not this time.  I deserve better than this."  So here I set reflecting on just what I am going to get sick and tired of next.

Mother taught me well, the lessons of life.  She always told me that "some day you will have a belly full of that and it will all change."  "Oh, but momma, I love him so." And when I came dragging in with my kids in tow, asking for a place to stay, she simply said, "So what was the straw that broke the camel's back?"  Reflecting back on that particular time in my life, I do not remember.  Like she said, I just got my belly full.  One indignity at a time, one day at a time, one word at a time and it all adds up to a load that I could no longer carry.

Same with the church.  I loved that church.  That church helped me over rough spots when I was first aware of the AIDS epidemic.  That church was there when we adopted our grandson.  And that church saw me through losing my husband.  But then one straw at a time, they changed direction and made choices that I thought were unfair.  I tried to right them, but the camel could not carry me through.  And so I left.

The jobs were always easy to walk away from, because I figure if I am working 8-9 hours a day in an environment where I am happy and feel appreciated, I can tolerate the customers and the demands, but I can not survive in an atmosphere of discontent.  Not happening.

As for the last boyfriend, he was just that.  Not going to try that again.  I can not blame him.  The personality that I perceived was not the personality that was his true inner self.  There are traits I must have in friends and I do not know if he changed or his true self came out, but either way, history has stepped in and that is water under the bridge.  It takes a helluvaman to walk through life with me.  And as the saying goes, "Many are called, but few are chosen."  (That one may have came from the Bible and not from Mother.)

So, now let's get back to looking for that camel I was talking about.  Right now, I am taking a hiatus from life as I know it.  I have been Don Quixote for too many years.  I have tilted my blade at Homophobics, AIDS, DACA, Homelessness, Poverty, the environment, politics, animal welfare, domestic violence, adoption, Black lives matter, all lives matter, Indigenous people, NFL kneeling,
and God only knows what else.  I have retired from Hospice, Posada, Save the Whales and am now setting at home and looking at the mess I have made of my life.

I have a house full of junk because I have ran through the gambit of ceramics, sewing, quilting, knitting, weaving, gardening, and any other hobby you can conceive.  I have every item ever needed to do any hobby you think could have been invented.  I am old.  I want a house I can live in that does not have 4 levels and a yard I can look at and not have to mow for 2 hours once a week.  My dogs are old.  My geese are old.  Cat: not so much.

I can close my eyes and see that little mother of mine looking down with her fingers over her mouth and the twinkle in her bright little hazel eyes and asking me,  "So what did you think was going to happen when you started all this?  And just which straw broke this camel's back?"

Thanks, mom!

I was born a truck driver.

Woke up this morning thinking of the first time I was ever behind the wheel of a vehicle and flashed back to when I was 14 years old and had been farmed out to a family where the mom and dad both worked and lived on a working farm.  They had 2 sons.  One was named Billy and the other may or may not have been named Donnie.  Little bit fuzzy on how old they were even.  I do know I was picked up on Sunday night and returned home on Saturday morning.  It was kind of nice though because the house had running water and I had my own little bed in a tiny room right under the attic eave.  May have been small, but it was a lot more than I had at home.  It did not have a door.  It had one at one time, but for some reason it did not have one anymore, but I did not care.  I was safe.  Hotter than hell, but safe.

The mother sold Stanley products so she was gone most of the day.  The father worked at a farm equipment store in Hutch as a salesman so he was also gone.  My job was to tend the boys, and the chickens, and watch the old sow which was due to drop her piggies soon.  And as luck would have it she decided to do that one day just before the mom and dad came home.  She also began to eat them!  Remember that I was 14 and probably weighed in at 50 pounds soaking wet.  I stood no chance against a 300-400 pound sow in the throes of birth, but I tried.  I grabbed a couple of the babies and put them in a box.  She was very mad and I could not get to any more.  The boys were terrified when dad came home.  He immediately got his gun and dispensed the sow to the promised land and by then a friend was there and the boys and I were sent inside.  There were a few piggies saved and I have blocked the rest of what happened from my mind and that is how I survived a lot of my life.  Sometimes not remembering is a good thing.

But that has nothing to do with my first driving experience, does it?

The time came that a harvest was upon the land.  This family owned land here and there so there was a need to move from field to field which worked well most of the time since the hired hands were there to do it.  I stayed at home with the boys and it was not until harvest was over and all the equipment needed to be brought home that I was pressed into service.  Everything was moved except the last piece which was a big grain hauling truck.  Not an 18 wheeler, (Thank God!) but way bigger than a pickup.  The wife explained to me how simple this would be to drive.  Needless to say, this was a stick shift.  I knew what a stick shift was and I knew what a clutch was and I knew what a brake was.

"You just push the clutch in, start the truck, let the clutch out slowly and it is in low gear so you just give it a little gas and coast the mile to the farm."  OK.  That sounded simple enough and after a couple times of killing it and restarting it, I was off.  And then I remembered the bridge and the left hand turn I had to take.  I sweated blood until I was across the bridge and headed down the straightaway.  The fact that I had made it across the bridge AND negotiated the left hand turn exhilarated me!  I just had to putt on down the road to the driveway and turn right, go a few yards and stop.  I prayed I would not miss the driveway because there was no way in hell I would ever get it in reverse.  I envisioned having to drive around a section (what land in the country is divided into) to get another chance, so I was ready when the drive came up and I whipped around the corner, steered to the center of the yard and turned the key to the off position.  Then and only then, did I let myself breathe a sigh of relief and pride welled up in my throat.  I had done it!  I had driven that big truck across a bridge and around 2 corners!  I began to dream of the day I could drive and have my own car.  And here I am.

Not to be boasting, as pride goeth before a fall and a haughty spirit before destruction,  but, here I am 60+ years later and I have a perfectly clean driving record.  No dings in my car from me.  The ones that are there were there when I got the car.  No tickets for anything.  I do have a lead foot at times, but don't we all?  I was pulled over one night long ago in Fowler, but I think the cop was thinking to put the moves on me since I was a woman presumably alone at 1:00 in the morning.  Sadly for him when he walked up to the door Bret and Shelly awoke and wanted to know what was going on now?  Did I mention, God is my co-pilot?

I did not own a car or a drivers license until I was 24 years old.  When I married Duane he just assumed I could drive, so I did.  I was stopped one night in Liberal, Kansas with a broken tail light and the officer told me I needed a license or next time I would get a ticket for not having one.  Getting a license back then was easy.  All I had to do was present myself and a vehicle at the drivers license place and show them I could drive.  That and $5.00 was all it took.  Luckily the car I was driving at the time had brakes and such.  I was not always so lucky.  We usually bought a vehicle at the sale for less than $50.00 and drove it till it gave up the ghost and was abandoned in someones yard.  I recall one time I had the 4 youngest and was going to see mother and the tail lights went out.  I knew it was a fuse and I knew we did not keep such things around, but luckily I smoked and cigarettes were in packs with tin foil!  I carefully fold up a piece of that and voila!  The tail lights came on.

(I learned lots of little tricks that would do me no good whatsoever later in life.  The way to seal a leak in your gas tank is with a bar of soap!  When the car vapor locks, just wait till it cools off and you can get another 10 or 20 miles down the road.  If you lock the keys in the trunk it is easier to use a pick axe to make a hole over the latch then it is to remove the back seat and put it back in.  And for God's sake do not forget your birth control pills when you are going with your husband to visit your mother in law!)  And that is my Words of Wisdom for today!

This should bring back memories for someone.

I love old pictures and this one definitely qualifies as old.  This must have been taken in about 1942 or early 1943.

The boy on the left is Delbert Leroy Bartholomew, better known as "Jake".  He should be about 4 or 5 years old.  The girl on the right is Josephine Anne Walden Bartholomew.  And the sweet little toddler who is probably 2 years old give or take a few months, is none other than yours truly.  Isn't that cute how they have hold of me like they actually like me?  Either that or they were going to drag me off and torture me.  This picture was probably taken while we lived on the Ailmore place, wherever that was.  That would have been back when Mother went to "Club" whatever that was.  Seems as though back in those days when the women got together it was for "Club" and it entailed a lot of recipes, and helpful household hints to keep your man happy. 

And when women went to "Club" they always dressed in their finery.  See back in those days there was no wearing of the jeans, or slacks or anything except your house dress or your good dress or your church clothes.  Hats were common and women did not go to church without a hat.  They also wore gloves.  They attended the whole service with hat on head and gloved hands folded in their lap.  Men wore hats, but they were required to remove them when they entered.  It was a sign of respect.  Women showed respect by keeping them on and covering their hair which was their "crowning glory."  Do not ask me to explain the difference because I can not and I am just here to report what was what.

When Mother took us to club, we were expected to set quietly through the whole time.  No fidgeting and no wondering when we were going home and God help us if we had to pee.  Our bladders were empty when we left and full when we got home.  Club was held at a different ladies house every month.  One woman took notes so they could remember what they did last month.  I remember how excited mom was one time since a lady was going to come to our house and give all of us a haircut.  Well, let me tell you, that was my introduction to the "bowl haircut" which was exactly what the name implied.  She sorted through mother's bowl until she found just the right one.  It was then placed upside down over each head and the hair that stuck out under the bowl was cut off with her scissors which were in bad need of a sharpening.  That was a sad day and the next day we were ridiculed and laughed at during recess.  Mother never called upon her for assistance again and I for one was damn glad of it.

On the note of the scissors needing sharpened, you should know that back in those days the "sharpener man"  came around periodically to sharpen scissors, knives, axes and anything that needed a new edge.  That was what he did and he was very good at it.  And another regular visitor to the houses was the "tinker man".  Mother saved all her pans that had "sprung a leak" due to a tiny hole for the tinker man.  He had a wagon with a box on the back.  It was pulled by an old sad looking horse and I am not sure, but it seemed like the horse had an old straw hat on his head.  The sharpener man and the tinker man both had regular rounds, because they came about every 6 months and were always pretty close to the same time every 6 months.

The Watkins man and the Fuller Brush man also made regular visits to sell wares out the back of their wagons, and momma always had her list and her money in her hand.  Sometimes the dry goods man came and he had fabric and needles and stuff like that.  He was put out of business by  Mrs. Warrington, who opened the dry goods store up on main.  She also carried shoes and underwear and just about anything one could want.  I recall Mr. Warrington was very quiet and she conducted all the business, but I might be getting them mixed up with the people who had the dry goods store on Little House on the Prairie.  My mind tends to muddle a bit at my age.

Of course there were also men that made visits and set up on the corner in town and hawked their wares.  Usually these guys were selling some sort of miracle cure for one thing or another.  Those were known as "snake oil"  salesman.  One bottle of their product would cure almost any ailment you had and they guaranteed it.  Only problem was that as soon as they sold the last bottle, they were gone and would never be seen again.

You know, I can remember way back when I found a book I wanted to buy and I wrote a letter to the company explaining what I wanted and then printed my name and address and put the money in the envelope (As I recall it was 15 cents.)and mailed it off to the address in another state.  It took about 6 weeks, but finally here it came. I treasured that book, but more than that, I had faith in people I would never meet to send me what I wanted. Try that now!  They do not want money only a debit card or credit card.  I can order something today and have it tomorrow.  If I took a leaky pan to get it fixed and I found someone that I thought would do it, they would laugh me out of the place.  It is cheaper to buy new, then repair what we have.  I used to stop at the shoe shop on my way home to get my sole put back on or the tongue stitched back in my shoe.  Now I buy a new pair and the old ones are not even falling apart yet.

Well, I just wanted to prattle on a while tonight.  If my stories sometimes seem a bit discombobulated just take them with a grain of salt and remember that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.

And with that I am off to dreamland.

I will not live in fear is complete bullshit!

I am scared.  I will be the first to admit it.  I do not want to get shot at Walmart, or in my church, or at the school, or any where else.  I see the marchers that say they will not live in fear, but think about that.  When something like Texas, Las Vegas, Sandy Hook, and etc. etc. etc. happens I am afraid.  My government is doing nothing to allay my fears.  The NRA has a death grip on our congress.  Feed them money.  Money talks.  I have always heard that you can send an honest person to Washington, but you can not get that honest person back!

When one of these incidents (for want of a better word) occurs they begin to dig into the shooters past and lo! and behold! there were mistakes made in letting that idiot buy 15 AK 47's and 40,000 rounds of ammunition not to mention the arsenal in his bedroom that makes the local police look under armed.  I have a 22 pistol.  I keep it in my underwear drawer.  Does that make me feel safe?  No.  It would have to be a damn patient killer to wait for me to dig it out and find the safety and the clip and everything I need to shoot an intruder.

A wise man once told me " You never know anyone, you only know of them."  When we have an "incident" like this last one, then we dig into their past.  We first try to tie him (and so far they are him) to ISIS.  Rarely have any real ties to ISIS, but might leave a note saying it so no one will think he as just a lunatic.  Until then we did not give a shit who he was or what he thought.  Ah, but hindsight is so much better than foresight, isn't it?  The why's and the where's are all behind us.  Nothing can bring those people back.  Nothing can change the past.  Now is not the time to talk about it our pain is too fresh.  We must honor the dead.  We must hold a vigil.  Is that really what we want?  Not me.

I want to march to Washington D.C. and grab the congress by the throat and demand that they do something.  They work for ME!  Not the IRA!  When their second amendment right (and if you actually read that, they are off base on that.) infringes on MY right to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness there has got to be a change. 

Australia has it right.  Get rid of the guns.  That sure cuts the mass murder rates down.  The NRA nuts,  (and I use that word to describe those Second amendment idiots that are demanding they have their "protection") are controlling my world.  What in the hell is our police force for?  At the Walmart shooting so many citizens pulled out their guns and waved them around that the investigation was stalled because they had no idea which gun waver was the shooter.  Did not stop the shooting; just screwed up the scene.

I am smart enough to know that my one small voice will get jack shit.  I am not, however, going to jump up and say "I will not live in fear," because, Buddy I am.  I get in my car and leave the safety of my home and God only knows if I will make it back.   I hesitate before I walk into a place where I know there are a lot of people because who knows what nut is right outside the door, or what I will find inside.

The following is taken from a report on the Internet.  Just a short read FYI.

American civilians are buying as many AK47s from Russia's top armory as the Russian military and police. 

The surge in sales of Russian assault rifles and shotguns are fuelled by firearms enthusiasts who are paranoid about the weapons being banned in the United States. 

The semiautomatic weapons, fitted with high-capacity magazines, are manufactured at Izhevsk Machinebuilding Plant, Russia's primary small arms factory.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2188727/Americans-buy-AK47s-Russian-military-assault-rifle-surges-popularity.html#ixzz4xqP0z0q2 
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When I read that the American people buy more of these guns then the Russian military and police, I get really scared.  That is just the AK 47.  Not all the other guns, just one model.  If that doesn't alarm you, I do not know what will.  So you guys/gals hold tight to those guns.  Do not let them take your gun because you never know when you are going to need to save your ass.  Mine, not so much.