Being a shooting coach:

It seems like a natural progression to have become involved in the shooting sports industry.  I was born and raised around guns.  My dad was a gunsmith as well as a competitive shooter which means that my gun safety education started early.  At any given time, my dad would have some kind of a project on the bench.  This afforded me many learning opportunities that have stuck with me for a lifetime.

Many years later, I was recruited by some friends to join their outstanding team of professionals in the luxury entertainment shooting industry!  Talk about a dream job!  Supposedly it was my personality that caused them to zero in on me.  Here I was thinking it was my model like good looks that landed me the position.  Apparently they already chose a face for the company.  (Can't be prettier than me, but whatever.  It's their company.)

So, I told you that to get to this.   One might think that a guy from my hunting and shooting background would go out and marry an outdoors woman.  The type of gal that would drop everything in order to take an evening off to either go to the range for some trigger time or an afternoon hunt.

Nope.  Not me.  I go and marry a hippy.  I kind of knew what I was getting into and I was honest with her from the get go.  If I'm not mistaken, on our first or second date I told her that "September and October are mine.  I might be hard to keep around the house come hunting season."  I kind of thought that she would be on board since we were eating a steak at the time.

Months later, we move in together.  I bring my T.V in first.  Some miscellaneous furniture followed and then I started to bring in the guns.  I had 4 at the time and I could tell by the look on her face that I was going to have some "splaining" to do.  I mean, you'd have thought that I dragged in a burlap sack of dead cats and silicon sex toys.

"What is that?", she asked.  "It's a shotgun, baby."  "What do you need that for?" she asked.  "It's for hunting birds and rabbits, honey."  She just looked at the floor like I just stole something from her.  I looked at her as I walked out to bring in another gun.

"What is that?" she asked again.  "It's a rifle, baby."  "What do you need that for?" she asked.  "It's for hunting antelope, deer, elk, moose or almost any big game animal, honey."  Again, she looked at the floor.  As I walked back out to grab the hand guns, she took a seat on the couch and asked, "Are there more?"  "Oh yeah!" I answered and thought, "What a silly question that was."

I take a good look at her as I hit the door to bring in the last 2 guns.  I think she started to recite ancient Buddhist text or some John Lennon or Grateful Dead lyrics.  I come waltzing through the door with 2 pistol cases and an ammunition box.  Before she could ask I said, "It's 2 hang guns and an ammunition case, Baby.  I use them for just shooting for the hell of it or for protection if needed, Honey".

"What kind of shit are you getting into that you need guns for protection?" she asked.  And, knowing me as good as she did at the time, I felt that was a completely reasonable question.  She was plenty aware of my general attitude and she watched me scare the ever loving shit out of a guy for taping a "no parking'' sign on my brand new truck.

I replied, "I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it."  That wasn't good enough.  I could see that she was very uneasy, so I began what I felt was a meaningful dialog regarding the subject.  "Are you anti-gun?" I asked.  She said, "Well, kind of."  I said, "Remember us discussing the fact that I hunt in September and October, Baby?"  She nodded.  "How do you think I hunt, Honey?  I can't just smite a limit of pheasant or a deer or an elk.  I have to go shoot them, Honey."

"Yeah, but hand guns aren't for hunting" she said.  "Well, that's not entirely true, Honey.  One of these 2 hang guns is often used for hunting."  I went on to mention a mutual friend that we shared that hunted with his .44 magnum.  She was still in disbelief.  So I asked her, "Why are you afraid of guns?"  Then she told me, "My dad was cleaning his gun once and blew up the TV."

That made sense to me.  You're sitting around watching Hee Haw or some shit and the TV gets blow up, its liable to scare the shit out of you!  So, I started to tell her a litany of things that went wrong at the time the TV blew up, like trying to clean a loaded gun.  Nothing I said put her at ease, but she managed to hang around for a couple of decades despite the mighty arsenal I had in the safe and the pistol I carried nearly everywhere I went.

Years later, we were looking for something to do.  We didn't have time to go camping.  She isn't interested in fishing and I wasn't into hiking unless we were going to be going fishing.  Out of the blue she says, "I think I would like to learn how to shoot."  We tried that before.  After a brief safety tutorial, I handed her a .22 and you would have thought I handed her a basket of asps.  She was just too uncomfortable and I could not put her at ease.  This time looked a bit different.

"Okay" I said.  "We can go shooting.  What do you want to shoot?"  "I want to shoot one of those rifle things and that 9mm thing" she said.  I grabbed the guns, the ammo, hearing protection and the keys and down the road we went.  The whole ride in, we discussed gun safety and safe gun handling.  This time, she seemed genuinely interested.  And I thought to myself, "She'll be fine with that .22 but as soon as she shoots the 9mm, she'll head for the truck and that will be all she wrote."

So, we got to where we were headed.  It was an old gravel pit in the middle of nowhere.  We rehashed all of the safety stuff we had gone over earlier and began to set up some targets.  I asked her if she was scared.  "No, not so much" she replied.  We got back to the truck and I got the rifle and the pistol out.  I opened the rifle case and let her hold the rifle.  Again, we went through all of the safety aspects.  Finger off trigger until ready to shoot.  Barrel pointed in a safe direction.  How to obtain sight alignment and she was right with the program.  I loaded the magazine and had her load it into the magazine well, while naming each of the components.

"Magazine" she says as she holds it in her left hand.  "It goes in the magazine well which is located right here on the bottom of the action."  I nod in approval.  "This is how you charge the rifle" and she worked the action.  "This gun is now in condition 1 and that means the rifle is charged and ready to go."  She got in her stance with a bit of coaching, shouldered the rifle, obtained her target, slid her finger in the trigger guard and let one fly.  She hit the target.

"Was that right?" she asked.  "Yeah, Honey.  That was the objective.  I appreciate you keeping your finger out of the trigger guard and the muzzle safely down range as we discussed during the safety briefing.  Now, do it again."  Pew...hit.  "Again."  Pew...hit.  She manged to go 9 for 10 at a target as big as the bottom of a coke can at 25 yards.  She had a grin from ear to ear.  "Is that good?" she asked excitedly.  "Yeah Baby.  That what its all about."

I thought it was a fluke or just dumb luck.  I loaded her up another magazine and asked her to load the rifle.  Again, she said what step she was doing, explained why and when the rifle was in condition 1 she said, "Ready to fire."  She shouldered the rifle, obtained her target and then managed to dump 8 of 10 into the target that was already riddled with holes.

She smiles and says, "I want to do it again" as she hands me the empty magazine.  I gladly loaded another magazine.  She loaded the gun, charged the gun, obtained her target and sent another 9 of 10 into the target.  She had a smile on her face that I couldn't knock off.  I didn't realize it yet, but I was creating a monster.

"I'm done shooting this thing.  I want to shoot the pretty one" she says.  We go through another safety briefing much like the previous one, except this one was regarding a pistol rather than a long gun.  We worked on a proper stance for a couple of minutes and then she just kind of nodded.  I said, "What was that?' and she said, "Load it, dude!"

As well as she had been shooting, I figured I'd better do it and do it now.  I explain to her that the magazine was bigger and that meant that the gun held more rounds.  She said "Okay" and started jumping up and down and clapping.  I'd never seen her act like this.

I tell her, "Loading this pistol is almost the exact same thing as loading the rifle.  Magazine goes into the magazine well, pull the slide back and let it fly forward and chamber a round and then you are ready to get to work.  Are you ready?"  She squares up to her target, takes the gun, racks a round into the chamber and gets to work, just like I thought she would.  She went 12 for 16 on her first magazine.  She hands me the gun, hops around, claps and says "Again, again, again!"

This shit goes on for about and hour and half.  No matter how far away from the target she is, she is drilling it at least 75% of the time.  And by this point she is letting me know if she is shooting high or low.  Now she is pushing me out of the way and loading her own magazine while hopping around and singing some song she just made up about shooting.  It was like I was shooting with a big toddler!  "Is this right?  Is this good?"  Bang, bang, bang.... giggle, giggle, giggle.

She didn't need me.  In fact, I felt left out at this point.  "Honey, do you mind if I shoot?" I asked.  "In a second.  Can you grab me more bullets, please?" she says.  I thought I would be the boss out here and I was wrong.  "Dirty Harriet" is blowing shit away and barking orders like a gunnery sergeant.  "More ammo, Dudley!  I ain't got all day!  Load that magazine and do it now!"

I told her, "Honey, my finger hurts from loading all of the magazines.  Can I please shoot for a minute."  Gunny Dudley replies, "Well holy shit!  Little Bricey's finger hurts!  Let's just stop the war while Bricey goes in search of some TLC!  What in the hell do you think this is!!!  Ammo!  Now!  Go, go, go!"

Now, I didn't serve in the military and I know damned well she didn't either.  She may have missed her calling.  "The action is clear, the range is cold!  Move those targets!"  This went on until we ran out of ammo and then I got my ass chewed for that!  "No ammunition?  What in the hell is going on here?!?!  How are we to defend ourselves without ammunition?"  I was at a loss for words.

She managed to calm herself only to the point of jumping around and clapping again.  "Were doing this again, right?"

Never in a million years did I think that she would enjoy this that much.  As it turns out, every new shooter I have had the pleasure of working with feels about the same way!  (Minus barking orders and chewing my ass about ammo shortages.)

Hope you guys enjoyed the story.  Little Schwarzkopf ordered me to get on with some KP and doing something about acquiring more ammunition.  I'd better get my ass on that, now that she knows how to shoot!

Fighting a boxer

Many years ago, I had the horrible misfortune of being in a bit of a scrape with a boxer.  I'm not talking about the kind of guy who joins a boxing aerobics class and thinks he is learning to box, nor am I talking about the type of guy who pays an athletic trainer to make him think he is training like a boxer.

No.  What I am talking about is much different specimen.  I'm talking about the type of guy who wants to learn how to box.  This guy goes to a boxing gym, filled with other boxers and does this of his own free will.  This guy spends hours on end trying to master his craft.  He spars with other boxers.  He works on his footwork, his stamina and his agility.  He works on slipping punches and works on throwing effective counter punches.  He also works on defense, something you would never learn about in an aerobics class.

Now, I'm not a tough guy.  I have not been in too many fights.  In fact, I am not a big fan of me being in fights.  As it turns out, that shit hurts.  I guess I am old enough to realize that now.  When you encounter a regular guy who wants to fight, most lack the essential skills to stick around long.  Most don't know how to throw a proper punch.  Testament to that thought is, I've managed to keep my teeth in my mouth, in their original position.  More importantly, these people typically don't look like they know what they are doing.  They just start swinging for the fences and one of a few things will happen.  They will gas out after flailing around for 20 seconds, they will get lucky and connect once or twice, or they will get throttled with a straight punch right up the middle.  None of that silly shit is going to happen when you fight a boxer.  Nope.  Not a bit of it.

I can't remember what exactly started the fight.  I think my boxer friend tactfully removed that from my memory while moving both of my eyebrows around on my forehead.  Knowing me in my younger years, I'd suggest that I was running my gums about something, he objected then I said one last thing that got under his skin.

What I do remember is this.  He squared up with me, real quick... as if Micheal Buffer was just done announcing our names to everybody in the arena and the referee was going to give us fight instructions.  There was no Michael Buffer, no arena and frankly no referee.  His chin went down, his hands came up and just by the way he did that alerted me to the fact that I was going to have my hands full.

I admit, he caught me off guard.  He didn't look like he knew what he was doing.  Man, was I wrong about that and I'd learn that lesson in about 9 seconds.  He bobbed 2-3 times as if I were already throwing punches and then it happened.  Left, right, left.  It was a left jab, straight right and a left hook even before I could get my hands up!  Right eyebrow, busted!  Left eyebrow, busted!  Left hook to the chin and out went the lights.....

So, when a professional ass whipping is administered in this fashion, nothing hurts.  You don't feel a thing but you do oddly remember the look on the guys face and each punch right before it ricochets off of your face.  Uhm, he looked serious, by the way.  Kind of like he knew what he was doing.

I could only tell that the beat down was over because my head was no longer bouncing around on my shoulders, and as the lights began to come back on, I found myself in a compromised position.  I was on my hands and knees, a fair amount of blood coming mostly from my right eyebrow and I had the spins.  I could hear people talking and I could feel someone trying to stand me up.  The fog began to clear a bit more.  It dawned on me that I had been issued an official, professional ass whoop and someone had come to my rescue.

I remember thinking, "who is this person, gracious enough to put an end to the savage beating I just took?"  I wiped some more blood from my eye and at the same time hoped the guy who beat me up got run over by the space shuttle or some shit.  Who was standing in front of me?  The guy who just beat my ass...  "You're gonna be all right," he said, "but you're going to want to get that eyebrow looked at."  He turned me around, somehow pointed me in the direction of my truck and said, "Have a nice night, okay?"

I stepped off the curb and stuffed my finger tip into the hole in my eyebrow.  I thought, "not only did this guy beat me senseless, he also knows when a fellow needs about 8 stitches."  I took his advice and headed towards the hospital.  The first thing they asked was, "what happened?"  The next thing they asked was, "Have you been drinking?"  I hadn't but I wish I had a cold one right about then.  I told them I got beat up but "my opponent was good natured and well mannered enough to pick me up, dust me off, give me some medical advice and pointed me in the right direction to get it."

8 stitches in one eyebrow, 3 stitches in the other and two ice bags later, I was sent home to nurse my wounds.  I sat there and kept going over the course of events.  "How could this have gone so wrong?'' It took playing the loop over in my mind about 10 times, but I figured it out.  My mouth sent an invitation to a party that I had no business throwing.

Since then, I have caught myself randomly asking people if they are professional boxers before I go and say something stupid.  I think I owe that to myself.  Call me a hard learner, but I now know what the professor looks like at the school of hard knocks.

Doctor Visit

For a guy with a colorful 4 letter word vocabulary, I sure do take offense to some rather unoffensive words.  I've written about this in the past.  The word I hate the most is "moist" and I think I have gone into enough detail as to why the word makes my skin crawl.

Recently the words "soy milk" and "almond milk" have managed to get under my skin.  Maybe its semantics or maybe I just don't have anything else in the world bothering me.  I don't know.  To me it just seems like another lie someone is trying to make me choose to believe.

Now, I have tried both of them.  I can say that I did not find the taste offensive.  You know what I do find offensive? Calling this shit milk. It's not milk.  I've eaten pounds of edamame and almonds in my life and I have never once discovered a lactating tit on either one.  Yeah, I've looked.  I spent a good amount of time looking for bean tits.  Not one.  I haven't even found a cartoon bean tit.

I even went as far as to ask my doctor about bean tits.  He looked at me as if I had really lost my mind this time, but I figured since I don't know any bean doctors, I'd ask the guy I am paying to sit in front of me to answer the question.  I figured he had spent more time in school than I did, and if anyone in the office knew about bean tits, he was likely my guy.

The doctor said, "So we discussed your blood glucose level and your A1c and what we need to do there.  We talked about your blood pressure, which is improving by the way.... is there anything that we should talk about?"

 I mean, for Christ's sake.  He opened the door to the conversation.

I nodded and asked, "Do beans have tits?"  He looked at his clip board and then looked at the floor.  He looked at the spot between my eyebrows and then looked at the floor again.  He scratched his head and said, "What did you just ask me?".

I said, "I asked you if beans have tits."  He went through the same routine.  Clipboard, floor, the spot between my eyebrows and the floor again.  He pushed himself back a couple of feet from me and said, "Are you okay?"  I replied, "Well, you're the doctor. You said I was doing pretty good."

Here's where it went south, fast and in a hurry

Doctor:  "What kind of question is that?"
Me:  "I don't know if it lies in the realms of a botany or agriculture question with a medical twist."
Doctor:  "What would a bean need a tit for?"
Me:  "For milk, obviously."
Doctor:  "What in the fuck is the matter with you? "
Me: "You've already asked me that."
Doctor:  "Why would a bean ever need milk?"
Me:  "I don't know as if they ever do need milk."
Doctor:  "Then why would they need tits?  Wait, don't answer that..."

He looked at the clock on the wall and then fiddled with his watch.  He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and asked, "What in the hell is going on here?"

I'm dead ass serious with the guy, and he is about to lose his ever loving mind.  I said, "Soy milk and almond milk.  If soy and almonds don't have tits, where do you get soy milk and almond milk from?"
He shook his head yet again and said, "I can't believe I am having this conversation.  Soy milk comes from soy and almond milk comes from almonds.  That's it.  There's nothing more to it.  It is what it is."

"But it can't be milk if it doesn't come from a tit, right?"

So here sits this guy, completely bewildered by whats taking place.  He is a nice, clean cut fellow who know looks as if he is considering bypassing all entry level drugs and hopping straight to heroin.
He throws his hands in the air.  "How is this even a thing?  How are we even having this discussion?  What does this have to do with your health?"  I answered, "I think this is more about the truth than anything else.  I don't know how you can call something milk that is not milk.  It seems horribly dishonest and I find you to be a pretty honest guy.  You asked me if there was anything else I wanted to talk about, so I brought this up."

Silence hit the room again.  This time it was rather profound.  The poor soul looked heart broken, like I declined his offer to take me to the prom.  Then all of a sudden, he looked as if he had some kind of a recovery.  "While I have you here, lets go ahead and take some blood and then I will see you again in two weeks and we will discuss the blood test results."

He said that because he knows I don't like giving blood.  And that's fine.  The poor guy looked like I dragged him through a size 2 knot hole.  I guess he thought he deserved to get something out of this discussion.  Anyhow, I make it through the blood draw and make an appointment for two weeks down the road.

Two weeks later, I show up to discuss the blood test results.  As per usual, the nurse walks me in, takes my blood pressure, checks my pulse and asks the regular questions.  She awkwardly departs while saying that the doctor would be in in just a couple of minutes.

A minute later, the doctor walks in.  He greets me with a handshake like usual and says, "Hey.  Before we go any further, I just want to say that we will only be discussing your health on this visit.  I am in a bind for time and your blood results are pretty cut and dry."  I agree and then the first thing he does is ask, "So how are the wife and kids?''

I don't say a thing.  He made it abundantly clear that we were only going to discuss my health.  Again he asks, "So, how are the wife and kids?"  Again, I say nothing.  He taps me on the shoulder and says, "Can you hear me?" I nod yes.  "Are you going to answer the question' he asks.  I said, "I thought you said we were only going to discuss my health?''

He turned his back on me, sat his stethoscope down and took off his lab coat.  He dropped the lab coat on the ground and gave me this dejected look.  He opened the door and left the building.  I think he quit.  If he didn't give it up altogether, I bet he is finished with me.  That's kind of sad.... not so much that he quit but more along the lines that he never answered my question.  Do beans have tits?

Trip to the barber shop.

I'm a kind of "go with what you know" type of guy.  I buy gas and groceries at the same places I have been shopping for years.  I have the same mechanic that I have been using for the last 3 decades.  It's product loyalty, I reckon.  These good folks at these places have never steered me wrong or screwed me over.  I get what I want for a reasonable price and if there is a problem, these folks go out of their way to make things right.

It's the same thing with hair cuts.  Big shout out to Mike and them over at Teton Barbers.  Those guys have been cutting my hair for nearly 30 years, except for when I decide to shave my head.  It's almost like we are family at this point.  Besides getting a good hair cut for a good price, you normally get a couple of good jokes, a pretty good BS session and you get to find out who is doing what with that big ass hole in the ground across the street from the shop.

This isn't about those folks though.  I'm comfortable there no matter whose chair I sit in.  This is about another shop in another town, some time back.  I was on vacation and I needed a hair cut pretty bad.  I asked a few friends and when 2 of them mentioned the same shop, I got on the phone and made an appointment for the following day.

The next morning, I showered, washed my hair and set off for the barber shop.  I arrived about 10 minutes early and took a seat.  The normal looking barber with the normal looking client asked, "Do you have an appointment?".  I told him I did and when he said, "One of us will be right with you" it gave me the opportunity to really survey the situation.

The rest of the people there looked like the Ministry of  Awkward Souls.  These folks looked as if they excelled in making poor life decisions.  Besides the lopsided hair cuts, neck and face tattoos, each one of them either had an appendage in a cast, visible bruises or stitches or missing teeth.  That's counting the other 2 barbers mind you and one of them was blessed with a neck brace screwed into his head.

All judging aside, I really wanted the normal looking barber.  I needed the normal looking barber.  What did I get?  The gal who looked like Marilyn Manson wearing a clown costume.  As it turned out, I ended up with a hair cut I could live with, but it never seemed as if it was going to go that way.

As barbers do, she asked me what I wanted.  I gave instructions that I wanted it short but just long enough to be able to comb.  She nodded and then took a bite of a bologna sandwich.  Then she began to tell me a story, I believe in Arabic, about her husband or hamster.  I couldn't tell which because of the tongue piercings.

I tried to stay engaged but she kept spitting on me as she talked.  That made looking her in the face and trying to decipher the language she was trying to speak nearly impossible.  She managed to stab me in the head with the scissors.  I don't know if that was meant to grab my attention or be a promise of things to come, but I all of a sudden wanted to leave.

Finally she stood in front of me, holding a mirror.  She nodded and said, "Wouth jew lipe me to du thumpin witch does ibrews?"  I was mesmerized...  She nodded again and repeated herself.  I kind of did the "what the fuck did you just say" thing with my hands.  She reached out and poked me in the forehead and said, "Ibrews... wouth you lipe me to pix your Ibrews?"  I did the hand gesture thing again and wiped my forehead where the blood was now trickling from.

"Eyebrows?" I asked.  She smiled her picket fence smile and nodded emphatically.  To her credit, they were heinous.  They looked like burn victim caterpillars.  All sparse and patchy, no two hairs the same length and a couple of them were as long as my pointer finger.

I stood up as the took that cape thingy off of me and I said, "No, hell no.  Leave them be.  I plan on growing them out and braiding them to those pesky nose hairs you were probably going to ask me about."  She looked at me like a puppy would if I had a real high voice and kind of tilted her head.  Then she said, "Okay, that'll be $9.00" like I was the weird one.

I gave her all the cash I had.  I don't know how much it was.  I just wanted to go.

I hit the door and waved back over my shoulder.  I made a beeline to the Insta-care for a tetanus shot and 2 stitches form the cranial scissor wound.  They wanted to know what happened but I just didn't have it in me to tell them the truth.  "Oh, I was trying shove spaghetti up a bobcats ass and he scratched me on the head.  Can I have some stitches please and go home... I just want to go home."

That reminds me, Mike or anyone at the barber shop, I need a haircut.  I'll make an appointment soon.

Parenthood and shit....

Nothing in the world can completely prepare you for parenthood.  It seems as if there are a million books with a million different opinions on how to properly raise a child, but none of them ever really get it right.  And for that matter, no how much preparation you do, you are never fully prepared for what we got hit with this past Christmas break.

With the kids being adults and out of the house, Christmas doesn't have the same feeling anymore.  For us these days, Christmas is more about family and friends and perhaps the wife gets off to mass in an attempt to keep the door of heaven open for me.

We got word that our youngest was going to be home for Christmas so we began to make arrangements regarding how, what and where we would be celebrating this joyous holiday.  The wife began to plan the menu.  I planned the beer.  In no time flat, we were just sitting around and awaiting our son's arrival.

When he walked in the house a couple of weeks later, he dropped a whole semester's worth of dirty clothes on the wash room floor, gave his mom a kiss and came over and gave me a big hug.  The boy looked good.  Perhaps he lost a few pounds, but something else was different and I couldn't put my finger on it.

As he told stories about school, his room mates and beer pong, I sensed a bit of anxiety.  I didn't say anything at first but rather watched it build.  He began to pace as he spoke.  Shortly after that, he began wringing his hands as he got more nervous.  Topics for discussion were all over the place and by this point, I could tell something was really eating away at him.

I said, "Son, what's bothering you?".  "Nothing much" he replied, not very convincingly but added, "I do have something that I have to tell you and mom, though."  The wife was in the kitchen and said "I'm listening, honey.  Go ahead."

The boy was sweating at this point and the first thing that ran through my mind was that he knocked up some poor co-ed.  I looked at him as he was looked at the floor for a shred of confidence.  I asked the wife to come join me on the couch so he could have our undivided attention.  As she sat, this pregnancy thought ran through my mind again so I leaned over and said, "No matter what this is, we will get through this like we've gotten through every other thing that has ever happened."  She nodded cautiously.

"Mom, dad...  I have something that I've been wanting to tell you for some time now" he said.  Before he could go on the wife said, "I knew it.  You got some girl pregnant, didn't you?"  I was glad she said it, but Wade just shook his head and directed a stare at the wall above our heads.  "No mother.  I didn't get anyone pregnant."  I chimed in, "You've failed out of school?"  "No dad.  That hasn't happened yet either.  In fact, my grades are good and solid."

The wife and I exchanged a glance.  We do this from time to time.  It's like telepathy.  At the same time, we looked at him and said, "Are you coming out of the closet?"  "No" he said with emphasis, "and please quit interrupting me.  This is very important!"  He looked at the floor.  The wife and I looked at each other as if we covered everything that we thought he would find important.  At the same time we both shrugged and tuned back in to whatever it was that he was going to tell us.

"Mom, dad, I've been wanting to tell you this for about 3 months now.  I think its really important that you know this.  Some kids don't have the type of family that I do, so I am sure that when I get this off my chest, I will have your support, or at least I hope I will."  He looked us both in the eyes and said, "Mom and dad, I am a vegetarian!"

The wife broke into tears.  She was immediately inconsolable.  He said something else to his mother, but all I heard was Charlie Browns kindergarten teacher talking.  "Wa waa waaaa wawa wa wawawa."  I stood up and looked him dead in the eye and said, "Vegetarian?  Are you out of your fucking mind?  Vegetarian?  Holy shit son!  What in the fuck is going on with you?"

Now of course the anxiety level is through the roof at our once peaceful abode.  He looks at me and said, "You know dad, I could really use some support right now.  This is serious."  I answered back, "You're God damned right its serious!  You've got incisors, for Christ's sake!  Those fuckers were made for ripping into meat, boy.  Your mom, your dad, your brother, every one of your grandparents, every one of your great grandparents, all of your aunts and uncles are all carnivores!  What in the world makes you think you can just stroll in here and say something as ridiculous as that?"

It was at this point in time that I knew my world had been turned upside down.  I'd never been more mad or more confused in my life.  I mean, I have taken this boy hunting and I taught him how to fish just so he could learn where food really comes from.  Now this kid is prepared to turn in his fishing gear and hunting rifle for a reusable cloth bag to take to the farmer's market?

He said, "You know dad, I could use a little support right now."  "You bet your ass you can!  You ain't strong enough to stand up on your own.  Eating twigs, lettuce and dirt ain't no way to get proper nutrition.  Shit, your mother or I am going to have to move in with you to drag your anemic ass to classes and shit.  For crying out loud man.  Why couldn't you have come home and told your mother and I you were gay or you knocked up some poor waif?  We were prepared for that!  We can handle that!  Vegetarian?  Shit, I wish you would have told me you tried pot or something!"  I shook my head and said, "I need to go check on your mother."  I looked at him again and just shook my head.

As I opened the bedroom door, the wife wailed "Why?  Why is he a vegetarian?" and then she fell back into the fetal position at the foot of the bed.  "I don't know honey.  I figured he was more likely to rob a bank or some shit.  I don't know how we work through this.  Can you come out at face him?"
I helped her to her feet and wiped a tear from her cheek.  I gave her a hug and told her that it would be all right as convincingly as I could at the moment.  She opened the bedroom door and looked at him.  He was shaking.  Not because he was scared or anything, but because his blood sugar crashed.  DeeDee asked, "Why son?  Why now?"

He said, "Mom, its because I met this girl..."  I interrupted, "Shit, you didn't knock her up did you?  Oh wait, you probably don't have the strength to knock anyone up."  Then I asked, "Is she a vegetarian too?"  He nodded and said, "Yes dad she is a vegetarian and no dad, I didn't knock her up." "Well, its a good damned thing" the wife said and added "skinny ass girl wouldn't have the strength to carry a baby around full term eating kiwi fruit and drinking beet smoothies and shit."

Everyone was about at the end of their personal ropes.  Our oldest son walks through the door just as Wade says, "It's healthy.  I've lost 20 pounds and I never have been healthier in my life.  I feel great."  Roger cut him off by saying, "You don't feel great, you idiot.  You're just keep getting a head rush every time you stand up?"  I asked Roger, "You knew about this?"  He said, "Nope.  Mom called me and said we are having a family crisis.  Then she told me that Wade was a vegetarian so I am here to plan an intervention or something.  I just can't let this happen to my little brother."

The whole family is now involved.  One of the dogs was so disgusted by this news that he put himself in his kennel and locked the door.  The cat peed on Wade's coat.  He accidentally dropped it on the floor because he no longer possesses the hand strength and hand eye coordination he once had, when he ate bacon.

Right before this boy was born, I thought I had gone over every potential scenario that a father may face, raising a child.  I mean, I thought of all kids of weird shit like, "What if he is born and is just a head on a foot?"  Or, "What if he has one eye bigger than the other and he shits his pants every time he blinks?"  I had answers for those things.  Not this.

After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, I thought I should step up and try to get us all through this, somehow.  It was time to start throwing some ideas around.  "Is this permanent" I asked.  "I don't know, dad."  "Will you eat turkey for dinner, like your mom planned?"  "No dad, turkey is meat."  I lost myself for a second and blurted out, "No its not, God damn it.  Its fucking turkey!"  That surely didn't help matters.  So I looked around the room and said, "What's next?"

Wade stood up and said, "Mom, no matter what, I will always love you.  I know you love me and I know we can work through this.  Roger, I know you may feel let down right now, but I promise you brother, I will be the same guy and I will always love you and will always have your back.  Dad, I can still hunt and I can still go fishing."  I couldn't stop myself from saying, "How in the hell do you hunt parsnips?"  Wade looked at us all again and said, "Can we all share a hug and move on" to which Roger replied, "We can.  We eat meat.  You'll probably have to rest for a couple of hours between hugs."

Man, I wonder what's going to happen next Christmas.

"This is different"

"He's not my President!"  The first time I ever heard that statement was 8 short years ago after Barack Obama was elected President.  The statement was a rally cry of sorts for conservatives, since they promised that he would bring an end to the 2nd Amendment, institute Sharia law, will create death panels and our beloved grandmothers would be lined up to prepare to die.  There was a threat that Obama would spread disease in order to gain better control of the country while imprisoning ill civilians, and he was going to take God away from Christians.

The democrats demanded in response, "He is your President" and "You'd better get on board."  At the same time, the democrats began carpet bombing their enemy with terms like "racist" and "bigot",in an attempt to keep republicans from talking.  If you did speak up, you were then labeled a "bully" for defending your opinion.

It was clear.  The democrats laid claim to the moral high ground and if you didn't agree with them, you were a sub human life source, not worthy of forming your own opinion.  While they were name calling and otherwise "bullying", they were doing the ground work to establish 'safe places' for democrats who got their feelings hurt, by bullies.

Now the group that tried to forge their way into being the worlds true north are melting down as bad or worse than the republicans did, and they are trying to justify it.  "He's not my President'' is being used by people who were telling others 8 years ago to grow up.  The democrats have turned into the very thing they accuse the republicans of, and they can't see it.  When I have bothered to point this out to some of my democrat friends they reply, "this is different".

There's an old saying that says, "there's no pain like my pain".  That is the difference.  They've bought into the "us v.s. them" mentality and they really feel as if they lost something, much like the republicans did.  But this is different and that is what happens when you lay claim to being superior in every fashion.  In these circumstances, it hurts...

The melodrama was laid on thick.  People crying while trying to explain their grief were calling for ambulances and therapy was being offered because of a Presidential election?  There is nothing wrong with needing therapy, by the way, but if a Presidential election cycle spun you out into the irrational unknown, there were big problems well before the election.  Knowing and understanding that is the key to being able to move forward and maybe those 'safe places' ought to be available for everyone, crayons and coloring books included.

I hear people on both sides of the equation saying, "How did it come to this?"  Now is time for everyone to put on their adult clothing and take some responsibility.  You created this.  You bought into this bullshit fight when you were indoctrinated in your high school government classes.  You were taught that you had to pick a side and it was your civic duty to stand in and choose a ruler.  If your guy doesn't win the election, you feel as if YOU lost and you throw am fit like a 3 year old.

Both sides of the political spectrum are full of shit and frankly, full of hate and discontent.  Democrats cried foul when the republicans said they would do all they can to stuff every effort put forth by President Obama and the democrats and here we are today and now its the democrats vowing to do everything they can to thwart every political effort by this President.  This... this is how we got here.

"Gone Fishing"

Many years ago while I was still living at home, my mom bought me a "gone fishing" sign that I hung from my bedroom door.  At this point in my life, I was doing one of about 4 things.  I was either at work, hanging out with friends, hunting with friends or most likely I was out fishing with friends.  For a while, fishing was all I thought about and looking back, I have so many good memories that are wrapped around fishing trips.

Most of these fishing trips were impromptu events.  I'd either be at work or at home and the phone would ring.  It'd likely be my buddy Horton.  "Hey Prick, you want to go fishing?" he'd ask.  "Yeah, I'm off in an hour.  Let me gather my stuff and I'll be right over."  We'd go to pick up that Carter kid and head out to Vegas Wash or one of our other haunts and fish all of that afternoon and well into the night.  Sometimes we slayed them, other times we sat around and laughed our asses off.  Nothing too special, just a bunch of buds out screwing around.

All of this started for me when I was much younger.  My dad used to bring me to the lake, in the boat, in my bassinet.  He'd rig the bassinet up in a fashion where he could either rock me with his foot or bump me with his knee and keep casting plugs into the brush for bass.

Later, that evolved into me getting my first fishing rod.  It was a blue colored Abu-Garcia with a Mitchell open faced spinning reel, probably with about 6-8 lb. test line on it.  I started to learn how to tie knots, how to handle live bait, how to cast and since then, I don't think I turned down an opportunity to be on a boat with the old man.

Somewhere between the bassinet on the boat days and learning to do these things for myself, I got to spend some time with my grandpa and great grandpa fishing everywhere between Las Vegas to Idaho to Nebraska.

Right before my grandpa retired, he bought a motor home.  We all hopped in to go to Idaho for a week of visiting relatives and fishing.  All of the relatives were older folks and I can't even recall their names.  Family was and still is important, but I remember starting to ask, "Are we going fishing yet?' before we even got out of the driveway in Las Vegas.

We finally made it to Lewiston, Idaho.  Seemed like it took days.  We pulled up to this cabin in the woods that sat about 100 yards away from a small lake.  I looked at my grandpa and great grandpa and asked, "Now are we going fishing?"

We went over to greet these relatives and grandpa excused us so we could make a quick trip down to the lake.  In a matter of a couple of minutes, I caught my first trout.  Then another, then another.  It seemed like every cast I was reeling in something.  That night we ate some trout cooked over the camp fire and my great grandpa told me that he had a secret spot he was going to sneak me into at first light.

Most of my family was kind of full of shit.  Great grandpa wasn't, as best I could tell.  I woke up that next morning and had mom get me into my overalls and get my hat on my head.  I ran over to the cabin where great grandpa was and knocked on the door.  There he was, ready to fish and dressed for success!  He had this old hat with a dozen or so flies and lures stuck to it.  He had a look in his eye that to me said, "We're going to get 'em."  He looked down and said, "You ready boy?" and off we went.

I thought I was in for this big adventure.  Fact of the matter was, great grandpa didn't want to get too far from the motor home, just in case he had to turn me back over to mom for some reason.  But there we were.  Great grandpa turned over a couple of milk crates and told me to take a seat.  He sat next to me and started telling me some fishing stories of this very lake, many years earlier.  All I wanted to know is if they caught anything.

Great grandpa cast my rod into a good spot and told me to watch the bobber.  As soon as he got ready to cast his rod, I had a fish on.  He was coaching me on how to real the fish in.  It was a monster!  I started laughing, he started laughing and we thought we were going to wake everyone in camp up.  When I got the fish close to the bank grandpa said, "Back up and drag him through the weeds."  I start backing up and all of a sudden, there was Moby Dick flopping around.  I couldn't believe it.  I looked at grandpa and he said, "Let me get the hook out of his mouth, then you have to put him on the stringer."

Grandpa removes the hook and sets the fish back on the ground.  He whispers, "Well, get him."  I bend over and pick the fish up around the belly with my small hands and he squirts out the other side.  I do it again and again with the same result, each time making the old timer laugh harder and harder.  He leans forward and says, "Get him by the mouth."  I looked at him.  The information seemed legit so I reached forward, jammed my thumb into the trouts mouth and stood up.  When I stood up, the fish clamped down...  it didn't hurt but startled me, so I kind of jumped and dropped the fish.  Its so quiet out that great grandpa whispered, "What happened?"  I looked at him and said, "The son of a bitch bit me!"

Great grandpa fell off the milk crate laughing.  I thought I killed the poor old guy.  My grandpa came out of the motor home laughing his ass off.  My grandma came out with her hand over her mouth trying not to laugh and my mother came out with tears in her eyes from laughing.  Next thing I know, the cabin door opened.  A couple other old people came out laughing, so there I sit with a smile on my mug wondering what in the hell was so funny.  We laughed for at least a half an hour.

Mom gathered me up told me that I wasn't allowed to swear, probably especially around great grandpa.  I thought that was odd because he appeared to have the most fun with the whole experience.

I'll never forget that.  I heard the story probably at least 100 times from my grandpa and great grandpa and it got funnier every time trying to watch them get through the story and maintain their composure.  I bet I told the story at least another 100 times and hope I live long enough to tell it 100 more.  I've taken my kids fishing and hope to be able to take some grand kids fishing one day.

If you don't have a good time fishing, you're doing it wrong.  Whether it be with family, friends or by yourself, fishing is about having a good time.  I believe its what fishing was invented for.  Get out of town, get in the sticks, get on the water and relax.  Take it all in.  Bring a friend, bring your kid, bring the wife... just get out and go fishing!