Why?

In just less than 7 months I'll (should I be so lucky) be 62 years old. Won't be long before I can retire to a life of luxuries afforded by the addition of social security payments to our income.

Not that I'm counting on that.

For the past 42 years I've taken way too much pride (one of the churches 7 deadly sins) in being an american......a veteran and a citizen of the USA.

This Memorial Day weekend while remembering friend and comrades, amongst all the many other causalities of all the conflicts involved in founding and keeping this Nation Under God, I also grieve for those who are now being slaughtered by those who supposedly 'protect and serve'.

You may or may not be aware of the murder of Jose Guerena .

Google the information. Try to get as many facts as are available from whatever sources are available.


Posting has been light and sporadic for some time now. For many reasons.

This Memorial Day weekend I'll be remembering and grieving for a lot of reasons.

Will I be back here when I'm somewhat recovered?

Maybe.......maybe not

It'll depend on whether I can take any more self-flagellation over my foolish pride.

The world didn't come to an end on Saturday

But for some it did on Sunday night.

A tornado right thru the middle of Joplin, MO. Heartrending.

Maybe that cornball preacher just got a few of the details wrong.

Maybe if I were able to build and new house out in the country it would be all concrete, dome shaped and protected by as much earth as I could pile on it.

Folks, if you're religious even a little bit, pray for those souls in Joplin who have to pick up the pieces. If you are not religious......send food, water, temporary shelter and whatever else you can afford. Go and help if you can.

I'm gonna dig me a Hobbit Hole.

Inch by inch.......

...Step by step, slowly we creep, closer and closer, day by day.....

To being a nation completely controlled by criminals and thugs.

For nearly a thousand years of both English Common Law and the Bill of Rights amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America the police power of government has been constrained under the Fourth Amendmant to respect the sovereignty of a persons home.

Apparently the Indiana Supreme Court has other ideas about that old moldering Document.

This and other egregious assults, such as the messiah snapping his fingers at businesses
and ordering them around, along with so many more acts of a government totally out of control, leads me to wonder if it's now time for the citizenry of this country to take a page or two from the playbook of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr's. philosophy of Righteous Resistance.

If we continue to bow our head by our silence to these acts of Tyranny by a government totally out of control perhaps we'll deserve what we get.

Saturday Evening

The wife and pooch are ensconced on the Genuine Naugahyde cover couch watching the Saturday 'Brit Coms' on PBS. I like 'em as well but they were re-runs over in the ol' Blighty 10 years ago and are becoming a little tiresome in their repeats here in the KG (kudzu grotto) as well.

It's been quite a week.

Pres BHO has been strutting around like a little bantam rooster all week while al-queda blusters and threats and tv and radio talkshow hosts make much of the fact that enhanced interrogation from years before he was elected brought about Usama Bin Laden's much delayed demise.

I think it's a bit telling that BHO went to Ft. Campbell to congratulate the people who carried out the raid in Pakistan. The aircraft and crews might have been from there but they were but the bow, delivering the arrow of SEALS, who I suspect strongly were not stationed there and quite possibly refused to be part of the Dog and Pony Show, preferring not to prostitute their abilities and deeds so cheaply.

At least, so I prefer to think.

Gold and silver, especially the later, succumbed to the pressure, eased along by George Soros' selling at the peak, aided by the Commodities Exchange who, as they did in the 80's changed the margin rules weeding out those without sufficient knowledge of the market. So it goes. Remember......... those with the gold make the rules. Play their game at your peril. The old Scottish wisdom still holds true....... "Money is flat and meant to be stacked up".

The kudzu wife continues her recovery from surgery. She's sleeping thru the night now, mostly without too much aid from pain relievers. Thanks for your prayers and good wishes.

I watered the garden this evening, it having been 4 days since the last good rain. It continues to grow well...I'm ahead of the weeds so far, and I'm looking forward to the day when we can eat the first squash out of it.

Once again the music in my head took over as I stood there playing the water shower up and down the rows. Tonight's tune was always one of Usama Bin Laden's favorites.



Kinda gets you right there, doesn't it?

Clouding the issue

Much is being made these last few days about whether to show the pictures of a dead Usama Bin Laden or whether waterboarding helped produce the intelligence that ultimately led to his demise.

WTFC Th' goat F***** is dead. Good enough for me. I'm just a little saddened by the fact that they didn't dip him in pig shit before they wrapped him in the shroud before they turned him into fish chum, but other than that I'm fine with it.

Did we pour a little water over the head of a few people to get the information. So What. I'd authorize the waterboarding of every person who might ever have had even the most tenuous of contact with him or his cohorts.

We're at war with Islamic fundamentalists who from the day they first went to school were taught one thing. Follow the Koran and death to anyone who doesn't convert willingly or not.

Of course Christians have not much room to talk. We've killed our fair share over religion over the years. It's just that mostly we've grown past that.

Don't believe me.............What about the guy that hid out in the mountains for years after bombing the Atlanta 1996 Olympics and that abortion clinic. He didn't just get the idea one day and think, "that'd be fun, hear, hold my beer".

There are damn few saints that walk this earth. Get used to it.

Blasts from the past

This former Junior Bird Man was jolted today to receive a letter from Charlie Horse 40.

Mack from my old helicopter unit in Quang Tri somehow tracked my address down.

Stick a feather up my ass and tickle me silly. When they remember you from 40 years ago, it kinda chokes a guy up.

I'd spent way too many years reliving to myself those halcyon days of yesteryear. So much so that my vision was clouded for many years, although I'd have denied strenuously any suggestion that was so. Thankfully things got bad enough, and I still had sense enough, to reach out before seeking that last blissful refuge of darkness.

I remember Mack as the older new guy in our unit (he had by then 15 years service and it was his second tour). Our unit check pilot, we flew up to the unused airstrip at Dong Ha where a few auto rotations and questions established that I at least wasn't gonna kill us that day. Although I well remember the day they ordered me to take off with him in the front seat, in near zero, zero conditions and fly out to Khe Shan. I told him to make sure I keep us straight and level and when we got up to 80 or 90 knots I pulled it back slowly and climbed us up through what seemed like a mile of clouds (actually 800 or a 1000 feet)'til we popped out into the clear blue and turned west to where the monsoon was over beyond the mountains. They didn't give us but 5 or 10 hours of instrument training back then and I well remember the advice the instructor gave about flying in clouds, "don't fly in clouds, they're full of rocks".

Memories of the past.....long ago and far, far away.

Also got a call tonight from Bob Smith who was still new when I rotated back stateside.

Old times.

Common sense or Intelligent sense

Cordite high

Gonna take some doing to bring me down this evening.

"A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work", they say. I'll second that. And raise you a good day at the range is hard to beat also.

After what has been a longish period of time away from doing any serious practice, I finally broke down this morning and told the kudzu wife that I was going to get my hair cut, buy some fertilizer for the garden, drive down to Monroe, Georgia to see if anyone wanted to sell any scrap and get in some practice at The Trading Place's indoor firing range.

I won't bore you with pictures of the targets as they were pretty well shredded after a hundred rounds or so of .38 spl fired, for the sake of comfort and expense, through the S&W Mod 586 stainless .357, and the 9mm spat out by the old Browning Hi-Power. Let's just say that 2 in the heart and 1 in the head is still achievable even if I did have to adjust the S&W's sights a bit.

My right elbow is a bit tender after that. Either Carpal Tunnel syndrome, which was diagnosed a coupe years ago, or bursitis. Whichever hurts the worst. Next time I see the primary care Dr. I'll try to get something done about this. Glad I didn't try to shoot a box of the .357. I'd have to get a sling and trolley for the right arm.

The garden is doing awesomely. I put some 10-10-10 out and watered it in pretty good. We've got flowers on the squash plants, tomato plants and a few of the green beans. So far I haven't see any blooms on the pepper plants and since I'm not a big fan of peppers other than crushed red on a pizza or whatever in just past mild salsa, I haven't really looked at them.

You do know how to water a garden don't you? Well at least a smallish one like we have. You set the sprayer nozzle on cone and pretend your are a spring shower. Set a cup in the middle of the garden and when the drift has filled it about to 1 inch full you've done enough.

There is something satisfying about watering a garden that way that can't be matched by one of those back and forth sprinklers you set in the middle and all you have to do is turn on the faucet. I would say almost Zen like except my fervid pea brain keeps humming a tune. These evenings selection was........



They don't make them like that any more. Whether that's a good thing or not I'll leave you to decide.

We're due some rain and possible thunder boomers tonight and tomorrow. Ya'll keep a weather eye out.

Sleeping with th' fishes

They say our Navy Seals killed Bin Laden.

Good....it's about time that ol' Bastard met his maker. Wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall at that meeting. Will it be a kind loving Christian God, or an angry vengeful Muslim God. Of course if you trace the divinity back far enough maybe it's one and the same. What then.

The reports say the Obama personally authorized the hit and watched it in the situation room. If so.......kudos are in order. I hope there was a mini-camera attached to the helmet of the guy who pulled the trigger. A leader shouldn't flinch from violence carried out at his behest. Again......I'd like to have been a fly on the wall watching Obama's face. Was there joy, anguish, fear....... we'll never know the truth for sure.

Will this make us safer? Doubtful. Replacements for Bin Laden are prob'ly queued up at ever mosque in the world. This'll just be one more reason for them to play jihed.

But it takes the public's mind off of the fiscal mess the banksters and politicians are foisting off on the backs of the people. Not just here but round the world. For there will always be those who wish to profit from the labor of others. Not a bad thing if they are the inventor, entrepreneur, builder of the enterprise. Not a good thing if they, through fiat currency and false promises to sock it to the rich, bleed us of our lives.

Be that as it may, let's all send up a prayer. About what is up to you.

Me? I cooking up a Salmon Puff for supper. Smelling good. Served up with a little yellow corn cooked in lots of butter with salt and pepper............Mmmmmmmmmm make you hurt yourself.

Sleeping with th' fishes