A title would steal the drama

One very cold and snowy afternoon several years ago, Whitny and I were up at the Yosemite house.  I don't remember what I was doing.  Whitny was sitting in front of the fire with her laptop.  Suddenly there was a brilliant flash and one of those peals of thunder that kind of click and sound and feel like a train has slammed into the house.  Then, there was a flicker and that weird little cacophony of everything that requires power shutting down.  It is the sound of death.  As we sat there discussing all the ramifications of being without electricity and anticipating the prospect of hours of having to exist as primitives, a walking tour of the property in the remaining daylight seemed like a good idea.

The original stagecoach road into Yosemite Valley runs the length of our property.  At the time, it had been neglected for many, many years.  Not only could you not drive it, there were places where it was difficult to walk it.  Our standard walk of the property is to go down the stagecoach road to the big meadow on the far side of the property where we used to camp, cross the creek on the bridge my uncle built and walk back to our driveway on the paved county road.

As we crunched our way through a foot and a half of snow, the gray and white silence was ripped with a plaintive cry with a bird like quality. But, it was no bird I had ever heard.  We looked at one another and began to speculate as to what it was and where it might be coming from.  Our place is in a little hollow that gives very odd acoustic variation to sound.  The melancholy sound intensified as we seemed to come closer to the source.  Essentially at the same time, Whitny and I looked at one another and said: "That's a woman screaming...isn't it?"  We slogged on for a couple hundred yards and then entered the section of the road where it borders the creek and is still heavily forested.  By this time, we could clearly tell that is was indeed a woman screaming.  In lower tones, coming in staccato bursts was the voice of a man, panicky and full of mounting anger.  Then, the occasional revving of a large V-8, tired and in need of a tune-up.  We still could not make out the words, nor the direction from where they were coming.  I felt a little shiver of apprehension as I realized it was all somewhere in front of us.  The fact that the sounds were in front of us meant they were on our property.  The only way they could have gotten where they were was via the gate at the other end of the property which had a substantial chain and lock securing it.  I would have been somewhat more optimistic about what we were about to encounter had the weather been different.  But, in my experience in those woods, the only people out roaming about in those conditions, under those circumstances, are tweakers.

For those of you unfamiliar with the species, tweakers are former human beings who have traded their status in the evolutionary chain for a life of wandering the forests in search of anything of value that they might trade for meth.  As we rounded the last corner, my worst fears were realized.  Tweakers can be identified upon sight.  They look like they just stumbled out of a concentration camp, covered with open sores, and they manage to acquire a filthiness that I have never seen anywhere else.  Sitting in front of us was an old Ford F-150, jacked up at least 18", but as we looked on, it was sitting on the frame in the mud.  We were still mostly concealed by foliage and the occupants had not seen us.  Again, because of past experience, I don't go out into the woods unarmed.  On this particular occasion I not only had a pistol in a shoulder holster, but I had dropped a another in my jacket pocket that had a tactical light.

 As I handed Whitny the Glock I had a very disquieting emotional disconnect.  My daughter was in danger and I would do anything to protect her.  At the same time, I was glad to have her there to back me up.  I very cautiously approached the driver's window with the pistol in my hand, down, against my side, but visible.  I asked the guy what he was doing on our property, but in the middle of the question I saw that he had a 12 gauge shotgun with the barrel and stock cut off and wrapped in duct tape between his legs.  This is a weapon with the sole purpose of blowing a very large hole in a person at very close range.  At that moment, I was the person who had just been pigeon-holed in this a-hole's brain most likely to need a large hole in them.  My pistol came up, muzzle right in his face.   He went through a number of contortions and facial expressions that gave no clue as to what he was thinking.  He completely ignored my question regarding the reason for their trespass.  Instead, he chose to state the obvious.  "We're stuck.  Can you help us out?"  My reaction surprised me again.  I was feeling anger.  I was feeling indignation.  I had an odd sense of violation.  And, I had a gun in this guy's face.  It's so odd to think of what ran through my mind...inane things like...yes, I could get you out...I have a backhoe, but I'd rather not, because you are not a good person.  And you've placed me in an odd position...you see, I'm tempted to say, "Yeah, let me go get my backhoe."  because that's the kind of guy I am, as opposed to the kind of guy you are...a guy who broke into my property and you have a gun sitting there that only has one purpose and that purpose is to kill people like me and my daughter who accidentally catch you doing things you shouldn't be doing. While I was thinking all these things, some other autonomic part of my neurological system made my mouth say, in a civil, yet, sarcastic tone: "Not without a Chinook.  You are really stuck."  Then my mind raced again.  I thought, you know, there really isn't good etiquette information for situations like this.  He is completely ignoring the fact that I have a gun in his face and really placing me in an awkward social position.  The other thing that popped into my head was that in my peripheral vision I was fairly certain I was seeing the woman slamming crank  (colloquialism > v. to inject meth) in the back seat.  Now you have your tweakers, and you have your really hardcore tweakers who would actually shoot up.  And, so, Jim was thinking...what do I do next?  I'm kind of in a life and death situation with people who are in that second category and totally spun and if they feel any emotion at all its going to be paranoia. (random, racing thoughts don't have grammar or punctuation really).


Then he asked me if Whitny and I could stand on his rear bumper to give him traction.  This was good.  I turned and whispered to Whitny to just take off as fast as she could toward the meadow.  I started walking backward, my gun pointed at him.  This was the most tense part of the whole ordeal.  I had no idea what level of cognitive function this guy had going on, but I had to assume he had perhaps done something similar before and knew that...given the weapon he had, putting a little distance between us, especially where I couldn't see if he was going for it, gave him an advantage.  Anywhere from  the time I left the window to, let's say, 75 feet away, in a situation like that you don't get to use the sights.  I was trying to watch two people, walk backwards in the snow and if that shotgun did come up I would have to point and shoot...not aim and shoot...point and shoot.  Whereas, should he decide to shoot when I was still within that range, he couldn't miss.  I explain all this just so you can appreciate my relief when I got out of range and caught up with Whitny.  I suppose I was giving this guy more tactical thinking ability than he deserved.  But, it wasn't like I had a choice regarding what was going to be running through my head.  In retrospect, I have thought I should have taken the shotgun before backing up.  But, I had no clue what was going on in the back seat and getting away as quickly as possible seemed the most appealing choice at the time.  Since I am sitting here writing this with no superfluous holes in me, I suppose I made the right choice.

We got to the meadow and saw where they had broken in and driven through the snow.  The tire tracks explained their movements and it appeared as though they didn't really mean to try and come up the stagecoach road.  They were just so high, I think they got confused as to which way to go to get back to the county road.

All the way back to the house, Whitny and I could hear them.  It's a bit difficult to describe if you haven't been there, but we had to walk away from the house to get to the paved road, and then back toward the house.  The paved county road and the stagecoach road parallel each other with the creek in between.  So, since we knew where they were, the acoustics were no longer an issue.  We could tell they were still trying to get the truck out.  It took maybe 20 minutes to get back to the house and call the sheriff.  We're in what they call "north county" and Mariposa is almost an hour from us.  You never know how soon the sheriffs will show up.  This time, there were some deputies at the north county substation which is only a couple of miles from us.  I have no idea how long it actually took them to get there, but it seemed like Whitny was calling downstairs to me telling me they were coming up our road as I hung up the phone.

Two deputies showed up, each in their own 4X4 with AR-15s in the racks.  I walked out to meet them.  One drove to the front of the house, the other drove up the cement driveway part way that leads to the upstairs portion of the house.  After Whitny and I explained what had happened, they decided it would be best to box them in.  So, one went down the stagecoach road straight toward them and the other asked me to go with him and show him how to get in the back way.  We had to park in the meadow and walk in.  As we were walking, the deputy said, "I hope they run.  I love it when they run."

 It was 12 degrees and the woman was in a tank top and men's boxers.  That's it.  No shoes...nothing.  They didn't put up any resistance.  They were so high still I just can't even imagine what was happening in their brains.  I shouldn't say they didn't put up resistance.  He didn't.  She was still screaming.  The first time I actually understood words was when she was protesting to the deputies that she wouldn't step out of the truck into the snow without shoes.  It was all so surreal.  One of the deputies carried her to his truck.

When they told the deputies their names, one said to the other, "Man, we finally got 'em."  I asked what he meant.  Apparently they had found the cabin these two had been living in and it was filled with stolen property, including a phone booth.  Don't ask me....  And...wanna guess?  Her birth certificate.  Looking at this pair, as Whitny put it: "They looked like they were about 35, but a really hard 35."  As it turned out, he was actually 21 and she was 18 and they had two kids in the foster system.

I really wish the story ended there.  But, at some point while I was helping the deputies look through their truck to see how much of the stolen property was mine, something felt wrong.  I felt light on my left side.  Seriously, when I reached up and felt my empty shoulder holster, I had more of a sick feeling in my stomach than I had when I saw the shotgun.  My mind started racing.  It wasn't like I lost my watch.  As I stood there, probably with my mouth hanging open it just got worse and worse.  OK, on the positive side, it was obviously on our property somewhere, so, it wasn't going to fall into the wrong hands.  The only other place it could have possibly been was in the deputy's truck.  That seemed unlikely...didn't it?  I was getting frantic.  The deputies left and I told Whitny what happened.  And then, I thought...it was one of the guns listed on my CCW.  Great...I get to go tell the sheriff that I lost my gun during that fiasco.  What a nightmare....

I walked the quarter mile loop probably 6 times while it started to snow again.  Eventually, at like 3am Whitny convinced me to stop wandering around like an idiot in the snow and go to bed.  As I laid in bed reliving the entire experience it occurred to me what happened.  I had taken it out of the holster when I was calling the sheriff.  When Whit called down that they were coming up the road, I shoved it in my shoulder holster and didn't snap the strap, thinking I was just going to come back in the house and take it off and put it away.  So, when the one deputy asked me to go with him and my pistol way just shoved in the horizontal shoulder holster sans retaining strap...it was inevitable.  The next morning I woke up to another 6 to 8 inches of snow.  OK...there was no way I was going to find it by just looking.  My anxiety was peaking.  Fortunately I have a brilliant daughter.  She said, "Dad, what about a metal detector?  Do you have a metal detector?"  I felt a surge of hope.  "No, I don't, but we can go buy one." I said happily.  After a number of phone calls we found a place in Merced that sold metal detectors.  Only an hour away.  So, we jumped in the truck and drove to Merced.  When we got there, I thought Mapquest had led us astray. Our directions said to turn left, away from the shopping centers, down a farm road.  A couple miles down the road, there was the address.  It was a farmhouse.  At least we had cell reception.  So, I called the shop to see where we had gone wrong.  The gentleman said from the metal detector shop listened to my dilemma, instead of explaining where Mapquest messed up, he said "Is that you outside in the red Avalanche?" OK....I mean, the ad in the phone book....well, he was a nice guy and he had a metal detector.  Yes, one metal detector.  His Yellow Pages ad itself would wipe out his profit margin.  Oh well...not my problem.  But...I did have another problem...this guy was a cash only guy and he hadn't bothered to mention that on the phone.  I just realized I still owe Whitny for the metal detector.

So, we get back home and I start walking the loop.  I start finding old nails, license plates, barbed wire...just cool stuff in general.  I mean, why didn't I think of this before?  The original stagecoach road...there is all kinds of cool stuff.  But no gun.  I spent all day walking that loop.  I couldn't imagine where it could have gone.  Finally, I resigned myself to the fact that I had lost an $800.00 gun that I was going to have to report to the sheriff in disgrace.  I was sitting on the porch, looking out across the meadow and noticed some tracks in the snow.  I was staring out at them, wondering what would have left such big tracks so close to the house.  Bears wouldn't be out that time of year.  Oh...I felt foolish.  That was where the deputy and I had run up to his truck parked on the driveway.  A light bulb visibly appeared above my head.  I ran to get the metal detector.  What a brilliantly beautiful melody the metal detector played.  What a glorious light show....little green LED lights dancing as if to tell me that all was well with the world and there really is a Santa Claus.

MY HK USP .40

If we're being honest, this is not an attractive gun.  In fact, it is an ugly, ugly gun.  But, as they say, and they do say...it is all in the eye of the beholder.  When I pulled this beast from the snow drift, it was beautiful.  I am elated just remembering the feeling.  And, I think a night in the snow was good for it...toughened it up.

THE SAME, JUST TOTALLY DIFFERENT

HI STANDARD .22 TARGET PISTOL & ESTERBROOK PEN

OK, What the heck is this now?  I may be the only person in the world that would make this connection, but I find it fascinating.  This Hi Standard 102  Supermatic Trophy .22 target pistol is one of my favorite pistols.  The Esterbrook "J" fountain pen is one of my favorite pens.  They were both made about the time I was born.  I have many of each in all their different varieties.  But, for the sake of mood, I chose rich, dark hues for the comparison.  The contrast is irrelevant. The similarities are almost bizarre.  Hi Standard was the only manufacturer to come up with the idea of removable, interchangeable barrels.  Except for the earliest of Hi Standards and the fact that they changed the mechanism shortly after implementing it, essentially any Hi Standard barrel will fit on any Hi Standard frame.  Esterbrook, America's oldest pen company, until they went out of business, about the same time that Hi Standard also pulled the plug is the only pen company to market a fountain pen that had interchangeable nibs.  Rather than being press fitted into the section, the nib and feed are one unit that screws into the section so, one pen can take essentially all Esterbrook or Venus nibs.  The marketing idea was the same.  One pen barrel (yes, the body of a fountain pen is called a barrel) and several nibs rather than several other entire pens. 

 Hi Standard sold some of their higher end target pistols with sets of three barrels of different lengths.  This particular model, or series, the 102-104 Supermatic series, was called the "Space Gun" because with the weights and the futuristically shaped muzzle compensator made it look like the Ray Guns in the robot from space movies of the 50s.   Well, ok, the marketing was probably a good idea, but imagine for a moment what they did to me.  Yep, I've got barrels and nibs....barrels and nibs.  Don't say that fast too many times.

Now that you've read this...can you admit that two things that you thought you had absolutely no interest in actually are quite interesting now that you know some stuff that you probably wouldn't have ever heard anywhere else?

WHO THINKS OF THESE THINGS?

If I may digress from my primary point to set this one up...  Gail has been quite ill for some time.  It's amazing to me how long she went with every diagnosis from MS to Lupus, to Chronic Fatigue and on and on.  Finally, she was recently diagnosed with Lyme disease and because of all the time gone by with all the misdiagnoses, she is in the tertiary stage.  So, some of the damage is permanent and she is about as miserable as I have ever seen her as they as giving her massive doses of antibiotics to kill off the stuff.  So, back to the point... When she was feeling better, but not good enough to do much of anything, she would just look around online for things she thought I might need, especially as I worked on the Yosemite house.  Well, she saw these and bought one to see if I liked it.  I have actually found them quite useful.  They are a very bright halogen light that fits on my head.  So, they are very useful for fixing things in the middle of the night.  So, she bought me a whole bunch of them so I could just stick them everywhere I might use them.  They aren't very expensive.  I have used them for several years, occasionally opening a new one as I needed.  The only downside is the batteries are very hard to put in.  Somehow I did this without ever even noticing the packaging.  I hate this kind of packaging and it is one of the reasons I always carry a knife.  For some reason, I actually looked at this one before I opened it.  That is when it struck me.  What in the hell does this light have to do with playing golf?  Was there a meeting, or did they just have a photo on a card the right size?  I really want to know if there was any actual thought put into this package.  I really want to know and have no idea how to find out. 

MY MONEY CLIP PROBLEMS

Buffalo Clip from Sundance and Indian Head from Orvis

If you have read much of my blog, I think we can all pretty much agree that I have OCD.  This is just one more facet of it that I share for your entertainment and my purging, hoping to get a bit of control over it.  The whole money clip thing has been going on all my life.  I like them because I've never been big on carrying a lot of money in a wallet and with a money clip, I can sort it by denomination and make sure its all facing the same way, you know, OCD stuff.  It got a lot worse a few years back when I was actually in the business of buying estates and always carried a lot of money on me because if you don't have the cash, you don't get the deal.  It came to its worst when I picked up a camo money clip at the Shot Show at Las Vegas.  Gail thought I had just gone too redneck.  Then, to make it even worse, I was up at the Yosemite house by myself and in a hurry one day.  I had gone to the little market in Greeley Hill and when I got back home and emptied my pockets, my little camo money clip with all the money I had was not there.  I realized immediately what I had done.  My keys were on a lanyard, and I paid for whatever I bought and shoved the money clip in my pocket on top of my keys.  Obviously, when I pulled my keys out, with the lanyard, it took the money clip with them.   It couldn't have been 10 minutes, but by the time I got back to the market...someone had found it.  I just kept telling myself that I hoped that it was somebody who really needed the money and not some tweak who used it to go buy meth.  That's about a  50/50 chance there.  Well, I actually stopped carrying money clips for a while.  Then, Gail bought me the one above on the left.  I really like this clip.  It matches a whole bunch of others little things I have, and its just cool.  I have also stopped putting lanyards on my keys.  (except for my quads and backhoe and things like that...whole different purpose)  Then, one day I realized I didn't know where my money clip was.  I had no clue where I had lost it.  I was slowly losing my mind over this and quickly driving Gail insane by mentioning it every day.  One night I was on the Internet, kind of out of it from back pain and lack of sleep.  I came across a money clip very similar to the one I lost.  I think at the time I thought to myself, "If I buy another one, I'll find the lost one."  Things usually work that way for me.  I remember thinking that...not actually buying it.  Just a couple of days ago I got this strange visual image of my briefcase tipping over in the back seat of my truck and spilling out.  Even though I had looked under the back seat for it maybe 10 times, I went outside at like 3 in the morning and looked again.  Just as I was about to give up, I saw something that looked kind of strange.  I reached for it and it was as if my money clip just appeared in my hand.  It had fallen against the seat rail in such a way that it had looked like it was part of the mechanism.  Then, the next day, the other one showed up in the mail.  Well, looking on the bright side, they aren't identical.  Gail bought the original one from Sundance,   I bought the second one from Orvis.  The new one is a bit bigger and has slots for cards.  Though, the clip is magnetic, so I wouldn't carry credit cards in it.  Well, all in all, I am really glad to have the one Gail gave me back...and in a way, I almost wonder if I would have found it if I hadn't bought the new one.  I at least got a story out of it.  Even if it is one that makes me look foolish.

It's kind of hard to see, but "Sundance" is embossed in the one and "Orvis" in the other.

Just a few of the money clips I've used over the years

Is anyone surprised that I still have all these?

GAIL AND HER GRANDMOTHER

Catching Gail off guard at times like this is like snapping a picture of an angel.

The fun of flying post 9/11

Muela Commemorative Dagger

OK, there are many elements to this one.  When we were in Spain in 2004, we went to Toledo.  Well, being a historian that concentrated a lot on the Spanish Conquest of America, the phrase "Toledo Steel" was bandied about quite a bit.  A lot of the older historians used that as a big part of the explanation at to why Cortes, with 500 some "conquistadors" (in reality, most of them were out of work lawyers) managed to topple the Aztec empire.   The fact that, like half the indigenous population joined the Spaniards kind of makes it less dramatic, so that used to get left out a lot.  Anyway, I just always wanted a sword made out of Toldeo Steel.  Well, this gaudy, silver encrusted dagger was the closest thing I could find.  All the swords had "made in Pakistan" on them.  So, since that was an actual Spanish made knife, I had to have it.  The reason I bothered to mention when we were there is because the day before we were going to fly home, the United States invaded Iraq.  This made the airport a thrill a minute.  They pulled everyone going to the United States out of line and took us into a back room to make sure we weren't terrorists.  OK...reasonable, I suppose.  But, to be honest, if any racial profiling was going on, it was 180 degrees off.  Realistically, I looked like the most likely of everybody to cause trouble.  But, they went through Gail and Whitny's suitcases with the proverbial "fine-toothed comb" and confiscated all their shampoos and lotions, etc.  Gail had a bunch of matchbooks from different Paradores we had stayed at.  Of course, they were all confiscated.  I could accept all this had I not had my own experience to compare it with.  The woman who was assessing my potential connection to Bin Laden, Baader Meinhoff,  Abu Sayyaf, the Zapatistas or whatever, asked me, in Spanish, what was in this box.  Politely, in Spanish, I replied, "A knife"...she didn't bother to open it.  My carry on bag was actually an old Colt range bag that was just the perfect size for this purpose.  It was filled with matchbooks as well.  They were left untouched.  The one that really took me by surprise was that, being a range bag, that on occasion I had actually used as a range bag, I had a 9 mm cartridge stuck down in the bottom of one of the slit pockets that I had no idea was there.  Of course, being the thorough security professional she was, she found it.  I actually felt a bit of a lump in my throat as I saw her dig it out and hold it up to the light to inspect it.  She actually kind of closed one eye as if to focus in on it, like Al qaeda engraved on the side of the casing.  Then, without saying a word, she dropped it bag in the bag and I was done with my inspection.  Very little surprises me any more.

A couple of reasons I'm here

Do you ever think about all the things that had to happen just the way they did in order for you to be born?  It first occurred to me as a little kid when I heard my grandfather telling a story of how, when he drove a truck in Chicago in the 20s, he drove right into a race riot.  He was pulled out of the cab and the crowd was going to do a 1920's version of Reginald Denny on him.  But, one gentleman in the crowd in the crowd recognized him and said "Hey, that's Braunie...he cool."  And, indeed he was and because he had treated this man in a way uncommon for the situation when they had worked together on the docks, my grandfather was picked up, dusted off and apologized to and helped back into his Mac truck.  Consequently, the lineage that includes me was allowed to continue.  So, as a little kid, hearing that story, I thought, "Hey, I almost wasn't born.  What are the odds that one of my grandfather's friends would have been in that crowd to save his life."  As time went on, I realized that it isn't just the dramatic moments like that...it's everything.  Every little choice that my ancestors made on a daily basis for thousands of years all had to happen for me to eventually be born.  When I came across the items below, I realized how unlikely it was that my paternal grandparents got together.

Aside from being some of the links that make up the chain, these guys got me interested in pocket watches, especially railroad watches.  Both of these belonged to my grandfather.  He was a brakeman and a conductor working on the railroad out of the Barstow Station.  Had he not somehow ended up out in the middle of nowhere (I mean, can you imagine Barstow in 1910-1919?)...no chance for me.  You see, my grandmother was a very devout woman.  So devout that she was going to become a nun.  But, she decided to take a year off to think about it and ended up working as a Harvey Girl in Barstow.  Happily for the Braun family, Edmond Braun was also working there.  I know little of their courtship other than Edmond swooped and Anna bailed on the convent idea.

I just realized that 99.999% of you probably have no idea what a Harvey Girl was.  Back in those days, they didn't have dining cars on the railroad.  So, they had gigantic cafeteria type restaurants at certain major stops.  There was one in Barstow because people would then arrived in Los Angeles and not have to worry about being famished.  So, they had to staff these places.  From what I know of them, they were pretty strict.  My grandmother was from Chicago and she was actually recruited there, if I remember the family story correctly.  Then, once they were at their destination, the Harvey Girls had to live in dormitory like buildings under some pretty strict rules.  But, that's when my grandparents met and I'm here writing about it, so, obviously there was some wiggle room.

I came across this book years ago and learned a lot about Harvey Girls that my grandmother never told me.  It's actually pretty interesting. 

Why I think I "get it"

I can think of nothing more intoxicating than to be in love with a woman.   And, there is nothing more frustrating than being in love with a woman.  Even the kindest, most caring and thoughtful women still possess an innate ability to torment the men they love.  They can’t help it.  They are women.  I know they don’t necessarily want to do it, but they’re women.  If you love them and want them in your life with the least amount of emotional trauma, then read on.

I grew up with all women.  Having a father that understood women is the one thing that saved me.  Even though I had a father, I feel justified in saying that I grew up with all women because he was always at work. My dad taught me a lot in the time we did have.  But his advice and insight when it came to women was without question the most valuable thing he ever gave me.  It allowed me to start on a journey with the proper perspective to allow me to observe and survive.

I had sisters and cousins who took care of me.  As I grew older, the younger of my two older sisters took me with her everywhere.  So, when I was in 8^th grade, I was hanging out with all the popular senior girls.  They taught me ….uhhhh….a lot.  Aside from the actual interaction with them, just letting me be the proverbial fly on the wall clued me in to a lot.

To me, there is nothing more fascinating than womens’ minds.  I say with all the love and respect in my being:  Women don’t possess what most men think of as logic.  Women are emotional beings and you have to constantly keep that in mind when you are dealing with them.  I’ve heard so many guys say, why can’t women think like guys?  Really?  Would they really want that?

As men, we are biologically attracted to women’s bodies.  Testosterone and just the whole scheme of things are responsible for that.  The key your sanity is to understand how they think and learn to appreciate it.  It isn’t easy.  It could involve things as horrible as watching Oprah.

Oprah came to mind because my wife and daughter are watching Oprah’s Favorite Things as I am writing this.  I keep all firearms and sharp objects somewhere else when situations like this arise.  This is actually a very good example of what I am talking about.  There was a whole discussion about what we wanted to watch when Whitny’s (the daughter) best friend, Chas, texted her, letting her know Oprah’s Favorite Christmas Things was coming on.  So, Gail (the wife) and Whitny quickly changed the channel and I ceased to exist.  But, not really… even though I was not part of the decision making process, subconsciously, they knew I was still there.  I knew it because they were making fun of it and saying things to indicate that they just had to watch it in order to goof on it.   That lasted about 5 minutes.  As soon as they got into it and Oprah started coming up with things they liked, I really did cease to exist.  

Dismayed but not totally without hope

I'd be shocked if anyone disagreed with my assertion that the World is a fundamentally different place than it was just a few years ago.  Things started to go poorly in the 60s for a number of reasons that I'll probably go into elsewhere.  Right now, we're in serious trouble.  I mean, it really seems like Capitalism and Democracy were only slightly better ideas than Communism and they're on their way out as well.  I hesitate to sound like Chicken Little with the sky falling and all that, but I'm really concerned about where we are headed.  The truly frustrating part is that all the major problems we are always hearing about could be fixed if there wasn't an epidemic of greed.  Most people alive today grew up being bombarded with the concept of living beyond their means.

Probably even more problematic is that we've totally lost all faith in our leaders.  And, rightly so.  They have failed us miserably.  Historically, when a government fails its people as badly as ours has, they've been overthrown.  Well, we live in interesting times.  The framers of the Constitution put in the Second Amendment with the idea that we could overthrow the government with force if they got out of control the way the British Crown did with the colonists.  Well, two centuries ago...maybe.  The Second Amendment is pretty much an anachronism.  We can't overthrow our government with physical force any more.  But were do have options.