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We flee the scene…I receive an offer to buy my pistol

. Gun control, Life . , , , , , . Leave a comment

PART 3

Note to my readers: Into the seemingly endless stream of blather regarding gun control in the United States, I have contributed even more blather, in the form of excerpts from a short story that I wrote. Since it runs long, I have broken it down into 4 parts. It is best read in order, starting with Part 1. It is (for the most part) factual, however, names and some inconsequential details have been changed to protect the innocent.

The narrative continues:

We panicked…

I don’t remember which one of us was in the car first – I don’t even remember taking any special precautions with the revolver, but later I found it tossed under the front seat, still loaded with seven live cartridges and two spent ones. There wasn’t time to do anything but run. Earl Hackleman’s big Dodge 4 by 4 was bearing down hard on us. By the time I put the car in gear, and hit the gas, he wasn’t more than a hundred yards distant. I slammed the Plymouth into first gear and we lurched away down the rutted cow pasture path toward the gravel road. I hit second gear and we nose dived into a washout that almost twisted the steering wheel from my grip.

“Ya want me to drive?” yelled Lenny, “Jeez, what’s the matter with you, get a move on.”

“We won’t be going anywhere if I bust an axle out here,” I shouted back.

I drove as fast as I could, over the rough terrain, but I knew that the low slung car was no match for a souped-up off the road vehicle like Hackelman’s. My only hope was that I could beat him to the gravel road. There I knew I could out distance him. I glanced into the rearview mirror, and for a second I couldn’t believe our luck. It looked as if the headlights behind me had stopped closing in.

Hackleman had apparently stopped at his firing range to make sure everything was okay – like we might have messed with his sandbag or maybe he thought we’d dropped off a platoon of commie commandos, I don’t know, but I saw a flashlight beam shoot from the window of the stopped truck and sweep across the firing range. That lasted for only a few seconds, before the truck was on the move again, chasing us down on the rutted path. Stopping had been his mistake, if he had any hope of running us down. It was all the time I needed to make it to the gravel road ahead of him.

We rolled over the cattle crossing with Hackleman’s headlights close behind, but not close enough. Safely on the gravel road, I dropped the Plymouth into fourth gear, dumped the clutch and punched the gas pedal to the floor. We roared forward with tires spinning, leaving a hailstorm of gravel and dust in our wake. Behind us I could see Hackleman’s headlights turning onto the gravel road from the cow path, and for a moment it looked like he might be following us, but a few seconds later he dropped back, and then the lights were gone. I kept the pedal down until we reached the highway, half expecting Hackleman’s truck to appear out of nowhere, right on my bumper with headlights blazing, but it didn’t happen. We were on the blacktop headed back toward town before either Lenny or I spoke. It was Lenny:

“I think Harry ripped you off on that pistol.”

I didn’t answer him.

 *

The next morning I took the revolver from the car and emptied the shells from the chamber and threw away the two spend casings. Then I wrapped the gun carefully in cheese cloth and put it, and the box of Remington cartridges, in the bottom of an old tackle box that I kept under the workbench in my garage. Then, I once again forgot about the gun, until…

…one morning, two or three weeks after the incident out at Heckleman’s farm, Lenny came into the café where I was eating breakfast. He sat down across from me and we made small talk for a bit, even laughing about that night we’d outrun Heckelman.  Then he told me that he was leaving town. It seems Lenny had grown dissatisfied working in the family business with his father and two brothers and had decided to move to California. He had an uncle in Fresno who had offered to put him up for awhile, until he could find a job, and he’d decided to leave the next day.

“Say,” he said to me finally. “You wouldn’t want to sell that pistol, would you?”

“Why would you want it,” I said, “you told me Harry ripped me off.”

Lenny shrugged. “Maybe he did. But I need a gun for the road, and I don’t have a lot of time to shop around.” Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills. Lenny was suddenly flush with cash, having sold his share of the business to his father and brothers. He pushed a fifty dollar bill across the table toward me.

I looked at the fifty – it wasn’t a denomination that I saw every day. At the time it was nearly half a weeks pay. It was also more cash than I was likely to ever get for the pistol, so I gave the transaction serious thought.

I had known Lenny for years, and he was a good and honest friend. But I hesitated to sell him the gun – not that I feared Lenny would use the pistol for any criminal purpose, but he was reckless and careless. If I have ever heard an inner voice (and listened to it) it was that day in the café sitting across from Lenny with that fifty dollar bill on the table.

“Naw,” I said,  “I better keep it around.” I pushed the bill back across the table. “A guy never knows when he’s going to need a gun.”

The next day I sold the pistol.

To be continued.

W E Patterson's avatar

Night target practice and I commit my first gun crime

. Gun control, Life . , . 2 Comments

PART 2 (best if read after PART 1 – see previous blog)

…back to the story about my first (and probably last) handgun…

I wrapped the revolver in a towel and I stashed it in the trunk of my Plymouth, and it stayed there for several weeks. I forgot about it. Then one day I told my friend Lenny about the gun.

“How’s it shoot?” he asked me.

“Couldn’t say,” I said. “I haven’t shot it yet.”

“Whatddaya mean you haven’t shot it.” Lenny was astounded. We were having a few beers in a local tap, and it was late. He insisted that we go out to my car and get the gun and fire off a few rounds in the parking lot. Fearing the worst (alcohol and firearms), I put Lenny off, but I told him that we could go do a few target rounds the next day before I went to work. Lenny said he knew the perfect place to shoot.

The next day I picked up a box of Remington High Standard Long Rifle cartridges and a packet of cardboard targets from the Coast to Coast store in town before heading out to meet Lenny. I had to be at work at 10 PM and had arranged to meet up with him about 8…yeah, it was dark.

Okay, target shooting is not usually recommended after dark, but we knew what we were doing – sort of.

We drove to a remote spot that Lenny knew about. It was four or five miles off of the highway, down a twisting gravel road. Lenny directed me to a turnoff that I might have easily missed. It led off of the gravel road and up into a cow pasture. Ignoring a ‘No Trespassing’ sign we rumbled over a cattle crossing and then bounced along a dirt path for another half a mile or so.

Finally, Lenny told me to stop and turn off the lights. We got out of the car. There was a half moon, so we had enough light to see. There was a steep embankment rising directly in front of me. It was probably thirty feet high – maybe higher. Fifty yards or so from the embankment and directly in front of the car was a low bench made out of 2 by 4s. There was a burlap bag of sand on the table.

“Where the hell are we?” I asked Lenny.

“Fuckin’ cool, huh,” he said, striding away from me with our cardboard targets in hand.

“What is this place?” I asked as I followed along behind him, “some guy’s private shooting range? Jeez, you want to get us both arrested?”

“You worry too much,” he told me.

Downrange from the 2 by 4 shooting table and near the base of the embankment was a wooden target stand. The stand could be adjusted to accommodate a variety of targets. Ours were fairly small bulls eye targets – not like the elaborate human silhouette targets you see at shooting ranges. Lenny attached a cardboard target to a clip on top of the stand.

I looked around, still worried about the ‘No Trespassing” sign we had so conveniently ignored. We seemed to be alone, the only light came from a mercury vapor yard light from a farmstead a mile or so away. I could see the outline of a darkened farmhouse and barn.

“Hey,” I said to Lenny. “Isn’t that Old Man Hackelman’s place over there?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, he is one crazy s.o.b. that’s what.”

Everybody in the county knew Earl Hackelman. A card carrying member of the John Birch Society, Hackelman was indeed certifiably nuts. He thought that communists were poised to invade Nebraska and had once done a stint in the state mental institution after sending a threatening letter to a federal judge. In another locally high profile incident, he’d pulled a shotgun on power company workers who dared set foot on his property to repair a downed line. Now we were about to shoot targets on his private shooting range.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “If Hackelman catches us we’re dead – the guy said he was going to kill a friggin’ judge, what do you think he’ll do to us for trespassing.”

“Forget Hackelman,” said Lenny sounding annoyed. “He’ll never know we’re here – he’s half deaf, and he probably goes to bed at sundown.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s just pop off a few rounds and we’ll leave.”

I relented, and we paced off about twenty five yards back toward the car. I unlocked the trunk and brought out the pistol and loaded it with nine cartridges. When the gun was ready, I flipped on the headlights. The range was now beautifully illuminated.

I took the revolver first, and taking a stance perpendicular to the target (as I had seen shooters do in magazines), held the revolver in my right hand at arms length, and sighted down the barrel at the far away target. Then I squeezed off my first shot. The gun cracked and a smattering of dust flew from the embankment two or three feet to the right of the target. I had missed it completely.

“Pull it left,” said Lenny, obviously an accomplished shooter.

And so I did for the next shot. This time the gun shot high. There was a barely audible ‘zing’ sound as the bullet struck something a bit ‘north’ of the target and a trickle of dirt rained down the embankment a few feet above the cardboard target.

“Crap,” I said. “What’s wrong with this thing.”

“Looks like Harry took you for fifty bucks,” said Lenny laughing.

“Thirty nine,” I said. “I still owe him eleven bucks.”

The banter between Lenny and me might have gone on for some time if it were not interrupted by the far off roar of a fast approaching Dodge Ram Charger,  bucking across the cow pasture, its over-cab mounted, halogen headlights piercing the night. If not for that, Lenny and I might have pissed away half a dozen more rounds  at Earl Hackleman’s gun range. But our time had ran out.

“Jesus,” said Lenny. “It’s Hackelman.”

To be continued.

-Trop

W E Patterson's avatar

My first and last handgun

. Gun control . 1 Comment

PART 1

In 1974, when I was 20 years old, I bought my first and last handgun. Not for any good reason did I buy it, and not for any good reason did I dispose of it, except maybe for the fact that I hadn’t any need for it.

I bought my pistol, technically a revolver, from a friend of mine named Harry. Harry was a long-haul truck driver who ran a route between the upper Midwest and the Gulf Coast. Harry spent time in the less-desirable parts of cities like Kansas City, Topeka, Fort Worth and Baton Rouge (no offense to the honest citizenry of these fine towns, but Harry spent lots of nights in freight yards and truck stops). He often slept in the cab of his Freightliner, and he since he carried lots of cash, he felt better having a gun in case of trouble.

One day he and I were shooting the breeze in a coffee shop in the town where we both lived. He was only in town for the weekend, having dropped off a load of irrigation pipe in Omaha, and he had ‘bobtailed’ back home (truck driver lingo for travelling without a trailer – a financially undesirable condition best avoided). He was back for his girlfriend’s birthday. Problem was, he’d had some sort of financial ‘emergency’ on the road and now he found himself between paydays and short on funds.

“Hey,” he said, “do you still want to buy my revolver?”

I didn’t recall ever wanting to buy it in the first place, but he had shown it to me once, and I remember remarking that it seemed like a fine piece and I didn’t blame him for carrying it in his line of work. But I don’t think I ever mentioned wanting to buy it.

Disclaimer…

Before continuing, I want to say that I have never had any particular fear of guns, nor have I ever had a particular love for them either. Where I grew up, a good many households had a gun stored away in the closet, or hanging over the doorway on the mud-porch, or over the mantle. For these people, a gun was like a tile-spade, or a pick-axe – simply a tool to be used when conditions warranted, such as when weasels threatened the chicken coop, or coyotes descended upon newborn farm animals, or a fat rattler slithered up under the cool leaves of a cucumber vine in the garden on a hot summer day.

Those kinds of conditions required an instrument of special dispatch.

Back to my story…

“I don’t know if I need a revolver,” I told him.

“Suit yourself,” he told me, “but you can have it for fifty bucks if you want it.”

I thought it over for a few seconds before asking to see the weapon.

We adjourned to the truck yard behind the coffee shop, where Harry produced the revolver from under the mattress in the sleeper cab of his Freightliner. I opened the cylinder to make certain it was unloaded – it was. I spun the cylinder like I knew what I was doing, before snapping it shut.

By today’s standards, the gun was a pea-shooter. It was a High Standard .22 caliber, 9 shot revolver, and it felt heavy in my hand – handguns are always heavier than you think they should be. Suddenly, I found myself wanting to buy it.

I checked my wallet, and found that it contained only thirty nine dollars – all I had left from last week’s pay at the packing plant.

“That’s okay,” said Harry, hurrying to close the deal. (You could still go on a pretty decent date for $39 then.) “You can pay me the rest next time I see you.”

So it was a deal. I walked away with a nine shot handgun, Harry walked away with $39 and an IOU for $11, and hopefully, the Birthday Girl was not disappointed.

…to be continued.

W E Patterson's avatar

Thoughts on December 21, 2012

. The End . , , , , . Leave a comment

I don’t know about you, o’reader, but I take great comfort in the fact that the world did not end on December 21st of last year. In spite of the fact that the rendering of our tiny planet into a puff of cosmic dust would certainly solve, with great finality, the problems of all mankind, most of us rather enjoy our ride around the sun. With a few exceptions, we are a diverse lot of complacent and happy souls here on Planet Earth, and if our lives are not perfect, we still enjoy living them, and if our days become ‘hum-drum’, measured, and even mundane, so be it.

Not that we are a planet of bores here on Earth, but seldom (thankfully) are we confronted with a disaster over which we have no absolutely no control. The kind of event that would really shake the mundane out of your day – such a day as (some) predicted would occur on December 21st. Most of us, however, do not wish to be thrust into jaw dropping disaster.

Not that we are oblivious to the world around us. We fear natural events such as hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, floods, fires and mudslides, and perhaps fear more, man made events such as terrorist attacks, random shootings, plane crashes and freeway pileups. We are well aware of the fact that we could be poisoned by Anthrax, attacked by killer bees, eaten by errant microbes, strangled by jealous lovers, gunned down by deranged co-workers or run down by feeble elderly drivers (cut me a break on last one, I live in South Florida and I know what I’m talking about).

But even the most disastrous of the aforementioned disasters involve only a small portion of Earth’s population, while only one disaster, the mega-disaster: The End of The World As We Know It (TEOTWAWKI) involves, well, all of us. Maybe that is the allure of TEOTWAWKI. Is our attraction to end time theories a result of there being safety in numbers? It is true that when it comes to TEOTWAWKI we are all in the same cosmic boat – whether you reside in Somolia, or Burbank, TEOTWAWKI is taking us all out.

So ask yourself…

…are things just a bit slow right now since the countdown clock that used to appear on the right hand pane of my blog has been taken down, and the date December 21, 2012 is simply a circled date on last year’s calendar – the one that is now residing in your recycling bin alongside the Christmas cards and crumpled hunks of wrapping paper. Has life become just a tiny bit more…boring…than usual? Maybe you sort of miss the rush of knowing it ALL ‘could’ end on a particular day. Well then, look no further than Ed’s End of the Planet Books…here we go…

Please mark Thursday, September 11, 2020 on your collective calendars, o’ readers. Yes, according to some experts and researchers this is a date of interest. The planetary alignments are an astronomical certainty. On this date, the planets Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury, and Venus all align with the Sun and the Moon! Yikes. Is this a recipe for disaster or what? Some doomsayers are predicting that the combined gravitational pull of these celestial objects could pull the earth off of its axis causing continent-drowning mega-tsunamis, hundreds if not thousands of feet tall. Earthquakes and volcanoes follow – a real mess. Still other experts predict a more subtle TEOTWAWKI. In their scenario, the earth is simply pulled away from its orbit around the sun causing the planet to become increasingly icy and cold, until we all freeze – so there…so much for global warming. Al Gore didn’t know what he was talking about after all did he!

Anyway, more on this event in another blog – I can’t wait.

Mahalo,

Trop

W E Patterson's avatar

Key West New Year’s Eve

. Uncategorized . 2 Comments

Like a pearl at the end of the chain,

Not a nasty lady, but a sleepy refuge for the believers,

Tempting the willing with a feeble sense of time,

Sodden revelers awash in sensory devoid pleasure,

Some for the first time – for others just more of every time,

Living for the day, the last day, any day, soaked in party clothes,

Shelter from last year’s treasure lost, and locked,

In memories soon to be swept from view in a green flash,

Of briefest measure, green light from the last day,

In a flash over Sunset Island, like sunsets of glorious days past,

Sometimes seen, sometimes appreciated and remembered,

Other times best watched through an upside down glass,

An old timer, very pickled – at a polished bar had a vision,

He saw Papa, once – walking quickly up Duval –  too quickly,

Up past Sloppy Joe’s – he pays attention to no one,

Long night, hat pulled low, heading home to Whitehead Street,

Before day totters in on a Seabreeze, living for the last one,

Seeking one more before the rum soaked night pecks away at you,

Stop to see the Duval trannies, in high heel shoes, clothes too tight,

Watch them blow overblown kisses to strangers waiting for the end,

For that last day, at twelve it begins anew,

For the pleasure of those who come to trumpet, see it in,

Some dangerous consequences down here at the end,

Socked away and forgotten.

W E Patterson's avatar

Thoughts on today’s tragedy in Connecticut

. Gun control, Uncategorized . , . 1 Comment

Earlier today, as I was having my first cup of coffee, I came across some inspiring words written by my favorite theologian, Huston Smith. Smith’s words appeared in the banner of my daily planner for today, December 14th, 2012. So inspired was I, by Smith’s uplifting words, that I abandoned the post I was currently working on, a post calling for federal government restrictions on certain types of firearms. So thinking this ‘gun post’ would keep for awhile, I began work on a post in which I intended to impart some  great words of wisdom from H. Smith…

…both posts now lie on the hard drive of my laptop, incomplete and unlikely to be finished any time soon. The tragic events of today have seen to that.

After the senseless shootings in Connecticut, even the most well crafted words of the world’s greatest theologian ring hollow, and any discussion of gun control would be akin to a discussion of life-boat safety in the wake of the Titanic sinking.

So, unable to post either, I will post this one:

In the upcoming days we will hear a call for change. If you attend movies, shop in a mall, send your children to schools, or drive on a freeway, you should listen closely to this call, because if you don’t you may not hear again for a very, very long time.

And don’t worry:

This call will not be a call for sportsmen to turn over their shotguns to jack-booted thugs. Nor will it involve any of you folks (who by the friggin’ gazillions), have applied for, and have received, concealed weapons permits – your weaponry is safe.

There will be a call for some common sense in what kind of weapons we allow people to possess.

And by the way, now that I think of it I think they did begin to discuss life-boat safety issues very soon after the Titanic sank.

W E Patterson's avatar

Thoughts on Winter Storm Caesar

. Life . , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I felt bad about the way I’d left things with Rita. The last time we talked, I found out that she’d taken a job at the Thief River Falls  ____ Mart, a place she’d vowed to never enter, let alone work — under any condition.

Anyway, I was a little abrupt with her the last time we spoke, because she had in fact, taken a job at the aforementioned super-store, at least until after the holidays, and later on, I felt bad about being so judgmental, so I wanted to apologize. Besides, earlier in the day, I’d gotten a tweet from The Weather Channel telling me that Winter Storm Caesar was bearing down on the Northern Plains, and I was worried about her and J.L.

When I called her cell, J.L. answered. “Rita leaves her phone at home now when she goes to work,” he told me. “She was getting into too much trouble for making calls on the job.”

“That’s a shame,” I said, “especially with Caesar heading your way?”

“Who?”

“Caesar…you know about Caesar don’t you.”

“Sure,” he said, “the pizza guy.”

“No, not Little Caesar – Winter Storm Caesar.”

I then had to explain to J.L that The Weather Channel is now naming winter storms in much the same way North American hurricanes are named. No wimpy names for these storms either – if you haven’t been paying attention, prior to Caesar we’ve had Winter Storm Athena and Winter Storm Brutus. And Winter Storm Draco is next (I think that’s the Latin word for ‘dragon’)…yikes…these winter storm names are intended to scare the bejeezus out of you.

So the first time I heard of winter storm naming, I thought it was just exactly that – scare tactics designed to alarm the public. Damn that National Weather Service I said to myself. Then I found out that the NWS wasn’t behind this at all. In fact, it was The Weather Channel (TWC) – that stalwart bastion of cable distributed meteorological information. It seems that in order to make things easier for us online geeks, TWC came up with the idea of naming winter storms to help make them easier for us to track. They know  that most of us are too consumed by our Twitter feed and our Facebook pages on our iPad or smart-phone to actually tune into a local weather broadcast to get the skinny on any upcoming disasters. Apparently notifying the general public that a blizzard is descending upon them from the northern reaches of Canada, and within 24 hours they may well be buried under 47 inches of snow, driven by blinding hurricane force winds is not dramatic enough content for the TWC.

From TWC website:

“The fact is, a storm with a name is easier to follow, which will mean fewer surprises and more preparation.”

To this I can only add an emphatic: Huh?

Let us begin our search for the Truth, by taking a quick look at the assigned names for the remaining winter storms this season:

Euclid

Freyr

Gandolf

Helen

Iago

Jove

Khan

Luna

Magnus

Nemo

Orko

Plato

Q (yes, just plain Q)

Rocky

Saturn

Triton

Ukko

Virgil

Walda

Xerxes

Yogi

Zeus (My personal favorite – this one is destined to bury half of North American under a glacier)

Think about these names and what they imply when you hear them over the course of the next few weeks and months. Couple these threatening names with the fact that TWC embarked upon this winter storm naming program without consulting any other private or public weather forecasting organization and things begin to sound mighty fishy. This was evidenced by the fact that as the massive nor’easter, dubbed “Winter Storm Athena” threatened New England the National Weather Service issued a directive to all of its personnel to NOT use this name in any of its bulletins and broadcasts.

Now I know some of my more weather savvy readers will say, “ha, ha  Trop, don’t you know they’ve been naming winter storms in Europe for the past fifty years?”

And I’ll say right back, “Yes, I know that o’ Weather Savvy Reader. But this isn’t Europe. We do things kinda different over here in the U. S. of A.”

Normally, I am not one to jump on every conspiracy theory bandwagon,  but I think something is going on here with this storm naming business, and I don’t like it. Insurance companies are increasingly using the “named storm” clause in insurance policies for all kinds of things, including when new policies can be written and what damages are covered.

So a few years hence, when you’re speaking to your insurance agent regarding a claim you’d like to file, as on Friday of last, while on your way home from work in a blinding snowstorm, your classic 1953 Austin Healy roadster skidded off the roadway, cleanly shearing down to stumps, six poplar saplings and removing fifty yards of rail fencing, before both you and a piping hot cup of Starbucks cappuccino were propelled into the windscreen, doing calamitous damage to both classic vehicle, your dental work, and your finest Holland Cooper tweed jacket, don’t be surprised when your agent tells you:

“Tisk tisk. Sorry Dr. Gravestares, but I’m afraid you’re not covered.”

“Not covered,” you’ll retort, sitting bolt upright in your hospital bed.

“I’m afraid claims filed for accidents that occurred during Winter Storm Dracula are not covered under your policy. Good heavens man, didn’t you get the Tweet?”

Just sayin…

Mahalo

Trop

W E Patterson's avatar

Does Obama want my guns?? I mean, does he really??

. Uncategorized . . 1 Comment

A few days after The Election, I ran into a friend of mine at the Deerfield Mall. My friend (I’ll call him Jason – not his real name), was a Romney supporter, and although I vowed not to mention The Election to him (or any other Romney supporters), purely out of respect, he was obviously still upset about the outcome and he didn’t waste any time telling me how much.

“So how are things, Jason,” I said, suddenly realizing my faux pas in these emotionally charged post-election days.

He shook his head. “Not good Trop. Not since the other day.”

“Yes, about the other day…”

“I’m mighty upset about the election.”

“I see.”

“This is Obama’s second term and he’s got nothing to lose now,” he said that staring at the sidewalk.

“Nothing to lose? How so?”

“He’s coming for our guns Trop, that’s what. I give it a year…maybe two years, tops, before this country busts out in an all out shootout to defend our second amendment rights.”

“You think Obama wants that antique blunderbuss you have hanging over your mantle,” I said. “You should pay HIM to take it. It probably hasn’t been fired since President Grant was in the White House.”

“That’s why I’m buying an AR-15.”

“An AR-15! You really think…”

“And 500 rounds to start with.”

So that’s how the conversation went. I went away shaking my head, and I soon forgot our conversation until the other day, when I ran across an article about an Arizona gunstore that had banned from the premises, anyone who voted for Obama. For those who are too busy to click the link, Cope Reynolds, owner of Southwest Shooting Authority in Pinecrest, Arizona also posted a sign in his store that reads:

“If you voted for Obama, please turn around and leave! You have proven you are not responsible enough to own a firearm. Thank you, The Management”

Could we be talking about the same Obama? Is this the same Obama who received ‘failing grades’ on the gun control issue from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence? Could this be the same Obama who signed legislation that now allows people to pack their shootin’ iron not only in National Parks, but on an Amtrak train as well!

Dang, I don’t know. Does the Prez really want our guns?  It seems as if there are just as many guns as ever, at least here in South Florida, even after all of these Obama years. And mind you, I’m not anti-gun at all. I’m a supporter of the second amendment – always have been and always will be. But I can’t for the life of me (no pun intended), understand why the need for the really high power weaponry?

Need a fully automatic weapon? Drop me a line in the comments and let’s discuss.

Mahalo

Trop

W E Patterson's avatar

Countdown to the END on December 21?

. Out there, The End . , . Leave a comment

The other morning, I watched with great interest a news report on the upcoming, much hyped, “End of the World”. Of course, I have played into the hype in my own miniscule way – note the countdown clock on the right hand side of your screen. The date in question, December 21st, 2012, is the end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar. Some say the world will end that day in some sort of global cataclysm. According to the news report, NASA is besieged with inquiries. People want the down-low on the END, and who best to answer that question than the space guys themselves. Assuming the END will come from out of the sky with our little planet taking it head-on with an asteroid or comet, then the NASA guys are the ones who ought to know. The Near Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) team, under the auspices of the U.S. Air Force has been tracking nearby asteroids and comets for years. The last time I checked, the only civilization altering object in our neighborhood, an asteroid scheduled for a flyby in 2028, has now been re-categorized by NEAT, and now poses no danger at all to us.

According to the news reports though, some folks are not convinced. They’re stocking up on provisions – food, medical supplies, and most importantly ammunition. Some people don’t want to be caught under a five hundred foot tidal-wave unless they are well armed.

Besides creating a group of paranoid adults, the December 21st date is causing countless school-children (much more understandably), to lie awake nights worrying about the END, instead of focusing on Christmas 4 days later.

Perhaps the children would feel better about things if they were told that the Mayan Long Count Calendar consists of a timekeeping system started (roughly) around 3114 B.C.E. Since we know that it is impossible that the earth was formed at this early date we must ask ourselves if these Mayans are all that reliable in the first place. They seem to know when it all ends, but they have no idea when it started – no creditability I say.

The Mayan Calendar is divided into 394 year periods called baktuns. On, or around, December 21st of this year, the calendar will have completed its 13th baktun. While the number 13 held special significance to the Mayans, there is still little evidence that the calendar ends on December 21st  because after that time we shall have no more need for calendars!

Listen to the Mayans themselves. Present day Mayan priest, Miguel Angel Vergara, says the December 21st date is not to be feared. Instead he says, we should welcome the end of the Mayan calendar. According to Mr. Vergara, on or somewhere around, December 21st, we will be entering a time of great spiritual transition as mankind throws off the shackles of “greed and darkness”. Ah…so that’s what all this hokey-pokey is all about.

So you see…it may not be that bad.

Personally, I’m not so sure that I buy into the fact that shaking the shackles of greed and darkness is any more likely than getting struck by an errant comet.

Still, you never know. On November 26, New York City reported, for the first time in as long as police can recall, no one was murdered, shot, or stabbed during a 24 hour period. There was, as I understand, some sporadic gunfire but apparently nobody was hit.

It is a start.

W E Patterson's avatar

Nine degrees

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Yesterday, I got a call from Rita. I hadn’t heard from her since before The Election. The last I knew, she and husband J.L. were finalizing their plans to move up to Yellowknife, in the Canadian Northwest, in the event of a Romney victory. She called me from the Thief River Falls, Minnesota location of one of America’s largest discount Super Stores.

“I didn’t think they’d even have a ____-Mart in Thief River Falls,” I said. Then I thought for a moment as I remembered a conversation I’d had with her a year or two before.

“And speaking of which,” I went on, “why are you shopping there? Didn’t you tell me once that you were boycotting them because of their deplorable disregard for their workers? You know, low pay, no benefits for part timers, charges of racial and gender discrimination, and the big time issues you had with them about their foreign product sourcing, to say nothing of the way their cut rate pricing often undermines small local businesses and ravages communities.”

“Yeah, well,” she said. “That was then.”

“So?”

“So we were living in Hialeah when I told you that. This is Minnesota and it’s getting cold. J.L and I need long-johns and parkas and mittens. And since we don’t have any money we need all the doorbuster deals we can find. This is the only place we can afford to shop.”

“I see,” I said, “sacrificing principals for material goods? Putting it on the backs of the workers? Do you know,” I told her, “that each one of those stores employs an average of 200 workers, and in terms of unpaid benefits costs the American taxpayer over four hundred thousand dollars per store, and…”

“Oh stuff it, Trop,” she said, suddenly sounding irritated. “I still care about the workers, but it’s going down to nine degrees tonight. That’s a nine without a zero after it for you Floridians – as in NINE FRIGGIN’ DEGREES, Trop.”

“That’s cold all right.”

“You have NO idea. So I don’t need you preaching to me about the American Worker, while you’re poolside at the Intercontinental with a Mai-tai in hand, tapping out your blog, or whatever else you write to make a living.”

“You know I’m not at the Intercontinental.”

“Yeah, I know,” she said, “but you may as well be. You’re not here in Minnesota, and it is friggin’ cold, and I’m pregnant, and Jeffry Louis hasn’t worked in…so long I can’t remember, and the Scion needs tires and Jesus I’m exhausted.”

“I can loan you a few bucks,” I said. “It couldn’t be too much for a set of tires for the Scion.”

Long silence…

“Westhammer, aisle 3.” I head the voice clearly. Then it came again: “Rita…off the cell,ok.”

“Who’s with you Rita,” I asked.

“It’s Jamie, I gotta go.”

“Jamie?”

“My manager.”

“Oh no, you didn’t.”

“It’s just until after the holidays, Trop. I gotta go…”