CVA Staghorn

Earlier I said I had bought a used CVA Staghorn in .50 caliber but never did get around to an update. Well, here it is many months later so I suppose a few details are in order.

I took the gun out and discovered that it was sighted in dead on at 100 yards. I fired it about 10 times, wiping the barrel every 3rd or so shot, and ended up with a group of about 2 1/2-3" for all shots. Very nice for an inexpensive muzzleloader. I settled on a load of 85 grains of Pyrodex pushing 245 gr. Powerbelt bullets. I have not chronagraphed this load as of yet, but it has a very good feel to it. As this is a very light rifle with its synthetic stock, it will give you a bit of a push, but with this load, my recoil-sensitive Wife can handle it with no pain.

And it does the job. I shot a 4 point that dressed at 140 lbs at a range of 90 yards on the second day of Muzzleloader season. I found good blood for about twenty yards then lost the trail in the darkness, having to come back early the next morning. I found the deer about 60 yards from where I shot him, hit a bit higher and back than where I wanted. The bullet performed well, clean through shot passing through ribs on each side and doing good damage with an exit wound about 2" in diameter.

My next deer came a few weeks later, a 6 point at 65 yards that also dressed about 140 pounds. This was a double lung shot with an exit wound about 3" and the deer only traveled maybe 40 yards from where he was hit, albeit in a circular route that was about 60-70 yards long. However on this deer, as it was so thick, I couldn't find him and had to go buy a Primos Bloodstalker flashlight, which took me right to him.

I ended the year with an 8 point which dressed at 170 lbs. Range was about 40 yards but I didn't measure this time. Again a double lung shot that passed through and the deer ran about 20-30 yards. And again the exit wound was about 3".

So what's the verdict? Well, I filled the freezer with three, one shot kills at average range. These were the only deer I killed last year and I only hunted with this muzzleloader during the gun seasons. I intend to use it for my meat-getter during muzzleloader season this year, but I will be taking the T/C Hawken out as well, and will probably go back to handgun hunting for most of gun season unless I'm hunting some big fields, then I'll take one of the smokeless rifles out. But not because the CVA Staghorn has any shortcomings. I used it last season for the entire year just for the heck of it.

In fact, I did it mainly because I keep reading internet articles bashing CVA firearms, saying they aren't safe, aren't accurate, aren't capable. Well, the difference between me and the writers of those articles is that I'm not trying to sell you someone else's blackpowder guns. Not that I don't love my Thompson, but the CVA does the job just fine. I hunt everything I can and do so with a wide variety of firearms and my trusty PSE Pulsar Express, (circa 1984ish). I have my choice of plenty of firearms, but the performance of this CVA Staghorn was everything it needed to be.

And I was impressed with the performance of the Powerbelt bullet. I was initially inclined to up the powder charge in a search for some more velocity. But that's just not needed, and probably negligible anyway. I'm perfectly comfortable out to 150 yards with this gun and load. Shot placement is of far more importance than hyper-velocity, so worry more about practicing to become a good shot than trying to compensate with the latest super bullet or load.

My conclusion is that this CVA rifle is a good value for the money. I own a few CVA blackpowder handguns which always were just fine and I will be buying more CVA firearms. In fact as my Wife is finishing up her Hunter's Safety Course so she can be ready for hunting season this year, I'm planning to buy her a CVA Apex system to complement the Marlin 336 in .44 Magnum I gave her for Valentine's Day.

Ponderous

Sometimes you have to sit and wonder. Wonder, maybe even ponder. And that doesn't even rhyme. Why is that? They're spelled almost the same, wouldn't life make more sense if wonder and ponder, which are spelled almost exactly alike and even mean similar things, wouldn't life make much more sense if they rhymed?

But anyway, in the end, what does it matter. In the end your body becomes food for the worm and whatever it is that makes us human goes off somewhere to do something.

So that's something to ponder, what does happen when that last gasp of life on Earth slips between the lips? What becomes of the immutable presence that all people have? Granted, some need to be muted, but still, aside from boy band members and writers for sit-coms, there is some sort of soul that isn't ready to rest.

Because after a lifetime on this planet, a soul really needs a break from the abuse heaped upon it. So what to do then?

Now I for one am quite certain in God and all that the Bible teaches us. But I think that a Creator that would give us such an inquisitive nature and a yearning for life would have something interesting planned for that time after the husk falls to the mulch pile.

My figuring is that our personalities are a reflection of our souls. I figure that your personality stays with your soul and has a bearing in what goes on later. Like maybe some hick like me gets to float around the universe, checking stuff out. Maybe even flinging an arrow at some crazy 9 legged deer on the planet Herpetroid in the far away galaxy of Whatchamacallit. Maybe if your true heart's desire is to paint, you get to play with new colors, even new dimensions, on a canvas woven by Angels.

I dunno.

So I sit here and ponder, and wonder, at the beautiful possibilities of life.

Thompson T-17

Say you've got a filthy muzzleloader? Went out and shot it and now comes the chore of cleaning? Me, I have a 13 year old boy to pawn these things off on, but if you don't, the Thompson's T-17 foam cleaner is for you.

I mentioned a bit back that I had picked up a CVA rifle for a back-up while the Hawken is in the shop. Well, this thing hadn't been cleaned in awhile, the barrel was coated in butter, there was a caking of gunk on the breech plug and just overall in need of a good cleaning. It was a little more than I would have The Boy do on his own so I was looking for an easy solution.

In the past, I would have just removed the barrel and soaked it in the bathtub, but I didn't want to pull the scope off. So while in Bass Pro I found Thompson Center's T-17 cleaner and figured I'd give it a try. I'm still swimming in T/C's incredible warranty coverage over a 30 year old rifle, so anything with their name on it automatically has my interest.

So I brought the can home, pulled the barrel and breech plug and sprayed the foam in the barrel and breech. Immediately I learned that it doesn't take as much as I would have thought as foam began running everywhere. What was interesting though is the amount of gunk that was riding on this marvelous crest of foam.

After letting it sit for an hour, I wiped the barrel with a clean rag and the difference was amazing. Where once before was a thick, gooey layer of butter, powder, plastic and who knows what else, now was an almost clean barrel. So I ran a brass brush through a couple of times and filled the barrel with foam again. After another hour or so, and a couple of clean rag wipes, I had a perfectly clean barrel.

I am certain that one application would have been perfectly sufficient for normal cleaning duties and intend to use this as my muzzloader cleaning ritual. I also intend to use it with my blackpowder handguns, which can be a real pain to clean. And, it's so easy, The Boy can do it, relieving me for more "important" activities.

So if you have a dirty blackpowder gun, give the Thompson/Center T-17 a try, I think you'll be very happy with the results.

Sleepy brains

Do you ever have one of those days where you're sitting around and start to think, when was the last time I took a bath? Or maybe you're strolling around the Walmart and look down suddenly to make sure you remembered to put on pants. This is especially important to do if you don't wear underwear.

That's where my mind is lately. This business of retirement is turning my mind to mush. Get up. Watch the Outdoor Channel. Fix the baby girl a waffle. Change the diapers. Walk outside and look for geese flying by and try to call them into the backyard. (This is something the neighbors really don't appreciate.) It's hell on a country boy to be trapped in the suburbs.

I need my woods. I need my pastures. I need to get out and fling arrows at unsuspecting wildlife.

Next year Baby Girl can go with me, at least on the family farm, so I got that to look forward to. And I'm bringing her along nicely. She knows to sit still when the geese fly by. And when the huge bucks that you see on the tv stand out in the wide open, (they seem to only do that on tv) she is right there, going, BANG, BANG, just like Daddy taught her.

But tomorrow, well tomorrow I'm in the woods. And the Boy is going along. I got him a cheap machete because we have to build a couple of new blinds, so he just can't wait to get out there and whack things. Not squirrels though, we leave those to Robert.

So maybe tomorrow I stick an arrow in one of God's beautiful creatures and give thanks for the protein He's given us. Maybe Sunday or one day next week. Or maybe not. Just being in the woods is enough.

Until muzzleloader season at least, that's when the serious hunting begins for me. I've got a freezer to fill you know.

Smokin' guns in the fall

Well, I dug my old Thompson/Center Hawken out of the closet this last week. It was put in the closet because about ten years ago, I discovered a problem in the barrel when a load became stuck and wouldn't come out. Seems there's a section that has either bulged or is just shot out, I can't tell.

I was in the middle of buying a new barrel from Green River this last Friday when I decided to give Thompson an email and see what a new barrel would run. A lovely lady in customer service replied and told me to just ship it to them with return shipping enclosed. Well, I'm fully capable of fitting a barrel to this rifle so I called to see what I could buy the barrel for. The reply I got was that the rifle was under a lifetime warranty and all I had to do was send it in.

Now I've had this rifle since I was 11 and I'm 42 now. My Dad told me today that we paid $125 for it from Dixie Gun Works, the same rifle now lists for $599-699 depending on who has it on sale. I told T/C that it may have been operator error that ruined the barrel and I was fully prepared to buy a new one, but no, they will fix it, just be sure to send the return shipping label. Now that's what I call a great company that stands behind their products. I own several other Thompson/Center guns and love them all. I now intend to own several more.

But, it will take several weeks to get it back, which is perfectly reasonable to me. However, in just a few weeks, first muzzloader season is upon us and I'm without a gun.

Well, until I stopped at the pawn shop this afternoon. I picked up a CVA Stag Horn in .50 caliber. It came with the optional Bushnell scope and is in pretty good condition. I paid $100 total, which included sales tax. Googling I learned that new it would go on sale for about $85 with the scope and rings adding another $40 or so. And I'm comfortable with paying that. Had I wanted to look around some more I probably could have saved $20-30 on something similar, but I had to make sure I had something. Deer meat is a large source of protein in this household and I need to fill a freezer so I didn't want to wait until the last minute.

I'm rather impresed with the clarity of the scope so far. Just playing with it in the backyard this evening, it suprised me with the light pick-up and the clearness of the glass. It's a low-end scope to be sure and it will take a little shooting to determine if it will hold a zero, but if the clarity is any indication, I think it will be okay. If not, I'll swap it with an old Tasco on a .22 I have.

I'm going to start out with 90 grains of Pyrodex and a 245 grain Powerbelt copper hollow point. I generally just hunt bottomlands and swamps, I love the thick stuff, and average shots are within 100 yards, 50 is more like it. I think this load will be a good starting point and if it will hold 3" at 100 yards I'll probably stick with it. I'll give it a go this week sometime and post what I come up with.

As always, here's to cloudy nights, short bloodtrails and backstraps on the grill.

jumper.

I was the Chief of Police in a small suburb of Memphis. My little town bore the distinction of being one of the poorest cities in the Great State of Tennessee. The town hobby is drinking heavily and swimming in one's own genetic pool. It was a normal day to have people take a ride in an ambulance because of blood alcohol levels in excess of .40.

I would spend my days in the office trying to get paper work done and then would work the street at night with my old partner. During the day I had an Officer on the street, two if a Reserve wanted to work, to handle all the "he said she said, then woke up with a farm animal" stuff. We were very loaded with drug crime and serious assaults at night and on the weekends, but the days were usually fairly peaceful.

With this in mind I sent my day shift Officer into Memphis on an errand thinking I could stay out of trouble for at least a couple of hours. About thirty minutes after he left my phone rang. Seems the grant I was working on would have to wait, 'cause the dispatcher was telling me that I had a guy threatening suicide on a road out of town. This genius had decided to jump off a bridge.

After getting in my car I checked back in with the dispatcher to verify the location, as I was somewhat confused. The dispatcher re-verified the location and I was soon there. As I pulled up, I was becoming annoyed by the entire scene, there were about 12 of the local drunks standing on the roadside just cuttin' up and having a big ole time. The wife of the guy on the bridge came running up to me crying and carrying on and just plain acting silly. The kids of this woman, all over 16, were all hollerin' and crying and being just as foolish. The principle of this whole scene was standing just about to the edge of the bridge and whining about how nobody loved him. There was alcohol involved.

A lot of alcohol.

The dispatcher had started an ambulance, and I could hear the siren approaching from across the bottoms. By now I'm rather annoyed by the whole thing so I just kinda brushed by the wife and approached this idiot on the bridge. He, in typical fashion, said, "Don't come any closer or I'll jump!!" My reply, (some would say in typical fashion as well) was, "If you don't jump, I'm gonna push you off!"

Well this really seemed to have a bad effect on the wife and kids, I was referred to as all sorts of things I won't print here and was accused of things that are just physically impossible. My little cadre of drunken spectators was quite amused though, they began chanting for this guy to go on and jump.

As the Paramedic and EMT showed up, they came up to me and asked me what was going on. After explaining the situation and all of us deciding that this guy needed to go on and jump, they chimed in with a few choice phrases of their own. See you gotta understand that ambulance guys work really funny hours and rarely get to sleep so they get quite annoyed when some idiot gets them out of bed for something stupid.

Our little friend on the bridge was starting to realize that his little stunt for attention was not working out like he planned so he got up on the railing and again threatened to jump. I, having had enough of this, started towards him and informed him that he was either going to jump or get a serious ass-whooping. Well this seemed to convince him and a silence fell over the crowd as he lept into the air off the bridge.

Now began the squalling. The wife was screaming, the kids were crying and rolling around on the ground, the drunks were doubled over laughing. I was rather annoyed as were the bone toters.

You see, this bridge is over a dry creek, and no more than 6 feet high. This genius stood there, feet buried in the ground, eyes level with the bottom of the bridge, kinda looking around and wondering why the afterlife didn't seem any different. Being the caring, compassionate professional I am, I said, "Get your drunk ass up here."

Our little friend did get to ride in the ambulance though, 'cause as his drunk ass clambered up the bank of this creek, he fell backwards, got his arm stuck between two rocks and broke it with a loud "SNAP!!!" that made me go OWWWW, made the paramedic go UGHHHHHH, and made the EMT laugh. (Hey, these guys are twisted ok?).

in willy's ear.

This isn't really my story, I was actually down the road dealing with a drunk when this happened but I'm gonna tell it in first person as it's easier. The Officer involved was Randy Robinson, a very good friend of mine who is probably as psychotic as I tend to be.

The dispatcher advised that ambulance 5 was requesting an Officer to assist them with a possible 603. (mentally unstable) I arrived in front of a cinder block house with no indoor plumbing or electricity that houses about 12 people. The house has two rooms, no real front door, just a screen door and a sheet of plastic. Inside are several candles and lanterns casting a eery glow about the room. The floor is scattered with garbage, dirty plates with chicken bones stacked high cover a small wooden table. In the corner is a large pile of trash that has been collecting for weeks, perhaps months. There is that familiar stench that you find in these places, that smell that permeates your uniform and requires you to wash it as soon as you get home.

All this would normally be of some interest, but right now my attention is on the large man dancing around in circles screaming incoherently and clutching the side of his head. A perplexed Paramedic stands there and asks me if I know this guy. I say yes, his name is Willy, (for the purpose of this story) and no, he's never acted nuts before. His family concurs, this is a new experience for them as well. We ask if he has been hurt, they say that he was sleeping on the couch and jumped up in a rampage. After fifteen or so minutes of watching him they sent a couple of the kids to the neighbors to call 911, thereby receiving our bemused attention. The paramedic tells me that he was unable to start a dialogue with Willy and would like for me to try as I have received extensive training in how to deal with 603's. Well I don't know what this fool wants me to do, but I figure I should at least give it a try. By now Willy is rolling around on the floor, pounding on the side of his head. Seeing my opportunity I approach Willy and try to restrain him so that he won't hit me. Willy seems to regain some sort of sense at the sight of me and screams that the thing in his head is about to kill him!! Well now this is of some concern to me, Willy has completely flipped out. All the while the dispatcher is trying to get me to answer her and receiving no answer, we can't hear anything but Willy's wide open vocals, she is starting all sorts of cars. My partner who is handling a drunk down the road throws the drunk in the back of his car and races to my aid. The paramedic takes the opportunity to try and talk to Willy, who I have pretty well restrained on the floor, and receives the same reply about the thing in his head.

Paramedics are interesting people, this one decides to look in his ear to see if he can placate Willy. Laughing, the Paramedic gets up, runs out to his ambulance, comes back with a little spray can and squirts some stuff into Willy's ear. He then takes his forceps and pulls a rather large cockroach from the ear canal. Willy is instantly relieved. I hear my partner slide into the driveway and I let Willy up and go outside to tell him what's up and to fall down on the ground laughing out of sight of Willy. After ten or so minutes I regain my composure and return to the room to talk with Willy and the rest. Willy apologizes profusely and explains that it was like having an army marching on his eardrum. The Paramedic, being typical of the breed, gets on the radio using the general frequency, and states, "All secure, 603 is 10-8, (ok), cockroach is 10-70, (dead), all units back in service.

stunts.

As a youngster, my cousins and myself had our idols. Ricky tended to want to be just like Evel Knieval. In other words he wanted to break every bone in his body and scare his parents half to death at every available opportunity.
Jumping bicycles was a talent he showed a certain proclivity for at a very young age. Unfortunately his grasp of simple physics wasn't as advanced. I'm sure if he just would have taken the time to understand why an apple hit you on the head when it fell, he would have saved his poor mother a lot of gray hairs and would have certainly reduced the family's insurance rates.

On the road that runs near the house is a wonderfully steep hill. Daredevils that we were, we took great pleasure in riding our bikes down this hill at speeds that would strip the tread off our tires, if there were any. I now look back on these days and wonder how we survived, our bikes were constantly doing annoying little things such as shedding wheels at inopportune moments, and handlebars, when they stayed on, were constantly twisting. Our jumping exercises had left the frames twisted in all sorts of directions and we were constantly straightening them enough to ride using such instruments of delicacy as 16 pound sledge hammers.

It was only a matter of time before we built a ramp on this hill.

Dragging concrete blocks and boards to the road, we constructed ramps at the middle and the bottom of this hill. It was great fun to ride down and jump these ramps, we felt like we were flying for miles. Nowadays kids do this sort of thing on tv for money, but back then it was a joy to simply ride at a breakneck speed and launch our poor bicycle into what we knew had to be low-earth orbit.

Jumping the ramps on the road instilled a bit of confidence into our young, dumb souls.

We have a lake on the property that was built by a couple of my Uncles. This lake, like most man-made lakes, has a very steep dam. Steep and tall. Steep and tall and alluring. I can't recall just who came up with the idea to ride down it, probably Cliff, being the oldest. He also knew that he could get Ricky to try it first and if he survived, then maybe it would be fun. As we watched Ricky and his bike part company halfway down, we figured we were on to something. All we had to do was get him to blaze a good trail, then it should be a fun ride. My dear cousin was more than up to the challenge and in short order had ridden down a path through the weeds and blackberries thereby opening safe passage for us to follow.

We had great fun riding down that dam, but as with all things it began to get a little boring. The natural progression was to build a ramp! Again we dragged concrete blocks and boards and built a ramp that I can only say was similar to what one might find at a daredevil show. Fortunately for daredevils there are laws and insurance regulations intended to keep them alive. Unencumbered by such restrictions we began launching our bodies and bicycles into space from the bottom of this very steep slope. Rarely were we attached to our bikes on landing, which was probably for the best. Although I can proudly say that we each fathered several children in later years, the resulting impact upon landing attached to the bike led me to believe that I might be sterile.

Ricky, of course, somewhat mastered the art of the landing. This was his downfall.
One day when I was absent for one reason or another which may or may not have been related to an injury of sorts, Ricky had our friend Tim over. Now Tim was a good country boy like us and just as wild so he had naturally brought his bike to ride the dam. After several rides down and just as many upside down landings, Tim was in awe of Ricky's skills.

Now I think Ricky's pride started to get the best of him. He figured that if he moved the ramp up the hill he could get a lot more distance. So, they dragged the boards and blocks up the hill and built a nice little ramp that basically sat at a ninety degree angle to the dam. I mentioned that there has never been any danger of him going into the field of Physics. It didn't occur to him, until he was airborne, that not only would he achieve greater distance from the increased speed, but now his elevation was also increased by approximately thirty feet due to the intense slope of the dam.

Upon impact with the ground, landing would not begin to describe the violence involved, Tim stated that Ricky's bike basically exploded. When he was able to stop laughing long enough to slide down to where my unconcious cousin lay, he attempted to revive him by shaking him. This was not working so he figured he could at least remove the bike pieces as a trip to the hospital seemed inevitable. Strange thing happened though when he went to pick up the one remaining wheel, every time he lifted up on it Ricky's leg raised. Seems the axle bolt had penetrated his calf and was now stuck. It did have the desired effect of bringing him back to consciousness, although the blackberries along the dam never did produce again. I think due to the stream of particularly foul language, which is another of his specialties.

huntin'

Hunting is an integral part of Southern Country lifestyle. Many times what our dinners were depended on just what sort of critter we were able to outsmart that day. Squirrels were a particular favorite, plentiful and a nice long season, plus they offered all sorts of opportunity for creative assassinations. Many was the day when we would hit the woods well before sunlight to park ourselves under one of many hickory or white oak trees with the plans of a great feast of fried squirrel and gravy. MMM-MMM good!!

The technique is very simple, just sit under a tree, and shoot the squirrel when he moves. Putting this into practice is not so simple.

First you have to stay awake. I have slept away many a morning, only waking up when the eleven a.m. breeze gently awakened me from dreams of monster bucks in the approaching deer season. (Later my dreams changed to those of cheerleaders but that's another story.) So you have to come up with ways to stay awake. This is where the problems start.

One of my best friends is Robert. He lived a few miles from us and was a constant companion for my cousin Ricky and myself. One of the best things about Robert is that he is always game for something new. He is also fearless. He's also not as big and bulky as my cousin and myself so he didn't get hurt so much since he didn't land as hard as we might. This was our thinking when we came up with the idea to send him into the trees to chase the squirrels out.

You see, after you spot a squirrel, and they spot you, they will hide if the trees are full of leaves. Later in the year they will simply run, making them easy pickin's, but when the leaves are on, they're mighty hard to find. So, the natural thing to do if you want squirrel stew for dinner is to send Robert into the tree after them, and hopefully you shoo them to another tree and BANG!!, squirrel's on the menu.

Robert had a great deal of fun clambering around tree tops chasing squirrels but as with all things, he got bored after a while. So he figured he could just sit up in the tree and wait for the squirrel to come to him. We were all for this idea until he asked us to pass his shotgun up to him. Then, with me being the voice of reason I might add, it was realized that maybe having Robert above us shooting Lord only knows what direction at squirrels might not be such a hot idea. Ricky, who went around looking like Ghengis Khan after a sale at the army surplus, passed up a machete instead.

Well Robert was actually quite delighted with this, he figured being the only person we know to whack a squirrel in half forty feet up in a tree was something that would finally make him popular with the girls. (Robert had other issues as well) Anyway, against all expectations, a perhaps less than average intelligence squirrel eventually hopped over to a branch next to Roberts perch.

Robert, perhaps his mind full of thoughts of glory and maybe asking a cheerleader to the prom, reared back and let loose a fierce swing which lo and behold actually connected with the little tree rat disconnecting his head from his body perfectly. Robert didn't have the opportunity to admire his work though, seems in his excitement to go to the prom he had forgotten he should hold on to something. Fortunately there were several large limbs to slow his descent and the ground was pretty soft.

Standing over him with half a squirrel in my hand I could only repeat, "I just can't believe it!, you're gonna be famous Robert!" Ricky was pretty miffed though, seems his machete was still buried halfway through that branch, took Robert nearly ten minutes to climb back up that tree.

Robert had another experience involving a squirrel.

We were out hunting one day and he shot himself a squirrel out of a tree. After picking up the little critter to put him in his vest, he decided to play with him a little. He picked up a little stick and laid the squirrel on his back and began pretending the squirrel was doing little squirrel bench-presses.

He was very entertaining with his antics and had us rolling around on the ground in short order.

He added to the act by pretending the squirrel had revived and was now attacking him. This was just too much for us, our laughter became tears at the sight of him dancing around fighting this little fuzz-ball. What was really fun though was when we realized that the act was over and that he actually had a rather agitated squirrel's teeth sunk quite deeply into his hand.

Seems that his little act of bench presses had revived the squirrel, kinda like cpr if you ask me, and the result was a very animated bushy-tail. Robert ran around in circles for quite a time, swinging his arm around and swearing quite loudly. He expressed a desire for us to shoot the damn thing, but we couldn't even sit up much less pull a trigger. Finally he resolved the situation by repeatedly banging hand and squirrel against a nearby tree, sending the little fella and a not unsizable chunk of hand sailing through the air.

Robert now had revenge on his mind and became the only person I know who has killed two squirrels with a machete.

I have had my own problems involving squirrels.

I grew up on a horse farm and had my own horse for my daily chores and regular riding pleasure. I ride "Injun" style, bareback and no bridle, just a seagrass string halter. This makes it easy to just slide on and off and you don't have to mess with all that other stuff and the horse doesn't get all sweaty. It can also make for some interesting rides.

Most of my hunting I do with a handgun, I'm heavily into archery, but it's always been simpler to just tote a pistol around. I've killed many a squirrel using my .22 Smith and Wesson, but never thought to hunt off horseback.

It really seemed like a good idea.

So there I was, riding along the side of the creek on my big 16 1/2 hand Morgan, peering up into the leaves of a pecan tree looking for dinner. A nice big fox squirrel gave himself away with a twich of the tail, I stopped my horse and leaned against a nearby tree to steady myself. In short order I was on target and tastin' that tender treat and as I completed my trigger squeeze I knew he was mine.

I should have considered what the reaction of my horse might be when he heard gunfire two feet behind his head. It was not pretty. I estimate I sailed a minimum of ten feet straight up. With air time long enough for me to admire the changing foliage from a new perspective. I impacted with the ground at a speed previously associated only with satellites as they crash to Earth. It was not a pleasant experience and I decided that if I were ever able to catch that fool horse I would not try shooting off him again.

drive.

Yvette peered through her binoculars watching the South side of the apartment. Clicking the switch in her palm which activated the mike strapped around her neck she gave her update. "Angel two, all secure, no movement in the South windows." She listened as her counterpart on the North side, Bill Graves, checked in, "Angel one, still have acquisition on one subject, no other movement."
She had been sitting in this room for about three hours now, having snuck in the vacant apartment about midnight. At first the smell had been almost overpowering, the local bums liked to sneak into the empty rooms and sleep sometimes. Their sanitary habits left a lot to be desired too, they were constantly urinating in the corners and you had to be careful not to slip in any diarrheaic messes left behind. She expected no unwanted visitors tonight though, it was at least ninety degrees outside and in the stagnant air of her room it had to be at least ten degrees hotter.
Back as far into the shadows as she could get, she never failed to smile when she saw the TV snipers with their rifles hanging out the window. Pride always filled her when she thought of being the only Black female sniper at shoots and those S.W.A.T. conventions her Captain was always sending her to. It should too, the schools had been very difficult, taxing her body to the limits, there had been none of that relaxed standards for her because she was a woman, she had to belly crawl for 48 hours just like the men and remain hidden while experienced snipers searched for her with binoculars and spotting scopes. She had done well too, "killing" all her targets in the alloted time and avoiding detection, her trainers had remarked on the job she had done and praise from those guys was few and far between. As she sipped from her water bottle she thought about her counterpart on the other side. Bill was 36 years old and still bench-pressed over 600 pounds. He wasn't built like a typical sniper that was for sure, but he had learned his craft in the Army and was a bit smaller then. He had been in law enforcement for at least ten years and had distinguished himself several times over. "He's sure tight with the Captain", she thought, "And if half the stories I've heard are true I can imagine why." She knew they had been street partners for several years, before the agency she works for had a regular Tactical team set up. "Hell, they built this team, and I know the Captain went through ten feet of shit doing it." was her thought.
She was in a different situation from usual, normally she would work as a two man team, each taking turns observing and resting their eyes, but with some of the higher-ups not liking tactical teams in general and snipers in particular, they had to make do. She liked working alongside Bill, but she was also happy to be in this room on her own, she enjoyed the added responsibility and the pride from the trust the others had in her. On this night they were observing a person wanted for murder, the one Bill had in his view, they had been watching and taking notes in preparation for the team to make entry and make the arrest from the warrants. That was one thing she could never get through her Mother's head, she didn't just hide and kill people, although she had neautralized two targets on two seperate occasions, most of her job was to make sure the rest of the team knew what they were going into.
Bill looked at his watch, three a.m. right on the dot, Yvette had been a minute early, but he figured he would let her slide on that one. She had become a good student and an excellent sniper, he thought that she would never have made it when she was suggested as his protege, but his partner had hit the nail on the head with that one. At first he had given him a hard time about her, her first night had been an experience. She had proven herself already though he figured. She had two kills in her first year, both of them perfect head shots on people who needed to die anyway.
Bill didn't hold much stock for the politics of the job, when his partner thought up this agency and then got certain politicos to go along with it he was content to stay in the background and ferret out the applications from Officers they agreed on and then coordinate their advanced training. Dean could have the meetings with the politicians who had to be constantly placated and shown the effectiveness of their work, "He has the gift of gab and can talk people into most anything", had been what he had told his wife when the prospect for the job came up.
He leaned back for a second to wipe the sweat from his brow and change headbands, not because it was particularly bothersome, but it wouldn't pay to have a droplet of water on the lense of his scope as the team went through the door. Although he had removed his load bearing vest and extra equipment when he had set up in this room he was sweating heavily under his body armor. "Damn if I want to wear this thing." he thought. Wear it he would though, even though the odds of anybody even knowing his location were remote, Dean insisted that all Officers under his command wear their body armor anytime they were in uniform and sent into harm's way. "Besides, there was the off-the-wall chance that a crackhead or maybe a gang boy or two looking for a crackhead to beat up would try and come in this apartment, then he could have a little fun." was his solace in thought. He knew though that would be disastrous, one of the reasons he chose this particular apartment from the three that offered the proper vantage point was that it was the one used by the residents as a dumping hole for household garbage. He had to crawl over a four foot pile of dirty diapers, rotting food and God only knows what else to get to the stairs leading to the former master bedroom. He didn't figure even the nastiest bum would go through all that, especially on a sweltering night like this.
Dean sat in his office listening to Bill and Half-Baked check in. He knew the rest of his team was just outside in the ready room doing the same. They were in high spirits, cracking jokes as they went over their equipment one last time. He would have liked to have more observers at the scene, but this was the best he could do right now. He did have several uniform cars working the area, this had the effect of keeping their principle inside and any friends he might have weren't likely to be visiting when they might be likely to encounter a street Officer. He thought about having Yvette out there by herself briefly but not with any worry about her competence, he had hand-picked her for this duty and she had not let him down. Her first night had been an experience, both for him and Bill. He thought that Bill might take her by the neck in one of those meathooks he called hands and squeeze her until her eyeballs fell to the ground.
It had started innocently enough, she had come in to work the midnight shift with Bill and himself, she had spent the last ten months working days but had caught his eye when in a basic tactics class he gave she had been the only one to know that if a guy starts shooting at you as you drive up, you park the car on top of him. Everybody else had grand ideas of stopping and talking to him or returning fire, Yvette instinctively realized that the front bumper of a Crown Victoria was a much more effective response. With this thought in mind he had tossed her the keys to the Crown they were to use while his Jeep Cherokee was in the shop and told her to drive while Bill and a rookie he was training followed along. No sooner than she had adjusted the seat than they had the first call of the night which was reported as a rape in progress. The call was from a housing development on the South end of town so they had about nine miles to go. Dean reached over and flipped on the lights and siren and Yvette pulled out on the street. He had been reading a report about an apartment the detectives were wanting to make an entry on when he looked up and noticed their speed was only about 45 miles per hour. He irritatedly said "Yvette, make this car go!" and picked up the mike to talk to Bill on a side frequency. Twice more he urged her on, then went back to reading the report. He glanced in the side mirror to check on his partner and noticed they were nowhere to be seen, looking forward he saw the redlight fast approaching and calmly said, "Baker, watch this light." She rocketed through it at about ninety miles per hour as he began yelling at her to "Watch these damn lights!!" As Bill asked him where they were, she blew through the next light too. On the radio he thought he sounded calm when he gave the cross streets but in the car he was shouting at her to "Slow this damn car down!!" when she blew the third light. Finally she began to slow down, holding a steady sevent, still fast but this was a week night and the streets were all but deserted. He returned to his report only for a second and found himself flying towards the dash under her hard braking. Catching himself he yelled, "What the fuck was that for!?!" Her reply caught him off-guard, "There's a State Trooper right up there." In exasperation he said, "So!?!" "Well he might stop us and give us a ticket" she calmly replied. "Goddamnit Baker," now totally frustrated, "Are you completely out of your fucking mind? You're the Goddaman Police, now make this car roll!!"
The rest of the ride was noneventful, upon arriving at the scene it had proven to be nothing more than a typical boyfriend-girlfriend, he-said she-said argument. When they went back in service Bill told him that his rookie asked if they could stop at the store, so they agreed to meet up at another housing development in about thirty minutes and get out on foot patrol and see just what they could stir up. Heading back downtown he talked to Yvette about what he expected of her and the resources that were available and what was planned for the future. As they drove down the street he noticed two Memphis Police cars pulling away from the curb at the next intersection. The lead car hit his lights and busted the redlight and Dean said, "Watch that next MPD unit, he's gonna bust that light." She replied, "Well he doesn't have his lights on and I've got the right-of-way." In disbelief he shouted, "Baker, that MPD car is gonna bust that light!"
"Well he doesn't have his lights on."
"Baker that MPD car ain't stopping!!
"Well he doesn't have his lights on and I've got the right-of-way."
The MPD car slid sideways into the intersection, the Officer perplexed as to why a marked cruiser from another agency wasn't letting him bust this light when it was obvious he was on a call with the other car who had pulled away first.
After Dean had crawled out from his hiding place under the dash he asked her for the second time, "Baker are you completely out of your fucking mind?!?"
When Bill drove up he saw Dean in Baker's face giving her complete hell. At six foot one and 220 pounds of heavy muscle with the skills of an actor in presentation of his rather animated personality, not many people could express their opinion as well as he could, he had seen many rookies and several old-timers looking like they wanted to hide under a rock after making a mistake on the firing range. When he approached them and found the reason for his wrath, he had to ask Baker, "Are you completely out of your fucking mind?!?" Dean walked away at that point and let Bill take a crack at her. Yvette was undaunted though, simply replying, "But I had the right-of-way and he didn't have his lights on." Dean returned to their side and said, "Goddamnit Baker from this point on you're to be known as Half-Baked because I think you're half fucking crazy and the other half is just plain insane!" "But, you've got attitude, and I think that's something you just can't teach so consider yourself part of my crew."
A few minutes later an MPD car pulled up and the Officer who occasionally would work with the midnight crew from the Housing Police called over and said, "Hey Captain, you know who's driving car 106? That crazy sumbitch liked to killed me awhile ago."
"Naw, but I'll sure see if I can find out for you."

bovine dreams.

For the unenlightened, a cow is a female bovine that has been bred. A heifer would be a female bovine which is unbred and under two years of age. A bull is a sexually mature male bovine. A steer is a sexually mature male bovine that has a serious case of depression and sits around eating all day whilst staring wistfully at all the cows in the pasture.

The procedures for turning a bull into a steer are varied but they all have the same result. One way, and the simplest I think, is to place these little rubber bands around the appendage to be removed after the calf's li'l fellers have begun to dangle. After a few weeks, the whole thing just kinda falls off, no muss, no fuss. Another way is a tool called a "Burdizzo Bloodless Castrator". This is not quite so nice.

I think that it might be worse for the person operating this piece of equipment. The calf is lucky, he gets anasthetic.

What you do is chase down a bull calf, tackle him and a couple of you hold him down. The guy who lost the draw rubs this ice-thing on the area involved, takes this tool that looks like a dull hoof trimmer, kinda like a pair of pincers if that helps, and then crushes the spermatic cord in four places by squeezing the handle real hard and listening for the "crunch" of a successful application.

Of course now the rest of the bull calves have seen what you're up to and have decided that it's really not for them. So the chase begins.

It's very important to know the difference between bulls and steers and cows. You don't want to ski behind cows, because they're usually kept pregnant and it's not a real good idea to run them too much. Steers are a different story though.

They really don't have much of a life anyway, first they have the indignity of being jumped on by a bunch of farmboys and then having things that they might rather leave hanging where they were found, removed rather violently. Then they're put out to a pasture to get fat and stare at pretty young cows who have no interest in them. So you got to figure that a little skiing might do them good.

What you do is find you a good steer, one who looks good and strong and the longer the tail the better. A long tail is very desirable. The longer the better.

Steers spend a lot of time eating roughage and even though you're gonna give him a run before you ski, the further away you are from the business end of a steer, the better.

So what you do is chase him around a bit, hopefully exhausting any unpleasant surprises, then grab his tail and hang on. He'll drag you all over the place, although he'll probably head for a low hanging branch or a stump pretty quickly, you're in for a pretty good ride as long as you can stay upright.

Footwear is pretty important. I like either cheap tennis shoes or cowboy boots. Heavy lug sole work boots are a bad idea, they tend to give too much traction and will send you steer body-surfing which is nowhere near as much fun, you're in a cattle pasture after all. You may have seen people on tv or in competition using harnesses of rope or leather, these people are very experienced professionals and you should not try and copy their feats. A good long tail is fine for the novice.

My friend Robert is a champion skier.

Another friend, Jennifer was asked to name five types of cattle by our high school agriculture teacher one day, She said, "There's red and white ones, black and white ones, black ones, and I can't remember the names of the other ones." Jennifer is from the city.

We raised red and white ones, (Herefords), black ones, (Angus) and one of the ones she couldn't remember, Brangus. Brangus are a mix between an Angus cow and a huge beast of a male bovine with a really bad temper known as a Brahma-Zebu. These are the ones that you see people who are suicidal and just plain stupid riding in rodeos. They are characterized by a large hump on their back, this is where they keep their bad attitude, and an incredible desire to turn anything that invades their territory into paste.

Robert was the king of steer skiing. He also was easily influenced into doing things that the rest of us might get a good laugh from.

You might think that a big, 2000 pound Brahma bull that really does nothing more than strut around and have his way with cows all day, could be up for a little fun. He's not. Robert did have a pretty good ride for a few seconds. That big ole bull could really run. Too bad he figured out that running away from the idiot hanging onto his tail was not the way to get rid of the annoyance. Robert did make an impressive landing though, even after clearing a five rail fence.

I suppose that one could ski behind elephants as well, I believe I'd want one with a really long tail though.

the family stone.

My family owns a couple hundred acres in the country outside of Memphis. We had owned several hundred, but with time and taxes we have sold quite a bit of it off. We've been there over a hundred years, and it's just natural for us all to congregate there I suppose.

Well it used to be the country.

We used to make a big deal out of going to town, it was about a thirty mile drive to the nearest grocery store and we'd only go every couple weeks or so. You might would have thought a caravan of Gypsies had come along, there'd be my Uncle Lew and Aunt Cheryl with my cousins Cliff, Ricky, Daniel and David (the twins), and Matthew who was just a baby then. Then there was my Father and Mother, myself and my brother, my Great Grandma (Mom), my Grandma, my Great Uncle,(Uncle)and usually my Great Aunt Carolyn and her husband, Uncle Bob. My Uncle David and his wife, my Aunt Anita, and my cousins Charlie and Elizabeth (also just a baby). Aunt Cheryl's Mother and Father would come along oftentimes and other Uncles and their girlfriends might tag along as well.

Now for the middle-aged menfolk I don't suppose it was such a big deal to go to town, after all, they worked in the big city, most of them on the Police Department, but for the rest of us it was something let me tell you! All of my cousins and myself would pile into the back of the pick-up trucks, (go to jail for that nowadays) and we'd whoop and holler and carry on all the way to town. Usually we'd have us a big sack of walnuts for sign-chunkin' and that'd add extra entertainment although it would seem to irritate anybody too close behind us.

When we'd get to town, all us young-uns would immediately go exploring. We might would spend a while checking out the stores, much to the consternation of the shopkeepers I'm sure, but our real interest was in what was behind them and the surrounding areas. Time has eased the memories to the recesses of my mind of what all we found so fascinating. I suppose that it just doesn't matter how mundane things are today, with youth everything is fresh and exciting.

While the grown-ups would shop the Woolworth's, the Sears Outlet Store, the Quality Stamp Store and finally the Big Star Grocery Store, we would wander, our country senses sampling the atmosphere of all we knew of the big city. Somehow we always knew when it was time to head back, we always were at the Big Star doors in time to load up the groceries. I think there must have been some sort of unseen communication at work, kinda like how they always knew when we were up to something.

I miss those days. None of us had locked doors. We would just drop in, usually stay for dinner and us kids would spend the nights at each others houses or out in the barns or woods, no plans needed to be made, we just did it. Breakfast would be at one of our Grandmother's. My Great Grandmother was the person along with my Great Uncle Lansing that actually raised me. She made the finest biscuits and gravy the world will ever see. I really miss her.

the long pole catfish fishin' club.

Some several years ago I started a fishin' club. It's called The Long Pole Catfish Fishin' Club. To become a member you must catch a catfish on a pole 10 1/2 feet or longer. To be a bona-fide member you must catch a catfish weighing at least 10 pounds. To be a charter member you must catch one of at least 20 pounds. To be a life member you must catch one of at least 30 pounds. To be anything more you must catch one weighing whatever my biggest one weighes at the time. (about 33 pounds I think) Our Grand High Pooh-Bah Second in Command to the Great and Glorious President, has one over 70 pounds.
We have great fun. It all started with just as couple of us, going down to the lake or river and carrying a cooler full of baloney and bread and one of liquid refreshment. (always throw the fish in the cooler with the cans. Baloney takes on a funny taste when left with fish too long.) It gravitated into 20 or 30 people showing up, toting half pigs, big fish fryers and all sorts of other stuff to eat. We feed an army on pig cooked in the ground, catfish and hushpuppies. Some of these people we might even know.
In my younger days we would seine farm ponds. (always find a farmer who wants his pond seined, they get kinda upset if you don't ask) We'd use this net about 75 feet long, two people on each end dragging it and two in the water keeping it free from snags. I liked being in the water.
Once you got it to the end of the pond you'd simply pick the fish out and toss them on ice, then take them back home, filet them and have a feast.
One "friend" of mine invited me out to his place to go catfish fishin'. I jumped at the chance, knowing that he lived on the edge of this big swamp known as "Ghost River". It's where the Wolf River spreads out into this huge bottom and creates this shallow lake. It's reknown for crappie and bass and the huge catfish they hang out in the many creek channels. It's also well known for 6 foot cottonmouths and 80 pound snapping turtles but I like snakes and turtles don't run all that fast.
When I pulled up I found the cast of "Deliverance" resting on the porch. As I started to gather my fishin' poles and stuff from the back of my truck my "friend" told me I wouldn't be needing it. Well I just figured we were gonna run some trot lines which was fine by me.
When we reached the edge of the swamp and everybody started taking their shoes off, except for Granny, she wasn't wearing any to start with, and taking their shirts off, thankfully Granny left hers on, I began to get a bit curious. I was even more so when I saw that everybody was wading out into the black algae covered water and that the only boat was being towed by my "friend's" cousin who I believe may have also been his brother and that the boat was only a little 10 foot john boat. Well when in Rome.....
After we waded through this stinking mud and fetid water about a hundred yards we came upon a deeper spot where the water flowed a nice, even, coffee with milk brown color signifying a creek channel. This was much nicer although it was deeper, about chest high. Shoulder high to Granny. I was about to inquire of my friend just what the hell we were doing when his Father/Uncle dove under water and began thrashing about. The whoopin' and hollerin' commenced and the family was shoutin' "Whoooo Papa, Get him Papa, Ohhh that's a big un". Papa burst from beneath the water, blowing water and shaking his head. With a heave he threw about a 15 pound catfish into the litlle boat. Assuming that he meant to do all that, I was impressed.
I was told that they had placed barrels and large pipes in the creek bottom for the catfish to hole up in during the heat of the day. As we waded down the creek, we would stop at each marker and Papa would feel around in the hole for a fish. If he felt there was one in there, then all the young 'uns would fight over who got to grab it. After a few of these incidents, my "friend" said, "Hey, we got us a guest here, let's find him a good 'un". The delight I felt at his generosity cannot be expressed here.
I was given a leather glove and the instructions to just feel around and stick my hand in his mouth until he clamped down and then grab him by the gills or whatever was handy. My interest centered on these last instructions.
I did think to ask how one would know whether or not one of the afore-mentioned snapping turtles had set up housekeeping and was told that the bottom mud would be all soft, a catfish makes a hard bed. I then asked "Well in the process of figuring that out, what happens if I grab a turtle".
"Don't stick your hand in his mouth."
I'm happy to tell you that I kept all my fingers, and I managed to bring out a nice little 6 pound catfish. I would have preferred them telling me beforehand that when you try and stick your hand in their mouth they start to spinning around and feel like a chainsaw has ahold of you, but it was fun.
And Granny could sure cook.

great ideas.

Sometimes I have great ideas. Hay bale forts, picnic table tree houses, walnut fights. Sometimes my cousin Ricky has great ideas, 300mph bicycle ramps, redneck football, pig roping. Together we have splendid ideas, usually.
It all started somewhat innocently. We were just sitting out in the field, passing a warm summer day doing the things Southern country boys do, in our case pass-shooting blackbirds. Being as it was in the middle of the day the birds weren't flying real heavy so we had time to let our minds wander. Naturally we decided to see how a shotgun shell was put together.
I have no idea why we needed to do this, both of our Dads reloaded ammunition and we knew full well how it all worked, but when you're 12, have a sharp knife, (Ricky without at least one knife was as likely as an ocean without water) and some extra shotgun shells.....
A couple quick surgical incisions and the paper shell was laid apart exposing a palmful of #8 lead shot, some cardboard wadding, and something which we probably didn't need to find, a spoonful of smokeless powder. Hmmm, what to do now. Well when you're 12, there's really only one thing to do with powder, and that's to set it on fire. So after a quick sprint back to the house for some matches, something we thought it best to remove without comment, and a nice flat rock, we were rewarded with a somehow satisfying little flash and a "phhhhtttttt" noise. Well after a few more shell surgeries and increasingly larger "phhhhhttttttt's" we felt our expertise had led us to our next step, explosives and cannons.
Now I should make a disclaimer here I suppose as I'm not sure what sort of statutes of limitations are on our activities and I don't need any ATF type people knocking on my door down here in New Mexico.... All 12 year old Southern country boys do this stuff, we were not training to be terrorists.
So anyway, after the removal of powder from some several shotgun shells we had a nice little pile of powder, but what to do with it? Have you ever cut apart a golf ball? I have. Have you ever realized that if you take a golf ball shell and a handful of Nitrex powder and a firecracker you can make a pretty good hand grenade? I have. A word of advice, after lighting it, throw it real hard...
It didn't take us long to realize that cutting up shotgun shells was a lot of work and there must be an easier way. Ricky pointed out that back in the days of the War of Northern Aggression all they had was black powder and they seemed to have plenty of fun with that. He further realized that we both had plenty of black powder laying around for our muzzleloaders and even had handy powder horns to carry the stuff in. Well another trip off to the house and one out to the barn and we were in business. At the barn we found a nice selection of iron pipe, just the right size for golf balls. A hand drill made a nice little hole for fuses, (we used fuses we pulled out of firecrackers), and shortly we were in business with our first cannon. Now at this point you might be wondering just why some dumb, shoeless country boys with an ample supply of firearms needed to build cannons. That should really need no explanation at this point.....
With some experimentation and a fight over who had to light the fuse, we were soon shooting golf balls through the tin siding on the barn. Oh but this was fun. Well for a while, until you realize that if a golf ball can go through the side of a barn, well just think what you could do with a softball.
After a bit of exploring we found a nice pipe that a softball fit into good and tight. It may be that it fit a little too tight but that'll be for others to decide...
Well with this pipe and a fresh supply of black powder, we were ready to fire one of Cliff's, (Ricky's older brother) softballs, (after seeing what happened to golf balls no way were we gonna use one of our softballs) through both sides of the barn and maybe through a particularly ornery bull next door. It was a bit of a surprise when we lit the fuse and nothing happened. It may be that somebody was trying to look out for us. Well no way was this gonna stop us. But after several tries, the fool thing wouldn't light. In retrospect maybe there was too much tension on things and we should have stopped and re-engineered our creation, but when you're 12.....
Well it occured to me that earlier we had great success with using a firecracker to ignite handgrenades. It really seemed like a good idea...
So we managed to shove a couple of firecrackers down the little hole and twist their fuses together. With great expectations of maybe being invited to join the War Department's black powder pipe cannon research program and adoration of high school girls everywhere, we lit the fuse.
After some several minutes, conciousness started to come back. Our beautiful cannon was in pieces, Cliff's softball was nowhere to be found although a suspicious fuzz covered the area, and both of us were missing our eyebrows. At dinner that night Ricky's Father remarked on some holes in the barn, the chickens not laying any eggs and just why Ricky had what appeared to be magic marker for eyebrows.

live life.

So just what do we do in our spare time? Do we even have spare time anymore? But it would be so nice to just sit out on the porch and swing softly, listening to the night fall. "No time", gotta get the kids to practice, or back. The Henley's are coming over and dinner's not half done....

Where did we lose ourselves? Maybe it's always been this way. I don't recall my Grandmother ever being in a hurry though. Maybe because she's older and at some point you figure out that life's still there, no need to hurry. If it weren't there, you'd have no need to hurry, so why bother? Let the Henleys sit out on the porch with us, we'll have some cold fried chicken and those potatoes we put up, maybe the beans too. Mosey out to the garden and grab a few tomatoes. Some tea in a jug and everything will be fine.

Rush rush, everything is a rush. No time to just be. Everybody needs attention right now. Sit back, slow down, no need to rush around, will everything end if it's not done right now? It'll be there in a little while too, no sense rushing around to get this done, something else will just jump up and want to be done in a rush too. Take time to just be, let the flowers bloom when they get ready, pry them apart and see what it does? Just ruins them. It'll happen, now go look out across a field, watch the wheat sway gently in the breeze. Lay beside a lake, not a river, rivers are always in a hurry, but a calm lake. Watch birds dip along the water, they don't care about the time, maybe there's something there to learn.

Have you ever just gotten lost in a campfire? Not a big fire, just one of orange flames and soft sparks that wink out in a gentle death. Maybe a fire that was host to blackened hotdogs and flaming marshmallows just a little while ago. Maybe a spooky story was told around this fire tonight and little Jr. and his sister have just quit fidgeting and slipped off to sleep on a bed made on dirt and pebbles. Sleeping anyplace, the way kids seem to be able to. Maybe this fire, who's fed you and made scary shadows for the story of the man with a hook and now warms your feet as you stare into it, this fire now tends to your soul. Stare off into it and let it carry you away, watch the gentle undulations of flame as it dances in your eyes, reminding you of things that you should have forgotten long ago. Remember that time when.... Lean against your love and remember this time when.

Live life.

death.

I had been a small-town Officer for about 5 months in the winter of either 1988 or 1989 I guess. Early in the morning as I sat in a parking lot pulled up beside another Officer, a State Trooper drove up alongside us and asked if we knew of a certain address. I knew the address fairly well, I had stopped and talked to the people as they worked in their small yard from time to time and generally would wave when I would see them around town. They were a young couple, early-thirties, two cute kids, nice middle-class people.

This Trooper was a friend of mine before I entered this, my rookie year, and still remains one today. He asked if I would accompany him to the residence, and I said I would.

Quietly approaching the door, my friend removed his "Smokey Bear" hat and knocked softly. When the young lady opened the door, the realization that she was a widow hit her before my friend spoke.

A couple years later I was a Deputy Sheriff in Mississippi and had responded to a very bad accident on the highway.

A drunk driver had crossed the median and run head-on into another car, killing the driver. The drunk, per usual, was barely injured. I was not the senior Officer on this scene and it was actually a responsibility for the State Trooper, but since he would be busy with the killer, it fell upon another Deputy and myself to make the notification.

We were less than a mile from the house when the other Deputy called me on the radio and asked me to pull over. Upon approaching him by the roadside he told me he just didn't know if he could do this. I have a reputation for something of a black heart, well deserved I admit. The task fell upon me.

I remember the crunch of the gravel beneath my boots as I walked to the door. I remember the Christmas tree that stood dark in the window at this early hour. I remember the urgency of the footsteps as I heard them cross the floor and the anxiety with which the door was opened. I remember the terror in the eyes of the lovely young widow as she realized that her life had been ripped apart and I remember the sobs from her children as they stood beside her, not knowing what had happened but sensing that their Father had been taken from them. I remember my partner picking up the two children in his bear like arms and holding them, his body shaking with the overflow of emotion. I remember the young wife's tears soaking through my shirt as I held her, not knowing how to make it better, just wishing that I could.

I've told people that death is a tangible thing. It has a "smell" if you will. There is a sense when life leaves the body, you can feel when that person has gone.

I worked with another Officer who also was a Paramedic. One night we responded to a baby in distress call. On our arrival we found a panicking family and a 5 or 6 month old baby who wasn't breathing. My partner set to work on the child while I urged the dispatcher to expedite the ambulance. Unfortunately the only available ambulance was on the other side of the county, about 25 miles away. My partner heard this and ran for the door, baby in his arms and I followed. He jumped into the back of my cruiser as I started it up and threw it into gear. Our goal was to head for the next county and meet with a med squad somewhere in between.

The engine of my cruiser screamed in mechanical agony as we tore down the highway in excess of 130mph. In times like this, your body becomes a perfect machine, subtle suggestions from your brain control your actions, the world slows down around you and you begin to react with exquisite detail. Each particle of your surroundings receives attention and each is burned into your memory.

It didn't take the hearing of my partners cries to know that this child had left us, I felt his passing as surely as if a sword had passed through my heart.

This may all sound overly melo-dramatic, and I suppose it is. I've been called a fool many times for my statement about feeling death when it is near and about feeling life as it leaves, but that's okay. It may be that it is just something my sub-concious dreams up, but I've stood over a number of people as life left, have had my hands on a few as I tried to apply what I hoped was proper cpr while paramedics did the things they do, and each time, there was that smell.

Others have had far more exposure to death than I have. You are in my prayers, whether you like it or not.

Okay, I feel better now.

bunny.

There once was a little bunny who went hippity-hopping down the road on his way to Granny's house. Now this was a very confused little bunny because for some reason he was carrying a basket full of sweetmeats and just why would a bunny take such a thing to his Granny's? For that matter, where would a bunny even get sweetmeats? What the hell are sweetmeats anyway?

Well that's not really important to this story. So this little bunny, who's name was Fred, although everybody called him Laquita due to, well, why isn't important either. Anyway this little Laquita bunny hip-hopped along the path for what must have been ages until he came across his Granny's little house.

It's a pretty house, A nice pale blue with white shutters and a pink picket fence. It sits atop a small rise in a clearing of a rather thick wood. There's a gentle, babbling brook which strolls carelessly behind the back of the house. It's very polluted though as Granny knows nothing of modern plumbing and tends to dump her chamberpot into it every morning. All the fish have moved away as Granny has a rather foul diet.

Anyway, Fred, I mean Laquita, approached the brightly painted red door, which I didn't mention before, and hollered inside, "Yo Granny, you ole be-atch, what my favorite slut be up to?" Fred, I mean Laquita, has a very nasty mouth for a bunny, but he really does love his Granny, in a 90's gangsta rapper type of way.

Granny Bunny opened the door and shot the little fucker dead. "Never could stand the little bastard." she said as she munched on her sweetbreads at Fred's, for the family decided to drop the Laquita from his name as it would have driven the cost of the tombstone up severely, (The stonemason charged by the letter) at Fred's simple, yet somehow pleasant, graveside memorial.

tales from a twisted mind.

the madness begins now.