Do Guns Make Us Safer?

by | Mar 24, 2012 | 0 comments

Oh, controversy.  Get thee behind me.  Yes, I know a lot of you are, shall we say, not completely of open mind about the issue of gun ownership, but I am, nevertheless, compelled to speak my mind on the subject.  I am myself a gun owner having a Browning 20 gauge secreted somewhere at my ranch.  I even have some shotgun shells around, but I can only find them when I have no use for them. A few years ago in a fit of excessive gun safety, I bought and installed a trigger guard, and promptly lost the key.  I’ve hunted off and on since the age of twelve, but not distinguished myself at it, and during my brief military career, I qualified, or at least shot, ...

There Must Be Another Reason to Come Here

by | Mar 4, 2012 | 0 comments

And it isn’t food.  I’ve now had three major meals in Havana, not including breakfasts, which is, I realize, a small sample.  I’m never one to shy away from making premature judgments about anything, least of all, food.  I’m ready to judge.  I’m pretty sure they have no idea how to cook in Cuba.  Maybe it’s the commies, perhaps it’s  the years the rooskies were here, but either they never knew how to cook, or, if they did,  they’ve forgotten. Granted, we’ve been eating at all the high end places, such as they are.  These are the ones that get great ratings in TripAdvisor were people try to prove how smart they are about hotels and restaurants.  The odd...

The Joy of Travel…Miami Style

by | Mar 2, 2012 | 0 comments

Patsy, our travel agent, says we have a black cloud over us when it comes to DFW and American Airlines, but it only happens when my darling wife, S. is with me.  This time the mechanical bug bit our aircraft and we had to wait for another.  Only a two hour delay which didn’t actually matter much to us as we planned to overnight in Miami, but the 100 or so other fellow travelers who were making connections in Miami got the shaft. We finally landed and after the world’s longest runway taxi we disembarked only to be confronted with the world’s longest terminal walk.  It was a least six miles I promise you.  Unfortunately, it took half the walk schlepping 150...
Sticks and Stones…

Sticks and Stones…

by | Feb 1, 2012 | 0 comments

My first memory of name calling is personal.  I was in the third grade in Anchorage, Alaska and a fifth grader called me “a little spic” or maybe it was “little wop”.  I wouldn’t have known what either meant, but I knew by the way he said it, it wasn’t good.  I reacted the only way I knew.  I jumped him.  This wasn’t really very smart for the next thing I knew he was on top of me rubbing my face in the snow telling me I had to say ”UNCLE”.  I took me about three tenths of a seconds to figure out that saying “uncle” quickly would prevent me from suffering a lot of pain and further indignation. Sidebar:  I leaned two important lessons.  You could both talk your...

Why We Do It? Birdwatching, That Is

by | Dec 13, 2011 | 0 comments

Technically it’s no longer bird watching, it’s birding.  I don’t know that there’s a big difference, but birders are pretty sensitive types, and I, for one, don’t want to get on their wrong side of one. To answer my own question; I don’t know why I do it.  Furthermore, if you would have accused me forty or thirty or even ten years ago of becoming a bird watcher (birder) I would have guffawed and maybe taken a swing at you. BTW, in the UK, birders are called twitchers, but we all know they have a tough time with the King’s english.   I am, and I do, watch birds that is.  Worse yet, I try, mostly in vain, to take photographs of them.  They are harder to get in...

An Awe-ful Thought

by | Oct 15, 2011 | 0 comments

I had my first encounter with a mega church last week in tragic circumstances.  We are old friends with a couple who had struggled and grieved with the protracted death of a beautiful young girl, their granddaughter.  We wanted to attend her funeral to show our love and concern for them and their family and the tragedy they had to endure. As we approached the church I was surprised, but not terribly so, at the traffic awaiting entrance to the huge parking lot.  This is a prominent family with many local branches and a large crowd of mourners and well wishers was to be expected.  Naturally they would need a large hall.  We were thirty minutes early but young...