Just home from Mom and Dad’s. We had supper and took a golf cart ride around the field. I shot this picture from the northeast corner of the property.
I wrote this a couple days ago and posted it, but then took it down. Haven’t felt very confident in the last week. Well, here it is again, with some edits:
I was born in March 1977. That makes me an 80’s kid. I wasn’t officially a teenager until 1990. I could be wrong, but it’s my belief that most children of the 80’s grew up hearing about the Vietnam War. It wasn’t something that was taught in school. We heard about the war because our parents talked about it, often among themselves or with friends and relatives while the kids were playing in the background.
Uncle Gary served with the Navy in Vietnam. He was in the Army too, before his Naval career, but I don’t think the Army sent him to Vietnam.. While in the Navy, he was stationed in Da Nang–I think it was Da Nang, anyway– where he built bridges. I always saw Gary as a sort of legend, probably because he was my mom’s brother and I heard a lot about him. I didn’t hear about any action that he might have seen, but I remember Mom talking about the letters he’d sent home.
There’s this story that I haven’t forgotten. When my mom was a kid, she was sitting on the porch outside the house her family was living in. A man in uniform showed up. Mom thought he was a police officer and told him her parents were in the house. The man went in and everyone started hugging him..
That was Gary, home after his tour in Vietnam.
The last time I saw Gary alive was when he was moving out of the building where we each had an apartment. He saluted me, I returned the salute. I think he knew how much of a military-wannabe I was and how much I looked up to him.. He died shortly after he left. I think it was a stroke. 2001 or 2002..
Gary had PTSD. I heard that he only talked about the war when he was drunk. In the last couple years of his life, he’d had a serious case of what looked like Parkinson’s disease. He could barely talk and his hands were always shaking. When we were living in the same building, I visited him a lot. We’d drink beer and watch TV.
Memorial Day isn’t so much about those who served. That’s what Veteran’s Day is for. Memorial Day is for those who died while serving the country. But I think on Memorial Day, we tend to think of everyone we know who served whether they died in war or not, perhaps because they were all willing to make the sacrifice. They all joined, knowing they could be sent to war.
I remember seeing a Memorial Day parade (It might have been a Veteran’s Day parade, but I feel more strongly that it was a Memorial Day parade.) that one of my dad’s cousins was marching in. Dale, like Uncle Gary, had been in the Navy and served in Vietnam. That was probably in the late-eighties when I saw that parade. At the time, I didn’t fully understand and was probably more fascinated by the fact that Dale was a Vietnam vet.
But now I think Dale and the guys he was marching with were marching to honor those like a cousin of my mom’s who died in Vietnam, a boyfriend of one of my aunt’s who died in Vietnam, and all those who gave their lives in Vietnam, Korea, World War II, World War I, the Civil War, the Revolutionary War and any other war, no matter how big or small, that America had fought.
No matter what your political leanings are, or if you agree or not with one conflict or another that America is or has been involved in, you should acknowledge that without people willing to join the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard our nation would not survive.
The neighbors next door have a pit bull. When I’m in the backyard, the pit bull gives a woof through the fence. I look over and say, “Hey Dog, how you doing?” The pit bull wags its tail. Seems like a friendly fellow to me.
Hunted for six hours. I saw one turkey. It was right in front of me, but I was being too careful about making big movements when picking up my gun, and I took too long. It walked out of my view.
Gray World is a story I thought would never sell. I was just sending it out because I’d made a promise to myself that I would no longer self-reject my work, and just keep everything on the market and see what happens. So, I kept sending it out. I was surprised when Natasha Brooks at Bare Back Magazine said she wanted to buy Gray World for the May 2018 issue.
I haven’t been turkey hunting yet, but today I got the blind up. I decided to set up base in the Pine Tree Corridor, way across the field from the Bat Shack and my hunting ground. From inside the blind, I would have a nice wide view of the hill.
Other news. Recently my dad was on my hunting ground, where the Bat Shack is, and he found this broken arrow. He showed it to me today and I confirmed that it is the arrow that killed Deer #2. It’s a four-blade broadhead. I remember that it went through the deer and got stuck in the ground behind it. That was October 2016.
I’m getting anxious for deer season.
I’m tired. Been doing yardwork since 7 AM. So, I’m just going to insert these Before and After pictures. I’m going to do the same thing on the other side of the porch and down one side of the house.
Been outside since 7 this morning, busting my ass on a landscaping project I’ve been wanting to do since last year. But more about that later.
I was hungry and figured I could use a beer. So, I put in an order on Shipt.com. for an Italian sub and a six-pack of Jamaica’s Red Stripe.
Well, Red Stripe comes in funny little bottles, but it’s fine beer. So, that’s another so-called nasty, dreadfully disgusting beer that gets my approval, and I still haven’t met a beer I disliked.
Come on, guys, point me to a beer that’s TRULY disgusting. Because, no matter what people claim, I still don’t believe such a beer exists. Prove me wrong! Destroy my religion! Show me a beer that is so nasty, I’ll never drink it again!
Welp, lunchbreak is over. Back to work.
A friend has a Facebook thread going right now, because she accidentally dialed 911. Other people are commenting about times when they’ve done the same. Someone commented about a time when they were hosting a Super Bowl party and some kids called 911.
That reminds me of a time when I was a kid. I dialed 911 on a payphone at a hall where our extended family was having a Christmas party. I was goofing around and I didn’t know it would work if I wasn’t putting money in the phone. But then the police showed up.
I remember the cop talking to Aunt Geri. I couldn’t really hear what was being said, but I had a feeling he was there because someone had called 911. I think Aunt Geri was telling him that it was probably one of the kids. After the cop left, Paul or Dean confirmed to me what I had suspected. The cop had responded to a bogus 911 call.
On that evening. I learned that it’s not necessary to put coins into a payphone when calling 911. I’m not sure what year that was. I might’ve been eleven at the time, maybe twelve. No one figured out it was me.
So, if anyone in the Darnell-Anderson extension remembers that, now you know who made that call.