Lovely being me, just me, Earl the guy at the back of the room...

  The guy that walked on stage carrying a trunk and walked back off not saying a word. Ligonier Valley Players production... I was there.  I have to admit I cannot claim the main character status in any story not my own, and no one would pay to read nor view it.  Lucky am I that nothing dramatic surrounded my choices and chances in my life.  No public acclaim nor acknowledgement needed, thank you very much.  Have to thank God for placing me where I might help, or at least not get in the way of progress.

  Was a bit frustrated yesterday at the YMCA, not about how much exercise I did, for a fat old fool I did a fine twenty-five point seventy-nine miles in hours of sweaty good intentions.  And the ladies were lovely and there were many of the regulars and they said hi or acknowledged my existence with the head nod or wave. No, the two regulars I was looking forward to seeing and exchanging views with weren't there. At our age, there are too many reasons not to show up for the exercise, and two of the reasons, death and hospitalization, are just hovering in our future cause we have seen others on that road before. I am sure that everything is fine - just they have their own lives and don't always get a page in mine, but I should be able to write them into the adventures of the old guy whenever I want. Thinking I am in control of anything.  Maybe I anticipated too much.

  My mother's anticipation of her Fiftieth Anniversary celebration was ruined by my father's early departure, but then old folks do things like that. My wife came home with groceries yesterday, for the Men's Bible Study at our home in two weekends from now.  She has done major cleaning on the windows and the house twice for the same reason and the guest bathroom is off limits to me because she is hosting the hiking group this morning before they drive off. Anticipation makes preparations much better, but you can drive yourself and others crazy with obsessive behavior, can't you? With forty years of bumping into each others plans - my partnership (marriage in our minds) has well build fences to keep our minds from running loose and wild.  Yep, little drama here. We are settled down, we are stable, we could be in a rut and wheels spinning - but then maybe we don't want to go anywhere.  I looked into the passport renewal, and am sticker shocked by costs, didn't we pay our taxes?  Makes me think that we should just plan on walking around the border check points.

  You see, all my guns and all my ammunition and I am not in the nightly news with my arsenal, and for some strange reason the visit to the YMCA is going to work better for me than sticking up a convenience store or shooting it out on I5 in road rage.  Which is exactly why they won't write a book about me, they often aren't sure I was there once upon a time - so I am falling out of myths and fairy tales, too.  Still have that wonderful poem. "I met a man upon the stair, a little man that wasn't there, he wasn't there again today, gee, I wish he'd go away!"

I am obsesive and compulsive and silly...

   Oh how the time has fled... I once counted pushups and situps in the hundreds, once.  Now I have new goals for my fitness: leave the YMCA on my own two feet, don't let them wheel me out.  I keep working that one. A silly one was when tearing the paper towel from the machine after washing my hands, I was upset that the tear was always crooked... that last pull got weak or the technique was wrong, or I wasn't fast enough... But my last visit, I snatched it cleanly and now have a perfectly straight line cut.  Now on to doing that with weights! Or maybe not.

September 11, 1683 Vienna (Wien) that day the Europeans forgot and the Moslems never did...

  I won't even link to it, you should know that day was the first day of the Siege of the Austrian Empire by the Ottoman Grand Vizier, who had promised Rome and Paris right after taking down Austria.  Good movie with bad combat effects and some silly liberties with the truth to promote the story, that link is here.  I say the Europeans forgot it, but it is probably taught in Poland, Austria, Germany and countries of the former Yugoslavia... just a guess.

  So now, those crafty Moslem extremists are sending waves of military age refugees, with cell phones to Europe and other countries with Christian virtues and Western Civilization guilt complexes promoted by Marxist leaning professors - there are some real families that should be saved, but just ship the military age boys back unless the Foreign Legion needs new recruits.  I expect that since our governments have been promoting all kinds of foolishness, they will succeed in continuing their reign of terror and since they won't become part of the successful nations with good intentions that those nations will turn terrible in reaction or suffer destruction for lack of Godliness.  But then I study History and learn from it.

  Today isn't a holiday in America, it is a day of remembrance.  I remembered and went shooting my battle rifle, always a good thing to do.  With a new acquaintance at his very nice range.  He had some homemade reactive targets - like the shoot and see ones but full body size, and he had some interesting shooting drills - one round standing, drop to kneeling and fire two more same target, do again at the next distance, and then drop to kneeling and fall into prone at the longer distance.  Interesting.  Not a particularly timed event but it could be worked in... but why? two positions per target, just three rounds expended and total of nine for the course and then look and determine what would make it all better.

   A good challenge and I can always learn something, which I did.  Next month we meet to do some pistol work. That should be even better and more fun.  He gave me the big tour, talked much and introduced a few folks. Some serious older shooters there (the remainder of the world is busy paying taxes) and some nice special and specialized rifles on the benches.  A very fine day, and I don't even feel the least bit guilty for missing my YMCA period today.  Telling myself improvement in all directions begins tomorrow.

  My wife left me for church, revival this evening and a children's dance and choir performance from far away (the kids stay in different homes to sleep and snack).  She had a fine time relieving stress with friends, singing traditional songs loudly and performing... I wondered what stress she had in her really retired life. Then I remembered who her husband is and totally understood.

Reading the fears, so many fears fed...

    I don't fear firearms, I don't fear people with firearms, I am sure the Wild West was never as wild as the folks in Hollywood would want you to believe. I also don't fear the police nor the government agencies in their foolishness - which normally strikes when a bigger fool gets put in charge of something they have little idea about.  I want professionals to have the best training they can get, 83 shots that didn't hit the target makes me think the police need better training and they shouldn't be allowed to think more bullets in some direction are going to be effective.

   I don't fear refugees from terror, as long as they come as families and not from California.  For sure the people that come, have families and raise children and find work or start a business have done wonderful things for themselves and their families and our, "OUR" country.  Where are all our fears coming from? the media needing your attention, the half truths and sad truths thrown around to make you think it will happen to you if you don't do something, vote a certain party and want to be liked, loved and respected?

   I am still not running, one of those fears I haven't conquered yet... I wasn't like this once, what happened? It is too nice a world, a day, and a life not to participate fully to the limits the LORD has put within me.  May all your fears flee before the light of reality, not this shadow world of entertainment and rumor...

We're all American and proud to be... don't we wish the media would pick that up?

   I love being a 'real American'. but that is my definition and how I think of myself.  Everyone else, including my brother would try to box me up in his definitions of 'my problems', everyone should have a label - but it is foolish. We almost all were given a name, and answer to many that our parents wouldn't have used for us - but we know whom they were talking about... don't we?  Then I realized as the frenzy over Black Lives Matter - but truer still, all lives matter.  Then I thought about the fact that I am All American.  I like that description...  we are all American...  how we got here, when we came or even why we came... once we are here we become American... in the school of hard knocks and not in the politically correct sense.  You have been watching the refugee invasion that ISIS or just expanding Moslem solidarity is pushing on the 'guilty Europeans' who didn't start it and aren't responsible. There a some very rich countries that aren't taking refugees, with the same governments, religion and language. Anyway, we can take refugees, immigrants and terrorists - have in the past can do it again. Just get the government out of the business of government and watch us adjust and accept the strays from the world.

   Well, my wife got me a date today, so I went to lunch and met a nice man. We share an interest in shooting, we are both veterans, and we have time on our hands since the economy is so wonderful... or how to entertain oneself until reality smacks one's face into the dirt.  So after a nice lunch we are going to meet at his range and shoot rifles on Friday at nine, I also have to pick up my refill so I am still in touch with my frailty.

   I have classes to prepare for, one for Sunday school and about the Samaritan women at the well and how some people oppress those that are different... fifth graders, they should be able to handle it. And the Appleseed is coming up.  Hmm, best contact two people that haven't signed up to instruct yet. All the shooters have filled the slots.

I have it on good authority that men and women aren't the same...

   Actually, no matter how the popular culture tries to level the field, men and women aren't the same. And the PC policers will be crying that we have to include all those refinement in categories or acknowledges enhancements.  I being a simple man, know that men and women aren't the same.

   Pear sharing season, and my wife has skinned, cut, sliced and blended the pulp and made stuff which she shared well.  Which leaves a lot of excess vegetable matter which is fine for making into garden soil compost... except she won't wait upon Earl to get up and do it right. So she goes and tries (badly) to do it without me.  And then goes back to doing what she does best, making more vegetable matter mess... and I have to do that lot, and go find the mess she left me... she really hates me.  Being Sunday I have little choice except to forgive her and think again about locking that back gate to keep the bears out of the back yard - or my wife away from the composting which she doesn't do 'my' way.

   I studied John the Baptist this morning, preparing for Sunday School, fifth graders and they all are faster than I and I have to be prepared.. or was that in the Boy Scouts?

It is not just in what you call it, but how you intend to use it...

  So watching one of the most savage movies I have ever seen on the screen this afternoon, and the doorbell rings. I go answer it to find a large truck on the street with a large guy wanting me to accept his delivery, he says he will get it to my garage door.  Okay, I was expecting a serving tray and a drop leaf table from my aunt in Minnesota. She has been down sizing and sharing her treasures for years and these are the two she hadn't sent me before.

  Now I should have taken a before picture of the half pallet with two large plastic cardboard boxes on it. But I was remiss. If the Armed Forces had had packers and movers like my aunt's money hired, I wouldn't have lost so much broken and bruised or visibly antiqued furniture over my many moves.  Or I could have bought higher quality furniture? Well, it arrived well packed and I easily cut through the plastic wrap, then found the steel bands interesting (forgot what we used in Nam to get through them when unpacking ammunition) all I had on me was my trusty Leatherman Wave, so I opened the pliers and cut through half, then repositioned and cut the other half. Take it off. Back to cutting tape and plastic. Then inside the big box more cardboard triangle supports, and through them to get the drop leaf table out. There was almost three yards of bubble wrap around the serving tray.  After I swam through the plastic foam peanuts to find it.

   They sit in a place of honor in our dining room now. Pictures.

 Which brings me to my point about what you intend to do with it as opposed to what you call it.  As I found the interesting notice on the door of the YMCA telling everyone that it was a safe place - no drugs, alcohol or weapons allowed - I have been carrying the entire time, the police never take their equipment off either.  Why? Because we are carrying tools, tools that could become weapons upon need, but only tools.

   That terrible violent movie I was watching had the main character killing several men with a claw hammer, a most certain result of where he placed it violently.  But that was his intent, he would still call it a claw hammer and a tool.

  I am certain that I will be finding many more dangerous tools in the Home Depot, but it is the intent not the name one must worry about being on the receiving end of.