Archive for September, 2009
Oooooohhhh!!! Shiny!!!!
There is about the human creature a mental simplicity akin to that of a child. We all seem to suffer from it in one degree or another. It’s the The “Ooooohhh!!!! Shiny!!!! Syndrome”
As a child we tended to be attracted to the pretty doodads our mothers hung over our cribs. As they bounced and swayed our little child’s eyes followed them around and we’d laugh and coo and giggle and wiggle and try to grab them. And all that was needed to distract us was another new and shiny object on the horizon. Read the rest of this entry »
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“resolved to die freemen rather than to live as slaves”
“With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live as slaves.” –John Dickinson and Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of the Cause and Necessity of Taking up Arms, 1775
The period leading up to the American Revolution was a turbulent time. Men had been giving much thought to the issue of what it meant to be subjects of a power that was interested only in maintaining itself and not with their well being. Slowly, but surely, the movement to break ties with “Mother England” took shape and gained ground until there came a point of no return. But once that point was reached freedom was not yet ensured. First there was a long period of harsh battles, of labor, sweat, tears, danger and the terrible possibility of being once more forced to bow to a foreign power. Read the rest of this entry »
I played with matches
Yep, when I was a kid I wasn’t “Smokey’s Friend” – I played with matches. Never did we burn down a forest nor even a house or anything we shouldn’t. But we played with matches. And gun powder, fireworks, power tools, firearms, airguns, slingshots, bicycles, machetes, axes, lead based paint – etc.
And yet, we grew up. All our appendages were intact (in spite of that one incident where we re-enacted a knife fight from a Louis L’Amour novel and someone got their fingers cut) and our hearing wasn’t too badly damaged (I’m only deaf in one ear but can still sometimes hear out of the other – don’t tell my wife) and the only damage to our eye sight was genetic. We rode bicycles without helmets. We played soccer without pads. We played volleyball in the street. We paddled canoes without lifejackets. We climbed trees and chopped them down. OK – THEY climbed the tree and I chopped it down). Skinnydipping, fishing, bee hunting, wasp nest capturing, campfire building, lead smelting, gun building – all these and more were part of our lives. And we lived and grew up and became reasonably stable, sane, productive citizens. Read the rest of this entry »
OK – got the keys back
Well, I’m in the middle of a hard drive swap. And somehow misplaced the “keys” to this site. Finally got it unlocked again and so we’re back in business - such as it is. 
Life will kill you
The thoughts below were provoked by an accident in farming country. A well meaning friend responded to news of the accident in a “I’d NEVER let MY kid do that” way. He was raised in San Francisco, far from rural America. And has absorbed much of the overprotection culture inherent in that bed of socialistic “We’ll save you from life” society. Read the rest of this entry »
