I'm just a man and, by definition, can only see 16 colors. So when she tells me the color of that light brown hair pulled back in a ponytail hanging down between her shoulder-blades is caramel, well, I just have to take her word for it. A svelte 5'6" tall with striking, chiseled features and, if one didn't know, especially since girls don't get gray, unless they want to, it would be easy to guess she's a mere kitten of 35 or so, perhaps a matronly 40. A real cutie-pie, but glaring at me with those steel blue eyes, the kind that will cut straight through to a man's soul, as she stated flatly "Stop."
There was more, basically to quit my whining.
Then she flashed that snotty little grin and turned back to sighting in her brand spanky new toy.
She doesn't pack that one with her. Her purse is reserved for a .22 semi-automatic. Some might say that won't do anything but make an attacker angry, to which I once heard her respond, "Okay, so I'll make him mad nine times just off center mass, so he lives long and painfully... I don't want to deal with any more recoil than necessary in a high adrenaline situation."
We're a little out in the country here on the banks of beautiful Moccasin Creek. It's 27.2 miles to the nearest McD's, 1/2 mile to the closest neighbor on one side, 1/2 mile to the one on the other by 4-wheeler… 4.8 by road, and it's right at 1/2 mile to the hard road. We're out a ways. It takes the law half an hour or better to get here unless he's up on the mountain already, so it's only half jokingly I tell people we don't call the sheriff until the body stops flopping. Being where we are, and the times what they are, we have two rules for visitors:
1. Uninvited guests – come unarmed or be asked to leave, with encouragement if necessary.
2. Invited guests – bring your own hardware and supplies.
That's why BabyDoll was here that afternoon several months ago. She'd bought a new piece and wanted to sight it in while getting some practice. Like others, she doesn't particularly enjoy going to a range so for the price of targets and however many rounds she wanted to fire, we certainly have beaucoups of yard signs politicians leave beside the road for weeks and months every election for backers. She was all set… called to make sure someone would be here and it was okay to come up with her husband to shoot. I can say no to him. Everything was honto daijobi.
The least she could have done, this lady who once asked why I'm not concerned about frequently being out here alone, was admit her new toy was a pink 9. We'd have laid down some additional ground rules.
I was raised Lutheran and therefore never needed to attend night classes with such titles as "Guilt Without (um, you know)," nor were we cautioned against dancing for fear we might be accused of public indecencies, but how often in a day is someone attempting to cause each and every one of us to feel guilty about something?
My goodness. We have global warming and man-made climate change, second-hand cigarette smoke, but it’s okay to toke on a fatty, slavery and reparations… demanded from many whose ancestors weren't even living here in this, the greatest nation to ever grace the face of Planet Terra, these United States of America, during slavery. We're expected to feel guilty for the mere fact of being Americans, or too white, or black, or Asian, or Hispanic. We have evil rich dudes and dudettes who get up and go to work every day, only to be told they don't give enough of their earnings, accent on earn, to those who won't. We're told that people with no job skills deserve a "living wage" because they can't raise a family on what they're paid to work, or don't, that our nation should be willing to accept the world's poorest and least educated, diseases and all, curable and not, to the detriment of our own citizens, that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren can pick up the tab, and the consequences. Less than two percent of our population demand not only acceptance of their lifestyle, but active participation as they attempt to force business owners to provide goods and services that violate their personal beliefs. Less than one percent, way less, of our population demand social mores be bent, that women and girls in our society be placed in the very real position of being assaulted so perverts can, as our President would say, wee-wee where they want instead of abiding by our social norms. The list goes on.
All with the force of a government gun...
Pardon me while I light up a fag, it's too early for another espresso.
We’ve allowed the bastardization of our language and symbols, all so some won't be offended. Need I cite crosses or Stars of David on war heroes' headstones? We'll leave political signage alone for a day.
We’ve allowed words to become weaponized. It isn’t xenophobic to demand our government abide by immigration laws limiting the number of resident aliens and ensure those who do come won’t be a drain on our own society, to demand they secure our borders, to protect us from the criminals and diseased illegal aliens coming across our borders daily. It isn’t homophobic not to have any desire to participate in lifestyles we find abnormal and abhorrent. It isn’t racist or bigoted to not hire someone who doesn’t have necessary skills or to fire a person because they cannot, or will not, perform work required for a job, nor is an employer obligated to provide training to unqualified job applicants.
It is racist and bigoted to hire one person ahead of another who’s more qualified based upon race or ethnicity, isn’t it. It is racism and bigotry to demand a higher level of equality for the same reasons, isn’t it.Our nation, these United States of America, the greatest nation ever to grace the face of Planet Terra, is almost $20 Trillion in debt, yet our governing body continues to import aliens from other nations who hate us merely for who and what we are. They hate us, but that doesn’t keep 70% of Muslim immigrants from living on our welfare system and 80 percent of them to have those super cool EBT cards. These are government numbers. Similar figures hold for other nationalities and ethnic groups, some even higher.
We, through our government, fail to provide pledged and contracted services to our Veterans, those who marched off to war so the rest of us can take advantage of retail sales, cookouts, and national holidays… but we’ll certainly take care of those who’ve done the least to ensure those rights, won’t we. Oh, we hear the requisite bloviation by those who’re more concerned about their homies trying to force their lifestyle on the rest of us and those who wouldn't hit a lick in a pie factory but what are they doing for those who truly have obligations owed for sacrifices greater than sucking in good air and exhaling noxious gases that drive the greenies crazy? Some of those government employees who perpetrate the worst atrocities get promotions or transfers out of the limelight, but after a while the dust settles, the flame dies down under some tushies, and everyone forgets about the Vets… those who have given, and pledged to give, the most yet ask the least of the rest of us, while those who bloviate most give the least… and want more money to do less.
Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. passed from this plane of existence recently. Being a "Junior" too, I understand that our fathers gave us the only thing they owned the day we were born, their names. He changed his to Muhammad Ali because the one his father gave him was a "slave name"… which only showed his ignorance. You see, his father’s eponym was another Kentuckian, one Mr. Cassius Marcellus Clay, politician and plantation owner, a sort of WhiteGuy, who fought very hard for the rights of slaves… back in the mid-1800s, before the War of Northern Aggression.
He fought in the rain and he fought in the sun and he fought in the moonlight too
He fought with his knife and he fought with his gun
And he fought till his blood ran through
Well John Paul Jones was a fightin' man a fightin' man was he
He sailed to the east and he sailed to the west and he helped set America free
The late Johnny Horton wrote those words about John Paul Jones, hero of our American Revolution. They could apply equally well to the original Mr. Cassius Marcellus Clay who fought in the Mexican-American War, the one started by Mexico’s General Santa Anna and we whupped tush, and was forced to defend himself on numerous occasions for his advocacy of abolitionism… one of which included six opponents, but he prevailed. Do an internet search for “dude be bad to the bone” and his should be one of the pictures to pop up. He died in 1903, 2 months shy of turning 93.
But to his namesake’s son, Cassius Marcellus Clay was a slave name. With all of the personal power he could have used to lead and unite, he chose to divide, as have so many others.
What’s any of this got to do with a Babe who occasionally comes here to the banks of beautiful Moccasin Creek to make bunches of noise? A lot, actually. You see, she was assaulted as a teenager and swore she would never, ever, never ever, feel that helpless with her personal safety subject to the whim of another person again, a person without her best interests at heart. Had it not been for the boy she eventually married, she could have been horribly traumatized and physically harmed. As it turned out her attacker fell up a few sets of bleachers, several times, or so I’m told the police report stated, and she learned a valuable lesson… but she doesn’t depend solely upon hardware. She fully understands the hardest part of the human body is the back of our head, next is the elbow, the utility of a finger, or a pen, a knee, that it only takes 25 pounds of lateral force to wipe out a knee, and those famous last words of every self defense class instructor. She understands that when being assaulted there's but one rule... to be the one to walk away.
The ability to defend against physical assault gave her the confidence to stand up to other forms. Isn't that exactly the tactic used by some in their attempts to have their way? Take a look at Mr. Trump... misquotes, quoted statements out of context, accusations of misdeeds, dredging up off-the-cuff comments from 35 years ago, downright lies, violence by opponents then blamed on supporters, threats of violence, threats of lawsuits, and the plethora of other tactics of intimidation.
She makes a conscious decision every day, in every situation, not to allow anyone to intimidate her… never, as Mrs. Bill Clinton is wont to do, pulling out her GirlCard... or a RaceCard, ReligionCard, TGLBFBICIABATFABCWXYZ or any other card except, being a girl, her MasterCard, VISA, AMEX, or Discover, never an EBT, and only the one that gives her the most bonus points. Then she runs home to pay the bill.How about the rest of us? How often do we allow others, especially special interest groups, to intimidate us into doing as they wish, merely to avoid conflict?
That day she was here to break in her new toy I asked why she wouldn’t let me touch, or even get near, it. She said she refused to be a party. "A party?" I asked. "Yes, a party to someone breaking in on you one night then, as they’re flopping around in your living room or out on the porch, you standing over him, gloating, telling him 'Not only did you get taken down by an old man, but an old man with a pink handgun.'"
After that, I just had to name mine Pinky… but hers is black, mine's stainless… and she can’t touch it.
My, oh my.
20 June this year, 2016, is the first time in my lifetime there’s a full moon at the Summer Solstice. Now that Ms. Sassy's gone, I guess it's up to me to teach Chewbacca to howl at it. Then I can look forward to aggravating my favorite TreeHuggerBabe about global warming, just as soon as Dog Days have passed.
Royce Burrage, Jr.
Royce@Officially Chapped.org