Finding Peace.

I am an atheist. I don't say that much, because of the negative reactions and connotations that seem to come from saying it.  This may be the first time that I've said it public. I think that it is. It's something that I've recently come to grips with.


I don't draw my peace from a higher power. For me, it has to come from within.


You may have noticed that the URL for this blog is MayPeaceBeWithYou [dot] BlogSpot [dot] com.


I composed that address one night after a decent beer or two, when I tried to decide what this web log, or 'blog, was to be about. I thought about writing about my experiences as a peace officer, but realized that most people don't tune into police stories for the "Peace" part of the officer's trade. They want to hear about the drama that accompanies discord.  I knew that I was mostly going to let people down if I promised them such things. If I had a counter on the number of times that I've drawn my gun with real concern that I was going to fire it, it would be in the double digits, and not really threatening the century mark.


When I suit up every day for work, I try to remember what my job is. I am employed to keep the peace.  The best way to do that is to show respect to the people that I come in contact with. And to be honest, I fail, occasionally. That respect thing works in a lot of other areas of life, too, for finding peace. Be it your neighbor, your wife, your daughter, your son, your work partner, your political adversary, or the saber-rattling nation a half-world away-- showing respect is a decent way to keep the peace.


That's hard to do, when we're irritated with someone. But if your goal, (having been established after contemplation in quiet times) is peace, then it is probably when we're irritated with someone that we most owe it to ourselves to display constant respect.

Grimy.

Theo Cottle is a photographer who documents the less glamorous sides of places like Thailand and Germany and the UK. His work is not pornographic, but it's unsavory, and some of it might not be safe for work.

Looking at his documentation of skinheads in the street, I am struck by the common traits among trash in different modern cultures, spanning different races that disdain each other.

Some of these people have less in common with me than the African bushmen, or the Dani of New Guinea.

I am a little defensive of the redneck, at times. There is a popular misconception that the term "redneck" is synonymous with "white trash." That's simply not true. While the terms are not mutually exclusive and there can be some overlap, that's just like saying "plumber" and "Catholic" can overlap.

White trash is world-wide, and even redneck white trash can span continents. Just ask the dwanky zef Boer trash that is Die Antwoord. (Don't watch that. Well, okay, you can watch that, but DON'T watch this. Seriously.)

Trash is universal. Why isn't distaste for it universal?

Thoughts on violence.

--This nation is split right now. There is little in the way of a "conversation about guns and violence." It is two sides, squaring off. It's not pretty, and it's not really effective.

--Under the New Public Service model of governance, we are supposed to engage in a dialogue until we decide what to do, without regard to completing our goal, or achieving a real consensus.

--Those of us interested in maintaining the right to keep and to bear arms are acting calmer than those who blame firearms for the violence in which they are used.
This isn't because we're less upset. 

--Belief that ONE SINGLE POLICY will stop the violence is pretty naive. Thus, even though I believe that there are things that we can and probably should do to reduce the violence, I don't present them and then nod self-assuredly and declare "that's what will finally fix the problem."

--I've said before and I will say again that this nation has a serious problem in identifying and managing our mentally ill. We don't even deal with the emergent ones.

--If I truly believed that we could put the genie back in the bottle, and eliminate all firearms from this planet in an attempt to rid the planet of gun violence, I might well consider it, even though I agree with Marko's excellent essay, here. But it's not possible, so why entertain the mental exercise? If we're going to do that, why not settle invisibility versus flight for a superpower?

--If guns are the problem, why is my life not steeped in violence? Even though I literally am dispatched to every call involving violence in my jurisdiction for half of every other day, I have seen very little in the way of gun violence in the last 12 years of service. I've never been shot at. I've never shot at anyone. I've never arrested anyone for intentionally shooting at another person (true story!). I've only a handful of times arrested people for pointing guns at others. This is in Texas, where private ownership of firearms is almost unrestricted: No limit to number of guns, no registration of guns, no waiting period, no state restriction on private sales, no state restriction on ammunition* or magazines. If you get it federally registered, you can even own an automatic weapon.

--Some folks will see that above comment and say, "well, he works in a small town, so that's different." Well, which is it? Either we're back-woods hicks who are armed to the teeth and seething in violence, or I'm working for Mayberry, and we all get along so great, no one would ever be so unkind as to shoot someone else.  It must not be the guns, though, because EVERY home here seems to have a collection of firearms.

--Firearms were virtually uncontrolled before 1934, then more so in 1968, and more so in 1986. Yet school shootings have increased almost exponentially since just the late 1990s. Why? Yes, there are more guns. Yes, more people live in urban environments. But those aren't the answer. The problem of mass shootings has grown far faster than the rate of gun ownership. Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman, when I saw him speak, opined that the problem grew in direct proportion to the proliferation of first-person shooter video games. Hm.  I don't think that blaming the games themselves is the answer. But I'll for damn sure agree that there's an inured effect upon the players to distance themselves from the perceived consequences of their actions. 

I see evidence of dissociative behavior among youth that I didn't see much before. Youngsters engaged in online debate move quickly to direct each other to kill themselves. We've got individuals scattered among us who genuinely don't see other people as real. We've always had such sociopaths (for such they are), but it seems like we've started distilling them, and creating a higher likelihood that we'll have to deal with them.

--I am real. And so are you.

--The world will never be Nerf'd. We cannot stop violence, much. But maybe we can attenuate it. Maybe we can actually get a handle on what we can do to help reduce the chance that future sick persons will decide to destroy others.  I'm going to try. Please try in your way, too.

--Let me know what you think. I'm interested.
_____________________
*Except armor-piercing handgun ammunition.

Day of pictures, stream of consciousness.

I woke up this afternoon to find that my younger daughter had made a mocha:



Somehow I just knew. Don't ask me how. A father knows these things.

Then I made a run with Dad to Ray's Hardware in Dallas for speedstrips and other stuff. Ray's is really a gunshop. Legend has it that, back in the day, Ray's took in a .22 in exchange for a washtub, and sold the rifle later that day for a handsome profit. This caused more swapping, then dealing, then an FFL, and now they're about three generations into it. Their selection of ammo is pretty wide in cartridge calibers, but not so wide within each caliber. For example, they had about 10 boxes of .41 Long Colt when I checked (I always do, for my buddy LawDog. Sorry  bud-- though it was that same Winchester white box stuff from that run that they made in the '70, I couldn't go $85 a box.), but only two brands of .357 Sig, and only ONE flavor of .22 Hornet.  I got a box of Remington Express.38 S&W 148g LRNs, the only flavor of that caliber they had in stock.

Ray's has a bumper sticker that is seen around Dallas that says "Follow Me Across The Bridge To Ray's Hardware!" It has a picture of the catenary arch central to the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge in the middle, which is visible from the front porch of Ray's on Singleton. After we left, we drove across the bridge, and I took a picture of the new-ish structure, built across the Trinity River in 2007. I daresay that it's destined to be thought of as an identifying characteristic of the Dallas skyline. It's pretty striking:



When I got home, Dad gave me one of his Bianchi Speed Strips, some .357 Sig ammo that he had graciously brought for me, and the .38 S&W ammo that he had bought while I was looking at MTM boxes. I gave him all the MTM boxes I had gotten. (two 50-round .38 boxes and two 100 round boxes.)  He had gotten the .38/.357s, and also the .44/.45 type speedstrips.

This of course made me combine my acquisitions:



The result is adorable.

Reaching in my pocket just now to pull out that strip of ammo, I found something in my pocket, a momento from taking my younger daughter shooting:

When I asked my younger daughter if she wanted to go shooting last week, she wanted to grab three things: Her rifle, her hearing protection, and her last remaining Barbie. I guess she wanted to be like her big sister. I found this in the trash yesternight, and grabbed it out to look for holes. The hair is matted from bullets pulling at it, but the head had popped off from a neck shot.

Oh yeah, that reminds me. She got to shoot her grandfather's 1928 Thompson submachinegun. Here's her first burst:

 

Then she set to rolling a milk jug.

Which reminds me, I need to get milk for my wife's coffee in the morning.
Maybe she'll make a mocha.

This may get a bit sketchy.

Off at 0600. Have to sit on a board of review at 1000.
Have to get some sleep and pack before going to work at 1800.
Then work twelve hours.
Then get off, drive to OKC, and meet with my friends. Then we really travel, east to St. Louis, to meet my other friends at a little shindig that I'll be reporting on. Media credentials should be awaiting me.

Then, back on Monday, in time to work on Monday evening.

We'll, uh, see how this goes.

Oh, yeah-- my phone broke. So I'll be hitting the phone shop to get another one of those, too. Instead of sleeping. Crap.

Place your bets, now.

When I saw on the Yahoo news page that an unemployed west Dallas man had won McDonald's $1 Million Monopoly game, I grinned when I saw the following:

The old saw is that, if all the money in the country were distributed evenly among all the people here, within 5 years it would basically have been re-distributed to the same people who have it now. Call me a pessimist, but I actually suspect (without any real (non-anecdotal) evidence) that this is true.


But I chastised myself for having smirked, and thought, "maybe this guy has some good plans for the ~$600k+ that he'll get out of the giant cheque, after taxes." I mean, we all could fall on hard times. We all could find ourselves living with our folks for a few months after a lay-off. We all could end up extending that stay for years. And years. Could happen to any of us.

Now let's see-- he plans to repay his folks. He plans to take his nephew to Yellowstone Park. He plans to... um... get a tattoo of a McRib sammich.


He thinks that properly-utilizing this money, he could be set for life.


Bless his pea-pickin' little heart.

Battle of the 'bots.

You may recall a certain nifty washing machine that I geeked out over, a year or two ago. It does a GREAT job. It washes the heck outta my clothes, and centrifuges them dry enough that the dry cycle takes less time. It uses less soap. It just... it generally makes me happy.

But there are times when operator error in its use makes me unhappy.

Like, say, when I hurridly last night gathered up clothes for a wash and picked up my wife's jeans where she had shed them in the dark, and washed her iPhone.

It's a really clean paperweight, now. I've accepted that it will NEVER work again.

I just got off the phone the most Apple-icious guy I know. I have gone complete through denial, still feeling rage, sadness, and am going through my bargaining phase.

So, 18 year old phone. What's my best solution to get my wife back into a Genius Bar?

I am in soooo much trouble, right now.

I was just doing a little laundry in the dark.

A strange phenomenon

Look, I understand about depression. I go there, sometimes. I've been there for longer periods than I'd care to admit. Sometimes it's a state of humanity.

What I don't fully understand is cutting.

I run across cutters a fair bit in my job. I don't want to categorize or anything (middleclasswhitekids), but I do see some consistencies.

Cutters usually don't go very deep. Most break the skin to bleed, but don't really do any nerve and/or ligament damage. Often it's not even triple-thickness cuts. I've seen quite a few where there was a long series of parallel cuts down the arm or leg, which cuts barely bled. Occasionally you'll see deeper, but usually not.

Question: Does this really count as harming yourself? As a desire to do further, more significant harm to yourself?*

People give themselves homemade tats, and most people don't blink an eye. I know of a frat that engages in branding, and people don't much notice. Piercings, gaugings, sub-dermal inserts-- all of these are a form of self-mutilation. But say that a person is a cutter, and people freak, and sometimes even declare that the person is an active danger to himself, who must be taken into immediate medical and psychiatric care, whether or not the patient wants it.

As a libertarian, I say, let 'em go, unless someone else's life is threatened.

As a cop, I have a duty to protect them, if they're an active danger, even if only to themselves. So I try to evaluate if this person seems to be such a danger. Unfortunately, my evaluation is only given a grain of salt, so I have to call in the Ambulance Drivers, who sometimes take a different vies of things than I do.

There are more sanitary ways of self-destruction, people.

________________________
*2nd half of the question was edited later after original post.

Across the board age discrimination doesn't really work.

I have dealt with 20 year-olds who really should not be left out on their own overnight. I have negotiated traffic stops with physically healthy 43 year-olds who should not be allowed to drive on their own, and never should be allowed access to anything more dangerous than a hacksaw or a pea-shooter. I have met 12 year-olds that I think should be granted status as adults for the felonies that I have seen them brazenly commit. I have met 11 year-olds that I would have no problem with, if they went on a trip overnight in rough territory, or kept a house by themselves, armed at all times.

Some human beings are simply more capable than others. Some are capable to a completely satisfactory adult level, long before their birthdate has reached magic numbers of, say "18" or "21" or the like.

Somewhere out in the Indian Ocean is a 16 year old young lady named Abby Sunderland, who had displayed enough drive and ability that she was given a shot to pilot a sailboat on a voyage around the world. It now looks possible that she's not going to live through that voyage, due to inclement weather. ** Such single-person sailing expeditions can be dangerous. It happens.

But teenagers die on their way to school in their cars, and they perish in odd accidents that you wouldn't have expected. And they die at home. None of us gets out of this life alive.

But, for a time, she was captain of her own vessel, and completely in charge of her own destiny. Not a lot of 16 year-olds can say that. Probably most aren't ready to do so. But she and some other people evidently thought that she was ready, and she tried to live just a little bit more than most of us do.

I can't make myself judge her parents for that. They know if she was ready.*

____________________________

*Insofar as the costs of the rescue efforts go, I firmly believe that is between her family and the Australian rescue groups. That absolutely must have been considered before such an endeavor was attempted.

**EDIT: Turns out that she's fine.

I beg your pardon for the profanity...

...but I believe I'm about to post a link up on the right, to ShitMyDadSays.com.

I could drink a beer or a cuppa coffee with this guy's dad. I laughed aloud repeatedly.

Note: EVERY SINGLE POST is profane.

Okay, wait: I found this one, which again made me laugh:
"We're out of Grape Nuts... No, what's left is for me. Sorry, I should have said, 'You're out of Grape Nuts.'"

May is Zombie Awareness Month.

Have you got your gray awareness ribbon?

Blogarado, Part 2: It's Not A Party Until The Police Are Called.

We rolled to a stop behind the several bloggers' vehicles, on a lonely farm road in SE Colorado. What happened?

"Ambulance Driver hit a deer," we were told. Aw, crap.

We pulled around to the front of the line, and lit up the front of A.D.'s Dodge pickup. Not TOO bad. Must have been a small deer. I went to help drag it it in from the field, where it had expired after being struck by the grill and radiator of A.D.'s Dakota.

Whoa.

That's a big buck. No, that's a REALLY big buck.

At first glance, I figured 250 lbs. After having helped A.D. drag it the 100 yards to where the vehicles were stopped, I began to revise my estimate to far closer to 300 lbs. Mind you-- A.D. and I aren't petite little things, either.

We pulled it up on the road, and then the jokes started. 15+ bloggers, all beginning to get a bit chilly, thinking of the pot roast that FarmGram had prepared in town, began doing what they do: snark.

"I swear to Gawd, after what he did to my truck, at least I'm gonna mount that buck," A.D. said.

"Damn, A.D.-- you already killed him. Now you want to defile the corpse that way?" came a chorus.

The question then came up: Now What? We contacted our hosts, who were already at or near town, and explained the situation. It was decided that we would tow the pickup with already present pickups. We figured that it would be a shame to let the meat spoil and...

Crap. Three off-duty cops were present, and here we are, planning to leave the scene without reporting it.

I called 911.

"911. What's your emergency?" asked the dispatcher.

"Minor vehicle crash. Pickup versus deer. Both are expired. No injuries, Some road blockage. Copy 28?" I said, offering her the license plate number of A.D.'s pickup.

"What's your location?" she asked. Sensible enough, in case we lost connection. I had to ask what road we were on, and told her.

"Are there any injuries?" she inquired.

"No. That's why I said 'minor crash,'" I said, slightly impatiently.

"How many occupants in the vehicle?" She asked. Good question, but I didn't know, precisely. I asked, and told, and reminded her that no one was hurt. I told her that everyone was okay.

"Okay, I've got an ambulance en route," she said.

"But, as I've said, No One is hurt. We don't need a box. We need a game warden," I said, a little plaintively, now.

"Well, sir, it's just our policy, whenever there's an accident, we send medics," she said.

"Who will have less experience than the Paramedic instructor that was driving," I muttered.

"What's that," she asked, typing in the background.

"He said the he'll decline treatment," I said. "Please also notify the game warden." I hung up.

Just after this call, an off-duty Colorado Department of Natural Resources man happened to drive by, and told us that A.D. could keep the meat, but not the head. There was much cussing.

AD decided to get to work removing the head, and asked for a knife. About 10 were immediately opened and handed toward him.

Old NFO's fixed-blade knife turned out to be well-suited for the job, but not better than the Sawz-All that FarmDad produced from his pickup.

A.D. got busy removing the head.

After some time, a Sheriff's deputy arrived, and began to introduce himself. This young man was every bit of 16 years old, I'm certain. He never blinked at a large party of armed, laughing bloggers who took lots of pictures and made lots of risque comments. But he did a full triple-take at the hood ornament on A.D.'s pickup.

I quick stepped over and presented to him the business card left by the DNR man. "He said that we could remove the head," I said.

"Okayyyyyyy," said the deputy. "I've got a state trooper en route to work the accident."

"How far out is the trooper?" I asked.

"35 minutes, or so," he answered.

"You don't work these kinds of accidents?" I asked.

"Oh, I work 'em all the time," he answered, "but we're supposed to let the state troopers work them when they'll come to the scene."

"So you're leaving?" I asked.

"No, I'm staying with the scene, until he gets here," the deputy answered.

"To work an accident that will take about 20 minutes to work," I sighed.

"Yeah. Listen, I didn't make this policy," he said resignedly.

We started quartering out the deer. And by "we," I mean that Ambulance Driver got bloody, and we cheered and made inappropriate comments, and laughed and took pictures.

We discussed posting this picture (gore warning) without explanation, with a request for caption, under the post title: "Take That, Broadripple BlogMeets!" (Some of us not in the MidWest hear of much fun at those blog meets. Well, we're having fun, too...)

When the ambulance arrived, the EMT called it a baby deer, proclaiming that she had killed a much bigger one last year. I, still panting from dragging this one in, was indignant.

"Lady, that's about a 300 pound buck, no teeth left to speak of. He'll be about 5 years old," I said.

"Oh, I mean his rack is tiny. Probably about 130, maybe. I've got a 160 inch rack at home," she said, smugly.

Now, look. I know this wasn't a monster rack or anything, but my friend Ambo driver had just lost a radiator to this big boy. Last thing I was going to have is some smug para med from Colorado go dissing his deer. Besides, I've scored a buck or two, myself.

"Lady, that's a 20 inch spread, with near perfect symmetry," I said. "Nice beams, too. He'll go about 150." Honestly, I was pulling that number straight out of my butt.

"Oh, that's maybe a 16" spread," she said. Where y'all from, anyway?" she said, knowing the answer.

"Texas," I said, stepping into the trap.

"Oh. I might have known," she answered.

A tape was pulled out, showing an honest 20" spread (this picture has a point obscuring the final total, but it's 20"). Points were measured for later scoring. Just as well we measured it. The D.N.R. guy came back and took the head. Ambulance driver cussed roundly.

I took some more pics, and we all laughed and giggled in the cold for the next hour. If I had been the deputy, I would have assumed that everyone there was drunk or high, when in fact everyone on scene was sober.

We (A.D., with lots of spectators) finally got the deer skinned and quartered, and put it and A.D.'s gear and guns in the back of the Atomic Nerds' pickup. With 5 garbage bags of meat, about 10 rifle cases, and theirs and A.D.'s stuff, it made quite a pile. The Nerds prepped to tow A.D.'s pickup with a tow cable.

"Do you finally feel validated for having the truck?" asked LabRat to her stoic husband.

"Yes." Stingray looked satisfied.

Back at the FarmFam's house, I learned that Stingray is a hell of a brewmeister. His stout is superb, and I found nothing wrong with his IPAs, either. But after a glass of stout and four IPAs (Hey, back off-- I was on vacation.), I was feeling no pain. Whew.

What a lovely time.

"Blogarado" Part 1. It's good to go see good people.

So Dad and I left a wedding on Saturday night, and drove across the Texas Panhandle and the Oklahoma Panhandle to end up in Colorado, at a blogmeet first proposed by FarmGirl, and hosted by her whole family.

"Mountains!" you're thinking. Nope. We were in a part of Colorado where the terrain is less geographically interesting, though I liked it.

The people there are quiet, and fiercely independent. That's not to say, though, that they are distant or rude; they just don't need Nanny Government to help them live their lives. People carry guns, and generally do it in the open, without comment about it. Elderly man limping around his pickup at the Dollar General? That's a 4" revolver on his belt. Plump woman at the Loaf 'N' Jug? That's a small auto on her belt. They're not brandishing; they're just being compliant with the law, which requires them to obtain a concealed carry license if they want to cover their guns, or requires them to carry openly if they don't have a CHL.. Carrying a gun is not a stunt; it's just a simple aspect of living.

We showed up early in the sleepy little town, and decided to nap in the car outside the breakfast restaurant, waiting for our friends to arrive. FarmGirl and friends went in, past our snoozing selves, and texted me to come inside.

I met plenty of great folks that I had read, and a few that I had not.

After a leisurely breakfast wherein we all snickered at the effect of a large and amorphous group (that constantly changes number and tables) has on a well-meaning but scatter-brained young waitress (bless her heart), we retired to the range.

At the range, there was a pistol table and a rifle table, and we had reactive targets at the lines near both. The first firearm I shot was the most famous Bersa Thunder on the Internet.

I then fired the Atomic Nerds' Wedding Rings: A pair of Les Baer 1911s that Stingray and LabRat had given each other in lieu of literal rings, for their wedding. I'm not kidding when I say that I almost choked up.

I won't go into the litany of all the guns we fired, because, frankly, I'd bore you. I will say that people were more than eager to share their guns with each other, and more than happy to give each other ammo, to levels of generosity that were just silly. Old NFO handed me a Browning Citori in the keenest leather-and-canvas fitted case that I've ever seen, and told me to go have fun shooting clays, when I lamented that I had left my shotguns at home. The beautiful over/under looked unfired. When the dadgummed case for a shotgun costs more than most of the firearms that I brought, that's a sweet rig.

FarmGram fed us all like kings. To say that we ate heartily would be an understatement.
Nobody watched where their guns or worried about them. Everyone took the safety of the others on as their responsibility, especially the safety of little KB, AmboDriver's daughter.
Everyone took care to make sure the others got their stuff back.

We had a great time.

But then...

Want!

The Terrafugia flying car.
Most gunny folks that I know are into aviation. I don't know why, but it's true.

I'm one.

Typically, when people ask me how to get from my area to Fort Worth at about 4:30PM, I answer "By helicopter." This might well give a different answer. It's funny to see highway mpg listing on the performance specs of a plane. (30 mpg, b.t.w.)

I'd be terrified of a minor fender-bender, though. Get side-swiped in the parking lot, and you can still drive home, but flying would be a Bad Idea.

A polite society.

Yet again last night, I saw another example of it.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
I had run into the medium-large town down the road to pick up some groceries. I had my 7 year-old daughter with me. I was wearing a clean T-shirt, some cargo shorts and tennis shoes, and my assorted pocket plunder.

As I finished putting the groceries into the trunk, I realized that I was being approached by someone. I turned around to meet them, with my right hand casually dropping into my right pocket.

The individual was a man, not of my race or ethnicity. He looked like a working man, of younger middle age, still in his working clothes of a pair of worn khakis, an untucked non-labeled button-front short-sleeved work shirt, and a very worn clip-on ID tag that was smudged beyond recognition. I didn't know him, nor did I have the impression that we had met, but we might have. I meet a lot of people who remember me, whom I forget pretty quickly.

His voice was kind of gravelly as he said, "Excuse me...?" and continued walking toward me. This was in the parking lot of a large strip shopping center that also contained the huge supermarket where I had just finished my shopping. The man came from the end of the shopping center with all the little shops that had already closed for the night. He looked mildly aggravated. He didn't seem to notice my hand in my off-side pocket. My daughter was standing next to the back door of the car, waiting for me to get in and unlock it for her from the inside, but had the trunk of the car between the man and her. She was out of traffic, and reasonably out of harm's way.

"Yes, sir?" I responded. I kept my face open, and my eyes moved from the man's face to his hands to his waist and pockets and back to his face.

"Do you know this area?" he asked. "I thought that there used to be a store that sold cut-rate cigarettes here, somewhere." I now recognized that annoyed look on his face as being the frustration of someone who has made a trip that he is discovering to be a waste of time.

"Yeah, there was, wasn't there?" I said, searching my memory. "Wasn't it in that empty spot over there? Or that one over there? I don't smoke, so I don't pay much attention," I said.

"Naw, it wasn't that one, but maybe the other one. Dang. I don't smoke, either. It's for my brother," he said. "I heard they moved, but were still here somewhere."

"Sorry, man. Maybe the front desk guy at the restaurant there will know?" I suggested.

"Just came from there. Well, I'll have to get 'em at the convenience store. They want a lot of money, you know?" he responded.

"I heard that," I chuckled, and got into my car and opened the door for my daughter to get in. "Good luck." He waved as he walked away.

As I drove away from the parking lot, I noticed a new store, closer to the road than the rest of the strip center, with a new tobacco store in it. I tried to change lanes to get back into the parking lot to go tell the guy where it was, but couldn't safely make the turn, and gave it up for lost in the medium heavy traffic.

My daughter asked me who the guy was. "Just a stranger," I told her. She asked me why I had talked to him (she herself has strict orders never to do just that, with strangers). I explained that he was just someone who was seeking help, and wasn't a threat to me, and that I try to help people when I can do so safely.

She said, "Oh, because you're a police officer."

This was complicated. "No. Not just because I'm a police officer. Grownups should be able to try to help each other, if they can, without worry about other grownups. I wasn't talking to him as a police officer, but just as another adult. We were both citizens. Do you understand that?"

She nodded. "Uh huh. And my daddy's not afraid."

"Well, not of just passers-by, er-- people-- on the street," I reiterated. "You're a little girl, now. I don't let you talk to strangers because you're very [I tickled her, at this point] pretty, and someone might want to take you away. But someday, you will be an adult, and on your own, and you will make your own decisions about who you talk to, and about what. This will be based on your own comfort level with people. That's why we talk about bad guys, and how to deal with them," I said. I realized that I was going on a bit too long for a 7 year-old.

"But that wasn't a bad guy?" my daughter verified.

"No, sweetie. That was just a guy," I responded.

"Smoking is bad for you," she said, changing the subject at c speed.

"You're absolutely right, it is," I agreed. "That's one reason why Daddy never smokes."

"You smoked a cigar with John [Shirley]," she said.

"Well, yeah, you're right, I did. And that, my dear, is the exception that proves the rule," I admitted.

"What's that?" she demanded.

"Another time, kiddo. But Daddy doesn't smoke," I said.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

If it hadn't been for my seven-year-old using the Socratic method, I wouldn't have given it a second thought. I am more willing to engage in conversation with strangers, and at least attempt to help them, because I am armed, and feel few concerns about my safety. This happens all the time. It's a genuine example of cultures intermingling in a generally pleasant manner, because the participants weren't worried about each other.

Want to engage in peaceful multiculturalism? Speak kindly to a person of another race, culture, or ethnicity, and try to help a brother out. You can't do that if you're afraid of the world.

Looking back.

When I went off to Methodist Youth Summer Camp in early August of 1983, I was 11.

I had already gone to Boy Scout summer camp at Sid Richardson Scout Ranch the month or two before. It had been a long week of hiking, canoeing, and sweating. More significantly, however, it had been my first week away from home.

At Boy Scout camp, I remember going to my tent one evening, and crying. I still can recall hearing my best friend, then and now, remarking on it to someone (his father?), who said, "Leave him alone." Fabric walls don't stop even gentle words of concern. Grateful for the time alone and yet embarrassed that my sobs hadn't been effectively muffled by the Coleman sleeping bag, I stopped, and by and by joined the rest of the troop for supper.

It wasn't so much that I was a Mama's Boy (I'm fairly certain that I was) that drove me to cry "I want my Mama" into my sleeping bag, as the fact that I was away for the first significant time while my parents were beginning the separation that would eventually lead to their divorce. While I later felt that things actually got better for us kids after the divorce (Dad was very attentive as a divorced father, meaning that we actually seemed to see more of him afterwards), it was a time of Change, and a boy who is uncertain during change seeks his Mama. She wasn't there. Only boys and good men who volunteered as Scoutmasters and Assistant Scoutmasters were there.

The next month (or the next-- a quarter century has obscured some facts), I went off to Church Camp. It was way up at Lake Texoma, and we all gathered at a large regional church to get on the high-capacity vans to go. My father took me up there, and as I waited to get on the van, he handed me a paperback book. He asked me if I was nervous about the time away, and I said that I was not. (I felt that I was past that weak point, so long ago, about a month or two before.) He told me that a lot of boys were not used to leaving their families for any time when they were eleven years old, and somehow managed to compliment me for being mature enough to deal with it. I felt embarrassed, a little-- I should be mature enough. Just look at me: about 5'11" to 6'00" tall, eleven years old. Probably about 170 lbs. I was man-sized, in most cultures. [But still a boy.]

I got on the bus, and had an enjoyable ride with kids that I would get to know over the next 7 days. It's amusing that I still can remember some of the songs that we listened to on the radio; they tended heavily toward the Eurithmics. When I arrived at church camp, I found that our "cabins" were kind of bungalows spaced widely about the camp. I was in one with a group of 7 other boys of widely different cultures. I was neither the center point of our group, nor the outcast. I was an island unto myself; I was approachable, but discrete.

Well, a bit of loneliness almost set in, one night, when I opened my paperback (I think I was supposed to be studying a text for vespers, or something), and found an inscription from my Dad. I can't recall if it said anything more than "To Matt, Love, Dad." But does it matter? That's about the only part that matters in any inscription I've ever read: Who, why, and from whom. I seem to recall that he dated it. The paperback was a thick one, and had a painting of D.D. Harriman looking wistfully up at the stars with a spaceship in the background. It was The Past Through Tomorrow, a compilation of stories by Robert A. Heinlein.

I started with the first one, "Life Line." I was hooked.

My reading of Heinlein's works continued, with me consuming all that I could find in the school libraries (almost exclusively juveniles, but I found, inexplicably, a ratty hardcover copy of I Will Fear No Evil, which was racy stuff for a rural junior high school library). I kept it up long after the man died (I remember that hollow feeling, standing in Fultz's News when the counterman told me he had passed), and long after I had come to the conclusion that he was an idealist and a Dirty Old Man.

I don't doubt that a lot of my current philosophies have been influenced by a science fiction writer who died 21 years ago, and with whom I disagree about 1/3 of the time.

It's funny where you get your beginnings.

Too. Damned. Early.

November 13th is too early to be putting up wreaths of holly with big red bows on your house.

What is the point of "seasonal" decoration, if it's up all year?

Well good morning, class.

I know, I know-- by the time most of you all read this (but for those well west of me), it's Post meridiem, but I just got up, and any time I did so, it's morning. See? The coffee's brewing. What's that you say? "Matt, you brew coffee any old time you feel like it, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, thrice on Sundays." Well, yes, that's technically true. I like coffee. And breakfast. I think that the best part about working deep nights is that I get to have breakfast twice a day-- once when I get up, and once when everyone else thinks it's breakfast time.

My schedule just changed, and I get a couple of evening shifts, from which I get off at 1:00AM. Last night, I was in bed by 3:30AM!! The difference of getting to go to bed in the darkness is astounding. I slept through all four stages of sleep, without an antihistamine to help. I dreamt, vividly.

I woke up feeling quite refreshed, and with my attitude --which was rather surly last night-- reset.

I've got to run to the school to see my daughter win awards for her academic prowess, and such, and I'm actually pretty tickled to do it. We're all in our places, with bright shining faces. This is the way / We start out our day.

From last night's shift...

Traffic stop:
Thought, but not actually said out loud:
Ma'am, flirting with me isn't actually effective at getting out of a citation.
The only reason I was glancing down your camisole was, uh, to check for, uh, weapons. And I'm not generally one to write for a headlight out, anyhow. And when I ask if I've pulled you over before, it's because I really don't remember, and you do actually look faintly familiar-- not as a "Hey baby, you violate here often?" Come-on line. So get over yourself. And put a jacket on, for criminey's sake. It's chilly out.

- - -
Radio traffic jaw dropper:
Another agency is dispatched to a call in which the caller reports that someone has tampered with his alarm system, and now hears someone walking around inside the house, with a light that he sees moving about. No one has access to the house. The caller runs upstairs with his family. "No weapons of any kind in the house." ends the broadcast. In Texas.

So. How's that working out for you, dude?

- - -
Traffic stop:
Ma'am, I notice that you didn't present your Concealed Handgun License, as is required when you are stopped while armed. Oh, you're not packing tonight? Well why not? You went to all the trouble of a background check, hours and hours of classroom instruction, and qualifying with your pistol. Oh, you haven't shot it in a while, and want more proficiency? Well let me ask you: Do you think that you can simply carry it safely? You do? Well why not do that, and make the consideration, when the bad guy is at Bad Breath Distance, whether you might be able to make effective use of your gat which you haven't shot a lot of, lately? We like to see our good citizens able to defend themselves. Uh huh. Well thank you for your courtesy, ma'am, and please slow down.

- - -
Traffic stop:
That's quite a meat smoker you've got back there, sir. I don't think I've ever seen one bigger. I especially like the fold down step that chains up, and the smokestack that looks like it was cannibalized from HMS Queen Mary. Uh, mind the power lines up the way. 48 hams in there, you say? Man. That's a lot of pig. Haw. You're right, that's a good one. Nope, I've never eaten a smoked donut, but I'm sure they make 'em. Listen, it'd be real good if you could get some lights and reflectors and registration and safety chains on this trailer. Well, yes sir, I realize that it's technically a smoker, but the State Of Texas says that if your smoker rolls on wheels behind your pickup and is pulled by your ball hitch, it's also a trailer. Well, actually, they'd call this a "semi-trailer," because the axles...
...you know what? Never mind. Where are you heading with this thing?
Okay. Why don't I just escort you down there, to keep you from getting rear-ended? Right on.
Wagons ho.
Or smokers. Or semi-trailers. Whatever.

Haiku #11: Vernal Equinox (nocturnal 2008 mix)

Half the day is night.

But it doesn't feel so right.

Noon bright is moonlight.