Gun Happy

Daniel Boone used to be on TV - coonskin cap, leather breeches and shirt, moccasins on his traveling feet. An animal man who lived his life in the mountains. He needed a gun, a rifle. He ate and wore what he shot and killed.

Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rodgers, and Gene Autry were on TV, riding their great-looking horses and packing pistols at the hips, all to protect and serve the innocent.

Nobody seems to want to go back to the pioneer way of life, abandoning autos for the horse, the buggy, and the sleigh.

But they drag the pioneer guns into every century, making them bigger, more powerful, and more plentiful, as if they had to hunt for their food, skin for their clothing, and kill the enemy in the woods. 

One of my brothers took himself and his career to the far north, and discovered he liked guns and he liked to look a buck in the eye from behind a tree, a safe distance away, and then put a bullet in its chest and watch it fall.

One of my uncles moved to the far north, trekking by caterpillar to get to his rough cottage so he could hunt and kill and eat. He died there, exactly the way he wanted his life to end, doing what he liked. Killing deer.

I fired a shotgun in a lonely pasture once, because the gun was placed in my hands and I wanted to prove I had good aim.

I blasted the orange on the stump post, way across the barren field, splattered it through the air into a thousand juicy pieces.

The kick threw me backward.

The roar deafened my ears.

My shoulder pained.

A powerful feeling.

One I vowed never to feel again.

Killing kids in classrooms and cafeterias is heartbreaking. So is murdering your wife, a convenience store clerk, a bank teller, an officer of the law, because you have a gun in your hands and you can use it.

It's gun-happy. It's powerful.

A nobody gets to be a somebody.

Pitiful, isn't it?

Geezer Bike

Written about an annoying neighbor here in Florida.

__________________________________


His gray head is way too big.

It seems to have kept on growing after 60,

smoothing out the wrinkles at 70.

His body has shrunk.

Little legs spindly on tiny feet

wrapped in troll cowboy boots,

pointed at the toe,

high in the heel.

Five foot five now and feeling it.

Swagger out the front door.

Bang the screen.

Down the sidewalk to the street.

It's quiet in the neighborhood.

The motorcycle waits at the curb -

ugly, mean, and black,

like a mad dog gone bad.

Ragged toothpick shifts between his teeth,

smug grin on his whiskered face.

Time to wake up the place

with a little wheezer racket

from crazy old Si Beamer.

It's Sunday morning.

The nasty roar shatters bugs against

the window panes across the street, and

dogs bark, startled, angry at the world

for this horrific intrusion.

He cackles, flicks the toothpick in the gutter,

rubs mean hands together,

reaches for the throttle

and revs.

Oh, yeah.

Vibration shakes his old innards,

rips at arthritic joints,

rattles what little brain he has,

shivering the leathery, fleshy jowls

on his too-big head.

He's a mean ole snake and he knows it.

A car pulls up beside him and

stops

Not looking, he flashes a rude hand

The siren splits the air once,

piercing his ears to pain

Now he looks.

Car door opens.

The driver, in uniform and a billy,

steps out,

swaggers around the hood

toward the bike.

The billy comes up, taps the had on the throttle.

Attitude.

More than the geezer's got now.

He adjusts the throttle and the air goes silent.

Dogs are still.

Dead bugs drop off the window panes and

land on the sills

and lay there.

The billy motions.

Get off the bike.

Now!

Cuffs slapped on.

A shove in the backseat,

slam the door.

A boot kicks the bike and watches it fall.

Faces in the neighborhood windows smile.

Heads nod.

The cruiser pulls away,

slowly,

letting the neighbors enjoy it,

then disappeared around a corner

and out of sight.

Kids descend from nowhere,

swarming around the black heap on the curb.

Whispers,

grins splitting young faces.

A brave foot kicks, then another and another.

Yelling.

Shrieks of laughter.

Gotcha!

Race Tracks

Car racers love the opening season races held at Daytona Beach in Florida. There's just something unique about where the first races took place on the sand beside the water there.

Today's track is serious business, though. You can't be a lame tourist and drive your `71 Grand Prix up the ramp and onto the track like I did years ago.

I wasn't behind the wheel - my husband was. He knew he shouldn't do it, but he had enough fresh orange juice in him to make him crazy, so he did it and we got kicked off somewhere on turn 4 because he drove the wrong way.

The car did a U-turn and we drove back, to the cheers of all the people watching us get away with that big naughty.

Where I grew up, we went to dirt track races, a quarter mile long, at night under the lights, in the country. The hillside was where we sat on blankets to watch the races in the valley.

When a car didn't make turn one because some yo-yo rammed it, the car and driver went sailing up and over the bank and disappeared in the dark, probably ending up in a cow pasture. Scary stuff.

They had a Powder Puff race once in awhile for women behind the wheel, but the women didn't race all out like the men did, so they weren't as much fun to watch. Just the name itself was insulting and screamed Boring.

My dad took me to a paved track in Toronto when I was 8 or 9 years old, with his brother. They both were auto mechanics and we all loved races.

But I hated that hot day race, because there was no dirt flying out from under sliding tires as they drifted crazily around the corners. Just squealing tires and burning rubber - not my idea of a race.

Sunshine Speedway in St. Petersburg, Florida had some great races until they closed it down. The figure-eight race under the lights was really exciting because drivers had to dodge each other.

One of my favorite races was what they call a Wreckem Race. Cars drive backwards around the track. Last one standing was the winner.

Smashing the radiators on those old relics was the fastest way to put a car out of the running.

Once in Northern Ontario, I saw a moonlight Wreckem Race on ice in January. it was freezing cold but the anticipation kept us warm and willing to be there. The track, on a frozen lake, had bales of straw for barriers around the perimeter, to keep the spectators relatively safe. We stood, shoulders hunched, hands shoved into pockets and earmuffs on, to watch that crazy mess.

Old cars that nobody wanted except for this one race slid around the track, completely out of control on ice, using bald summer tires, of course.

The race lasted a long time, because it took forever to hit and eliminate a car. One of the most fun races ever.

Energy Gone

Are you tired and listless, worn out and bored? Do you need a push out of that easy chair, a boost off the old sofa? Someone to peel the remote from your hand so you can stagger outside to rake a leaf or teach your kid how to drive?


Vitamins and minerals are talking here. We used to eat for energy and health, stuff like beef and eggs, vegetables and bread. No pill-popping from the pharmacy was necessary. No intravenous liquids called vitamins just so we could stay up at night to watch the full moon or moonlight to fill out the income.


Now we've got lean bodies and grinning faces, holding tiny bottles, dark and mysterious, just begging to be drunk. Instant energy, super energy overloaded with enough vitamins to take you through an entire year in one gulp.


Who can resist that? After all, it isn't food that does you good, right? Your body may think it's craving a big steak and fries, but what it's really telling you is - gimme, gimme, gimme that little shot of liquid in that cute little bottle and I'll reward you for life.


Who knows, that little enticing bottle might even shorten your life. But at least you ought to feel like Tarzan, Superman, and Motherman all rolled into one...for awhile.

Can't Stand It

Don't all you old people just hate how they're ruining the good grammar of the English language today? It drives me crazy.

You can't "parent" your kids when you're the parent. It's a noun, folks, even an adjective, like a parent company. But nowhere does it say you can use it for a verb. Come on.

And all this nonsense online.

How do you message a message?

Or text a text or text a message?

You can't use those nouns as verbs. But does anyone listen to me?

Noooo.

It's, "Get with it, Mom. Don't fall behind the times just because you hate what we do to the language."

I'm supposed to listen to that?

Don't even get me started on the cutsey-pie symbols and letters meant for words that can be interpreted into anything you want. That'll get you in a heap of trouble one day for sure.

How about typing "your" when you mean "you're"?

Or saying "Febuary" because you're too lazy to throw in the "r".

One thing that really irks my feathers is visa versa. People - puh-lease. It's vice versa. You know - like Miami Vice, or gambling is a sinful vice.

Oh, wait - the Webster's New World says you can say visa versa.

Just. Shoot. Me. Now. PLEASE!

Old Mama

I got my kids when I shouldn't have. I was forty-nine when my newborn son was put into my arms, and fifty-two when I first set eyes on my tiny daughter.

There was no pain for me involved in their birth. Because they are adopted.

I couldn't sleep that first night, not one wink, because I was too excited. I'd spent the previous day going over everything out loud, driving my husband crazy.

A mild panic had set in and wouldn't let go.

"Okay - we feed him, change the diaper, burp him, and, uh...what else? Help me here."

He just gave me a look.

"Oh, yeah. He gets a bath. And he sleeps a lot, then we feed him again, burp, change... Okay, I think I've go it. Haven't I? Do we do anything else?"

Why I acted like that, I don't know, because babies weren't unfamiliar to me at all. I'd had younger siblings to take care of, and I babysat the neighborhood - make that half the world - since I was twelve. So I knew babies.

But suddenly, at forty-nine, I was the biggest dope on earth, because a baby was coming.

That first night, I lay awake and watched the tiny body wheeze and snuffle away, trying out its new lungs. I leaped up every two hours to do the routine, wishing he wouldn't panic and scream so much while the bottle was heating.

Everything was going on schedule.

Until the dawn. I was exhausted and nauseated like I've never been before. I couldn't even move.

So the man of the house, the new daddy, took over. All day he took over while I laid in bed, scared, dozing, and fearing I would die before night came.

By 5 o'clock, he looked ragged. By 6 o'clock, I could get out of bed. By 7 o'clock, I ate some toast and held my baby son. By 8 o'clock, I knew I would live to enjoy being a mother.

Sure, forty-nine's too old. And fifty-two's even too older. But I did it and it wasn't so hard after all.

They're teenagers now and they kind of get a kick out of having an ancient mama. When they remember to think of it, that is.