So how is that reloading going?

I'm learning a lot. The way I usually do. The hard way. Since I'm off to another state to speak at a conference tomorrow I will leave you with some reading material until my return.

All Fired Up

For cooking anyway. Some tidings from Turk who came into Indiana for the blog meet and stopped by the Range to visit on the way, bringing with him gifts of hot sauce for his friends.

You'll have to click on the picture to enlarge it to see the names. You can probably guess which one he picked out for me.:-) I can't wait to try it on something!

How about some Three cheese and smoked chicken enchiladas. This is a quick meal I've thrown together for my shooty friends more than once. There IS a lot of hot sauce here.

Add some cheddar cheese drop biscuits and some salad with a tangy vinaigrette to cool the fire and you're all set.

Click to enlarge. I dare you.

YOU KNOW IT'S GOING TO BE A GOOD RANGE DAY WHEN IT STARTS WITH . .

Let the Games Begin.

It had been many weeks since I'd been to the range, the first grouping with the Kahr made it that much sweeter.

Fishing spots

My dad bought me my own little fishing pole when I was barely big enough to hold on to it and then would watch with loving patience up on the bank to make sure I didn't fall in. So last night, when I discovered a forgotten little cherry rod during a recent clean up in the shed, I walked on down to the little lake that borders my property and sat on down for a spell.

I invite people I know through work or shooting who have grade school-age kids to come fish here on the tiny little body of fresh water right behind my house or on nearby park waters. Many have taken me up on the opportunity. It's a safe, quiet place, where the kids can fish while the adults wait "safely in the jeep", as they used to say on Wild Kingdom, with a cold ice tea or beer, listening to the laughter of kids used to city homes, tiny yards. It's a quiet spot away, for just a moment, from the exhaustive clamor of the city. It's appreciated and they often reciprocate by doing something to help me around my place. Though I appreciate the thanks, just the wide smile of a kid who has caught his first "big" fish is all the thanks any of us might need.

As I walked down to the water tonight, the sun was setting, leaving wisps of lavender ribbons across the sky; clouds moving up from the Plains, wispy strands through which I could glimpse was the phase of the moon.. The bobber moved slightly, a fish, or the wind? I saw one huge fin slicing the water when I first moved in; it was either a giant carp or Nessie. I was tempted to jerk the line, to see what I had, but I waited. This is what patience is all about, being wholeheartedly engaged in the process that's unfolding, rather than yank up the line to see what's at the other end. Patience is what I needed. I've been going full tilt for so long that when it all pulled into one moment of pain, I realized I needed to take a break. That's why, as I sat, I prayed for some quiet, I prayed for acceptance and patience. Patience isn't stressed, it isn't unhappy, its a steady strength we apply to each experience we face, be it life showing it's fangs, or a quiet weekend in a simple household.

As I waited, the call of what sounded like a loon brought me back into the moment and I thought about all the things I needed to do at home. Iron clothes in prep for a couple days on the road while I'm a guest speaker at some conference, cook dinner, call Dad and Tam back. And I stopped. "Can you hear that?" I whispered to Barkley, sitting by my side, tail wagging, poised to strike in case I reeled in a slab of hickory smoked bacon. "That" being the sound of a small bass jumping on a small span of water on a planet spinning through space.This is what fishing is all about, not catching anything, not putting a meal on the table, but for me, like flying a little tailwheel airplane, simply a time with nature to be savored when the whole body is one sense with the water and delight imbibes through every pore with the gossamer cast of a line. I really don't care if I catch anything, frankly, I'm not that enamored with that part of it, I just enjoyed the communion of elemental waters.

The crickets began their chorus to usher in the night, and the note of the sparrow is borne on the wind from over the water. And from the waters edge, a salamander crawled out, that traveler of both the water and the land, equally at home in both. We're all born of water, as we emerge from the watery landscape of the womb, we discover we can breathe, and we leave behind the comforting water world of our mother's body, to become searchers of the land, seekers of adventure. What caused that first being to emerge from the womb, from the water of life? The pull of nature, or something more primal? There was a Disney movie of a redheaded mermaid, half human, half fish, who gave up the freedom of her watery home for the love of a man. What is that primal urge that drives us out and up, away from our comfortable origins to a land that can often be dry and barren? Perhaps we simply leave the water searching for that love.

As the last of the daylight seeped back into the sky, I thought back to what has been troubling me, but only briefly, for my mind now, like the lake, is rippled but not ruffled. These small ripples of water raised by the evening's wind are only a hint of turmoil in a slowly calming stream. As the day pulled out of the sky taking the wind with it, I cast back out into the now still center of the pond, the moment causing me to hold in my breath. There it was. Utter and complete stillness. I wanted to hold my breath, because even inhaling and exhaling was like a cacophony. The trees were absolutely quiet, the animals of day hunkering down for rest, and the night creatures not yet stirring. There was no breeze, no recognition of air even; it was the sound of nothing and everything. It felt like all life…and my future…and beyond was contained in one space, and I was not just casting into it, I was part of it. It's one of the most peaceful coherent moments I've experienced. A heavenly spot of time.

Poets talk about "spots of time," but its only been flying and on the water where I've experienced eternity compressed into a moment. A moment where in an instant you can see your whole life and make a choice. No one can even explain to you what this "spot of time" is until your whole horizon is a fish and then the fish is gone. I thought of one salmon off in the great North. I shall remember that fish when I'm an old lady. After fighting him until my arms groaned, I brought him up. For a moment, I saw the sun glinting off his 30 pound back, rainbow diamonds of light dazzling my eyes. I was so enamored of him I couldn't even take a breath and in that instant before he was gone, line snapped, it seemed as if time had stumbled. Then as the clock picked itself up again, I looked at the bare expanse of water while others patted me on the back, consoling me and urging me to try again. Only then did it hit me what it was that I had lost.

I thought back to fly fishing in Gunnison while I went back to Colorado to visit family, watching the fly fisherman standing, rod in hand, in the rushing water making the most beautiful movements, a ballet of line and wind and hook. A ritual of the chase, the cast like a tease to the unsuspecting trout, placid in their world, until he pulled them into his. As the trout took the bait, the man would smile, that quick knowing smile, and pull with a quick flick of his fingers and hands, like lightstrokes on a keyboard, and plant the hook. Then after reeling the trout in, he gently pulled the hook from the mouth, gently cradling the fish in his hand as a way of speaking his peace. Without a sound and a quick unemotional tickle of her belly, he said goodbye to her as she headed back downstream.

Catch and release.

With my house fading into shadow, darkness falling, I decided to head back. I didn't catch anything, my true catch was as intangible and indescribable as the twilight playing on the water. I think of what Thoreau said "many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after". For to fish is to flirt, with dancing water and surging life, warm lips to cool water, we reach for a transparent kiss of the unknown. We willingly bite the secret barb, to be brought to shore barely breathing, gasping up into somewhere unknown, searching upward to catch a glimpse of who it was that wanted us.

Tonight I have no choice but to pull the hook of that fly out of my lips and swim away safely downstream.

Catch and release.

Grab and Go Breakfast

I hit the day running and other than weekends, there isn't time for breakfast. So, sometimes "breakfast" is an oatmeal cookie or a honey and oat granola bar. If I'm desperate there are some snacks in the break room at work, but Pop Tarts in my opinion, are not food.

Or this time, a little treat to take into the office and share. Scandahoovian Almond Bars. A rich, not too sweet, buttery dough flecked with sliced toasted almonds and just barely drizzled with almond infused frosting. They're tender crisp yet soft in the middle on day one. Day two, they're crispier and great to dunk in coffee. Day three, I hear they get pretty hard but I've never had any last that long.

A week off.

I'm taking a week or so off from blogging. I'm getting a bit burned out between this and work lately. I post daily and see pictures of a piece of ham get 30 comments and an essay that's like opening a vein get four. I understand why, but still I wonder some nights it's worth the time away from other things that during this time of year I really need to do.

Life has piled it on lately,and I've grown disillusioned about human nature in general. When this happens, I need to just hole up and be by myself with my thoughts for a while and then I'll be fine. Some open sky, a knife, a gun, some beans and cornbread. I hope you will all be here when I come back, but I understand that sometimes when one is away, the cattle wander off.

I'll be back soon.

Air and Water. Water and Air.

Air and water. Water and Air. The two elements of this world that I love the most. Part of my childhood was spent on the waters of a lake in Montana where we stayed at a little cabin some summers, years before Californians discovered it and developers took over the place, building vast condos that blocked out the sun.

My brothers and I would get up while it was still dark, and march down to the waters edge, hoping to get there to see the dawn explode over the water. During the day we'd float upon it in inner tubes, flotillas of youth, between fishing and swimming. I could spend hours there, just watching the way the water shaped itself around the rocks and me, the gentle waves moving against the shore, like breathing. In the bright cold water, there would be bass and crappie and all wonders of strange life.

We'd wade along the edges, gingerly looking, while not harming anything that was there, hoping to find a prehistoric shell to take home, knowing that at some time, this whole land had been ocean. We occasionally found bits and pieces of things, but nothing ever matched the one perfect shell we got on that trip to the Oregon coast to meet out cousins one summer. Many of you have seen a sand dollar. They're commonly sold in souvenir stores. But what you see is only the remaining skeleton of a living sea creature. When living, the sand dollar is covered with fine hair like cilia that cover tiny spines, soft, and almost purple in color. But the remaining shell is beautiful, fragile, white. The essential essence of what this creature was.

Until I was about 10 I wanted to be a Biologist, preferably a marine biologist (that or a spy, biologists didn't get to have cool guns and shoe phones). Then one morning, when I was in my early teens, as I ran and launched myself off of a dock, airborne for only a moment before splashing into the ice cold water, I heard a sound. It was a small plane flying up over the high altitude lake, causing me to look up in wonder, not ever having seen one in this remote area. Wondering who the pilot was and what that must be like. My world in that moment, was more than one with the water, but was the world of air and sky, and though I felt as if I was living in a alien world in either, among creatures that were so different from me, somehow I knew I would belong there.

After that, on summer nights when we'd build a fire and sit and listen to the lapping of the waves, dreams of my airborne future filled my head. The sound of the water, growing and swelling in rhythm to my heart beat, an accompaniment to the laughing and roasted marshmallows, the joys of a night on the water, under open stars. My heart had shifted, I would likely major in the sciences I loved, yet the affirmation and promise of the rushing waters that carried those aerial dreams needed to be a part of me.

It wasn't too many years before I was taking lessons after school and soon was practicing "turns about a point", ground reference maneuvers, low over collections of small lakes. It was a perfect time, for those hours I was free. I've always been that way, devoted to family, but chafing at a leash, electronic or otherwise that follows me when I am earthbound, making me long for the sky.

Tonight I needed to get back up there watching the clouds go past, thinking back to my first flight over 20 years ago, to the first person I ever kissed, to the smell of Lycoming exhaust mixed with the scent of fresh cornfield, to the distant memory of what it feels to be free. Patiently sitting, watching, remembering everything past, hoping for everything good of the future, in a bone deep calm that only a pilot or people who make long road trips probably understand, until it's finally time to descend. To descend through layer on layer of cloud, thinking back, layer and layer of memory. Memories in an airplane, the first, the last, in the heart of the nation or over still mountain lakes, winter to summer, hours to minutes. From that first flight to this one, the distance seems endless.

Water and Air. Air and Water. I make that final descent for the airport, the heat of legions of cornstalk pressing in around me, the sun so bright I glint into the glare, trying to catch a glimpse to the runway, rousing myself from the almost stupor that descends from an hour aloft. It's like being a child, being coaxed from the back of a car after a long drive to make a quick stop at a gas station when all you want to do is crawl back in the cool seat, book in lap, moving 70 miles an hour towards the place you most want to be. In my mind I was already on the way there, passing all the small towns in which I would never live and people I'd never get a chance to talk to, rushing headlong towards the place where the rest of my life was awaiting me. Somewhere just up ahead in the blue.

The blue of the sky glances off the blue of the reservoir, I soar past small islands of clouds as the sky and the water and the whole universe appear as an infinite expanse of deep blue calm. The being and cadence of rushing water is part of who I am, as is the rush of wind past the cockpit, directing the currents of my future, setting the pace of my desire, powering the shape of my dreams. The undercurrents of air and sky over time has shaped who I am, eroding away all that is non essential, til all that is left is pure white thought, a pristine light shell that is my soul.

Air and Water. Water and Air. I descend into the deepening blue, dreading the anchor of earth again.

Retro - what?

Bobbi has got a new blog!!


Go visit and be amazed.

And for those of you who will ask?

Based on the inductor and the worn manufacturer's label, I believe it's an adjustable toroidal transformer coil, a Variac from the General Radio Company of Cambridge, though I don't know if they call themselves that any more.

I think the" Good Doktor" used one in her little experiments in the barn. Using it to tune her creation from 'peaceful' to 'homicidal maniac'. Either that or it powered the ice cream churn. One or the other.

THE WOLF IS IN MY SOUL

Meet Miss A - Malamute Mix and a Member of the HOTR extended family

The wolf is in my soul

Strong life force

intuitive and loyal

Take me not from my

wild nature

For the wild nature

carries what I need

dreams, words, songs,

All I need to be

all I need to know

Seeing through the eyes

of woman's intuition,

like the starry night

I gaze into the night

through a thousand eyes

In my pack I find integrity

In my tribe I find peace

I speak and act

on my own behalf

open but never tame

My heart is of the wolf

bearing battle scars of time

Writing my secrets on walls

refusing to be ashamed

of my free spirit

You can find me wild,

in open air and woods

In forests of solitude

whispering words

from instinctual need

Does my pack heed

my words as I stop

to see if you catch up.

For I have many things

to show you

Join me and run

through those last hard miles

Howl at that weathered door

stand sentry at the window

of your dreams

Unleash your wild heart

...........Brigid

Make Hay, I mean PIZZA, While the Sun Shines.

My oven is finally fixed. It was a decent day off. I mowed off the back land, got the oven repaired, went over a PowerPoint on blunt force trauma injuries for a colleague (yeah I know, I never truly take a day off) and hit the grocery store. Expect popovers this weekend.

However right now it is almost 90 and the humidity is much greater than these parts normally sees. So I will save the inauguration of the stove until morning and will cook my dinner on my little barbecue. No need for the big gas grill, this is all I need.

But I wanted pizza. Pizza on the barbecue? Yes. It's easier than you think. The method I used mimicked the heat of an oven. It's preferable to cook it on a small thin pan to evenly distribute the heat. I used a little disposable one left over from the holidays. There are recipes for grilling the dough, flipping to grill it the other side and adding topping then, but my goal was simply to cook it with a minimum of fuss and oven like results. But without heating up my house so sleeping would be cool and enjoyable later.

Start by rolling out your dough about 1/4 inch thick and try to keep it pretty even. This was dough made from scratch in the bread machine. (recipes for pizza are in sidebar). You don't need to go find the calipers for this one, but it shouldn't be too thick. You also don't want the toppings too thick so they cook through and evenly. I went for Canadian Bacon, finely diced pineapple (not the big chunks most pizza parlors use), a little sharp cheddar, mozzarella and some dried herbs.

I have a charcoal Style BBQ that's about 28 inches x 28 inches. This will take a fair number of briquettes, I probably used about 60-70. After they are lit and covered with ash (about 10-20 minutes) you need to arrange them around the edges of where the pizza will be, so they surround the cooking area, but don't actually rest in a pile directly under it.Place the grill part of the barbecue back in place and close the lid, making sure the little vents are open to ensure the most efficient heating. Your goal is a barbecue temperature of about 425 - 450 degrees before putting the pizza on the grill. This mimics the effect of an oven and the edges of the crust will rise up, staying crisp on the outside and chewy in the middle while the center of the dough, rolled thin, stays tender to the bite. (If you want the thin, crisp style of pizza, forget the little pan and cook directly on a rack but that's a whole different set of instructions).

Use a little cooking thermometer on the center of the grill if you have one. When it's good and hot, place the pizza on the small pan in the center of the barbecue and CLOSE THE LID. For mine, it cooked for about 16 minutes. Do NOT peek until you are at about 13 minutes. Remove, let cool a few minutes than serve out on the deck with a frosty beer while you look out at all you did todaySummer's kind of nice now, isn't it?

click to enlarge picture

Outdoors 9-11

This last week I had a chance to get a long walk out in the woods out past where the corn stops growing. I took a light coat in case of rain, as it's been unusually cold and wet, and of course, a trusty .45 in a Blackhawk holster. This is my "outdoors hiking, moving, fall and winter holster". It's not as sleek as many other holsters I own, but in the clothing I wear outdoors it works, and works very well for what I need it for. This particular holster is unique in that there's a locking mechanism that keeps the gun in place during other than just strolling movement, as well as acts in preventing someone else from grabbing it. Yet with a little practice, it is as easy as pie for you to draw.

Cabela's says "Thumb breaks can slow your draw and get in the way when you re-holster. But you won't experience those drawbacks with Blackhawk's patented SERPA Technology™. It engages the trigger guard as you holster your firearm and secures it until you release using the normal drawing motion with your trigger finger alongside the holster. No snaps or straps to get in the way. The textured Carbon Fiber model can be worn on a belt or used as a paddle holster."

I've had mine four years and it works without a hitch and has held up very well. The one thing I noted when I first put this on was how SECURE it was. I could pole dance with this thing and it wouldn't budge.

It's home to a .220 and draws with the finger indexed where it is supposed to be, off the trigger. Unlocks easily, re-holsters easily and locks with no insertion force. This is a holster that's NOT going to make it easy for someone to take this gun away from me.

The drawbacks? The paddle attachment that comes with it really grips my jeans when I'm carrying. That's wonderful from a retention aspect, but at the end of the long day, sometimes it's a bear to get off. The belt slot attachment works better with belts up to one and 3/4 inches (when you remove the two spacers). I would recommend practice with it as well, quick firing capability is there, but it's something you should practice with, as it might be different than what you are used to.

But it is my favorite holster for being outdoors with a vest or jacket on to conceal the bulk that's more than some holsters. I've spent a lot of time in the back country. All of it alone. I've camped, but not in a "National Park", because frankly, until recently, as a lone female, I wasn't going in one unarmed. If you're in the outdoors and you have an encounter with a criminal or an aggressive animal, there is no 9-11 box where you can call the police. And just like in the suburbs, 9-11 isn't going to do you a lot of good if you're staring down the face of a knife in the hands of some thug and the police are not going to be there in the next 10 minutes.

There were four bear attacks in parks last year that I know of. Small risk when you consider the millions of visitors. But think again. Bears aren't the biggest danger. The last year I could find statistics on violent crime in the parks from was 2006. For some reason, they haven't posted them where they are easy to find since then. In 2006, there were 116,588 reported offenses, including 11 killings, 35 rapes or attempted rapes, 61 robberies, 16 kidnappings and 261 aggravated assaults.

Crime and violence are working their way into our rural areas and our parks. The days of mellow nights under the stars with perhaps your only fear, that of cowtippers or Yogi the Bear stealing your picnic basket, are over. Urban problems are creeping ever outward, with alcohol or drugs being part of most violent incidents. Hideaway methamphetamine labs and marijuana fields in rural areas and forests are one reason, society degrading as unemployment skyrockets is another.

When the "guns in national parts" debate was ongoing the detractors said that guns would "ruin the outdoor experience". I don't know about you, but some whacko defending his meth lab intent on raping and killing me would certainly ruin MY park experience.

I don't fear the local four legged predators, the most common around here being coyotes. I fear the two legged animals. So I carry when I'm outdoors. Like the coyotes who share my land, I am alone even when I'm in my pack, dispossessed except for those times I am in the outdoors, for it is only the outdoors that feeds and nourishes me. I haunt the shadows of the wilderness that my own race continues to destroy. Yet, like the small field rabbits that are the coyote's prey, I just want to go about my way, unmolested, free to travel in sunlight or darkness without fear.
Some say we are safer out here in the country, in these small towns of America. Despite the country setting, and red white and blue speckled mailboxes, there is no truly safe place anymore, especially for a woman. Though there are certainly more crimes where more people live or where the the law-abiding are disarmed, the heart of evil roams equally at will through asphalt and country roads. Predators are among us, watching from a line at the corner market, waiting in the darkness of a rural parking lot or that untraveled, unbeaten path. Waiting for that sign, that manner, that tells them that you are un-toothed and un-fanged, a soft and vulnerable target.

Our primordial past is closer than we realize. Watching us. So I carry something large, and black as night, in a holster that holds up to it's job. Because not every creature in the woods is some furry gentle creature seeking sustenance at my door in the night.

Free Range Chicken

www.savagechickens.com

The appliance repair people finally called. It was either going to be
(1) you get a new range under warranty or
(2) we have the part that was shipped via Djibouti.

The part is in, to be installed on my next day off, this Friday. So another work week of non- kitchen cooked meals. I've got pretty good at alternative methods, but tonight I was craving homestyle chicken and noodles after no breakfast and a wimpy salad lunch. How to do it without a stove?

Easy.

Grill some chicken tenders on the barbecue with just a little seasoning salt.
Slice and toss them with some caramelized onion and garlic that you've cooked in a cast iron skillet over the coals in a tiny bit of butter. Remove the chicken and veggies to a covered small bowl and keep the cast iron pan handy. Do not wipe it out and keep it warm.
Get some water simmering as best you can and cook some WIDE fresh noodles in a separate pot. Pick a good quality Italian or Amish style noodle, no wimpy generic noodles for this dish.

Make the sauce in the cast iron pan. Traditional chicken and noodles has a cream sauce but this Home on the Range version has an alfredo style sauce with the addition of an extra kind of cheese and some special seasoning. It's fool proof and can be made in minutes.

You will just need three kinds of cheese, some milk and seasoning.

Lightly steam or grill some fresh broccoli or other veggie while the sauce simmers. Toss it all together and serve with some more fresh grated cheese.

Dinner in a little more than a half hour without a stove.

Once More -

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head Like the brass cannon;
let the brow o'erwhelm it.
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
-William Shakespeare - King Henry V

FOR OUR FUTURE

I am occasionally asked to speak to young people at schools, from private to inner city, on career day, and sometimes the kids expectations of what my work entails is rather humorous. I guess after watching too many episodes of CSI or Without a Trace the real world of what I do seems pretty dull - "there I was. . . trapped. . . in a meeting!" For I have never chased a bad guy through a dark alley wearing 5 inch high heels and a blond wig, no one has ever shot at me or attempted to steal secrets from my briefcase (all they'd find was an autopsy report, an issue of Popular Mechanics and a Snickers bar) and unlike that girl in Alias, I couldn't afford to live in a luxurious townhouse in the DC area on my salary.

Whatever the stories the kids want to hear about, I do stress one thing. That you don't have to be a rocket scientist or an heiress to pursue your dreams. It simply takes a lot of sweat and determination. I'm heartened by examples of hard work and sacrifice. One of my friends is a local teacher, and has had a few shining examples of students this last year, on their way to college on scholarships they earned and better things. I see though, with many of these kids I talk to, that too many of the next generation have this sense of entitlement that previous generations never had. Entitlement is a dry rot in the very fabric of our lives now. I don't blame the kids, I blame those that set the example, and too often that's society in general, coming from the highest level. When I was in high school, few of us drove to school, and if we did it was in the clapped out car we bought ourselves. Look at the high school parking lot now. $30,000 trucks, $25,000 SUV's, Lexus, BMW. Kids expect that. It makes the job for the responsible parents and the teachers even harder, but there are times you have to say - put away the game boy, turn off the TV, shut off the Ipod and get the children down to business of earning it themselves.

Despite what certain political figures have said, the "American Dream" does not include having it handed to you. Liberty includes the freedom to go hungry some nights if you aren't willing to work for it. The chance of success also assumes the chance to fail.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.- Thomas Paine

The sense of entitlement, the belief that we dominate global commerce and geopolitics and always will, ensuring a lifetime of goods and ease. . . . I see it way too much. I know I'll take some flak for saying this, but I've seen too many people out there raising their kids with a sense that delayed gratification is a punishment, more intense than grounding them. There is a belief that children need to be wrapped in cotton padding so that they never stumble or fail. We all want our kids to be well and safe and happy, but raising them in an environment were nothing disappointing ever happens to them is doing the future great harm.

For as the economy changes, global conflicts escalate, as we are seeing as I write this, these kids are in for a rude and socially cataclysmic surprise. I consider myself very lucky. Had my parents offered me expensive electronic toys, $200 cell phones, laptops and cars and designer clothes, ski vacations and spring breaks on a beach somewhere while I shuffled along with a C average I probably would have taken them up on it. I WAS a teenager. But they didn't. I was expected do my best to make Honor Roll, to work, and put myself through school as they did in the generation past the depression. They taught me that life has its choices and many that you make will kill you. There was a sense of accountability, not entitlement. Did it make them Mr. and Mrs. Popular in the parenting depart? Absolutely not. But it saved my life more than once, literally and figuratively.

I put myself through graduate school flight instructing, a license I got after college when my geek gene was in high overdrive. I loved to fly, it looked like fun, it paid about twice what I could make working retail or other standard part time jobs. But what they don't explain when you're putting in the hundreds of hours of study it takes to be a Certified Flight Instructor is this. In this wondrous exchange are the frequent days that if mother nature isn't doing so, students will be actively trying to kill you. And smiling while doing it. Because the student hadn't yet learned that just because you weren't yelling at him didn't mean you hadn't just avoided bent metal by nano-seconds. That would come after solo.

There was one fellow to whom I was demonstrating how to recover from a stall, the event where the angle between the chord line of the wing and the relative wind is such that airflow is disrupted and the wing stops flying. You practice it with some altitude beneath you and with regularity. It's one of the first things you learn and it's drilled into you from the beginning. The nose drops on it's own, you gently lower the nose, you level the wings and you add power. Piece of cake. Except in this case the student took my words "just gently lower the nose" to mean shoving the control yoke full forward with 180 pounds of push. I didn't know it would go that far forward. Forward, straight into the ground, coming up at 100 miles an hour.

For a moment, the woods below rushed up to greet us with a deathly slap, air rushing past with the speed of infallibility, mocking the effort of lift, the effort of life. But, for altitude and instincts born of hours of repetitive movements, that might have been our last flight. But it wasn't, and with a firm juggle of controls and the movement of the throttle we were climbing back up, with the power of an engine and the untended breath of youth. Inhaling life from death, not realizing just how close it was until it was over. In that moment I was reminded that nature did not care if we were young and high up on the food chain. The sky, with it's solitude and freedoms, creates a perfect stage for exultation or loss and we are very small actors in the arena.

With that, I grew up fast, and any reasoning I had that the world owed me a living was quickly dispelled when I realized that the world didn't even owe me life.

I look at the work ethic of my parent's generation, and my grandparents. That is one of the things that has made our country successful. That the majority of us believe it is a privilege, to be allowed to work and earn money. Not a right because we're standing on U.S. soil, but a privilege of those citizens, who ask no favor or handout of anyone or anything save the chance to pit their talents and strengths and will against what the future can dish out.

I hope these kids can see that. That their dream will not be handed to them on a silver platter with a Platinum credit card. That they will struggle, and they will, at times, fail. My Dad had a sense of value for all that is earned and wanted to pass that on and I try to do my little part as well. Thoreau once said "judge the cost of things in terms of how much life you had to expend to get it". So what I have managed to achieve has the greatest value to me.
I hope that in my show and tell items, the stories, and simply a ear to listen and share with them, that many of them, with so much to offer the country in skills and hope and heart will see a sense of that. That they will learn, with every challenge, be it emotional, rational or rhetorical, they will not look for something that was handed to them, they will look for something that is within them. And with their dreams our nation will grow strong again.

Half Priced Bonanza

click to enlarge and see titles

I got to visit a Half Price Book store this last week. There's one right next to where my friend Angie works so it's a regular stop to chat and buy books when I'm in the city. Don't forget to go to the back of the store where they have the "all under $3 Section", a lot of them in excellent condition only $1. With some careful hunting through the higher and lower shelves there that aren't picked over as much, I brought home several bags of really good condition books, for less than forty bucks.
Always nice to add a few more things to the bookshelf.