A friend of mine is the head tech inspector at the local dirt track.  He wanted to know if I would  come help him tech the race cars last week.  I jumped at the chance.  I couldn’t wait to get a close look at all the fast cars.  I knew we would be looking under the hoods and going over suspension parts.  This seemed like a rare opportunity to spy on other race car drivers and see what they run in and on their race cars.  A proper analogy would be if I was a contestant at a large poker game and a judge.  I would  get to see their cards and I already know what I have.  Unfortunately I have a pair of deuces.  It’s still nice to know what others are holding.
The tech inspection occurs in the middle of the track.  Teching cars in the infield is fine when you have cars to tech but watching a race is difficult.  You have to decide early on if you want to turn slowly around as you follow the cars on the track, or you follow the cars as far as your neck will turn until you can’t see them anymore and then whip your head around the maximum distance to catch them on the other end.  Turning around in circles isn’t bad but soon you get to feeling kind of stupid.  After a while of turning you pretend to have a reason to turn around.  Let’s say you  had a cramp in your leg and you need to hop in the direction of the cars. It’s feasible.  Maybe you drop something on the ground and happen to turn toward the cars as you pick it up.  This will work for a couple of laps but soon you look like fumbling drunk wanting to do pirouettes.  The best method I found was to focus on one area and watch that part of the track.  This works well until you hear some crashing noises or someone says “damn, he’s gonna get him this time” then you have to whip around.  It can’t be helped.  You don’t want to miss that spectacular pass or that horrendous wreck.
When the top three cars came in for inspection after the first heat race I didn’t know what to expect.  I didn’t know if we were going to weigh them and send them to the pits or if we were going to have a close look.  Much to my happiness we looked them over good.  We crawled under them.  We looked under the hoods and checked various aspects of their motors.  We checked suspension parts.  I was loving this.  I was taking mental notes of everything I saw.  I was seeing their suspension  parts and where they had their weight placed.  I couldn’t believe my good fortune.  Then something happened to spoil my night completely.  In the last heat race a car that races in the class I’m going to race in won easily.  He beat some really fast cars with ease.  I couldn’t wait for him to pull in for inspection.  This is going to be great I think.  He rolls across the scales and parks in the tech area.  We line the top three finishers up and start removing hoods to inspect motors.  We come to the winners car and before we can remove his hood he says something that will haunt me for the rest of my life.  He says, and this is verbatim, “you boys don’t need to pull that hood off.  You don’t want to see what’s under there.  I’ll just take a DQ (disqualification) and roll back over to the pits.”  Before I could protest he fired it up and away he went.  I wanted to look under the hood.  I really did.  That may have been the only car that night that I  really wanted to look under the hood.  How dare he?  Now I’m left to wonder what mysterious thing was under there that made him so fast.  I’ve been losing sleep over it.  When I do get to sleep, I dream of prying and prying on  his hood but it won’t come off.  Just when I start to see the hood separate from it’s place the alarm clock goes off.  I awake breathing hard and sweating.  My wife doesn’t believe me when I tell her what I’ve been dreaming about.  She looks at me with disapproving eyes as she tells me some of the words she heard me say when I was dreaming.  I tell her “it’s so tight” is referring to the fit of the race car hood.  At least the guy was honest about his dishonesty.  He told us he was cheating and drove away.  That’s racing honesty.

The older I get the more I’m tempted to look at the younger generation with a certain amount of befuddlement.  The clothes they wear look a little goofy to me.  The music they listen to sounds like a sad facsimile of the music I like.  The tattoos, the piercings, and the general lack of real world knowledge irritates me somewhat.  I must take into consideration that the world they are coming of age in is much different than the one I came of age in.  I actually milked a cow in my youth.  My dad could fix any part of our vehicle  himself.  We entertained ourselves with games we made up and we generally stayed outdoors whenever the weather would permit.  A computer was an abstract concept in sci-fi movies and a phone was a box with a bell in it that was tethered to the wall.  All this happened in the last century.  It doesn’t seem like that long ago but the calendar doesn’t lie.  We kids of the last century made our own fun and when we left the house no one, and I mean no one, knew what we were up to.  Until this past weekend I thought the next generation was going to be a bunch of house bound wieners.  I think I’m wrong about that.
My son is almost nine.  He’s a good boy but he lives on the computer and he plays video games constantly.  He plays outside some but he’s an only child so having someone to play with is a problem.  We had two of his friends over for this past weekend.  They are twin brothers.  Both of them are full of energy and go non-stop until they pass out in their tracks.  I was happy to have them stay a few days with us, as were their parents.  I was prepared to clean up messes and be in the middle of the tornado that was to ensue.  We picked them up early on a Friday night.  They, along with my son, played video games, wrestled, and messed about on the computer until one in the morning.  This is how I thought it would go.  The boys running about in the house and confirming my worst fears: that kids are house bound these days unless they are involved in some kind of organized sporting event.  I let them sleep in Saturday morning and I fixed them breakfast which was actually served around lunch time.  They gobbled up a pound of sausage, a pound of bacon, a dozen eggs and numerous buttered pieces of toast.  That’s the one thing that hasn’t changed much.  Kids will still eat ridiculous amounts of food.
I was very happy on Saturday when I found the boys outside.  They had been out to the barn and had discovered an old go cart in the weeds.  I had forgotten that it was out there.  It has no motor but the roll cage is still intact and the tires held air.  One boy would sit in the seat and make the engine sound and steer while the other two pushed as mightily as they could.  I thought this would make them tired so I went into the shop and happily cleaned up things that needed cleaning up.  I was in there a little while when I heard the first crash and the laughter that came after.  I sneaked to the door of the shop and peeped out.  I had to see what was going on.  One of the twins had strapped himself firmly into the seat while the other two boys would pick up the side of the go cart until it flipped over on it’s top leaving the boy in the seat hanging upside down.   After a spell of laughter they would exclaim how cool that particular crash had been and would argue over who’s turn it was to belt in and be flipped.  I loved this.  This is what I’ve been looking for in the younger generation.  A totally made up game that combined danger and hard work.  I watched them take turns flipping the cart for a while.  Then they came up with another idea.  The boys would pick up the front of the cart and make it do an end over end.  I had to step in at this point.  Maybe I’m one of those helicopter parents who hovers over the children but this seemed a little too dangerous.  I made them stop.  They were unhappy and begged me to let them do it.  We did a test run and the crash was rather violent.  This made them want to try it more.  I just couldn’t allow it.  I feel bad about it but I didn’t want to see anyone get hurt.  Damn.  Maybe I’m part of the problem.  The next generation will be just fine.  It’s my generation that’s getting in the way of having real fun.

What kind of person am I?  What kind of person are you?  I think I’ve found an infallible method of telling what kind of person you are by observing you at a buffet pizza place.  I spent my lunch break today testing this new method out.  I’m thinking a Nobel Peace Prize is not out of the question for me when this method is scientifically proven to work without flaw.  Think of all the evil dictators in history that could have been observed eating at a pizza buffet long before any of them came to power.  Their personality profile would have been understood by everyone and thus catastrophe could  have been avoided.  But enough crowing about my incredible method.  Let me explain how it works and you will be exalting me on high for my genius.
All buffet places have the same layout.  Food is placed in long troughs with barriers attached to the tops to keep the very tall from grazing.  Herds of normal height human graze along them.  We have a bias toward the very tall in this country.  Who the hell do they think they are way up above everybody.  Thank god for those buffet barriers.  I believe they  do a good job in keeping the tall herd thinned down.  All sorts of feed is available in the buffet trough.  A pizza buffet is different to the usual buffet feed lot in that pizza is the main food served with some foraging material being a secondary food source.  This feature of the pizza buffet is of most importance.  By limiting the food source available for the  humans, an insight into their personality profile can be gained by careful observation of a few traits.
Trait One.  As the herd stands at the ready in front of the feeder, clerk one must watch carefully and pick out the ones with the shifty eyes.  This trait one profile type will constantly scan the pizza holding trough.  They are making sure an adequate supply of pizza is available.  They are also categorizing the layout of the trough and remembering which areas have the most caloric significance.  Trait Ones will also ease in front of other herd members to gain quicker access.  The most telling of the Trait One type is what they go for when they are handed their feed buckets.  All Trait One persons will always go for the pizza first.  This is important.  To be in the Trait One category one must always gather pizza first.  Trait One types are the alpha males of the world, the leaders.  They will always accept challenges and are very resourceful.  A good example of some Trait One types would be Abe Lincoln and Henry Ford.  Trait One types should always be venerated and given a high place in the human herd.  Without Trait One types there would be no college football nor any 500 horse power v-8 Chevy motors.  What a sad world that would be.
Trait Two.  This type will always go for the forage first.  They are comfortable in line and generally pay attention to casual conversation.  They never scan the trough area.  They receive their feed buckets and graze over the forage.  They are never in a hurry and seem to be much more interested in what’s happening around them than the feed in front of them.  They loiter around the forage area and the watering trough.  One can witness them making sounds of joy as they slowly move from forage area to the seating area.  They do not eat in a hurry and continue to be concerned with those around them than in the sustenance of the trough.  Trait Two types make very good house wives and chippendale’s dancers.  They’re not going to lead.  They desire to follow, to be a part of the herd.  A very good example of Trait Two types would be Laura Bush or her husband George.  Trait Two types should always be given a lowly role in the human herd.  They thrive in situations that require great physical labor or fixed attention to detail such as hoeing the garden or washing my pickup.
Trait Three.  This type is the most dangerous of all.  This type must be locked up immediately and never turned loose.  Trait Three types are the most baffling.  When one witnesses this behavior one gets a sense of foreboding.  Trait Three types always do things in perfect order.  They never look at the feed troughs when in line.  Their icy stare that seems to be seeing nothing should be the first tip off.  When they receive their feed buckets they go straight to the seating area where they place each item in perfect order.  They remove the water bucket and go to the watering trough with a glassy eyed stare.  When they return to the seating area  they gather one of their feed buckets and go to forage trough.  They meticulously place forage items in the bucket and coolly move to place this bucket back in their area.  They then creep to the pizza trough and neatly arrange pieces in the bucket.  They then arrange all their buckets in front of them.  They don’t so much eat their food as mechanically turn it into waste to be discarded later.  Their expression never changes as each trough item meets the same fate.  If you’ve never witnessed this behavior before it’s shocking.  One must take care to do nothing to disturb Trait three types.  These people are cold and calculating.  They lack souls.  A good example of Trait three people would be Adolf Hitler and the lady that shot me the finger today for taking her parking spot in front of the restaurant.

This world is filled with all kinds of people.  There are people who inhabit towns of all sizes.  There are people who inhabit suburbs.  There are people who live in rural settings.  No one place is better than another.  It boils down to individual tastes.  It takes all kinds.  It doesn’t matter where you live.  It does matter how you behave in your area.  There are rules, both written and unwritten, that must be observed.  It is the observance of the unwritten rules that I’m most concerned with.  Follow the unwritten rules people.  Ignorance of them is no excuse.
I live on a dirt road.  Let me say that again.  I live on a DIRT ROAD.  It’s not a paved four lane highway.  It’s dirt.  It’s narrow.  There are trees and bushes pushing up against the road side.  People who have lived on a dirt road for a long time understand how to drive on a dirt road.  The rules are really simple to understand.  They are common sense.  If you meet a another vehicle coming toward you here is exactly  what you should do; Slow down, move over, and politely wave as the other vehicle slowly and easily crawls past you.  This seems simple doesn’t it?  How hard is it to slow down and move over?  How hard is it to raise your hand in a polite gesture?  For the folks who move from city to dirt road, this seems to be rocket science.
Let’s consider the first part.  Is slowing down hard?  I find that it isn’t.   I simply lift my foot off of the gas pedal and apply slight pressure to the brake pedal.  By doing this my vehicle begins to lose velocity.  I have driven a great many different vehicles in my lifetime and this procedure has worked every time.  I can’t speak for all vehicles but it is my belief that most will respond similarly to the above mentioned procedure.  There is no reason that I can think of that would warrant breaking this rule.  However, I  have witnessed this rule being broken on occasion by the new folks in the area.  I can forgive this obvious breach of etiquette a few times but I have my own system of justice that I will and have employed if the rule is continually broken.  The first time we meet and you do not slow down I just happily wave and  move over.  The second time we meet and you do not observe the rule I will still move over and slow down but I will not happily wave.  The third time we meet and you do not observe the rule I will move over but I will not slow down or wave.  The fourth time I see you coming toward me and I can discern that it is you I will accelerate my vehicle to whatever velocity it will gain until I have passed you.  I will still move over but if i can get my vehicle to a hundred miles an hour by the time we meet then that’s what I’ll do.  You will get a lovely shower of gravel.  Please accept this as my gift to you.
Let’s take the second part now.  When I want to move my vehicle in one direction or the other I administer pressure to the steering wheel.  I simply nudge the steering wheel in a clockwise or counter clockwise manner.  This procedure has worked for me every time I’ve tried it.  I can’t speak for all vehicles but all the ones I’ve ever driven have reacted in the same manner.  It is my belief that most do.  Many of  the new folks in the area must have foreign vehicles.  They can’t seem to make them move over an adequate amount.  I have wondered if they’re afraid that they will scratch their foreign vehicles on the many tree branches and bushes jutting out into the road.  This arguement doesn’t make any sense.  They must have seen these many obstacles when they looked at the property before buying it.  Why would you buy real estate sight unseen?  That would be crazy.  If you don’t want to scratch your vehicle don’t drive it on a dirt road.  If you must drive on a dirt road and you cannot move over then we will have a contest.  I will not move over for you.  I will aim my vehicle at yours and close my eyes.  We will see if your vehicle can in fact move over.  My truck is scratched and beaten.  It won’t feel a thing if we smash into each other.  Let’s try it.  I’m game.
Let’s consider the third part, the polite wave.   I don’t care where you are from.  We wave at each other.  It simply is a sign of respect and understanding.  The wave says to the other driver, “yes we live on a dirt road, yes I have moved over and slowed down, yes I acknowledge your membership in this dirt road community, yes I like you, yes we can be friends, yes you can borrow my lawn mower, yes we’ll have you over for dinner, and yes we will not try to kill each other over breaches of etiquette.  Slow down, move over, and administer a nice heartfelt hand gesture such as a wave.  This can’t be that damn hard to understand.

I’ve spent many hours in front of the television watching disaster after disaster unfold.  Wondering how terrible it must be for those affected.  The television brings the images to us.  I watch these things on my comfortable couch as I sip my diet mountain dew that I’ve poured some salty peanuts in.  I feel bad for the people affected and I occasionally donate money to a charity that is dealing with the problems.  However, there is this separation between me and the disaster victims.  I feel bad for them as I sip a little mountain dew and chew whatever peanuts happen to float through the opening.  The disaster is on television, not in my house or my  town.  Then the earth quake and tsunami hit Japan.  My perspective has forever been changed.
I woke up the morning of the earthquake and was surprised to hear the names of the some of the towns.  My brother-in-law, his wife and two kids live in Japan.  I immediately recognized the name Sendai.  I know he has a business in or near there.  Things are happening in Tokyo.  I know he has an office there as well.  My brother-in-law is a Japanese citizen even though he was born in Lawrence, Kansas, and raised in Norman, Oklahoma.  He got his degree in Asian studies and went to work for a Japanese company after college.  He met and married a girl there and they have been happily married for twenty years.  We see them once or twice a year and keep in touch via email.  His son is supposed to come to college here in the states this fall.  He spent some time with me and his aunt a few summers ago here in Oklahoma.  We showed him our good ol’ Okie ways.  He got to drive my race car around in the pasture.  He grinned widely as he sent cow turds flying as the car slung sideways through the turns.  We shot guns.  You can’t come to Oklahoma and not shoot a gun.  Around here we shoot guns like most people in other places sneeze.  It’s a bodily function.  He was a good sport and I was proud he tried it all.  Now I’m watching this nightmare unfold on the television.  There is a lump in my throat.  There will be no mountain dew and peanuts going down the hatch this time.  I’m horrified.  I’m worried.
I called a lot of my family members as the day wore on.  No one knew anything.   No one could get through.  This is different.  The separation between me and disaster victims is gone.  I want to know how my family is.  I want to know if they are alright, if they are alive.  Then the second quake hit.  The television tells me the prefecture the quake was located in.  I recognize the name.  It’s a prefecture that shares a border with the one my family lives in.  I’m terribly worried now.  I know one has hit to the north and to the south.  The images on the television and the computer are stark.  It’s a nightmare.  The people of Japan are living a nightmare.  I’m living it with them.  Finally there is news.  My family is alright but they are evacuating the area where they live because of the threat of a reactor meltdown.  I’m relieved and feeling better about their safety.  My brother-in-law is industrious to say the least.  We’ve finally been getting regular updates now.  They are safe and prepared for what happens next.  They have a plan should the worst happen.  We are all relieved.
I have a better understanding now of how this works.  You see other disasters happen and you feel sad for the people affected.  You hope for the best, but you can always turn the television off and the disaster disappears.  Your life goes on without interuption.  When you or someone you love is involved the feeling is much different.  You don’t hope for the best.  You hurt for the best.  When the images come on the screen you look for faces you might recognize.  It’s not passive watching anymore.  It’s something totally different.  It’s stressful.  It’s heart wrenching.  I’m hurting for the best outcomes now.  I’m hoping  they get those damn reactors settled down.  My hat is off to the brave men and women who are working on them.  My hat is off  to anybody over there doing their best to help or to just survive.  I know it doesn’t mean much of anything, but there are some Okies pulling for the  people of Japan.  We’re hoping and hurting for you.  Hang in there.

Me and two buddies of mine recently decided to go gambling.  Poker is our game of choice.  We believe we are exceptional poker players.  Most poker players believe they are exceptional players.  If they didn’t there wouldn’t be any  poker games.  We employ the traditional poker player habits.  If we lose a hand we decry our bad luck or we talk about how we knew the person had us beaten but we really thought we were going to fill that inside straight on the last card.  We stare at our opponents and we know exactly what cards they are holding especially when they’ve showed them and are raking our chips over to their pile.  We knew they had it.  That’s what makes us exceptional.  We knew it.  The timing of when we knew it seems to be the main issue for us.  We seem to know what cards our opponents have exactly when everyone else does.  When they  show them after the hand is over.  I still feel like an exceptional player though.  All you have to do is exclaim loudly “I knew it” when the hand is over.  By doing this you convey to the rest of the players that you are in fact an exceptional player and you don’t look so stupid when your pair of threes gets beaten by a full house.
Gambling did sound like a good idea to us.  A guys night out.  Three handsome hardened gamblers being let lose on the unsuspecting card playing masses.  The possibilities were astronomical.  So it was with great anticipation that we gathered ourselves in the awaiting chariot and raced to our destination.  Each one of us had bathed and shaved.  The scent of our Old Spice, Brute, and Aqua Velva after shave lotion mixed in the air to form an intoxicating aroma signifying the big money and high times that was sure to come.  We all had that cold steely glare in our eyes.  We had our cowboy hats pulled down tight.  Drivers in other vehicles made sure to give us plenty of room.  They could tell we meant business.  Soon we saw the glimmering lights of the Indian Casino we had decided to decimate.  Things were going as planned up to this point.  We parked and I swear I could hear eye of the tiger playing as we confidently strode in.  It may have been in my head though.
We were a little early for the card tournament so the first order of business was to get something to eat.  We decided on the buffet at the restaurant inside the casino.  The nice man at the front explained to us how incredible the food was.  It was Cajun night.  I love Cajun food so it was perfect.  Then he told us the  price.  Now I’m not a tight wad by any means.  I’m pretty much like a poor Charlie Sheen with the exception of being happily married and not on drugs.  Well OK I’m not like Charlie Sheen but I am not tight with money.  I just don’t have a whole lot.  So I can’t be just throwing it around willy nilly.  The nice man said 24.00 bucks a head.  He made it sound delicious.  I hadn’t quite gotten my head around the price when one of my friends started to pay his way in.  $24.00 bucks isn’t a lot of money.  It’s a guys nice out.  What the hell.  I pay and prepare myself for this incredible meal.  I won’t go into great detail here but I can describe to you what the food was like.  Let’s say the lunch ladies at a small rural high school in Oklahoma who have never tasted Cajun food and do not have a Cajun  cookbook decide to provide a Cajun menu because they have too  much rice.  They prepare hot dog weiner etoufee, hamburger gumbo, and a crawfish boil but instead of using crawfish they use pencil erasers.  This is what the food tasted like.  I thought about throwing up what little I ate but I couldn’t imagine having it pass through my mouth a second time.  I’ll let it work it’s way downward so it can be released in a more suitable form.  Maybe they could put it back on the buffet when this happens.  I doubt anyone would notice.  I’m working on a $24.00 dollar turd.  Damn.
A bad start to our joyous man trip.  I bitched quite a bit to my friends.  Such is my nature.  I like good food.  I dislike bad food.  It’s pretty simple really.  Good food equals happiness to me.  GF=H.  I perk up a little when I see the poker tables.  I will take my revenge here.  We confidently stride in and get some chips.  We split up.  We play.  I don’t really need to go into details here either.  Let’s just say I knew it and leave it at that.  I left the card playing area and hung around outside for a bit.  One of my friends said I knew it too and he joined me shortly.  We walked around a bit.  I heard some good music coming from inside this club.  We decide to go in and listen a while.  We’re standing in line when I read the sign that is posted by  the door.  It explains the dress code and we are in compliance until I get to the very end.  It says no cowboy hats.  We are in Oklahoma dammit.  No cowboy hats!  I’m really bitching now.  Oh boy am I bitching.  We get out of line and mill around a bit when we see our buddy.  He has won a little and he’s happy.  We’re happy for him or at least we pretend to be happy for him.  We play some slot machines and I see my fortunes diminishing.  I’ve had terrible and  expensive food, I’ve lost most of my money and they won’t let me go in and listen to the live band.  I’m bitching pretty good by now.
My friends take me into a country bar that is inside the casino.  They lady asks what I want to drink and I tell her I want t a dark beer.  Whatever you have.  She says they don’t sell dark beer.  Great.  Perfect.  It’s pretty simple for me really.  Good food, good music, and good beer equals a good time.  I don’t care what it costs.  That’s the combination I require.  In the end I’m drinking a beer that tastes like what I imagine pee tastes like, I’m still after tasting food I imagine what a turd tastes like, I’m broke, and I’m listening to  canned music that I dislike.  Wonderful.
Here is what I need someone to do to me if I ever decide to go back to this particular place.  If you see me walking up to the front entrance please run up and kick me in the testicles.  When I have fallen and over and am writhing in pain please urinate on me getting some in my mouth.  When you are through urinating on me please take my billfold and remove all of my money.  Do this to me with gusto.  Tell any passers by that it’s a new treatment for gambling addiction.  They’ll understand.

When I was eight or nine years old I read comic books, specifically Iron Man comic books.  I’m not sure what the appeal of Iron Man was but I picked him over the other superheroes. It may have been the color of his outfit.  I’d hate to think it was because my sexuality has been of the uninterrupted straight variety and choosing a superhero based on outfit color isn’t an acceptable criterion.  However, I’ve always liked that amber color.  This is, of course, beside the point.  The actual point I’m trying to make has very  little to do with Iron Man and everything to do with those little ads for stuff in the back of any comic book.  The one’s for x-ray glasses and  the like.  The ad that caught my eye was for a pellet gun.
Let me just say that the pellet gun in question looked very good to young boy’s eye.  It was shiny black and looked like it could take down about anything I might want to aim its deadly countenance toward.  It was semi-automatic.  Let me say that again so you can understand the nature of those words.  It was SEMI-AUTOMATIC!  A semi-automatic pellet gun that looked better than any gun I’d ever seen before was too much for my little mind to handle.  Never mind that the picture was no more than an inch wide and an inch tall.  With this gun in  my hand I would be invincible.  I could see myself slinging lead pellets all over the place.  I would be drawing from the hip and protecting me and my family’s territory against any and all enemies whether real or imaginary.  I carefully clipped out the little square from the comic book.  I salivated as I counted my secret allowance stash.  I walked like a man on a  mission to lobby my parents for an envelope and a stamp.  My father took one look at my glorious find and rolled his eyes.  He tried to tell me that re-usable pellets weren’t a good thing.  I replied “well if you dig them out of your kill you can re-use them thus saving money on pellets.”  He had other arguments for me  to hear but my ears had made up their minds not to allow any more of this sacrilege.  Finally they relented.  My envelope was addressed and sent away the next morning.
I’m not old, but let’s say my youth was spent in the pre-internet days.  In those days things took four to six weeks to be delivered.  I’m not sure why the delay, but it seemed like everything you bought from a magazine, catalog, or the TV took four to six weeks to get to you.  Maybe the letter had to go to China.  I don’t know.  I remember the address being somewhere in California.  Is there a California in China?  I’ve not heard of one but I can’t be sure.  I can tell you this, four to six weeks to a kid is an eternity.  Time seemed to stand still for  me after that envelope was mailed.  An hour felt like it took a week to pass.  The only solace I could take was in day dreaming about that semi-automatic beauty.  Finally a  millennia past.  I was a quarter mile down the road at my grand parents house when the phone rang.  It was my Dad telling me I had a package.  I tore down the road and ran as fast as I could.  I didn’t take a breath.  My feet were barely touching the dirt on the road.  I ran into my house breathless and excited.  I’ve never gotten over what I saw next.  My dad was sitting in the floor with a tiny little plastic gun aiming at a tiny little target that my brother was  holding in front of him.  The target was painted on the plastic bag the gun had been delivered in.  Dad was firing tiny round plastic pellets at the target.  Both my Dad and  my brother were smirking.  I was crushed.  How could this be?  There’s been some mistake I thought.  Dad gingerly handed me the gun and told me to be careful with a such a dangerous weapon.  It was small even for my hand.  I aimed it and pulled the trigger.  A plastic pellet puked out of the barrel.  You could have shot yourself in the eye from one inch away and it wouldn’t have hurt.  I squeezed the trigger again and something broke inside.  It never worked again not that I cared.  Devastating.
My son is eight.  He gets on the computer and watches cartoons and plays games.  He knows no other world than the one that is inhabited by computers.  He likes to get on eBay and dream about toys and games he might get for Christmas or his birthday.  Last week he stumbled onto a pellet gun.  He was so excited.  He drug me to the computer and showed me his find.  It was beautiful.  It was a pellet shot gun.  Let me say that once more for effect.   It was a pellet SHOT GUN.  It was black and silver and looked like it could take down a charging elephant.  He quickly got into his allowance stash and counted out the correct amount.  He wanted this beauty badly.  I tried to tell him that re-usable pellets is not a good thing.  He would have nothing to do with my arguments.  I relented and took his money and pushed the buy it now button.  It arrived in three measly days.  Three days is not long enough to wait for something you want badly.  The world of shipping has sped up drastically since my youth.  He arrived from school to see the package sitting on the table.  He tore it open freeing it from it’s captivity.  It was way bigger than  my gun.  It was way prettier than mine.  He tore loose some plastic pellets and loaded her up.  He shot once and a plastic pellet came flying out with pretty good force slamming into the door making a nice spat sound.  He had a look of supreme satisfaction.  He pumped it again and shot with the same result.  He started to say something to me as he pumped it again when it broke smooth in half.  He got to shoot twice.  Twice.  A tear welled up in his eye and I held back the laughter that I could feel wanting to escape.  I told him about my experience and he seemed to feel a little better.  He tried to tape it together but there was no saving it.  It was dead.  I put my arm around him and told him the moral of the story as my dad had done me.  You get what you pay for.   My son and I are forever linked by our experience with cheap plastic toy Chinese guns.  Six dollars seems a small price to pay to learn there really is a sucker born every second.

It’s calving season.  Cows have that look in their eyes.  The look that all females get at this stage of pregnancy.  The look that says, “this was fun for a while, now get this damn thing out of me.”  Most of my spring cows have that look.  They’re edgy.  They’re gripey.  They eat quietly as they give the bull the evil eye.  He knows not to look at them.  He eats with his eyes closed making himself as innocuous as possible.  He doesn’t have one female to placate.  He has over thirty.  I don’t envy  him at this time of the year.  The heifers look especially angry.  They were once young and full of energy.  Now they’re heavy and hungry.  They don’t buck and prance like they did a mere eight months ago.  They drag themselves up to the trough and eat forlorn, their innocence lost.
Some cows have calved.  There are black streaks running through the pasture as calves less than a week old test out their speed and jumping skills.  Their mothers’ are at the troughs chatting and bragging about how fast junior is and how he can drink milk by the gallons, or how he has his daddy’s eyes.  These cows are happy.  The are excited about spring being in the air.  They chat about the tender shoots of grass that are pushing up all over the pasture and how warm the nights have been.  Occasionally one of them will get kicked or butted by a still pregnant cow.  Even that doesn’t dampen their spirits.  There are differences in the cows who have had their calves as well.
The oldest cow in the herd had a calf the same day as a young heifer.  Both cows had no problem.  The calves were healthy and the mothers came through it easily.  About the third day of the new calves lives I noticed a marked difference in the behavior of the two cows.  I drove the tractor over to check the old cows baby and it jumped up and run like a flash through the pasture.  It’s mother was eating hay and watched without concern as I tried to chase the calf back in the direction of it’s mother.  I finally succeeded in getting it turned around and heading back toward the herd.  It blasted past them and kept running.  I gave up on it.  If it’s mother  isn’t concerned why should I be.  Immediately I went to check the heifers calf.  I got too close to it and it jumped and ran like a flash.  However, its mother came running and bawling.  She chased and caught it and comforted it.  Then she turned to me and starting yelling at me.  I waved sorry to her and left the pasture.  I was proud of her for being so protective and I wondered if the old cow’s calf was going to be alright.  Later that day both cows had their calves with them.  No harm no foul.  It reminded me of when a young couple has their first child and they are worried and protective.  They dote and make sure everything is perfect, safe, and clean.  By their second or third child that same couple act just as the old cow does.  They know everything will be alright.  Just relax and let the child eat the dog tick it picked off of the dog.  It’s good for their immune system.  Makes it stronger.
I was telling this story to a very nice person who doesn’t raise cattle.  She was saying “awe” and “that’s nice.”  Then she asked a question that perplexed me at first.  She asked “what did you name them?”  Say what?  What did I name them?  So I came up with a typical smart ass reply.  I told her I named them T-bone, sirloin, roast, and whopper.  She looked shocked and horrified.  I guess it’s understandable though.  We sometimes name a cow.   A cow will be around for a while.  Calves however, are walking cheese burgers.  You can’t name calves.  You’re not going to know them for long.  They’re will be no tearful goodbyes in the fall when they are hauled to the stock yards and sold.  Their destiny is to become food.  You do not name your steak before you eat it.  That’s too weird.  How does Betsy taste mom?  Damn Betsy was cooked perfectly.  No, it’s not what you should do.  Never name cheeseburgers on the hoof.