Being The Father Of The Bride

One would think that the title, “father of the bride”, is to be dealt with lightly, but I’m here to tell you that the weight the title carries buckles the knees of the strongest men. Even I, a simple man, a man who only wants his children to be happy and healthy, has a hard time holding it all together on the ” big day”. Yes, it has finally happened, my 19 y/o daughter tied the knot this past weekend. After months of preparing, the day came and went like a gentle breeze. I’ve been to a few weddings in my life, been married twice of course, but nothing prepared me for giving my baby girl away in marriage, nothing. I’m sure at least a few of y’all are shaking your head in agreement, because you know I’m right.

I’m not going to talk much about the wedding ceremony itself, I think we all pretty much know how those go, and this wedding was no different, but this time it was my daughter who was the beautiful bride. I would, however, like to talk about the reception, because this is the place I learned how much my daughter really knew me, like deep down to my soul knew me, because she found the ways to make a normally emotionless man shed tears not only in sadness but in joy as well. I personally didn’t think I would break down in front of hundreds of people, but it happened. Let’s go back a while first, where it actually started hitting me. It was time now, after she was dressed in her gown, for me to place her garter, a garter she had not seen yet, a garter I searched high and low to find, the perfect garter for my little girl. Little did I know this was to be such a huge event, so many people were there, and the photographer catching every meaningful moment. I had no idea my special gift, my personal touch, and the beautiful garter of lace and satin would be such a “moment” for everyone. But it was, and it was a hard moment for me, it was when I realized that when the garter is finally removed she will be married. Let that sink in a moment, it hit me like a ton and a half of bricks, I was not prepared for the emotions or the brief moments of flashbacks to her childhood, or me as the proudest dad ever.

Soon, the ceremony was over, my little girl was now officially a married woman, and the next chapter of her life is beginning. I had thought I was keeping it together, remaining stoic in my composure, being the happy dad on the outside, hiding the even sadder dad on the inside. I was doing a damn fine job of it too, until my daughter decided it was time for her to give a toast. She raised her glass of sparkling grape and announced she would like to give a toast to her dad, her dad who was and always will be there for her, no matter what. There was more, much more, it grabbed my heart and began to ring out tears and emotion I didn’t even know was inside me. When she was done, when the clapping stopped, I made my way to the front of the room, going behind the table where she stood in happy tears, and we had the second biggest hug we ever had. Then it was announced that the father and daughter dance was going to commence momentarily so we needed to make our way to the dance floor. I was prepared for this once in a lifetime dance, I really was, but I was not prepared for the song she selected. Imagine being in the fellowship hall of the church your daughter was just married in and hear the first musical notes of the song “Changes” by Ozzy Osbourne sung with his daughter Kelly Osbourne, a song that I joked was about us, a song about letting go, and a song about daddy’s little girl growing up. To increase the emotional tug of our song, she had prepared a slideshow of many moments of her growing up, of her and I in the good times and bad, and our dance became the hug that I never wanted to end. So, if you were wondering why that was included at the beginning of this post you now have your answer, I hope you enjoyed it.

I close this post now trying to understand the pain and joy of one’s daughter getting married, remembering that in June of 2016 my oldest daughter will be getting married, and I wonder if I’m strong enough to do it twice. Eventhough I’ve said it a trillion times, I want to tell my daughter that she is truly loved and I wish her one thousand years of happiness. To all my readers, thanks for taking the time to share in some of my personal moments and memories today.

Do You Remember Your First Time?

I Wish I Saw “Jaws” This Way!

Visiting My Old Neighborhood

I found myself out to my sister’s house this week doing some additions and remodeling on a 127 year old house. Nothing big, but big for my 69 year old dad and me. First on that list was replacing the original 67 foot wide covered porch which recently had a tree crash through it, destroying 80% of it. They all did demo last week, then we built it this week. It will be roofed next week when the entire house gets a shiny new metal roof. This house is proof that you can polish a turd to shine like gold.

Anyway, while out at her house I decided to drop in on an old friend from high school. He still lives in his mother’s house in our old neighborhood we grew up in. We had the first two houses built in this development in 1973, we watched the whole neighborhood being built. I haven’t been to his house since going to his mother’s funeral in 2000. As I will explain, much has changed in the old neighborhood in the last 15 years. I also wanted to see the house I grew up in which was three houses down. My parents moved out in 2000 as well, so I really had little reason to go back. As I found out, going after dark was a rather large mistake on my part, the neighborhood has been through some very disturbing changes. Let’s just start with my old family house, which is nothing more than a foundation, debris, and trash. Seems it burnt to the ground about three weeks ago after the meth lab blew up that was in the garage. I called my parents, who are still in disbelief, who drove out today during daylight hours to look at it. When I finally made it to my friends house it was like visiting one of the wards in downtown Houston. There were iron bars on all the windows, the garage doors, and all the doors had heavy duty iron security gates in place. I’m guessing at this time the old neighborhood is not super safe any longer.

I had it explained to me that the last several years there have been really negative changes. The older people were moving out and there houses were turned into rent houses. I’m not saying that created the problem but it did accelerate the problem. Out of 156 homes in the neighborhood, only 4 of them are owned or have a mortgage, my friend owning the one he lives in. I won’t get all stereotypical on y’all since you’re already doing it in your minds for me. And I’m not being racist, there seems to be equal shares of everyone, in fact the clowns that burnt our house to the ground were white, well white trash. It’s a shame to see a neighborhood go this direction in any regards, but we all know it does happen everywhere, even out in little hick towns in southeast Texas. Blaming someone or something is pointless since it is pure economics. Unfortunately in big cities and little towns the low rent houses tend bring in a culture of people that others tend to move away from, that’s if they can, many can’t and they are just consumed by the negative changes happening around them. I’m no sociologist, but I know that the money in your pocket usually determines your living conditions. I am going to end my opinion right there.

I recall hearing on the news a few weeks ago about a meth house burning down in my old little town but missed where it was exactly and dismissed altogether since news in the Houston area every day is full of the same shit, shootings, arson, safe houses, trafficking, car chases, robberies, and so forth. But damn, meth heads blew up our old house. Needless to say, I didn’t visit with my friend very long because I didn’t want to be there to late. I did ask about his heightened security and he told me after two break ins where they stole things easily pawned that he had two choices, stay and fight or move away, he says there are no plans to move.

In the end, its very disappointing to see these now 40 year old houses laying waste in decay, abandoned, burnt out, and boarded up. I’m not trying to be dramatic about it, I know things change, but that shouldn’t mean it all has to go straight to hell. Or does it? Again, yes I know, it comes down to money and economics, plus the right conditions be set in motion, and so forth. If I may be a little nostalgic, I remember the days before the internet and xboxs, riding my bike everywhere with my friends, and seeing the street lights coming on meant get your ass home. As kids we lived outside, we liked the outside, we cherished our time outside, and I can’t recall never being struck with the dilemma of having nothing to do. It was a simpler time back then, a time we never get to go back to, and now all I have are the fond memories of growing up in a great house in a great neighborhood, all of this, of course, before the meth heads blew it all to fuck and back. Okay, I’m done sharing, get back to your lives.

Encounters Of A Dreamer

I will always welcome stories from anyone who is willing to take the time to sit and write a story. I say that very collectively, y’all have seen what gets posted here on this blog and y’all know what I don’t personally post. Yet, the field of opportunities for what gets posted is as vast as the Great Plains of The United States of America, which coincidentally, is where this story comes from, all the way from the outskirts of a little town called Gettysburg, a little place located in the central region of South Dakota. Why is the location of this particular submitter important you ask? It’s simple, for me at least, as I would think people would be less inclined to do allot on the internet in a very rural town of just over eleven hundred people. When she graduated GHS in 2014, she was one of 20 some odd graduates. Seems small to me, I graduated in a class of 667 seniors. I’m just saying. Into the now, now, she is a student here in Texas attending Texas A&M in hopes of attaining her Biomedical Sciences degree. So, in my humble opinion, she has one hell of a brain to be in Texas A&M to begin with, and as y’all will soon see, what her mind sees and how it sees is amazing as well. How did she come across me? Oddly enough she was doing some surfing looking for the big city papers in South Dakota to read some local news, and multiple entries lead her here. Again, I will stress the importance of tagging blog entries. Now, at first she didn’t really want to start reading my blog, but said she was drawn in by many of my stories, she reluctantly admitted “binge reading” all night not too long ago and found herself inspired to “share” a dream she had recently with me and hopefully with the 3 people who read my blog pretty regularly. She expressed that I have a new fan and a new member of the mysterious Scorpion Army. Also, I just want to mention that she also let me know she has a few nice tattoos that I might like and she wouldn’t “mind” seeing them in the tattoo section or as a post here. Interesting, very interesting indeed. And, per her request, I will keep her identity my little secret, so for the express purpose of this post she will carry the alias of LabRat. The picture is credited to her friend who took it for her and has given The Sting Of The Scorpion Blog permission to use it at will. Without further introduction I give y’all the story she has sent me, she explained to me it was a very vivid dream she had and has yet to begin to understand.

Mr. Scorpion Sting ~

First of all I just want to tell you that, eventhough I found your blog by accident, I don’t regret a single moment I have spent there reading and looking at everything it has to offer readers. I never thought I would be writing my dream down for anybody else to read. But I am now, because I think it will help me better be able to explain it’s meaning afterwards. I’m open to the opinions of you and your readers if you care to share. By the way, I hope you don’t mind, I’m now a follower of your blog as well as have requesting to be a part of The Scorpion Army. My dream felt and seemed real, as if the memory I have is of something I actually did. I had to look into dreams and what they actually are, the simple answer is that dreams are a series of sensations, images, and deep thoughts that happen in a person’s mind during sleep. The question I fail, repeatedly, in answering is why I had the dream I did in the first place.

The first thing I remember is sitting at the edge of my bed, stretching, feeling the coolness of the air in the room as it touches my body. As I wander around a house I don’t know I see myself moving quietly in the nude, as if I’m trying not to wake someone. I began to run a hot bath, the steam was billowing out like that of an old steam engine train, I could feel the heat and moisture of the steam but when I stepped into the water I could feel nothing. I continued to stand there under the water, letting it pour across my body like it was rinsing off what I did the night before. I bent down to turn off the water, letting the remaining water drip from my hair, as it ran down my back I could feel a coolness on my skin. After drying myself off I wrapped my hair up with the towel and walked back down the really long hallway back to the room with the bed. The curtains on the windows were pulled back now, lighting the room up with vibrant colors from outside. As I listened to the birds courting in the trees I sat in front of my mirror and put on my make-up, I dried and styled my hair, painted my toenails and fingernails a blazing red, misted myself with a sweet perfume, and when I was done I pushed in the chair and left the room. I watched myself walk, from a corner in the hallway, stalking myself, watching the way I moved, and could feel everything I touched, every step of my bare feet, every breath inhaled and exhaled, and even the smells of fresh squeezed orange juice as they passed along my path.

Soon enough I was walking out the door, still nude, still bare, but as if that didn’t matter, as if it was meant to be, and as if this was the way it was supposed to be. As I passed through the front yard I looked back to see the house I just left fade into the distance, as if the yard was a great distance, but then I am at the streets edge, there are other people walking by, or jogging, and even walking their dogs, none of which paid me any attention. I even kneeled down to pet this man’s small dog, I spoke to him but he didn’t answer, and then he continues to walk away from me. I felt his shirt in my hand being pulled away as I tried to stop him, I screamed “look at me asshole” as loud as I possibly could, yet he pulled away. I chased him, I ran as fast as I could, while he walked he soon disappeared into the distance ahead of me. I found my self at the intersection of a very busy street, waiting with others at a bus stop, I listened as they spoke around me, but never to me. Out of bravery or out of ignorance, I reached out to this woman standing there, busy looking at something on her phone, and I knocked her phone out of her hand with a violent slap. Nothing, she merely has a look of disgust on her face as she picks up her now shattered phone. The other people around her began asking what happened and her only reply was that she must have just lost her grip and dropped it. Ahh, too bad I said to her. She looks right through me to smile at the man behind me who had passed on his condolences for her now dead phone. Wait, what in the fuck is going on! Why cant people see me? Why cant people feel me? Why cant people hear me?

On the bus I sat next to a man doing a crossword puzzle in the paper, when he didn’t know the word he would cheat by looking it up on his phone. I never liked cheaters. I took his bottle of water out of the seat, opened it, and began pouring it all over his paper and his lap, but what people saw was him pouring the water everywhere, very casually, and without thinking twice about it. What is going on? Who are these people around me but so far removed from me. I recognize some of the faces, this is my route, this isn’t my first time on this bus taking this trip. I will see where it leads, I will see where to get off when I know where to get off. But how will I know? I don’t even know where I’m going or why I’m going there. When the bus stops it is in front of a very large and tall building, it blocks the bright sunshine seen around me, everyone exits the bus, most of them heading inside the big building, passing through the doors, until I was all alone on what seemed like a deserted street corner. I feel very alone, scared, emotionless, and decide to go into the ominous building myself. When I get to the doors there is a man standing there in a guard’s uniform, I watched as he opened the doors for each of the people that had come before me but he was standing there like a statue before me, motionless, expressionless, seems very unhappy. I walked up to him, inches away from him, until I was pressed up against him, until I pushed myself closer, I began kissing him on his neck, caressing his chest with my hands, I let my hands slip to his zipper which I undid, holding his very limp member in my hand. I squeezed him, I dug my nails into his flesh, and he had not a single reaction. Then I feel myself being pushed forward by him, he is leaning in to pull the door open for yet another person, one which I snuck inside right behind. The marble floor was extremely cold on the bottoms of my feet, I needed to be someplace else.

I stood in the line where the people waited to walk through metal detectors, have their bagged searched, and a wand passed across them, as if to give the appearance that they really do care. My turn at the gate, nothing to put in the basket, no bag to be dug through, nothing to declare, and no magic badge to identify myself to the guards. As I passed through the metal detector it went off, there was a man 10 feet in front of me and a woman about the same distance behind me, but this thing’s sirens and lights are going nuts. The people around, to include the guards are bewildered, they are talking that the equipment has malfunctioned. No dumbasses, it didn’t malfunction, I don’t think at least, come get me, I’m right here, I feel you touching me as you come closer, but you don’t feel me, see me, smell me, or hear me, your fucking loss, I’m going in. Going in? Going in where? Follow the herd, they are all going somewhere inside this building, just follow the herd. I get on an elevator, packed so tight it was like being in a grinder at a meat market, the smells of 20 people all melting together to make one very bad smelling elevator. So much heavy breathing, it was like listening to an orgy in progress, bodies grinding, rubbing, moving, and the “ding” sounds the start of the mass separation, I’m forced out with a large number of the herd, so I just go with the flow. The moved like ants, all following the scent trail to their destination, one by one they dropped off into offices and cubicles leaving me out, I was standing there looking at people work, looking at people surfing porn on their phones, and even one woman I had followed to the bathroom because she looked suspicious, who sat in a stall, alone with her tiny little vibrator that she put to quick work. She had to bite into the flesh of her arm to contain her moans from her coworkers, faster and faster she went until she almost collapses. She wipes down the still dripping vibrator, slips into her purse, wipes herself down too, then it is over, as fast as it started, without washing her hands she touches up her make-up, tusses her hair a bit, and away she goes.

Bored with this floor I catch a ride on the executive elevator, we’re going all the way to the top floor. These men and women quickly load into a boardroom, get their coffee, muffins, and waters as they all try to find the best seat. When the big cheese enters they all stand, as if to show respect, but only thinking about their chair pushing away as they sit and making an ass out of themselves in front of the boss. Why else would they cling to their chairs? Fear? Speed? When they sit and he begins to speak I find myself on the long table, walking back and forth, looking at the view of the city out of the window. I found it fun to fuck with people’s hair, a little messing up of the different heads here and there never hurt. Then one man, as he brushed his hair back into place touched my hand, he looked right at me as if I had just been caught, stared into my eyes for a moment and then it was over. Did he know I was there? Did he know I was squatted down on the table in front of him, so close I could feel his breath on my stomach? Could he really feel me touch him? Did he really just touch my hand and feel it? Answer me motherfucker! Out of frustration I licked the side of his face, starting at the chin and ending at his forehead, he tasted like a woman. I wonder if that was the taste of his wife. Or was it his mistress? Or is he a sick pedophile fuck? Who are these people anyways? Why am I here? Needing a break I excused myself from the meeting and found myself in the office of one of the kings of this corporation. He’s living large, his office is huge, decorated with some very fine things from around the world. Probably all tax loopholes of some sort. His giant antique leather chair was very chilling to my flesh when I first sat in it, soon after I began to feel the wetness of my legs and ass on the leather, I was perspiring as I sat here, it was very warm, it was making me very sleepy. I cleared a space on this big desk to lay on it, I curled up and fell asleep right there. When I woke, it was dark in the office, dark outside, dark everywhere. I needed to get out. I find he has an elevator which goes straight to the parking garage, how convenient, so I took another ride.

The parking lot was empty, I walked around looking for a way out, then I see a car, a very nice car, with the lights on, as I approached the car I could hear it was running. When I peaked inside I see nobody, the door was open, and I got in. I put it in drive and just stepped as hard as I could on the gas pedal, I was going very fast in a short amount of time. I found the exit of the garage and headed towards it, the gate opens slowly and the guard looks at me in the car but cannot see me because the windows are tinted very dark. Then I just started driving, I drove all around the city, a place which is very different after dark, there are different people out, people who see the world in a different way. I started thinking, wondering about my day, this bizarre day which has also been fantastic. I drove that car fast, the speedometer stopped at 220mph but I kept going faster, every light on the street was green, I just kept going like there was no end, before long the blur of the city lights were far behind me, but I just keep driving. Everything comes to a dead stop, the car is halted by something, I am thrown forward through the windshield of the car, thrown so far I cant even see the car. It’s very dark, I’m very cold as I lay motionless, laid in a shallow puddle of water, face down, only hearing the sounds of the wind and rain. I wasn’t able to move or didn’t want to mover a very long time. I could feel the heat of the sun that came up in the morning, the sting of the sun as it blazed down on my back mid-day, and how I could feel relief as the sun would set again. I the final night I felt this for the last time.

The first thing I remember is sitting at the edge of my bed, stretching, feeling the coolness of the air in the room as it touches my body. As I wander around a house I don’t know I see myself moving quietly in the nude, as if I’m trying not to wake someone. I began to run a hot bath, the steam was billowing out like that of an old steam engine train, I could feel the heat and moisture of the steam but when I stepped into the water I could feel nothing. I continued to stand there under the water, letting it pour across my body like it was rinsing off what I did the night before. I bent down to turn off the water, letting the remaining water drip from my hair, as it ran down my back. I began walking, passing the room I didn’t know, walking wet, walking somewhere, walking anywhere. I went outside, sitting on the stairs of the porch, looking at the car that had been crushed into the giant tree in the front yard. I began walking towards this mangled car, remembering a car similar to this one from somewhere in time, there was blood everywhere, the interior was bathed in blood, the windshield laid a distance away from the front of the car, blood pooled on the hood and ground. I walked forward, seeing something in the distance, something glistening in the light rain, there was a nude girl’s body laid face down in a shallow puddle of blood and water. She looks peaceful, she looks as if she is part of the land, I kneel down, whipping the hair from her bloody face when she opens her eyes, looking into mine. She smiles at me, she whispers to me to that I am feeling no pain, I’m suffering no longer, she takes my hand into hers, pulls me closer until we lay together, together in peace, together forever.

When I woke up in the morning following this dream I remembered as if it happened. The girl was me, I watched myself during the entire dream. I, too, sat at the edge of my small bed, dripping in sweat, wondering what in the hell just happened. My friend and room-mate explained to me that she was woke up by me during the night when apparently I had the bath running at about 3 in the morning. As she watched me walk around the house naked she says she stopped me at the front door because I was trying to go out side for some reason. She took my hand and led me back to bed, where I was tucked in and watched for the remainder of the night. When I saw her when I first woke up she had a very scared look on her face, it reminded me of my mother’s face when she told me my grandmother I was vey closed to had passed away. I told my room-mate about my dream, it freaked her out a little, but she was there for me, held me, and brought me hot tea while I took a very hot bath to soak my aching body. She remained at my side, helping me scrub my back, then drying my hair for me, and eventually we just went down stairs, curled up on the couch and watched movies the rest of the day, old movies from the fifties, seemed like that was all that is on at that time of day. After we talked about my dream that first morning it has never been discussed again. I want to talk to her about it again, I want her to read this thing after it is written on your blog. I appreciate your willingness to share my dream with your audience. Maybe, just maybe someone out there has an explanation. Thanks again, yours truly LabRat.

Get Ready! Get Set! Let’s Gooooooooo!

Most people would frown upon having to be at work before the ass-crack of dawn, but not me. This is my time, this is the time I know that all the people working 9-5 during the week are still curled up in their beds, dreading leaving the comforts they have been enjoying all night long. But that’s not me, I’m the person who roams my house at 3:30 a.m. because I’m plain done sleeping. Regardless if I must go to work or not, I’m up, I’ve always been like this, it’s just the way I’m wired I guess. As I roamed the job site I’m at this morning, in the calm of the morning, still dark, it gave me time to review this past week. As I have mentioned, I have started back to work luckily. With my back to it, I feel the sun beginning to break through the treeline, beginning to become visible over the horizon, peeking through the trees, over the buildings, and of course the power lines which litter the view in any direction one looks. Of course, me being me, me being the one who still likes to meet the sunrise which greets me good morning, needs to grab a picture.

I have missed very few sunrises in my lifetime, and I have a feeling that won’t change. As I took the second picture I could hear my mother whispering in my ear not to look directly into the sun, then I clicked the picture. What can one more picture with me looking directly into a sunrise hurt, right? As I walked the job site, earbuds in, metal cranked up, I saw the overall picture with the changes that had occurred after my departure the evening before. In many ways, I felt a sigh of relief come over me, because it meant that quite possibly that there would have to be very little ass scrambling happening since there is a great deal which must happen today, as smooth as humanly possible, so concrete can be poured first thing Monday morning. I had said I would get into my new job after a few days, lucky you, today is that day, however, there still isn’t much to say, because I’m in training, I’m studying, I’m learning, and luckily for me, remembering things I never even knew that I knew. Don’t get me wrong, I’m learning more that my memory has served me, but combining the two elements has been making my transition easier for me. Whether or not that serves true with my new boss I can’t say, I probably have been frustrating the shit out if him with all of my questions, he has allot on his plate, which he just chews up, only spitting back the plate.

Hopefully I don’t say all of this wrong, but I will try to explain my new job and the eventual role I will be in. I found quickly that much to do with the commercial construction is about a person’s title, not necessarily one’s actual experience. But then you could have my boss, who comes with many, many years of experience, but still has a title. His experience shows through and is reflected in how he works. He offers perfection, and demands one put out their own perfection, he commands this without asking, which is a great way to learn for me personally, to be mentored in a fashion that is well above “industry standard”. He is a rare breed and he makes coming to work interesting. There are many hours of the day that I spend in what I will call ” observation, collection, and absorption”, because that is part of how I learn. What better way to learn, right or wrong, good or bad, people working at their specific trade. Again, luckily for me, I spent many years working for and with my dad, before he retired, as a residential concrete contractor. To my advantage, for a great deal of what is going on right now, I know what they are doing and the concept of what they are trying to accomplish with concrete. I remember the early days when I was part of the crew, the labor, which is how my own dad taught, which was hands on. One does not know the skill of a shovel in the right hands, one cannot respect a person which the shovel if you have never done what he had done. I spent many years with a shovel in my hands, setting forms, moving concrete, and helping turn a once vacant lot into a home for a family to live. Of course, later in life, after the Air Force, my role did change in the family business, where I had the opportunity to get my feet wet on the management and supervisory side of the concrete contractor business. Those lessons, not what I have learned in school, are lessons that serve me well now, because I am being refreshed in how psychology and the stroking of egos is just as important as raising hell when something is all fucked up. I have missed the construction industry since I’ve been out of it, its great to be given the opportunities to get back in the saddle again.

In the end, for now, I’m just the new white guy on the job site. Learning and absorbing as much as I can comprehend to build myself a knowledge base which can only benefit me as time progresses, nobody wants to have dumb employees now do they. Plus, for the second time in my life now, here is a job which involves so much more than just being a mindless zombie laboror. Eventhough I never minded the mindless monkey work because it was work and it paid the bills on time. As time progresses over the next few months I will update everyone as to how my chosen path is going. In reality, the “job” chose me, as I’m very lucky that for probably the first time in a very long time, I was in the right place at the right time to accept this outstanding opportunity. Plus, bonus here people, financially it couldn’t have been more perfect timing. I owe a debt of gratitude to the man who set it in motion and even more to the man who has given me an opportunity not to just have a job, but to have an outfuckingstanding job. Can y’all tell I’m happy? I can tell, it feels great. And now I close with a great selfie, have a great day.

A “Blast” From My Past……………

Anymore when I go looking through things I have had in long term storage, meaning its in the very back, buried in the very bottom, usually under something pretty heavy, long term storage. Lost and forgotten by all practical aspects of not knowing what is even where. In my Air Force days, working in the munitions careerfield, plainly just called AMMO by us, I collected unused ammo cans because they make excellent storage vessels for practically anything that would fit in them. Once I got out of the Air Force, and over the years, pretty much all I have had are gone. The ones I have still today still are being used in the original nature of the cans, to hold ammo. My dad asked me to look and see if I had any extras laying around because he’d found some plans on the internet to make a stove and a portable set of speakers. He wants to make one of each for himself sometime in the near future.

Luckily for him I found three cans, my last remaining three cans being unused, that I gave to him for his projects. All three cans were empty except for one, it held a roll of very unique stickers that I would be required to use way back when. I can’t even remember putting the roll of stickers in there, but when I opened the can, there they sat, unmessed with since the late 90s. Almost like digging up an old artifact in a way. It’s got the best of me as my memories fade, trying to figure out why they were there. Just goes to prove that things sealed in these cans stay well preserved and if I hadn’t opened the can they would still be in that ammo can at the bottom of the pile.

I’m looking forward to seeing the old man’s work as he repurposes these old cans into something someone has dreamt up. One day he will let me see them, I’m sure, and I will post his diy projects for others to try. I just hope I don’t need to dig for any more stuff for him because there isn’t no telling what I will find.

The Big Bad Box Of Wasted Memories

I mentioned yesterday that my mother had forwarded a box to me that basically was full of things I thought didn’t exist any more. I was very surprised, to say the very least, to find the above picture of Shannon and Beth posing for me back in the summer of 1985. The picture was taken the summer prior to the start of my junior year of high school, I was sixteen and knew some very magic combinations, I knew how to have fun exceedingly well. Before I get into what happened that summer want to discuss dead memories and what triggers their revival. For me personally, if I had not went through the contents of the box I may have not even have ever thought of the two girls pictured. But now that I have thought of them, and others, I think it is story time. By the way, the 1978 Ford below is my truck from high school, fully restored 5 years ago, and still one of the trucks I drive in present time. One day, it will be my son’s truck, he helped restore it, and thinks he would like to have it for his first car. OK, story time is starting now. Be forewarned that some of the subject matter may describe illegal, illicit, or explicit accounts in some kind of detail which as an adult, as a parent, I would not approve of if this were one of my children talking.

Going to high school I was not the jock, the nerd, the loner, the rich kid, the smart kid, I was the kid that didn’t stand out, not worried about fashion trends or status, I flew under the radar and it served me very well. That being said, I did play football, basketball, and baseball on the high school teams, but in my opinion, had the skills in the range of average. Imagine, a sophomore, 6’3″ @ around 150# soaking wet. I was long, skinny, and lanky. But, as a first baseman I had some serious reach. As an offensive receiver I had the reach and the sprint speed. In the position of center, I was the only white kid who was regularly dunking the ball to score. I didn’t try real hard at sports, I didn’t like running, and when you hit a skeleton playing football it is painful to the skeleton. And I sure in the hell wasn’t getting any girls because of it either, not even a pity fuck every once in a while. So, I had my own game I played and was very successful at, I figured out how to get all the pussy I could ever want, and I became the dirty little secret nobody talked about. It earned me respect in the circles of guys who were keeping score for all the girls they could score with.

Now, I went to a rather large 5A school, in a redneck town that hosted rival 5A schools, in fact, our graduating class was 414 people just from our school alone. I showed up the first day of my sophomore year driving my 1978 Ford and found that it was an absolute magnet for the girls. They are wanted to be seen in it, and luckily for me, the price for admission was rarely declined. The price? Nakedness. Its one thing to get them naked, but I was greedy, I wanted more from my naked friends, and there was an answer for that as well. I knew that a big truck + a naked girl + alcohol = hot sex for me. It was a grand mathematical equation which never, not even once, failed me. I had a college friend who supplied me with options in the form of whiskey, bourbon, and spirits. Most girls these days had been drinking lite beer or never drank much of anything before so a little tequila would go a long way. Here’s the catch, I would just let them drink what I had, I never asked or demanded sex in return, but everyone knows that tequila makes her clothes fall off. So what to do, she’s drunk, horny, and naked? The answer is now she wants to fuck, she wants to have dirty angry sex that leaves bleeding claw marks on your body. All I did is provided the dick to be rode hard and put away wet.

So, let’s get back to this day at the river with Shannon and Beth shall we. I knew a place on the river that was supposedly accessible only by either foot or by horseback, or in my case a 4×4. So, yea, it was a bit secluded. But, clearly visible to others on the river, just they never figured out how to get out to the sand bars. So, friends and I could party, listen to loud music, drink, grill, eat, and get naked while others missed out. But, on this day on the river, it was just the three of us. To tell the truth I don’t expect the day would end well. Both girls had the reputation for being teases and they did it well separately and even better together. Its fine though, even then I enjoyed watching the half naked girls dancing around, funny how some things just never change. Come to find out, one of them had thrown down the gauntlet because she wanted to be queen of the high school girl teases. As the afternoon progressed, the level of tequila was dropping in the bottles, and the dancing became a hell of allot dirtier. As dusk settled in they were both completely naked, dancing like they were auditioning to be strippers, and then they stepped it up a notch. As I sat in my lawn chair, Shannon slinks over to give me my very first lap dance in life, it will become the lap dance standard which I judge all future lap dances in my life, and I’ve had a few. The grinding of the lap dance was having a wonderful reaction in my shorts and it didn’t take long for this to be noticed, so she would grind harder, digging her nails into my thighs so she could push harder on my lap. Then, all if a sudden she jumps up, walks over to Beth, giving here a tag team high five, which I found meant it was her turn. Now I know where they got the reputation for being a tease team. Not to be showed up, Beth did it harder, slower, and more intense. What are they trying to do, kill me?

I would like to say what happened next has scarred me for life, but that would be bullshit and we all know it. The tag team events continued, ranging from blow jobs, hand jobs, titty fucks, and then the coup d’eta happened which, at 16, absolutely blew me away. They both squatted down between my legs and began making out, a full course of heavy petting, pinching, fingering of each other, and in their spare time had both of their mouths on my dick simultaneously just having their way with me anyway they wanted. At this point I am still just a spectator to the live event unfolding before my eyes that were still in disbelief. Then, then it all escalated, now I was pushed to ground on the blankets, stripped, and they took turns riding me like a mechanical bull. At some time in the later events I recall watching as I blew what can be estimated to be my biggest load of cum across both of their faces. Once they made sure I was tapped out empty, they proceeded to lick the cum from each others face. When everyone caught their breath we went for a moonlight swim, both of them still very playful to say the least. Soon enough the tide had rolled in and we became very much stranded. Toss a few more logs on the fire, crank up the music, and the party continued. I woke up to the sun shining in my face with Shannon and Beth curled up next to me. All I can’t think is how exhausted I am, with a huge shit eating grin of course.

On the first day of my junior year in high school, I crossed the threshold as a legend amongst the people I knew who were stuck on the river bank that night. As far as Shannon and Beth? They returned to school as well, seniors this year, attending, as always, our rival high school. As I walked down memory lane while writing this post I had a sensory overload, I could smell the open fire, the river, and a faint remembrance of how their lite perfumes mixed on their sweaty bodies. I went to a joint high school reunion a few years ago and saw them both, I had heard the gossiping, both on their 3rd husbands, both with housefuls of kids, each with one in college. They both looked very different at that time, as we all do for sure, I didn’t think they recognized me until one of them said “hey, your that guy that had that really cool truck in high school”. Yep, I’m that guy. My wife asked about them and I told her I would tell her about it one day, that day was actually last night. And now, here I sit, reviewing what I have written, and have decided its time to close this story about my youth, for there are many more days for many more stories. Thanks for stopping by and having a read, I always appreciate visitors to my blog and always look forward to your return.

Cleaning Out The Closet, Literally

At best, many of the younger readers here have never had the opportunity to ever own, what is now considered, a piece of iconic history, something we used to call a “boom box” or a “ghetto blaster” back in the day. And, if you are wondering, the picture above is just such a relic from my younger years, this is what our “portable music device” looked like. Many, like this one, could be plugged into a wall outlet or have the ten (10) D size battery option. But, we could take our music, carried separately, to play anywhere we pleased. But, enough about my very vague history lesson, that’s not what this post is actually about, it is partly about how we personally like to hear, listen, and feel the energy our music choices.

So, anyway, y’all may have read that I’m unemployed once again, boo hoo me, so I decided to go out to my shop and “piddle about” for a while, listen to my heavy metal music loudly through my ear buds plugged into my cell phone. Its not an uncommon site to see me, yes even at my age, having my music playing directly into my head, cooking off brain cells left and right, for the pure enjoyment of it. As a bonus, it blocks out the “noise” of the world around me. My wife calls my music my “security blanket”, I call it bliss. Let’s just say I have enough digital music on my devices (two devices) that if played straight through, 24 hours a day, I wouldn’t hear the same song twice or repeat for around 27 months (that’s just shy of 20,000 hours of music). Now, add in that I have over 100 eight-track tapes, over 300 vinyl albums, 200 plus cassette tapes, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 450 plus audio CDs. And yes, I have ” old school ” devices from back in the days to listen to it all. Anyway, I was looking for an old wood chisel set buried somewhere in the shop storage closet to clean up some detail work on a old mantel piece I rescued from this last place I worked for the two weeks. It was a beautiful piece of hand tooled wood that was replaced with a more modern piece of polished marble. Anyway, I saved this 7′ behemoth from the dumpster, knowing I could bring it back to its original 40’s glory.

As I dig, I move shit from here to there and there to someplace else when I find the antique wooden box (circa early 50’s) that had been passed down from father to son a few times over the years, sitting on a shelf under something covered in an old sheet. Lifting the sheet revealed my old boom box. I quickly became sidetracked, yanked the sheet off, and took the old friend out to the work bench. When I plugged her in all the lights came on and everything, I don’t think it has had power put to it since ’99, so I was impressed. I noticed a cassette tape in the in one of the spaces, pressed play, and out of the speakers came, very clear I might add, the voice of Ronnie James Dio, singing “Don’t talk to strangers”. I was transported back in time, to another era, to the day I bought this cassette, upgrading for mobility, to have another format besides the vinyl, that could be played on the go. Do you remember going into music stores just to browse? The musty dusty smell of a place where every generation was welcome and had a place? I sure do, very fond memories indeed. There was certain satisfaction, an anticipation if you will, of walking out of the music store, not being able to wait to get into your room, close your door, and slowly open your new music. And then, then the feeling when you pushed play for the very first time, a virgin tape no longer, hearing the pre-song static, and then, only then, would the sweet music of your choice start leaking out of the speakers, I call this moment one’s musical listening climax, because now you can lay back and just listen. Too dramatic?

Needless to say, the ear buds were out for the rest of the day, as I listened to Dio many times, front and back, never skipping a song, it was a bliss amidst the chaos for me, I was consumed with it, I even caught myself smiling a time or three remembering the past. Funny how music works that way, funny how music can change one’s mood almost instantly, and funny how when life blows or life glows, I turn to my friend, I turn to music. A few of y’all will understand me and the rest of y’all are still scratching your heads. Read the caption in the picture below, if you understand it then you know what I have always known. And, thanks to Rexi, I borrowed it from her Facebook wall, I thought it would really bring my point home.

The Twisted Date With My Ex-Wife

I have been sitting here going over the meeting I had with my ex-wife on Saturday and for the life if me could not think of a title to refer to this post. Then it occurred to me, just call it what it is because there is no other explanation. I’ve mentioned it has been easily five years since I have seen my ex in person and at that time the only words spoken were fuck you as we passed by one another in a crowded gymnasium for our daughter’s high school graduation. I guess I wasn’t paying attention to her looks then since I can’t for the life of me remember. That becomes important here in a bit. I was going to give y’all a play by play of the evening, but there would be way too much quoting am I’m feeling lazy tonight. The picture above is important as well, remember that in this relationship with my ex I am always the mongoose.

At a little after 7pm the intercom for the front gate pops up my phone, since I get the video as well I knew exactly who it was, how nice for her I thought, over 2 hours late. Since I was out in my shop I opened the gate, instructing her to park in the drive, and then wait for me because I had to walk back up to the house. A few minutes later the door to the shop opened and there my ex stood. Shaking my head I told her since she couldn’t listen and wait, go ahead and get in the truck so we can head back up to the house. Her only comment to me was how, in her opinion, my shop was kinds messy. Great, thanks for noticing. Being overly polite I asked her if she would like to come in to see the house while I grabbed her package. She didn’t say yes or no, she just got out and started walking to the back door. Whatever. When we came into the kitchen my wife and son were sitting at the bar eating some cherries. The two women gave that look to one another that women do, stating dominance to the other while being grinned back at. I know you people have seen this exchange before. It was the first time these two have ever been this close to one another, like seven feet or so, with very sharp knives in both their reach.

Now, as we walked out the door I noticed something I haven’t even thought to think about since the mid 90s, but the swing of her ass caught my eye. It was strange, very strange. We got into my truck to go eat, discuss her problems with the IRS, and then head back to my housee so she could get the hell on her way. We went to a favorite place if mine, The Texas Roadhouse (I know, how cliche), neither of us ordered alcohol, in fact we both ordered food right away. I had prime rib because we were at a steak house, she ordered a salad, because we were at a steak house. Apparently she no longer eats the flesh of animals, glad I ordered my very bloody rare. She brought up the papers, if she could see them, and I pulled out the document releasing me from any further legal liability. At first she refused, dinner was over, she paid, and we left. There was absolute silence driving back except for the Ozzy I had playing on the radio. We pulled up to the house, I told her goodbye, and I was heading into the house. I almost made it, her pride almost made this whole adventure worth it, but then she called me by my actual name, asking me to wait because she wanted to sign the papers so she could have her copies. Fair enough.

It was done, I went inside to make a copy, and then I went back out. When I handed her everything she purposely let her hand gently touch the back of mine. Then it hit me, bitch you are sting a low life cunt. We were done. I went in and she drove down the driveway. I grabbed my cigarettes and two bottles of water, then went back out to the deck, lit my tikis, and had a seat at the table. The inky thing I was thinking was I was glad the night was over. She will never change, she always believed that she could not fail, perhaps I should introduce myself now. I should have just mailed her shit to her, a day late.oh well, the deed is done and that is that.

My evening ended on a positive note though, my wife came out the back door, walked up to me, put her arms around my neck from behind, kissed me on the cheek, and then slinked over to the hot tub not wearing a stitch. She always knows how to bring a genuine smile to my face. And that, my friends, is where this story ends.