A Late Valentine’s Day History Treat

It was recently bought to my personal attention by a very eager contributor to The Scorpion Army that I skipped anything about Valentine’s Day yet another year. It’s true, I do skip it, it’s a stupid “holiday” in my opinion. I truly dislike absolutely everything about it, especially the commercialization of how one is to show love or affection. It just blows my mind the amount of money dole out, and for what? I could mention Christmas and Easter as well, but we’ll get back to those another day altogether. Since I’m way behind on the whole email reading thing I’m just now getting to this one, I hope she understands. But, this is an interesting look at the iconic Valentine’s Day heart’s origin, or at least one opinion, and if nothing else it sparked my interest a little. I’ve said for a long time that the worship of the ass of females should be a religion. Anyway, I don’t know where she got the information below or how accurate it is, but it made me smile, so I chose to share.

The familiar double-lobed heart symbol seen on modern day Valentine’s Day cards and candy was inspired by the shape of human female buttocks as seen from the rear. The twin lobes of the stylized version correspond roughly to the paired auricles and ventricles of the anatomical heart, but is never bright red in color and its shape does not have the invagination at the top nor the sharp point at the base. The ancient Greeks and Romans originated the link between human female anatomy and the heart shape. The Greeks associated beauty with the curves of the human female behind. The Greek goddess of beauty, Aphrodite, was beautiful all over, but was unique in that her buttocks were especially beautiful. Her shapely rounded hemispheres were so appreciated by the Greeks that they built a special temple Aphrodite Kallipygos, which literally meant, ‘Goddess with the Beautiful Buttocks.’ This was probably the only religious building in the world that was dedicated to buttock worship.

What the traditional “heart shape” actually depicts is a matter of some controversy. It only vaguely resembles the human heart. The seed of the silphium plant, used in ancient times as an herbal contraceptive, has been suggested as the source of the heart symbol. The heart symbol could also be considered to depict features of the human female body, such as the female’s buttocks, pubic mound, or spread vulva. The tantric symbol of the “Yoni” is another example of a heart-shaped abstraction of a woman’s vulva.

Erections @ Twilight Are The Best

We have been waiting for this momentous day for quite a while. Finally the steel was going up, finally we were having an erection. It marks the beginning of the end, so to say, each day forward should show new progress, each day forward this should start looking a little bit more like the restaurant it is destined to become. One day, in the very near future, this Brewingz will join the evergrowing population of places to eat in this area. I remember, not too terribly long ago, all of this was a large empty field. Soon, this commercial development will close, leaving us who live here, many new places to enjoy and explore. More so, the completion of this Brewingz will bring closure to this project for my company of employment. But, not waiting around, we are already in the preparations in providing bids on new work to be done. For now, the picture taken by me last night, marks the next evolution for this building, and puts us one step closer to success. I’m sure this isn’t the last picture y’all will see of the progress, so don’t worry, I will have more.

White Weddings Are For Fairytales

“I don’t know how young girls get it stuck in their heads that the perfect wedding is one of our life’s goals. When I was a little girl I learned that I desired the perfect white wedding to mark the beginning of my life as being married to my prince charming. What I never knew was how it was all going to happen for me. I suppose one could say I grew up in a typical suburban family, the youngest of three girls, all of us achieving the goal of being a high school cheerleaders while remaining as straight A students. We all followed in the footsteps of our mother who we all idolized, we all wanted what she had, we all wanted to be where she was in life. Being the youngest, I was witness to seeing just how easy it is for one’s dreams to fall by the wayside. Somewhere in high school I began losing my faith in God, not because I blamed him for anything, but because he no longer seemed to have the answers. I grew impatient with him because when I turned to him to find my strength I felt as if I was waiting for something that he couldn’t help me find, myself. I lost myself wanting to be like my sisters and wanting what my mother had. Dreams I would soon find that I could not reach the way they reached them.

Halfway into my freshman year of high school my oldest sister found out she was pregnant. My sisters and I were close, we had a pact to remain virgins until our honeymoon, so I was sure how my sister explained it was the truth. She had attended a seniors only party a few months before, she went with her boyfriend of three years, and she was dropped off by that boyfriend after the party. The truly strange part about it, because my parents had DNA tests done, is that he was not the father of the baby. At the party she did like she always did, just drank diet coke, because she didn’t drink. A few hours into the party she remembers feeling sick so she went to the bathroom, which is where her boyfriend found her thirty minutes later, passed out on the floor. Long story short is that it is believed that someone at the party put some kind of drug into her diet coke, this lead to her getting sick, which lead her to the bathroom, and where someone raped her while she was out cold. Nobody is ever going to know the secret to the mystery. At five months pregnant, the fetus aborted in the middle of the night, we were told that due to unseen complications during the pregnancy that it just terminated on its own. Three days later, during my sisters first night back home from the hospital, she committed suicide. We buried my sister and her unborn daughter at the end of the week.

As a family we took all of this real hard, my parents really closed off the world, even worse, the closed us off from them the most, emotionally and physically. It seemed, at the time, that being the youngest, that I was taking it all in the most negative way, but the following event proved the opposite. Within a month of her funeral, my other sister decided to just disappear from the face of the planet. She left a brief letter to explain not to worry about her, she needed to be far away, and she would be okay because she had a plan. Nice plan, abondon everyone, give everyone something new to grieve about. I personally, have not seen or had contact with her since the night before she disappeared. I continued high school, I watched my parents grow distant from each other, and finally my dad decided that everyone would be best if he left as well. After their divorce, shortly after I graduated, I too, left everything I knew, my mom was heart broken, but said she would always be there for me. I ended up in Houston somehow, came in with the wind one night, broke, hungry, and alone. I didn’t like my current situation so, after seeing an ad I applied for a job and was hired a few days later. That job lasted about a month and one day I heard these two pretty girls talking about the money they had been making. I sat down with them, we became friends, and, in a weird way, showed me an uncertain path.

Which, coincidentally, is where we sit today. I will be 23 in a few days, graduating from Rice University later this fall, after 4 very long years of hard work. I really don’t mind doing what I do, strip for money, because it has actually given me a bright future, one that I can touch, feel, and see. Stripping has given me an education about people, an education that I’m not sure I could have received anywhere else. When I graduate this fall I will be leaving this club and beginning the next chapter in my life, always being very thankful that I overhead a conversation I was never meant to hear.” 

…………. The preceding paragraphs were transcribed from a recorded conversation between myself and Molly, well, most of it was her talking while I listened. I have let technology take the place of my own memory and little black note book when it comes to writing for Scorpion Sting’s Bartender Stories. I’m liking the way it worked out, I didn’t have to handwrite any of it and I just pushed play and pause to thumb type this on my phone. I hope y’all enjoyed this entry, it was sad and happy, just like my own life seems to be, sometimes life is what it is and we must roll with the punches just to survive.

Our Family Thanksgiving Tradition

For as long as I can remember I have went hunting on the weekend before Thanksgiving in an attempt to provide one, if not more, turkeys to prepare for our Thanksgiving feast. Even before I was hunting myself, I was tagging along, learning from my father, my grandfather, and my uncles. I was very excited when I turned 12 because  it was finally my time to join in on the hunt with my family. As the years passed on the tradition was carried on with my own children, it started with my oldest daughter (23 y/o now), my middle daughter (17 y/o now), and most recently with my 12 y/o son. He has accompanied me for many years and after turning 12 this summer he knew it was going to be his turn to bring home a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. My family has a “secret” spot where we bow hunt for turkey. I was entrusted with the location years ago and 3 years ago the ownership of the land was transferred to me when my uncle passed away. This is one location friends never get to go, this is one place that is for family members only, and that tradition has been in place since the 30s and I don’t see it changing on my watch. For the last few years my son has been practicing his bow hunting skills and proved himself recently during bow hunting season when he had a very clean kill of a 10 point whitetail buck from 35 yards at ground level. A technically challenging shot for seasoned bow hunters. Lets just say he nailed it after a long road of education, patience, and dedication.

The first part of the hunt always starts a few weeks before the season actually opens up. We set up stalks to see where the turkey are running so we can calculate the best places for us to set up later. As I stated before, we have been bow hunting this land for many, many years, and for the most part the turkey pass through the same spots by the river year after year, so that is where we start, year after year. There is no need to bait or place decoys because they have a healthy population in this area and a relatively easy to find if you actually know where to look. Granted, there have been seasons so stricken with drought that there were no turkeys, but they always come back sooner or later. My son has mastered the art of the stalk, he has mastered the art of taking pictures in the wild, flagging trees, and mapping out locations with and without using a gps. He like to spend time in the woods without a weapon as well, he likes the connection, and he appreciates that mother nature is willing to provide a great bounty to see that our family eats all year long. He learned early on that in our family we do not buy meat from the store, we hunt, and we provide 95% of the meat that is eaten by our family.

This year, with my work schedule, the rest of my family went out opening weekend and have not returned because they hit their limits already. But, my son and my daughters have yet to go, until yesterday. The way it all ended up working out is my son and I drove out to our location late Saturday afternoon. With just enough daylight left we had time to set up our tent, get a campfire going, and get some food prepared. It was an anxious night for my son, I don’t think he slept at all because he was so excited, he has been waiting a very long time to be able to be the one who brings home the turkey we will eventually eat for Thanksgiving. With the exception that it was 40 degrees overnight, I slept just fine. At 4am I start feeling the jabs from my son, with a dad, dad, dad, dad. Is it time to get up? Is it time yet? Dad, dad, dad, dad. In the distance we could already hear the songs of the turkeys, it was time to get up, eat real quick, and disappear into the woods. At first light we were surprised to see many large turkeys feeding at the edge of the trees. It was very hard to move through the trees and brush because the leaf litter was very crunchy. As we came closer we started getting into the wet litter so we would arrive undetected. We were in place for about 30 minutes when my son was ready to take his first shot. Deep breath, release, breath again. He had made the perfect shot, the turkey dropped immediately. It was the perfect textbook shot from 30 yards. He quickly ran to his bird, assessed his breathing, there was none, so we knew he was dead. My son kneeled by the turkey, put his hand under his limp body, and offered a prayer. “Lord, thank you for this beautiful turkey as this turkey will feed my family and provide happiness for everyone. We thank you for providing this turkey, in your name we pray, amen”. It took me a moment, I was a bit choked up, as I wiped the tears from my eyes I realized my son understood his connection with the land, the animals, and mother nature. It was a beautiful moment to witness.

We packed up to head back to camp where we loaded the ATVs on the trailer, packed the tent, diluted the ashes of the fire, and put the turkey in the cooler in preparation for our travels home. Sunday night we dressed the 23lb turkey and set it to soak in a secret recipe of Wild Turkey, cranberry sauce, sliced oranges, a variety of mild peppers and seasoning, and just a pinch of my secret ingredient. This turkey will rest in this mixture in the refrigerator until late Wednesday night when he will be removed to join the others on my pit smoker for their 12 hour journey into smoked tenderness and bliss. Until then, this post will close.

Fantastic Park Bench Dedication