Fear Of Our Own Defense

Our relationship to the idea of guns, and gun ownership is shaped, at least partially, by the stories the media chooses to disseminate. If a man with mental problems shoots his wife and children anywhere in the U.S., or a disgruntled worker, or student, shoots up a job site, or school, it ends up on the front page of every paper, and is a headline on every Internet News site. And in the aftermath of such an occurrence it is always the same, a renewed push for the elimination of gun ownership among private citizens, as if the men would not have obtained guns illegally to harm their families, co-workers, or fellow students.
The hard facts of these situations are that, had someone else in the workplace, or school had a gun, the loss of life would have been minimized, or even eliminated. And if the prospective shooter knew that many of his fellow students, or co-workers, carried guns he would probably not have put himself in the situation to begin with. As our culture has become a ‘Gun Free Zone’ for good guys, any idiot can surmise that if he wants to do someone harm, he can feel fairly assured that his would be the only gun on the scene.

A host of news reports about a school shooting in which several students were killed decried the fact that the killer used a gun, but made no mention of the fact that an off-duty policeman in the vicinity of the school, hearing the shooting, ran a hundred yards to the campus and killed the assailant before he was able to take the lives of even more students. No one on that campus, including campus security, carried a gun. I said, “No one on that campus, including campus SECURITY carried a gun.” Essentially, they were all victims. The off duty cop was a hero, he saved many lives with his bravery and quick response, but in the vast majority of major news outlets there was virtually no mention of him having come to the aid of the campus. Why do you suppose?
Well, let me take a guess. Because it demonstrated, in quite a dramatic fashion, the importance of citizens being able to protect themselves, and others, from the actions of a demented few? Prior to the off-duty cop’s arrival on the scene, everyone on that campus was at the mercy of one deranged individual. The only reason we ever heard about this cop is that he and his family began speaking out about the importance of law-abiding citizens being able to protect themselves. It was reported as a minor detail in the initial story in the local paper, and was intentionally overlooked in the national media.

For every sensational shooting there are a thousand instances of people having been protected, or saved, by a gun owner. You will never hear about those people. It just does not suit the agenda of those wishing for you to remain powerless, subservient, and dependent upon them for (the illusion of) your safety. It is much more newsworthy (sensational) to read about an individual getting murdered by a handgun, than it is to read about someone preventing a murder, a robbery, or an assault, with a handgun.

You may be opposed to private citizens carrying guns, because that’s what you’ve been conditioned to think, but if someone walked into your office and started shooting up the place, you’d kiss the shoes of the guy who pulled a weapon out of his desk drawer and stopped the carnage before it got around to you. Where the rubber meets the road, that’s how we know what we really believe, regardless of what we may profess. The rest is just psycho-babble.

All these wealthy ‘progressive’ politicians, and social engineering phonies who want to take your rights and leave you unprotected? Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret; they own guns. That’s right, folks; they own guns. They’ve got one in every desk and on every night stand in their house. The Dianne Feinstein’s and Barbara Boxer’s of the world? Politicians who not only support, but push, agendas to disallow your ownership of guns? Well, what a surprise, they just happen to be registered gun owners. They understand the importance of self-protection. They just don’t want you to have the same rights they do. Imagine that, politicians practicing a double standard. Who would’ve thought? I’m not making this up. Check it for yourself, it’s on record. Are their lives any more important than yours?
Gavin Newsome, the mayor of San Francisco, the guy who tried to make San Francisco a ‘gun-free zone’, do you actually think he doesn’t own one? Several? He’s not an idiot. He knows that the guy that breaks into his house is going to have a gun, and he knows he better have one too. Is his life any more important than yours?

And we wonder why the bad guys dominate our society like they do.
We wonder why we feel so powerless.
It’s like if we chose to surrender our nuclear weapons, but China, North Korea, and the Russians, got to keep theirs.
How well do you think that would work out for us?

Being A Father

Being a father is something it would be good to have a trial run at. Unfortunately, whoever designed the rules for life didn’t build that option into the equation. You are either a father, or you are not. It’s not like the Olympic time trials, or anything like that. They don’t give you a qualifying meet, or a practice run to hone your skills, your timing, or your understanding of the event. You’re just not a father one moment, and then you are. It happens that quickly. Oh sure, some men practice by getting a dog, or by sitting for an hour with a friends baby while she gets her hair done, and that’s helpful, but lets face it, that’s not even pretend fatherhood. That’s really just pet ownership, and momentary baby watching.

But, although there is no real substitute for actually being a father, there is a School of Fatherhood. It’s called ‘the experience of your own father’. Problem there is, you’ve got to be discriminating and choose the school very carefully. Like with communities, there are some good schools, there are some bad schools, and there are some really bad schools. Some people move their families miles away from their active lives just to live in a district where there is a really good school. Because, the thing is, whichever school you end up attending, you’re going to learn something there. You’re going to learn some really good things in a good school, and you’re going to learn some really lousy things in a bad school. Sure, you might learn a little bad from the good, and a little good from the bad, but the over-riding influence is going to coincide with the nature, and character, of the particular environment. There’s no way around it.

And so it is with ‘the experience of your own father’. There are some good ones, and some bad ones. There are some loving fathers, and some brutal ones. There are complete fathers, and some broken ones. Some are well meaning, while some are rife with indifference. There are those who do the very best they can, and those who gave up that struggle a long time ago. A child who wakes up daily to a good, loving, well-meaning, and motivated father is going to have those qualities instilled in him/her from an early age. I think we all know that. And, unfortunately, the converse of that is equally true. The experience of one’s own father is one’s primary education in fatherhood. It is both one’s training, and one’s blueprint for actually being a father himself. Those who have been fortunate enough to have good fathers need only make minor adjustments in the practice of fatherhood to be equally successful in the role. However, those who have grown up with fathers battling personal demons, driven by ambition, crippled by alcoholism, or beaten down by life, are likely to spend many years, as young fathers, just trying to sort out what being a father actually means. That’s a lot of negative reinforcement to get past in order to get to the magnanimity of fatherhood. Yes, magnanimity. In my mind, it is the best conceivable definition of fatherhood. Magnanimity: ‘Great generosity or noble-spiritedness’. Magnanimous: ‘Very generous, kind, or forgiving’. Qualities that actually contain most of the other character traits a child would want in a father.

It seems to me that children absorb their mothers, but tend to study their fathers. I know, that can be construed as a really sexist, and controversial, statement, but that opinion does not make it any less true. The image I have is of a child breast feeding (absorbing his mother), while looking across the room at this strange man (studying his father), wondering who he is, and what he’s doing here. All the while, the child thinking, “I better keep an eye on this guy.” And he/she continues to do that throughout his/her development, and throughout the father’s life. The mother, being more accepting by nature, is generally more accepted and embraced by the child for just being mom. That’s what the child has learned. But dads become more the standard by which children measure themselves, and the example (positive or negative) through which the child sees the world. And I AM going to say something controversial now. I believe the same is true of the male, and of the female child. I believe that children expect, and most often receive, acceptance from the mother, but seek approval from the father. With the incredible absentee rate of fathers in the home today, is it any wonder that so many young females are growing up to be personally, and socially, out of control? Being out of control has long been the semi-exclusive domain of boys, and young men, who have imitated irresponsible fathers, or who have failed to receive the approval necessary for their development as men, and potential fathers themselves. Girls, and young women, however, seem to be rapidly surpassing boys, and young men, on the recklessness chart.

Fathers Day is a good time to, not only honor your own father, but to reflect upon the kind of father you would like to be. It is a good time to give pause, to consider the particular School of Fatherhood that you attended, the impressionable experience of your own father. It is a good time to commit to the example set by him, were he a good one, or to reject the model he may have created for you if he were not. Take portions of who he is, and discard others, if that is what works for you. In any event, there are fathers in, or around, your life who may not necessarily be your own, but men you can emulate, men you can know will enable you to be a father of profound, and honorable, influence for your child.

And that is what’s important.

Sake's Bones

I dug up my cat’s bones yesterday. His name was Socrates. I called him Sake. I’d buried him a couple of years ago, a few feet from the place where he died. He’d gotten too old to defend himself against the pack of dogs that had hounded him for years. Sake was not afraid of them, but they were always afraid of him. Sake slept in the sun with one eye open, while they never quite mustered the courage to get too close. But finally, in his weakened condition from age and arthritis, the dogs ended their long and frustrating struggle wrestling with the bravado of their own nature. They moved in like a carload of gang bangers. They killed my cat, and left him laying there, their compulsive mission finally accomplished.

Sake wanted to be napping in the sun, and he knew the risks. I knew the risks as well, but it was clear, Sake would rather die on his own terms than live in confinement under someone else’s. It’s a choice we both made. The dogs were not going to go away, they were a permanent part of the rural environment. We knew that very well. All things considered, the outcome was inevitable. We had sixteen good years together though, Sake and me.

I’d buried him in my T-shirt, the one I was wearing when I found him. Digging him up a few days ago was actually a joyous moment in time for me. I brought him to our new home, his new home, and final resting place. I brought the rock I’d found that was the exact shape of his body when I found him lying on the ground. I placed it over his resting place. And I brought the 150 lb. rock I used for his headstone. They will remain with him. It is both the completion, and a continuation, of his unusual life.

Our lives together began when I was working as the Senior Counselor at a substance abuse rehabilitation clinic in San Francisco. One of my clients brought a little three-week old kitten into my office and said she found him in the street. His whiskers were burned; he was disheveled, cold, and abandoned, much too young to be without his mother, in desperate need of a surrogate. I told my client I’d keep him. Because he could not be left alone, I brought him to work with my every day. I fed him milk from a bottle. He lay quietly in my desk drawer during counseling sessions, snuggling my unlaundered T-shirts to bond with my scent, and he lazed on my desktop between sessions. Ultimately, he proved to have a tremendous humanizing affect on my clients. I named him Sake, and it seemed as if almost everyone on my caseload was anxious to keep up on his progress and development. Sake served as a mirror image for many of them in many ways, and he gave them something outside of themselves to care about and make an emotional investment in. As they participated in his gradual recovery, they experienced their own as well. Those days were filled with small miracles, prompted by an innocent, abused, and abandoned little kitty.

As Sake grew older I began to leave him alone at home during the day. He acclimated to my apartment, and enjoyed his afternoon naps on the sunny deck. I fixed him up with a litter box made out of a large skylight. It was more like a sandbox than a litter box, with sand I’d collect from Ocean Beach. It took up most of my bathroom, but I didn’t care, he was deserving of a royal sandbox. He had a pretty rough beginning. I later taught Sake to use the toilet, but that lasted for only a couple of months because, with my increased need to be away from the apartment, I became lax in the supervision. Anyway, he was a pretty damn smart cat.

Since back in 1973 I’d always worn a small gold hoop earring. Sake and I were partners, of sorts, and he wore a small gold hoop earring to match my own. I did the piercing myself, the old fashioned way with a needle and a potato. No squirming, whimpering, or complaining from Sake. Not a shiver, and not a sound. He trusted me implicitly. The earring immediately became just part of who he was. I can’t really explain it. Those who knew him understood that. It was just Sake. It was just him.
Sake was also a retriever. I can’t explain that either. I built a ramp for him from the floor to the ceiling, against a wall in my small apartment, with a series of switchbacks and landings. Something for him to play on, to get some exercise, and help him to keep from being bored indoors. Sake would run up and down that ramp. I’d throw something up to one of the landings, or all the way to the top, and he’d run up to retrieve it, bring it back down, and drop it in my hands, or at my feet. He always preferred retrieving bent up pipe cleaners to anything else. It was a pretty remarkable thing for a cat to do, but again, it was Sake. It was just Sake.

Later, when I lived in Glen Ellen, in the Sonoma Valley, a rural area north of San Francisco, I built another ramp for him from the window to the ground so he could go in and out of the house on his own. Sake was an independent cat. “Independent Cat” sounds like a redundancy, but he really was his own creature. He rode on my motorcycle with me, enjoyed canoeing with my wife and I, camping, following me on walks, the whole gamut of life that you would not necessarily associate with a cat.

I have a fond memory of one morning when my wife and I were beginning a trip down the coast for a stay at Pismo Beach, before going on to San Clemente for a family visit. We were in the car, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, about an hour from home, when we heard a faint sound coming from the rear of the car. It sounded like a whimper, or a cry, just barely audible. In fact, it was so faint that we each questioned whether or not we’d actually heard anything at all. But as we listened more intently we heard it again. My wife reached around to the back seat, and pulled open the little seat divider that allows access to the inside of the trunk. I was watching in the rearview mirror as Sake, looking both relieved, and embarrassed, shyly poked his familiar face through the opening to announce that he was going to Pismo Beach with us. Watching us pack, and knowing we were leaving, he’d jumped in the trunk just before we closed it up for the trip.

He wanted to be with us.
That was Sake. It was just him.

I can see the rock outside my window.
The one under which he now rests.
A comforting reminder, a strong sentinel,
guarding Sake’s bones.

The View Is Different

Well, it's been a while, and I hope you haven't yet forgotten me. I'm finally moved, but still only partially settled. The process has been grueling, and quite demanding mentally and physically, but well worth the toll on my not-so-quickly-recovering body. In any event, I've been finding some moments in the very early morning to begin to get back to my writing.

The view is different from here. Not just the external view, but the internal one as well. Geography does change things. We bring ourselves along wherever we go, but we mix with a new setting to form a different dynamic within ourselves, one that has never been formed before. It is true wherever we go, wherever we are.

The stress level alone, for example, increases, or diminishes; depending on the particular environment we might find ourselves in. For me, in this one, it has already begun to decrease dramatically. When I leave my home now, the route takes me down, and along, a beautiful meandering mountain road six miles into town. I do not have to drive through traffic and congestion to get someplace, nor do I on the return home. There are lakes near by, there is the river, and there are the creeks. There are trails for walking and riding. Unlike in the urban, or suburban centers, there is a natural order of things here. There is a sense of peace, of tranquility, of oneness with myself, with my own soul. There is a sense of being here, a sense of permanence, rather than the feeling of being waylaid on the way to someplace else.

Different environments create different responses in different people. This setting creates an optimistic one for me, and a thankful one. The happiness quotient is at optimum. I can breathe here, I can think, I can hear the proverbial sounds of silence. And when the silence is gone, it is only because the birds have joined together in song. A natural choir, in perfect harmony, and in perfect pitch, unlike my feeble efforts at communicating my own songs, there is no struggle in their sound.

I can walk with my wife, and with my dog, Chica, on my own land, on the trails that run from the house, past the barn, by small green meadow’s, through lush and beautiful forest, connecting me to earth, and sky, like tall pines have connected the two for ages. I wish each of you could share this with me.

The view is different here. From inside myself,
and through my own window.

Goin' Up To The Mountains

Friends,
I'll be takeing a little break here for awhile, maybe a couple of weeks.
I'm moving out of the Sonoma Valley up to the mountains, by the rivers and lakes,
the tall pines, just a little closer to heaven. Found some beautiful property, enough to
get lost in on a lazy afternoon, a place for my new puppy to run, a great house, with a great barn, and a beautiful sky hangin' just overhead.

My wife and I will rest there, we'll embrace the beauty of God's creation, we'll find new inspiration, and I'll continue to write and record. Coyote Studio's will be going up the mountain with me.

I may not get around to writing Coyote Tracks while I'm getting moved and settled, but you never know. My novel "Wilderness" continues to be on hold. Been writing it in my head though, and I'll get back to that in a while as well.

So, check in if you like, you may find an occasional posting, but if not, you'll at least know why.
And I'll be back to ya before you know it.

Denes

Mental Chronicles

-Ever notice that tomorrow never gets here, and the present never passes?
I’m sure I’m not the first to make that observation, it just bears repeating.

-Oh, and yesterday never goes away, we just carry it invisibly into the present where it influences every tomorrow.
Actually, this is an observation it wouldn’t hurt for most of us to make a little more frequently.

-If we were more like Willows rather than like Oaks, the winds of ruin would just pass through us, rather than knocking us down. Their strength is in their flexibility.
But then again, a Willow would be a difficult tree to try and climb, or to build a tree house in for your kid. Or to crouch behind if the bad guys were shooting at you.
We need both kinds of trees. And both kinds of people.

-In talking about the political climate of different places to live, I said to someone “I don’t really fit in anywhere politically.” He said “I don’t either, in fact, in the South people think I’m a Communist, and in Marin County people think I’m a Nazi.”
Sounds to me like the sign of a balanced individual.

-I’ve noticed that since this Nancy Pelosi CIA torture thing has come to light that her approval rating has plummeted. What surprises me, however, is that Nancy Pelosi ever had an approval rating to begin with.
I saw an on-line poll that asked “Is Nancy Pelosi a liar?”
Of course, my first thought was, “We need a poll to determine if it gets dark at night?”

-Anybody tired yet of the cliché ‘Going Forward’? Beginning to seem like a convenient, and disingenuous, way of overlooking, and ignoring, the present? And of glossing over how we actually arrived here in the first place?
Or as Nancy Pelosi has said, “Going forward I will have nothing more to say on this matter.”

-Feathers float around, riding on the wind, looking for a momentary place to land.
Kind of like kids in their teens and early twenties.

-Saw a segment on Bay Area TV last night about a new business in Palo Alto exclusively targeting (I mean catering to) children. A day-spa offering manicures, pedicures, facials, hair styling, massage, and full body and spa treatment. It’s intended to accommodate girls specifically, although little boys are quite welcome, individuals or parties, ages two to about eleven. Yes that’s right, I said ‘ages two to eleven’.
Well, it’s about time somebody filled this long overlooked niche. I’ve been concerned that girls were not being sexualized early enough in life, or being groomed in the culture of vanity and self-absorption until maybe twelve, well past their prime.
I’ve also been afraid that boys were going to have to wait until their teens to ‘discover’ their ‘feminine’ side.
Good to see that somebody’s looking out for our kids.

-You’ve all seen and heard the endless commercials for ‘Male Enhancement’ products,
haven’t you? By the sheer volume of them you’d think every male in the country needs enhancing.
Well, I’d have to agree with that in one respect. With the continuing feminization of our men, and our boys (see above), it does seem like what this nation needs more than anything else is some good old-fashioned Male enhancement.
C’mon men, get a grip!

-By my count I’ve posted 140 blogs since beginning this endeavor. I’ve decided to put each one of them on the back of a T-shirt. 140 T-shirts, one blog on each shirt. So, the first 140 people to cover the range of Titles, who send in the name of the one blog they happen to agree with, will get their own custom screened shirt displaying that particular Coyote rambling.
Something for the guy behind you in the unemployment line to read while you’re both waiting for a break.

-I notice that the President just dangled some fresh meat over the crocodile pond.
I mean he just submitted the name of his Supreme Court Justice nominee for confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill.

-I was just wondering if people wonder about whether or not other people are wondering about them.

The Madonna Diatribe

First, let me say this, if I write negatively about someone it is because their self-serving lives have a continuing negative impact on our culture. Or because, after getting rich undermining the values that hold our society together, they now put themselves in the public eye wrapped in a new veil of righteousness. Duplicity is a word that comes to mind.
I write about Madonna not because I dislike her, although I do, but because she’s a malignancy that has infected, and continues to infect, our culture.
You know what I’m talking about.

Funny, how if you or I were caught buying a child from somebody else it would be a felony punishable by imprisonment. But when Madonna buys a little boy, I mean ‘makes a donation’ to build a Caballa Center, I mean a ‘school’ in Africa, she’s given a child in return, and it’s called an ‘adoption’.
Even though, I might add, the boy was not even an orphan.
And now she’s trying to buy a little girl?

Have you noticed how the Madonna’s of the world, who’ve purchased about everything there is on earth to buy, including men, invariably seem to turn their attention to buying children to add to their impressive collections of ethnic art.
Oooh, did I say that?

I see that the young model she’s just purchased, I mean her new boyfriend’s, name is Jesus. But of course, who would’ve expected anything else? Don’t be surprised to see, as her next conquest, Madonna trying to find a way to sleep with the Pope. Might be her most difficult undertaking, however, since the Pope probably doesn’t need the money.

Speaking of Madonna, do you remember the suck-face, lip-locked, tongue wrestling kiss she planted on Brittany Spears at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards? Well, I remember telling my wife at the time that it would be the kiss of death for Brittany. I told her, “Just watch what happens to Brittany now.” Then, along with the rest of you, I watched her life fall apart in public. It was a devastating few years for her, and it has been nothing short of unexpected that she survived the aftermath of that kiss. Now, I don’t know Brittany Spears, but it appears as if she has begun reclaiming her life. And as much as I dislike the images these pop stars project for our sons and daughters, or the self -absorbed egocentric worlds in which they live, I do wish her the best. The odds of Brittany having a good life were pretty well stacked against her by the handlers who produced her early fame and fortune. Brittany was exploited. A girl that age is not even capable of informed consent. Her parents were, but that’s another story. Madonna’s moves, however, every one of them, have been self-calculated from the very beginning to exploit the naivety, and vulnerability of young girls.
And yes, I believe the kiss was intended by Madonna to be a kiss of death. She sucked the remaining breath out of Brittany and used it to resurrect her own salacious career while Brittany was left flopping around like a fish in the gutters of Hollywood. Madonna has always been a psychic vampire, preying upon the vulnerable lives of our daughters.

Oh, and has anyone noticed that, since that kiss, girls and young women have been falling all over themselves to get in sexual relationships with other women? Starting, of course, with a kiss on a dare. It’s become the popular thing to do. Madonna made it cool, and these impressionable, ungrounded, liberated woman wannabe’s have been lining up like sheep to replicate the illusion of cool. Ooh, cutting edge.
It’s Madonna’s Truth or Dare brought home to the mainstream.
Lovely lady.

Madonna is now, and has for sometime, been authoring children’s books, because, y’know, she feels there is no better influence for your kids than the Material Girl herself.
Perfect.
Thank god we’ve got her profound, and innocent wisdom to pass on to the next generation of impressionable children.


Hopefully this diatribe will satisfy the celebrity Jones of my readers so that I can now get back to doing what I do best
. . . . . . . . . observing more sophisticated forms of wildlife.

I Need For You To

“Emory, I need for you to come here.” “Ashley, I need for you to put your coat on.” “Damon, I need for you to stop talking like that.” “Jacob, I need for you to get in the car.” “Christopher, I need for you to get off the swing.” “Abby, I need for you to have a drink of juice.” “Taylor, I need for us to leave now.”

You learn a lot about the culture of a place on the children’s playground. You learn a lot about the mind-set of the current crop of parents, and you learn a lot about what the new generation is going to grow up to be like.
Now, I could be wrong, but it occurs to me that by the time these kids are 12 they’re going to be so friggin’ sick of their parents needs that they’ll be telling them “I don’t give a shit about your needs. I’ve got my own needs, or haven’t you noticed? Life’s not all about you, y’know.”

I don’t ever hear the Mexican Nannies speaking to the kids like that, just the ‘sensitive’ American moms and dads.
The Nannies? It’s more like “Emory, come over here.” “Ashley, put your coat on.” “Damon, stop talking like that.” “Jacob, get in the car.” “Christopher, its time to get off the swing.” “Abby, come here and have a drink of juice.” “Taylor, it’s time to go now.” And you know what? The kids listen, and the kids do what is asked of them.

After telling the kids what they, as parents, need, the American moms and dads always end up negotiating with, or bribing, their children to get them to do what they want.
But, the Nannies, having come from a ‘less sophisticated’ environment, probably don’t understand, like we do, that it’s the kid’s job to take care of the parents needs. You’d think they’d learn from the rest of us, wouldn’t you?
Smile!

Why is it that today’s parents are so afraid of their children disliking them, or emotionally abandoning them? Why are they so afraid they’ll hurt their child’s feelings? Why do they so overcompensate, afraid of not doing everything ‘correctly’? Why is it that, as parents, they want to train the kids to respond to their needs, rather than to their requests?

I have my own thoughts on these questions, opinions I find rooted in the stunted development of the baby boomers, my own generation, the parents of these new parents; but I’m not really interested in giving an exposition on the matter. I’m an observer of human behavior, and cultural trends, not a psychologist. As many of you are aware, I do tend to arrive at some pretty definite conclusions on most matters. In this case, however,

‘I need for you to’ arrive at your own.

Falling Tree Kills 5-Year-Old

That was the headline in the paper on Wednesday, May 6, 2009.
It happened not too far from my house, on a beautiful country road after a rain.
An old oak tree, snapping off at its base, fell across the road crushing the pick-up truck that little Nicholas Kirby and his family were riding in. His name was Nicholas, but they called him Bobby. The rest of the family, along with Bobby’s best friend, Elena, survived the horrific ordeal.

They were just a few minutes from home when it happened, running an errand like families do.

An unexpected tragedy. Tragedies happen. They happen to every family, not just this one. But they don’t happen to every family to this degree, or as completely out of the realm of comprehension as this one. And everyone is asking “Why?” Truth is, there is no answer. This is one of those life circumstances where there is only a question, and a rhetorical one at that. Not in a million years did anyone in the family expect that when they piled into the truck that day that an oak tree would crush their little boy to death before they got home. It was not even possible to think of that possibility.
Bobby had just got a new puppy. His name was Donut.

Which leaves us wondering, “What is the purpose of such a tragedy? What is the reason? What is the lesson? What sense does it make? We are left wondering because it is not an equation that settles comfortably into our consciousness. There is no purpose. There is no reason. There is no lesson. It makes no sense. There is only what we do with it having happened. That is all there is, and each person connected to it, family, friends, even strangers, will do something different with it. What we learn about ourselves in such a situation, and what we do with it, those will, ultimately, be the defining aspects of the tragedy.

Some of us will call it the will of God, and will accept it as that. Some of us will be angry at God for allowing such a thing to happen. Some will block it out, not wishing to acknowledge that something like that could happen to anybody, and at any time. Some will blame the County for not inspecting more closely the health of the trees that line our country roads. Some will be paralyzed with grief. Some will not even give it a second thought. Some will give thanks for the brief life of the little boy, and be inspired by who, and what, he has been. Some will draw more closely to their own children, realizing that life is but a fleeting moment in time. Some will become part of a lasting support system for the family members. Some will avoid them as much as possible, not having the words to speak, feeling too inadequate to even be in the presence of such unfathomable loss. Some people will provide services and comfort for the family through this extended time. Some will donate whatever they feel could help ease the immediate burden. Some will be thankful that it was not their child. Someone may start a foundation to memorialize little Bobby, to not let his death go unnoticed, to create something positive from the circumstances. Others will participate in the perpetuation of that foundation. Some will cry and experience a pervasive sadness, not even understanding why they are being so deeply affected. It will be about something in themselves, but this little boy will have touched that place within them.

The thing about such an unexpected loss of such an innocent, and vulnerable life, it requires something from us. We may try to put it out of our minds, but, nevertheless, it does require something from us, as individuals, and as a community. And we each respond with what we have. Bobby’s death will provoke something in our world that was not in play before it happened.

A witness at the accident site said a white butterfly appeared while the rescue workers were at Bobby’s side. It circled three times, paused over Bobby’s body, and then flew off.

I don’t know what that means, but I like that it happened. It will be an enduring image for anyone who hears the story of little Nicholas (Bobby) Kirby.

The Nobility Of Confidence

My friend Curt gave me a pair of spurs several years ago. I didn’t have a horse at the time, but he wanted to give them to me anyway. Now I know what most people are thinking, ‘that spurs are a cruel and abusive device to use on a horse just to get him to do what you want’. Most people don’t understand anything about spurs, or horses for that matter.

Most people don’t understand anything about self-protection either. They think that banning handguns will reduce murder, robbery, home invasion, and other violent crimes. They think that is how we can protect ourselves. However, statistics prove exactly the opposite, by a huge margin. In fact, honest studies have shown very clearly that in the states where it has become legal for citizens to carry a handgun violent crime statistics have fallen so dramatically that the media, politicians, and fascist lawmakers, who are more interested in promoting their own ideology than in allowing people to protect themselves, have scrambled overtime to see that the facts are kept hidden from the American public. It is dishonesty at its very worst. Just because a politician says something, or has Hollywood trumpet it for him, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s anywhere even close to being true. However, because those lies are force-fed to us by the media, and other spineless ideological pressure groups, and repeated over and over, we tend to believe them. We make presumptions about things, they become assumptions, and then we adopt them as truth, even though our reasoning might be fallacious and incomplete. Fact is, we tend to mold our ideologies to suit our comfort level, our bias, or our ignorance, whichever is in greater need of reinforcement, regardless of the merit of such conclusions. Many of us cannot deal with an unmitigated reality. We prefer the comfort of our warm socio/adolescent blankets.

After Curt gave me those spurs he wrote a letter to me, part of which said, “Spurs are a sign of a cowboys strength and respect. His horse knows he can count on his rider to lead him through any situation, or rough terrain, as the trail demands. He knows, if need be, that the steel and brass of the spurs gently in his side are a sign of strength, not abuse, from his friend. His cowboy is only helping him succeed in the challenge.”
He went on to say, “There are not many today who are able to wear, or even own, a pair of spurs. And there is, at times, undoubtedly, no better sound.” “Denes”, he said, “You have the strength and respect to wear them.”

Now I don’t know about possessing those attributes to that degree, but I do know that I continually aspire to the challenge, to that position of self-reliance, the nobility of confidence, if you will. And my spurs are a constant reminder of the responsibility I have to wield strength as a positive provocation, rather than as a weapon.

The same would hold true of gun ownership. And as with spurs, a gun can help prevent some pretty tragic circumstances. It is incumbent upon a civilized society to put, and keep, the weapons in the hands of non-criminals, those who will wield them wisely, responsibly, and with reasonable forethought. Or swiftly, depending on the necessity of a given situation. The bad guys are counting on us being unarmed, and weakened by a steady diet of political correctness. That would actually make us VICTIMS, rather than urban sophisticates, as we’d like to think of ourselves. But victims are exactly what we are becoming.

Some people have NPR on their emergency speed dial. It is where they are taught how to think, or feel about life. It is the water they bathe in, to cleanse their thinking, to free their minds from the frightening grip of logic. I suppose they could call the hotline to find out how to defend themselves, and their families, if, and when, they’re being threatened. Good luck with that.

Or they could call my friend Curt.

In the absence of those options they could allow that beautiful combination of steel and brass to strengthen their position.

If you know what I mean.