My wife - can you get this spider out of the tub it is huge.

Me - can you remove this 90 pound boog from family room it’s huge.

Boog - looking at me wag wag what’s the status on bagels man boog dog loves bagels and cream cheese.

With our son will be touring out of humor I told him ,was on the phone with him last night. And our son was jamming and my brother could hear him , he asked is that the hunt by skynard yes it is I replied. I said I recorded a documentary on skynard and now he is into them.

So I dropped my I phone by the 1 watt Marshall and said Jam away son shine your uncle wants to hear you. Tuesday gone the breeze and the hunt not the whole songs just openings. Getting back on phone he said do you remember figuring those out when we were kids I said yes I do. Then we would figure them out and jam along with the album ZZ Top Led Zeppelin skynard. We drove mom crazy with Hendrix the allman brothers. We had plans big dreams we would be touring jamming at Fillmore the winter land bands would be opening for us.

So I told him after our son gets through college maybe will go on tour with his band. I’ll pack my sleep apnea machine and my Tokai Les Paul we’re off to Europe dear see you in two months. I’ll be 67 then hopefully collecting my union pension hope the shows start around 4 pm I like to be in bed by 9 pm, So We both can hit the aftershow parties. We can tell the groupies kids this Metamucil really works and you know I have grandchildren your age. Maybe we can finally live our dreams as rock stars.

At least they have morning joe on but the locals the base. Their in uproar over Bret Kavanaugh and these allegations leveled at him. In attendance we have a southern baptist minister who I jokingly say almost had a nervous breakdown when president Obama was elected. His comments were so now we have a descendant of slaves in the White House back in 2008. So I walked the boys to the bus stop and perhaps subconsciously I find myself here. To argue to verbally fight against the base and this lunacy I can’t hit the pub self induced sobriety with naltrexone , and I enjoy the ham and green peppers omelette. I asked fellas if they wanted to leave early and hit the diner no they had cereal.


Oh geez here comes the local liberal they probably think as I walk in. And several of them enjoy arguing with me so what do you think on these allegations. Hold on let me get my coffee I reply and I ask them if anybody kept detailed calendars from their youth. And I launch in verbal assault why because I’m relaxed but yet aggressive perhaps a alpha male not sure maybe just lucid. Like in the infantry as kid yea let’s get it on you wanna do this sure I’m ready. so I told them I found my calendar from 1983 when I was 17 years old.

It reads I masturbated today on June 2 oh this very interesting entry June 8 th 1983 mom found my weed deny deny deny absolutely that is not weed mom it’s oregano. Oh this is quite telling went to keg party June 12 did not drug or rape any of the girls in attendance oh wow June 1984 enlisted in infantry swore oath to defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic I clearly remember that day fellas . I’m glad I kept these calendars people, and then I ask the ministers wife what do you think of gop and this obvious hatred of women.

Friday I am going to pick you both up after school, and we will go to the hair salon their mother told them this morning. The desperate glances tossed my way as they both look for a ally in this mom made crisis. I smile at them both and comment it is time guys. Their hair is thick long blond curls and a The beginning of a Afro. Dads comments again it’s just a trim it will not be a crew cut. They have plenty of freedom on hair , they wash it and keep it clean. But for several mornings mom has commented hey brush your hair keep it neat yea ok mom ,They did this to their selves.

Forty years later since I decided to explore the fretboard,the torch has been passed to our one son. I find it amusing that guitarists who were my heros growing up in Appalachia is now idols to our one son. Hendrix Stevie Ray Vaughn Duane allman billy gibbons Elmore James to name several. And as I lay here on the couch I am listening to him pick on his prs sc 245. His comments dad I love this guitar , I say to him it is awesome guitar son shine you worked all summer and you earned it. It is a tone monster. He replies dad it just feels awesome in my hands. Ok well put it away go and eat breakfast and brush your teeth get ready for school.

King of the morons I had enough of watching him ramble,We hit a local trout stream it was high and fast from all the rain. We scoped our spot slow water in a break that has produced for us before ,words of encouragement we spoke to each other as we rigged our bait heavy so it could get down to these beautiful fish. And with each cast the looks on our boys faces is that a strike or just the line hitting rocks. And for a hour and a half we caught a whole lot of nothing, but we got out And we spent time together.

Now the rain has backed off and Saturday the plan is to head out. Perhaps to go after native brook trout at this secluded stream that you have to walk deep into the mountains to get too, and then later in the day hit the stocked streams, as these trout after several months. Have returned to being wild after fish hatchery, what I am trying to say is we are total catch and release anglers. But at times we will catch a trout and it will not survive after being released. And we take it home in the fall and the meat is pink not that white after being stocked. That is from eating wild for several months.

Even fishing with barbless hooks to try and preserve these beautiful fish. At times it doesn’t work , when I was a young man growing up brook trout natives were plentiful. Today they make up 1% of trout and I and the boys have joined a conservation group to try and preserve the native trout. And after we got home and eating dinner we talked, making excuses for are lack of catch the water was to muddy they couldn’t see the bait, Yes that sounds about wright fellas.

Man come over here and pet me I’ll moan and groan as you rub me. Let’s sit on the couch together touch me I’ll touch you with my paws. Golden’s are love total love he is ten years old. And I find myself wanting to make him happy I love mister big nose smooshy face.

My point in this ramble ,do you remember how guys wore their gear. I am saying rucksack or Lbe how they carried M16 or 60 on a hump in your own personal misery. You could look around and know who was who just how they wore their flacks or Lbe web gear even looking at their backside , that’s whore House carrying the 60 with his A gunner or that’s cat fish nicknames were common. But you knew them how they walked or how they carried a rifle. Sweating your balls off at fort Irwin on NTC or freezing them on cold weather training.

A rifle platoon is a great equalizer I was in two the 82nd then 3rd armor division in west Germany as a young kid. And they were extreme opposite of each other but they both had a common as in misery but it was ok. We were young and could take it when we had to the fatigue the hunger the suffering we endured together. And I was lucky in both rifle platoons as I served with warriors fine NCO’s leaders CIB men who fought in Vietnam. We shared water c- rats later MRE’s as a family and race was never a issue your fucked as I am meaning we’re all in this together.

And that mentality is a great equalizer we have to depend on each other if it goes sideways. You come to find out with brothers that guys solid I can depend on him if we’re in tight spot. And reputation is everything these guys knew they could depend on me. Just observations from my youth looking at these pictures and remembering.

My two great aunts were raped by soldiers doing the Russian civil war. It was never talked about in our family but it was known. They came to America around 1922 with my great grandparents at that time I think the ladies were in late teens. My grandmother was a young infant maybe a year or two old she was born in Netherlands as a refugee.

I really do not know the whole story of how they ended up in the coal fields of western Pennsylvania. Growing up my great aunts never married they lived with my great grandparents their whole lives. To me as a young child they were just part of my life perhaps just constants in a family of immigrants of first and second generation Americans. To me they meant love and safety and lumpy mashed potatoes ,And Lawrence welk on a Saturday night.

To this day when I make mashed potatoes. I boil them and never peel them I mash them up with the skins. My aunts would say the skins make you grow strong In broken English children to us young boys . I remember these ladies clearly as I sit here having coffee, peasant dresses that we’re homemade scarves wrapped around their heads and calf black boots. We joke my brothers and I of the Slavic looks the defined nose the hollow cheeks the slender builds that we all have inherited.

I think of the trauma these two ladies endured as young women in Ukraine. They never received any counseling or help in their lives. I imagine today that the rapes were multiple by soldiers war and rape a sick and twisted reality. I do remember they drank vodka regularly and perhaps that was their way of self medicating. And my great grandfather was a broken man a immigrant coal miner lost always in a bottle of vodka. as today I wonder if my great grandmother was a victim as well as her daughters by the cocks of those soldiers. So as a husband a father of three grown daughters I’m down with support for Christine ford and all victims of sexual assault.

Sorry man I slept in I need to go out and use the yard. So he heads out sniffing for a spot ,Squirrel and boog is off in hot pursuit squirrel up a tree. Boog barking circles the tree turns around to look at me. Come on man I got it treed get over here and help me. Then he comes trotting back to go inside I’m like boog go out in yard. Oh ok man I forgot about having to use the yard.