Slow Down

The day after Thanksgiving (AKA, Black Friday) is here. It is meant to be the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. I had to work today so I missed the mad rush for low priced items that the retailers dangle in front of shoppers much like the candy house the witch set to trap Hansel and Gretel. I confess that I have only participated in the Black Friday one time and frankly I was disappointed. I was not shoved out of the way by aggressive shoppers, nobody tried to wrench the last "widget" out of my hands and the advertized deals were not that spectacular.

I have long thought that the push to move the Christmas season to begin earlier every year is just wrong. I understand why retailers do it, but there is something about seeing Christmas items in a store just after Halloween that makes me a little sick. My son Miller shares my distain for the practice. We all seem to be in such a hurry to do things, to have events come so we can get on with the next thing on the list.

Recently we learned that the property next to ours would soon be under construction to become a new home. The new owner's brother in law has been employed to do the dirt-work.. He is really enthusiastic often starting up the huge diesel bull dozer at 6:30am to begin the work (yes even on Thanksgiving morning). Today he managed to dig up and cut the phone line to our house. Qwest can't get there to fix it until next week, apparently all of their repair staff are hitting the "day after" sales today. My wife talked with "bull-dozer Boy" this morning to let him know that he had cut the phone line. He expressed little remorse at causing the inconvenience. Melinda described him as a thin version of "John Candy" and figured that short of pulling him out of the excavator and beating the crap out of him she would get no satisfaction from further discussion. She described the scene to me by cell phone since I was at work before construction started for the day. Melinda and I understand the excitement of the owner to get his home built and moved into.

I am going to try to be less hasty this holiday season and may re-read the section in the Lord of The Ring trilogy about the Ents to get hints on how to be less hasty. I recently saw a sign that intrigued me, it was on a County road near the booming metropolis of Lieter, WY. The road is frequented by methane field workers traveling from the methane gas wells in the county. They are notorious for driving too fast. The sign sums up my feelings, the sign simply reads; "SLOW DOWN YOU SONS A BITCHES". With that slow down and have a Merry Christmas.

Old Shot Guns

It was the opening day of Pheasant season in Wyoming last Saturday. I took the opportunity to hunt pheasants with three friends from work and my fourteen year old son Miller. If you have followed my blog at all you may remember my blog last year about a good day of hunting with a new dog and an old friend. The dog, Sandi, is now 11/2 years old and is better at her job of finding birds than she was last year.

The weather was perfect with temperatures in the high 50s and clear skies. Sandi performed well coming to "point" on several pheasants and then retrieving them after they were flushed and shot. The highlight of the trip for me was being able to spend time hunting with my son. He was pretty excited when he shot his first pheasant. I was excited because it brought back memories of hunting pheasants with my father when I was Miller's age. The shot gun he used is the first shot gun I ever bought. The summer before I turned 12, I worked hard mowing lawns so I could purchase a shot gun. We lived in Montana at the time and one Saturday our family traveled to Billings to shop. I had a wad of greenbacks in my pocket and anxiously awaited going to Scheels Sporting Goods to look at shot guns. I purchased a .20 Ga. pump shot gun (my father had to buy it because I was too young) for $40.00. I enjoyed hunting with it for many years and looked forward to passing it on to my own children. I gave it to my second daughter Karlee for a wedding gift because she liked to shoot clay pigeons with it. She was gracious enough to let Miller use it this past weekend.

There is in reality nothing special about this shot gun except for the memories it stirs up of time spent with people I care deeply about. My father died many years ago and this is just one of the things I have that ties me back time I spent with him. I look forward to being around long enough to have some memories of time spent with children grand children when they come along.

So spend some time with your kids or grandkids this weekend doing something you both like and build some memories that can be passed on.