A Nation of Fools

Where do I start with this one?

I'll start by apologizing up front for what promises to be a long, possibly rambling post.  I’ve started to write a blog several times, and now they are being rolled all into one.  So sit back and get comfortable…unless this offends you in some way.

And to add a disclaimer, my intention is never to offend anyone.  However, if you are offended by my blog, I trust you will either forgive me, get over it, or both.

Listening to the radio this morning, I heard that Maryland has now said you can no longer hug in any of its schools.  Okay, you can hug…but only your own kid.  So if I take my son to class, I can give him a hug, but not his friend, who has grown up next to me his entire life.  He and my son are best friends, and frequently play at each other’s house.  My son’s friend’s parents are our best friends, and we are really more like one big family.  Too bad.  I’m not allowed to hug him. 

“It will help cut down on potential safety issues for the children.”

Years ago, I helped out in AWANA.  I can’t tell you the number of children I hugged over the years.  Never once did I consider it uncomfortable in any way.  These were simply children, coming into a safe environment, and being loved by adults who volunteered their time.  Good thing I wasn’t in Maryland. 

Only parents registered as volunteers can enter the school playground.  Okay, I’ll give them that one.  I can see where that is a good idea.  But if you are a volunteer, you cannot push any child on the swing unless they are your child.  Really?

Your child cannot hand out party invitations in class.  I mean, after all, if there are twelve children in the class, and only three get invited, someone might get their feelings hurt.  It just isn’t fair.  I remember being in school, and someone would hand out invitations, and I didn’t get one.  Did it hurt my feelings?  Maybe.  I can’t remember.  So, even if it did, obviously it didn’t scar me for life. 

You can send a cupcake with your child to school, but you can’t send any for his classmates.  Someone might be allergic to something in the cupcake.  So let’s go back to the issue of fairness.  Why can Johnny have a homemade cupcake, and I can’t?  If I’m capable (at whatever age we choose to discuss) to rationalize that Johnny can have a cupcake because his mother made them for him, and not for everyone; surely I’m capable of understanding that Jenny is having a birthday party, and I wasn’t invited.

A child was suspended for pointing his finger at another child and saying “Bang.”

I understand the brevity of the Sandy Hook shootings, among others.  And I know it is a sensitive topic.  Here is where I remind you that I’m not intending to offend anyone.  But if you choose to take a stand on any issue, you are going to offend someone. 

When I was in first grade, I took a cap gun to school with me to play with during recess.  Do you remember when kids had toy guns that didn’t have to be painted bright colors so everyone knew they weren’t real?  Mine looked (mostly anyway) like a real gun.  I can’t tell you how many times I played Cowboys and Indians (there I go offending again), or cops and robbers.  Is that offensive?  Are robbers going to tell me I’m not sensitive enough? 

My point?  I grew up playing with guns.  And not one time in my entire life did I ever want to actually hurt anyone.  So you suspend a child for pointing his finger at another like it was a gun.  Little boys (mainly, so I don’t offend anyone yet again) have been playing with guns, or sticks shaped like a gun, or their fingers in the shape of a gun since guns have been around.  Suspending a child for pointing his finger at another is ridiculous. 

Another child was suspended because he chewed a Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun. 

I can almost understand that.  I’ve been injured by Pop-Tarts on more than one occasion.  Ever take a bite of one immediately after removing it from the toaster?  I’m being silly, but no more so than those making these arguments.

“If we had tougher gun laws, we would be safer.”

This is a flawed argument.  It is already against the law to kill an innocent person with a gun.  So the people who walk into a restaurant or school and start killing people are already breaking the law.  If they didn’t care about the laws that are currently on the books, what makes anyone think they will care about any new laws? 

“If we ban guns, we would be safer.”

If we are going to argue that the world is safer with tougher gun laws, we don’t need to look any further than Chicago and Washington D.C.  They have the toughest gun laws in the nation, and the highest murder rates. 

Want gun free zones, so our children will be safer?  Schools ARE gun-free zones.

Virginia Tech

Arkansas State

Louisiana Tech

Sandy Hook


“But we need to do more to make sure we are safe.”

As long as there are bad people in the world, they will continue to do bad things.  And if I’m the type of person who is going to hurt someone, I don’t need a gun to do it

In the US in 2010, an estimated 10,228 people were killed in drunk-driving crashes.  Approximately 8,000 people were murdered with a gun.  So cars are much more dangerous than guns.  Should we outlaw cars because a drunk driver killed a child? 

Or should we suspend a child because he is pretending to drive?

Getting Older

Sitting around on Saturday night, we began to celebrate our birthdays. Mine was February 28th, my son, Chase, is March 19th, and my brother, Stuart, is March 20th. Dad was up from Sanderson to help celebrate, and we began to open gifts.

First was my brother's from dad. As he opened it, his smile slowly subsided to the awkward, "I want to look happy, but I'm not quite sure what this is" phase.

"Oh," he said. "This looks...was this on my list? I mean, it looks good...was it on my list?"

I walked over to where he was sitting, and saw it was a book on tape.

Dad made a comment about maybe he saw the wrong list. Stuart is in to a lot of different things, but I don't remember him ever asking for a book on tape. That's my thing. I like listening to books on tape while I'm driving back and forth to and from work. So I looked at the title, and it looked like something I might have put on my list, but I wasn't sure.

So when it was my turn, dad said it was the wrong card. The tape from my envelope had the same color green as my wrapping paper, (which was different from Stuart's). So I told dad it had been on that (my) present. He insisted it was on the wrong package, so I started to hand Stuart my present, knowing it was likely his anyway. Then dad showed me the tape, which was the same color as the paper, therefore proving it belonged on my present, which is what I had tried to convince him of just seconds earlier. So I opened my present, and saw it was a video game that Stuart had put on his list. We swapped presents, and got a light laugh.

Stuart made a comment that the book on tape (mine) looked good, so maybe he would borrow it on his long drive down to Terlingua next time he went.

Dawn suggested that since I already had one from Christmas, he could borrow it. I thought she meant my new one, and told her I was already done with the one from Christmas.

"I know," she said with a strange look on her face. "That's why I said he could borrow it."

We all started laughing out loud at how suddenly we had all turned into people incapable of rational thought, and much less capable of being able to communicate with each other.

Poor Chase. There he sat on the couch, watching the three of us Street men, likely realizing that this was what he has to look forward to. He and I have talked often enough (in a joking manner) about when it comes my time to be put in a home. Unfortunately, I'm afraid after this weekend, the next time might not be quite as lighthearted.

Later that night, because we needed to challenge our mental abilities further, we decided to play Chicken Foot. It is a domino game that I had heard of before. It's not that complicated, once you learn how to actually play correctly. Then again, that evening, I'm guessing Tic Tac Toe would have taxed our abilities.

In my defense, I had already lost all of my chips playing poker before pouring my heart and soul out over a grill to make sure everyone got to enjoy a wonderful meal of chicken and turkey dogs.

I didn't say it was a GOOD excuse.

I have learned, through experiences like this, to quit taking myself so seriously. (No one else does.)

Life is short. And too much time is spent watching the news, and realizing what a horrible world we live in sometimes. I'm convinced that every once in a while, we need to surround ourselves with others who will help us laugh.

In high school, my best friend was a guy named Dewayne. To all of us, he was Bubba. We were inseparable. And we laughed our way through just about every evening, and every weekend. For years, that got lost in me. I spent way too much time trying to prove to everyone that I was someone to be taken seriously.

I've learned better.

Thank you to my family, for being such a joy in my life.

And I'm sorry, Chase. I'm afraid this is what you have to look forward to. At least, I pray you will be blessed with family the way I have.