FIRST RESPONDER

Reports out now show that Fort Worth Police Department is now reaching the ten minute mark on priority 1 calls. Priority 1 means there is an immediate threat to human life. So if you are being attacked in your home by an intruder, you can expect the police to show up in 9 minutes and 45 seconds.

**Please do NOT misunderstand this...I am extremely thankful for the police, and all that they do.  I thank God for them every day.**

But this report shows one thing:

YOU ARE THE FIRST RESPONDER

When you or your family are being threatened, YOU are the only one you can count on to defend yourself.

The police do a wonderful job. However, there are 20 officers for every 10,000 citizens. They can only do so much.

Should you find yourself being awakened in the middle of the night by someone kicking in your front door, you have a couple of options:

1. You can dial 911 and pray there is an officer rolling down your street at that exact moment

2. You can defend yourself

In 1996, the average was 12 seconds from the time a home invasion begins, and the moment you were faced with a deadly force decision. So the instant someone begins to kick your door in (or climb in a window), you have 12 seconds before you decide whether to pull the trigger or not.

So picture a police officer driving up your street. Even if he is sitting two houses down, the likelihood that he will make it to your house in time to stop you or your family from being injured or killed is slim. Count the seconds to yourself as you think about what has to happen.

You are startled from your sleep by a horrendous sound.

The stopwatch has started.

It takes you at least a second to convince yourself that the sound you heard is real, and not just a dream.

"Someone is breaking in" you think to yourself.

You waste at least a half-second trying to decide what to do as you shake the sleepy cobwebs from your brain.

"Call 911" you think and reach for your phone.

tick-tick

You unlock your phone, (we'll say you actually get it right the first time, even though you are still not fully functioning), and dial 911.

It rings.

tick-tick

"911, what is your emergency?"

You are relieved that they answered on the first ring.

"Yes, I live at....."

You have to give them your address, since you are likely on a cell phone.

"Someone just kicked my front door in, and I think they're in the house"

Your 12 seconds are up. You look up, and see a man (or two or three men) walking into your bedroom. One has a gun, and the other two have knives.

NOW what do you do?

I'm not going to try to talk to you about buying a gun for home defense, or getting your Concealed Handgun License so you can defend your family.

I just want you to realize that you may not be able to depend on the police during the few seconds you really need them.

Seat belts do a great job, but if you wait until you start to get into an accident before putting them on, it is too late.

The police will get there as soon as they can, but they will likely only be able to take a report about what happened.

What do you do to defend yourself?

Make no mistake...you are the first responder. It is up to you to defend your life, and the lives of your family. If you do not prepare now, you may simply become another statistic.

What An Honor

Saturday, July 20th, 2013 started normally enough.  The dogs were awake, ready for breakfast, and then to go defend the yard from dangerous squirrels and birds.  I was a little nervous and anxious.  My son, Chase and I were scheduled to take our P2 test in Krav Maga.  While we both felt we were ready, there are so many things to remember.  And we knew it was going to be at least a couple of hours of intense testing. 

We both passed our P1 tests earlier in the year.  Mine was at the end of January, and his was in February.  He was originally scheduled to take his in January, and came down with the flu, including 102-degree fever the morning of the test.  I may have been as disappointed as he was that we were unable to test together.  Krav has been something we have enjoyed together, and it has been a great bonding experience. 

We began the test on Saturday at around 9:15.  I thought there may have been a couple of other people there that morning, but as it turned out, our instructor was the only other one there.  In hindsight, it was somehow better that way.  More individualized...more private...more intimate...more special.  Working our way through the entire P1 curriculum was “fairly easy".  Sometime a little before 11:00, we began P2. 

As I type this on Monday at lunch, my forearms, my shoulders, my knees, my back, and even my eyebrows hurt.  Okay, maybe not the eyebrows. 

After three hours in a small, stuffy room, the test was over.  Steve, our instructor, gave us points on what we needed to remember, some things to focus on to improve, and where we did well.  We left; both exhausted, and pretty well spent for the rest of the day.  But we had passed.

BTW -- Steve is an incredible instructor.  He cares about teaching Krav, and he cares about his students.  It is not enough to him to teach the technique.  He wants to know you know why it works.  And he takes the time to show you how to do it better.  What works for him may not work for me.  (I am quite a bit smaller).  Check us out at http://www.legacykravmaga.com. 

What an incredible honor it was to test with him.  We have a few bruises, and I think I busted his lip accidentally.  But to test with him, and accomplish this together was an awesome experience.  It has been wonderful to have this time with Chase.  I say "has been" because in just over a week, he will leave for the Navy.  For the past two years, he has lived with me.  Krav has given us something that we can work together on, discuss, hurt each other a little, and bond with each other. 

As I write this, my eyes begin to tear because I know he will soon be gone.  It is sadness and joy.  It is watching a child become a man.  It is watching someone who was pretty well at the depths of his life a couple of years ago, coming through it, and making the world a better place.  There are not a lot of things in my life that I am proud of.  But when I look at my son, I am proud.  Not because of anything I have done, but because of the man he has become. 

We were talking about next week, and he said he did not want us to be emotional when he swears in.  Good luck with that.  It may be something he understands in another thirty years or so.  I certainly do not claim any credit for Chase being the man he has become.  His life has always been in God's hands.  

Thank you, God, for loving Chase enough to bring him through the trials, and make him someone I am so very proud of.  Thank you for allowing me to be a part of his life.  And please watch over him and protect him in (and out) of the Navy. 

Chase, thank you for never giving up.  I know there were times you wanted to.  Times you just "knew" life was not worth it.  But you have proven yourself wrong.  No matter what comes ahead; no matter how tough life becomes; remember what you have come through.  Whatever it is, whatever it takes...

You can do it.

I love you.


I am proud of you.

RC Cola and Memories

I used to tell people I was born fifty years later than I should have been.

I miss the days when we would play outside without worrying about locking our doors.

I miss the days when a grown man could hug a child without worrying that people were thinking he was some kind of pervert.

I miss the days when being a bad kid at school meant you talked in class, chewed gum, or (heaven-forbid) copied off another student.

Lately, I have realized that I am so very thankful to be living in the time we are living. So many wonderful things that make me thankful.

Air-conditioning. Medication. And diet sodas that don't taste diet.

I love the Diet Dr. Pepper ads. "Tastes more like regular Dr. Pepper."

Than what? A fistful of dirt? Perhaps.

The newest rage, started by Dr. Pepper is the "10" movement. As I write this, I'm finishing off an RC Cola 10.

The last time I had an RC was probably as a teenager. I say that because as I drink it, memories flood my mind.

I can vividly remember sitting at the breakfast table of Nana and Daddad's home in Leisure World in Mesa Arizona, looking out the window at the Superstition Mountains in the distance.

It amazes me that I can smell something, or taste something, and so clearly remember something from more than thirty years ago. Then I have a hard time remembering where I set my keys ten minutes before.

There are so many wonderful memories from back then. Listening to Nana tell such incredible stories from their travels...sleeping in the second bedroom on the rollaway beds, reading the Snoopy books. I still remember the ones where Snoopy was imitating Lucy by rolling his ears into the shape of her hair, and mimicking her angry movements.

I remember the beautiful sound the little clock in the front hallway made when it chimed on the quarter hours, and the song it played every hour. I remember the pocket door on the hall bath. I had never seen one before that, and thought it was about the coolest thing ever.

I remember walking to the community center, and putting twenty-five cents in the gumball machine to get Kix cereal out to feed the Koi.

I remember the train set in the garage, and how cool his setup was. I remember the family houses he had lovingly constructed out of balsa wood.

Thinking of Nana and Daddad, I also have vivid memories of the house they had in El Paso, although the images come back in smaller pieces.

But I remember sitting in the little bar area eating cereal for breakfast, or cold cuts for lunch. I remember it was off the kitchen, which was separated from the rest of the house by folding accordion doors.

I remember the orange carpet in the front bedroom and the dark red tile in the kitchen and back den. I remember the rock wall in the backyard, and how cool it all looked to me. I remember playing with the white plastic thunderbird cars on the wooden footrests in the living room.

I remember the hazelnut coffee in the morning, and how wonderful it smelled. As an adult, I smelled that, and the memories came rushing back. It was only then that I learned it was hazelnut.

How can it be that so many vivid memories survived for so many years?

I believe it was because of the people that were my Nana and Daddad.

I only got to see them once a year or so. But it was my favorite place in the whole world.

It took growing older to realize people make the home, not the furnishings. And it makes me realize what wonderful people Nana and Daddad truly were.

I know that if I live to be a hundred, I will never stop missing them, and the beautiful memories they gave me.

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.

Birthday

Well, I've hit another birthday (thank you, God, for another day/year/whatever You choose to bless me with).

I was reminded on my way in to work this morning of a weekend camping trip with my son. It was fifteen years ago, but something on the radio brought back a memory, and made me laugh.

I decided to surprise Chase with a camping trip to exotic Lake Grapevine (because it was the closest decent place). I picked him up at 6:00 Friday evening, and we drove to the lake. It was dark by the time we got there, but we set up the tent, and I built a fire. We used coat hangers to roast our hot dogs that we enjoyed with potato chips.

I learned a couple of things that night that seem like common sense now. But in the heat of silliness, common sense isn't often the foremost thought process.

1. Potato chips are flammable. Again, it seems like common sense. After all, they're cooked in oil. But as I slid the end of the coat hanger into the looped end of a chip, that thought didn't occur to me. Hearing Chase giggle at the flaming snack made me laugh out loud. (That was back when it was really laughing out loud, and not LOL). Seeing the chip on fire, and the delighted giggles it brought was a lot funnier than I had anticipated.

2. When you first blow out the flames from a potato chip, chances are the chip will retain the heat for several seconds. Again....common sense. But quickly shoving the chip into my mouth brought that startling revelation to life. I'm not sure if I was able to taste anything else the entire weekend or not. It wasn't my smartest moment.

Saturday, we spent our time walking along the shore, looking for bad guys. We found several, but not to worry. The Sheriff and I handily dispatched them all. We were wounded a couple of times, but we had our first aid kit. We were able to remove the bullets, and patch each other up. Remarkably, we continued on our quest without so much as a hospital visit.

The afternoon involved a leaf fight. It started with pushing leaves together into a pile to jump into. It de-escalated quickly. I don't remember a lot of details except the laughter. How can a bunch of dead leaves turn into such a hilarious experience?

As I've grown older (I'll not use the term "mature" for fear of reprisal from those who actually know me), I've learned that simple things like leaf fights, and searching for escaped bank robbers are the things that we remember. Spending the time with a loved one, even just acting silly, is time invested in something that will truly last.

I've asked Chase about several things that have happened in his life.

He doesn't remember things I think would be "important” or "big" events. But he remembers the leaf fight, and the flaming potato chip.

Thank you, God, for allowing me to have the time I've had. To have the family and friends I've had to share my life with. And for the "little things" along the way that will forever mean the most.

The Wedding

So July 20th, 2012, my daughter and her fiancé were wed at Ashton Gardens in Corinth, TX.

It was a beautiful ceremony, and the ceremony and reception seemed to go without a hitch. Getting there, however, was not quite as smooth.

There were the usual preparations, such as getting favors put together. My wife and I put together 150 small favors for guests. My wife ordered koozies with Brad and Sasha's names and the date on them, and 900 little stickers that she put on the bottom of 900 Hershey's Kisses. Five or six of those went into little bride and groom boxes that slid down into the koozies. These were put around the table for guests at the reception. It was quite a bit of work for her, but they turned out very well.

Dawn bought a dress for the wedding, and one for the rehearsal, and I bought a suit for the wedding. Two pairs of shoes for each of us, and we were ready to go.

Dawn's parents flew in on Wednesday, and the time officially began to fly. The rehearsal was Thursday at the chapel in Corinth, with dinner afterward in Carrollton. With the exception of a couple of people having trouble finding the restaurant, everything went well for the rehearsal and dinner.

Friday was a blur. We had planned to leave North Richland Hills at around two in order to get to Corinth by 3:30 or 4:00. The fact that EVERY highway in the Dallas/Fort Worth area is currently under construction doesn't help trying to get anywhere without some issues.

But we made it up there, and checked into the Best Western so we could begin to get ready. The wedding wasn't until 9:30. I know...that was my initial reaction as well. Dawn went to Sasha's room to get her makeup done. Pleased I didn't have to worry about such things, I got to just relax in the room for a little while.

Dawn came back down, and we sat around for a few minutes before she decided she wanted to go down to the lounge. I decided to get dressed and would join them after a few minutes. We would have an hour or so before we needed to leave, so I began to get dressed. Dress shirt? Check. Slacks? Check. Suit jacket? Check. Shoes? Shoes?

WHERE ARE MY SHOES?!?!?

I pride myself on being pretty thorough. I normally walk through the house (or hotel) wherever I am to make sure I have everything, and that nothing is being left behind. I pack twice as much as I will need just in case. I remember taking the shoes out of the box, instead of putting the entire box in my overnight bag. I just knew they had to be there somewhere. After a quick search, I knew I was sunk.

How could this possibly have happened? I don't forget things. Dawn had been stressed because she was going to get her hair done, and her hairdresser was running late. Since we weren't having the wedding at our church (10 minutes away), but in Corinth, over an hour away, this presented a problem. So she decided to forgo the hair so she could get her makeup done. I was trying to help her deal with the stress she was under, and honestly didn't think I was stressed at all. I was obviously wrong.

And since we were over an hour from home, getting my shoes was out of the question. Thankfully, there was a mall right across the street. And Macy's was the store closest to the entrance I would be flying...I mean driving into. I bought my two pair of shoes at Macy's and really liked them. I would just buy another of the same ones, and it would be fine.

Except they didn't have the same shoe in brown. So I found one I didn't like as well, and it was almost twice as much. But with time running out, this was an emergency. I bought the shoes, and flew back to the hotel. Twenty minutes later, I was downstairs with everyone else. I got to relax for almost ten minutes before we needed to leave.

The rest of the evening flew by, with the reception going until 2:00 AM. Brad and Sasha were catching a 6:30 flight to their honeymoon, and we decided to leave at 3:30 to get them there in plenty of time. Back at the hotel a little after 5:00, we tried to wind down a little so we could catch a couple of hours of sleep before getting up to pack.

All in all, it was a wonderful wedding. And after all is said and done, I'm a father-in-law, and Dawn is a mother-in-law.

Putting together a slideshow presentation for the reception, I was putting together pictures of Sasha through her life. I met Dawn when Sasha was 10. I can't believe the time has flown the way it has. So to all of the fathers out there with young daughters, I say, "Hang on." Cherish every moment you have. Before you know it, your little girl will be getting married, and you'll be knee-deep in preparations, and the craziness of a wedding.

Just make sure you pack your shoes.