What Are Rights Without Self Respect?

I saw a news story yesterday that bothered me. But what bothered me wasn’t the same thing that bothered the media and the rest of the world that sympathized with the story.

Back story: If you haven’t heard, a Colorado school decided to have a Patriotic Day in which all the students were encouraged to wear Red, White and Blue. One 5th grader shows up in a homemade white t-shirt that reads, “OBAMA IS A TERRORIST’S BEST FRIEND.” The school gave the boy two options 1) turn the shirt inside-out or 2) get suspended. The boy was suspended.

Minor point: The boy and his father (more on them in the Major point) claimed it was his 1st Amendment right to wear that shirt. The school claimed that the shirt was causing disruptions and was distracting other students from learning. I agree with the school (no printed shirts, no matter what their message, should be allowing in school). Public schools are a FREE place for our children to get an education, not a public forum for expressing your viewpoints (no matter how much we may or may not agree with those viewpoints). In the America of today where there is much more grey area than there is black and white, who is to say what is appropriate/inappropriate or what is right/wrong? While the shirt very well could have been referring to Senator Obama’s close friendship with William Ayers (after seeing the news interview I don’t think it was deeply thought out) who admits to attacking the United States, there are still some who do not classify Ayers as a terrorist. So now even the validity of the message of this boy’s shirt is at question. What if the shirt read, “Abortion – the easiest way out” or “George Bush is a murderer” or “Worship Satan with me…he loves us all no matter what we’ve done”? Would we be cheering for the school instead of the boy? If you want your child to be able to wear whatever shirt he wants, send him to a private school or make the ultimate sacrifice and home school (Warning: Home schooling may take away from your free time and may cause you to have to cut back some on your standard of living. Please make sure your children are worth that sacrifice before attempting). If you want the government to educate your child then exercise your 1st Amendment right by doing something about it…get involved, vote, write a letter to the editor…don’t hide behind a homemade t-shirt and wine about one of your rights being violated if you aren’t taking full advantage of all of your rights. And, oh by the way, during the interview it came out that the t-shirt was not the boy’s idea. He was “encouraged” to wear it by his Dad. Way to go Dad. Let your son take the heat for your freedom of speech.

Major point: Do we as American’s not have any self respect anymore? More and more I’m seeing things like this. When this boy and his father showed up for their interview for national news they not only failed to dress up, they didn’t even dress neatly or appropriately. During the interview I got to thinking, “I bet this is the way they dress to go to church as well.” Now that is complete speculation, but if I were a betting man I’d bet it was true. For those of you fortunate enough to have not seen the interview, I’ll describe their attire for you. The boy was wearing a black t-shirt with some sort of skull figure drawn on it with what appeared to be a bullet hole in the forehead…classy. The father was dressed in his finest camouflaged t-shirt. I can just imagine the conversation he had with his wife as he was getting ready for the interview. “Honey, have you seen my good camo?...No, not that one, that’s last year’s Mossy Oak. My good camo. The Hardwoods HD one you got me for our anniversary.”

Yes, sir, you do have a right to wear whatever you want when you receive your two minutes of fame. But people are watching…people in other countries are watching. Please have enough respect yourself if not your country to be presentable during your short lived fame.

That’s What Insurance Is For

A couple of months ago, Amber had the pleasure of introducing the front of our Civic to the front of someone else’s car. She was crossing an intersection on a green light and the other driver turned across the intersection from the opposite direction without a green arrow. Apparently a large truck in another lane blocked Amber from his view so he drove his vehicle into the middle of a four way intersection to get a better view. Luckily no one was injured. The police made a report. The other driver was at fault. Insurance information was exchanged. No problem, that’s what insurance is for. However, the other driver had the kind of insurance that comes as a prize in a Happy Meal. This news was like a ray of sunshine bringing joy to all involved. Of course the true fulfillment of joy didn’t occur until we finally received the return phone call from the McInsurance Company explaining that McCrashy hadn’t been paying his bills and therefore his insurance had McLapsed. So, I guess that’s what our insurance is for.

I had a real struggle with this. The other driver was driving a beat up car, was not dressed like money, lived in a low end neighborhood and obviously was having budget issues since he wasn’t able to keep up with his McPayments. On the one side, that’s why we have insurance so even if it’s not our fault we don’t lose out…or at least no more than our $500 deductable. On the other side, you broke my stuff…you fix my stuff. It’s quite simple, black and white, no need for discussion. Since this did not happen, I have every right to turn him in to the authorities for not having insurance which will in turn strip him of his driver’s license and possible land him a fine and/or some jail time. Will this help me in collecting any of the money…no. Will it make me feel any better…that’s the struggle.

I really would find no joy in bringing extra hardship on this guy. However, I do believe he should be responsible to pay for the repair of my vehicle. And, in my mind, anyone that is not willing to even attempt to right their wrong deserves no mercy and showing mercy would only further instill in them the mindset of “just worry about yourself and if something bad happens you don’t need to feel responsible…someone else will bail you out.”

Mercy prevailed, I didn’t get the law involved. Allstate, my insurance company that doesn’t sell their insurance as part of a meal deal and who I pay in full every six months to protect not only myself and my family but anyone else who we may accidently cause undue harm, took care of the repair bill for us and is pursuing the reimbursement of the funds from the other driver. How they pursue it is their business. I’m over it and on with my life.

This past Friday (July 18th at 9:30am – this information will become important in just a moment), two weeks after we finally got the Civic back from the body shop, I was sitting at a red light in said Civic when I looked in my rear view mirror to see a full size Yukon Denali bearing down on me at highway speeds. She didn’t realize that neither I nor the vehicles in front of me were moving until my vehicle stopped hers from moving.

She was in Nurse’s attire on her way to work. Her husband later showed up to make sure she was alright (he’s a salesman for the local Cadillac dealership). They’re driving a very nice SUV. They both have good paying jobs. These are the kind of people that have good insurance. Our vehicle will be fixed in no time and at no cost to us and we’ll likely have a rental car provided to us while it’s in the shop.

Wait, what’s that? Cracker Jacks gives insurance away as prizes as well? I did not know that. All this time I’ve been spending my hard earned money on good insurance to protect others and I could have been paying (or better yet not paying) for el cheapo insurance and been dodging my responsibility as a law abiding American citizen. So Cracker Jack, Inc. calls me this morning to inform me that their client (the one that parked her Yukon Denali in my trunk) had not paid their insurance and it lapsed on July 16th. They did, however, call in a payment to catch their insurance up on July 18th at 9:37am…yes, 9:37am on July 18th…precisely 7 minutes after their Yukon informed my Civic that it was heading back to the body shop.

I’m not calling my insurance yet. If this guy doesn’t pay cash to repair the car and forces me to call my insurance, that phone call will be immediately followed by a call to the local police department.

Can I have fries with that?

Paternal Premonition

I had a premonition of sorts this morning, a prophetic foresight you might even say. I’m predicting that Amber and I will be at the hospital around 5:00am on Friday morning the 7th of December and that some time early that same afternoon Taylor will be born. Call it a hunch, call it psychic ability, call it a scheduled inducement, call it what you want, just make sure it’s on your calendar.

T minus 17 days and counting.

The Quiet Moments

Ah, the house is quiet. The wife is out. The grill cheese is sizzling. The…wait, the house is quiet? The house shouldn’t be quiet. Where’s Caleb?
“Yuck.”
What was that? It was too faint; I can’t place where it came from.
“Yuck.”
There it is again. Where is that boy?
He’s not in the cat box…thankfully…
Not in his room, not in the bathroom, not in the closet…where is he?
“Yuck.”
That sure sounded like it was coming from his bedroom. “Caleb, where are you?”
“Yuck.”
“Are you hiding in your fort? What are you doing in there? Whatcha doing with that crayon? Oh….”
“Yuck.”
“We don’t eat crayons, son.”
Munch, munch, “Yuck.”
“Well stop eating it. Come on, Daddy’s grilled cheese is burning.”

Rock...Throw Sky...Wow

“Ock.”
Noticing his uncle wasn’t fully understanding, he said it again with a little more emphasis, “OCK.”
“Throw sky,” he added to help clarify the instructions. His hand was lifted up containing the rock that needed to be jettisoned from the area. “Ock. Throw sky.”
Jeremy reached down, took the rock and like a good uncle threw it as high and far as he could.
“Wow.” The word was drawn out in true amazement. Reading his face you’d think he was standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon or staring at the Northern Lights. To Caleb this was a life changing event. His uncle was the best rock thrower in the whole world.
And then just as fast as the amazement covered his face it was gone and Caleb was bent over scouring the ground for the next perfect rock.
“Ock,” he said having found it. His hand again reached up to his uncle to hand him the next rock. “Throw sky.”
I think Caleb’s goal of clearing the driveway at Eegeebegee of rocks via Jeremy’s right arm caused Jeremy to throw more rocks than he had intended. But I know it meant a lot to his nephew. I know this because every few days or so, even still, Caleb will come up to me and tell the story.
“Ock. Throw sky,” he’ll say matter-of-factly.
“You threw rocks in the sky?” I’ll reply.
“Yeah...”
“Who’d you throw them with?”
“Air me”
“Jeremy?”
“Uh huh, air me. Throw sky.”

Just Call Me Dad

Recently, Caleb and I took a trip to Eegeebegee (the final destination of my parent’s life-long, military led journey around the world) without Amber. The prospect of Amber being away from Caleb for eight days, I believe a day and a half was the previous record, bothered her almost as much as the fact that we were traveling via airline.

If Amber were to write a dictionary, this is what the definition of “airline” would look like.
Airline: air·line [air-lahyn] – noun 1. a system furnishing air transport, usually scheduled, between specified points with semi-unfatal results; legal genocide of nature defiant persons 2. airliner – large, wing-laden tube known to explode randomly with high regularity; large fireball, full of passengers, falling from the sky; death trap

My only fear about the flight was what to do with Caleb for an hour and a half...in my lap...crammed in a tiny airline seat. It turns out that neither my fear nor those of Caleb’s mother were necessary in that we completed both flights without dying or even being in a near-fatal accident and Caleb slept the entire flight, both ways. My strategic planning of flights early in the morning and late in the evening might have had something to do with the second part. The variation in definition of “airline” between Webster’s dictionary and Amber’s might have had something to do with the first part.

The time Caleb and I spent between our two death defying flights will remain in my memory as some of my favorite moments spent with my son. To see the joy I saw shining through the face of this caged bird now freed has changed something inside of me forever. Two years into fatherhood and it still hadn’t completely sunk in. Sure, holding Caleb for the first time was surreal and life changing. And sharing a father-son nap on the couch brought a peace over me that I had never felt before. But being confined to chasing my son up and down the hallway or around the park just didn’t allow the Dad inside to escape. Being with Caleb in the wide open country with all the rocks and ponds and creeks and fish and turtles and bugs and air...I felt like I could be Dad. I now had a real opportunity to teach my son the important things in life like how to play in mud puddles, how to get more distance on a rock throw and how to enjoy being dirty.

I believe these are the truly important things we Dads teach our sons. All other life lessons they’ll have the opportunity to learn the same way we did, experience. But these lessons require Dad. These lessons are teaching much more than how to get dirty or how to be a boy. These lessons are teaching our boys how to be a Dad. These early memories will mold our sons.

The times we take them fishing and spend the entire time tying their lines and getting them unhung, neglecting our own fishing desire. The times we turn the TV off to tickle tears out of them. The times we come home from work exhausted and then go out and play full time quarterback for them and their friends. These times they’ll remember. These times will guide them and encourage them to help their sons become Dads.

My Life's Checklist

As of today, I’ve had 29 years to make my mark on this world. My younger brother was gracious enough to send me a condensed list of the more important items I’ve accomplished.

Here's his email:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! Thought I‘d drop you a line on your B-DAY so you don’t feel sorry for yourself for being so old. You are only 1 year away from 30! OUCH! But hey… at least you have checked a few boxes along the way:
1.) Marry a hot chick – CHECK!
2.) Get a house near the beach – CHECK!
3.) Pop out a cool kid – CHECK!
4.) Kill a nice Buck with your bow – CHECK!
5.) Get a nice buck mounted – CHECK!
6.) Stay married to hot chick – CHECK!
7.) Buy an AWESOME rifle – CHECK!
8.) Stay married to hot chick – CHECK!
9.) Pop another kid in the ole oven – CHECK!
10.) Live to see 30… hmmmm. Good luck!
Have a GREAT BIRTHDAY!
Jeremy

Attached are pictures of my life’s great accomplishments as stated so eloquently by my little brother. Cool kid, hot chick and nice buck.

BABY INTELLEGENCE REPORT

SUP SEC LLAMA

17JUNE2007 1315 HOURS

FROM: HQ GREGORY HSHLD/ /DAD/ /#1SON

BUREAU OF GRANDCHILD BEARING (BGB)

TO: HQ FAM/FRNDS

FOR FAM, FRND AND FRNDOFFAM INFO ONLY.

SUBJ: GRANDCHILD # 2 (GCN2)

RELEASE DATE OF THIS MSG IS UPON RECEIPT. THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS CRITICAL SECURITY INFORMATION WHICH MUST BE PROTECTED. PRIOR TO DISCLOSURE, PLACEMENT ON THE WEB, OR RELEASE OUTSIDE OF FAMILY AND/OR FRIEND PERSONNEL, YOU MUST FIRST REMOVE ALL PA INFORMATION TO INCLUDE PASS CODES AND/OR LAST FOUR OF SSN.

1. BGB AGENTS FATHER OF GRANDCHILD (FOG) AND MOTHER OF GRANDCHILD (MOG) HAVE RETURNED WITH INTELLIGENCE ON THE POSSIBLE PRESENCE OR LACK THEREOF OF A PARTICULAR GENDER SPECIFYING ORGAN (GSO). GROUND SUPPORT WAS PROVIDED BY OPERATIVES GAMMY OF GRANDCHILD (GOG), GREAT AUNT OF GRANDCHILD (GAG) AND GREAT GRANDMOTHER OF GRANDCHILD (GG-MOG).

2. EXTERIOR INSPECTION OF THE BABY’S EXTRA LIGHT LIVING YARD (BELLY) PROVED INEFFECTIVE IN DETERMINING WHETHER OR NOT SAID GSO EXISTED. FURTHER TESTS ALSO PROVED INEFFECTIVE TO INCLUDE BUT NOT LIMITED TO: SIGHTING OF LADY BUGS, HUNCHES, WEARING OF PARTICULAR COLORS OR VERTICAL LOCATION OF BELLY.

3. DUE TO THE LACK OF SOLID INTELLIGENCE RECEIVED FROM INITIAL TESTS, OPERATIVES, UNDER THE COVER OF DARKNESS, USED ULTRASOUND PERSONNEL EVALUATION AND ENTERTAINING KIDS (U-PEEK) TECHNOLOGY. SEE ATTACHED SURVEILLANCE PHOTOS.

4. SURVEILLANCE PHOTO #1 (SPN1) SHOWS GCN2 IN A RECLINED POSITION WITH HEAD PROPPED UP ON ARM. THE EYE AND NASAL CAVITIES CAN ALSO BE SEEN. TO THE RIGHT IS THE TORSO. NO VISUAL CONFIRMATION OF GSO IN THIS PHOTO.

5. SURVEILLANCE PHOTO #2 (SPN2) IS A VIEW UP FROM BETWEEN GCN2’S LEGS. AFTER MUCH DEBATE WHAT APPEARS TO BE A THIRD LEG IS IN FACT THE GSO KNOWN AS HOLDER OF TESTOTERONE – DENIAL OF GIRL (HOT-DOG). CALEB IS GOING TO HAVE A LITTLE BROTHER.

6. MOG STATED THAT FOG’S SPERM MUST BE MALE INFESTED AND THAT ANOTHER DONER MAY NEED TO BE FOUND TO HELP FATHER ANY FUTURE GCN’S. AT THIS POINT SAID INFESTATION IS STILL UNDER EXAMINATION AND IS MERELY SPECULATION.

//SIGNED//
#1 SON, DAD, GSO INTELLIGENCE
SUP SEC LLAMA

Let a falling iron fall.

On rare occasion I say something particularly profound giving the appearance of intelligence. This occasion of course was a complete accident. I was talking with my office manager about a burn on her thumb. She explained that she tried to catch an iron from falling after bumping the ironing board. That’s when it happened. The words spilled out without hesitation as if they had been trapped in some hidden part of my brain just waiting for their chance to escape from the cavern on the front of my face and impress the world. “You’ve got to let a falling iron fall,” I responded, forever recording myself in the annals of history. Years from now when you hear someone else say that, you’ll know that this is where it started. Okay, maybe not. But the phrase still got me thinking. I can look back to several times when I tried to help someone out of a problem that they didn’t even realize they were in and even more times when the same was being done for me. I can think of very few times when the helpee arose from the problem in better shape than they began and the helper arose as a hero. In fact most of the time the helpee still fell leaving the helper exhausted either mentally, spiritually, physically or financially. Still, it’s our nature to want to help others, especially if they’re going through something very similar to what we’ve been through in the past. As if vicariously solving their problems will help us rewrite our own history. So, to all of us out there trying to rewrite history, we need to remember that sometimes you’ve just got to let a falling iron fall. Chances are if you try to catch it it’s still going to fall and you’re going to get burned.

Clipping the Curls

After hearing unnumbered tales of the horrors of taking your child for his first haircut Amber and I decided to finally take on the challenge. Caleb is now 18 months old (At what age do kids cross over from monthhood to yearhood? Do we need to have some sort of celebration to commemorate the event or just let it pass uncelebrated?) and he has inherited his mother’s natural curls. As cute as Amber thought those curls were, they had to go. So I took an hour off work to go with Amber for Caleb’s first haircut, bracing myself for the worst. He walked in, sat in his mommy’s lap in the chair and took it like a man. Not a squirm, not a fit pitched, nothing. He did better in the barber chair than I do. Come to think of it, I think that earns his way into yearhood. Caleb is now a year and a half old.

Vertical and Mobile

Approximately 20 months ago I began work on a project that upon completion would completely change the life of myself, my family and quite possibly the entire world. It took nine long, hard working months to develop...actually after the first few minutes of hard work my wife did pretty much all of it while I sat back and watched in amazement.

Upon completion, the effects of this project were greater than I ever expected. Not seconds after its unveiling my dad became a completely different person. The Marine Corps hardened shell cracked revealing a funny face making, squeaky noise making, happy as I’ve ever seen him grandfather. We named the project the Complete Altering of Life’s Enjoyment Being (CALEB).

Up until now these effects have been limited to family and the general area in which we last set Caleb down. But five days ago, Caleb took matters into his own hands. No longer would he depend on hand and knee mobilization. Caleb is now vertical and mobile.

No pet is safe...no couch left unclimbed...look out world, it’s time to change.

Sharing Father’s Day - 18 June, 2006

. . . It seemed to take me nearly a quarter of a century to realize how much I really learned from my dad. Okay, maybe it took me a little over a quarter of a century but I get my stubbornness from him so I’ll lay the blame there. I’ve always admired him and tried to shape my life around his. There was something about him that captured me in my younger years and even now. Something that made me want to be just like my daddy more so than just that of a son wanting to mimic his father. I strived to be like him even down to pursuing the same career as if that were the magic ingredient that would make me more like him.
. . . Instead of the straight interstate path to becoming my father, I took life’s winding country road, opting for the hard way more often than not. Fatherly advice meant to help steer me back straight was temporarily encrypted as nonsense babble and absorbed into a time lock vault in my brain not to be opened until much later in my life. Turns out my way didn’t quite get me where I had planned. In fact it took me nowhere close. I fumbled around and let my lifelong dream of flying F-18’s for the same family of patriots my dad had devoted his life slip through my fingers. For several years I beat myself up, going over “what if’s” and “if I’d only’s” as if punishing myself over the possibilities that I missed would somehow give me a chance to give it another shot.
. . . I would never be a U.S. Marine and therefore, at least from my viewpoint at the time, I could never be my father. But it wasn’t what my dad did that made me want to be just like him, it was who he was. And not until recently did I realized that the Marine Corps was not what made my dad who he was. Honor, courage and commitment were values that he possessed long before pinning on the eagle, globe and anchor. Every character trait that I admire in my dad, his integrity, his love, his strength all came from a source much greater than his life in the Corps. It was his relationship and close walk with Jesus Christ that brought out the character in him that I strove to imitate. Maybe I should say that last sentence a little differently. It is his relationship and close walk with Jesus Christ that bring out the character in him that I strive to imitate. In that pursuit I believe I can prevail.
. . . I was blessed to be able to make my dad a granddad this year. I’ve learned more and grown more in the last eight months than during any other term in my life. Sometimes when Caleb is sprawled out on my chest sharing a mid-day, father-son, couch nap I wonder how my dad must have felt doing the same with me. Enjoying thoughts and dreams of what my future would hold, never putting a thought to the things I would put him through for the next two decades. I never understood how he did it. How could he take all that I’m dishing out and still be this loving and supportive? I think during that last nap, I figured it out.
. . . I am my father’s son. There are times when I say something and then look around to find where my dad’s voice came from. I guess if that’s any indication that I’m at least on the right track, I’m okay with that. Now I long for the day thirty years from now when I can experience the satisfaction of my son Caleb finally understanding what I had been telling him the first half of his life. When he and I can sit on the back porch and talk not just as father and son or as father to son but as two men with mutual respect and understanding. Almost equally as much as that, I look forward to using those sacred phrases granted only to those who have accepted the position of fatherhood, “Because I said so”, “One day you’ll understand”, “I brought you into this world, I can take you out” and my all time favorite, “there’s fish all over this lake son.” The final of course used as a rebuttal to the young fisherman’s question, “why don’t we fish over there?” every time a fish jumps across the lake.
. . . Dad, thank you for being a great example for me to follow. Thank you for always being there to pull my butt out of a crack even after pointing the crack out to me just moments before. Thank you for loving me even when I let you down. Thank you for helping me to see the things that are truly important in life. And most of all, thank you for having a love for God that shows in every aspect of your life and for instilling this importance in me.

I love you,
Joshua