Everybody Has A Story

We were camping in southern Texas a  few years ago, and right next to the campground was a channel that led from the Gulf of Mexico to the city of Brownsville. There was always lots of interesting boats travelling up this channel. Sometimes there were shrimp boats, sometimes there were fishing boats, and sometimes large ships. In the city of Brownsville there are facilities to build and repair huge oceangoing oil rigs. One morning while I was sitting out in front of our camper enjoying the morning sunrise and a cup of coffee under a palm tree, I noticed a large drilling rig looming in the distance. I pointed it out to my wife and daughter, asked for my video camera, and off I went to watch the rig travel by. I zipped up the walking trail to a vantage point overlooking the channel, and parked right beside a vacant bench. Soon a car pulled up and parked, and an elderly gentleman got out and slowly and laboriously made his way over to me with the help of his cane.

Communication Is The Key

Conflict between two parties can usually be boiled down to a lack of communication. Us men have been known to occasionally misinterpret simple words, all because we take them at face value and didn't pay attention to the subtle nuances that went along with the word.  

Take the word 'fine'  for example. I wasn't aware that the word 'fine' had such an enormous range and depth associated with it. When a woman says 'fine', she can, with that one simple word,  mean anything from 'fine' to 'I'm going to rip your head off'. One only has to pay attention to the subtle gestures to unearth the meaning.

You innocently ask, "How is your day going?" The answer that you receive is 'fine'. But now you have to sit back and filter in the gentle nuances to get the true meaning.

Get Your "Flying Fix" Indoors

OK, still not warm enough for this cold-blooded gimp to go outside and get his flying fix, need to figure out an indoor one. Once bitten by the flying bug, the infection seems to produce a fever and agitated-fidgety state. This seems to intensify with each non-flying day. It is an incurable affliction, and once infected it is a lifelong disease. Consultation with experts suggests that symptoms can be reduced by 1-2 hours of stick-time administered daily. Studies have shown that it doesn't really matter what kind of aircraft you control, so long as it flies.

Kubasa The Wonder-Mule

I was thumbing through old pictures the other day and had to laugh when I came across this old picture from my first life, of the "bargain" mule that my father bought. When we look back on life there are certain situations that really strike us as funny (in my case lots of situations! Murphy's my friend!), and this one prompted me to write a story about it. Now you have to remember this took place about 30 years ago, and memories being what they are, especially mine, there may be more than one version of the "true" events out there. I'm sure some of the locals will remember these characters, their names have not been changed because there are no innocent to protect. So take it for what it is, it's a semi-true story believe it or not!

Kubasa the Wonder-Mule

This story involves a man, a few "friends" and a mule (half horse, half donkey, half attitude). As was more customary in the early 80's there was, or at least must have been, a little alcohol involved. It seems my city indoor-office-oriented father was enjoying the new-found freedom associated with living on an acreage for the first time since childhood, and thus started associating with certain "rawhide" cowboy type friends. These characters came complete with cowboy hat, boots, vest, neckerchief and Skoal ring in the back pocket. They also had the obligatory sprinkle of mischievousness found in all cowboys, hidden somewhere in their makeup. Their cunning senses detected a certain affinity for the bottle with my father, and a tendency to let his normally keen sense of judgement dullen slightly with each swig.