christmas memories

Christmas was my Dad's favorite holiday. He brought an enthusiasm and happiness to that special day that I have missed since he passed away 4 years ago. it's hard to concede how much time has passed since we last shared such a merry occasion but the calendar reminds me dutifully.
When I look back on those days, it feels as if I am removing a film of dust from my memory like Windex removing grime on glass. The more I rub my eyes, the clearer it all becomes.
Christmas at our house was always a careful maneuver. With 5 kids and also animals to boot, there was always a lot that needed to be addressed long before the joyful exchange of gifts.
Our holiday season usually started a few weeks before Christmas. All of us kids and Daddy would tromp through the woods behind our house looking for the perfect tree. (If I remember correctly, one year my brother Brent went to get a tree and came back with a "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree.) Anyway, when we got back to the house, we would decorate it and then sit back and just stare at hypnotically. That is probably why I love lights to this day. My dad would make sure we got to watch " A Christmas Carol" and he loved Bing Crosby singing "I"m dreaming of a White Christmas". Throughout the next weeks, Momma would be baking fudge, cookies and Dad would cart us off to see Santa. I think that gave Momma a break from all of us being underfoot.
On Christmas Eve, we went to church for the service. We watched while the congregation recreated the manger scene. We were given candles when we entered the church and within minutes, their glow set a mesmerizing stillness as we sang, "Silent Night".
After church, we drove on the mountain to see all the houses decorated for Christmas. I remember seeing all the paper bags with a lit candle inside decorating the roads. Then it was off to bed, waiting for Santa to arrive.
Christmas morning, (which usually started at 4:00 am) we would bolt into the living room to see what Santa had left for us. After a big breakfast, we would bundle up (if it snowed) to go outside and play for a bit. Later in the evening, we would once again go out, build a bonfire beside the road, and sled down the big hill at our house. This would go on for well into the night. Mom would sometimes bring hot chocolate out to us to warm up. Back then, we would burn an old tire and mom and daddy would laugh at us when we came inside. (Our faces would be black from the smoke from the tire and the wood.
We would come in exhausted, but happy.
The next day was usually the day for traveling. We went to both sets of grandparent's house to celebrate Christmas. And always, us kids were wrangled into singing Christmas songs. Silent Night was my dad's favorite. Without fail, each time it was sung my dad's eyes would get misty. Now it gets me misty-eyed to remember him standing in the doorway, singing along, cheering us on. I will cherish that moment always. And this year, when I share gifts with my family, I will say it in a whisper; i will say it in a prayer: Silent Night, holy night, daddy, I love you...always.

And to my friends and extended family, I say to you......Silent night, holy night. I love each of you......always.

Christmas at the Mansion

Well once again its time for the annual Christmas Pilgramage to the YaYa mansion. The Ya's gather for spirits, to catch up with one another, to exchange gifts, etc. We usually have a sacrificial fire but we do keep our ceremony private. You have to be invited to be an associate Ya-Ya. We meet at the Queens palace ( the mansion), taste (or swig) the ceremonial spirits, and basically have a good time.
So for the weekend, I'm headed to the mansion. The Queen has summoned.

My friend Dr. J

If you get a chance to stop by my blog I encourage you to also stop by and read my friend's blog Dr J housecalls.
Dr J recently has moved uptown i.e. she has a stalker. A very ignorant stalker. This woman..and I use the term very loosely, has set her target on Dr. J. As i posted earlier, Dr J was royally sscrewed by the hospital she was attached with. I won't go into details, ( because you can read her blog).
Dr. J has more character in her big toe, than most people I know. She has been and continues to be looked over on her perjury suit.
Dr J...I say this to you.....Keep fighting. Keep looking up. I will do my best to support you in all things. Don't ever forget that. You are a damn fine lady and a hell of a doc. And you got one thing right.....I will always have your back.. Oh yeah.....I did send a letter to Anderson Cooper 360.

Are the Deer winning or maybe its a Conspiracy?

Well I went to my mom's house the Friday after thanksgiving. 1 of my brothers wanted to do some hunting so I eagerly made plans to head up. Now my mom can get a little forgetful at times.( no doubt due to her age Let me just add that in for later.) Now one of my Ya's ( the Queen) has been jokingly telling me that she has a covert plan to thwart my deer hunting. Her last plan almost worked. (Well it did work because I didn't get a deer). I had retired early for the night at the mansion because I had to get up at the butt crack of dawn to go hunting with one of my brothers. Needless to say, My Queen forgot to not set the alarm on the mansion and I basically woke up the whole house when the alarm went off.
NOW I PROGRESS

So I get up early ( 445 am) to get dressed to meet my brother for hunting. I am heading for the door when I realize my mom has locked all the doors in the house with a dead bolt. ( I don't have a key for it yet.) ( I still think My Queen might have had a hand in this......LOL)
Anyway....after I realize the doors are deadbolted I quickly try to find a key to unlock the door to get outside. Its about 515 now and I'm still trying to find a key. Well I see a key ring holder on the wall. There are lots of keys on it. the only problem is that when mom locked the door, there is no way to get to the light switch. I see a butane lighter on a small cabinet. So me being the genius, I lit the lighter to see all the keys hanging there. the only thing I didn't see was the smoke alarm right above my head. DID I HAPPEN TO MENTION THAT THOSE THINGS ARE LOUD???? I frantically start waving my hands to clear the alarm. It worked and it didn't even wake up the 2 people sleeping in the back of the house. At that time I broke out into fits of laughter, remembering my last hunting expedition at the Mansion. I"m sure My Queen would be highly regaled in my ordeal. I finally sneak into my mom is sleeping and OUILA! Keys on cabinet. Out the door I go. Only to see my brother Marty standing there laughing his ass off.
But I digress.
We are traipsing down in the woods and get into our stands. Now it is DARK at that time of the morning. And evidently I did not see the poison ivy I got into. ( when I was young I could roll in the stuff and it never phased me). Well, needless to say the only thing I got on our hunting trip is POISON IVY. Covered in it. All over my face to where my eyes swelled almost shut and also my left hand. So I went to the docs yesterday ( a real good friend) who started laughing at me when I got back to where he was in his office. he gave me a big shot of steroids and 2 prescriptions. I think I will live. So I guess we may have to change the status score now

DEER and The Queen = 2
ME = 3

Roping a deer (names have been changed to protect the dumb)

for the hunters in your life--or if you like dumb people stories. ( a true story)

I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a 2 weeks, then kill it and eat it. the first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there ( a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I"m in the back of the truck not 4 ft away), it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it and toss a bag over its head ( to calm it down)then hog tie it and transport it home.
I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope. The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well back. they were not having any of it. After 20 minutes, my deer showed up--3 of them. I picked out...a likely looking one, steppedout from the end of the feeder, and threw my rope. The deer just stood there and stared at me. I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold. The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation. I took a step towards it...it took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope and then received an education.
The first thing I learned is that, while a deer may just stand there looking at you funny while you rope it, they are spurred to action when you start pulling on that rope.
THAT DEER EXPLODED!!!!

The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a deer is a LOT stronger than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range I could fight down with a rope and with some dignity.

A deer--NO CHANCE

That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no controlling it and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer on a rope waas not nearly as good idea as I had originally imagined.
The only up side is that they do not have as much stamina as many other animals. A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when i managed to get up. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing out of the big gash in my head. At that point, I had lost my taste for corn-fed venison. I just wanted to get that devil creature off the end of that rope. I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die a slow and painfully somewhere. At the time, there was no love at all between me and that deer. At that moment, I hated the thing, and I would venture a guess that the feeling was mutual.
Despite the gash in my head and the several large knots where I had cleverly arrested the deer's momentum by bracing my head against various large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I could still think clearly enough to recognize that there was a small chance that I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were in, so I didn't want the deer to have to suffer a slow death. I managed to get it lined back up in between my truck and the feeder-- a little trap I had set before hand...kind of like a squeeze chute.
I got it to back in there and I started moving up so I could get my rope back.

did you know that deer bite??
They do! I never in a million years would have thought that a deer would bite somebody, so I was very surprised when I reached up there to grab that rope and the deer grabbed hold of my wrist. Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse where they just bite you and then let go. A deer bites you and shakes its head--almost like a pit bull. they bite HARD and it hurts.

The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and draw back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was ineffective. it seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several minutes, but it was likely only several seconds.

I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim by now), tricked it. While I kept it busy tearing the tendons out of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled that rope loose. That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior for the day.

Deer will strike at you with their front feet. they rear right up on their back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their hooves are suprisingly sharp. I learned a long time ago that, when an animal like a horse strikes at you with their hooves and you can't get away easily, the best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive move towards the animal. This will usually cause them to back down a bit so you can escape.

THIS WAS NOT A HORSE!
This was a deer, so obviously, such trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy.
I screamed like a schoolgirl and tried to turn and run.

the reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a horse taht paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the back of the head. Deer may not be so different from horses after all, besides being twice as strong and 3 times as evil, because the second I turned to run, it hit me right in the back of the head and knocked me down. Now when a deer paws at you and knocks you down, it does not immediately leave. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. what they do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are laying there crying like a little girl and covering your head. I finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away.

So now I know why when people go deer hunting they bring a rifle with a scope to sort of even the odds.....

OBAMA deer

Well, there was supposed to be a gathering of the Ya's this past weekend, but i was not afforded the opportunity to go since my work decided to have me in training this past weekend. ( I am the drug officer at the new prison in Tabor City). However I did manage to get done in time to get some hunting in after all the classes. Very nice weather out there for November. i sat and watched squirrels play in the corn pile for about 2 hours. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something I have never seen before. it was a calico deer. Black, brown and white. Now it wasn't a fawn with the specks, it was a deer that was half white, half black and a little brown. (Now that I think of it I think it was an OBAMA deer!!) ( I hope my Queen gets a chuckle). Anyway it was too small to kill so decided to let OBAMA go play with Hillary. A few minutes later, I noticed movement to my right. A BEAUT!!! CRIKEY!

Score:
Deer = 1
Me = 2

the stew is delicious

History

Well the final day is almost here. Election day. We will either have the first black president or the first female vice president. it wasn't too long ago that women did not have the right to vote and blacks across America were persecuted for trying to vote. Its a historic moment.
having been raised during the 60"s my father always instilled in us the importance of world events. My first memory I can recall is the Kennedy assasination. I remember the King murder, Robert Kennedy's murder, burning draft cards, the POW's finally coming home, Jane fonda's ( the bitch) traitor's way, etc.
Beginnings are scary. Endings are usually sad. Hope is coming.