Two New Texans!

For the past 5 years my Daughter and her Navy Petty Officer Husband have been stationed in Bremerton, Washington. He was in the Engineering Section of the USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74). During this time he was deployed three times, sailed over the equator just as many, and was out to sea for months and weeks at a time in between so that the Flight Wing could train. He's sweated in the Gulf off the coast of the Middle East, visited the Mediterranean, walked the streets of Hong Kong, and visited many other Ports-Of-Call. Some exotic, some not so much.


Meanwhile, my Daughter has endured life in the rainy Northwest. Bremerton, and Washington State for that matter, has some beautiful country, but having been raised in the Mid-Atlantic area, the weather wasn't exactly to her liking. So far this summer, for example, they have had only a small handful of days where the temps rose above 75 degrees. Living life wearing a sweatshirt in the summer and carrying an umbrella was never to her liking.

But now, that is all going to change.

After Rodney completes school on the 29th he is being re-assigned to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. For the next 3 years, at least, he will be reporting to duty on terra firma, No more sea duty, no more weeks, months, or a year at a time away.

Before he reported to the Stennis for duty,  he visited us here on the Lazy S Ranchito. Being something of a self professed redneck hillbilly cowboy, he fell in love with Texas just as my daughter had. They are both so anxious to get here that they are leaving as soon as his last class day is over on Friday and beating it down here.

For my part I have a fat briskett in the freezer to smoke for their arrival and have made arrangements for the neighbors to watch the dogs so we can take him to Bandera for the weekend. When asked what he wanted to see first, without hesitation he said, "The Cowboy Capital of the World, of course". I think he's going to fit in well here.

Fair winds and following seas, son & daughter! We'll see you soon.

I've Gone To The Dark Side

About a month ago, while I was doing my weekly refueling on my 15MPG F-150 something in my head just snapped. It happened when the pump stopped at $87.00 and change. Granted, this wasn't quite as high as a few years ago when I paid $97.60 to fill up, but it still stung.

My business requires me to put about 150 miles a week on the odometer. I've done all I can to re-arrange my stops and combine trips, but 150 miles is as low as I can get it. My mornings consist of visiting my accounts and "fronting up" my product and writing up what I need. Then I go to my warehouse and pick the orders. After boxing them up and writing invoices I go back and deliver.

So there I am, grumbling as the pump spits out my receipt for what is now my largest weekly overhead expense when I decided to do something I've threatened to do since moving to Texas. Buy a motorcycle.

I've owned bikes in the past, in fact I had my first mini bike at 12 and my first motorcycle (a Honda Trail 70) at 14. Street bikes came along shortly after getting my driver's license. But with the traffic and the miserable winter weather in the northeast, the luster fell off sometime in the mid 90's and I sold my last bike to a co-worker. I missed riding, but didn't miss the anxiety that come with it when riding in all that traffic.

Here I have miles and miles of open road and very little traffic. It's a biker's dream.

I found a nice bike on Craigslist up in Austin and bought it. A Honda Shadow 1100 that was adult owned and well taken care of. The only thing it needed was a new rear tire. The old one still had life in it, but it was closer than I prefer.

As I was shopping online for tires I remembered an old biker dude I ran into way back in the 80's. He had been riding since before I was born and his bike at the time was an ancient Panhead that looked as if it had thousands of road stories it could tell if only it could talk. I remembered that as I looked the old bike over, I noticed the back tire looked strange. I asked if that was a car tire on the back, and the old guy said "Yep, been usin' them since the 60's. They last forever and handle better than any cycle tire I've ever had"

So, because Google is my friend I did a search and lo and behold there is a movement out there where otherwise sane motorcycle riders are putting car tires on bikes. They call it Riding On The Dark Side. They even have an online forum, and we all know if there is a forum dedicated to it, then plenty of people must be doing it. So I read up on it then went to YouTube and watched a few video clips of guys riding on The Dark Side. I decided it was worth a try. I went to my local Wally World, purchased a Goodyear Viva, cash and carry, $82.00 out the door. About $50.00 cheaper than a mediocre bike tire and half the cost of a really good one. On average, a motorcycle tire will last about 13 to 15 thousand miles. Most guys running car tires get 25 to 30 thousand miles. Do the math and it gets real attractive in favor of the car tire.

I knew that Wally World would never want the liability of such an unorthodox notion, so I didn't even ask and took the tire and my wheel to a local tire shop to have it mounted. The Mexicans working there looked at me like I was crazy. "You want to do what Senor? We've never done that before."  But they did it, and now I have a new tire on the back of the Shadow.

I got it home and put the bike back together. I rode it cautiously at first to rub off the molding release agent that new tires have on them. Once I had a few miles on it I gave 'er hell. I leaned into a few turns and scraped the pegs. It was as if the bike was on rails! I rode the tar strips and blacktop seams and the bike never wavered. At low speed, the big contact patch is fantastic. I'm really liking this and I'm glad I did it.

All this fun and since I'm doing the first half my day on the bike, I'm saving a bunch of money on gas too. 48 miles to the gallon and it's a fun way to start my day.

Independence Day: July 4 1776

"And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."

235 years ago 56 men drafted and signed a document that had these words as the last line. They knew the gravity of what they about to do, and these words reflect that. They were committing high treason against the Crown.

If caught, they would surely hang for their actions and their words.

One, John Hancock, already had a price on his head. $500. When he signed it, he is said to have remarked that by his signature, he hoped that the price would double. He made sure to sign large enough so that King George could see it without his spectacles.

We hold our Founding Fathers to be somwhat old and wise. Wise they certainly were, but only one could be considered old; Ben Franklin. He was in his early 60's at the time. Most of the others were young by today's standards. 18 of them were under 40 and 3 of them were in their 20's. They came from all walks of life. Lawyers, a doctor or two, shopkeepers, tavern owners, ministers, and farmers.

Ordinary men undertaking an extraordinary task. Severing the bonds of tyranny and creating a new Nation.

Some of these men would not live to see it to fruition, and others would suffer greatly and literally lose everything because of their actions.  But they did it nonetheless. Fully knowing the ramifications of their actions. It was said by one observer in the room " in no face was he able to discern real fear.".

I am eternally grateful to those 56 men. Both for what they did, and what they created. Every freedom I enjoy today is because of them and their actions on that hot summer day in Philadelphia in 1776.

So thank you, Messrs. Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton, John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry, Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery, Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott, William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris, Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark, Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross, Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean, Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton, William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn, Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, and George Walton.

148 Years Ago Today

While we prepare to celebrate Independence Day, what I feel to be the most sacred of National Holidays, these past few days, July 1-3 also mark another important event in our Nation's history: The Battle Of Gettysburg.

The Battle Of Gettysburg was the turning point of the Civil War. When the smoke from the battles cleared, more men lay dead than from any other battle in the war. Somewhere between 46,000 and 51,000 men perished.

Until then, Lee and his Army of the Confederacy had given the North the old What-For. Undefeated thus far,  Lee and his Army were in high spirits as they marched northward.

Gettysburg was to be merely a stop over point for Lee's advancing Army. A place to rest and possibly obtain some much needed supplies. Among which was shoes for the many Confederate troops that had, up to this point, marched barefoot.

The ensuing 3 day battle would culminate in what has been called Pickett's Charge. Held 148 years ago today.

On this date in 1863, Pickett's charge was planned for three Confederate divisions, commanded by Maj. Gen. George Pickett, Brig. Gen. J. Johnston Pettigrew, and Maj. Gen. Isaac R. Trimble. On farmland owned by a freed slave, three divisions of men were going to march over a mile across open land toward a small stand of trees on the Union Line.

Prior to the start of the charge, Confederate Artillery was supposed to bombard the Union Lines with cannon fire. In what was probably the largest artillery campaign of the war, somewhere between 150 and 170 cannons fired at the Union Forces

It has been said that the sound of cannon fire was so loud that it could be heard in Philadelphia, almost 100 miles away. Unfortunately for the Confederates, though, it had little effect as the rounds were overshooting the Union forces and landing harmlessly well behind them.

The charge began with a line of men over a mile long. It was more of a march, really, as the actual charge was not to take place until the line had come within a couple hundred yards of Union positions. As the Confederates came within about  400 yards of the Union line, the mile-long front shrank to less than half a mile as the men filled in gaps that were created throughout the line as their comrades fell to enemy fire.
As they approached Union lines, they faced canister shot from the Union cannons. (Think #10 tin cans filled with steel ball bearings.) Undeterred they charged forward.

Pickett's Charge was a bloodbath. There is no other way to describe it. As the Confederates fell back, Lee is said to have told General Pickett to rally his division. Pickett responded "General Lee, I have no division". Well over half of his men lay dead in that field.

Although the war would rage on for almost two more years, the south was, in essence, defeated at Gettysburg.